I don't know if I've been scathed so deeply that I don't see it anymore, but Strauss, and especially Oakeshott, don't strike me very historical at all. I even think that this is part of the reason Strauss was so very well received in the U.S., and Oakeshott is thought of (usually) more as a political philosopher than a scholar. I was "trained" in a very analytical department, but I can't imagine someone who would willingly prefer reading Rawls or Nozick for instance over these figures (even though, to be fare, Nozick writes amazingly). But perhaps it can be attributed to different aesthetic preference when reading philosophy.
As for your point - I concur completely. Historically speaking, Machiavelli or even Spinoza did not initiate a "tradition". With Hobbes, for one reason or another, we have a true beginning of a tradition that does not align easily with any of the older traditions of political philosophy, and is modern to the bone (or the reverse, as Strauss would insist - Modernity is Hobbesian).
Thank you very much for the in-depth reading and for sharing your thoughts!
Aside for your remarks about style that I tend to agree with - I gained a new name to look into that I wasn’t familiar with before. So doubly thanks. What would you recommend as a representative work of Henry Babcock Veatch? (I’m glad I’m not the only one to read Macintyre here, I have a few posts about him scheduled but I was worried it’s too… idiocyncratic)
I'm going to have to let it settle in my brain before asking a couple of questions, just to try to illuminate a few corners further.
I used Carl Schmitt briefly when writing about Walter Benjamin and Frantz Fanon during my own MA about 15 years ago, but am quite unfamiliar with Leo Strauss and rusty in my philosophy. I'll let the back of my brain work on this a little.
I don't know if I've been scathed so deeply that I don't see it anymore, but Strauss, and especially Oakeshott, don't strike me very historical at all. I even think that this is part of the reason Strauss was so very well received in the U.S., and Oakeshott is thought of (usually) more as a political philosopher than a scholar. I was "trained" in a very analytical department, but I can't imagine someone who would willingly prefer reading Rawls or Nozick for instance over these figures (even though, to be fare, Nozick writes amazingly). But perhaps it can be attributed to different aesthetic preference when reading philosophy.
As for your point - I concur completely. Historically speaking, Machiavelli or even Spinoza did not initiate a "tradition". With Hobbes, for one reason or another, we have a true beginning of a tradition that does not align easily with any of the older traditions of political philosophy, and is modern to the bone (or the reverse, as Strauss would insist - Modernity is Hobbesian).
Thank you very much for the in-depth reading and for sharing your thoughts!
Aside for your remarks about style that I tend to agree with - I gained a new name to look into that I wasn’t familiar with before. So doubly thanks. What would you recommend as a representative work of Henry Babcock Veatch? (I’m glad I’m not the only one to read Macintyre here, I have a few posts about him scheduled but I was worried it’s too… idiocyncratic)
I'll to look into that, not least because I wrote a whole article about epistemic logic in Aristotle and I haven't heard of him. I smell major flaw.
Very interesting.
I'm going to have to let it settle in my brain before asking a couple of questions, just to try to illuminate a few corners further.
I used Carl Schmitt briefly when writing about Walter Benjamin and Frantz Fanon during my own MA about 15 years ago, but am quite unfamiliar with Leo Strauss and rusty in my philosophy. I'll let the back of my brain work on this a little.