Philosophy has to grant that revelation is possible. But to grant that revelation is possible means to grant that philosophy is perhaps something inf… - Leo Strauss

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Philosophy has to grant that revelation is possible. But to grant that revelation is possible means to grant that philosophy is perhaps something infinitely unimportant. To grant that revelation is possible means to grant that the philosophic life is not necessarily, not evidently, the right life. Philosophy, the life devoted to the quest for evident knowledge available to man as man, would itself rest on an unevident, arbitrary, or blind decision. This would merely confirm the thesis of faith, that there is no possibility of consistency, of a consistent and thoroughly sincere life, without belief in revelation. The mere fact that philosophy and revelation cannot refute each other would constitute the refutation of philosophy by revelation.

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About Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss (September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-born American philosopher who specialized in the study of classical political philosophy.

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Additional quotes by Leo Strauss

Dogmatism as Nietzsche means it implies that one possesses the truth, or at least the most important or the most valuable truth. Yet the truth is elusive like that woman of whom he spoke at the very beginning. Elsewhere he says we are the first generation which no longer believes that it possesses the truth. That is what he means by the end of dogmatism.

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Spinoza was I think a cool, not to say cold, man. His posture toward revealed religion — in particular, Judaism — was simple contempt for the confused ideas underlying revealed religion [which he regarded as] nonsense. His posture I believe is [more] that of the cocksure unbelieving scientist than that of any man of an inner tragedy.

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