Thomas L Pangle

What is Machiavelli's answer to the question, what is the best way of life for an individual? —Above all, for an individual such as himself? What does virtù—excellence—mean in the life of Machiavelli himself, as a thinker? What becomes of intellectual or theoretical virtue, as the Socratics (esp. Xenophon) conceived that virtue; what becomes of philosophy as a distinct, trans-political way of life, as the best life?

This book consists of literal English translations of ten Socratic dialogues that have been largely neglected for the last century. Although everyone of these dialogues belongs to the classical canon of Platonic writings and was accepted as genuine in antiquity, most were condemned as forgeries in the early nineteenth century―and have remained under a shadow ever since. In his long introductory essay, Thomas L. Pangle offers a spirited criticism of arguments that have been adduced to support the view that some of the dialogues are counterfeit and shows in scrupulous detail why he believes in their authenticity.
Each dialogue is accompanied by an interpretive essay that demonstrates how a close reading of the dialogue sheds revealing light on the Platonic understanding of political theory, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophic way of life as exemplified by Socrates. The essays include previously published pieces, some of classic stature, as well as studies written especially for this volume.
Opening an entirely new dimension of Platonic studies, The Roots of Political Philosophy addresses, in a fresh or unfamiliar perspective, major themes and puzzles such as: the nature of law, of property, and of acquisitiveness; the meaning of Socrates' famous "demonic voice"; what is at stake in the poetic claim to inspiration; and the psychology of the tyrannic as opposed to the statesmanlike or political personality.
Political scientists, philosophers, classicists, and students who are familiar with the textual approach associated with Leo Strauss will welcome this book, as will other readers with an interest in ancient Greek philosophy and political thought.
Contributors and translators: Allan Bloom, Christopher Bruell, Steven Forde, James Leake, Carnes Lord, James H. Nichols, Clifford Orwin, Thomas L. Pangle, Leo Strauss, and David Sweet.

This chapter clarifies the philosophic dimension of Montesquieu’s essay on Rome, which comes to sight when, in chapter 18, Montesquieu makes explicit that he is presenting here a preeminent case study vindicating the contention that “it is not Fortune that dominates the World”; there are “general causes, some moral, some physical, which operate,” and “all the accidents are subject to these causes.” This foreshadows the claim with which Montesquieu opens his Spirit of the Laws : “I have posed the principles, and I have seen the particular cases unfold therefrom as if by themselves; the histories of all the nations are nothing but the consequences.” These statements signal the emergence of the modern philosophy of history, as a major component of Enlightenment rationalism’s most ambitious project and hope: to show that human reason can provide a system of universal causal explanation that will leave no room for plausible evidence of governance by supra- and contra-rational providential and legislative divinity. This project, especially as regards history, is profoundly opposed not only to revealed religion but to ancient political rationalism, as expressed in classic formulations in Plato’s Laws (709a-c) and Plutarch’s essay “On the Fortune of the Romans.”

Commentary on Hegel’s political philosophy has largely circumvented his philosophy of nature—which Hegel himself placed at the heart of his philosophic opus. The Nature-Philosophy (Die Naturphilosophie) is literally the central (and longest) of the three parts of Hegel’s most complete published expression of his philosophy as a whole—the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. I wish to suggest that greater attention to Hegel’s philosophy of nature, especially in its complementarity and contrast with the philosophy of nature elaborated by Hegel’s great teacher, Aristotle, will shed crucially needed light on Hegel’s understanding of human nature and humanity’s place in nature, not least as a political animal. Above all, I submit, such a comparative study is essential to our better understanding of Hegel’s—as well as Aristotle’s—conception of human individuality, of the individuality of the statesman and citizen, and of the supreme form of individuality in the consciousness which constitutes the highest norm for humanity’s civic existence. It is my impression that too much of the discussion of Hegel’s political philosophy has tended to eclipse the fact that for Hegel, even more than for Aristotle, the highest purpose of civic existence is the cultivation of the life of individual philosophers dedicated to study of the whole of being.
Given what I show to be Hegel’s contention—that the highest purpose of civic life is the generation, education, and fostering of the lives of the few who dedicate themselves to the study of cosmic nature, and who thus alone are the truly free, because maximally liberated from personal passion and self-interest—a major question becomes: to what extent does Hegel’s failure to establish the rational necessity of cosmic nature expose him to penetrating theological critique such as Ibn Khaldun addresses to the Aristotelian science of nature?

