Leo Strauss: His Critique of Historicism

P A U L N O R T O N
MAN DESIRES to know the past. He inquires ,
into lives and events prior to and distant
from his own. This inquiring comes from a
desire which man has by nature, the desire
to know. But to say that man naturally
desires to know his past is not to say that
knowing itself is historical. What is
known does not define the capacity of
man, his thinking, that enables him to
know. The difference between knowing the
past and knowing, or thinking, historically
is fundamental: that man desires to know
the past is not controversial, but that
knowing it is part of the nature of knowing
is very controversial, so much so that to af-
firm that knowing or thinking is itself
historical is to affirm what is called
historicism. The writings of Leo Strauss
on the history of political philosophy are
not only an example of the desire to know
the past, but they are also a debate with
historicism. Historicism holds that even
philosophical thought is by nature histori-
cal, but Strauss holds that historicism is
incompatible with philosophy in the
original meaning of the word, and that it
is the only serious antagonist of political
philosophy. In his search for the truth
about political philosophy, Strauss learned
that a satisfactory understanding of
historicism would amount to a satisfactory
understanding of modem philosophy in
general. His inquiry into the history and
meaning of political philosophy, then, re-
quires his critique of historicism.
Strauss thoughts on historicism are in-
deed a critique and not a system, and if a
discovery, they are a discovery of errors in
the thinking of others. But he sees
historicism itself as a critique of classical or
ancient thought and doubts that it has
made a discovery of a dimension of reality
that had escaped classical thought. As a
critique, historicism responds to the failure
in modem philosophy, demonstrated in
ever higher waves by Nietzsche and
Heidegger, to accept Hegel as the
philosopher, perhaps as Aristotle had once
been the philosopher for the West. Taking
historicism so seriously and yet calling into
question its greatest teachers, Strauss seems
to have eschewed the luster of originality
for the sake of recalling philosophy as the
intention to know the truth about the
whole. He wondered whether originality
in the sense of discovery or invention of
systems has anything to do with
philosophic depth or true originality. Yet
when the conventional political wisdom
enclosed by liberal democracy and com-
munist democracy is challenged by
historicism, the critique of historicism
based upon philosophy in the original
meaning of the word opens a whole new
world of thought.
Part I of this essay presents Strauss cri-
tique of the historicism that emerged from
disagreements about Hegels philosophy of
history. Part I1 describes how Nietzsches
new kind of historicism broke the impasse
to which these disagreements led, and it
shows how Strauss regards Heideggers
thought as the most radical historicism of
all. In Part 111, I attempt to show the limits
to an identification of Strauss critique of
historicism with classical political
philosophy. This limited identification
enables him to make classical political
philosophy speak to modem man with both
practical and theoretical wisdom without
assuming any place of authority for us.
I. Hegel and Post-Hegelian Hktonckm
THE BEGINNING of historicism is a response
to Hegels discovery of History, to his s y n -
thesis of philosophy and history. The way
leading from Hegel through Marx,
Kierkegaard and historicism to Nietzsche
and beyond is necessary not absolutely, but
only on the basis of Hegel. Historicism
comes after Hegel, while being un-
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thinkable without his philosophy of
history. But Hegels philosophy is more
than a philosophy of history; it is also a
philosophy of right. Accordingly, Strauss
studies it and criticizes it as he does any
other political philosophy, on the grounds
that Hegel, too, assumed that the fun-
damental political problem is susceptible
of a final sol uti ~n.~ Or, more simply,
Hegel does not teach, while historicism
does teach. that philosophy is absurd.
Hegels position in the decisive respects is
this: History is not merely a record of
human events; it is a rational and
reasonable process. In this historical pro-
cess, both religious and secular thought at
the highest level and political action at the
highest level (the state based on the
acknowledgment of the universal rights of
man) culminate, and are known to
culminate, in the absolute moment, at
the peak and end of history. This most
complex and perfect event is the comple-
tion of religion, philosophy, and politics in
both theory, in the true and final
phi!~q$y of UPUP~ ---o- and in practice, in
the post-revolutionary state. This event
signals the end of history as meaningful
change, the end of meaningful time,
and the completion of all significant
human action. The recognition and
knowledge of this absolute moment is the
greatest achievement of philosophy and is
in fact the transformation of philosophy,
the quest for wisdom, into wisdom itself,
into the knowledge that the fundamental
riddles have been solved. Since history is a
rational and progressive process, every
stage of history and the leading thought of
every stage cannot contain the absolute
moment, but can only be a step toward the
absolute moment. It follows from this fact
that every individual is the son or stepson
of his time. The relativism that is implied
by this is avoided by the more fundamental
fact that, although every philosophy is the
conceptual expression of the spirit of its
time. Hegels philosophy is the absolute
insight into the historicity of thought and
comes at the final moment in the historical
process. Relativism and absolutism of
thought are thus reconciled in the absolute
truth contained in Hegels phi l ~sophy.~
Strauss confronts and criticizes Hegels
political philosophy in two ways. First, he
shows how Hegels thoughts on human
nature are founded on the Hobbesian con-
cept of the state of nature. But Hobbes at-
tempts to overcome the state of nature
while still facing it as an ever-present
possibility, whereas his successors
[Hegel], . . .allegedly possessing a deeper in-
sight into mans history and therewith into
his essence, forget the state of nature.
This forgetfulness, however, is possible on-
ly as a result of the negation of the state of
nature begun by Hobbes. This negation is
civil society, the modem contractarian
state, and it is problematic because it rests
on the untrue assumption that man as
man is thinkable as a being that lacks
sacred restraints or as a being that is
guided by nothing but a desire for
recognition.5 Second, in his debate with
Kojtve, Strauss rejects the political im-
plications of Hegelian absolutism. He
regards Kojkes interpretation of Hegels
idea nf the hest regime: of the inevitable
and inevitably rational state of the final
epoch, as an idea of utter ignobility. It en-
visions the hideous prospect of citizen-
ship in the final, universal, and homogen-
eous state, of belonging to the herd of last
men, perhaps even homunculi with a
Thrasymachean and most terrible
shepherd, the Universal and Final
Tyrant with the highest, because final,
philosophic authority and with all the
devices of modern technology at his service
for the persecution of all false philoso-
phies.6 The ascent of theory and practice
to the end and peak of the historical pro-
cess will be no ascent at all, but the com-
plete and final closing of the natural cave
of human existence by mans mastery of
nature.
