Leo Strauss on Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education
By Timothy W. Burns
JMC faculty partner Timothy Burns has written a book, Leo Strauss on Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education which examines Strauss’ understanding of the emergence of liberal democracy and what is necessary to sustain and elevate it:
Liberal democracy is today under unprecedented attack from both the left and the right. Offering a fresh and penetrating examination of how Leo Strauss understood the emergence of liberal democracy and what is necessary to sustain and elevate it, Leo Strauss on Democracy, Technology, and Liberal Education explores Strauss’ view of the intimate (and troubling) relation between the philosophic promotion of liberal democracy and the turn to the modern scientific-technological project of the “conquest of nature.” Timothy W. Burns explicates the political reasoning behind Strauss’ recommendation of reminders of genuine political greatness within democracy over and against the failure of nihilistic youth to recognize it. Elucidating what Strauss envisaged by a liberally-educated sub-political or cultural-level aristocracy-one that could elevate and sustain liberal democracy-and the roles that both philosophy and divine-law traditions should have in that education, Burns also lays out Strauss’ frequent (though often tacit) engagement with the thought of Heidegger on these issues.
Timothy W. Burns is a Professor of Political Science and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Political Science at Baylor University. He is also editor in chief of Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy. Professor Burns’ research interests are in the history of political philosophy, classical and modern political thought, politics and literature, politics and religion, Shakespeare’s political thought, and the thought of Leo Strauss. His articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Polis, The Review of Metaphysics, Klesis, Logos, Interpretation, First Things, The Political Science Reviewer, The Claremont Review of Books, and Philanthropy.
Professor Burns is a JMC faculty partner.
Learn more about Timothy Burns >>
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