Strauss shared Arendt’s Nietzsche-inspired concern about the perpetuation of human greatness, as well as her very anti-Nietzschean desire to revive a Socratic understanding of political philosophy. In a letter he wrote to Karl Loewith in 1935 Strauss admitted that ‘‘Nietzsche so dominated and bewitched me between my 22nd and 30th years that I literally believed everything that I understood of him.’’ Loewith had shown Strauss that the aspects of Nietzsche that had attracted him were only part of Nietzsche’s work and that ‘‘with Nietzsche something ‘is not right.’ ’’ But Strauss did not think that Loewith had taken ‘‘those intentions of Nietzsche which point beyond Nietzsche’s teaching’’ seriously enough. ‘‘It is not sufficient simply to stop where Nietzsche is no longer right; rather one must ask whether or not Nietzsche himself became untrue to his intention to repeat antiquity, and did so as a result of his confinement within modern presuppositions’’ (1988: 183-4).
Strauss later praised his friend Jacob Klein for being ‘‘the first to understand the possibility which Heidegger had opened without intending it: the possibility of a genuine return... to the philosophy of Aristotle and of Plato’’ (1978: 1). But Strauss did not approach ancient politics and philosophy on the basis of a fundamentally Heideggerian framework the way Arendt had. On the contrary, Strauss thought that he had obtained a fresh, more original reading of ancient political philosophy by taking an untraditional path back to it. That path led through medieval Jewish and Islamic political philosophy, which differed in notable respects from the Augustinian appropriation of Plato and the Thomist appropriation of Aristotle that remained dominant not only in the early modern philosophical reactions against Christian scholastic theology but also in the contemporary critiques of Plato put forward by Heidegger and Arendt.
In his early book Philosophy and Law (1995) Strauss argued that the Jewish medieval philosopher Moses Maimonides and his Islamic teacher, Farabi, began with an essentially Aristotelian understanding of the cosmos and reinterpreted Islamic and Jewish law in light of that understanding in order to establish and preserve the conditions, especially the moral beliefs, necessary to maintain political order. But Strauss later came to see that Maimonides’ teacher Farabi had followed Plato, not Aristotle, in thinking that philosophy consisted in the search for wisdom, not in contemplation of the eternal beings. Farabi, moreover, followed a Plato very different from Plato as normally understood in the western tradition. That Plato argues that suprasensible, disembodied ‘‘forms’’ or ‘‘ideas’’ are the true beings, of which the things we experience are mere reflections or imitations. He teaches that there is an immortal soul which exists separately from the body. And he advocates the rule of philosophers. This is the Plato Heidegger and Arendt thought had distorted and so covered over the original way in which the truth of Being or about individuals in political debate was disclosed.
In Farabi’s tripartite work The Aims of the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, Strauss observed, the Islamic philosopher argued that happiness is the aim of human life, according to both ancient philosophers. Since man’s perfection and thus his happiness consist in philosophy, and since, as the fate of Socrates makes clear, philosophy arouses political opposition, Plato taught that it was necessary to seek a city different from the cities that existed in his time: the city in speech of the Republic where the philosophers rule. At least that was what Farabi seemed to say at the beginning of his treatise on Plato. Reading further, Strauss observed, Farabi provided a number of grounds on which to challenge the textbook version of Plato’s Republic. Having initially claimed that Plato thought philosophy needed to be supplemented by a royal art in order for human beings to attain happiness, Farabi then stated that Plato ‘‘teaches that philosophy does not need to be supplemented by something else in order to produce happiness.’’ Farabi’s second statement thus contradicted what he had said at first. Having first suggested that the happiness of the philosophers, as well as of their fellow citizens, depended upon the establishment of the perfect city, that is, the city of the philosopher-kings, ‘‘toward the end of the treatise, Farabi ma[de] it absolutely clear that there can be, not only philosophers, but completely perfect human beings... in imperfect cities.’’ Philosophers do not need to rule in order to achieve their end. Philosophers can live and even thrive as members of imperfect regimes.
