THE STRAUSS PROBLEMRead more at location 2222
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one certainly does not have to be a Straussian, even a fellow traveler, to believe in the reality of esotericRead more at location 2223
his mysterious obsession with secrets and lies,Read more at location 2235
There is a single, unified purpose—a project—that he pursued throughout his career and in all his farflung researches, from Plato, Thucydides, and Aristophanes, to Alfarabi, Maimonides, and Marsilius, to Spinoza, Burke, and Heidegger.Read more at location 2237
the highest subject of “political philosophy” is not, as we today would assume, the political life. On the contrary: The highest subject of political philosophy is the philosophic life: philosophy—not as a teaching or as a body of knowledge, but as a way of life—offers, as it were, the solution to the problem that keeps political life in motion.Read more at location 2243
Strauss’s esoteric reading of works like the Republic—aRead more at location 2248
my point: the radical subordination of politics to philosophy is one of the most distinctive and defining themes of Strauss’s thought.Read more at location 2252
in his view, the truest purpose of esotericism, which is found in its highest form in Plato, is precisely to separate philosophy and politics, theory and praxis—to insulate each from the other,Read more at location 2256
the improper relation of theory and praxis,Read more at location 2258
which eventually deforms each, producing ideologized politics and politicized philosophy.Read more at location 2259
Plato composed his writings in such a way as to prevent for all time their use as authoritative texts. . . . His teaching can never become the subject of indoctrination. In the last analysis, his writings cannot be used for any purpose other than for philosophizing.Read more at location 2261
Of course, even philosophers have to live in political communities, and thus, as a citizen, Strauss had serious political concerns and opinions—primarily conservative—which he expressed sparingly, but forcefully. But they were not the subject of his guiding intellectual project,Read more at location 2265
he wrote about fifteen books and not a single one of them was about the contemporary political scene and what should be done.Read more at location 2268
The starting point of Strauss’s path of thought was the observation that in our time the whole legitimacy of western science, philosophy, and rationalism was being radically challenged—and at the hands of two opposite but mutually reinforcing movements: the “postmodern” force of historicism or cultural relativism and the ancient force of religious orthodoxy, now newly emboldened by reason’s self-destruction.Read more at location 2273
esotericism (in its classical form) argues for the inherent and inescapable tension between reason and society. As such, it constitutes a critique of the historicist assumption of their underlying unity, of the inherent subordination of reason to society and its fundamental commitments.Read more at location 2283
Strauss is so “obsessed” with esotericism, in sum, because he is engaged in the philosophical project of defending rationalism,Read more at location 2286
There is first of all the vexing question of exactly how one is to read a text between the lines.Read more at location 2295
by continuing our reliance, where possible, upon the explicit testimony of past writers and readers.Read more at location 2298
By freeing readers from the literal meaning of the text, it exposes them to various inevitable temptations and corruptions. It will open the door to Sabine’s “perverse ingenuity.”Read more at location 2306
proliferation of nonliteral interpretive approaches: Hegelian, Marxist, Freudian, Jungian, structuralist, poststructuralist, feminist, deconstructive, new historicist, and so forth.Read more at location 2313
There is also another important way in which, from the standpoint of these criteria of certainty and scholarly sobriety, the theory of esotericism is superior to its rivals: it is not simply rooted in theory. It—and it alone—is susceptible of empirical proof.Read more at location 2323
Here is a statement by Rousseau, for example, expressly telling us how he wrote—Read more at location 2327
the interpretation of this work of Rousseau’s, the esoteric method is absolutely proper and necessary. This conclusion is not based on abstract literary theory; it is Rousseau’s own explicit assertionRead more at location 2340
There is only one nonliteral hermeneutical theory that preexists this period—Read more at location 2363
the question before us is not whether we like the practice of esotericism (still less whether we like Leo Strauss or his students) but simply whether, in fact, it is real.Read more at location 2370
We abhor slavery but do not deny that it ever existed.Read more at location 2376
The cure, then, to the problem of blindness and ethnocentrism is again a greater knowledge of ourselves in our uniqueness,Read more at location 2387
We naturally incline to dismiss the whole theory of esotericism as impossibly arrogant and elitist. But of course, only a few short centuries ago, all the world was ruled by monarchs and aristocrats. Most of the philosophers, too, held that the best form of government was some sort of aristocracy.Read more at location 2396
egalitarian societies incline to misunderstand themselves: they systematically underestimate their own egalitarianism. Thus, they underestimate, in particular, how utterly different all their perceptions and sensibilities have become from those of earlier, nonegalitarian ages.Read more at location 2403
Pierre Charron does not hesitate to assert that a wise man “is as far above the common sort of men as a common man is above the beasts.”Read more at location 2410
“To speak of the people,” remarks Guicciardini, “is really to speak of a mad animal, gorged with a thousand and one errors and confusions, devoid of taste, of pleasure, of stability.Read more at location 2411
