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Natural Right and History (Walgreen Foundation Lectures) [Paperback]

Leo Strauss
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

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Book Description

October 15, 1999 0226776948 978-0226776941
In this classic work, Leo Strauss examines the problem of natural right and argues that there is a firm foundation in reality for the distinction between right and wrong in ethics and politics. On the centenary of Strauss's birth, and the fiftieth anniversary of the Walgreen Lectures which spawned the work, Natural Right and History remains as controversial and essential as ever.

"Strauss . . . makes a significant contribution towards an understanding of the intellectual crisis in which we find ourselves . . . [and] brings to his task an admirable scholarship and a brilliant, incisive mind."—John H. Hallowell, American Political Science Review

Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Chicago.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Leo Strauss (1899-1973) was the Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Political Science at the University of Chicago.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (October 15, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0226776948
  • ISBN-13: 978-0226776941
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
(14)
3.9 out of 5 stars
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
175 of 195 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A "Biography" of Natural Right July 19, 2003
By A. Sura
Format:Paperback
Now here's a puzzle. We have Leo Strauss, an obscure political philosopher of the 1950's at the University of Chicago. He primarily writes on ancient philosophers, such as Xenophon and Plato. Thirty years after his death, we find neoconservatives like Allan Bloom and Paul Wolfowitz saturated in the mainstream, apparently tutored under Strauss. What's the connection?

Amid the recent Leo Strauss craze, perpetuated by a largely sensationalist media blindly driven towards the holy grail of conspiracy theory, I decided to pick up Natural Right and History. While, obviously, one cannot ascertain his entire political message by merely one book, reading Natural Right and History helps obviate the connection.

Natural Right is a "biography" of the idea of natural right. Strauss traces the idea of natural right, from antiquity to modernity to postmodernity. In classic "Straussian" form, to understand the political implications of this book, you have to read painstakingly between the lines.

Strauss starts the book with a rather standard critique of historicism (historical relativism) and conventionalism. His argument against value relativism is very straight forward; hardly any social scientist today makes the claims that Strauss refutes. The new relativism is a more sophisitcated one, couched behind postmodernist word-games.

However, social science is largely built upon the theories of Max Weber. Thus, Strauss uses a reduction proof. If he can reduce social science to Weber, and if he can reduce Weber to historicism, then he can effectively show that the methodologies social science are fallacious, since he shows that historicism is false. Consequently he can show that a historicist understanding of natural right is also bunk. To be sure, this is an extremely risky strategy since the argument relies on a lengthy chain of reasoning.

Having attacked postmodern notions of natural right, Strauss restarts at antiquity and works his way up to modernity. Strauss shows the evolution of the idea of natural right, from "Socrates" to Plato to Aristotle to Hobbes to Locke to Rousseau to Burke.

So which conception of natural rights does Strauss believe in - the classical or the modern (enlightenment)? In short, he subscribes to the classical. Why? Succinctly, Strauss contends that natural right became doomed the second that Hobbes injected his hedonism into natural right.

A different way approach is to look at Strauss's juxtaposition of (classical vs modern) as (republicanism vs. liberalism). By liberalism, I mean classical liberal, i.e. enlightenment liberal. Classical liberalism is the view that individuals are prior to society. By republicanism, I do not mean anything related to the republican party. Republicanism means that individuals are willing to sacrifice their private interests to the public good, i.e. civic virtue. Republicanism means, in extremely superficial terms, that civil society is prior to the individual.

With that said, I totally disagree with Strauss's analysis, for more reasons I can delve into here. I think that the rights of classical liberalism, as Locke conceived it, is largely correct. However, Strauss plays a vital role in the ongoing conversation of rights in political science and philosophy. For producing a very challenging, thought-provoking analysis, this book gets 5 stars. Beware: it's not a light read!

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45 of 49 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book contains a critique of modern relativism coupled with a historical investigation of the development of the idea of natural right. As moderns we consider our philosophical predecessors as caused by history rather than causing it. Strauss demolishes this view by giving a history of Western thought that explains the historical origin of the idea of natural right far better than those who treat all thought as historically limited.

