Between Eternities reflects on the possibility of political philosophy as an ongoing, architectonic activity that is necessarily linked to both the past and future. Almost all contemporary work in political philosophy either studies the subject with an eye to past traditionchoosing a winner from that tradition and then deducing what follows from the posited premises in a thoroughly modern, constructivist fashionor else limits itself to drawing out what follows from already accepted premises and principles. There is almost no effort to reflect upon the prerequisites for the tradition being an ongoing undertaking that can have a unique future.Between Eternities attempts to set loose that thinking toward the future.

Gregory B. Smith is professor of political science and philosophy affiliated with the Departments of Political Science and Philosophy at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Political Philosophy; Is There a Future Tradition?
Part 2 Modern Constructivism or Phenomenology
Chapter 3 Preface: Modernity and Its Closure
Chapter 4 The "End of History" or a Portal to the Future
Chapter 5 What is Political Philosophy: A Phenomenological Approach
Chapter 6 Cacophony of Silence: Derrida's Deconstructionism and the Possibility of Political Philosophy
Chapter 7 Machiavelli'sThe Prince and the Essence of Modernity
Chapter 8 Phenomenology or Constructivism: Robert Pippin's Modernity
Part 9 Leo Strauss and the Tradition: An Engagement
Chapter 10 Preface: Remembrance and Tradition
Chapter 11 Who Was Leo Strauss?
Chapter 12 Leo Strauss and the Straussians: An Anti-Democratic Cult?
Chapter 13 Athens and Washington: Leo Strauss and the American Regime
Chapter 14 On a Possible Epicurean Garden for Philosophy
Chapter 15 On Cropsey's World: Joseph Cropsey and the Tradition of Political Philosophy
Chapter 16 Between Platonism and Postmodernism: Plato's Emendation of Socratism in the Trilogy
Chapter 17 Leo Strauss and Martin Heidegger
Part 18 The Non-Metaphysical Plato: Second Beginnings?
Chapter 19 Preface: Plato, Platonism, and a Second Beginning
Chapter 20 Dialogue and Dialectic in Plato'sPhaedo
Chapter 21 Political Philosophy and Eros: Plato's Socrates in theSymposium
Chapter 22 Plato's Parmenides: Socratism and the Origins of Platonic Political Philosophy
Chapter 23 Aristotle on Reason and Its Limits
Part 24 Political Philosophy After Modernity?
Chapter 25 Preface: Openings Toward the Postmodern
Chapter 26 Legitimacy, International Morality, and the Postmodern Global Future
Chapter 27 Jerusalem and Washington: Political Philosophy and Theology
Chapter 28 Ontology, Technology, Poetry, or Mandarin Pastime?
Chapter 29 The Queen of the Sciences: Political Philosophy or Biology
Chapter 30 Political Philosophy and Environmentalism: Recovering the Phenomenon "Nature"
Chapter 31 Conclusion: Is There a Future?