Nor did Farabi think that, according to Plato, the happiness of the philosopher depends upon his contemplating eternally existing, unchanging beings. Although he purportedly summarized the Phaedrus, Phaedo, and Republic, Strauss pointed out, Farabi did not mention the immortality of the soul or the unchanging Platonic ideas. Yet Farabi had claimed to present ‘‘the philosophy of Plato, its parts, and the grades of dignity of its parts, from its beginning to its end.’’ How could Farabi leave out topics so prominent in the dialogues he was interpreting, topics that were apparently so central to Platonic philosophy? Strauss concluded that when Farabi omitted a topic, this meant that he thought it was unimportant or merely an exoteric (surface) doctrine. To avoid being persecuted for impiety like Socrates, Farabi saw that Plato and philosophers in general had to claim not only that they could help their fellow citizens live better, but also that the philosophers themselves believed in eternal beings and in an afterlife. Writing in his own name in the preface to The Aims, Farabi thus distinguished ‘‘the happiness of this world’’ from ‘‘the ultimate happiness in the other life.’’ But in the central chapter of The Aims on Plato, he silently dropped this distinction. And ‘‘in his commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics [in part 3] he declare[d] that there is only the happiness of this life and that all divergent statements are based on ‘ravings and old women’s tales.’ ’’
Farabi could express such impious views without fear of persecution, Strauss suggested, because as a commentator, Farabi was not explicitly presenting his own views. Strauss nonetheless thought he could discern Farabi’s own views and his deeper understanding of Plato’s views through his subtle way of presenting Platonic philosophy. Even as a commentator, Farabi was not simply summarizing what Plato wrote. Plato had explicitly argued for the immortality of the soul and hence some kind of afterlife in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, and Republic. Farabi was thus almost ‘‘compelled [by the Platonic texts] to embrace a tolerably orthodox doctrine concerning the life after death.’’ By choosing to attribute another opinion to the philosopher he most highly revered, ‘‘Farabi avail[ed] himself then of the specific immunity of a commentator, or of the historian, in order to speak his own mind’’ (Strauss 1945: 359-83).5
Strauss thought that he had learned from Farabi’s Plato that the goodness of a philosophic way of life does not depend upon the possibility of human beings’ attaining complete theoretical knowledge. It was possible, therefore, to revive Platonic political philosophy without insisting on or even affirming the truth of Aristotelian cosmology in the face of modern physics. The model of the philosophic life is Socrates, not Aristotle. In Plato’s Apology Socrates tells his Athenian jurors that the Delphic oracle declared him to be the wisest, because he at least knows that he does not know. (Knowing that one does not know is, of course, not knowing nothing; one has to know, among other things, what it is to know.) Socrates recognized that his fellow citizens might find his story about the oracle ironic. All he claimed to know on the basis of his own experience was that the ‘‘unexamined life is not worth living, but to make speeches every day about virtue and the other things about which you hear me conversing is the greatest good for a human being’’ (Ap. 38a). Whether or not Socrates ever attained the knowledge he sought, Plato’s presentation of his life represented the contention that philosophy is a way of life, is the form of human life that is by nature best. If that claim could be made good, it would constitute a decisive response to Nietzsche and modern nihilism, without requiring questionable metaphysics or cosmology.
Although Socrates is famous for having maintained that virtue is knowledge, in the Republic (485b-487a) he suggests that human beings who merely seek wisdom possess all four of the cardinal virtues as a result of their overwhelming desire for truth. It is not necessary, in other words, to possess knowledge so much as passionately to seek it. Desiring truth above all else, Socrates argues, people with philosophical natures are not tempted to be immoderate or unjust by taking more than their share or seizing the goods of others. Recognizing that all sensible things must pass away, they are not afraid in the face of death. The philosopher’s overwhelming desire for truth frees him from the desires for wealth, power, and status or recognition that lead most other human beings to be immoral. Philosophers do not need to possess the knowledge, for example, of the Idea of the Good, Socrates suggests they would need to rule in order to be virtuous themselves. (See Hitz, this volume, chapter 24.)
As Socrates’ own life and death demonstrated so dramatically, however, philosophers came into conflict with political authorities as a result of the questions they posed in their quest for knowledge. Strauss nevertheless thought that Socrates had been correct, as Cicero put it, to bring ‘‘philosophy down from the heavens’’ (Strauss 1953: 121). Philosophers seek knowledge of the whole. The philosopher himself, or more broadly humanity, is not merely a part of the whole, however; the philosopher is a particularly central or significant part, because human beings are the only parts of the whole that raise the question about the whole. The first commandment of the philosophic life thus becomes, ‘‘know thyself.’’ Humanity exists first and foremost within social and political orders. To understand themselves, philosophers thus have to understand the social and political life of human beings, and how the life or questioning of the philosopher relates to this universal and in a sense defining feature of human existence.