The Historical School
THE POINT OF departure of historicism,
of the post-Hegelians whom Strauss calls
the historical school of decayed Hegel-
ianism, is the rejection of Hegels philo-
sophy as the absolute moment in time
and thought, while still holding to the
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historicity of thought. In fact, the
historical school began not only with the
abandonment of Hegelian absolutism, but
also of the absolutism or universalism of
the abstract principles of the modem
timism of Hegels final moment at the end
of the historical process, the historical
school substituted its own optimistic
belief in infinite future progress. And in
place of the absolute natural rights of in-
dividuals, it substituted, by affirming the
historicity of all thought, the historically
relative rights of particular times and
countries. This substitution, in turn, re-
quired the replacement of the sciences of
right and politics by historical jurispru-
dence, historical political science, etc. I
It is at this point, historically in the ideas
of the eminent conservatives of the
historical school, and theoretically in the
elevation of the historical part over the
natural whole, that Strauss critique of
historicism comes into view. For the denial
of all universal or timeless principles but
that of historicism itself is the declaration
of nihilism. It amounts to the acceptance
of every historical standard or of every vic-
torious cause. Professor Gadamer rightly
sees in Strauss recoil from nihilism his in-
sight into the catastrophe of modern
times.* Strauss does not, however, merely
recoil from the nihilism in which both early
and contemporary historicism culminate.
He points to the moderation and prudence
which, as the ancient political philosophers
first taught, should accompany universal
principles and which make unnecessary the
denial of the very possibilities of such prin-
ciples; he undertakes to demonstrate
historicisms self-contradictoriness and its
lack of confirmation by practical ex-
perience; he offers a refutation of its her-
maneutical teaching; and he argues that
behind the admittedly problematical prin-
ciples of modem natural right lie the in-
adequately considered principles of
classical natural right. But the force of all
these necessary and difficult arguments
comes first of all from Strauss intention
that philosophy should have no un-
answered champions of nihilism.
I
natural right teaching. In place of the op-
The Self Contradiction
of the Historical School
THE NIHILISM of early historicism is a func-
tion of its holding to the idea of history as a
process, but one with no final end or
meaning. But without meaning, the SO-
called historical process is a meaningless
web, the tale told by an idiot. Strauss
observes that this is in fact the classical
view, that there is no such thing as the
historical process. He calls attention to
Platos, or the Athenian Strangers, opin-
ion that the human race may always have
existed and will always exist, or, at least,
the time during which there have been
human beings is so immeasurably long that
all kinds of changes in cities, including
their coming into being and perishing,
have taken place. Strauss refutes H.
Kuhns assertion that his opposition to
historicism implies the view that history is
essentially history of decay, since the
classical (Aristotelian) view holds only that
all change of human thoughts and institu-
tions.. .is necessary, but there is no necessi-
ty of its being reasonable or meaningful.
Though Strauss disagrees (because of the
possibility of creation), with this classical
view that the visible universe is eternal,
his arguments against historicism indeed
follow from his opinion of the superior
wisdom about man of the Socratic tradi-
tion of political philo~ophy.~
The seriousness of the nihilism in this
first theory of historicism, in the historical
school, is mitigated by the fact that these
scholars were not philosophers but
historians. So far were they from being at-
tentive to the nihilism implicit in their
historicism that they amounted to a school
of positivism, which would abstract from
such ethical problems. They did not see
their historicism as a deliberate attack
upon political philosophy, but as a way of
doing history. But precisely as such, as the
assumption of the dependence of all
thought upon specific and transitory
historical contexts of great variety, the
pretension to a science of history is fun-
damentally defective. The assumption of
the historical conditionedness of thought is
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essentially ambiguous, for it overlooks
the obvious possibility that a particular
time or situation is, by chance, particular-
ly favorable to the discovery of the truth,
of the true political philosophy. More
specifically, historicism does not allow the
possibility that the discovery of natural
right by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle was
a genuine discovery, albeit one that could
have happened elsewhere or at other times,
denial of this possibility amounts to the
dogmatism characteristic of our time. 10
It is not in the work of the early
historicists, however, but in that of one of
their spiritual descendants, R. G. Col-
lingwood, where Strauss most carefully ex-
poses this dogmatic assumption that the
thought of all epochs is equally true,
because every philosophy is essentially the
expression of its time. He argues that Col-
lingwood repeated the step taken by the
historical school away from Hegels
philosophy as the absolute moment,
because Collingwood failed to see that the
rationalistic view of Hegel and the
historicists non-rationalistic view are
mutually incompatible. His vacillation
between these two views led him to believe
in the equality of all ages, which is only a
more subtle form of the belief in
progress.ll Collingwoods belief in pro-
gress is implied in his claim to have re-
enacted the thought of a past thinker in
the light of his time, while simultaneously
claiming to have understood the thinker of
the past better than that thinker
understood himself. It is true that this
claim to a better understanding of the past
thinker is not an explicit or even
acknowledged claim - the equality of all
epochs seems to deny it. But this claim is
implicit in the historicist premise of the
dependence of all thought upon its time;
for it thereby asserts the superiority of the
historicist approach over that of practical-
ly the whole thought of the past, which
was radically unhistorical. The
historicist premise makes it impossible to
take seriously (or to re-enact) the earlier
view that to know the human mind is
something fundamentally different from
or eveii -i+-khixit its bcing ho-.:?: :c us. The
knowing the history of the human mind.X
Strauss critique of the historians
historicism illuminates both its highest and
lowest points. He does this by showing that
it fails its own test of evidence, for
historicism cannot be proven by historical
evidence. In its pretension to absoluteness,
historicism ascends to philosophy, for its
basis is a philosophic analysis of thought
which presents itself as the authentic in-
t erpret ~t i nr? d the experience of many cen-
turies with political philosophy.
