Joseph Cropsey is an American political philosopher and professor of political science at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, where he has also been associate director of the John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy.

Cropsey has been a disciple of Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss

Leo Strauss was a political philosopher and classicist who specialized in classical political philosophy. He was born in Germany to Jewish parents and later emigrated to the United States...

, who inspired him to move from his original academic field, economic thought

History of economic thought

The history of economic thought deals with different thinkers and theories in the subject that became political economy and economics from the ancient world to the present day...

, to a much more theoretical approach to political thought. Since then, Cropsey had focused on Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

 and the "esoteric", interstitial philosophical aspects of the theories developed by such thinkers as Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

 and Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

.

Further reading

• Joseph Cropsey (ed.), Ancients and Moderns: Essays on the Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss, New York, Basic Books, 1964 ISBN 0-465-00326-5
• Joseph Cropsey, Political Philosophy and the Issues of Politics, Chicago & London, University of Chicago Press, 1977 ISBN 0-226-12123-2
• Joseph Cropsey, Plato's World: Man's Place in the Cosmos (1995), Chicago & London, University of Chicago Press, 1997 ISBN 0-226-12122-4
• Joseph Cropsey, Polity and Economy: An Interpretation of the Principles of Adam Smith (With Further Thoughts on the Principles of Adam Smith), Chicago, St. Augustine's Press, 2001 (Revised Edition) ISBN 1-58731-625-0
• Thomas Hobbes
  Thomas Hobbes
  Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...
  
  (edited by Joseph Cropsey), A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England (written between 1668 and 1675), Chicago & London, University of Chicago Press, 1997 ISBN 0-226-34541-6
• Leo Strauss, Joseph Cropsey (eds.), History of Political Philosophy (First Edition: 1963), Chicago & London, University of Chicago Press, 1987 ISBN 0-226-77710-3