Live online seminar · December 2026
The Concept of the Political
Two live online sessions with Michael Millerman. In the first we read Schmitt's The Concept of the Political. In the second we read Leo Strauss's Notes on it and ask what Strauss thinks Schmitt failed to understand.
Thursdays, December 3 and 10 · 7:30 p.m. Eastern · 15 places
The texts
Schmitt argues that the political has its own criterion, as morality has good and evil and aesthetics has the beautiful and the ugly. That criterion is the distinction between friend and enemy. From it he draws conclusions about the state, about war as the extreme case, and about liberalism, which he accuses of trying to dissolve politics into ethics and economics.
Strauss reviewed the book in 1932. His Notes accept much of Schmitt's case against liberalism and then turn it on Schmitt. Strauss argues that Schmitt's critique never leaves the horizon of the liberalism it attacks, and that his affirmation of the political turns out to be a moral affirmation.
The friend–enemy distinction is quoted constantly now, usually by people who have not read the book. Strauss's reply is read much less, though it goes deeper. We will take one text per session and read each one closely.
The sessions
Read the whole text before we meet. We will follow the argument from the criterion of the political, through the state as a political unity and war as the extreme case, to Schmitt's case against liberalism.
Read Strauss's Notes and go back to the passages of Schmitt he quotes. We will look at what Strauss grants Schmitt, where he thinks Schmitt's critique of liberalism stops short, and why he thinks finishing it requires an adequate understanding of Hobbes.
Reading
Use the expanded edition of The Concept of the Political, translated by George Schwab (University of Chicago Press, 2007). It includes Strauss's Notes in J. Harvey Lomax's translation. Please get your own copy. Page references in the sessions will follow this edition.
Format
Each session runs 90 minutes on Zoom. We work through the text together, passage by passage. I lead the discussion, explain the hard passages, and keep bringing us back to the main questions.
The group is capped at fifteen so that everyone who wants to speak can. You don't need a background in political theory, but you do need to have done the reading.
Both sessions are recorded. Participants get the recordings afterward, so you can go back over the discussion or catch up if you miss a session.
Instructor
Michael Millerman is a writer and teacher. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Toronto, and his essays have appeared in Interpretation, Telos and First Things. His most recent book is Straussian Witchcraft: Essays on Philosophy, Revelation, and Politics (2026).
He founded Millerman School in 2021 to teach the major works of political philosophy through close reading. His courses there include one on Schmitt's Legality and Legitimacy.
Enrollment
Thursdays, December 3 and 10, 2026, 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern, on Zoom.
$295 USD for both sessions, recordings included. Fifteen places.
Enroll for $295If fewer than three people enroll by Monday, November 30, the seminar won't run and everyone gets a full refund. Otherwise you can get a full refund on request until 7:30 p.m. Eastern on December 3, when the first session begins.
Questions: millermanmichael@gmail.com