Historicism, denying finality to all inter-
pretations but its own, approaches philo-
sophy by replacing one kind of finality by
another kind.. . ,by the final conviction that
all human answers are essentially and
radically historical. I n criticizing
Gadamers historicist hermaneutics,
Strauss describes this other kind of finality.
It is the negatively absolute situation, in
which the insight into the historicity of
ones own existence and therewith the im-
possibility of ones transcending ones own
horizon is known to be the final insight,
the coriipleCed experieiice, which i d 1
never be superseded. It claims the finality
and the same trans-historical character or
pretension as any natural right doctrine.lS
However, the argument that all thought
is historical must be applied to itself as
well and this immediately undermines its
claim to finality: To assert the historicist
thesis means to doubt it and thus transcend
it. Strauss does not make this argument as
a logical puzzle or brain-teaser, since the
negatively absolute situation is not
logically impossible, anymore than is
Hegels (or any other) absolute moment.
Nevertheless, on its own terms, the
historicist principle is valid only for a
specific historical situation, or for the
time being only, for it is relative to
modern man and can give no reason why
it will not be replaced in the future by the
nonhistoricist principle. But, Strauss
argues, there always have and there
always will be surprising, wholly unex-
pected, changes of outlook which radically
modify the meaning of all previously ac-
quired knowledge. Historicism denies the
possibility of any trans-historical perspec-
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tive necessary to know that all thought is
historical. Depriving itself of the absolute
moment, historicism can approach philo-
sophy only by making itself the exception
to its own verdict about all human
thought. The historicist thesis is self-
contradictory or absurd.
II. Hzitoncism in Nietzsche and Heidegger
EARLY HISTORICISM, in turn, became the
point of departure for a decisive move in
modem political philosophy. This move,
which radicalizes the historicist thesis, was
made by Nietzsche. He did this by under-
taking to overcome the paralysis that
results from an excess of history, from
theoretical historicism. Nietzsche began
this task from the typically modem motive:
not for the sake of contemplation or for
theory, but for the sake of quickening my
activity. He saw the historical
movement as one of jaded idlers in the
garden of knowledge, and he undertook
to rescue history from the historians, to
make history serve life and action. His
critique of the historical movement began
by exposing the groundless optimism of its
belief in progress that left no room for
either individual or cultural greatness. The
historicist thesis- the relativity of all com-
prehensive views -deprives man of cer-
tainty and confidence in his own views of
the most important things. It leaves him
unable to believe that his views come from
his free insight into the truth, for he
knows that they are determined by his
historical situation: he can no longer
believe in his answers to the most impor-
tant questions. Nietzsche set out to over-
come the true but fatal idea of the flux
of all ideas, types, and species, an idea
that leaves nothing desirable except the
solitary and petty shoals of egoism and
leads a man to withdraw into himself,
back into the small egoistic circle, where
he must become dry and withered.15
Nietzsches critique of the excess of
history does not permit a retreat into
science or positivism, for he exposes
modem science as only an interpretation
and arrangement of the world.. .and not an
explanation of the world. The choice of
the scientific picture of the world is thus
as groundless as the choice of an alter-
native orientation. Nietzsches own
historical sense knows no boundaries; all
knowledge, even the most specialized and
scientific, must be seen and judged as
historically relative. l6
Nietzsche did not, then, reject the
historical sense, but attempted to meet its
challenge, to exploit what he took to be its
truth. Indeed, he claimed it as his distinc-
tive virtue, as his awareness that the
human soul has no unchangeable essence
or limits, but is essentially historical. Pro-
fessor Gadamer argues that it is in fact the
dignity and value in truth of the
historical sense - of historicism that takes
itself seriously-that it knows no such
thing as the present, butrather constantly
changing horizons of future and past.
Unable to find in nature either purpose or
value, Nietzsche envisioned a radically
new kind of project, the transvaluation of
all values. This would rescue man who,
Nietzsche believed, had become per-
manently sensitive to the historical sense,
from the paralysis of theoretical
historicism by the act of willing, by the free
commitment to the culture, or horizon
or world view of his choice. By his choice
of historically relative values, Nietzsche
asserted, a man-or rather, a few
men- could become nothing less than the
great fighters against history, that is,
against the blind power of the actual. The
proclamation of the overman is thus more
than Nietzsches own subjective interpreta-
tion of the human condition; it is the proc-
lamation of the final insight. The
teacher of the overman appears when the
historical sense has become problematic.
Like early historicism, Nietzsches
philosophy, says Strauss, explicitly denies
that the end of history has come, but it im-
plicitly asserts the opposite.
Strauss agrees with Heidegger in regard-
ing the Nietzschean project as a relapse
into metaphysics, the ineluctable
recourse to nature that is the willing of
the return or repetition of all that has been
and will be. Nietzsches doctrine of the
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eternal return is his appeal to nature or
the past as authoritative or at least in-
escapable, as the source and guarantor of
the hierarchy, inequality, and suffering
that is necessary for all human greatness.
Nietzsche teaches the overman in an at-
tempt to reconstitute and re-invigorate the
pathos of distance between high and low,
noble and base, rather than deny, in
nihilistic fashion, the distinction
aitogether. But the basis of this distinction
is not, for Nietzsche, the classical standard
of virtue, but the will to power over other
men that is the Machiavellian standard of
virtu, of war and the merciless extinc-
tion and exploitation of the herd-like
men, of a planetary aristocracy. Nietz-
sche teaches the kind of evil that results
from indifference to parliamentary
moderation and from disdain for political
responsibility. Nietzsche, says Strauss, is as
much as the stepgrandfather of
fascism.8
Heidegger
NIETZSCHE TAKES THE historicist thesis as
the occasion, the very reason, for his pro-
ject, for the need for commitment to the
transvaluation of values. Strauss compares
Nietzsches historicist thesis with the
natural right thesis: both depend upon
fate; all thought, Strauss argues, depends
upon fate. This means that every insight
could in principle be discovered at any
time; the moment of its discovery cannot
be predicted or guaranteed; it cannot be
located as a point in a process. The
natural right thesis is a trans-historical in-
sight accessible to man as man,
understood first and best in antiquity by
the labor of human thought, by Socratic
philosophy. Strauss rejects Professor
Kuhns argument that the natural right
thesis must be said to have appeared in the
absolute moment in history, in antiquity.
