Leo Strauss and the East–West dialogue

Abstract

This chapter explores the different ways the thoughts of Leo Strauss can make a significant contribution to the philosophical dialogue between East and West. For students of Eastern philosophy, Strauss provides an important avenue for understanding the nature of modernity and what Strauss diagnoses as the crisis of modernity. For those familiar with the Western tradition, Strauss’s insights into hermeneutics, natural rights, and piety provide valuable means for engaging Eastern thought, yielding potentially new insights into both traditions and providing the basis or the means to understand what is specific or unique to each approach.