Nietzsche, the Muslim Falāsifa , and Leo Strauss's Avicennan Turn

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10435564
AutoresMalik Mufti (0000-0001-5003-4688, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume86
Fascículo2
Páginas176-196
Data de publicação2024-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670523000700
OpenAlexW4390615531
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas18

Impressed by Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of liberalism but alarmed by its consequences, Leo Strauss turned in the 1930s to the medieval Islamic philosophers ( falāsifa ). A review of a key cleavage in their political philosophy—reflected in the contrasting positions of Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina—identifies the fundamental alternatives Strauss found available to him on the role of religion in politics, and on the necessity and efficacy of political activism more generally. It thus illuminates the trajectory of Strauss's thoughts on the relationship between reason and revelation: from an initial appreciation for the “golden mean” between Nietzsche and liberalism he believed he had found in the writings of al-Farabi and Ibn Rushd, to a more apolitical “Avicennan” stance after his arrival in America. This last, it is suggested, was a contingent stance requiring reconsideration in light of new circumstances in American politics today

Epistemology · Islam · Liberalism · Political science · Politics · Revelation · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy · Religious studies · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought