A Study On Leo Strauss’ Theory Of Modernity

In this dissertation, the basic judgment is that Leo Strauss’ political philosophy is based on the problem consciousness of modernity, and the other topics of his political philosophy, such as the Jewish question, classical studies, etc., also must be under the problem consciousness to get a complete understanding. Therefore, one of the main idea of the article is trying to understand the political philosophy of Strauss wholly by analyzing the theory of modernity, and then presents the internal and unified concept system and the consistent basic issues of his political philosophy.Strauss calls the whole guided by the concept of progress modernity. According to the two roots of western civilization, namely the Bible and the Greek philosophy, Strauss deems that:the first form of modernity is rejecting biblical theology with modern rationalist, displacing by monotheistic, pantheism, atheism and so on, trying to reserve the moral of the bible after rejecting biblical faith; the second form of modernity is replace the classical concept of philosophy or science with the modern philosophy and science concept, and modern concept is considered an absolute right and the sole right interpretation system. As a thesis of political philosophy, Strauss determine the essence of modernity is that it is a politicized philosophy or philosophized politics, and its core feature is instrumental rationality and value free, which inevitably gestates the ending of nihilism. Strauss try to defuse the nihilistic crisis in the aspect of value through transforming the crisis of modernity to the crisis of political philosophy. He thinks that the crisis of modernity is derived from modern political philosopher firstly abandoning the teachings of medieval philosophers, it means they destroy the balance of the enlightenment and reason, and then abandoning the classical philosopher’s teachings, it means they destroy the balance of the philosophy and politics. Therefore, to resolve the crisis of modernity we can only return to the philosophy of politics (or facing to politics) what he called a Platonic political philosophy; through the reconstruction of the balance of revelation and reason or the balance of philosophy and politics, we can finally set up the fundamental value rationality and value concerned, thus out of nihilism.While the resolving way by Strauss doesn’t really resolving all crises completely, because the impulse in remolding the world of philosopher cannot be eradicated, and the possibility strength to meet the desire of mass with the help of philosophy may be not put an end, the Strauss’s proposals that by maintaining the balance of philosophy and politics, by making the philosophers and mass help each other our civilization can gain an inexhaustible motive force to move, really can bring a lot of inspiration for us.