Ronald Beiner, Arendt and Strauss
Ronald Beiner, Arendt and Strauss
Ronald Beiner, Arendt and Strauss
Originally published in Political Theory 18, no. 2 (May 1990). Reprinted with the permission
of Sage Publications, Inc.
106 Interrogating Modernity
attempt to draw out this unspoken dialogue into an open dialogue, and
to imagine the lines of debate in an intellectual confrontation that never
really materialized.
The most obvious difference between Arendt and Strauss is, of course,
that Strauss's main concern was with ancient phUosophy, whereas Arendt
was highly critical of ancient philosophy, while she idealized - if not, as her
critics charged, romanticized.- ancient politics. Arendt was by no means
the first modern thinker to oppose ancient praxis to ancient theory. In
fact, within the history of modern political philosophy we encounter a
deep and essential tradition that celebrates ancient practice at the same
time that it denigrates ancient theory. Machiavelli, in the Introduction to
Book I of The Discourses, writes that imitation of the ancients is the highest
need of modern politics, yet in Chapter XV of The Prince we get what seems
to be a wholesale rejection of the philosophy of the ancients. Rousseau, in
the First Discourse, extols Sparta as the paragon of ancient praxis while con-
demning Athens for being ovenvhelmed by the vanities of philosophy
(although, strangely, Socrates is nonetheless one of the heroes of the
essay). Nietzsche, from The Birth of Tragedy onward, mounts a bitter
polemic against Socratic philosophy, yet he writes glowingly of Greek
politics as the indispensable spur to 'the unique sun-height of their art.' 3
This preference for ancient politics over ancient theory culminates in
Nietzsche's comparison of Plato and Thucydides in Twilight of the Idols.
Finally, Heidegger, in his Letter on Humanism, depicts Greek theory as hav-
ing embodied an utter falsification of ethical existence as soon as 'ethics'
is isolated as a distinct science (hence Aristotle is ranked unfavourably next
to Sophocles) 4; but in An Introduction to Metaphysics he exalts the founding
deeds of great statesmen within the polis as an aspect of the highest expe-
rience of being. 5 Hannah Arendt represents but the latest expression of
this notable modern tradition running from Machiavelli to Heidegger.
What does Arendt reject in classical political philosophy? Primarily, she
rejects the view that the contemplative life is categorically superior to the
life of political involvement, and that the latter has to be judged ulti-
mately by the standards of the former. In fact, it might be said that her
book The Human Condition is in its entirety an attempt to challenge the
latter assumption by offering a ranking of human activities according to
standards that are immanent within the vita a.ctiva itself. Plato made clear
enough what he thought of the dignity of political life when he described
Pericles, in the Gorgias and elsewhere, as nothing but a show-off pander-
ing to the Many. Aristotle indicated that his view on this question was con-
siderably more charitable than Plato's when he remarked in Book 6 of
Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss 107
the Nicomaclzean Ethics that 'we think that Pericles and men like him have
practical wisdom' (as opposed to 'men like Anaxagoras and Thales [who]
have theoretical but not practical wisdom') .6 But by Book 10 of the Ethics,
it is certainly clear that Aristotle's ultimate standard of judgment is very
nearly identical to Plato's. In Arendt's view, Kant was the first of the great
philosophers to question radically this traditional view. We all know the
famous quotation in which Kant declares that he too shared this ancient
assumption until he was liberated from it by his reading of Rousseau.' But
if the contemplative life is no longer presumed to constitute the final
standard for measuring the rest of human existence, which had entailed
that politics could appear as at best 'a second-rate form of human activ-
1 1
Arendt misjudged the extent to which political philosophy can free itself
from, or hold itself aloof from, reflection on human nature. (This obvi-
ously parallels Kant's strenuous attempt:.... also in Vain - to avoid basing
his practical philosophy on an appeal to a conception of human nature.)
Arendt thought it was wrong to base political philosophy on philosophi-
cal anthropology, and thought that she could somehow avoid doing so.
