Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in the Chinese-Speaking World

Reorienting the Political examines the reception of two controversial German philosophers, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, in the Chinese-speaking world. This volume explores the powerful resonance of both thinkers in Chinese political thought from a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.

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Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in the Chinese-Speaking World: Reorienting the Political examines
the reception of Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss in China and Taiwan. The legacies of both
Schmitt, the German legal theorist and thinker who joined the Nazi party, and Strauss, the
German-Jewish classicist and political philosopher who became famous after his emigration
to the United States, are highly controversial. Since the 1990s, however, these thinkers have
had a powerful resonance for Chinese scholars. Today, when Chinese intellectuals debate the
Chinese state, the future role of China in the world, the liberal international order, and even
the meaning of Confucian civilization, they often employ Schmittian and Straussian concepts
like “the political,” “friend–enemy,” “state of exception,” “liberal education,” and “natural
right.” The very possibility of a genuine Chinese political theory is often thought to be tied to
the legacy of these two thinkers.

This volume explores this complex phenomenon with a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary
approach. The twelve essays in this volume are written from a range of perspectives by philosophers,
political theorists, historians, and legal scholars from China, Germany, Taiwan,
and the United States.