Books by Laurence Lampert

When Nietzsche published Beyond Good and Evil in 1886, he told a friend that it was a book that would not be read properly until “around the year 2000.” Now Laurence Lampert sets out to fulfill this prophecy by providing a section by section interpretation of this philosophical masterpiece that emphasizes its unity and depth as a comprehensive new teaching on nature and humanity.According to Lampert, Nietzsche begins with a critique of philosophy that is ultimately affirmative, because it shows how philosophy can arrive at a defensible ontological account of the way of all beings. Nietzsche next argues that a new post-Christian religion can arise out of the affirmation of the world disclosed to philosophy. Then, turning to the implications of the new ontology for morality and politics, Nietzsche argues that these can be reconstituted on the fundamental insights of the new philosophy. Nietzsche’s comprehensive depiction of this anti-Platonic philosophy ends with a chapter on nobility, in which he contends that what can now be publicly celebrated as noble in our species are its highest achievements of mind and spirit.

Provides an interpretation of modern philosophy by developing Nietzsche's view that genuine philosophers set out to determine the direction of culture through their ideas and that they conceal the radical nature of their thought by their esoteric style.

Takes on the crucial task of separating what is truly important in the work of Leo Strauss from the ephemeral politics associated with his school. This title shows that Strauss' famous distinction between ancient and modern thinkers is primarily rhetorical, one of the great examples of Strauss' own exoteric craft.

Leo Strauss left a strongly negative assessment of Nietzsche as the modern philosopher most at odds with the traditions of political philosophy, and most responsible for the sins of 20th-century culture. This book offers a reassessment of the Strauss-Nietzsche connection.

Plato's dialogues show Socrates at different ages, beginning when he was about nineteen and already deeply immersed in philosophy and ending with his execution five decades later. Offering an analysis of Plato's "Protagoras, Charmides, and Republic", this book charts Socrates' discovery of a proper politics to shelter and advance philosophy.