But, of course, The Human Condition can itself be read as the great state-
ment of a philosophical anthropology, or can easily be restated as such. I
must say that I myself have no deep antipathy to the appeal to nature; but
at the same time, it is not entirely clear what the predicates 'natural' and
'contrary to nature' add to the more modest-sounding affirmation that
one alternative is superior to another alternative, that better reasons can
be adduced on behalf of one than on behalf of the other, and that these
things are not matters reducible to sheer preference. If that is all that one
intends, then the language, of 'natural right' seems to me unobjection-
able. If something more is intended, then one may fall into a dogmatic
naturalism that Strauss always claimed he wanted to avoid. 13
As far as the issue of historicism is concerned, we may identify nvo dif-
ferent renderings of the meaning of historicism. According to the strong
version, what is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, true or false, is
essentially governed by the needs and aspirations of distinct cultures, so
what is morally tr~e for the citizens of the ancient polis may be untrue for
the denizens of the modern state, and vice versa. The weak version is that
we can only come to an understanding of, or obtain access to, what is
good, desirable, true, on the basis of a wealth of historical experience (as
Hegel, for instance, affirmed); so that while the moral truth is a matter of
discovery rather than invention, the content of this truth is historically
disclosed, perhaps in a fashion that is never-ending, never definitively in
our possession. (Strauss tends to conflate these nvo meanings of histori-
cism.) In respect to the former (strong) rendering, Arendt is every bit
as anti-historicist as Strauss. 14 Indeed, to be a thoroughgoing critic of
Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss 109
modernity, as both Strauss and Arendt are, one must be a vigorous anti-
historicist! But in relation to the latter (weak) rendering, Arendt and
Strauss seem to be deeply at odds. Arendt states: 'What is the subject of
our thought? Experience! Nothing else! And if we lose the ground of
experience then we get into all kinds of [abstract) theories.''5 It would be
quite peculiar, from this point of view, if thousands of years of political
experience had taught us nothing that had not already been evident in
the time of Plato and Aristotle. For Strauss, by contrast, the most that his-
torical experience can teach us is to appreciate more profoundly the
truth of ancient wisdom (although it may leave us entirely in the dark as
to how to apply this wisdom in our own circumstances - as Strauss himself
acknowledges quite openly' 6).
The political content of this timeless wisdom is made evident to us in a
remarkable published exchange of correspondence between Strauss and
Karl Li:iwith. Strauss writes:
I really believe ... that the perfect political order, as Plato and Aristotle have
sketched it, z".s the perfect political order ... One can show from political consider-
ations that the small city-state is in principle superior to the large state or to the
territorial-feudal state. I know very well that today it cannot be restored [though
maybe tomorrow it can? - R.B.]; but ... the contemporary solution, that is, the
completely modern solution, is contra naturam ... Details can be disputed,
although I myself might actually agree with everything that Plato and Aristotle
demand (but that I tell only you) .17
The fact that, as Bloom says, 'German thought had taken an anti-rational and
anti-liberal turn with Nietzsche, and even more so with Heidegger,' does not do
much to tip the balance in favour of the bad guys, any more than the popularity
of Deweyan pragmatism among American intellectuals of the 3o's does much to.
explain why fascism did not happen here. Disagreements among intellectuals as
to whether truth is timeless, whether 'reason' names an ahistorical tribunal or a
Habermasian free consensus, or whether the 'inalienable rights' of the Declara-
tion are 'grounded' in something non-historical, or are instead recent inventions
(like education for women, and the transistor), are just not that important in
deciding how elections go, or how much resistance fascist takeovers encounter. 21
Strauss's fundamental view is that the 'crisis of the "\Vest,' a practical cri-
sis, is the outcome of an intellectual crisis - in particular, the crisis (or
series of crises) in the historical development of political philosophy.•3
I To borrow a formulation employed by Thomas Pangle, the idea here is
that what is decisive in the moral life of any society is 'an explicit public
theology or philosophy' that ultimately shapes the opinions, habits, and
dispositions of a people. Without the support of such a public philoso-
phy, any existing ethos - including one that incorporates the moral resi-
dues of older public philosophies - will by necessity eventually decay. 24
(This, by the way, is the same analysis as offered by Plato in Book X of The
&public, of the deficient paideia of the poets.) 25 Therefore, the ultimate
source of th~ moral and political deficiencies of the American republic,
for instance, are attributable not to the contingent failings of its states-
men or its citizens, or to the nature of its social and economic institu-
tions, but, more profoundly, to the character of the philosophy relied
upon by its original founders. I must confess that I am rather sceptical (as
Arendt would be) of the implicit claim that the American polity would be
in a less sorry state than it is today if its founders had read more Cicero
and less Locke. I do not deny the intellectual power of Locke and the
other modern political philosophers; nevertheless, it may well be that the
relationship between public ethos and public philosophy is the converse of
the one that Pangle asserts: namely, that Locke influenced (or found a
112 Interrogating Modernity
ophers.'8 AB we all know, one may pos;ess the most stupendous intellec-
tual gifts, or even be the greatest thinker of one's epoch, and yet for all
that be utterly stupid politically. This is certainly one of the lessons that
Arendt drew from the experience of 1933. The fact that Heidegger was
(as Richard Rorty describes. him) 'your average Schwarzwald redneck'29
does nothing to detract from his intellectual gifts or his superiority as a
philosopher; what it does do is rule out any direct political translation,
even in a ideal world, between inequality in the realm of the intellect and
inequality in the realm of politics. (And it is not only Heidegger's infa-
mous Der Spiegel interview that drives this point home; one can gather it as
well from a reading of Plato's Seventh Letter.)
