Catherine H. Zuckert's Books

Plato's Philosophers

The Coherence of the Dialogues

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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Plato's Philosophers

The Coherence of the Dialogues

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

Faced with the difficult task of discerning Plato’s true ideas from the contradictory voices he used to express them, scholars have never fully made sense of the many incompatibilities within and between the dialogues. In the magisterial Plato’s Philosophers, Catherine Zuckert explains for the first time how these prose dramas cohere to reveal a comprehensive Platonic understanding of philosophy. To expose this coherence, Zuckert examines the dialogues not in their supposed order of composition but according to the dramatic order in which Plato indicates they took place. This unconventional arrangement lays bare a narrative of the rise, development, and limitations of Socratic philosophy. In the drama’s earliest dialogues, for example, non-Socratic philosophers introduce the political and philosophical problems to which Socrates tries to respond. A second dramatic group shows how Socrates develops his distinctive philosophical style. And, finally, the later dialogues feature interlocutors who reveal his philosophy’s limitations. Despite these limitations, Zuckert concludes, Plato made Socrates the dialogues’ central figure because Socrates raises the fundamental human question: what is the best way to live? Plato’s dramatization of Socratic imperfections suggests, moreover, that he recognized the apparently unbridgeable gap between our understandings of human life and the nonhuman world. At a time when this gap continues to raise questions—about the division between sciences and the humanities and the potentially dehumanizing effects of scientific progress—Zuckert’s brilliant interpretation of the entire Platonic corpus offers genuinely new insights into worlds past and present.

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898

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226993388

ISBN 13

9780226993386

Natural Right and the American Imagination

Political Philosophy in Novel Form

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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Natural Right and the American Imagination

Political Philosophy in Novel Form

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

Discusses ways in which works by James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner explore the central issue of political philosophy.

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294

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

084767696X

ISBN 13

9780847676965

The Truth about Leo Strauss

Political Philosophy and American Democracy

By: Catherine H. Zuckert,Michael P. Zuckert

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The Truth about Leo Strauss

Political Philosophy and American Democracy

By: Catherine H. Zuckert,Michael P. Zuckert

Is Leo Strauss truly an intellectual forebear of neoconservatism and a powerful force in shaping Bush administration foreign policy? The Truth about Leo Strauss puts this question to rest, revealing for the first time how the popular media came to perpetuate such an oversimplified view of such a complex and wide-ranging philosopher. More important, it corrects our perception of Strauss, providing the best general introduction available to the political thought of this misunderstood figure. Catherine and Michael Zuckert—both former students of Strauss—guide readers here to a nuanced understanding of how Strauss’s political thought fits into his broader philosophy. Challenging the ideas that Strauss was an inflexible conservative who followed in the footsteps of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt, the Zuckerts contend that Strauss’s signature idea was the need for a return to the ancients. This idea, they show, stemmed from Strauss’s belief that modern thought, with its relativism and nihilism, undermines healthy politics and even the possibility of real philosophy. Identifying this view as one of Strauss’s three core propositions—America is modern, modernity is bad, and America is good—they conclude that Strauss was a sober defender of liberal democracy, aware of both its strengths and its weaknesses. The Zuckerts finish, appropriately, by examining the varied work of Strauss’s numerous students and followers, revealing the origins—rooted in the tensions within his own thought—oftheir split into opposing camps. Balanced and accessible, The Truth about Leo Strauss is a must-read for anyone who wants to more fully comprehend this enigmatic philosopher and his much-disputed legacy.

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Page Count

318

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226993337

ISBN 13

9780226993331

Machiavelli's Politics

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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Machiavelli's Politics

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

Machiavelli is popularly known as a teacher of tyrants, a key proponent of the unscrupulous “Machiavellian” politics laid down in his landmark political treatise The Prince. Others cite the Discourses on Livy to argue that Machiavelli is actually a passionate advocate of republican politics who saw the need for occasional harsh measures to maintain political order. Which best characterizes the teachings of the prolific Italian philosopher? With Machiavelli’s Politics, Catherine H. Zuckert turns this question on its head with a major reinterpretation of Machiavelli’s prose works that reveals a surprisingly cohesive view of politics. Starting with Machiavelli’s two major political works, Zuckert persuasively shows that the moral revolution Machiavelli sets out in The Prince lays the foundation for the new form of democratic republic he proposes in the Discourses. Distrusting ambitious politicians to serve the public interest of their own accord, Machiavelli sought to persuade them in The Prince that the best way to achieve their own ambitions was to secure the desires and ambitions of their subjects and fellow citizens. In the Discourses, he then describes the types of laws and institutions that would balance the conflict between the two in a way that would secure the liberty of most, if not all. In the second half of her book, Zuckert places selected later works—La Mandragola, The Art of War, The Life of Castruccio Castracani, Clizia, and Florentine Histories—under scrutiny, showing how Machiavelli further developed certain aspects of his thought in these works. In The Art of War, for example, he explains more concretely how and to what extent the principles of organization he advanced in The Prince and the Discourses ought to be applied in modern circumstances. Because human beings act primarily on passions, Machiavelli attempts to show readers what those passions are and how they can be guided to have productive rather than destructive results. A stunning and ambitious analysis, Machiavelli’s Politics brilliantly shows how many conflicting perspectives do inform Machiavelli’s teachings, but that one needs to consider all of his works in order to understand how they cohere into a unified political view. This is a magisterial work that cannot be ignored if a comprehensive understanding of the philosopher is to be obtained.

