TITLE

Leo Strauss and the American Regime

AUTHOR(S)

Frisch, Morton J.

PUB. DATE

March 1987

SOURCE

Publius: The Journal of Federalism;Spring87, Vol. 17 Issue 2, p1

SOURCE TYPE

Academic Journal

DOC. TYPE

Article

ABSTRACT

Leo Strauss opened up the study of the American regime. His work in political philosophy (with his elaboration of what separates classical from modern philosophy) opened our minds to the theoretical thought which laid the basis of liberal democracy, especially in its American form. Strauss' view was that the American regime could only be clarified on the basis of an adequate understanding of its own presuppositions, a dimension of thought which is the ground of our constitutional or civil liberties. But scientific political science prevents a proper understanding of the American regime because it does not consider the possibility that genuine thought informed that enterprise. Strauss would argue, contrary to that opinion, that the American regime would have to be understood in terms of thought and that ills ultimately unintelligible without that understanding.

ACCESSION #

27710539

 

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