The Call: Leo Strauss on Heidegger, Secularization, and Revelation

The importance of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy to Leo Strauss’s intellectual development is well established.¹ Indeed, Strauss was open about the unparalleled influence Heidegger exerted over him. In one lecture Strauss proclaimed that “the only question of importance . . . is the question whether Heidegger’s teaching is true or not.”² It is also widely acknowledged that Heidegger, the “radical historicist” and philosophical collaborator with the National Socialist Party, served as the foil to Strauss’s constructive project. Strauss nicely captured the paradoxical position Heidegger came to occupy in his mind when he said: “Only a great thinker can help us in our plight. But here is the great trouble: the only great thinker in our time is Heidegger.”³ But while the fact of Heidegger’s importance and notoriety is beyond doubt, we are still a far cry from reaching a satisfactory understanding of how these two assessments relate to...