Political Philosophy Cross-Examined ― Perennial Challenges to the Philosophic Life

Political societies frequently regard philosophers as potential threats to morality and religion and even subject these thinkers to the gravest inquisitions and indictments. Socrates was executed for disbelieving in the gods of Athens, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was charged with capital crimes for his anti-Christian teachings, Galileo Galilei was found "vehemently suspect" of heresy, compelled to recant, and sentenced to incarceration for life. The contributors to Political Philosophy Cross-Examined aspire to reopen the case for the philosophic way of life while fully appreciating the harsh attacks advanced by its most fervent detractors. In an age where extremist movements, existentialism, and postmodernist thought challenge the authority of reason, the book is a seminal contribution to current literature on philosophy, politics, history, classics, and religion alike. Political Philosophy Cross-Examined is a festchrift in honor of Professor Heinrich Meier of the Siemens Foundation, the University of Chicago, and the University of Munich.

Thomas L. Pangle holds the Joe R. Long Chair in Democratic Studies in the Department of Government at the University of Texas, and is the Co-Director of The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas. He has won Guggenheim and four National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships. He is a lifetime Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of Montesquieu's Philosophy of Liberalisms (1973); The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of Locke (1988); The Learning of Liberty: The Educational Ideas of the American Founders, co-authored with wife Lorraine (1993); Justice Among Nations: On the Moral Basis of Power and Peace, co-authored with Peter J. Ahrensdorf (1999); and The Theological Basis of Liberal Modernity in Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws (2010).

J. Harvey Lomax is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Memphis. From 1998 to 2000 he was Visiting Research Professor in Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He is the author of The Paradox of Philosophic Education and the translator of Karl Loewith's Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same and of Heinrich Meier's Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss. The Hidden Dialogue.