Leo Strauss: The Early Writings (1921-1932)This translation of eighteen virtually unknown early publications provides access for the first time to the origins of Leo Strauss s thought in the intellectual life of the German Jewish renaissance in the 1920s. Themes range from the Enlightenment critique of the religion of Spinoza and the anti-critique of Jacobi, to the political Zionism of Herzl and the cultural Zionism of Buber and Ahad Ha am. The essays and reviews reprinted in this volume document a youth caught in the theological-political conflict between the irretrievability of premodern religion and the disenchantedness of honest atheism, an impossible alternative that precipitated Strauss to seek out the possibility of a return to the level of natural ignorance presupposed in Socratic political philosophy. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
A German Jewish Youth | 3 |
Chang in Orientation | 12 |
Political Existence and Religion | 18 |
Beyond Atheism and Orthodoxy | 23 |
The Virtue of Modesty | 33 |
Leo Strauss Early Publications 192132 | 51 |
The Dissertation 1921 | 53 |
On the Argument with European Science | 107 |
Comment on Weinbergs Critique | 118 |
Ecclesia militans | 124 |
Biblical History and Science | 130 |
HistoricalPhilological Writings on Spinoza 192426 | 139 |
Cohens Analysis of Spinozas Bible Science | 140 |
On the Bible Science of Spinoza and His Precursors | 173 |
Reorientation 192832 | 201 |
Zionist Writings 192325 | 63 |
Response to Frankfurts Word of Principle | 64 |
The Holy | 75 |
A Note on the Discussion on Zionism and AntiSemitism | 79 |
The Zionism of Nordau | 83 |
Paul de Lagarde | 90 |
Sociological Historiography? | 101 |
Review of Albert Levkowitz Contemporary Religious Thinkers | 106 |
Sigmund Freud The Future of an Illusion | 202 |
Franz Rosenzweig and the Academy for the Science of Judaism | 212 |
of Metaphysics | 214 |
The Testament of Spinoza | 216 |
| 225 | |
| 227 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Akademie anti-Semitism argument assimilation atheism belief Berlin Bibelwissenschaft biblical Blau-Weiss Carl Schmitt Cassirer Christianity concept context Costa criticism critique of religion cultural Zionism dissertation doctrine Dubnow early writings Enlightenment Ernst Simon essay Ethics existence fact faith Forchtenberg Frankfurt Frankfurt's Word Franz Rosenzweig fundamental galut Gebhardt Gegenwart German Jewish Gershom Scholem Hebrew Heinrich Hence Hermann Cohen Herzl human idea intellectual interpretation Jacobi Jewish Philosophy Jews Judaism Jude Jüdische Rundschau jüdische Student Jüdischer Julius Guttmann knowledge lecture Leo Strauss liberal Maimonides Marburg means mind modern motive natural Nordau object original Orthodoxy Paul de Lagarde political Zionism position possible presuppositions problem prophets published question radical reality reason refers Religiöse religious religious Zionism revealed religion Scholem Schriften Scripture sense Spinoza über Staat Spinoza's Bible science Spinoza's Critique spirit Staat und Religion Testament Theological-Political Treatise theology theory tion Torah tradition trans translation truth Verlag Wissenschaft des Judentums Word of Principle