Leo Strauss Political Philosophy Analysis

Leo Strauss defined Political Philosophy in his journal, What is Political Philosophy? The problems of Political Philosophy as the attempt to know genuine knowledge of the standards which apply in political things and in political order (1969). The aforementioned discipline can be traced back to Athens, to the time of Socrates which can be seen in Plato’s work, The Republic, where he discussed in the form of discourse between Socrates, Cephalus, Thrasymachus and Polemarchus the meaning of justice which later then expanded to kinds of unjust society. Socrates was considered the founder of the political philosophy because of his questions of “What is…” that concerned human beings, how they live and things that involve their living such as the

It sprung from the behavioralist objective of expanding political philosophy outside of the academe and actually bringing it to the practical field (Gunnell, 1986). But even prior to the behavioralist action, political science existed alongside political philosophy and both were even considered identical to each other (Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? The problem of Political Philosophy, 1969). It was just when the science became the trend that political science deviated and became in itself another discipline (Gunnell, 1986). The behavioralists, in their intention of expanding the study of political philosophy, separated from the traditionalists to establish a scientific counterpart of the value-laden, archaic discipline (Gunnell, 1986). They gave importance to the science in studying politics and even used the approaches of normal science to their study rather than the philosophical, normative approach of their predecessor. This shift caused great turmoil within the discipline.

Political Science may have its own set of limitations but in one way or another, it had inherited the functions of its predecessor (Berlin, 2013). It was when the Political Philosophy is slowly losing its relevance that the Political Science wants to let the former discipline slowly perish just like the other older disciplines with involvements of philosophy that were toppled by their more scientific, newer

First, he pointed out that it may be caused by the presuppositions refutation or discredit and second, a new discipline has come to replace the older discipline from its work (Berlin, 2013). This is what has become of Political Philosophy. But despite of its decline, the old, archaic study, as the behavioralist call it, has not yet reached its death (Goodin & Klingemann, 1996). An old and established discipline is hard die and no matter how its scientific equivalent wills it to reach its end, Political Philosophy proves