The Argument of Leo Strauss in “What is Political Philosophy?’ LAURENCE READINGLeo Strauss is a d%cult exercise and much of the difficulty is the result of planning. The planning follows naturally from a distinction that Strauss takes seriously between opinion and knowledge, a distinction that determines in advance that only readers of a certain quality and temper have the need to know what Strauss’ books and essays really contain. The planned difficulty of Strauss’ work is present in spite of-even partly because of-a superficial lucidity and apparent directness of expression. To discover this planned obscurity is at once maddening and pleasurable. It is maddening because it seems such a discourtesy to the reader and such an affront to what he can reasonably expect from an author. Surely all Strauss’ readers have labored over other kinds of obscurity in other works and the hint of an intentional lack of directness and clarity cannot be received kindly. Yet the discovery is not lacking in pleasures of a sort that Strauss himself points 0ut.l These pleasures are the ones appropriate to a particular nature and those possessed of it Strauss flatters and lures. In any case, it is a discovery that comes only slowly and against much disbelief-at least for those of us who have not LAMPERT been his students or students of his students. Yet one ought to have expected that Strauss would come to practice the art of writing that he himself rediscovered in such writers as Plato, Maimonides, Machiavelli and Spinoza. His practice of that art could also be expected to be somewhat different from theirs because the persecution that first made their methods expedient is not a feature of our society. Nevertheless, the convictions that made their practice possible and desirable can still be shared, convictions concerning the public views and philosophy, or to put it in terms to be discussed later, convictions concerning love of one’s own and love of the good. One may investigate the difficulties in Strauss’ work in order to discover the positions he holds, but Strauss continuaIIy turns the reader away from his own opinions to the subject matter itself. The result is that the diiKculties in Strauss’ work are the merest beginning for anyone who becomes interested in his work. For all its difficulty that work is an invitation to further reading of other difficult writers to whom Strauss’ work points; it is an invitation to a way of life very much as Plato’s Republic Vinter 1976 38 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED is an invitation from Socrates to Glaucon and Adeimantus to a new way of lifewith the difference that Strauss’ invitation is to the reading of old books. The heart of Strauss’ work is the continuing battle between the ancients and the modems. What follows is an account of one skirmish in that battle. It is an especially interesting skirmish because it shows clearly Strauss’ strategic complexity. To keep to the martial metaphor, in his essay Strauss is willing to be bested in one field in order to win a possible long-term victory elsewher-he is bested in front of all the spectators but aims to persuade a very few curious and fastidious questioners who linger behind after the apparent defeat. “What is Political Philosophy?” is the important title essay of Strauss’ book V h is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies2 and it has been recently reprinted as the lead essay in Political Philosophy: Six Essays by Leo The essay describes the ancient and modern solutions to the problem of political philosophy. Obviously, from Leo Strauss one expects a defense of classical political philosophy. But from Leo Strauss one expects a better defense than is given in the central section of “What is Political Philosophy?” Strauss here defends classical political philosophy against two common objections but his answers to the objections are at best fragmentary and question-begging. But the clear weakness of the answers is not inadvertent and the defense of classical political philosophywhile nowhere else directly undertaken in the essay-does not hang on the answers to the objections despite all appearances to the contrary. Unlike the political science characterized in the first section of his essay, Strauss’ essay does not itself take “the form of teachings which can be transmitted in classrooms.” (p. 15) In the first section that follows I will show the inadequacy of Strauss’ answers to the two objections; in the second section I will show that this inadequacy is the veiled anticipation of a much more elaborate and categorically different answer. I IN THE MIDDLE or second section of the essay Strauss presents “The Classical sohtion,” cites two common objections to it and then attempts to answer these objections. These are the two objections: (1) classical political philosophy is antidemocratic and hence bad; (2) classical political philosophy is based on classical natural philosophy or on classical cosmology, and this basis has been proven to be untrue by the success of modern natural science. (p. 36) Most readers of the essay would be inclined to agree with these objections, yet Strauss’ answers do not seem to take the objections very seriously. Strauss’ answer to the first objection grants the anti-democratic stance of the classics and defends this stance on the grounds that democracy is not a workable means for achieving the goal that the classics aim at, namely, virtue. Strauss’ answer, which amounts to a statement of what he takes to be the classics’ argument against democracy, ends with this assurance: ‘Yet granted that there are no valid moral and political objections to classical political philosophy. .” (p. 38) But Strauss’ argument does not justify this sweeping claim as its conclusion; it does not demonstrate the invalidity of all moral and political objections to