The first section of the last work whose publication Nietzsche himself supervised is often referenced, and a few of its individual items quoted and interpreted; but its overall intended plan, and thus its unfolding teaching, have not received adequate exegesis. I show that the ordered sequence which comes to light from such an exegesis provides a vividly illuminating foretaste of some of the most important dimensions of Nietzsche’s “transvaluation of all values,” viewed here from the more contemplatively playful, “philosophic,” perspective that Nietzsche assumed as he took a kind of holiday from the “serious” grandiosity of his Antichrist and Ecce Homo.
An online seminar discussion of this piece is available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hDHzceI4LY

Socrates’s founding of economic science has been largely unnoted, and the crucial
texts (of Xenophon) have not been studied with the needed interpretative care and skill—even
though the Socratic conception of what it means to conduct a proper science of economics
confronts our contemporary conceptions of economic science with grave theoretical challenges.
Here is presented an exegesis of the short text in which the challenges come vividly
to sight. I aim to introduce both the substantive Socratic teaching of Xenophon and—by
example—the proper methodology for interpreting his texts in order to elucidate the teaching
intended by their author.

The post-Cold War era has provoked a revival of various implicit as well as explicit returns to Stoic cosmopolitan theory as a possible source of a normative conceptual framework for international relations and global community. This article confronts this revival of interest in Stoicism with an analysis of Cicero's constructive critique of original Stoic conceptions of the world community. Particular attention is paid to the arguments by which Cicero identifies major flaws in the Stoic outlook and establishes the validity of his alternative notion of the "law of nations." It is argued that Cicero's transformation of Stoicism issues in a more modest but more solid, as well as more civic-spirited, cosmopolitan theory.

Points out the most striking guideposts embedded in DON QUIXOTE indicating how Cervantes means his novel to constitute a powerful contribution to the Renaissance project of loosening the hold of orthodox religious authority—primarily Christian, but also Muslim—on the hearts and minds of civilized peoples.

This interpretative commentary recovers the largely overlooked significance of a work that illuminates, by portraying in a subtle comic drama, the new perspective on existence, the new way of life, that Socrates introduced in and through his founding of political philosophy. The famous “problem of Socrates” as a turning point of world history (Nietzsche) remains a cynosure of controversy and puzzlement. How did Socrates understand the character of, and the relation between, civic virtue and his own philosophic virtue? What is the meaning of Socratic “eros?” What kind of educative influence did Socrates intend to have, on and through his varied followers and associates? And what diverse effects did he actually have? Xenophon’s Symposium, viewed in the context of his other writings, affords a playful, but thereby deeply revealing, perspective—from the viewpoint of a slightly skeptical intimate.

Despite renewed interest in the development of Heisenberg’s scientific work, and in his complex relation to the dramatic unfolding of German cultural history, there has yet to be executed a sustained and philosophically critical interpretative commentary on the book that is his crucial philosophical-ontological legacy: Physics and Philosophy.  Given the ontological puzzles that continue to attend quantum physics and its implications for humanity’s past as well as present and future conception of reality, such a critical exegesis of this text is overdue. This article tries to extricate the central nerve of Heisenberg's sinuously unfolding, dialectical exposition, and in the process to elucidate its strengths but also its deep ambiguities and perplexities—which express fundamental dilemmas that pervade contemporary ontology.