To assume that there should be an automatic correlation between
intellectual gifts and natural entitlement to rule strikes me as thoroughly
dubious, both theoretically and practically. It seems more reasonable to
say that intellectual gifts and political gifts simply represent two quite dis-·
tinct human capacities. To paraphrase Arendt: one commonly encoun-
ters people of very high intelligence who are deficient injudgment,just
as there are people of rather ordinary intelligence who nonetheless d-0
possess good judgment30 ; to this we might add that the possession of
exceptional intelligence and excellent judgment is almost a kind of freak
of nature, rarely to be expected. Perhaps not surprisingly, one finds a sim-
ilar thought in Kant: in the Critique of Pure Reason (B172-173) he notes
that all the learning in the world cannot make up for lack ofjudgment. A
related point, stated more bluntly, is put by Rorty: 'You can be a great,
original, and profound artist or thinker, and also a complete bastard.' 3 '
Or again, Conor Cruise O'Brien, in a counter to the Platonism of Simone
Weil: 'Does the love of good depend on the light of intelligence? It hardly
seems so; we can all think of rather stupid people who are kind and hon-
est, and of quite intelligent people who are mean and treacherous.' 32
These are, we might say, Kantian (or Rousseauian) insights.
We now tum more directly to the problem of equality. AB Strauss
presents the political doctrine of the classics, there are fundamentally
three classes in any society: the philosophers, the gentlemen, and the non-
gentlemen (the vulgar) .33 Politics involves the rule of the society by one of
these three groups. The ideal would be rule by the philosophers, but this
is impracticable. Next best, and a little less impracticable, would be rule by
the gentlemen, to some extent on behalf of the philosophers ('the gentle-
men's virtue is a reflection of the philosopher's virtue; one may say it is its
political reflection ... The rule of the gentlemen is only a reflection of the
rule of philosophers' 34). The norm is rule by the non-gentlemen: at best,
114 Interrogating Modernity
Plato and Aristotle amused themselves with the subject of politics 'as if
laying down rules for a lunatic asylum'; these writings on political philoso-
phy - their least philosophic and least serious - were addressed to mad-
men, strictly for the purpose of rendering 'their madness as little harmful
as possible.' One way of restating the difference between Strauss and
Arendt is that for Strauss this text describes an ever-present, immutable
predicament of the philosopher, who must live in a community that ulti-
mately is not his own (which, to be his own, .would have to· be a commu-
nity of philosophers); for Arendt, on the other hand, the passage defines
a relationship between philosophy and politics that can and ought to be
transformed. Strauss is in agreement with the philosophical tradition
from Plato to Pascal according to which what makes the philosopher a
political philosopher, a philosopher of politics, is first and foremost the
concern for his own survival. The philosopher's primary social and moral
commitment in the polis is to keep philosophy alive in the polis. But this
self-preservation of the philosopher cannot be taken for granted. In the
wake of Socrates, the philosophers are understood to constitute an
endangered species. As Strauss puts it: 'There is a fundamental dispro-
portion between philosophy and the city.' 40 But suppose one were able to
redefine one's understanding of philosophy so that the community of
philosophers and the community of ordinary citizens were no longer fun-
damentally at odds with each other. Then, presumably, one would have a
reason for concerning oneself as a philosopher with politics that was not
chiefly dictated by the preoccupation with brute self-preservation. This,
according to Arendt, was the fundamental achievement of Kant. 4 l
(Admittedly, the philosopher's relation to the polis is a two-way street: it
depends not just on the philosopher's attitude toward his or her society,
but on the actual organization of the society itself. A society constituted in
such a way that its leaders are capable of dispatching hit squads to assassi-
nate a disfavoured novelist is hardly likely to encourage a relationship
between philosophy and politics other than the one postulated by
Strauss.)