classical political philosophy. As Strauss presents it, the argument against democracy depends upon two strings of inferences. The first string runs as follows: virtue requires education which requires leisure which requires wealth and wealth will always be the preserve of a relative few. Democracy or the rule of the majority will be (to reverse the string): the rule of the poor, of the non-leisured, of the uneducated (Strauss delicately stops here but there is an additional step:) of the nonvirtuous. As Strauss recognizes, “this classical argument would not be stringent if men did not need education in order to acquire a firm adhesion to virtue.” (p. 37) Strauss .. Modern Age 39 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED cites Rousseau as the teacher of the view that men do not need education for this end, of the view, that is, that nature equips men with the goodness required. This challenge to the classical reasoning is dismissed very briefly with two considerations: (1) “the same Rousseau was compelled to develop a scheme of education which very few people could financially afford” (p. 37) and (2) few of us hold Rousseau’s view hence it is not the basis of the common objection to classical political philosophy and can be set aside. But what about universal education?for universal education is a natural way out of the problem posed by the first string of inferences, and is, moreover, the way taken in the modern world to make democracy viable. Here Strauss employs the second string of inferences : universal education requires an economy of plenty which requires the emancipation of technology from moral and political control. Strauss alleges without demonstration that the classics contain the “implicit prophecy that the emancipation of technology, of the arts, from moral and political control would lead to disaster or to the dehumanization of man.” (p. 37) Strauss claims that this prophecy has not been refuted. The unargued premise of Strauss’ conclusion that there are no valid moral and political objections to classical political philosophy is the claim that the source of the standard moral and political objections is a system of thought that necessarily abandons the moral and political control of technology. Presumably the point is that from a system that abandons the moral and political no valid moral and political objections can arise. But this answer entirely misses the spirit of the objection for the objector would hardly grant that the technology required for universal education is necessarily emancipated from moral and political control. And no reason is given why he should. Strauss’ argument does not attempt to persuade the objector to assent to this proposition; it is simply a counter-charge. It is not obvious that a technology that makes possible universal education must abandon moral and political control. Also, there would seem to be moral and political objections (to slavery, e.g.) that might arise from contexts other than a dependence on technology thus making Strauss’ conclusion invalid because it includes all moral and political objections. At best Strauss’ argument against moral and political objections to classical political philosophy begs the question. It assumes that such objections can arise only from the standpoint of a particular technology, and it assumes that they arise there only self-contradictorily on the grounds that that technology is emancipated from moral and political control. Strauss’ answer to the second objection is even briefer and more puzzling than his answer to the first. The objection is that classical political philosophy is fatally tied to an outmoded cosmoIogy. The gist of Strauss’ answer is that Socrates, the founder of classical political philosophy, was committed to no cosmology whatever; Strauss asserts, rather than argues, that knowledge of political things is possible apart from any cosmological commitment. The second paragraph of the answer consists of a series of Socratic claims about philosophy as a searoh for knowledge of the whole. Philosophy is said to be a search that aims at a complete combination of political knowledge and cosmological h o w l edge. “And this combination is not at our disposal.” (p. 39) But these counter assertions completely miss the point and spirit of the objection -namely, that classical political philosophy cannot be reconciled with modern natural science whose success has proven classical cosmology untrue. Even if we grant Strauss’ claim that classical political philosophy is logically separable from ancient cosmology he still has not shown that it is compatible with modem cosmology. An additional claim is made in this regard: “Whatever the significance of modern natural science may be, it cannot affect our understanding of what is human in man. To Winter I978 40 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED understand man in the light of the whole means for modem natural science to understand man in the light of the sub-human. But in that light man as man is wholly unintelligible.” (p. 38) This claim too simply restates a Socratic position and does nothing to demonstrate the truth of that position. It is not self-evident (modem natural science clearly has affected our understanding of the human in man even if-as Strauss seems to imply-only by losing sight of it) and would hardly be regarded as true by one who raised this objection. This part of the answer consists of the counter-charge that the objection itself is based on a cosmology, one that leaves the human unintelligible. Like the first answer, the second one consists simply of counter-claims with little persuasive force. They are hardly sufficient to induce the objector to reconsider his objections because they simply assume the truth of what is in question, classical political philosophy. They fail to take the objections