Spinoza speaks of “the masses whose intellect is not capable of perceiving things clearlyRead more at location 2414
Cicero goes so far as to claim that the very faculty of reason is “disastrous to the many and wholesome to but few.”Read more at location 2416
According to Montaigne, “Aristo of Chios had reason to say long ago that philosophers harmed their listeners, inasmuch as most souls are not fit to profit by such instruction.Read more at location 2418
Galen, the Greek physician and philosopher, wrote: “My discourse in this book is not for all people;Read more at location 2420
Maimonides declares in the introduction to the Guide of the Perplexed that he “could find no other device by which to teach a demonstrated truth other than by giving satisfaction to a single virtuous manRead more at location 2422
Horace: “I loathe the mob impure and forbid it place. Let tongues be silent!”Read more at location 2425
Seneca quotes Epicurus as having said: “I have never wished to cater to the people; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.”Read more at location 2428
La Mettrie expresses a similar attitude: Whatever may be my speculation in the quiet of my study, my practice in society is quite different.Read more at location 2431
Nietzsche translates these observations into a crucial—but counterintuitive—generalization about writing: On the question of being understandable—One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.Read more at location 2436
it should also be pointed out that three of the four motives for esotericism—the desire to escape persecution, promote political change, and teach in a Socratic way—can all be defended in essentially egalitarian terms.Read more at location 2457
It is almost beyond our capacity to comprehend that in many earlier societies, indeed in much of contemporary India and Japan, husbands and wives, parents and children can pass their whole lives without ever once openly saying: I love you.Read more at location 2475
In a traditional society, after all, the highest knowledge both concerns and derives from the divine, and such sacred knowledge is not to be profaned by being disclosed to the unworthy.Read more at location 2481
“one reason often adduced for secrecy by Pueblo leaders is that religious ceremonies lose their power if they are known by the wrong people.Read more at location 2483
“it is in accordance with the dictates of nature that this should be so.” For secrecy “induces reverence for the divine,Read more at location 2487
if knowledge is power, then secrecy is the husbanding and maintenance of power.Read more at location 2491
Socrates. In the Platonic dialogues, he is depicted as renowned throughout Athens for never giving anyone a straight answer.Read more at location 2501
With the issue of secrecy, just as with that of elitism, we have clearly been misled by the anachronisticRead more at location 2502
Think about it: the two greatest teachers of the Western tradition were Jesus and Socrates. And both were famous for their secrecy and indirect speech.Read more at location 2504
Is it really believable that the greatest truth seekers of the past were in actuality all bald-faced liars?Read more at location 2506
In his classic History of European Morals, W. E. H Lecky argues that “veracity is usually the special virtue of an industrial nation,”Read more at location 2508
Hannah Arendt, who points out that “except for Zoroastrianism, none of the major religions included lying as such, as distinguished from ‘bearing false witness,’ in their catalogues of grave sins.”Read more at location 2510
This changed only in modern times, she continues, owing largely to the rise of intellectual specialization, that is, “the rise of organized science, whose progress had to be assured on the firm ground of the absolute veracity and reliability of every scientist.”Read more at location 2512
It is fairly easy to show that a very large and wide-ranging group of earlier thinkers regarded the use of salutary lies or at least of concealment of some portion of the truth as just or allowable under the right circumstances.Read more at location 2522
the position of Plato and (his) Socrates on the propriety of noble lies is well known.Read more at location 2525
Plutarch quotes Chrysippus as saying: “Often indeed do the wise employ lies against the vulgar.”Read more at location 2528
Grotius writes: “If we may trust Plutarch and Quintillion the Stoics include among the endowments of the wise man the ability to lie in the proper place and manner.”Read more at location 2529
Maimonides declaring: These matters [of theology] are only for a few solitary individuals of a very special sort, not for the multitude.Read more at location 2531
Averroes, in his commentary on Plato’s Republic, writes: The chiefs’ lying to the multitude will be appropriateRead more at location 2535
Erasmus states: While it can never be lawful to go against the truth, it may sometimes be expedient to conceal it in the circumstances.Read more at location 2540
Thomas Burnet writes on the subject at some length: What just or pious man ever scrupled to deceive children or lunaticks, when thereby they contributed to their safety and welfare? AndRead more at location 2543
in the Encyclopedia itself, there is an article by Diderot entitled “Mensonge officieux”—unofficial or salutary lie—which promotes the “wise maxim that the lie that procures good is worth more than the truth that causes harm.”Read more at location 2552
David Hume, pulling no punches, writes: “It is putting too great a Respect on the Vulgar, and on their Superstitions, to pique oneself on Sincerity with regard to them.Read more at location 2554
Descartes’s statement: I would not want to criticize those who allow that through the mouths of the prophets God can produce verbal untruths which, like the lies of doctors who deceive their patients in order to cure them, are free of any malicious intent to deceive.Read more at location 2557
Augustine is the one who takes the strongest position against lying.62 Yet since his position does not preclude concealment,Read more at location 2562
Note: AGOSTINO
