Leo Strauss and Husserl's call for “philosophy as a rigorous science”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5902/2357797589750Keywords:
Leo Strauss, Edmund Husserl, Philosophy, Rigorous scienceAbstract
In 1922, Leo Strauss attended Edmund Husserl’s lectures on the theory of knowledge, held at the University of Freiburg. This event was decisive for the young Strauss to abandon the Neo-Kantianism prevalent in the intellectual environment of Germany at that time. Strauss recounts this experience in a mature essay published in 1971, demonstrating that his contact with Husserl profoundly influenced his approach to contemporary issues. In this paper, I intend to show that Husserl's influence on Strauss extends beyond the writing of that small essay. I will attempt to argue that the impact of the first school of German phenomenology on Leo Strauss’s thought is revealed not only in his critique of positivism and historicism, but also in his proposal to recover political philosophy. To this end, I will analyze points of convergence between Strauss's writings on the subject and Husserl's 1911 essay Philosophie als strenge Wissenschaft, aiming to show that Strauss's approach to political philosophy carries a direct influence from Husserl’s phenomenology.
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