In our earlier discussion of Strauss, we noted that he regards the differ-
ences in perspective among the philosophers, the gentlemen, and the sub-
gentlemen as unbridgeable and politically irredeemable. There is a
furtheri more radical, implication to Strauss's argument. Crucial to his
assertion of a natural order of distinct classes of human beings is a corre-
sponding denial of a single, universal morality. In agreement with
Nietzsche, and in opposition to Kant, Strauss holds that there is not one
morality but different moralities, each binding for a different class of souls,
u6 Interrogating Modernity
governed by the 'pathos of distance.' Strauss states this ,~ew most explicitly
in a conversation with Jacob Klein that is transcribed in 'A Giving of
Accounts.' Citing section lll.8 of Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, Strauss
states that the philosopher's practice of the moral virtues 'is not different
from the asceticism of a jockey, who in order to win a race must live very
restrainedly, but that is wholly unimportant to the jockey, what is impor-
tantis to win the race ... [O] ne may say similarly of the philosopher, what
counts is thinking and investigating and not morality. ' 42 It follows from this
that Kant is wrong to uphold the unconditional universality of the moral
law. At best, the philosopher abides by morality for instrumental reasons,
not because it is universally binding. 43 In other words (although Strauss
does not fully spell this out), the vulgarian's morality is virtue is what pays;
the gentleman's morality is virtue jorits own sake; the philosopher's morality
is virtue is what's good for philosophy. In contrast to all this, what Arendt draws
from both ancient practice and modern philosophy is a certain conception
of equality as central to human dignity. (For Strauss, on the other hand,
human dignity is grounded upon 'the dignity of the mind, ' 44 which means
that it is inseparable from the inequality of intellectual endowments.)
One of the leading concepts that Arendt attempts to extrapolate from
ancient political experience is the notion of isonomy, or political equal-
ity, which she interprets in contra~istinction to the natural equality
asserted _by the tradition of modern !Ji:>litical philosophy (Hobbes, Locke,
Rousseau). Although it presupposes to some extent an equality of condi-
tion, isonomy does not depend on any claims about the natural equality
of individuals; it is, rather, a conventional or constructed equality con-
trived specifically so that one can enjoy political freedom in the company of
one's peers - which for Arendt is the only political freedom with any
authentic meaning. ('The Greeks held that·no one can be free except
among his peers.' 45) The possibility of a 'body of peers,' joined in the
experience of shared citizenship, is a deliverance of nomos, not physis. Pre-
cisely because men· are not by nature equal, they 'needed an artificial
institution, the polis, v1•hich by virtue of its nomos would make them equal.
Equality existed only in this specifically political realm, where men met
one another as citizens and not as private persons ... The equality of the
Greek polis, its isonomy, was an attribute of the polis and not of men,
who received their equality by virtue of citizenship, not by virtue of
birth. ' 46 According to this understanding, to enter upon political activity
in concert with others is as such to constitute a realm of equality that is
not grounded in the nature of the individuals concerned, but is, quite
deliberately, a work of human artifice, motivated by the love of political
Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss 117
APPENDIX
* This exchange of letters, previously unpublished, has been slightly edited for publication.
Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss 119
logue, and besides I think I will get things clearer if! try to set them
down on paper.
[2] I begin with my puzzlement as to the character of Arendt's recourse
to classical political practice, a puzzlement which broadens into a
continuing puzzlement as to what she means by 'politics' alto-
gether. You start by saying that 'Arendt represents but the latest
expression of' a 'tradition running from Machiavelli to Heidegger,
a tradition which includes Nietzsche as well as Rousseau (p. 106).
But with the apparent exception of Rousseau (about whom more
later), every adherent of this tradition manifestly endorses a hierar-
chial conception of politics, and very plausibly claims to find such a
hierarchical conception in classical practice. And opposition to
hierarchy seems to be at the very core of Arendt's conception of pol-
itics, as you late·r stress. How can Arendt be an 'expression' of a tra-
dition with which she disagrees at the very core? And secondly, how
can she interpret Greek political experience as non-hierarchical?
