Inspired by the scholarship of Laurence Lampert, this international group of scholars offer meticulous interpretations of key philosophical works by Protagoras, Aeschylus, Xenophon, Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, and Leo Strauss.

A New Politics for Philosophy: Perspectives on Plato, Nietzsche, and Strauss presents meticulous readings of key philosophical works of towering figures from both the classical and modern intellectual traditions: Protagoras, Aeschylus, Xenophon, Plato, Nietzsche, and Leo Strauss. Inspired by the scholarship of Laurence Lampert, this international group of scholars explores questions of the nature or identity of the philosopher. The chapters touch on topics ranging from Plato’s Charmides, Aeschylus’ Prometheia Trilogy, Xenophon’s Hiero or Tyrannicus, Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Ecce Homo, Nietzsche’s Plato, whether Nietzsche thought of himself as a modern-day Socrates, philosophy’s relationship to science, the function of the noontide image in the center of Part IV of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, a re-evaluation of the young Nietzsche’s break from the spell of Schopenhauer, the dramatic date of the conversation presented in Plato’s Republic, Leo Strauss’s account of the modern break with classical political philosophy, and Nietzschean environmentalism. The book also includes an interview with Laurence Lampert.

Introduction

George A. Dunn and Mango Telli

Interview with Laurence Lampert

Conducted by Daniel Blue

Part I: The Classical Background: Plato, Protagoras, Xenophon

Chapter 1: How to Read Plato with Nietzsche’s Insights

Liu Xiaofeng

Chapter 2: On the Opening of Plato’s Charmides

Peng Lei

Chapter 3: Socrates, Bendis, and Cephalus: Does Plato’s Republic Have an Historical Setting?

Christopher Planeaux

Chapter 4: Recovering the Wisdom of Protagoras: A Reinterpretation of the Prometheia Trilogy

Marty Sulek

Chapter 5: Heartache and Heiterkeit in Xenophon’s Hiero

Mango Telli

Part II: Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosopher of Our Age

Chapter 6: Zarathustra’s Crisis of Redemption

Heinrich Meier

Chapter 7: Nietzsche’s Apology: On Reading Ecce Homo, or, How One Becomes What One Is

Leon Harold Craig

Chapter 8: Lange’s Consolation Prize: Nietzsche’s First Criticisms of Schopenhauer

Daniel Blue

Chapter 9: High Noon on Zarathustra’s Mountain: Zarathustra’s Midday Vision

Paul Bishop

Chapter 10: Renatured Humans on a Sacred Earth: The Power of Nietzsche’s Ecological Thinking

Graham Parkes

Part III: Strauss, Modernity, and Theological-Political Engagements

Chapter 11: From the Death of God to the Death of Man: What Lampert and Nietzsche Can Teach Catholics—and Straussians—about Environmentalism

Peter Minowitz

Chapter 12: The Collapsing Ladder of Degree: René Girard and Leo Strauss on the Origins of Modernity

George A. Dunn