Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: What I will try to do in this essay is to show how the work of Leo Strauss developed in response to Heidegger’s theoretical challenges. Biographically speaking, Strauss fits neatly into the group of scholars Richard Wolin once called Heidegger’s children. Strauss understood himself as taking the opposite view of Heidegger regarding the greatest tensions explored by Strauss: the quarrel between the ancient and moderns; the quarrel between poetry and philosophy; and the relationship between Jerusalem and Athens._x000d_Strauss developed a set of concepts which allowed him to face and overcome the challenges posed by Heideggerian radical historicism. Such concepts –hermeneutic openness (the idea that one can understand a thinker as he understood himself), the esoteric-exoteric double-face, and the concentration on political philosophy served Strauss to avoid the danger of falling under the Heideggerian spell. _x000d_In relation to Heidegger, Strauss grappled with the tension between Jerusalem and Athens, dealt with the quarrel between ancients and moderns, and copied with the quarrel between poetry and philosophy. _x000d_In this essay I will explore these issues.