Гарри Джаффа: Американдық философ, тарихшы және саясаттанушы

American historian and political philosopher (1918–2015)

Harry Victor Jaffa (October 7, 1918 – January 10, 2015) was an American political philosopher, historian, columnist, and professor. He was a professor emeritus at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont Graduate University, and was a distinguished fellow of the Claremont Institute. Robert P. Kraynak says his "life work was to develop an American application of Leo Strauss's revival of natural right philosophy against the relativism and nihilism of our times". Jaffa wrote on topics ranging from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and natural law. He was published in the Claremont Review of Books, the Review of Politics, National Review, and the New York Times. His most famous work, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln Douglas Debates, written in 1959, has been described as a touchstone. He wrote the controversial line in 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater's acceptance speech that "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice". He debated Robert Bork on American constitutionalism. He died in 2015.

Jaffa was born in New York City on October 7, 1918, to Arthur Solomon Jaffa and Frances Landau Jaffa; his middle name is a reference to World War I, which ended with the same year he was born. His family was Jewish. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from Yale University and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in political philosophy from The New School for Social Research. As a PhD student, he became interested in Abraham Lincoln after discovering a copy of the Lincoln–Douglas debates in a used bookshop. Jaffa was one of Leo Strauss' first PhD students. His dissertation on Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas later became his first book, Thomism and Aristotelianism. There, he argues that the Christian beliefs of Aquinas influenced Aquinas' work on Aristotle. Alasdair MacIntyre describes the book as "an unduly neglected minor modern classic."

Jaffa taught at Queens College, City College of New York, and the University of Chicago in the 1940s before receiving his doctorate. Jaffa was known for his involvement in politics in addition to his writings. He was a "Kennedy Democrat who switched parties after the Bay of Pigs" in the 1960s, as described by Sam Tanenhaus.

Jaffa wrote two books dealing exclusively with Abraham Lincoln. His first, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln Douglas Debates, was written in 1959. Forty years later, he followed it with A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War. Jaffa also wrote a number of essays on Lincoln for the Claremont Institute, National Review, and other journals. Before Jaffa, most conservative scholars, including M. E. Bradford, Russell Kirk, and Willmoore Kendall believed that Lincoln's presidency represented a substantial growth in federal power and limitation on individual rights. Jaffa also believed that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution share a relationship whereby the latter is intended to preserve the principles of the former. This belief has garnered criticism from legal scholars, particularly Robert Bork.

In Crisis of the House Divided, Jaffa discusses the Lincoln–Douglas debates that occurred on the eve of the American Civil War. During the 1850s, concern over the spread of slavery into the territories and into the free states became the primary concern of American politics. Stephen A. Douglas proposed the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which removed congressional authority over slavery's expansion into the territories and allowed the citizens of each territory to decide whether or not slavery would be legal there. In contrast, Lincoln believed that popular sovereignty was another example of tyranny of the majority. Lincoln argued that a majority could not sanction the enslavement of other men due to the Founding principle that "All men are created equal," which slavery violated. Both men squared off in a contest for Illinois' Senate seat in 1858. In the book, Jaffa explains the philosophical underpinnings of both Lincoln and Douglas' arguments. According to Catherine H. Zuckert, Jaffa "aimed at nothing less than bringing to bear on America the methods and substance of the Straussian revival of the Socratic tradition of political philosophy." Like Strauss, Jaffa observed the tendency of modernity to degenerate moral and political philosophy, which he found in Douglas' appeal to popular sovereignty. Jaffa also believed that Lincoln challenged Douglas' argument with an Aristotelian or classical philosophical position derived from the Declaration of Independence and its contention that "all men are created equal." In The New Yorker, Sam Tanenhaus described the book as "a touchstone in the vast Lincoln literature" and wrote that "Lincoln emerges from it as a serious moral philosopher". Jaffa describes human equality as America's "ancient faith" and contends that the Declaration of Independence reflects the principles of natural law. According to Jaffa, Lincoln's task was to restore America's political faith, saving the Union from the historicism of the Confederacy. Jaffa considers the political philosophy of John C. Calhoun the backbone of the Confederacy's new constitution and its notion of human inequality. According to him, Calhoun believed that equality was only a prescriptive attribute on the part of the states, not a natural right of human persons. By extension, Calhoun believes that human equality is derived from the relationship between equal states and not equal persons. Jaffa therefore believes that Calhoun's understanding of equality differs greatly from the American founders.