seriously. And yet the objections are ones that most readers would be inclined to make because they reflect what we know to be good (democracy) and what we know to be true (modem science). I1 WHY DOES Strauss answer so unpersuasively two objections which seem so necessary and so telling? One is forced to go back over the arguments many times to discover their rationale and significance. Only gradually does Strauss’ strategy come to light. Before stating the objections themselves Strauss characterizes them in a direct and disparaging way. To raise these objections “requires neither originality nor intelligence, nor even erudition.” (p. 36) One gathers that these are not the most serious objections that can be raised even though they are the only ones raised by Strauss and the only ones answered (or not answered). There would seem to be objections that do require originality, intelligence and erudition. What are they? w h y are they not mentioned? Can they be more important than the ones that are mentioned? Why are they not answered? The context of the objections indirectly supplies answers to these questions. Immediately preceding the two objections is Strauss’ account of “The Classical Solution.” Presumably this part presents the view to which the objections object. But this presumption is mistaken. There is nothing in the classical solution as Strauss presents it that would raise the objections cited. Furthermore, immediately following the objections is Strauss’ account of “The Modem Solutions,” which indirectly shows that there are objections which are original, intelligent and erudite, and which do object to the classical solution as presented by Strauss. Yet Strauss never characterizes these solutions as objections and never directly answers them. We have then the following puzzling situation: the cited objections do not object to what is presented as the classical solution; these objections are answered in a clearly unsatisfactory manner; the original, intelligent and erudite objections do object to what is presented as the classical solution but they are not characterized as objections to it nor are they answered. In face of these puzzles one turns back to “The Classical Solution” itself-what is it and just how is it defended? The title of the middle section, “The Classical Solution,” seems to promise a statement of what that solution is. For the most part this section is a discussion of the Laws. It is said that “the character of classical political philosophy appears with the greatest clarity from Plato’s Laws,” (p. 29) and that seems to promise a statement of what that character is. But the material discussed is surprising in the light of these expectations for at first there appears to be no direct statement of either the solution or the character of classical political philosophy. The matters emphasized seem at first to be peripheral, even trivial. But the seemingly peripheral gradually comes to light as the most central matter. Plato, Socrates and Aristotle are all dis- Modern Age 41 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED cussed in the middle section. Aristotle is dealt with last and most briefly but also most directly and this discussion casts a retroactive light that clarifies the meaning of Strauss’ account of Plato and Socrates. The single point of the single paragraph on Aristotle concerns Aristotle’s carefully drawn and carefully guarded (because potentially impolitic) distinction between love of one’s own and love of the good. Classical political philosophy never forgets the importance of one’s own but it never ranks this higher than the good. Because of the universal inclination towards love of one’s own this distinction is politically dangerous; but it is philosophically necessary and its disclosure must be accompanied by the greatest caution and tact. Seen retrospectively, the earlier discussions of Plato and Socrates are instances of this distinction and they indicate the political character of all approaches to philosophy. These discussions show how the philosopher deals with the politics of philosophy.’ The discussion of Plato is concerned with one main quession: how can an Athenian stranger discuss the best laws with a Cretan and a Spartan when these laws are closer to Athenian laws than they are to Cretan or Spartan laws? That is, how can a stranger from Athens recommend the good laws of Athens to men who know Athens as alien and who love Crete and Sparta as their own? The much briefer discussion of Socrates is also concerned with the politics of philosophy. It shows how Socrates reconciles love of one’s own and love of the good in his decision to face and accept the sentence of the Athenian court. This decision is a political decision for the philosopher because it concerns the relationship of one’s own and the good. The character of political decisions and of classical political philosophy is clarified by the nature of this particular decision: “It did not consist in the simple subsumption of his case under a simple, universal, and unalterable rule.” (p. 33) In his accounts of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, Strauss is consistent in paying the most careful attention to the circumstances and occasions for the disclosure of the issues involved as if the circumstances and occasions were as important as the issues themselves. Thus it becomes clear that when the issue is the distinction between love of one’s own and love of the good the circumstances and occasions are that important. While at first there seems to be no substantive account of what the csSsical solution is, it becomes apparent that what is substantive is the distinction between love of one’s own and love of the good, and the recognition that this distinction must be approached with the greatest caution and with the most careful attention paid to the