The historicist thesis, however, is not only
dependent upon fate, but declares itself
not to be accessible to man as man, not
accessible at all times. The historicist thesis
makes itself known only at the absolute
moment in history and itself declares the
radical or unqualified dependence of
thought on fate. The formal difference in
the two theses, then, is that the natural
right thesis was discovered once upon a
time, and declares a timeless truth, while
the historicist thesis was given only in due
time or at the right time: the surrep-
titious assumption of an absolute moment
in history is essential to historicism. It
denies the very possibility of any timeless
truth, while declaring itself to be the final
word on this possiiiiiity. 12
The formal difference between the two
theses can be sustained only by their
substantive difference, by their different
accounts of man and nature. Historicism
after Nietzsche assumes the absolute mo-
ment to be its final insight into the in-
soluble character of the fundamental rid-
dles, or more specifically, the impossibili-
ty of theoretical metaphysics and of
philosophic ethics or natural right. The
demonstration of this impossibility is not
an appeal to scepticism, but a critique of
reason, a philosophy that undertakes no
project but that of teaching the futility
or absurdity of mans desire to know,
because that desire rests on premises that
are only historical and relative. This
negative teaching, the core of the fully
developed historicist philosophy, is the
philosophy of Heidegger. Strauss critique
of historicism is, at its core, a critique of
Heideggers existentialism. Strauss readi-
ly grants that Heidegger is a thinker of ex-
traordinary power and greatness, whose
teachings dominate European philosopy
more than those of anyone since Hegel. He
believes that like all outstanding
thinkers, Heidegger has been adequately
understood by neither his critics nor his
followers. But he is persuaded that Heideg-
gers philosophy is ultimately only fan-
tastic hopes, more to be expected from vi-
sionaries than from philosophers. Like
early historicism and Nietzsches histori-
cism, Heideggers radical historicism also
culminates in nihilism. But being scan-
dalized by Heideggers false steps in favor
of Hitlers revolution is not a critique. So
Strauss confronts Heideggers attack on
theoretical metaphysics and his denial of
natural right. Besides, Strauss knows that
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the passion and power of the originator of
a doctrine do not establish the truth of a
doctrine. He argues that Heideggers his-
toricist philosophizing has induced a
paralysis of the critical faculties and has
reduced the love of truth to listening with
reverence to the incipient mythoi of
Heidegger . *O
Strauss critique of Heideggers
.historicism begins, perhaps most simply,
by showing that, like the hermeneutical
principle of Collingwood, Heideggers
teaching about historical truth results in a
self-contradiction. But where Collingwood
claimed to have understood the thought of
a past thinker as that thinker understood
it, according to Heidegger, this is
altogether impossible; it is not even a
reasonable goal of understanding. And
where Collingwood implicitly claimed to
be able to understand a thinker better than
he understood himself, Heidegger, denying
any progress to history, also denies that this
is possible. For Heidegger, all that the
philosopher can do is to philosophize, for
true understanding of a thinker is
understanding him creatively, by
transforming his thought. However,
Heidegger also claims that all thinkers
before him have philosophized in ig-
norance of the true ground of grounds,
the fundamental abyss of Sein. But this
amounts to a fundamental criticism, and
implies the claim that in the decisive
respect Heidegger understands his great
predecessors better than they understood
themselves. *
If Collingwood contradicts himself
because of an (implicit) belief in progress,
Heidegger contradicts himself because of a
belief in decay. Heideggers belief in the
decay of the present age comes when (in
the absolute moment) the fundamental
riddle, the nature of being, is revealed as
insoluble. This decay is the extreme loss
of autochthony, the condition necessary for
human greatness: its loss is the result of
Western metaphysics, of the fundamental
defect of metaphysics which is its assump-
tion that being is as such intelligible.
Heidegger holds that being is not intelligi-
ble because it is only dogmatism to believe
that to be in the highest sense must mean
to be always. But the whole cannot be
knowable if, as Heideggers historicism
teaches, it is actually always incomplete,
if it is historical, i . e. , essentially chang-
ing, or if human life or thought is
historical, i. e. , if human thought
depends on something that cannot be an-
ticipated or that cannot be the object of a
knowing subject, at least in the highest
case, that of the philosophic mind. In
place of knowledge of the whole, Heideg-
ger puts experience of nothingness, the
objective groundlessness of all principles
of thought and action. This, then, is the
absolute moment of Heideggers histori-
cism, the abyss of freedom that appears
in the experience of nothingness, the see-
ing in mans Existenz the homelessness of
(human) beings (entia) without being
(esse) and without God (ens), This
penetration of historicity into the human
soul implies at least a formal ethics which,
though beyond good and evil, challenges
man to face the homelessness of his ex-
istence, and not to flee from it into in-
authentic delusions. Nothing should
seduce us, Heidegger says, into avoiding
thi s fi nal thought of Western
metaphysics. Heidegger does not,
however, teach this as an ethics-Heideg
ger.. .explicitly denies the possibility of
ethics- but as an epistemology, the
revelation of the meaning of mans manner
of being to committed thought. But this,
Strauss observes, amounts to the absurdity
of existentialism, its subjective truth
about the subjectivity of truth, its blind
sighting of finiteness without the light of
the infinite.**
III. Historicism, Political Philosophy,
and Natural Right
STRAUSS NOTES THAT almost everyone
rebelled against Hegel, i . e. , against
Hegels declaration that the absolute peak
of history had been reached in his own
thought and in his own time.4s With Nietz-
sche and Heidegger, Strauss sees in moder-
nity an unprecedented crisis, what
Heidegger speaks of as the approach of
the world night. But Strauss rebellion
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against Hegel follows neither the historicist
rebellion against philosophy nor its descent
into the abyss of freedom, enigma, and
nothingness. Instead, he takes the rebellion
and the descent as the occasion for wonder-
ing anew about justice or right and its rela-
tion to philosophy. Historicism can
stimulate this wonder, but can do nothing
to satisfy it, for at its core, in Heideggers
thought, there is no place whatever for
political philosophy, no place, that is, for
serious thought about justice. It thus leaves
the field to partisans and ideologists. The
fundamental abyss is not between the
limitations of even the greatest minds and
the mysteriousness of being, but between
the openness of the greatest minds and the
dogmatic conventions necessary for
political life in even the most liberal of
societies. The insoluble character of the
fundamental riddles is not proof of the
historicity of thought, for common sense
suggests that the fundamental problems,
such as the problems of justice, persist.. .in
a!! hlstnrica! changes. Radically different
solutions to these problems over time do
not prove historicism; seeing these prob-
lems as problems, rather, aids the libera-
tion of the mind from its historical limita-
tions. To see the fundamental problems
of man and nature as problems in fact
legitimizes philosophy in the original,
Socratic sense, as a true, timeless
discovery. 44
In describing philosophy in this sense,
Strauss shows how these riddles and prob-
lems are evidence not for historicism but
for the existence of natural right. He does
this in showing how political philosophy
leads to the core of philosophy itself. In
the attempt to understand political life and
political ideas, it is impossible to grasp the
distinctive character of human things as
such without grasping the difference be-
tween human things and the things which
are not human. To understand the
human things as such requires grasping
the permanent characteristics of humani-
ty, such as the distinction between the no-
ble and the base. These distinctions are
not touched or weakened by even so pro-
found a crisis as that which marks moder-
nity. On the contrary, it is when all
horizons and world-views are lack-
ing in authenticity and power that the ex-
periences regarding right and wrong and
the permanent characteristics of man most
clearly retain their evidence or binding
power for everyone who is not a brute.
