Introducing Political Philosophy: Some Straussian Resources

I just saw this page dedicated to Vermeer and wanted to become an art historian on the spot. There’s something marvelous about assembling and organizing information well – it really does empower students and make things easier for teachers and scholars.

Truth be told, I would love to link to resources on Vlastos or Rawls or Pocock or other schools of thought, but I don’t know them well enough. So I’m sticking to Straussian stuff, hoping someone will make a wiki on another site and we can get a collection of primary sources, secondary sources, blurbs and introductory articles going. My goal here is to get started, so I’m not aiming to be comprehensive. I’m actually aiming to be done in a half-hour.

Political Philosophy & Leo Strauss himself

• Leo Strauss, “What is Political Philosophy?” [pdf] – keep in mind who the audience might be as you read this. Lampert has some sharp comments on this essay in “Leo Strauss and Nietzsche.”
• Leo Strauss, “German Nihilism” [pdf] / Commentary on “German Nihilism”
• Leo Strauss, “Preface to Spinoza’s Critique of Religion” [pdf]

Ancient Philosophy

• Christopher Bruell, “On Plato’s Political Philosophy” [google docs]
• Plato, Symposium – trans. Seth Benardete [pdf]
• The Relevance of Plato’s Minos
• Xenophon: “Art of Horsemanship” / “On the Cavalry Commander” / “Agesilaus”
• Leo Strauss, “Seminar on Aristotle’s Ethics” (1963)
• Harry Jaffa, “Aristotle and the Higher Good” [book review]
• Steven Forde, “Thucydides on the Causes of Athenian Imperialism” [pdf]
• Ronna Burger, “Definitional Law in the Bible” [pdf]

Medieval

• Alfarabi, “Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle” – trans. Mahdi [pdf]
• Maimonides, “Letter to Obadiah the Proselyte”

Modern

• An Introduction to Machiavelli’s Prince
• Harvey Mansfield, “Machiavelli’s Enterprise”
• Thomas Merrill, “Masters and Possessors of Nature” (on Descartes)
• Clifford Orwin, “How an Emotion Became a Virtue – it took some help from Rousseau and Montesquieu”
• Leo Strauss, “Note on the Plan of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil” [doc]

This isn’t a lot, I know. But I think there’s a virtue to the fact that resources by “names” are rare. A good wiki will start cataloging and reviewing papers and dissertations on topics by lesser known people. Lord knows we need that nowadays – the way academia is, you’d think there were 3 people who are allowed to read books and have opinions on them.