circumstances of disclosure.6 What of the two objections then? They clearly do not object to what is set forth as the classical solution. Rather, the discussion of the classical solution explains them in advance-albeit indirectly. The nature of the objections is shown by the distinction between love of one’s own and love of the good. The objections are displayed as failures to make that distinction. That is, they identify one’s own (in this case, our own, the modern) as the good without further ado and they reject the classics as other than one’s own and hence false and worse. Strauss’ account of the classical solution silently informs the reader about the nature of the objections. We are all inclined to make the objections because they reflect what is our own. What then of the answers to the objections? They too fail to draw the distinction between one’s own and the good. The answers occupy the same argumentative ground as the objections. In the terms of a distinction elaborated in the first section of Strauss’ essay the objections and answers both are examples of “political thought” and not of political philosophy, both are “primarily interested in, or attached to, a specific order or policy” (p. 12) and both “dogmatically assume principles which m well be questioned.” (p. 13) The answers, by being simply counter-charges based on principles which can be questioned, reveal (by their nature as well as their content) 42 Winter 1978 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED -~ the character of the standard objections as themselves committed to principles which can be questioned (regarding technology and cosmology). The answers indicate that there is a clear separation in principle between the classical and modem, and they take their stand within classical political philosophy. The objections give Strauss the opportunity to defend classical political philosophy in a way that has been clearly anticipated earlier in the essay. It is said in the discussion of the Laws that the Spartan’s attack on an Athenian institution gives the Athenian stranger a perfect excuse to defend that institution. (pp. 30 f.) Like the Athenian stranger who defends that institution by acting the part of a patriot and not a philosopher, Strauss defends classical political philosophy here simply as a partisan of it. The answers demonstrate the nature of the objections from the perspective of classical political philosophy; they demonstrate that nature by mimicking it. But these answers are not Strauss’ last word on the objections nor are they the only way in which his essay exemplifies the central distinction of classical political philosophy. While these two objections require neither originality, nor intelligence, nor erudition (it might be said that the answers do not either) there are objections that do, and these objections are not ignored in Strauss’ essay although they do not appear directly as objections. They appear rather as “The Modern Solutions.” These solutions object to the classical solution because it is not a solution and Strauss’ account of the classical solution clearly recognizes that fact about it. That is, for classical political phiIosophy the establishment of the best political order rests on chance, or, more directly, the best political order lacks actuality. It is no solution if a solution is the establishment of that order. The serious objections criticize classical political philosophy in the same way that Plat0 says the public criticizes the philosopher: the philosopher is either useless or harmful, useless to one’s own or harmful to it be- cause not a partisan of it? That is, the serious objections do recognize the distinction between the love of one’s own and love of the good but they reject it as unrealistic. These objections, unlike the earlier ones, do object to what is set forth as the classical solution. The modem solutions attempt a true solution by taking their bearings not from the good but from one’s own (p. 41) and by seeking to actualize a new social order. They obliterate the distinction between love of one’s own and love of the good. (p. 42) The appeal is precisely to those who choose their own over the good. (pp. 45 f.) The solution is a revolution in the human estate effected by man and his determination to master chance.* Strauss’ account of this most serious objection silently expIains and grounds the first two abjections. It shows in an indirect way that there is a necessary connection between the first two disparaged objections and the one serious objection. The cosmological issue (the second objection) is the more evident. Cosmology appears directly as an unresolved problem in Machiavelli. Machiavelli’s program is based on a cosmology that assumes “the untenable character of teleological natural science” (p. 47) but that assumption itself remained baseless until it was grounded by modem science. The anti-teleological principle is retained by Hobbes and Locke and (< the turn from man’s end to man’s beginning” is completed by Rousseau who understands the state of nature “as not pointing beyond itself.” (p. 52) The final step in anti-teleological cosmology is taken By Nietzsche for whom “Nature has ceased to appear as lawful and merciful. The fundamental experience of existence is therefore the experience, not of bliss, but of suffering, of emptiness, of an abyss.” (p. 54; see p. 53) In all these cases a specific antiteleological cosmology is shown to be basic to the political philosophy that is developed. We must read this account in the light of the second objection and its answer because it is there that the matter of cosmology is first raised and left questionable. The ac- Modern Age 43 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED count shows-as the answer intimatedthat the objection itself is based on a particular cosmology that rules out