These characteristics and these experiences
persevere through all changes; they are
necessarily themati c wi thi n all
horizons. The desire to know about
human things, then, leads to the com-
prehensive study of all things, to think-
ing about the whole and about the dif-
ference between the way the whole is and
the way the parts of the whole (such as the
human things) are. It leads to thinking
about being, to the core of philosophy, or
rather, the first philosophy.Ps
Socratic first philosophy is most
distinguished by its fusion of wisdom and
moderation, its constant return to com-
mon sense or to the world of common
sense. Socrates search for the ideas of
things means to begin the search at the
surface of the things, at what is first not
in itself or first by nature but from what is
first for us, from the phenomena and in
opinions about them. Socrates believed
that it was madness to abandon the
search for the ideas of things in favor of
the universal doubt of all opinions.
There seems to be something mad, for ex-
ample, about the historicist attack upon
classical metaphysics, in its displacement
of the cosmological problem (the problem
of the totality of beings, of entia) by the
ontological problem (the problem of be-
ing, of esse), which results in the con-
tradiction that there can be entia while
there is no esse. (This displacement in-
cludes - since God is dead - the
theological problem, the problem of the
highest being, of em). P6 Doubt that leads
to such conclusions, whether in the name
of an empirical science which knows only
efficient and sub-rational causes or, more
seriously, in the name of the historical
sense which knows only change and the
finality of Becoming would lead us, not
into the heart of the truth, but into a
void. The historicist disdain for what is
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clear to everyone who is not a brute, for
what is first for us, reminded Strauss of a
childish race in which he wins who offers
the smallest security and the greatest ter-
ror. Heideggers power is not enough,
for just as an assertion does not become
true because it is shown to be comforting,
it does not become true because it is shown
to be terrifying. I n any case, it is not the
task of philosophy to comfort or terrify;
this belongs to belief, religious belief or
atheistic belief. Radical historicism takes
its bearings only from acts of will, from
commitment to the creation and trans-
valuation of values: it may, says Strauss,
presage a return of the gods. But being
based on belief is fatal to any
philosophy . I
Natural Right and Political Philosophy
IT MIGHT, however, be a question for some
whether Strauss intransigent refusal to
abandon the question of the good
society.. . by deferring to History, is indeed
philosophic and not moralistic, not a com-
promise with convention that is no less
fatal to philosophy than dependence upon
belief. But this quarrel with modernity and
with its historicist champions is not a
defense of any conventions or moralities; it
is an attempt to defend philosophy against
the ever-present opinion that philosophy is
either useless or vicious. This opinion was
originally met by Socrates and Plato, but it
could never be silenced once and for all,
any more than the experiences regarding
right and wrong could be silenced. Thus,
Strauss rejects Hegels demand that
political philosophy refrain from constru-
ing a state as it ought to be, or from
teaching the state how it should be; he re-
jects the rejection of the raison detre of
classical political philosophy. Strauss
feared that unless philosophys search for
the ideas of things is constantly guided by
what is first for us, for the city or the
political community, philosophy will in-
deed be guilty of being both useless and
vicious. Philosophy can only be intrin-
sically edifying, not moralistic, but of
necessity good for the souls of those who
truly philosophize.48
Strauss critique of historicism attempts
to save both the phenomena and
philosophy itself from the consequences of
universal doubt and of nihilism. Intran-
sigence on behalf of the ineluctability of
good and evil marks all of Strauss work in
both the history of political philosophy and
the thematic examination of the timeless
meaning of political philosophy. The
seriousness with which he defends the in-
terpretation of natural right in Natural
Right and History against Helmut Kuhns
critique of this interpretation is evidence of
Strauss opinion that natural right indeed
exists, that an alternative to historicism
exists- not a particular theory of justice or
set of absolute values, but the idea or
ground of right. Strauss critique leaves
open many questions for further inquiry,
but it is intransigent in holding, with
Socrates, that right opinion (or morality)
and knowledge (or natural right) are dif-
ferent (cJ. Meno 98b). This intransigence
comes from Strauss recognition (expressed
in the essay where, he says, he first con-
sidered the possibility of a return to
classical political philosophy) that agree-
ment can always be reached in principle
about the means to an already established
end, whereas the ends are always con-
troversial: we disagree with one another
and with ourselves always only about the
just and the good. Agreement at any
price is possible only when we abandon
altogether the question of what is right
and.. .and limit [our] concern exclusively
to the means. The means in question
are the result of the union in modernity of
mans making and mans knowing, of
technology, the neutral ground upon
which to escape from the struggle about
the right faith, but which requires
another faith, the faith in technology. And
what, after all, is the eternal return of the
same, but a means to an end, the end of
the will to power, the will to power over all
by technology?Pg
Historicism restates and promises to
realize the goal first envisioned by
Machiavelli: the assertion of mans power