Jaffa argued that former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork advanced a theory of American constitutionalism that was in fundamental tension with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that was insufficiently conservative. Jaffa argued that Bork's argument represented legal positivism and moral relativism akin to that expressed by John C. Calhoun and the Confederacy during the Civil War. According to Jaffa, Bork believed that the Constitution and the Declaration were separate documents that were never intended to inform one another. Bork argued that the Constitution said nothing about abortion or gay rights. Jaffa believed that the Constitution followed natural law principles, and therefore prohibited states from protecting abortion or homosexuality. Bork replied that Jaffa's theories amounted to "the heart's desire theory of constitutional jurisprudence: Anything one does not like is in the Constitution", and that those who agreed with him "had much in common with Harry Blackmun, although neither would care to admit it."

Jaffa was close friends with William F. Buckley, publishing a number of articles on Lincoln in National Review throughout his career. He credited Buckley with allowing him to publish when he had been blacklisted by liberal journals and neoconservative publications after a dispute with Irving Kristol. However, Jaffa disagreed with many of the writers then publishing for the magazine including Russell Kirk and Frank Meyer. According to him, these men and other writers there rejected the principles of the Declaration of Independence and its main contention that "all men are created equal." Jaffa spent his lifetime stressing the importance of the Declaration to conservatives and liberals alike.

During the 1964 presidential campaign, Jaffa, who was serving as a speechwriter to Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, penned the line, "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is not a virtue" in his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination. it appears nowhere in Cicero's works, and was in fact authored by Jaffa.

Jaffa died at Pomona Valley Hospital on January 10, 2015, the same day as his fellow Straussian and rival Walter Berns.

Jaffa married Marjorie Butler in 1942; she died in 2010.

"The Ends of History Means the End of Freedom" January 17, 1990. "Clarifying Homosexuality and Natural Law" January 1, 1991. "A Review of Richard Mohr's Book" February 1, 1991. "A Reply to Philip Dynia" August 19, 1993. "Defending the Cause of Human Freedom" April 15, 1994. "Defending the Cause of Human Freedom" April 15, 1994. "The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats" September 13, 1996. "How Lincoln Foresaw the End of Slavery" January 29, 1998. "Leo Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy" February 13, 1998. "The False Prophets of American Conservatism" February 12, 1998. "The Deepening Crisis" February 9, 1999. "Why Special Interests and the Constitution are Good For You" February 20, 2000. "Thoughts on Lincoln's Birthday" January 22, 2001. "Campaign Reform is Unconstitutional No Matter What McCain May Claim" February 1, 2001. "Aristotle and Locke in the American Founding" February 10, 2001. "American Conservatism and the Present Crisis" February 12, 2003. "Strauss at 100" May 14, 2003. "Can There Be Another Winston Churchill?" February 6, 2004. "Never Before In History", July 2, 2004. "Ignoble Liars and Noble Truth Tellers", August 17, 2004. "Wages of Sin", October 11, 2004. "The Logic of the Colorblind Constitution", December 6, 2004. "Jaffa on Intelligent Design", January 3, 2006. "The Disputed Question", January 9, 2007. "The American Founding as the Best Regime", July 4, 2007. "Macbeth and the Moral Universe", February 19, 2008. "The Soul of Buckley", April 4, 2008. "God Bless America, "Claremont Review of Books," Spring 2008. "The Speech That Changed the World", February 6, 2009. "Lincoln In Peoria", Fall 2009. "Aristotle and the Higher Good" July 1, 2011.