What Is Political Philosophy?

What Is Political Philosophy?

Leo Strauss begins with a question implicit in every political decision. When we try to preserve something or change it, what lets us say that the result would be better? From there he distinguishes political philosophy from political opinion and political science, and asks whether positivism and historicism can dispense with judgments about the good society.

1. 0:00 — Opening at the Hebrew University
2. 2:18 — Political action and the question of the good
3. 5:00 — From opinion to knowledge
4. 10:15 — Political thought and political philosophy
5. 17:11 — Ordinary political knowledge and political science
6. 27:12 — The breakup of political philosophy
7. 29:12 — Positivism and the distinction between facts and values
8. 39:16 — Can social science avoid value judgments?
9. 47:44 — Historicism and the good society
10. 51:27 — What makes classical political philosophy classical?
11. 56:29 — Friendship and the I–Thou relation (January 1955 tape)
12. 58:42 — Plato’s Laws and the authority of ancestral law
13. 1:07:02 — The philosopher’s return to the cave
14. 1:13:34 — The regime as a way of life
15. 1:16:46 — The best regime and the role of chance
16. 1:22:54 — The good citizen and the good human being
17. 1:26:43 — Two objections to classical political philosophy
18. 1:34:49 — Socrates and knowledge of ignorance

Leo Strauss — 18 recordings in the archive.

Related reading: What Is Political Philosophy? And Other Studies by Leo Strauss.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor and at the same time I think it's a great honor and at the same time a task of extraordinary difficulty to speak about political philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in this city and in This land, the theme of political philosophy, justice and the just city has been taken more seriously than anywhere else on earth. Nowhere else has a longing for justice and the just city filled the purest hearts and the loftiest souls with such zeal as on this sacred soil. I know all too well that I'm utterly incompetent to convey to you what in the best possible case, in the case of any man, would be no more than a faint reproduction or a weak imitation of our prophet's vision. I shall even be compelled to lead you into a region where the dimmest recollection of that vision is on the point of vanishing altogether. Where the kingdom of God is derisively called an imagined principality to say here nothing of the region which was never illumined by that vision. But while being compelled or compelling myself to wander far away from our sacred heritage I and to be silent about it, I shall not for a moment cease to think of it. The meaning of political philosophy and its meaningful character is it is as evident today as it always has been since the time when political philosophy came to light in Athens. All political action aims at either preservation or change. When deciding to preserve, we wish to prevent a change for the worse. When deciding to change, we wish to bring about something better. All political action is then guided by some thought of better and worse. But thought of better and worse implies thought of the good. The awareness of the good which guides all our action has the character of opinion. It is no longer questioned but on reflection it proves to be questionable. This very fact that we can question it directs us towards such a thought of the good as is no longer questionable toward a thought which is no longer opinion but knowledge. All political action has and in itself a directedness toward knowledge of the good of the good life or of the good society. If this directedness becomes explicit, if men make it their explicit…