Book Review The City and the Philosopher: : Leo Strauss revisits Plato

Abstract

 

The objective of The City and the Philosopher: Leo Strauss revisits Plato by Despina Vertzagia – the title counterpoints one of Leo Strauss’s most well-known works that focuses inter alia on Plato, i.e. The City and the Man – is twofold. At first, to familiarize the reader with the thought of Leo Strauss, which is crystallized into – and defined by – three core-issues: a. the conflict between antiquity – or, pre-modern thought in general – and modernity, b. the theologico-political predicament, and c. the distinction between esoteric and exoteric writing. This exposition serves the purpose of convincing the reader about the importance of Strauss as a political philosopher and also, as Vertzagia mentions in the preface, of clearing the mist that surrounds the effect Strauss had on the contemporary political arena in the U.S. The verdict the author arrives to is reached not in the form of any blatant exoneration, but as the fruit of a laborious study of the work of Strauss.