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As the previous chapter showed, Strauss aims at a re-opening of “the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns”, or a “change of orientation” towards the ancients. He argues that modern political philosophy, “founded” by “Machiavelli”, has culminated in radical historicism, or the thesis that human thought is essentially historically determined – including the historicist thesis itself. As a result, philosophy in its original sense, as well as political philosophy in its original sense, are no longer believed to be possible. He claims that philosophy originally understood itself as the attempt to rise from opinion [doxa] of “the whole” or of

“nature” to knowledge [epistēmē] thereof. Accordingly, political philosophy originally understood itself as the attempt to rise from mere opinions about what is the right way of living together or what is “natural right”, to true knowledge thereof.

Strauss repeatedly reminds us that it is Socrates whom tradition regards as the “founder” of political philosophy,292

that is, the first philosopher “who called philosophy down from heaven and forced it to make inquiries about life and manners and good and bad things” (NRH 120). Insofar as Platonic “political” philosophy and the “art of writing” can be understood as a “solution” to the “problem” that is posed by Socratic political philosophy, we first need to acquire an adequate understanding of the latter.

Since the mere articulation of a problem already orients us towards a specific solution to it, we first need to address “the problem of Socrates” in the sense of determining what he stood for – which would seem to be difficult enough, since he himself did not write anything – before addressing “the problem of Socrates” in the sense of determining the worth of what he stood for.293 To achieve this first aim, we need to search for Strauss’s understanding of Socrates’ teaching

before his “change of orientation” to the ancients, and especially before his

recovery of the Platonic “art of writing”, that is, before Strauss took sides.

Such an account of what Socrates stood for can be found in a lecture that Strauss delivered in 1931. This is one year before he published his “comments” on Carl Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political, which Strauss regards as his first public expression of his “change of orientation”, after which he would gradually rediscover “the manner in which heterodox thinkers of earlier ages wrote their books”.294

The lecture, titled ‘Cohen and Maimonides’, remained unpublished during his lifetime.295 In it, Strauss aims to arrive at an understanding of the political meaning of the philosophy of Maimonides (1135-1204) through an understanding and critique of the moral philosophy of Hermann Cohen (1842- 1918). Insofar, Strauss argues, as Cohen regards Plato rather than Aristotle as the

292

Cf. CM 13; Strauss, Socrates and Aristophanes, 3 293

Cf. Strauss, Socrates and Aristophanes, 6. 294

Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, 31. 295

Strauss, ‘Cohen und Maimuni’. The lecture was delivered on 4 May 1931 at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin.

121 ancient example of true philosophizing, he helps us to understand the extent to which Maimonides’ thought is fundamentally Platonic instead of Aristotelian in nature. Strauss notes in his lecture that Plato’s philosophizing is essentially the same as that of Socrates, at least insofar as he is presented to us in the Platonic dialogues.296 As there is no mention of any difference between Socrates and Plato, therefore, it is precisely against the background of this as yet “undecided” stance toward them that we are enabled to bring into clear view the decision that will underlie Strauss’s later understanding of “the problem of Socrates”, in the sense of the worth of his teaching and his recovery of the Platonic “solution” to it.297

Strauss begins the account in ‘Cohen and Maimonides’ by stating that Socrates did not have a teaching [Lehre]. Instead, he brought others to insight by

raising questions, starting with the insight that they did not know what they

thought they knew.298 Moreover, Socrates himself did not possess the knowledge that others lacked, for his wisdom consisted precisely in the fact that he knew that he knew nothing. Strauss adds, however, that this not-knowing must itself not be understood as a teaching, that is, as an answer to a question. Socrates is not a skeptic. The apparent answer he gives – knowledge of not-knowing – is merely the sharpest expression of the question: “Socratic philosophizing means

questioning”.299

In agreement with this, Strauss was in his later work to characterize Socratic philosophizing as being neither dogmatic nor skeptic, but “zetetic”, or as skeptic in the original sense of the word.300

