Surfing the web, and found you guys. Are you for real?
I think you need to learn to read. I thought Leiter's criticism was that Strauss is a lousy scholar, which explains why no one takes him seriously outside the "coterie." Burnyeat makes that case, and Leiter invoked him and quoted him. Either rebut Burnyeat or be quiet.
Now you can go back to your navel gazing.
Invoking Miles Burnyeat falls short of transcendental deduction, no? Leiter, for whose Gourmet report I have much respect, is blustering. (and yes, I have read Burnyeat, and no, he does not provide a conclusive dismissal of Strauss)
I don't know, Manny, if you're criticizing Unf's point that Leiter's contention is that "the Straussians are not serious political philosophers because they are not considered as such by philosophers," or my later post about Leiter's dismissiveness.
That said, I agree that Leiter's criticism is that Strauss is a lousy scholar and he certainly invokes Burnyeat, but Leiter doesn't make or quote any arguments (BAA is exactly right on this). My reaction to Leiter is based not on my sympathy for Strauss, but on seeing a philosopher as influential as Leiter utterly abandon philosophical discourse in favor of characterizing disagreement with him as "pathology."
My thought was simply that in judging how competent/influential a political philosopher is, something other than his or her reputation amongst academic philosophers might matter. For example, how much a philospher's ideas are accepted in government might be a good way to judge how accurate/good a philosopher's description of government is. After all, how persuasive would that New York Times article have been if it had read something like, "Straussians and their ideas dominate our current foreign policy establishment; on the other hand, according to some guy with a funny last name, Strauss is widely known to have misintepreted key parts of Plato's works."?
Again, I have no position on Leo Strauss's philosophy or anyone's criticism of him. He was a U of C man, so he must not be all bad, of course. That being said, as a non-philosopher but someone with a decent general education, I don't find arguments of the, "he's not really one of the cool kids" variety very compelling.
Enough - my navel grow anxious from lack of attention.
Who do you guys think is the most influential political philosopher?
The most important?
The most interesting?
(I'm hoping I've read one of them.)