Da Spinoza a Socrate: il percorso di Leo Strauss e Hannah Arendt a ritroso nella tradizione filosofica

From Spinoza to Socrates: the path of Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt backwards in the philosophical tradition · Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt were two German-Jewish philosophers who, though being very different in their personalities, reflected in a very similar, yet different ways, on the modern philosophical tradition and its relationship to the premodern philosophical tradition. They both proposed to return to the ancients in order to learn how to overcome the problems of contemporary philosophy and to contribute to a renaissance of the forgotten po- litical philosophy. Starting from this point of view the article focuses, in particular, on the ways which led the two philosophers from the analysis of modern philosophy (especially Spinoza) to the rediscovery of Socratic philosophy. It claims that what remains problematic in Strauss’s account of the relationship between philosophy and politics has been overcome by Hannah Arendt in a way which highlights the importance of socratic philosophy for understanding the very nature of this relationship