Recent scholars (e.g., Bodéüs 1993; Mara 2000; Smith 2001; Tessitore 1996) have fruitfully proposed that we must strive to understand Aristotle’s distinctive didactic strategy as a writer. By attending more to the interrelationship between the Ethics and the Politics, and to the contrast with modern liberal theorizing on the issue of educative strategy, I show how Aristotle’s rhetorical strategy is at once a reaction to, and thereby a revelation of, his most profound reflections on the fraught relation between theorizing and its political context. The upshot is threefold: a new, more satisfactory comprehension of Aristotle’s manifold educational aims in writing for his diverse intended audience; a deeper insight into Aristotle’s conception of the relation between theory and practice (including publication)—in profound contrast to our Enlightenment liberal conception; and a new guide for how Aristotle’s political treatises ought to be studied and appreciated.

In this book noted scholar Thomas L. Pangle brings back a lost and crucial dimension of political theory: the mutually illuminating encounter between skeptically rationalist political philosophy and faith-based political theology guided ultimately by the authority of the Bible. Focusing on the chapters of Genesis in which the foundation of the Bible is laid, Pangle provides an interpretive reading illuminated by the questions and concerns of the Socratic tradition and its medieval heirs in the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic worlds. He brings into contrast the rival interpretive framework set by the biblical criticism of the modern rationalists Hobbes and Spinoza, along with their heirs from Locke to Hegel. The full meaning of these diverse philosophic responses to the Bible is clarified through a dialogue with hermeneutic discussions by leading political theologians in the Judaic, Muslim, and Christian traditions, from Josephus and Augustine to our day. Profound and subtle in its argument, this book will be of interest not only to students and scholars of politics, philosophy, and religion but also to thoughtful readers in every walk of life who seek to deepen their understanding of the perplexing relationship between religious faith and philosophic reason.

https://www.amazon.com/Political-Philosophy-Abraham-Thomas-Pangle-ebook/dp/B001QXDXH2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=A7Q923UWZ0IN&keywords=political+philosophy+and+the+god+of+abraham&qid=1685055168&sprefix=Political+Philosophy+and+the+God+of+Abraham%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-1

Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in and interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Its authority and stature are routinely invoked by voices from every point on the political spectrum, with frequent references to the Founding Fathers and their true "intent." What really was their true intent?

As these 12 surprising lectures show, many of those Founding Fathers - including Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry - were highly critical of the new Constitution and staunchly opposed it when it was first put forth for ratification by the states as a replacement for the Articles of Confederation.

The debate over the Constitution raged for the better part of two years, and beneath its rhetorical flourishes lay not only the longest and most profound civic argument in our nation's history, but also a civics lesson that deserves to endure for all time. It was an argument that would result not only in the ratification of the Constitution, but also in what that Constitution would become.

Professor Pangle takes you into this debate. You'll see which Founders opposed the new Constitution, which Founders led the battle for it, and how both sides helped define the result. In an era when contemporary arguments on the national stage so often mirror the same conflicts debated by the Founders, our own reenactment of that original debate can enrich our ability to be active and participating citizens.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Debate-Advocates-Opponents-Constitution/dp/B00DTNY0G0/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2AJG78DVYT3L4&keywords=Pangle+the+great+debate&qid=1685049673&s=books&sprefix=pangle+the+great+debate%2Cstripbooks%2C105&sr=1-2

Discusses the moral and political philosophy of John Locke, describes his influence on America's founding fathers, and examines their new vision of civic virtue and intellectual life.

https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Modern-Republicanism-American-Philosophy/dp/0226645401/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2HV0Z2G05PT4A&keywords=Thomas+Pangle+Spirit+of+Modern&qid=1685034464&sprefix=thomas+pangle+spirit+of+modern%2Caps%2C110&sr=8-1

Leo Strauss's controversial writings have long exercised a profound subterranean cultural influence. Now their impact is emerging into broad daylight, where they have been met with a flurry of poorly informed, often wildly speculative, and sometimes rather paranoid pronouncements.
This book, written as a corrective, is the first accurate, non-polemical, comprehensive guide to Strauss's mature political philosophy and its intellectual influence. Thomas L. Pangle opens a pathway into Strauss's major works with one question: How does Strauss's philosophic thinking contribute to our democracy's civic renewal and to our culture's deepening, critical self-understanding?
This book includes a synoptic critical survey of writings from scholars who have extended Strauss's influence into the more practical, sub-philosophic fields of social and political science and commentary. Pangle shows how these analysts have in effect imported Straussian impulses into a "new" kind of political and social science.