Nevertheless, Strauss adds, one only asks questions if one is seriously interested in finding answers. Indeed, there were many things that Socrates in fact

knew, such as that Themistocles and Pericles, “the greatest sons of Athens”, had actually not benefited their city at all, contrary to common opinion.301 Strauss concludes that Socrates deliberately chose to lead a life of questioning. This, though, is not a questioning “at will” [beliebig], that is, a questioning of “the things

in the Hades, underneath the earth and in heaven”.302

Socrates is no natural philosopher. Rather, it is a questioning that is “necessary for life”

[lebensnotwendig], which consists in asking how one should live, in a giving-of-

account [sich-verantworten] for one’s own way of life. Since Socrates knew,

296 _{Strauss, ‘Cohen und Maimuni’, 411.} 297

Strauss focuses on “the problem of Socrates” especially in the posthumously published lecture series ‘The Problem of Socrates’ (1958), as well as in the following three works: Socrates and Aristophanes (1966); Xenophon’s Socratic Discourse (1970); and Xenophon’s Socrates (1972). For Strauss’s introduction of “the way of Plato” as a combination of “the way of Socrates” and “the way of Thrasymachus”, see Strauss, ‘Farabi’s Plato’ (1945), 363-364, 382-383; Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), 16; ‘How Farabi Read Plato’s Laws’ (1957), 153-154; ‘The Problem of Socrates’

(1958), 159; On Plato’s Symposium (1959), 246-247. 298

Strauss does not give a direct reference here, but we may assume that he refers to Socrates’ practice of maieutic as it he describes it in Plato’s Theaetetus.

299

Strauss, ‘Cohen und Maimuni’, 411. 300

Strauss, ‘Restatement on Xenophon’s Hiero’, 196.

301

Plato, Gorgias, 515d-517a. 302

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therefore, that an unexamined life is not worth living,303 he provides an answer to the question of the right way of life: “Questioning the right way of life – that is the

only right way of life” [emphasis in original].304 Strauss explains further:

The questioning and examining is not a questioning-oneself and examining-oneself of the solitary [einsam] thinker; it is a mutual

questioning and mutual examining; it is a giving-of-account [Sich- verantworten] in the original sense: one can always only give account before a person. Socrates always only philosophizes with others. His questioning of the right way of life is a questioning together. He questions together with others not because he wants to persuade [überzeugen] others – only someone who is purely a teacher [Lehrender] may want this –, but because he aims for understanding [Verständigung] and agreement

[Einklang]. He aims for understanding and agreement, because only out of understanding and agreement, out of concord [Einsinnigkeit] among the citizens, can the state truly be a state [translation my own] [emphasis in original].”305

Strauss concludes that Socratic questioning of the right way of life is a questioning together of the right way of living together for the sake of the right way of living together, that is, the “true state”. He therefore regards Socratic questioning as “essentially political”.306

Strauss notes, however, that the meaning of the word “political” is ambiguous. He explains that the basis for this lies in the fact that human life exists as such in living together and is thus political life: “all human doings and goings

[Tun und Treiben] and thinking [Denken] are in themselves political”.307 However,

the latter is not always explicitly [ausdrücklich] the case. After all, Strauss argues, we call people “politicians” only when they deal explicitly with living together. One may deal explicitly with living together in two ways: either without giving account [ohne Verantwortung] or by giving account [in Verantwortung], which explains the ambiguity of the term “political”.308

303

Plato, Apology of Socrates, 38a. 304

Strauss, ‘Cohen und Maimuni’, 412. 305

Strauss, ‘Cohen und Maimuni’, 412. Cf. Strauss, letter to Gerhard Krüger, 19 August 1932: “das letzte Wort kann aber nur der Friede, d.h. die Verständigung in der Wahrheit, sein. Dass diese Verständigung der Vernunft möglich sei – firmitur credo” (Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3, 399).

306

Strauss, ‘Cohen und Maimuni’, 412.

307 _{Cf. NRH 129: “man is social in a more radical sense than any other social animal: humanity is} itself sociality. Man refers himself to others, or rather he is referred to others, in every human act, regardless of whether that act is ‘social’ or ‘antisocial’.”

