Politics, Nature, and Piety: On the Natural Basis of Political Life

by Laurence Berns, Alex Priou (Introduction)

Overview

"The writings in this volume are the fruit of a lifetime devoted to the study of ‘ancients’ and ‘moderns,’ both poetic and philosophic. Full of insights into foundational texts ranging from Aristotle’s Poetics to the Declaration of Independence, they are marked by an admirable clarity of thought and expression and a persistent effort to engage the reader as a fellow thinker. I rejoice that the writings of Laurence Berns are now available in a single volume.”—Peter Kalkavage, Tutor, St. John’s College and author of The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit

The essays in Politics, Nature, and Piety take up the central question of political philosophy: What is the good life, and what place do nature, politics, and piety have in that life? “The unity of the essays,” Alex Priou writes in his introduction, “lies in the various tensions explored: between ancients and moderns, religion and philosophy, magnanimity and prudence, justice and friendship, and, most fundamentally, spiritedness and the intellect.” Laurence Berns proves an excellent guide for beginning one’s study of the great books of political philosophy, from Plato to the present. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781589881693
Publisher:	Dry, Paul Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/15/2022
Pages:	359
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Laurence Berns (1928 - 2011) taught at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland from 1960 to 1999. He earned his Ph.D. from the Universityof Chicago where he studied with Leo Strauss. 

Alex Priou is the author of Becoming Socrates: Political Philosophy in Plato’s Parmenides and Defending Socrates: Political Philosophy Before the Tribunal of Science (forthcoming). He teaches at the Universityof Colorado, Boulder.

Table of Contents

Foreword Gisela Berns vii

Introduction Alex Priou ix

Acknowledgments xix

1 The Natural Basis of Political Life: Nature and Convention in Human Speech and Politics 3

2 Tragedy and Religion in Aristotle's Poetics 18

3 Gratitude, Nature, and Piety in King Lear 38

4 Francis Bacon and the Conquest of Nature 68

5 Thomas Hobbes: A Founding Father of Modern Social Science 96

6 Putting Things Back Together Again in Kant 128

7 Radical Historicism and the Attempt to Transcend Philosophy: Some Reflections on Strauss, Heidegger, and Husserl 152

8 The Relation Between Philosophy and Religion: Three Fundamental Alternatives 167

9 Spiritedness in Ethics and Politics: A Study in Aristotelian Psychology 191

10 Aristotle and the Moderns on Freedom and Equality 208

11 Aristotle and Adam Smith on justice: Cooperation Between Ancients and Moderns? 227

12 Classical Prudence and the Declaration's Right to Revolution: Two Old Conservatives Discuss the Anastaplo Case (A Dialogue) 249

13 Xenophon's Alcibiades and Pericles on the Question of Law, with Applications to the Polity of the United States 258

14 Madmen and Philosophers: A Note on Xenophon's Memorabilia 1.1.13 and 14 273

Appendix: Plato's Meno and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics 279

Notes 305

Bibliography 349

Editorial Reviews

Laurence Berns was a generous colleague and a dear friend. I sang with him in barbershop groups at the college and loved hearing his rich baritone. The warmth of his voice was emblematic of the man. A devoted student of human nature, especially in its political aspect, he was eminently humane. He knew as much about textual irony as any student of Leo Strauss but was not blinded by it. His mode was direct personal engagement with what his beloved authors had to teach him about the objects of their concern. These are aptly summarized as politics, nature, and piety. The writings in this volume are the fruit of a lifetime devoted to the study of ‘ancients’ and ‘moderns,’ both poetic and philosophic. Full of insights into foundational texts ranging from Aristotle’s Poetics to the Declaration of Independence, they are marked by an admirable clarity of thought and expression and a persistent effort to engage the reader as a fellow thinker. I rejoice that the writings of Laurence Berns are now available in a single volume. Readers will profit not only from the individual chapters but also from their thematic intersections and resonances.”—Peter Kalkavage, Tutor, St. John’s College and author of The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit

From the Publisher