Philosophy For Strauss, politics and philosophy were necessarily intertwined. He regarded the trial and death of
Socrates as the moment when political philosophy came into existence. Strauss considered one of the most important moments in the
history of philosophy Socrates' argument that philosophers could not study
nature without considering their own
human nature, which, in the words of
Aristotle, is that of "a political animal." However, he also held that the ends of politics and philosophy were inherently irreconcilable and irreducible to one another. Strauss distinguished "scholars" from "great thinkers," identifying himself as a scholar. He wrote that most self-described philosophers are in actuality scholars, cautious and methodical. Great thinkers, in contrast, boldly and creatively address big problems. Scholars deal with these problems only indirectly by reasoning about the great thinkers' differences. In
Natural Right and History, Strauss begins with a critique of
Max Weber's
epistemology, briefly engages the
relativism of
Martin Heidegger (who goes unnamed) and continues with a discussion of the evolution of
natural rights via an analysis of the thought of
Thomas Hobbes and
John Locke. He concludes by critiquing
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and
Edmund Burke. At the heart of the book are excerpts from
Plato,
Aristotle, and
Cicero. Much of his philosophy is a reaction to the works of Heidegger. Indeed, Strauss wrote that Heidegger's thinking must be understood and confronted before any complete formulation of modern political theory is possible, and this means that political thought has to engage with issues of ontology and the history of metaphysics. Strauss wrote that
Friedrich Nietzsche was the first philosopher to properly understand
historicism, an idea grounded in a general acceptance of Hegelian
philosophy of history. Heidegger, in Strauss's view, sanitized and politicized Nietzsche, whereas Nietzsche believed "our own principles, including the belief in progress, will become as unconvincing and alien as all earlier principles (essences) had shown themselves to be" and "the only way out seems to be ... that one voluntarily choose life-giving delusion instead of deadly truth, that one fabricate a myth." Heidegger believed that the tragic
nihilism of Nietzsche was itself a "myth" guided by a defective Western conception of
Being that Heidegger traced to Plato. In his published correspondence with
Alexandre Kojève, Strauss wrote that
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was correct when he postulated that an end of history implies an end to philosophy as understood by classical political philosophy.
On reading —especially those of
Al-Farabi (pictured) and
Maimonides—was instrumental in the development of his theory of reading. In the late 1930s, Strauss called for the first time for a reconsideration of the "distinction between exoteric (or public) and esoteric (or secret) teaching." In 1952 he published
Persecution and the Art of Writing, arguing that serious writers write esoterically, that is, with multiple or layered meanings, often disguised within irony or paradox, obscure references, even deliberate self-contradiction. Esoteric writing serves several purposes: protecting the philosopher from the retribution of the regime, and protecting the regime from the corrosion of philosophy; it attracts the right kind of reader and repels the wrong kind; and ferreting out the interior message is in itself an exercise of philosophic reasoning. Taking his bearings from his study of
Maimonides and
Al-Farabi, and pointing further back to Plato's discussion of writing as contained in the
Phaedrus, Strauss proposed that the classical and medieval art of
esoteric writing is the proper medium for philosophic learning: rather than displaying philosophers' thoughts superficially, classical and medieval philosophical texts guide their readers in thinking and learning independently of imparted knowledge. Thus, Strauss agrees with the Socrates of the
Phaedrus, where the Greek indicates that, insofar as writing does not respond when questioned, good writing provokes questions in the reader—questions that orient the reader towards an understanding of problems the author thought about with utmost seriousness. Strauss thus, in
Persecution and the Art of Writing, presents Maimonides "as a closet nonbeliever obfuscating his message for political reasons". Strauss'
hermeneutical argument—rearticulated throughout his subsequent writings (most notably in
The City and Man [1964])—is that, before the 19th century, Western scholars commonly understood that philosophical writing is not at home in any polity, no matter how liberal. Insofar as it questions conventional wisdom at its roots, philosophy must guard itself especially against those readers who believe themselves authoritative, wise, and liberal defenders of the status quo. In questioning established opinions, or in investigating the principles of morality, philosophers of old found it necessary to convey their messages in an oblique manner. Their "art of writing" was the art of esoteric communication. This was especially apparent in medieval times when heterodox political thinkers wrote under the threat of the
Inquisition or comparably obtuse tribunals. Strauss's argument is not that the medieval writers he studies reserved one exoteric meaning for the many (
hoi polloi) and an esoteric, hidden one for the few (hoi oligoi), but that, through rhetorical stratagems including self-contradiction and hyperboles, these writers succeeded in conveying their proper meaning at the tacit heart of their writings—a heart or message irreducible to "the letter" or historical dimension of texts. Explicitly following
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's lead, Strauss indicates that medieval political philosophers, no less than their ancient counterparts, carefully adapted their wording to the dominant moral views of their time, lest their writings be condemned as heretical or unjust, not by "the many" (who did not read), but by those "few" whom the many regarded as the most righteous guardians of morality. It was precisely these righteous personalities who would be most inclined to persecute/ostracize anyone who was in the business of exposing the noble or great lie upon which the authority of the few over the many stands or falls.