https://www.amazon.com/Leo-Strauss-Introduction-Intellectual-Constitutional/dp/0801884403/ref=sr_1_12?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-12

This first comprehensive commentary on The Spirit of the Laws uncovers and explicates the plan of Montesquieu's famous but baffling treatise. Pangle brings to light Montesquieu's rethinking of the philosophical groundwork of liberalism, showing how The Spirit of the Laws enlarges and enriches the liberal conception of natural right by means of a new appeal to History as the source of basic norms.

https://www.amazon.com/Montesquieus-Philosophy-Liberalism-Commentary-Spirit/dp/0226645452/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1685037463&sr=1-15

In these three raucous comedies, mortals outwit and even replace Zeus and other Olympian deities of the Greek Pantheon. As Aristophanes provokes laughter at the foibles of gods and men, he arouses wonder at our human need for the divine.
“The three comic heroes in the plays included here raise the questions of whether there are gods, who they might be, how powerful they are, and how they might be changed or eliminated. Although the precise form of such questions changes from age to age, these are questions that are inseparable from political life; and they certainly are powerfully present in our own day…great theorists and architects of the modern liberal state designed its contours partly with an eye on the goal of diminishing the role of religion in the public square. Not unlike our three comic heroes, they wanted to reduce dependence on “Zeus” and his priests. In his place, and like our three heroes, they sought peace, wealth, and human rulers liberated from exaggerated piety. And nowadays the so-called New Atheists are pressing the case that it is high time for a final defeat and elimination of the powers of darkness that, in their view, have cost us so much blood and treasure…Aristophanes was not a modern liberal; still less would he agree with the New Atheists’ advocacy of universal public atheism. He does, however, put dissatisfaction with the gods at the center of the three plays included here, does bestow victories on the human critics of those gods, and does invite us to think with him about the justice of their causes, the tactics behind their victories, and the limits of their successes.”—From the Introduction

https://www.amazon.com/Birds-Peace-Wealth-Aristophanes-Critique/dp/1589880781/ref=sr_1_8?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-8

American schools are in a state of crisis.

At the root of our current perplexity, beneath the difficulties with funding, social problems, and low test scores, festers a serious uncertainty as to what the focus and goals of education should be. We are increasingly haunted by the suspicion that our educational theories and institutions have lost sight of the need to perpetuate a core of moral and civic knowledge that is essential for any citizen's education, and indeed for any individual's happiness. Mining the Founders' rich reflections on education, the Pangles suggest, can help us recover a clearer sense of perspective and purpose.

With a commanding knowledge of the history of political philosophy, the authors illustrate how the Founders both drew upon and transformed the ideas of earlier philosophers of education such as Plato, Xenophon, Milton, Bacon, and Locke. They trace the emergence of a new American ideal of public education that puts civic instruction at its core to sustain a high quality of leadership and public discourse while producing resourceful, self-reliant members of a uniquely fluid society.

The Pangles also explore the wisdom and the weaknesses inherent in Jefferson's attempt to create a comprehensive system of schooling that would educate parents and children and offer unprecedented freedom of choice to university students. An original closing section examines the Founders' ideas for bringing all aspects of society to bear on education. It also shows how Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin presented their own lives as models for the education of others and analyzes the subtle, provocative moral philosophy implicit in the self-depiction of each.

The Learning of Liberty is historical and scholarly yet relentlessly practical, seeking from the Founders useful insights into the human soul and the character of good education. Even if the Founders do not provide us with ready-made solutions to many of our problems, the Pangles suggest, a study of their writings can give us a more realistic perspective, by teaching that our bewilderment is in some measure an outgrowth of unresolved tensions embedded in the Founders' own conceptions of republicanism, religion, education, and human nature.

