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From Lessing to Plato: Leo Strauss’s Return to Ancient Political Philosophy

Political Philosophy and its History: Leo Strauss and Beyond - KU Leuven -
Institute of Philosophy

Conference Paper · December 2017

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Eleonora Travanti
Philipps University of Marburg
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 6-7 December 2017.
Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven (University of Leuven), Belgium
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND ITS HISTORY: LEO STRAUSS AND BEYOND
Call for Papers.

Eleonora Travanti
PhD Student • Philipps-Universität Marburg
e.travanti@gmail.com

PAPER PROPOSAL
Abstract
From Lessing to Plato: Leo Strauss’s Return to Ancient Political Philosophy.
In recent years, many studies were devoted to finding the primary source of Leo Strauss’s return
to classical political philosophy. Most of his scholars have tried to trace it back to medieval Jewish
or Islamic philosophers. Yet, there is another almost overlooked but essential author, which guided
Strauss to read again and understand ancient and modern political philosophers: that is the German
thinker Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.
According to Strauss, Lessing “was the last writer who revealed, while hiding them, the reasons
compelling wise men to hide the truth: he wrote between the lines about the art of writing between
the lines”. In his posthumously published essay Exoteric Teaching, Strauss refers to two little
treatises, or vindications, in which Lessing explained Leibniz’s theology and stated that all ancient
philosophers distinguished between exoteric and esoteric speech. He also discussed Lessing’s
Dialogues for free-masons, asserting the necessity of concealing certain social and political truths
and recognising the meaningful connection between Ernst und Falk and Plato’s dialogues, such as
the Republic and his concept of “noble lie”.
Moreover, in his private correspondence, in some of his public lectures, and in the published A
Giving of Accounts, Strauss explicitly acknowledged what he owed to Lessing. In my paper, I will
show how Lessing’s writings have guided Strauss to rediscover the theological-political predicament,
to understand the exoteric and esoteric writing of the greatest philosophers of all time, and to return
to ancient political philosophy.

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