PHILOSOPHER

Leo Strauss

1899 - 1973

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Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher and historian of philosophy whose work had a major influence on the study of classical political thought and on twentieth century political theory in the United States. He is best known for his interpretation of ancient and medieval philosophy, his account of classical natural right, and his claim that philosophers often wrote esoterically, presenting different teachings to general and specialist readers. Strauss argued that the modern turn in philosophy, beginning with Machiavelli and culminating in historicism and relativism, marked a decisive break with the classical understanding of politics and the good life. His work sought to recover the questions and methods of ancient political philosophy as a corrective to the perceived crisis of modern thought. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in 38 different languages on Wikipedia. Leo Strauss is the 483rd most popular philosopher (down from 375th in 2024), the 1,262nd most popular biography from Germany (down from 915th in 2019) and the 60th most popular German Philosopher.

Leo Strauss was a political philosopher who was born in Germany in 1899. He immigrated to the United States in 1938, and became a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Strauss is most famous for his critique of the Enlightenment and his interpretation of the Bible as a political text.

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Among PHILOSOPHERS

Among philosophers, Leo Strauss ranks 483 out of 1,267. Before him are Porcia, Gaius Musonius Rufus, Philodemus, Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri, Michel de Certeau, and Ernest Gellner. After him are Pierre Duhem, Ronald Dworkin, Dicaearchus, John Gray, Zengzi, and Ernst Troeltsch.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1899, Leo Strauss ranks 59. Before him are Sobhuza II, Henri Michaux, Georges Auric, Bronislav Kaminski, Ludwig Guttmann, and Kazi Nazrul Islam. After him are Lao She, Brassaï, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Andrei Platonov, Louis Chiron, and Georges Bidault. Among people deceased in 1973, Leo Strauss ranks 57. Before him are Taha Hussein, Howard H. Aiken, Otto Klemperer, P. Ramlee, Lex Barker, and Edward G. Robinson. After him are Katina Paxinou, Adolf Strauss, Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, Robert Ryan, Milunka Savić, and Karl Löwith.

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In Germany

Among people born in Germany, Leo Strauss ranks 1,262 out of 7,253. Before him are Margot Honecker (1927), Wolfgang von Trips (1928), Joachim Sauer (1949), Adolphus Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1658), Karl von Habsburg (1961), and John Rabe (1882). After him are Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1886), Infanta Maria Theresa of Portugal (1855), Alexander Gauland (1941), Tilman Riemenschneider (1460), Franz Oppenheimer (1864), and Karl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg (1744).

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Among PHILOSOPHERS In Germany

Among philosophers born in Germany, Leo Strauss ranks 60. Before him are Christian Thomasius (1655), Hans Reichenbach (1891), Henry Suso (1295), Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach (1775), Franz Rosenzweig (1886), and Paul Natorp (1854). After him are Ernst Troeltsch (1865), Hermann Lotze (1817), Johannes Althusius (1563), Axel Honneth (1949), Karl Löwith (1897), and Ludwig Büchner (1824).

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