On politics According to Strauss, modern
social science is flawed because it assumes the
fact–value distinction, a concept which Strauss found dubious. He traced its roots in
Enlightenment philosophy to
Max Weber, a thinker whom Strauss described as a "serious and noble mind". Weber wanted to separate values from science but, according to Strauss, was really a derivative thinker, deeply influenced by Nietzsche's
relativism. Strauss treated politics as something that could not be studied from afar. A political scientist examining politics with a value-free scientific eye, for Strauss, was self-deluded.
Positivism, the heir to both
Auguste Comte and Weber in the quest to make purportedly value-free judgments, failed to justify its own existence, which would require a value judgment. While modern-era
liberalism had stressed the pursuit of individual liberty as its highest goal, Strauss felt that there should be a greater interest in the problem of human excellence and political virtue. Through his writings, Strauss constantly raised the question of how, and to what extent, freedom and excellence can coexist. Strauss refused to provide any straightforward answer to the Socratic question:
What is the good for the city and man? Encounters with Carl Schmitt and Alexandre Kojève Two significant political-philosophical dialogues Strauss had with living thinkers were those he held with
Carl Schmitt and
Alexandre Kojève. Schmitt, who would later become, for a short time, the chief jurist of Nazi Germany, was one of the first important German academics to review Strauss's early work positively. Schmitt's positive reference for, and approval of, Strauss's work on
Hobbes was instrumental in winning Strauss the scholarship funding that allowed him to leave Germany. According to
Heinrich Meier's interpretation, Strauss's critique and clarifications of
The Concept of the Political led Schmitt to make significant emendations in its second edition. Writing to Schmitt in 1932, Strauss summarised Schmitt's
political theology that "because man is by nature evil, he, therefore, needs
dominion. But dominion can be established, that is, men can be unified only in a unity against—against other men. Every association of men is necessarily a separation from other men ... the political thus understood is not the constitutive principle of the state, of order, but a condition of the state." But Robert Howse argues that there is no clear evidence to support these claims and that the relationship between them was merely professional. Strauss, however, directly opposed Schmitt's position. For Strauss, Schmitt and his return to Hobbes helpfully clarified the nature of our political existence and our modern self-understanding. Schmitt's position was therefore symptomatic of the modern-era
liberal self-understanding. Strauss believed that such an analysis, as in Hobbes's time, served as a useful "preparatory action," revealing our contemporary orientation towards the eternal problems of politics (social existence). However, Strauss believed that Schmitt's reification of our modern self-understanding of the problem of politics into a political theology was not an adequate solution. Strauss instead advocated a return to a broader classical understanding of human nature and a tentative return to political philosophy, in the tradition of the ancient philosophers. With Kojève, Strauss had a close and lifelong philosophical friendship. They had first met as students in Berlin. The two thinkers shared boundless philosophical respect for each other. Kojève would later write that, without befriending Strauss, "I never would have known ... what philosophy is". The political-philosophical dispute between Kojève and Strauss centered on the role that philosophy should and can be allowed to play in politics. Kojève, a senior civil servant in the French government, was instrumental in the creation of the
European Economic Community. He argued that philosophers should have an active role in shaping political events. Strauss, on the contrary, believed that philosophers should play a role in politics only to the extent that they can ensure that philosophy, which he saw as mankind's highest activity, can be free from political intervention.
Liberalism and nihilism Strauss argued that
liberalism in its modern form (which is oriented toward
universal freedom as opposed to "ancient liberalism" which is oriented toward
human excellence), contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards extreme
relativism, which in turn led to two types of
nihilism: • The first was a "brutal" nihilism, expressed in
Nazi and
Bolshevik regimes. In
On Tyranny, he wrote that these
ideologies, both descendants of
Enlightenment thought, tried to destroy all traditions, history, ethics, and moral standards and replace them by force under which nature and mankind are subjugated and conquered. • The second type—the "gentle" nihilism expressed in Western
liberal democracies—was a kind of value-free aimlessness and a
hedonistic "permissive
egalitarianism," which he saw as permeating the fabric of contemporary American society. In the belief that 20th-century relativism,
scientism,
historicism, and nihilism were all implicated in the deterioration of
modern society and philosophy, Strauss sought to uncover the philosophical pathways that had led to this situation. The resultant study led him to advocate a tentative return to classical political philosophy as a starting point for judging political action.