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511

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University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022643480X

ISBN 13

9780226434803

Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy

By: Michael P. Zuckert,Catherine H. Zuckert

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Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy

By: Michael P. Zuckert,Catherine H. Zuckert

This critical study of the influential political theorist dispels popular myths and reveals the inner logic of his varied and notoriously complex writings. Political theorist Leo Strauss was unexpectedly thrust into the media spotlight for his alleged influence on neoconservative politics. With The Truth about Leo Strauss, Michael and Catherine Zuckert challenged the many claims and speculations about this complex thinker. Now, with Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy, they offer a more comprehensive interpretation of Strauss’s thought, using the many manifestations of the “problem of political philosophy” as their touchstone. Strauss, they argue, sought to restore political philosophy to its original Socratic form. This is demonstrated through his critique of positivism and historicism, two intellectual currents that undermined his Socratic project. The authors also explore Strauss’s interpretation of both ancient and modern political philosophers, including Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Locke. Finally, they examine Strauss’s thought in the context of the twentieth century, when his chief interlocutors were Schmitt, Husserl, Heidegger, and Nietzsche. Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy is the most in-depth treatment of this often misunderstood thinker, examining his ideas across his long career. It reveals Strauss’s overall intellectual project: to decode how ancient and modern theory attempted to solve the problem of political philosophy. And it shows why Strauss considered the ancient solution both philosophically and politically superior.

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Page Count

400

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022613587X

ISBN 13

9780226135878

Postmodern Platos

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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Postmodern Platos

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

Catherine Zuckert examines the work of five key philosophical figures from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through the lens of their own decidedly postmodern readings of Plato. She argues that Nietzsche, Heidegger, Gadamer, Strauss, and Derrida, convinced that modern rationalism had exhausted its possibilities, all turned to Plato in order to rediscover the original character of philosophy and to reconceive the Western tradition as a whole. Zuckert's artful juxtaposition of these seemingly disparate bodies of thought furnishes a synoptic view, not merely of these individual thinkers, but of the broad postmodern landscape as well. The result is a brilliantly conceived work that offers an innovative perspective on the relation between the Western philosophical tradition and the evolving postmodern enterprise.

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366

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226993310

ISBN 13

9780226993317

Postmodern Platos

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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Postmodern Platos

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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366

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University of Chicago Press

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ISBN 10

0226993310

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9780226993317

Plato's Philosophers

The Coherence of the Dialogues

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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Plato's Philosophers

The Coherence of the Dialogues

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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Page Count

898

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University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226993388

ISBN 13

9780226993386

Machiavelli's Politics

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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Machiavelli's Politics

By: Catherine H. Zuckert

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511

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University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

022643480X

ISBN 13

9780226434803

Catherine's Journal

By: Catherine Schramm

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Catherine's Journal

By: Catherine Schramm

Like the Cats of Kilkenny recounts the Civil War experiences of the Morgan and Brown families from the perspectives of various family members. Their many adventures and misadventures take place on an amazingly broad stage and include brushes with notable figures like the noble Robert E. Lee and the notorious "Bloody Bill" Anderson. What makes their stories most intriguing, though, is that they are all true.

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Page Count

144

Published Date

ISBN 10

142599279X

ISBN 13

9781425992798

Book's by Catherine H. Zuckert

Plato's Philosophers

Plato's Philosophers

Natural Right and the American Imagination

Natural Right and the American Imagination

The Truth about Leo Strauss

The Truth about Leo Strauss

Machiavelli's Politics

Machiavelli's Politics

Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy

Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy

Postmodern Platos

Postmodern Platos

Postmodern Platos

Postmodern Platos

Plato's Philosophers

Plato's Philosophers

Machiavelli's Politics

Machiavelli's Politics

Catherine's Journal

Catherine's Journal

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