Leo-Strauss: między religią a polityką
Abstract
Public speech, even the freest, has its constraints. Even in those situations where the truth is conceived as the end of view, not all that is thought is said, not all that is said is put forth fully and baldly. Leo Strauss is one of most important political thinkers and intellectual historians of USA; in exile from Germany, professor of political science at the University of Chicago 1949-1968. Deploring the waning of interest in cultural and intellectual achievements, he was an eloquent critic of mediocrity and the various manifestations of mass culture. As an intellectual historian, he urged that texts be read and thought of as political . Much of Leo Strauss’ writing about the twelfth-century philosopher, jurist and theologian Moses Maimonides, is addressed to an elite audience of intellectuals. Strauss describes the brilliant and sometimes wily ways in which Maimonides sought to break through the despair and superstition that gripped the Jewish people’s minds, without sacrificing the integrity and core of his message. This project also reveals that Maimonides was willing to risk the ire of his contemporaries in his effort to enlighten his own and future generation. By addressing the writing of Maimonides to his disciple, Strauss shows how the master’s project was carried on