Beau Shaw
Biographic Data
| ID | 4397408 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Beau Shaw |
| GIVEN NAMES | Beau |
| FAMILY NAME | Shaw |
| SIGNATURE | SHAW B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University, NY, USA |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 5 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 5 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Persecution and the Art of Demonstration
Rasoul Namazi's Leo Strauss and Islamic Political Thought contains patient and perceptive readings of four texts Strauss devoted to Islamic political philosophy. My comments are limited to just one of those readings, that of “Fârâbî's Plato ,” and to a single issue within it—the question of the identity of the philosopher or of philosophy. Namazi rightly recognizes the centrality of this question in “Fârâbî's Plato .” As Strauss writes in explain…
The God of This Lower World”
This paper offers a new account of Leo Strauss's critique of historicism in Natural Right and History . According to the general view of this critique, Strauss tries to show that historicism wrongly denies the possibility of knowledge of universal and unchangeable principles of right. I argue that this view only reflects Strauss's exoteric critique of historicism, and that, apart from it, he gives an esoteric critique. According to this esoteric …
Esotericism and Egalitarianism
According to Leo Strauss, one of the primary purposes of the esotericism practiced by philosophers is the defense against persecution. This defense entails communicating the truth only to philosophers and concealing it from non-philosophers. For many commentators, this conception of esotericism has inegalitarian implications—for example, that the philosophers, who constitute a minority of people, are naturally capable of being told the truth, whi…
Ultra-modern thoughts
A primary theme in Leo Strauss’s early work is how medieval Jewish and Islamic political philosophy, while influenced by Plato, differs from him in crucial ways. This theme is central to Strauss’s 1935 book Philosophy and Law. Philosophy and Law concerns the medieval ‘philosophic foundation of the law,’ which provides a rational justification of revelation. For Strauss, the foundation provides this justification by virtue of some difference it ha…
The Mania of Existence
This paper offers a new interpretation of Heidegger's concept of inauthenticity (Uneigentlichkeit) in Being and Time. It breaks from the “conformity interpretation” of inauthenticity, according to which the anonymity of the inauthentic person is due to her conformity to das Man. Rather, it argues that the anonymity of the inauthentic person is due to “existential mania” – a state in which a person denies her death and anxiety, understands her abi…
Ultra-modern thoughts
A primary theme in Leo Strauss’s early work is how medieval Jewish and Islamic political philosophy, while influenced by Plato, differs from him in crucial ways. This theme is central to Strauss’s 1935 book Philosophy and Law. Philosophy and Law concerns the medieval ‘philosophic foundation of the law,’ which provides a rational justification of revelation. For Strauss, the foundation provides this justification by virtue of some difference it ha…
The Mania of Existence
This paper offers a new interpretation of Heidegger's concept of inauthenticity (Uneigentlichkeit) in Being and Time. It breaks from the “conformity interpretation” of inauthenticity, according to which the anonymity of the inauthentic person is due to her conformity to das Man. Rather, it argues that the anonymity of the inauthentic person is due to “existential mania” – a state in which a person denies her death and anxiety, understands her abi…
Ultra-modern thoughts
A primary theme in Leo Strauss’s early work is how medieval Jewish and Islamic political philosophy, while influenced by Plato, differs from him in crucial ways. This theme is central to Strauss’s 1935 book Philosophy and Law. Philosophy and Law concerns the medieval ‘philosophic foundation of the law,’ which provides a rational justification of revelation. For Strauss, the foundation provides this justification by virtue of some difference it ha…
The God of This Lower World”
This paper offers a new account of Leo Strauss's critique of historicism in Natural Right and History . According to the general view of this critique, Strauss tries to show that historicism wrongly denies the possibility of knowledge of universal and unchangeable principles of right. I argue that this view only reflects Strauss's exoteric critique of historicism, and that, apart from it, he gives an esoteric critique. According to this esoteric …
Esotericism and Egalitarianism
According to Leo Strauss, one of the primary purposes of the esotericism practiced by philosophers is the defense against persecution. This defense entails communicating the truth only to philosophers and concealing it from non-philosophers. For many commentators, this conception of esotericism has inegalitarian implications—for example, that the philosophers, who constitute a minority of people, are naturally capable of being told the truth, whi…
Persecution and the Art of Demonstration
Rasoul Namazi's Leo Strauss and Islamic Political Thought contains patient and perceptive readings of four texts Strauss devoted to Islamic political philosophy. My comments are limited to just one of those readings, that of “Fârâbî's Plato ,” and to a single issue within it—the question of the identity of the philosopher or of philosophy. Namazi rightly recognizes the centrality of this question in “Fârâbî's Plato .” As Strauss writes in explain…
Epistemology (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Political science (4 works) · Law (3 works) · Philosophy (3 works) · Politics (3 works) · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought (3 works) · Persecution (2 works) · Political Theology and Sovereignty (2 works)