Skip to content
עברית
Français
Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)
Strategic Alliances for a Secure, Connected, and Prosperous Region
Menu
Home
About Us
About Us
Our Experts
Board of Fellows
Our Building
Programs
The JCFA Center for Security, Diplomacy, and Communications
Arab-Israel-Africa National Security Partnerships
Initiative for Palestinian Authority Accountability and Reform
Exposing Political Antisemitism and Combating Delegitimization
Black American-Israel Leadership Initiative
Institute for Contemporary Affairs
For Students and Interns
Past Programs
Defensible Borders for Israel
Jerusalem in International Diplomacy
Anti-Semitism in Canada
Publications
Authors
Major Studies
Analysis
Jerusalem Issue Briefs
Jerusalem Viewpoints
Strategic Perspectives
Global Law Forum
Special Reports
Daily Alert
Jewish Political Studies Review
Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism
Daniel Elazar Library
Major Knesset Debates
Israel’s Wars
Maps
Jewish Environmental Studies
Survey of Arab Affairs
Jerusalem Letter
Homeland Security Portal
Jerusalem Studies
ebooks
Other Special Features
Podcast
Videos
New Videos
YouTube
Audio Archive
Conferences
Blog
Support Us
Contact Us
Search for:
Home
Current:
Philosiphy
Philosiphy
Kenneth Hart Green’s Jew and Philosopher: The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought of Leo Strauss
October 20, 1997
Are philosophy and biblical faith compatible? Early, Strauss wrote that in every attempt to harmonize them, one of the two is sacrificed to the other. Later, he seemed to think that the two can co-exist peacefully, each learning from the other. I argue that there is no place for revelation in the life of reason. Because Maimonides was primarily a philosopher, he argued that there were rational grounds for all the commandments. Philosphy thus enslaves revelation instead of co-existing peacefully with it.
Medieval Rationalism or Mystic Philosophy? Reflections on the Correspondence between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin
April 2, 1992 |
Ellis Sandoz
The correspondence between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin covered three decades down to the mid-1960s and touched on many of the most urgent problems in modern political philosophy. At bottom the key question they debated is whether the true paradigm of philosophy is a purely naturalistic rationalism of the kind fashioned by the thirteenth century Arab and Jewish thinkers in their revival of Aristotelianism and exemplified, later on, by Spinoza; or whether the true paradigm is grounded in the Reason (nous) of Plato and Aristotle as it symbolizes a range of experiential meaning from intellection to faith, thus comprehending analysis, intuition, and revelation. Strauss contends for the former, Voegelin for the latter view; one in the name of demonstrative knowledge, the other in the name of mystic philosophy. Despite their substantial disagreements, both writers stand severely at odds with contemporary ideologies and, generally, join in preferring the ancients to the moderns.