“el político y el filósofo: Una lectura crítica de Leo Strauss”. El Jenofonte de Strauss

Abstract

Leo Strauss (1899-1973), German Jewish philosopher, moved to the United States of America in 1937, where he lived until his death. During the last years his name has turn controversial due to the American neocons, who have inscribed themselves as their sons, and terms such as esoterism, elitism and the War of Iraq had been tightly linked to Leo Strauss and his disciples. The present doctoral dissertation aims to introduce the figure of Leo Strauss showing in detail his life and intellectual story, exposing sequentially his written work, which has been object of several confusions, placing the so called straussian controversy in the right place and taking notice of the different paths taken by the straussian legacy. Leo Strauss shows himself as a very attentive reader and also as a very attentive writer whose texts and philosophy are of difficult access. Strauss returns to the Great Books in order to understand them the way in which the authors understood themselves and Strauss also undertakes the task of recovering unforgotten thinkers such as Xenophon. Strauss’s investigations on Xenophon focuses on two cores: the Xenophon’s Socrates and the Hiero of Xenophon. Punctually the straussian studies of Xenophon allow us to realize one of the most important tensions that Strauss uncovers in philosophy, the tension between the philosopher and the city: ¿how should the philosopher live in the city? Key words: Leo Strauss – Xenophon – Hiero - political philosophy – straussian controversy – Leo Strauss bibliography – the philosopher and the city.