"A marvelous work, full of learning and wisdom, certain to interest and enlighten its readers. The authors raise the current discussion of the problems facing American education to a level that towers above the usual topics. They ask what is education for and make a powerful case that in a democratic republic it must focus on civic and moral questions. Their sympathetic and critical account of the ideas and lives of such men as Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin is fascinating in itself and a superb way to illuminate the issues. "—Donald Kagan, author of The Fall of the Athenian Empire and coauthor of The Western Heritage.

https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Liberty-Educational-American-Founders/dp/0700607463/ref=sr_1_16?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-16

This concise and accessible introduction to Strauss's thought provides, for wider audience, a bridge to his more complex theoretical work. Editor Pangle has gathered five of Strauss's previously unpublished lectures and five hard-to-find published writings and has arranged them so as to demonstrate the systematic progression of the major themes that underlay Strauss's mature work.

https://www.amazon.com/renaissance-rationalisme-politique-classique-Conf%C3%A9rences/dp/2070730778/ref=sr_1_39?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-39&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc

The Spirit of the Laws—Montesquieu’s huge, complex, and enormously influential work—is considered one of the central texts of the Enlightenment, laying the foundation for the liberally democratic political regimes that were to embody its values. In his penetrating analysis, Thomas L. Pangle brilliantly argues that the inherently theological project of Enlightenment liberalism is made more clearly—and more consequentially— in Spirit than in any other work.

https://www.amazon.com/Theological-Liberal-Modernity-Montesquieus-Spirit/dp/0226645495/ref=sr_1_14?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-14

In the post-Cold War era, we have lost the clarity that once characterized our vision of international conflict. Foreign affairs are no longer defined solely by the ideological battles fought between capitalism and communism or by the competition between two great nuclear superpowers. That oversimplified view has been replaced by an increasing awareness of the moral and political complexity surrounding international relations.

To help us deal with this new reality, Thomas Pangle and Peter Ahrensdorf provide a critical introduction to the most important conceptions of international justice, spanning 2,500 years of intellectual history from Thucydides and Plato to Morgenthau and Waltz. Their study shows how older traditions of political philosophy remain relevant to current debates in international relations, and how political thinkers through the centuries can help us deepen our understanding of today's stalemate between realism and idealism.

Pangle and Ahrensdorf guide the reader through a sequence of theoretical frameworks for understanding the moral basis of international relations: the cosmopolitan vision of the classical philosophers, the "just war" teachings of medieval theologians, the revolutionary realism of Machiavelli, the Enlightenment idealism of Kant, and the neo-realism of twentieth-century theorists. They clarify the core of each philosopher's conceptions of international relations, examine the appeal of each position, and bring these alternatives into mutually illuminating juxtaposition.

The authors clearly show that appreciating the fundamental questions pursued by these philosophers can help us avoid dogmatism, abstraction, or oversimplification when considering the moral character of international relations. Justice Among Nations restores the study of the great works of political theory to its natural place within the discipline of international relations as it retrieves the question of international justice as a major theme of political philosophy. It provides our moral compass with new points of orientation and invites serious readers to grapple with some of the most perplexing issues of our time.

https://www.amazon.com/Justice-Among-Nations-Moral-Basis/dp/0700612211/ref=sr_1_19?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-19

With the end of the Cold War, says Thomas L. Pangle, liberal democracy was deprived of its traditional enemy, and forced to re-examine its internal structure and fundamental aims. One result has been the moral-relativist "postmodernism" of mainstream Western intellectuals.
Focusing on Lyotard, Vattimo, and Rorty, The Ennobling of Democracy offers a searching critique of postmodernism and its implications for political life and thought. Pangle carefully examines the political dimensions of postmodernist teachings, including the rejection of the natural-rights doctrines of the Enlightenment, the discounting of public purposefulness, and the disenchantment with claims of civic virtue and reason. He argues that a serious challenge has been posed to postmodernism by the emerging democracies of Eastern Europe, which have directly experienced heroic political leadership, maintained a prominent place for religion, and preserved a belief in the virtues and duties of citizenship. They consequently make demands on Western thought that postmodernism has been unable to meet.
Drawing on the classical republican ideal, Pangle opens the door to a bold new synthesis in political philosophy. He argues that by reappropriating classical civic rationalism--and especially classical philosophy of education--a framework may be established to integrate the most significant findings of modern rationalism into a conception of humanity that encompasses, in an unprecedented way, the entire scope of the human condition.