308

Janssens, Between Athens and Jerusalem, 121, gives a different reading of this passage insofar as he understands the ambiguity of the concept of the political to consist primarily in the difference between implicit and explicit politics, whereas in my view it makes better sense to understand the ambiguity to exist in the two kinds of explicit politics, that is to say, in the way of the sophists and the way of Socrates, respectively. This makes more sense because Strauss inserts the word “ambiguity” [Zweideutigkeit] the second time after having introduced this distinction, and because he includes a reference at this point to Plato’s Gorgias, in which this distinction is central.

123 In the case of the first kind of politics, Strauss explains, one does not ask what is good; rather, one is of the opinion that one knows what is good. Moreover, if one knows what is good, one is capable of teaching it, of teaching it publicly. Hence, one is capable of writing it down. In the case of the second kind of politics, he continues, one does not know what is good, and hence one cannot teach it publicly, one cannot write it down. Because Socrates knows that he knows nothing, or that understanding can only exist by consent [Einverständnis], he does not address the multitude [die Menge], but the individual [der Einzelne], with whom he speaks in the form of a dialogue [Dialog]. Strauss claims that this is the reason why Socrates speaks and does not write. For, as Socrates says in Plato’s Phaedrus, what is written is necessarily misunderstood, what is written cannot protect itself against misunderstanding.309 Since a piece of writing does not know whom to address, it always says the same thing, whereas, Strauss claims, “the crucial point is rather to

speak the one truth [das eine Wahre] ever differently”.310

We may note that the account of Socrates given here coincides pretty much with Socrates’ self-presentation in Plato’s Gorgias, where he calls himself “the

only true politician”, in contrast to statesmen like Themistocles and Pericles, who are praised by Callicles, the sophist.311 In sum, Strauss seems to have made a distinction between two kinds of politics: (i) the sophistic kind of politics, which attempts to persuade the multitude of one’s opinions by means of rhetoric; (ii) the Socratic kind of politics, which consists in the philosophical search for agreement

in truth about the right way of living together, and which can only take place in the

form of a dialectical discussion between two individual persons.312

Now that we have “solved” “the problem of Socrates” in the sense of determining what he stood for according to Strauss, we need to turn our attention to “the problem of Socrates” in the more fundamental sense of determining Strauss’s answer to the question of the worth of what he stood for. The question Strauss does

not address in his early lecture is whether Socrates’ “true politics” is at all capable of achieving its aim, that is, whether its method of “dialectical” conversation with

individual persons is indeed capable of delivering its promise of uniting the citizens in true knowledge. In light of the fate of the historical Socrates, who was sentenced

309

See Plato, Phaedrus, 275de.

310 _{Strauss, ‘Cohen und Maimuni’, 413. Presumably Strauss bases himself on Plato, Phaedrus, 276a} in this sentence, for the page to which he actually refers (Phaedrus,c. 60) does not exist.

311

Plato, Gorgias, 521d. 312

As we have seen in the first two chapters, the picture of Socrates presented by Karl Popper is very similar. See for instance The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1, 130: “ ‘Whatever authority I may have rests solely upon my knowing how little I know’: this is the way in which Socrates might have justified his mission to stir up the people from their dogmatic slumber. This educational mission he believed to be also a political mission. He felt that the way to improve the political life of the city was to educate the citizens to self-criticism. In this sense he claimed to be ‘the only politician of his day’, in opposition to those others who flatter the people instead of furthering their true interests.” As the last chapter shows, we encounter the same picture of Socrates in an unpublished lecture by Hannah Arendt, ‘Philosophy and Politics’, 81: “Socrates wanted to make the city more truthful by delivering each of the citizens of their truths. The method of doing this is [dialegesthai], talking something through ….”

124

to death in the name of the laws of the city, it seems that the answer to this question must be negative. Yet if Socratic politics is indeed bound to fail, it would seem that every state, or political life in general, is necessarily at the mercy of sophistry.