over nature, his conquest of nature by the
will to power of technology. Only Nietz-
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sches successors restored the connection,
which he had blurred, between the will to
power and technology. At its peak, in
radical historicism, the philosophy of
power teaches that man by nature desires
not to know, but to make, to create. The
philosophy of power unites knowing and
making but only on the condition that no
question be asked as to what good of the
soul is served by this union. But silence on
this question, agreement on the means oi
technology, only disguises disagreement on
the ends of technology: the neutrality of
technology is only apparent , for the will to
power by technology must in fact be the
will of some to overpower others. Agree-
ment about the means of technology is
agreement at any price, and such agree-
ment abandons, in the name of history,
the task of raising the question of what is
right, and when man abandons this ques-
tion, he abandons his humanity. Life
given over to technology is not the
philosophic life, but is the farewell to
reason and estrangement from mans
deepest desires and therewith from the
primary issues. Having set out over the
low but solid ground of material well-being
*This article is a revision of a paper presented to
the Canadian Political Science Association, in Lon-
don, Ontario, May, 1978. In referring to Strauss
writings, these abbreviations will be used: NRH, for
Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953); What?,
for What is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, Illinois,
1959); City, for The City and Man (Chicago, 1964);
3 Waves, for The Three Waves of Modernity. in
H. Gilden, ed., Political Philosophy: Si x &ays by
Leo St r aw (N.Y ., 1975); PRSPP, for Philosophy
As Rigorous Science and Political Philosophy, in 2
Interpretation (Summer, 1968); and Preface, for
Preface to Spinozas Critique of Religion, in
Liberalism, Ancient and Modem (N.Y .. 1968).
What?, pp. 227, 26, 57, 60. Cf. Strauss statement
in his Letter to Kuhn (I1 IJP. 1978, p. 23), that his
method is historical, while his concern is
philosophical. NRH, p. 33; What?, p. 230. As an ex-
ample of this, Strauss gives Maimonides, a less
original but deeper thinker than Spinoza.
3Relativism, in Schoeck and Wiggins, eds.,
Relativism and the Study of Man (Princeton, 1961),
p. 151: 3 Waves. p. 95; What?, pp. 58, 269; and
NRH, p. 36. Pre-Hegelian modem philosophy, from
Machiavelli onward, is also marked from the outset
by a nnvel emphasis on history, e.g., by Rousseaus
argument that man developed, over a great but finite
to liberate himself from nature and to
become the absolute sovereign and master
of nature, modern man has lost his way,
and so much so that man may have become
smaller and more miserable in proportion
as the systematic civilization progresses.
The bold attempt to be the conqueror of
chance has resulted in mans enthrallment
to history.
Strauss quarrel with historicism depends
original, Socratic sense. He holds,
therefore, that to philosophize beyond
good and evil is not to philosophize. Know-
ing that philosophy is edifying, that
philosophy is the best in man, we become
aware of the dignity of the mind, and
we realize the true ground of the dignity
of man and therewith the goodness of the
world, whether weunderstand it as created
or uncreated, which is the home of man
because it is the home of the human
mind.s1 We conclude from Strauss cri-
tique of historicism that mans ability to
philosophize is no cause for despair and
that the timeiiness of mans actions is
transcended by the timelessness of his
thought. *
upon ard reiiivigoraies p,liilosqhy iil die
period, from the sub-human to the human. (What?,
p. 58) G. Iggers, in The German Conception of
History (Middletown, Conn., 1968), notes the
especially important antecedents of historicism in the
thought of Vico and Herder. Cf. Strauss comment on
Vico in NRH, Preface to the 7th Impression (1971),
vii. 3 Waves, p. 95; PRSPP, pp. 3-4;
PRelativism, pp. 151-2; NRH. pp. 29, 320. Stanley
Rosen, in Hegel and Historicism (7 Clzo, No. 1.
1977, pp. 41-43), spells out the dilemma of the end
of history that results from Hegels assertion of the
absolute moment. The dilemma comes from the im-
possibility of anything logically or essentially new hap-
pening after the absolute moment and the fact of the
deterioration of Hegels age, of post-Hegelian ex-
perience which displays new events and new thoughts.
What is new, according to Strauss, is, of course,
historicism -a fundamental change of philosophic
orientation-such as from Hegel to Heidegger.
(Strauss letter to H. Gadamer. I1 IIP, 1978, p. 7).
5Comments on Der Bepyf des Politischen by Carl
Schmitt, in Spinozas Critique of Religion (N.Y .,
1965). p. 338; On Tyranny (Ithaca, N.Y ., 1963), p.
205. On Tyranny, pp. 224, 226. NRH, pp. 13-16:
What?, pp. 60-61, 58; Relativism, pp. 151-2.
Strauss does not identify the scholars of the historical
school. Iggers (op. cit. , pp. 4-5) identifies the leading
figures as W. von Humboldt and von Ranke. Also, see
152
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E. Troeltsch, The Ideas of Natural Law and
Humanity in World Politics, in Otto Gierke. Natural
Law and the Theory of Society, E. Barker, trans.
(Cambridge: 1958), p. 212. NRH. pp. 14, 17; Hans-
Georg Gadamer. Truth and Method, Second Edition
(N.Y., 1975). p. 482. BNRH. p. 18; The Argument
and the Action of Plutos Laws,(Chicago, 1975), p.
182; Letter to Helmut Kuhn, loc.cit., pp. 23-24.
Cf. Plato, Laws VI, 781e-782a and Aristotle, Politics
VI I , 1329b27. R. Weil observes that Aristotles
teleological view of history asserts only a general
framework, within which both progress and decline
are possible. (Aristotles View of History, in Ar-
ticles on ATirtotle 2. Ethics and Politics, J . Barnes, M.
Schofield, and R. Sorabji, eds., [London, 19771, p.