natural ends and thereby rules out classical political philosophy. Classical political philosophy on the other hand is said to have been inaugurated “in the light of the mysterious oharacter of the whole” (p. 39) and to have viewed political things as knowable in themselves apart from a cosmology. (pp. 39 f.; see pp. 27 f.) Thus, while it may be said that classical political philosophy is impossible for a cosmological view that rules out natural ends, it is only modem political philosophy that depends directly on a particular cosmology. In the answer to the first objection, the issue of democracy led directly if questionably to the problem of technology. In the third section of the essay the word “technology” is never used, but technology itself appears regularly as the modern effort to conquer chance. Conquering chance is there seen as an essential part of the program of modern pnlifird philosophy, 8s inseparable from its determination to actualize the desired new social order. (pp. 41, 46f., 51, 53f., 55) Conquering chance leads not only to the mastery of nature But also to the manipulation and training of men, now taken as almost infinitely malleable. (p. 42) To use the terms of the answer to the first objection: Modem teohnology is displayed as emancipated from moral and political control because it is an essential offspring of a political philosophy that takes its bearings from the lower rather than the higher-and not only its bearings but its means as well for Strauss emphasizes the fact that modem political philosophy depends upon the freeing of “blind selfish passion” (p. 54) for the actualization of the desired new order. It depends upon the ‘‘discovery or invention of the need for an immoral or amoral substitute for morality.” (p. 49; see pp. 43, 48, 49, 54) We must read this account of the conquering of chance in the light of the answer to the first objeotion because it is there that the matter of the emancipation of technology from moral and political control is first raised and left questionable. The answer to the first objection intimated what is elaborated in the account of the modern solutions, namely, that the modern solutions necessarily include a technology that aims to conquer chance and that is emancipated from moral and political control whether that emancipation is in the name of glory (pp. 42 f.) or power (pp. 48 f.) or acquisitiveness (p. 49) or feeling (p. 53) or creativity. (p. 54) Classical political philosophy on the other hand is said to be “free from all fanaticism because it knows that evil cannot be eradicated and therefore that one’s expectations from politics must be moderate” (p. 28) and to have maintained that emancipation of technology from moral and political control “would lead to disaster or to the dehumanization of man.” (P. 37) The importance of the standard objections is maintained by their veiled reintroduction in the third section of the essay. They s.re dispzrzge:! ::.hex first aT,7=.~n~d because of the superficial form they take, a form which is indicated by the situation they occupy in the essay and by the nature of the answers to them. They are treated more elaborately if more covertly when they are raised again by the original, intelligent and erudite objection to classical political philosophy, by the objection, that is, that truly mcognizes the solution and character of classical political philosophy as the commonly stated objections do not. The answers to the original objections are counter-charges which are incomplete and question begging. The answers indicate by assertion what lies behind the objections. But the answers are preparations for the disclosure of the actual grounds of the objections in the discussion of the modern solutions. The common objections rest on a misunderstanding of the classical and on ignorance of their own foundations. But if the modem project now covertly displayed as the source of the two objections is itself the serious objection to classical political philosophy, how is it to be anWinter 1978 44 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED swered? Strauss’ essay ends without seeming to conclude; it ends with an account of radical historicism (Heidegger) which Strauss clearly deplores but it ends without argument against it. Why does Strauss give no direct answer to the objection that is original, intelligent and erudite? To answer this question two points must be considered: (1) the nature of Strauss’ essay; (2) the consequent strictures on any possible defense of classical political philosophy. (1) If we recognize from the middle section of the essay that it is the character of classical political philosophy to distinguish in a cautious and tactful way between love of one’s own and love of the good, and if we recognize from our assent to the two objections that the modem is our own, then the whole essay discloses itself as an exercise in the spirit of classical political philosophy. The middle section shows the nature of classical political philosophy but it shows as well the nature of Strauss’ essay. It too is a subtle and reticent attempt to call attention to the distinction between love of one’s own and love of the good. It recognizes the value and depth of the attachment to one’s own but it also recognizes that that attachment can impair love of the good for one’s own does not embody the good. The essay recognizes, to put the issue in the standard Socratic way, that there are truths that need to be learned that cannot be taught in the usual way. The essay takes classical political philosophy most seriously by abiding by its most important and dangerous distinction. The evidence of this commitment to classical political philosophy is clearly seen in the following point. (2) The reticence imposed by taking classical political philosophy seriously is not silence, and, within the strictures