Although Strauss writes "compactly" (he doesn't waste words in getting to the point), his book is quite revealing about the rationales for certain ancient, medieval, and modern political ideas. For those of us who usually find these ideas outlandish or even perverse, this book is extremely rewarding (contrary to another reviewer's vague suggestion). If you have trouble comprehending everything, consume the book in smaller bites. Those interested in the American founding, for instance, should probably concentrate on the chapter entitled "Modern Natural Right"; others may want to explore what political thought looked like before the rise of "science"; for that look at the chapter entitled "The Origin of the Idea of Natural Right". Etc. Etc.

This book is essential for anybody interested in getting a picture of the whole of Western (and even non-Western) thought, but who finds himself disenchanted with glib postmodernist glosses of what is a very complicated subject.

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47 of 53 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential August 31, 2002
By Z. Liu
Format:Paperback
I first encountered this book in high school, spurred by my american history and american government teachers. It is therefore somewhat elitist to state that this will go over anyone's head. The ideas and the prose may be complex, but it just requires some patience. If it's worth it to you, you'll be able to read it.

Strauss gave these lectures to counter what then was called historicism, the position that, because conceptions of such things as freedom and right have been so varied throughout time, that because nobody has been able to agree on what right is, that right is relative to the time. The upshod of the arguement is then, since nothing can count as right definitively, there is no right. Strauss argues that historicism, by being another appearance in history, is subject to the same criticism (therefore interally inconsistent) and that even if nobody has been able to agree on "right" doesn't mean that there isn't any such thing, but because debate has been so heated on the subject, it is only all the more evident that there is such a thing such as right.

I may be a slightly biased source, but i've read my share of Levi-Strauss and Foucault. Sure, Strauss confines himself to political philosophy, but the larger issues are there. Postmodern thought is showing strains of its own now, and Strauss pointed them out before they realized they were postmodern. Essential reading for both camps.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Very little about this book justifies Strauss's high reputation. He doesn't define his terms, and it's difficult to decipher his own position when he's always quoting someone else. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Don Hoffmann
5.0 out of 5 stars For those who don't understand Strauss's viewpoint..
Several of the poor reviews for this book state that they don't understand why historicism isn't "allowable" in a rationalist critique of society.

1. Read more
Published on March 5, 2011 by Shaolin Wookie
5.0 out of 5 stars An actual attempt to tell you what the book is about.
I apologize for my review title. This is one of the cases when I am not sure I recognize the book I just read from the other reviews. Read more
Published on May 4, 2008 by greg taylor
1.0 out of 5 stars received wrong book
I was going to use the book last week but then I realized that I had gotten a totally different book than the one I ordered. Read more
Published on November 13, 2006 by Theodore B. Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Review
I feel myself lucky to have a chance to read Strauss' "Natural Right and History", "Liberalism Ancient and Modern" and also "Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy". Read more
Published on February 24, 2006 by Ahmet Bayraktutar
1.0 out of 5 stars negative philosophy
This book shows how "traditional conservatives" are just plain dumb. (and apparently all the other reviewers of this book) Here you have a philosopher who at is core is a moral... Read more
Published on January 12, 2006 by yutes mcclore
5.0 out of 5 stars Hey Magneto comic book guy!
How do you have the nerve to review a book that you admittedly DID NOT READ????
Published on July 17, 2003 by JoyDivision9
5.0 out of 5 stars What Could Be More Important?
There is a hidden danger when the social sciences reduce America's claims to truth to mere products of history and culture. Read more
Published on December 15, 2002 by T. Bouthillet
1.0 out of 5 stars Too Convoluted
I generally do not have a difficult time with complex books, but I had a terrible time understanding and reading this book. I stuck with it, and found I wasn't rewarded. Read more
Published on March 18, 2002 by D. S. Heersink
5.0 out of 5 stars A needed bit of classical thought for a modern age
Strauss does a wonderful job of illustrating how natural right has changed between classic and modern. Read more
Published on October 18, 2000
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