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In the court of a great king : some remarks on Leo Strauss' introduction to the guide of the perplexed

journal contribution
posted on 2011-09-01, 00:00 authored by Matthew Sharpe
In the court of a great king : some remarks on Leo Strauss' introduction to the guide of the perplexed

History

Journal

Sophia

Volume

50

Issue

3

Pagination

413 - 427

Publisher

Springer Netherlands

Location

Dordrecht, The Netherlands

ISSN

0038-1527

eISSN

1873-930X

Language

eng

Notes

In the second half of this essay (begun in Sophia 50:141–158), we continue our reading of Leo Strauss’ important later essay on Maimonides, ‘How to Begin to Study the Guide of the Perplexed’. Our method is to try, as best as we are able, to read this essay as Strauss directs us to read esoteric texts in Persecution and the Art of Writing. As a means of testing and attempting to confirm our reading of this difficult later essay on Maimonides, we will close by situating our reading of ‘How to Begin to Study’ and Strauss’ partly concealed positions there on philosophy, prophecy and the Torah alongside the claims of his earlier, much less esoteric, but also rarely studied 1930s essay: ‘Some Remarks on the Political Science of Maimonides and Farabi’. Because of the widely recognised foundational importance of Maimonides in understanding Leo Strauss’ own lasting positions, this work aims at making a contribution to the continuing, and presently highly contentious, task of trying to understand Strauss’ thoughts on Athens and Jerusalem, reason and revelation, the city and man.

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2011, Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

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