Ralph Lerner

Ralph Lerner first encountered Strauss in 1949, when Lerner was in the M.A. program in the political science department at the University of Chicago. As a Ph.D. student he studied with Strauss, who served as his dissertation advisor. Lerner is the Benjamin Franklin Professor Emeritus in the College and of Social Thought at the University of Chicago and the author of numerous books, including The Founders’ Constitution (edited with Philip B. Kurland) (University of Chicago Press, 1987), The Thinking Revolutionary: Principle and Practice in the New Republic (Cornell, 1988), Maimonides’ Empire of Light: Popular Enlightenment in an Age of Belief (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and Naive Readings: Reveilles Political and Philosophic (University of Chicago Press, 2016).