Strauss's interpretation of Plato's Republic According to Strauss, the
Republic by
Plato is not "a blueprint for regime reform" (a play on words from
Karl Popper's
The Open Society and Its Enemies, which attacks
The Republic for being just that). Strauss quotes
Cicero: "
The Republic does not bring to light the best possible regime but rather the nature of political things—the nature of the city." Strauss argued that the city-in-speech was unnatural, precisely because "it is rendered possible by the abstraction from
eros". Though skeptical of "progress," Strauss was equally skeptical about political agendas of "return"—that is, going backward instead of forward. In fact, he was consistently suspicious of anything claiming to be a solution to an old political or philosophical problem. He spoke of the danger in trying finally to resolve the debate between
rationalism and
traditionalism in politics. In particular, along with many in the
pre-World War II German Right, he feared people trying to force a
world state to come into being in the future, thinking that it would inevitably become a
tyranny. Hence he kept his distance from the two totalitarianisms that he denounced in his century, both fascists and communists.
Strauss and Karl Popper Strauss rejected
Karl Popper's views as illogical. He agreed with a letter of response to his request of
Eric Voegelin to look into the issue. In the response, Voegelin wrote that studying Popper's views was a waste of precious time, and "an annoyance". Specifically about
The Open Society and Its Enemies and Popper's understanding of Plato's
The Republic, after giving some examples, Voegelin wrote: Strauss proceeded to show this letter to
Kurt Riezler, who used his influence in order to oppose Popper's appointment at the
University of Chicago.
Ancients and Moderns Strauss constantly stressed the importance of two dichotomies in political philosophy, namely
Athens and
Jerusalem (
reason and
revelation) and Ancient versus Modern. The "Ancients" were the Socratic philosophers and their intellectual heirs; the "Moderns" start with
Niccolò Machiavelli. The contrast between Ancients and Moderns was understood to be related to the unresolvable tension between Reason and Revelation. The Socratics, reacting to the first
Greek philosophers, brought philosophy back to earth, and hence back to the marketplace, making it more political. The Moderns reacted to the dominance of revelation in
medieval society by promoting the possibilities of Reason. They objected to Aquinas's merger of natural right and
natural theology, for it made natural right vulnerable to sideshow theological disputes.
Thomas Hobbes, under the influence of
Francis Bacon, re-oriented political thought to what was most solid but also most low in man—his physical hopes and fears—setting a precedent for
John Locke and the later economic approach to political thought, as in
David Hume and
Adam Smith.
Strauss and Zionism As a youth, Strauss belonged to the German
Zionist youth group, along with his friends
Gershom Scholem and
Walter Benjamin. Both were admirers of Strauss and would continue to be throughout their lives. When he was 17, as he said, he was "converted" to political Zionism as a follower of
Ze'ev Jabotinsky. He wrote several essays about its controversies but left these activities behind by his early twenties. While Strauss maintained a sympathetic interest in Zionism, he later came to refer to Zionism as "problematic" and became disillusioned with some of its aims. Strauss taught at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem during the 1954–55
academic year. In his letter to a
National Review editor, Strauss asked why
Israel had been called a
racist state by one of their writers. He argued that the author did not provide enough proof for his argument. He ended his essay with this statement: "Political Zionism is problematic for obvious reasons. But I can never forget what it achieved as a moral force in an era of complete dissolution. It helped to stem the tide of 'progressive' leveling of venerable, ancestral differences; it fulfilled a conservative function."
Religious belief Although Strauss accepted the utility of religious belief, there is some question about his religious views. He was openly disdainful of atheism and disapproved of contemporary "
dogmatic disbelief", which he considered intemperate and irrational. However, like
Thomas Aquinas, he felt that revelation must be subject to examination by reason. At the end of
The City and Man, Strauss invites the reader to "be open to ... the question
quid sit deus ["What is God?"]" (p. 241).
Edward Feser writes that "Strauss was not himself an orthodox believer, neither was he a convinced atheist. Since whether or not to accept a purported divine revelation is itself one of the 'permanent' questions, orthodoxy must always remain an option equally as defensible as unbelief." In
Natural Right and History, Strauss distinguishes a Socratic (Platonic, Ciceronian, Aristotelian) from a conventionalist (materialistic, Epicurean) reading of divinity, and argues that "the question of religion" (what is religion?) is inseparable from the question of the nature of civil society and civil authority. Throughout the volume he argues for the Socratic reading of civil authority and rejects the conventionalist reading (of which atheism is an essential component). This is incompatible with interpretations by Shadia Drury and other scholars who argue that Strauss viewed religion purely instrumentally. == Reception and legacy ==