210.) IONRH, pp. 16, 19. 22; What?, pp. 63-64;
On a New Interpretation of Platos Political
Philosophy, 13 Social Research, 1946, p. 330
(Strauss emphasis); Letter to Helmut Kuhn,
loc.cit., 5 Rev. of Metaphysics (J une, 1952), pp. 563,
574. l*What!, pp. 67-68; On Collingwoods
Philosophy of History, loc.cit., p. 575. Cf. Strauss
reply t o Sabines historicism: I do not know of any
historian who grasped fully a fundamental presup-
position of a great thinker which the great thinker
himself did not fully grasp. (What?, p. 227) In the
same fashion, Strauss says t o Gadamer that in making
explicit what the author merely presupposes. ..the in-
terpreter does not understand the author better than
the author understood himself. (Letter t o
Gadamer, loc.cit., p. 6, point 3.) Also, see Note 21,
below. What? pp. 69, 72; NRH, p. 24; Letter to
Gadamer, loc. cit. , p. 7. Cf. E. Gilson. Being and
Some Philosophers (Toronto, 1952), p. x: For the on-
ly task of history is t o understand and to make
understood, whereas philosophy must choose; and ap-
plying to history for reasons to make a choice is no
longer history, it is philosophy. NRH, pp. 25, 21;
What? pp. 72-73. 15Nietzsche. The Use and Abuse of
History (Indianapolis, 1957), pp. 3, 61, 64; NRH, p.
26; Relativism, p. 152; What? p. 70. 16Nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil, Aph. 14 (Nietzsches em-
phasis); Relativism, p. 154; NRH, p. 26.
Preface, p. 236; Gadamer. op. cit., pp. 483-84;
3 Waves, p. 96; Nietzsche, The Use and Abuse of
History. p. 54; NRH, p. 29. 18Relativism, pp.
153-54; 3 Waves. p. 97; What?, pp. 54-55; Liberal
Education and Responsibility, in Liberalism, An-
cient and Modem, p. 24. Nietzsche, The Genealogy
of Morals 1.2 and Beyond Good and Evil. Aphs. 208,
210, 212, 225, 242, 253, 257, 258-65. Cf. Rosen,
loc.cit., pp. 42-45; The problem of explaining the
post-Hegelian historical future can be resolved only
by a rigorous version of Nietzsches teaching of the
eternal return; only in this way, says Rosen, by iden-
tifying eternity and temporality, can the dilemma
of the end of history be solved. (See Note 4, above)
IPNRH, pp. 28-29; Letter to Helmut Kuhn, loc.cit.,
Preface. p. 227; What?, pp. 242. 246. I t is in-
teresting to compare Strauss opinion of Heidegger
with his opinions of Riezler and KojCve. Riezler, says
Strauss, was drawn t o both Platonism and historicism;
p. 23. NRH, pp. 19, 29-30; PRSPP, pp. 2, 5;
yet his qualified relativism was fully consistent with
an awareness, unfound in Heideggers narrow
humanity. of the passions, of love and friendship, of
laughter and charity. I t was this awareness that
prevented Riezler from being misled about the
meaning of 1933. (What?, pp. 255-256, 259-260)
Strauss disagreement with KojCve could not be
greater, but he compares KojCvemost favorably with
Heidegger when he implies that, unlike KojCve.
Heidegger lacked the courage t o face the conse-
quences of tyranny. (See G. Grant, Technology and
Empire [Toronto, 19691, p. 102 and M. Platt, Leo
Strauss: Three Quarrels, Three Questions, The
Newsletter [University of Dallas, Texas], Winter,
1978. pp. 5-6.) For a very careful examination in
detail of Heideggers relation to National Socialism,
see K. Hames, Heidegger as a Political Thinker,
The Review of Metaphysics (June, 1976).
*Relativism, p. 156; PRSPP, p. 2. Strauss own
answer to the question of how an interpreter should
understand the thought of a past thinker is given in
his correspondence with Professor Gadamer. The core
of Strauss own hermeneutics is his opinion that a
doctrine ... must be understood in its claim to be true
and this claim must be met. This means that the
claim must be accepted as true or rejected as untrue,
or the senses in which it is true or untrue must be
distinguished, or the inability to decide and therefore
the need for more thought and knowledge must be
declared. Moreover, Strauss asserts the essentially
ministerial element of interpretation. as opposed to
Gadamers view of the interpreters productivity (cf.
Heideggers transforming). I t accords with this
ministerial hermeneutics that Strauss qualifies his
own interpretations as always incomplete, always
lacking in understanding something of the utmost
importance. But it accords with his rejection of
historicist hermeneutics that he denies that a com-
plete or simply true understanding is impossible. The
task, then, is in every case t o attempt t o discover the
truth, t o the best of ones ability, undistractedbyeither
the likelihoodof failureor by unwarranted assumptions
of absolute moments. zzNRH, pp. 29-31 ; PRSPP,
p. 5; Relativism, pp. 154-155; What?, pp. 246-248.
See Heidegger, Who is Nietzsches Zarathustra? in
D. Allison, ed., The New Nietrtche (N.Y., 1977), pp.
76-79. Emil Fackenheim, Metaphysics and
Historicity (Milwaukee: 1961), Hegel, pp. 67-70,
for an explanation of how Hegel himself understood
the consequences of being unable to take his
philosophy of history as simply true and trans-
historical. PRSPP, pp. 4-5; Letter to Gadamer,
loc.cit., pp. 5. 11; NRH, pp. 29-30, 32. For Strauss
thematic discussion of the crisis of modernity, see 3
Waves, the Introduction to City, and Political
Philosophy and the Crisis of our Time, in H. Spaeth,
ed., The Predicament of Modem Politics (Detroit,
1964). Note Strauss comment t o Gadamer, in his
replying letter (loc.cit., p. ll), that Gadamers
silence on the matter of the crisis of modernity is
connected t o Gadamers silence on the matter of the
relativity of all human values. rsNRH, p. 122, 32;
What?, p. 26; Letter to Gadamer. loc.cit., p. 11;
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City. p. 20. Professor Gadamer (op. cit. , pp. 489-90)
expresses surprise that Strauss defense of classical
philosophy understands it as a unity, so that the ex-
treme contrast that exists between Plato and Aristotle
in the nature and the significance of their question
concerning the good does not seem to cause him
[Strauss] any trouble. Strauss indeed recognizes
serious differences between Plato or Socrates and
Aristotle. He sees this difference, at a very high level.
in the fact that Aristotles cosmology, as distin-
guished from Platos, is unqualifiedly separable from
the quest for the best political order. Aristotelian
phi!csophizinn hi e nn lnnopr tn the simp d e p e and
in the same way as Socratic philosophizing the
character of ascent. (City, p. 21) Straw opinion of
this difference results in his combining, as classical
political philosophy, Platos and Aristotles teaching
on the essential difference between the human and
non-human, which suffices for an (Aristotelian)
classical political philosophy, with the Platonic (but
not Aristotelian) teaching on political philosophy.
