What Is Political Philosophy?

Strauss’s title essay argues that political philosophy is the attempt to replace opinion about the nature of political things with knowledge of it, and that the modern social sciences’ claim to be value-free abandons precisely the question — what is a good regime — that the discipline exists to ask. The collection gathers his essays on classical political rationalism and on Machiavelli, Hobbes and Locke as the founders of modernity.

Why it’s on the list: The programmatic statement of the Straussian reading that organises this whole section of McCord’s curriculum.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on History of Political Philosophy and Straussian Interpretation. It carries the list’s ☑️ mark; the page gives no legend for what the mark means. The full transcription lives on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.