Heinrich Meier
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Heinrich Meier (born 8 April 1953) is a German philosopher. He has published on subjects including political theology, Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt. He led the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation from 1985 to 2022.
As a young man, Meier was engaged in radical politics as a nationalist and as a socialist, but became disillusioned with both ideologies. He began his academic career with studies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He then came to focus on political theology, Friedrich Nietzsche and Leo Strauss.[1]
Meier's book Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue (1988) is about the both open and private intellectual exchange between Carl Schmitt and Strauss.[2] Meier argues that political theology is at the center of Schmitt's work and that his influence on Strauss was considerable.[3]
In The Lesson of Carl Schmitt: Four Chapters on the Distinction between Political Theology and Political Philosophy (1994), Meier further analyses Schmitt as a political theologian.[3]
Meier was the editor of Strauss' collected works in German.[4] Meier's book Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem (2003) evaluates Strauss and his critics, with the aim of encouraging self-criticism among philosophers.[5] The book argues that Strauss' main concern was never politics, but the conflict between reason and revelation.[4]