of what classical political philosophy permits, there can he found in Strauss’ essay a defense of the classical solution and an answer to the modern solution. Naturally this defense must be mainly a challenge and an invitation to inquiry. In the third section of the essay, radical historicism is presented as the consistent unfolding of the modem view initiated by Machiavelli’s original, intelligent and erudite objection to classical political philosophy. Modem philosophy culminating with Heidegger is taken as a self-consistent development and as the objection to classical political philosophy. In his account of this development Strauss is careful to point out its consistent and necessary abandonment of the highest (the good) ; its dependence upon the “lower” elements in man for suecess; its abandonment of moral and political control of technology; its dependence upon an exclusive cosmology; and the lamentable character of its final and necessary fruits in Nietzsche and Heidegger. In these specific ways Strauss argues against the complex and often exotic positions held by many modern philosophers. The rigor and intellectual austerity of his account seem to remove it from our immediate and intimate concerns. It seems distant from “our own,” more distant certainly than the democratic and scientific commonplaces of the first two objections. The criticism of a few philosophers is not immediately recognizable as a frontal attack on our own. And yet, of course, it is an attack on our own, an attack that consistently refrains from pointing out the necessary connections between these philosophers and our commonplace verities. Nevertheless, the reader can supply the essential point: the two objections to the classics that are cited first and that we clearly assent to as our own are necessarily grounded in modern philosophy. These objections (“our” objections) derive necessarily from the original, intelligent and erudite objection. These two objections which appear so forceful and which appeal to both our moral and scientific superiority are thus with great reserve and caution shown to have a most questionable base. What we clearly recognize as our own is shown to be tied to what is not nearly so recognizably our own and what is, consequently, capable of being attacked and 45 Modern Age LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED opened to doubt within the strictures of classical political philosophy. The unresolved conflict between the objections which seemed so forceful and the answers which seemed 50 inadequate is an anticipation of the conflict of the third section, a conflict that at first appears merely academic but that is actually completely fundamental. In this latter conflict and in the counter-charges contained in the answers to the first objections, Strauss indicates the lines along which further inquiry ’See e.g. Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Friting (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 19521, pp. 24-25, 36, 55-60, 162-163, 184; Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: Rand McNally, 19641, pp. 50.54. ’(Glencue, Illinois: Free Press, fied sons, from the political life to the philosophic lifE” Strauss, What is Political Philosophy?, pp. 93-94. ‘Republic, 493e-494a. ‘Clearly the meaning of “solution” has changed in the movement from classical to modem although Strauss makes no direct note of it. What does the classical solution solve? It solves the problem “What is political philosophy?” and it solves it by reoognizing the politics of philosophy. What do the modem solutions solve? They solve the problem “What is political philosophy?” and they solve it by solving-or setting out to solve-the problem of the human condition. Modem political philose phers aim to become the legislators and prophets of a new social order. They seek to abolish chance and to actualize “the right or desirable social order.” (pp. 46 f.) Because classical political philosophers are not the legislators and propheb of a regime what they soive mu= be different. Because they aim at the good and at the best political order, the actualization of the order depends upon chance. (p. 34) Strauss’ account of the modem solutions shows that they represent a consistent unfolding of what is actually a single objective to classical political pbilosophy, albeit an original, intelligent and erudite objection. 19591, pp. 9-55. Subsequent page references are to this edition and are included in the text. ‘Hilail Gildin, editor, (Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill, 19751, pp. 3-57. ‘This is not to suggest that these are the only matters or the only important matters in these discussions. Rather, these mattem are particularly suggestive concerning the problem of the inadequate answers to the objections This same limitation applies to the subsequent use of the first and third sections of Strauss’ essay. ‘In terms of a distinction Strauss draws elsewhere this account of classical political philose phy is one sided, although the side it discusses is 11---~ --- L 1 w= i u v t G uupv’wii~ uuc: au’jwiive ‘political’ in the expression ‘political philosophy’ designates not so much a subject matter as a manner of treatment; from this point of view, I say, ‘political philosophy’ means primarily not the philosophic treatment of politics, but the political, or popular, treatment of philosophy, or the political introduction to philosophy-the attempt to lead the qualified citizens, or rather their quali- ... must be carried out in order to pursue the possibility of a stand-point other than our own. This is the defense of classical political philosophy. It is the reestablishment of its central distinction in the only way appropriate to it. Winter 1978 46 LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
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