LA UTOPÍA DEL “RETORNO” DE LEO STRAUSS FRENTE A LAS UTOPÍAS MODERNAS

Strauss claims that the general crisis in Western world is closely related tothe crisis which political philosophy as such is undergoing. Apart from that,the latter is the result of the revolutionary changes introduced by the creators of modern political philosophy, breaking with tradition in order to construe a new political science. The article examines the Straussian vision of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and, finally, Nietzsche. Based on this, Strauss proposes that a “return” is needed as an adequate response to failure – or triumph? – of the modern utopia. But as it is just impossible to simply reconstruct the past, the article poses the question about at which moment of history should the “return” begin and, particularly which elements of the complex thinking heritage should be claimed. In this respect, Strauss suggests that the reform of political philosophy is necessarily equivalent to an amendment of totality. In this way, it is stated here that the great problem about the return lies mainly in that it is not clear where the return aims at.