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Liberal democracy is today under unprecedented attack from both the left and the right. Offering a fresh and penetrating examination of how Leo Strauss understood the emergence of liberal democracy and what is necessary to sustain and elevate it, Leo Strauss on Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education explores Strauss' view of the intimate (and troubling) relation between the philosophic promotion of liberal democracy and the turn to the modern scientific-technological project of the "conquest of nature." Timothy W. Burns explicates the political reasoning behind Strauss' recommendation of reminders of genuine political greatness within democracy over and against the failure of nihilistic youth to recognize it. Elucidating what Strauss envisaged by a liberally-educated sub-political or cultural-level aristocracy--one that could elevate and sustain liberal democracy--and the roles that both philosophy and divine-law traditions should have in that education, Burns also lays out Strauss' frequent (though often tacit) engagement with the thought of Heidegger on these issues

International audience ; Thomas Hobbes' dispute with Dionysius of Halicarnassus over the study of Thucydides' history allows us to understand both the ancient case for an ennobled public rhetoric and Hobbes' case against it. Dionysius, concerned with cultivating healthy civic oratory, faced a situation in which Roman rhetoricians were emulating shocking attacks on divine justice like those found in Thucydides' Melian dialogue; he attempted to steer orators away from such arguments even as he acknowledged their truth. Hobbes, however, recommends the study of Thucydides' work for a new kind of political education, one that will benefit from Thucydides' private, even "secret," instruction, which permits the reader to admit to himself those things that he would otherwise, on account of his vanity, hide from himself. ; La différence entre Thomas Hobbes et Denys d'Halicarnasse s'agissant de l'histoire de Thucydide nous permet de comprendre à la fois les arguments mis en avant par les penseurs de l'antiquité en faveur d'une rhétorique ennoblie publique et les arguments de Hobbes contre elle. En voulant cultiver l'art oratoire salutaire et civique, face à une situation dans laquelle les rhéteurs romains ont émulé les attaques choquantes sur la justice divine, comme celles que l'on trouve dans le dialogue des Méliens de Thucydide, Denys a tenté d'orienter les orateurs loin de ces arguments, même s'il a reconnu leur vérité. Hobbes, au contraire, recommande l'étude de l'œuvre de Thucydide pour un nouveau type d'éducation politique, celui qui va bénéficier de l'instruction privée, voire « secrète », de Thucydide, ce qui permet au lecteur de s'avouer des choses qu'il se cacherait autrement à lui-même, à cause de son amour-propre.

The Life appears to have been intended as an introduction to the reading of Thucydides for those studying rhetoric in Hellenic schools (see especially lines 1 and 51), and hence falls within the Roman tradition of commentary on rhetorical texts. The references made in the text to other writers tell us that it was composed certainly no earlier than the second century A.D., but studies of the terminology employed by the author seem to indicate that the work was compiled in its present form as late as the sixth century. (Maitland [1996] makes a useful attempt to identify the sources of the material and its place in the biographical tradition.) While it is attributed to a "Marcellinus" -- a fairly common name in the late Roman empire -- its authorship is uncertain. Owing in part to the classification and storage of texts in ancient libraries, in which scrolls of works by unknown authors were placed in slots under "symbolic" authors, many texts in the rhetorical tradition that were in circulation in late antiquity are without reliable indication of authorship. Adapted from the source document.

Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Brief Biographies of Strauss and Kojève -- Overview of the Present Volume -- 1. The Place of the Strauss-Kojève Debate in the Work of Leo Strauss -- Kojève, Hegel, and Heidegger -- Modernity, Historical Philosophy, and Historicism -- Recovery of the "Natural World" -- The Grounding of the Philosophic or Scientific Life -- Strauss's On Tyranny -- Kojève's "Tyranny and Wisdom" -- Strauss's "Restatement" -- The Subsequent Correspondence -- 2. The Philosophic Background of Alexandre Kojève's "Tyranny and Wisdom

Brill's Companion to Leo Strauss' Writings on Classical Political Thought offers clear, accessible essays to assist a new generation of readers in their introduction to Strauss' writings on the ancients, and to deepen the understanding of those familiar with his work