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This chapter presents the case of Leo Strauss, a philosopher who ceaselessly homed in on and devoted his work to philosophy. In Philosophy as a way of life the French classicist Pierre Hadot argues that the ancient philosophical sects, which include Platonists, Stoics, Epicureans, all understood philosophy first and foremost as a spiritual exercise designed to liberate the mind and free their members from the grip of the passions. Philosophy for Strauss is zetetic or, as he puts it, skeptic in the original sense of the term, that is, knowing that one does not know, or knowing the limits of knowledge. More specifically, Strauss was concerned with what the philosophical life is and what value, if any, it confers on the life of the community. His single-minded examination of this question fulfills the offices of philosophy to the highest degree.
It has become increasingly clear that debates among Peripatetics in our period are significant not only as the background against which later Platonists were subsequently to read Aristotle's works, but also in highlighting issues in the interpretation of Aristotle for contemporary scholarship. Aristotle's immediate colleagues and successors in the Lyceum in the fourth and third centuries BCE were 'Peripatetics' in the sense that they contributed to and continued Aristotle's approach to inquiry, without accepting all of Aristotle's views or devoting attention equally to all the areas with which he himself was concerned. The new interest in Aristotle's esoteric works from Andronicus onwards was expressed in the form of debates about the details of their interpretation. It is only very recently in the history of Aristotelian studies that attention has focused on the zoological works and the type of reading adopted by Alexander has been challenged.
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