The Beijing Lectures: Strauss, Plato, Nietzsche

Six essays from a well-known Nietzsche scholar on Strauss, Plato, Nietzsche, and the history of western philosophy 

In The Beijing Lectures: Strauss, Plato, Nietzsche, Laurence Lampert presents what he calls the new history of philosophy made possible by Friedrich Nietzsche. This “new” history takes seriously Nietzsche’s claim that “the greatest thoughts are the greatest events.” To put it even more assertively that “genuine philosophers are commanders and legislators.”

Beginning with Leo Strauss and how his recovery of the philosophers’ art of writing can change our way of viewing the history of philosophy, Lampert then focuses on six Platonic dialogues—Protagoras, Charmides, Republic, Phaedo, Parmenides, and Symposium. These, he believes, mark a turning point in Western history and set the pattern for the whole Western philosophic tradition. In the third and final section, Lampert considers Nietzsche in order to show how he revolutionized our understanding of the world, and in particular why it is appropriate to view him as “the first comprehensive ecological philosopher.”