Lyceum Program

Leo Strauss's difficult account of Xenophon's Symposium has received little attention. This study seeks partially to remedy that. Strauss's account draws the reader's attention to the various (revealing and distorting) caricatures of Socrates among the Socratic circle present at the depicted symposium in order to shed light on Socrates himself. Strauss's Socrates stands in sharp contrast with "conventional gentlemen" owing to his precise grasp of virtue and in less sharp contrast with Xenophon owing, it seems, to disagreements about the highest good and the means to that good. Perhaps unexpectedly, Socrates's primary concern, in Strauss's telling, proves to be philosophy, understood as inquiry into nature, rather than political philosophy, which is subordinate to the former.

This study, focusing on the figure of Hermogenes in Plato’s Cratylus and Socrates’s allusions to Euthyphro and to divine inspiration, argues that the dialogue discloses a strange kinship between “perspectivism” or “relativism,” on one hand, and “revelation” or “decisionism,” on the other. It finds that Socrates concedes surprisingly significant ground to those positions. And, finally, it gives a partial view of Socrates’s dialectical response in light of that ground he is forced to concede.

Scholarship on the American founding generally argues for a Lockean liberal republicanism as the philosophical base for American political institutions. But American founding father James Wilson rejected Locke's epistemology and moral science in favor of Thomas Reid's as a theoretical support for popular sovereignty in a large republic. This article offers a new interpretation of Wilson's writings by directly juxtaposing his and Locke's epistemology and moral science. A close and comparative reading of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Wilson's Lectures on Law demonstrates that Wilson thinks that American political culture needed to include support for universal suffrage, understanding government's end as promoting individual happiness found in pursuing virtue rather than property, and that all citizens are responsible for the truthful reputation of being a virtuous person. Wilson uses Reid's epistemology and moral science to offer a cultural support for popular sovereignty that acts as an alternative to Lockean self-interest.

Leo Strauss's account of Xenophon's Oeconomicus suggests that the work shows Socrates's famous "turn." Although that suggestion is somewhat misleading or exaggerated, Strauss's account discloses much about the significance of the Socratic turn. We learn not only the conclusions Socrates drew about the human things but also something of the reasons for those conclusions. Most importantly, we learn that Strauss's Xenophon's Socrates turns to the human things and ordinary opinion in order both to vindicate and to continue inquiry into nature.

The intention of this study is to trace the core argument of Christopher Bruell’s interpretation of the Metaphysics in his Aristotle as Teacher: His Introduction to a Philosophic Science. In a word, Bruell brings to light grave difficulties confronting science as originally conceived, lays bare the fragile foundation of the science actually available to man, and faintly indicates the need for some supplemental vindication of that foundation.

Aristotle's ALLEGATIONS provides a new, literal translation of the text traditionally called Aristotle's CATEGORIES, which was once the introductory text not only to Aristotle's corpus but also to philosophy as such. The text is, among other things, Aristotle's introduction to the fundamental question of philosophy: the meaning of being. This translation is an attempt to get the English reader as close to the original Greek text as possible. It is directed, above all, to those who wish to begin the study of Aristotle's logical and scientific works. The translation attempts to uncover the original, puzzling character of Aristotle's original text, which a two-millennia tradition has obscured. This is the only English version of Aristotle's CATEGORIES with an interpretive essay included. Written without jargon and intended to be accessible to students, this essay identifies the various parts and subparts of the ALLEGATIONS and interprets them in light of their contexts. Its primary concern is exploring the rich questions that the text raises with a view to Aristotle's manner of writing, which has been largely neglected for several centuries. Most ambitiously, this book wishes to encourage readers to learn from Aristotle on the grounds that his teaching in the ALLEGATIONS might be true and to defend its worthiness as an introduction to philosophy proper.

The contention of this study is that both Plato and Aristotle advance powerfully stated arguments against innovation. Their shared concern about innovation generally stems from their awareness of the importance of habit in the education of human beings. Although innovation might appear beneficial and superior to the status quo, a decisive practical obstruction is the irrationality of human beings prior to, and following, their undergoing a sub-rational, habituating education. Politics, in brief, concerns the human things and does not admit of complete rationality.