Discourses on Strauss
Revelation And Reason in Leo Strauss And His Critical Study of Machiavelli
"Kim A. Sorensen clearly lays out the debate surrounding Leo Strauss by reviewing his published work and legacy since his death in 1973. He then turns to a key distinction in Strauss's thought - between revelation and reason, or religion and philosophy - and maintains that Strauss used their mutual opposition to modernity as a central theme in his oeuvre. For Sorensen, Strauss considered revelation and reason both as fundamentally different worldviews and as alternate ways of understanding the good life." "Sorensen explores Strauss's views on the revelation/reason distinction through a close examination of the final chapter in Strauss's Thoughts on Machiavelli. Here Strauss weighs Machiavelli's critique of religion in general and Christianity in particular, and Machiavelli's departure from the classical tradition of political philosophy dating from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. For Strauss, the "crisis of our time" has its point of origin in Machiavelli's rejection of both biblical and classical morality as guides to the efficacy of political virtue."--Jacket.
Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.
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What the reading experience may hold
A fuller profile for choosing with more confidence—not just another copy of the preview.
Philosophy · Nonfiction
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Balanced tone · Measured pace
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
A good fit if…
Readers who want a thoughtful experience and enjoy noticing the connections beneath a book’s surface story.
This book's DNA
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Spoiler-Free Emotional Arc
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A quick reading snapshot
Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.
- ISBN-13
- 978-0-2680-4117-5
- Language
- English
- Edition record
- OL9725730M
A more thoughtful way into this book
This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.
A comfortable full-length choice for steady daily reading.
Begin with its place in Philosophy, then notice where the book resists that label.
Read for connection, not completion.
Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.
Three questions to carry with you
- What question is the author really asking beneath the book’s main argument?
- Which claim challenges one of your familiar assumptions?
- What remains unresolved—and is that uncertainty useful?
Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.
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