Edmund Burke, Strauss, and the Straussians

In Natural Right and History, Leo Strauss accused Edmund Burke of being ignorant of the nobility of last-ditch resistance; defending a conception of history that set the path for historicism; and discarding a vision of politics as it ought to be. By separating philosophy from politics, Burke, according to Strauss, helped lay the intellectual foundation for modern political ideologies. While a number of scholars have attempted to vindicate or refute Strauss' criticisms through textual exegesis, my article aims to lay a sharper emphasis on particular historical episodes of Burke's political life in which his political thought and statesmanship calls into question Strauss' interpretations. I argue, moreover, that Burke's legislative activities retain a closer resemblance to Strauss' conception of classical statesmanship than Strauss suggests in Natural Right and History. I conclude by maintaining that Straussian scholars could enrich their framework of the Western canon by giving greater attention to Burke's political thought

Epistemology · Exegesis · Historicism · History of political thought · Ideology · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Theology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

• Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke's Political Economy

  Open Access•Gregory M Collins•Commerce and Manners in Edmund…•2020

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