How and Why the West Has Lost Confidence in Its Foundational Political Principles
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
How and Why the West Has Lost Confidence in Its Foundational Political Principles
| Author | Thomas L. Pangle |
|---|---|
| Published | 2010 |
| Recommended | Once |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Pangle, a Straussian political theorist at Texas, argues that the West’s loss of confidence in its own founding principles is a philosophical event with traceable causes rather than a mood — that the grounds on which natural right was defended were abandoned before the principles themselves were. |
Where I heard about it
- Brendan McCord — on his Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, shared on X in March 2026, closing the History of Political Philosophy and the Natural Right Tradition sub-section, immediately after What is Political Philosophy? and a summary of Strauss — an arc that runs from the tradition’s statement to the question of why it stopped persuading. Full transcription: The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.
About this edition
This is a chapter, not a book: the source list annotates it “Chapter in broader text” and links it to Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order (Columbia University Press, 2010), the edited volume it appears in.
Connections
- The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this card came from.
- Liberalism — the set of principles whose grounding the chapter is about.
- Leo Strauss — the tradition Pangle writes in; the same sub-section pairs him with Strauss’s own work.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.