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In this book noted scholar Thomas L. Pangle brings back a lost and crucial dimension of political theory: the mutually illuminating encounter between skeptically rationalist political philosophy and faith-based political theology guided ultimately by the authority of the Bible. Focusing on the chapters of Genesis in which the foundation of the Bible is laid, Pangle provides an interpretive reading illuminated by the questions and concerns of the Socratic tradition and its medieval heirs in the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic worlds. He brings into contrast the rival interpretive framework set by the biblical criticism of the modern rationalists Hobbes and Spinoza, along with their heirs from ...
Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. The contributors write in awareness that a loss of confidence in reason similar to the one we are witnessing today- when the desirability and possibility of guiding our lives by the enduring, normative truths that reason attempts to discover -had occurred at the time of Socrates, who realized that the existence of genuine limits to what is knowable by reason opened up the possibility that our world, instead of having the kind of intelligible necessities that science seeks ...
With over 10,000 entries identifying work of hundreds of Strauss's students, and their students' students, this bibliography is the most--indeed, the only--comprehensive guide to published writing in the tradition of Leo Strauss. Murley includes Strauss's own complete bibliography and that of one of his most revered students, George Anastaplo.
Winner of the first Delba Winthrop Mansfield Award for Excellence in Political Science Plato and the Virtue of Courage canvasses contemporary discussions of courage and offers a new and controversial account of Plato's treatment of the concept. Linda R. Rabieh examines Plato's two main thematic discussions of courage, in the Laches and the Republic, and discovers that the two dialogues together yield a coherent, unified treatment of courage that explores a variety of vexing questions: Can courage be separated from justice, so that one can act courageously while advancing an unjust cause? Can courage be legitimately called a virtue? What role does wisdom play in courage? What role does courage play in wisdom? Based on Plato's presentation, Rabieh argues that a refined version of traditional heroic courage, notwithstanding certain excesses to which it is prone, is worth honoring and cultivating for several reasons. Chief among these is that, by facilitating the pursuit of wisdom, such courage can provide a crucial foundation for the courage most deserving of the name.
This book offers an original interpretation of Plato’s Laws and a new account of its enduring importance. Ballingall argues that the republican regime conceived in the Laws is built on "reverence," an archaic virtue governing emotions of self-assessment—particularly awe and shame. Ballingall demonstrates how learning to feel these emotions in the right way, at the right time, and for the right things is the necessary basis for the rule of law conceived in the dialogue. The Laws remains surprisingly neglected in the scholarly literature, although this is changing. The cynical populisms haunting liberal democracies are focusing new attention on the “characterological” basis of constitutional government and Plato’s Laws remains an indispensable resource on this question, especially when we attend to the theme of reverence at its core.
Between Socrates and the Many: A Study of Plato’s Crito is foremost concerned with Plato’s character, Crito. By focusing on its namesake, Hoffpauir draws attention to aspects of the Crito that may otherwise go unnoticed or underrated: justice, as most know it, seems unjust, and justice, as Socrates knows it, seems impossible; love of one’s own, as most know it, limits one’s own good and the city’s good; and concern for the body and hatred of suffering undermine virtue. Through a consideration of the problems evinced by Crito—problems not peculiar to him or to his Athens—readers may gain a newfound appreciation of why Socrates’ arguments about living well fail. More importantly, by considering why Socrates must advance these arguments in the first place, readers may come to appreciate the strength of man’s natural resistance to that which is necessary for civilized life. Although Crito initially comes to sight as in-between Socrates and the many, as one who shares in the opinions of both, in the end, Crito reveals that all that is in-between Socrates and the many is an unbridgeable chasm.
Much of the world today views America as an imperialist nation bent on global military, economic, and cultural domination. At home few share this negative view. Bob Pepperman Taylor, however, argues that US moral self-righteousness may potentially imperil democratic ideals and threaten democracy.
This book introduces readers to analytical interpretation of seminal writings and thinkers in the history of political thought, including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Marx, and Nietzsche. Chronologically arranged, each chapter in the book is devoted to the work of a single thinker. The selected texts together engage with 2000 years of debate on fundamental questions, which include: What is the purpose of political life? What is the good life, for us as individuals, and for us as a political community? What is justice? What is a right? Do human beings have rights? What kinds of human virtues are t...
Why do America's public schools seem unable to meet today's social challenges? As competing interest groups vie over issues like funding and curricula, we seem to have lost sight of the democratic purposes originally intended for public education. Public schools were envisioned by the Founders as democratically run institutions for instilling civic values, but today's education system seems more concerned with producing good employees than good citizens. Meanwhile, our country's diversity has eroded consensus about citizenship, and the professionalization of educators has diminished public involvement in schools. This volume seeks to demonstrate that the democratic purposes of education are ...
In a wide-ranging study based on legal history, political theory, and philosophical ideas going all the way back to Plato and Roman law, Robert Clinton challenges current faith in an activist judiciary. Claiming that a human-centered Constitution leads to government by reductive moral theory and illegitimate judicial review, he advocates a return to traditional jurisprudence and a God-centered Constitution grounded in English common law and its precedents.