Unlike Arendt, however, Strauss did not think that the trial and death of Socrates led Plato to conclude that philosophers needed to rule. In his essay ‘‘On Plato’s Republic’ Strauss (1964: 122-8) recognized that Socrates maintains that evils in cities will not cease until philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers. But, Strauss also pointed out, in the Republic Socrates emphasizes that philosophers do not want to rule; they would be the only just rulers precisely because they are the only people who cannot attain or hope to attain what they want by means of rule. Philosophers can justly be compelled to rule, moreover, only by a city that provides them with the education that enables them to become philosophers. It is unlikely that they will be compelled to rule in any existing city, because most people outside the just city will continue to believe that philosophers are at best useless. But, Strauss recognized, philosophers are just human beings, and there is such a thing as selfcompulsion. ‘‘It should not be necessary, but it is necessary to add that compulsion does not cease to be compulsion if it is self-compulsion.’’ Will a philosopher in a less than perfectly just regime feel obliged to rule? The implicit answer is, no. The fact that philosophers do not feel duty-bound to rule does not mean, however, that philosophers will not attempt to benefit their fellow citizens, for example, by advising the government. Free from the competitive desires for wealth and honor that make human beings hostile to one another, philosophers are able to act on the natural affection all human beings feel for others, especially for members of their own families and community.
Strauss (1964: 50-7) emphasized the importance of taking the literary form of the dialogues seriously if we wish to understand Plato’s writing. Like a playwright, Plato does not speak to his readers directly. ‘‘The decisive fact is that Plato... points away from himself to Socrates. If we wish to understand Plato, we must take... seriously... his deference to Socrates. Plato points not only to Socrates’ speeches but to his whole life, to his fate as well’’ (1983: 168).
Socrates never went into the public Assembly or sought to rule. Had he done so, he states in both the Republic (496a-e) and his Apology (31c-32a), he would not have survived. Like a good citizen, he had risked his life by serving in the Athenian army at Potidaea, Delium, and Amphipolis. He had also served, when required by law to do so, as part of the jury for the trial of the Arginusae generals. But he had angered his fellow citizens by insisting that they ought to obey their own laws and not try the ten generals together. Socrates recognized both that the Athenians did not understand the kind of service he provided for the city as a philosopher, and that the young people who imitated his questioning would irritate the elders. But Socrates nevertheless persisted. In his Apology (29c-d) he went so far as to say that the only law he would disobey would be a law that forbade him from philosophizing in his accustomed manner.
In On Tyranny Strauss explains that like Socrates,
The philosopher must go to the marketplace in order to fish there for potential philosophers. His attempts to convert young men to the philosophic life will necessarily be regarded by the city as an attempt to corrupt the young. The philosopher is therefore forced to defend the cause of philosophy. He must therefore act upon the city or upon the ruler.
But that does not mean ‘‘the philosopher must desire to determine or codetermine the politics of the city or of the rulers.’’ On the contrary, ‘‘there is no necessary connection between the philosopher’s indispensable philosophic politics and the efforts which he might or might not make to contribute toward the establishment of the best regime. For philosophy and philosophic education are possible in all kinds of more or less imperfect regimes’’ (1991: 205).
The fact that philosophers like Socrates did not seek to rule did not mean that they were not politically engaged and active. Like Arendt, Strauss insisted that ‘‘political activity’’ and rule are not synonymous. But where Arendt argued that Socrates’ examinations of the opinions of his contemporaries were an expression and extension of the distinctively human capacity for ‘‘political action’’ in general, Strauss insisted that Socrates was engaged in a certain kind of philosophical education.
If justice is taken in the larger sense according to which it consists in giving to each what is good for his soul, one must distinguish between the cases in which such giving is intrinsically attractive to the giver (these will be the cases of the potential philosophers) and those in which it is merely a duty or compulsory.
If philosophers’ overwhelming desire to acquire knowledge were taken into account, it would be clear that no philosophers would choose to spend their time attending to public business and hence, of necessity, give up the leisure necessary to pursue wisdom, their own greatest love. But that does not mean that they would not attempt to help their fellow citizens. ‘‘There is no reason why the philosopher should not engage in political activity out of that kind of love of one’s own which is patriotism’’ (Strauss 1964: 128). That is what Socrates did when he went to his fellow citizens in private to reproach them for seeking wealth, honor, and safety rather than truth, prudence, and the good of their souls or when he willingly served the city in war. (See Saxonhouse, this volume, chapter 23.)