https://www.amazon.com/Ennobling-Democracy-Challenge-Postmodern-Constitutional/dp/080184262X/ref=sr_1_17?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-17

Recovering Reason: Essays in Honor of Thomas L. Pangle is a collection of essays composed by students and friends of Thomas L. Pangle to honor his seminal work and outstanding guidance in the study of political philosophy. The contributors write in awareness that a loss of confidence in reason similar to the one we are witnessing today― when the desirability and possibility of guiding our lives by the enduring, normative truths that reason attempts to discover ―had occurred at the time of Socrates, who realized that the existence of genuine limits to what is knowable by reason opened up the possibility that our world, instead of having the kind of intelligible necessities that science seeks to uncover, could be the work of mysterious, creative gods or god―as devoutly religious citizens claimed it to be. His grasp of this great difficulty led him and his students―ancient and medieval―to attempt to ground the life of reason by means of a pre-philosophic, preliminary investigation of political-moral questions. Modern political philosophers later attempted to ground the life of reason in a considerably different, "enlightening" way. These essays examine both of these attempts to answer the question of the right life for human beings, as those attempts are introduced and elaborated in the work of thinkers from Homer and Thucydides to Nietzsche and Charles Taylor. The volume is divided into five parts. The essays in Part I examine the moral-political problems through which Socrates came to ground the philosophic life as those problems first appeared in earlier, pre-Socratic writers. Part II explores those problems in their Platonic and Aristotelian presentations, and in the work of two medieval thinkers. Part III addresses the thought of Leo Strauss, the thinker upon whose work the recovery of both ancient and modern political philosophy in our day has been made possible. Part IV explicates the writings of modern political philosophers and thinkers with a view to uncovering their alternative approach.

https://www.amazon.com/Recovering-Reason-Essays-Thomas-Pangle/dp/0739146319/ref=sr_1_24?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-24&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.006c50ae-5d4c-4777-9bc0-4513d670b6bc

This concise and accessible introduction to Strauss's thought provides, for wider audience, a bridge to his more complex theoretical work. Editor Pangle has gathered five of Strauss's previously unpublished lectures and five hard-to-find published writings and has arranged them so as to demonstrate the systematic progression of the major themes that underlay Strauss's mature work.

https://www.amazon.com/Rebirth-Classical-Political-Rationalism-Introduction/dp/0226777154/ref=sr_1_20?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-20

The timeless Theban tragedies of Sophocles: Oedipus the Tyrant, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, have fascinated and moved audiences and readers across the ages with their haunting plots and their unforgettable heroes and heroines. Now, following the best texts faithfully, and translating the key moral, religious, and political terminology of the plays accurately and consistently, Peter J. Ahrensdorf and Thomas L. Pangle allow contemporary readers to study the most literally exact reproductions of precisely what Sophocles wrote, rendered in readily comprehensible English. These translations enable readers to engage the Theban plays of Sophocles in their full, authentic complexity, and to study with precision the plays' profound and enduring human questions. In the preface, notes to the plays, and introductions, Ahrensdorf and Pangle supply critical historical, mythic, and linguistic background information, and highlight the moral, religious, political, philosophic, and psychological questions at the heart of each of the plays. Even readers unfamiliar with Greek drama will find what they need to experience, reflect on, and enjoy these towering works of classical literature.

https://www.amazon.com/Theban-Plays-Oedipus-Antigone-Editions/dp/0801478715/ref=sr_1_21?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-21