Strauss combination of Platonic philosophy with
Aristotelian political science seems to rest on the opin-
ion that it is reasonable that the account of man
should be less difficult to establish than an account of
the whole that includes man. In any case, the tension
between Plato and Aristotle should not obscure the
possibility, as Strauss says, that what Aristotle and
Plato say about man and the affairs of men makes in-
finitely more sense ... than what the modems have said
or EIY. (letter !e He!mi~! Kuhn; Inc.cit.: p. 24.)
Cf. J . Kleins explanation that Plato did not believe it
possible to give a nearly complete account of the
world as a whole. Yet the philosophical enterprise
of Plato, in its extravagance and divine immodera-
tion, indeed demands that our efforts to reach it never
cease. Aristotle undertook to satisfy that demand once
and for all. (Aristotle, An Introduction, i n J .
Cropsey, ed., Ancients and Mode m [N.Y.. 19641,
pp. 62-63). Also, cf. M. Richard Zinmans extremely
careful and detailed commentary on Strauss inter-
pretation of Aristotelian Politics and the Problem of
the Natural Consciousness, where Zinman concludes
that Strauss brings his discussion of Aristotles
political science around by degrees to Socrates or
Platos political philosophy. (Unpublished
Manuscript, p. 63.) rsNRH, pp. 123-4, 32; Letter to
Gadamer, loc.cit., p. 6; What?, pp. 247-8. Cf. L.
Berns comment on Xenophons Memorabilia 1.1.13
and 14: If sobriety or moderation is the
characteristic of Socratic philosophizing, and if it is
the Socratic element that is common to the
philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, that characteristic
might be traced to the Socratic thinkers insistence on
doing justice to the cognitive significance of common,
ordinary experience, (which we understand to in-
clude what is said about the things exper-
ienced). (Socratic and Non-Socratic Philosophy,
28 Rev. of Metaphysics, September, 1974. p. 87.)
NRH, p. 124; Preface, pp. 235, 236.
What?, pp. 27, 88; What is Liberal Education? in
Liberalism, Ancient and Modern, p. 8 (emphasis
added). I n different ways, V. Guievitch and H. Y .
J ung seem to be critical of Strauss thought because
e _--- --- ---- ---
they believe his view of political philosophy to be
moralistic. Gourevitch (Philosophy and Politics, 22
Rev. of Metaphysics, 1968-69) argues that Strauss
argument on behalf of ancient or Socratic political
philosophy is, at best cathartic. a purging of false
ideas about the irrelevance of the ancients thoughts.
and that it is, in fact, not merely a zetetic quest, but
a hopeless, Sisyphean failure. (p. 235) Gourevitch
suggests, in short, that Strauss is a disguised existen-
tialist who wishes to spare the public from the pain of
existentialism. Gourevitch has studied Strauss
thought carefully and seriously. But it is not true that
Strauss is an esoteric existentialist. Gourevitch does
not give due weight to Strauss opinion that ancient
political philosophy, however inapplicable to con-
temporary political problems, is superior to modern
thought. Gourevitch is not persuaded by this opinion
that comes from Strauss intransigence, not about an-
tiquity, but about the ineluctability of good and evil.
Besides, Strauss does not say that political philosophy
in its original form is Sisyphean simply; it is, he
adds, necessarily accompanied, sustained and
elevated by eros ..., by natures grace. (What?, p.
40) The divine immoderation of Platos philoso-
phizing (Note 24, above), of political philosophy as
Strauss understands political philosophy, is given an
unearned favor. But this isobviously not atheistic, it is
only natural. J ung (Two Critics of Scientism: Leo
Strauss and Edmund Husserl, I1 IJP, 1978) argues
that Straw is preoccupied with knowledge of the
good as central to the aim of philosophy. (p. 86;
J ungs emphasis) J ung argues that, because of this
preoccupation, Strauss does not see in historicism a
genuine alternative to the dehumanizing of man that
is the meaning of positivism, or calculative
thinking. J ung then argues that historicism properly
understood in fact affirms the true ethics: because of
his emancipation from both the natural and super-
natural, man is free to choose the good which is not
pre-ordained by something that is more or less
human. (p, 87) J ung, too, has studied Strauss
thought carefully. He is correct to point to important
similarities between Strauss and Husserl. But Strauss
thoughts on Husserls phenomenological critique of
philosophy (in PRSPP, which J ung does not cite)
make the fundamental point, not met by J ung, that
Husserl did not reflect sufficiently on the natu-
ral tension between politics and philosophy. That is,
the idea of philosophy as rigorous science-
the goal of phenomenology in all its forms-depends
upon the same utopian premise as that of the
Enlightenment or modernity generally, viz., that
science or philosophy can overcome the citys
legitimate suspicion of science or philosophy, its
natural preference for what is first for us, for
our own, as opposed to what is first by nature, the
good. (PRSPP, pp. 8-9) gLetter to Helmut
Kuhn, p. 24ff., re The core of our disagreement.
Comments on Der Segnyf des Politirchen by Carl
Schmitt, loc.cit., pp. 347-8. What?, pp. 172, 176,
55: Commentson ... Schmitt, 1o c . d . . pp. 73, 79, on
technology and the will to power (dominion over the
earth). What is Liberal Education?, loc. cit. ,
p. 8.
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