One of Strauss’s clearest accounts of the conception of political philosophy that is exemplified by Socratic “true politics” especially, and of its vulnerability, can be found in his article ‘On Classical Political Philosophy’ (1945).313

Strauss explains that classical political philosophy regards itself primarily as a practical

discipline, aimed at the right guidance of political life rather than at understanding

it.314 Hence its orientation is the same as the one inherent in political life, although not that of the partisan “who prefers victory in civil war over arbitration”, but of the good citizen who attempts “to make civil strife cease and to create, by persuasion, agreement among the citizens” (CPP 81). More specifically, the political philosopher tries to settle “the most fundamental political controversy” (CPP 84), that is, the question of the best political order, or “who should rule?”

However, Strauss adds that this question can only be answered if the philosopher raises “an ulterior question which is never raised in the political arena” (CPP 90). In order to answer the question “what is that virtue whose possession … gives a man the highest right to rule?” (CPP 90), the philosopher first needs to address the question “what is virtue?”, which Strauss calls a “distinctly philosophic question” (CPP 90). As soon as one tries to answer this question, however, it will turn out that opinions that are commonly held about virtue are in fact contradicted by other opinions about virtue that are equally commonly held, which leads to the following:

To reach consistency the philosopher is compelled to maintain one part of common opinion and to give up the other part which contradicts it; he is thus driven to adopt a view that is no longer generally held, a truly paradoxical view, one that is generally considered “absurd” or “ridiculous”. (CPP 91)

In other words, the philosopher is compelled to hold a view that is para-doxical in the literal sense of being “beside” common opinion.

However, Strauss continues, ultimately the philosopher is compelled to transcend not only the sphere of common opinion, but even the sphere of political life as such, for he will realize that the ultimate aim of political life cannot be reached by political life, but only by a life devoted to contemplation. The highest subject of political philosophy, then, 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” (CPP 91). Strauss notes that this is what Socrates is referring to when he calls his own questioning a search for “the true political skill” (CPP 91).315 We may note that the account he presents

313

Originally published in Social Research 12:1 (1945), 98-117. 314

CPP 88. 315

125 so far coincides with his picture of the Socratic life of questioning presented in his earlier lecture.

At the same time, Strauss continues, as philosophy understands itself as “an attempt to rise from opinion to science”, it remains necessarily related to political life, being “the sphere of opinion” (CPP 92). Therefore, the question “why philosophy?”, or “why does political life need philosophy?” (CPP 92, 93), will arise sooner or later. Philosophy is thus called before the tribunal of the political community, it is made “politically responsible” (CPP 93). Strauss adds that such a justification was urgent because the meaning of philosophy was not generally understood, and philosophy was therefore distrusted by many citizens. After all, he reminds us: “Socrates himself fell victim to the popular prejudice against philosophy” (CPP 93).

Strauss explains that in order to justify itself before the tribunal of the political community, philosophy has to justify itself in terms of the political community, that is, by making use of a kind of argument that appeals not to

philosophers as such but to citizens as such:

To prove to citizens that philosophy is permissible, desirable or even necessary, the philosopher has to follow the example of Odysseus and start from premises that are generally agreed upon, or from generally accepted opinions: he has to argue ad hominem or “dialectically”. (CPP 93)316

In other words, Strauss introduces a type of “dialectics” here that differs from the one encountered in his earlier lecture. Now we learn that there are two distinct types of “dialectics”, each of which is meant to address a different kind of audience. Strauss derives the distinction from Xenophon’s Memorabilia, where it is noted that Socrates employed two different types of dialectics,317 the first of which appeals to “philosophers as such” and leads to the truth by way of questioning

generally accepted opinions, 318 while the second appeals to “citizens as such” and leads to agreement or concord while never altogether leaving the dimension of generally accepted opinions.319

Strauss concludes that from the viewpoint of philosophy’s need to justify itself before the tribunal of the city, “political philosophy” changes in meaning:

316 _{Cf. Strauss, ‘The Spirit of Sparta and the Taste of Xenophon’, 520. Strauss uses the motif of}