This book consists of literal English translations of ten Socratic dialogues that have been largely neglected for the last century. Although everyone of these dialogues belongs to the classical canon of Platonic writings and was accepted as genuine in antiquity, most were condemned as forgeries in the early nineteenth century―and have remained under a shadow ever since. In his long introductory essay, Thomas L. Pangle offers a spirited criticism of arguments that have been adduced to support the view that some of the dialogues are counterfeit and shows in scrupulous detail why he believes in their authenticity.
Each dialogue is accompanied by an interpretive essay that demonstrates how a close reading of the dialogue sheds revealing light on the Platonic understanding of political theory, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophic way of life as exemplified by Socrates. The essays include previously published pieces, some of classic stature, as well as studies written especially for this volume.
Opening an entirely new dimension of Platonic studies, The Roots of Political Philosophy addresses, in a fresh or unfamiliar perspective, major themes and puzzles such as: the nature of law, of property, and of acquisitiveness; the meaning of Socrates' famous "demonic voice"; what is at stake in the poetic claim to inspiration; and the psychology of the tyrannic as opposed to the statesmanlike or political personality.
Political scientists, philosophers, classicists, and students who are familiar with the textual approach associated with Leo Strauss will welcome this book, as will other readers with an interest in ancient Greek philosophy and political thought.
Contributors and translators: Allan Bloom, Christopher Bruell, Steven Forde, James Leake, Carnes Lord, James H. Nichols, Clifford Orwin, Thomas L. Pangle, Leo Strauss, and David Sweet.

https://www.amazon.com/%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB%E5%93%B2%E5%AD%A6%E4%B9%8B%E6%A0%B9-%E8%A2%AB%E9%81%97%E5%BF%98%E7%9A%84%E5%8D%81%E7%AF%87%E8%8B%8F%E6%A0%BC%E6%8B%89%E5%BA%95%E5%AF%B9%E8%AF%9D-%E7%B2%BE-%E5%8F%A4%E5%85%B8%E5%AD%A6%E8%AF%91%E4%B8%9B-%E5%8C%BF%E5%90%8D/dp/7100168112/ref=sr_1_38?crid=148YOIUQDYOG1&keywords=Thomas+Pangle&qid=1685033260&sprefix=thomas+pangle%2Caps%2C113&sr=8-38

The Laws, Plato's longest dialogue, has for centuries been recognized as the most comprehensive exposition of the practical consequences of his philosophy, a necessary corrective to the more visionary and utopian Republic. In this animated encounter between a foreign philosopher and a powerful statesman, not only do we see reflected, in Plato's own thought, eternal questions of the relation between political theory and practice, but we also witness the working out of a detailed plan for a new political order that embodies the results of Plato's mature reflection on republican civic virtue, the family, the status of women, property rights, criminal law, and the role of religion and the fine arts in education.

This is the first complete exegesis and interpretation of Rousseau’s final and culminating work, showing its full philosophic and moral teaching. The Reveries has been celebrated as a work of literature that is an acknowledged acme of French prose writing. Here it is argued that this aesthetic appreciation necessitates an in-depth interpretation of this writing’s complex and multi-leveled intended teaching—about the normatively best way of life. The interpretation here uncovers Rousseau’s most profound exploration and articulation of his own life, personality, soul, and thought as “the man of nature enlightened by reason.” Rousseau’s final work is the fullest embodiment of the experiential wisdom from which flows and to which points Rousseau’s political and moral philosophy, his theology, and his musical and literary art.
A podcast on this book: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/thepoliticaltheoryreview/episodes/2023-06-27T09_47_05-07_00

This is the first book length study in English of the philosophic teaching of Xenophon’s masterwork. The first part analyzes Xenophon's defense of Socrates against the two charges of injustice for which he was convicted and put to death by democratic Athens: impiety, and corruption of the young. The second part analyzes Xenophon's account of how Socrates's life as a whole was just, in the sense of helping through his teaching a wide range of people.

https://www.amazon.com/Socratic-Way-Life-Xenophons-Memorabilia/dp/022651689X

This book shows how the presentation of Socrates in Xenophon's highly defensive Memorabilia is decisively deepened as well as complemented by the less apologetic, more aggressive shorter writings that Xenophon devoted to portraying Socrates in action.

