Leo Strauss and Edith Stein in the Grip of the Theopolitical
What connection with institutional religion ought modern political states promote? As they developed their political thinking in the early years of the Weimar Republic, Leo Strauss and Edith Stein came up with opposite answers to this question. While Strauss discerned in Carl Schmitt's maximali...
| Published in: | Naharaim |
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| Subtitles: | "Special Section: Theological-Political Predicaments. Representations of Religion and Politics in the German-Jewish Context" |
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2023
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| In: |
Naharaim
Year: 2023, Volume: 17, Issue: 2, Pages: 133-158 |
| Further subjects: | B
Holocaust
B Hans Kelsen B Leo Strauss B Weimar Republic B Carl Schmitt B Edith Stein |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | What connection with institutional religion ought modern political states promote? As they developed their political thinking in the early years of the Weimar Republic, Leo Strauss and Edith Stein came up with opposite answers to this question. While Strauss discerned in Carl Schmitt's maximalist concept of the theopolitical a possible remedy against the flaws of liberal democracy, Stein ascribed democracy's chance of survival to a renewed distinction between the political and religious spheres. Here, Strauss can be viewed as an heir to the ancient and medieval Jewish understanding of the ideal state, whereas Stein appears rooted in the critical legacy of the German Haskalah. At a fundamental level, the contrast between the two thinkers has to do with a difference in their respective philosophical epistemé. While Strauss, walking in the footsteps of Heidegger, thinks in terms of Geschichlichkeit ("historiality"), Stein applies a phenomenological method based on the intuition of essences and very much indebted to Adolph Reinach's philosophy of law. That Stein's essentialism succeeds where the 'historial' thinking of the young Strauss fails; that is, in diagnosing the nature of the political threat that would soon engulf European Jewry, is the main conclusion of the present paper. |
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| ISSN: | 1862-9156 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Naharaim
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/naha-2022-0016 |