Although he understood the peak of human existence differently, Strauss agreed with Arendt in thinking that modern conditions threatened to make the achievement of this peak impossible. The combination of the universal principles characteristic of modern politics with the power of modern technology created the specter of the complete suppression and destruction of philosophy as an open-minded quest for truth by rulers claiming to act on the basis of the ‘‘true philosophy,’’ that is, ruling ideology. When governments persecuted dissenters and critics in the past, Strauss observed, philosophers had simply gone underground or left the country. But if a government now acquired universal power and insisted that everyone under it subscribe to its ‘‘truth,’’ there would be nowhere to flee. (Strauss 1991: 211). It was essential for the preservation of both human liberty and human dignity, therefore, to preserve a number of different nations with different regimes.
Like Arendt, Strauss thus emphasized the limitations of modern political philosophy and tried to revive an Aristotelian appreciation not only of the difference between theory and practice, but also of the autonomy and dignity of politics. By limiting politics to the preservation of life, liberty, and estate, Strauss argued, modern political philosophers had transformed government into a public means of achieving private, individual ends. The line they attempted to draw between ‘‘public’’ and ‘‘private’’ was not tenable, however. As Aristotle pointed out, the economy, social institutions, and character of individuals living in communities are decisively shaped by the government or ‘‘regime.’’
Modern political philosophy also downplayed, if it did not altogether deny the importance of individual leaders. As James Madison observed in Federalist #10, ‘‘enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.’’ Modern philosophers thought that it would be better, therefore, to rely on institutions than on individuals. Recognizing that laws and institutions did not always have the intended effects, they found it necessary to look at the underlying, often unacknowledged, if not unconscious drives that impel human beings to act as they do. Political acts were thus reduced to reflections or results of subpolitical economic, social or psychological needs. (Cf. Strauss 1968: 203-23; Arendt 1958: 22-78.) In fact, Strauss suggested, it was impossible to explain either the rise of ‘‘totalitarian’’ regimes or the successful resistance by the western democracies in World War II without reference to individual leaders. ‘‘The weakness of the Weimar Republic made certain its speedy destruction,’’ he observed, but that weakness ‘‘did not make certain the victory of National Socialism’’:
The victory of National Socialism became necessary in Germany for the same reason the victory of Communism had become necessary in Russia: the man who had by far the
Strongest will or single-mindedness, the greatest ruthlessness, daring, and power over his following, and the best judgment about the strength of the various forces in the immediately relevant political field was the leader of the revolution. (Strauss 1997: 1)
The defense of the liberal democracies had likewise depended upon the practical wisdom of Winston Churchill. One of the ways a philosopher could most help his people, Strauss urged, was to educate other potential political leaders.
In returning to the ancients, Strauss thus attempted to revive not only a Socratic understanding of philosophy, but also an Aristotelian understanding of political science. Whereas modern political philosophers like Hobbes (and the contemporary behavioral social scientists who have followed him) recognized only one kind of science and thus attempted to reform the study of politics so that it would be more like modern physics, Aristotle argued that there were two kinds of science, theoretical and practical or political. And Strauss saw, this ‘‘distinction between theoretical and practical sciences implies that human action has principles of its own which are known independently of theoretical science (physics and metaphysics)’’ (1968: 205-6).
In his Politics (1324a13-1325b30), Aristotle concludes that the choice between the life of theory and the life of practice is the most difficult, because the most important, choice a human being can make. By agreeing that their contemporaries needed to be reminded of both the character and importance of a distinctively human form of existence, but disagreeing about whether the highest form is essentially practical or philosophical, Arendt and Strauss revived a sense of the importance and dignity of both for their modern readers. In evident contrast to both Nietzsche and Heidegger, Arendt and Strauss reminded people who still contemn mere ‘‘politicians’’ of the way in which ‘‘politics’’ not merely pervades, but fundamentally determines the character of our common lives. By celebrating Socrates, both Arendt and Strauss showed the way not merely ancient political philosophy, in general, but the deeds and speeches of a historical individual, in particular, continue to inspire modern readers in the twenty-first century.
World History