Xenophon's Economist exposes and focuses upon something scandalous about Socrates that one would never guess from reading the Memorabilia: well into his maturity, the philosopher by his own confession neither practiced nor understood "virtue" (aretē). Xenophon makes us witnesses to a dialogue where Socrates tells of the great day on which he underwent a radical transformation—when he became the moral and political citizen-philosopher famous to posterity, from having previously been a pre-Socratic thinker lost in the clouds, "reputed to engage in idle chatter and to measure the air," who by his own confession had no clue as to the meaning of the "noble/beautiful" (kalon), or as to what "gentlemen"—the "noble-and-good"—are and do.

Xenophon's Symposium lets us be "flies on the wall" at a private drinking party at which the character of Socrates, and of his not altogether harmonious circle, find expression through being portrayed as partaking in the playful posturing of conventional gentlemen in their cups. Gradual inebriation loosens the tongues of all present, including Socrates, making manifest the gulf—and how that gulf is tenuously bridged—between the erotic playfulness of conventionally respectable gentlemen (led by the famous, wealthy, and "upper-crust" Kallias) and the philosophically erotic playfulness of Socrates.

Xenophon's Apology of Socrates to the Jury gives us access to the inner deliberation by which Socrates arrived at his decision to give the astonishingly arrogant speech that he offered at his trial. Through an account of a crucial private conversation prior to the trial, in which Socrates reveals his plan for the conduct of his defense, and then through selections from Socrates's defiantly offensive courtroom oration, in which he provocatively proclaimed the excellences that made him superior to his fellowmen, Xenophon brings to light Socrates's distinctively philosophic self-esteem.

https://www.amazon.com/Political-Philosophy-Xenophons-Economist-Symposium/dp/022664247X

This book consists of literal English translations of ten Socratic dialogues that have been largely neglected for the last century.... Pangle offers a spirited criticism of arguments that have been adduced to support the view that some of the dialogues are counterfeit and shows in scrupulous detail why he believes in their authenticity....

Opening an entirely new dimension of Platonic studies, The Roots of Political Philosophy addresses, in a fresh or unfamiliar perspective, major themes and puzzles.... Political scientists, philosophers and students who are familiar with the textual approach associated with Leo Strauss will welcome this book, as will other readers with an interest in ancient Greek philosophy and political thought.

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801494656/104-0047715-8915913

With the POLITICS, Aristotle seeks to lead his students down a deliberately difficult path of critical thinking about civic republican life. He adopts a Socratic approach, encouraging his students-and readers-to become active participants in a dialogue. Seen from this perspective, features of the work that have perplexed previous commentators become perfectly comprehensible as artful devices of a didactic approach.
https://www.amazon.com/Aristotles-Teaching-Politics-Thomas-Pangle/dp/022601603X

Because of the importance of the philosophic issues involved (including the everlasting foundations for cosmic existence), and the opportunity afforded for all of us to learn from one another, I am writing in response to a message that was sent out by emails to a number of scholars by Christopher Bruell, Emeritus Professor at Boston College. This message Prof. Bruell characterized in his emails as a “reply” to my article “A Synoptic Introduction to the Ontological Background of Aristotle’s Political Theory” in Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy [46:2, Spring 2020, pp. 261-90], which article Prof. Bruell says “could well be taken to be a somewhat veiled or oblique criticism of ARISTOTLE AS TEACHER” [Prof. Bruell’s book, South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2014).
I have further developed my implicit critique of Prof. Bruell's understanding of Aristotle, now in relation to HEGEL, in my “Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature as Foundational for His Political Philosophy,” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 48 (2022): 323-46, responding to Bruell's "THESES BEARING ON THE UNDERSTANDING OF ARISTOTLE’S NATURAL SCIENCE: A Lecture prepared for delivery at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, Munich Germany, October 18, 2021."