Athens, Jerusalem, Mecca: Leo Strauss's "Muslim" Understanding of Greek Philosophy

The contrast "Athens vs. Jerusalem" played a major part in the late work of Leo Strauss (1899-1973). His scholarly career, from the outset, can be described as a motion from Jerusalem (Spinoza, Maimonides) to Athens (Plato, Xenophon). Nevertheless, a third city, Mecca, and what it stands f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Poetics today 1998-07, Vol.19 (2), p.235-259
Main Author: Brague, Rémi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ancient civilizations
Aristotelianism
Bible
Esotericism
Greek language
Islamic philosophy
Judaism
Medieval philosophy
Modern Genealogies and Deployment
Muslims
Philosophy
Platonism
Poetics
Socratic philosophy
Strauss, Leo
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Summary:The contrast "Athens vs. Jerusalem" played a major part in the late work of Leo Strauss (1899-1973). His scholarly career, from the outset, can be described as a motion from Jerusalem (Spinoza, Maimonides) to Athens (Plato, Xenophon). Nevertheless, a third city, Mecca, and what it stands for, unspokenly synthesizes the first two. For instance, Strauss's interpretation of Plato is grounded on Farabi's view of philosophical style. His rediscovery of esotericism-that is, of the possibility of a silent oral teaching-depends on an Islamic conception of Revelation, which opposes the Christian one: Athens and Jerusalem meet in Mecca, but they are at loggerheads in Rome.
ISSN:0333-5372
1527-5507
DOI:10.2307/1773441