[3] Your presentation of Arendt's notion of 'isonomy' did not remove
my perplexity. I do not see any instance of Greek history which
reflects such a notion of isonomy. The one text to which you refer,
in Aristotle's Politics, seems to me to be so far from asserting the
political equality of all citizens ( that is, their equality in terms of
judgment or practical wisdom) that it in fact presents an argument
for democracy on the explicit grounds that democracy will allow for
the manifestation and constructive employment of the inequality
among citizens. Only when the majority pools its talents might it
equal or surpass the talents of the few (Aristotle does not for one
minute say that every member of even the best majority is equal or
even close to being equal in practical wisdom, and he explicitly
asserts the continuing superiority of the 'excellent' or 'virtuous' to
each member of the many taken individually).
[4] But let us move beyond Arendt's questionable appeal to or evoca-
tion of a certain notion of the Greek political experience and ask
about her conception of politics as such. How can politks be con-
ceived apart from hierarchy? Is not ruling the very essence of the
political - ruling, and being ruled, the regime, expressed in law,
entailing coercion? Is politics separable from foreign policy, hence
the preparation for war, the struggle for freedom and empire? And
even if or when ruling rotates, or is rule under law, ruling remains
ruling (law-making, at the peak), and being ruled remains being
120 Interrogating Modernity
ruled - and the specific virtues of pOlitics are the virtues or excel-
lences of rulers and ruled (see especially Politics, Bk. 3, chap. 4 end).
The contest among the regimes is a contest over who should rule
and ultimately over what kind of person or over what qualities, what
virtues, are the truly or legitimately ruling. I would argue that in
denying hierarchy, Arendt is denying and denigrating, rather than
affirming and elevating politics. I think that Aristotle is correct in
making rule the essence of politics, and I think this is surely not a
matter of mere theorizing. \Vb.ere in human history has there ever
been found a political life that is not centered on ruling, and which
does not include coercion? Arendt's claim to appeal to 'experience'
seems to be contradicted by her central concept, her concept of the
political, ·which has no historical or experiential correlate. Arendt's
'abandonment of all hierarchical structures' (p. 107) is the aban-
donment of all human political experience as it has been known in
fact or in history. It is Strauss, against Arendt, who appeals, in the
name of Aristotle and against contemporary attempts to deny the
political, i.e., the omnipresence of rule or hierarchy, from 'our
notions' (about citizenship, the regime) to 'our experience' ( City
and Man [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977], p. 46).
[5] These reflections lead me to my puzzlement as regards the relation
between Arendt and Kant. I am handicapped by the fact that I have
not read your edition of Arendt's lectures on Kant. But I find it diffi-
cult to associate Arendt's concept of politics, her contention that
dignity is found principally in the public realm of political action,
with Kant- the great apostle of liberalism, who insists so strongly on
the distinction between the public and private realms, or on the dis-
tinction between the demands of virtue and the very limited legiti-
mate demands of justice or public law and governmental activity. If
anything, Arendt seems closer to Rousseau, but without admitting
Rousseau's compelling proof that a just society is necessarily a
closed society.
[6) But I have a broader and deeper doubt about the evocation of Kant.
For Kant, there is a single, supreme, synthetic a priori principle of
morality, the categorical imperative, which is the sole, absolute,
trans-historical ground of all morality for God as well as mankind.
You never so much as allude to this ground.
[7] I think your attempt to avoid the question of nature or natural right
on pp. 108 points to the grave difficulty, for of course Kant's own
Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss 121
love of glory, the hope for change or for satisfaction from public
life, must all be moderated, severely moderated, in the light of all
that we know from historical experience about the severe limits of
human knowledge, in the light of our strong sense of the unchange-
ableness of nature mingled with our imperfect knowledge of that
nature, and in the light of the superiority of the way of life that lives
preoccupied with thinking about our problematic situation. It is
true that Plato in the Gargias deflates the grandeur of that popular
imperialist Pericles (p. 106); but I think you are a little unfair to
Plato in your failure to mention the fact that the Gargias concludes
with the elevation of the unpopular, anti-imperialist Aristides -
Aristides the wet-blanket; 'Aristides the Just' (526b). Aristides vs.
Pericles, I would say, is Platonic politics in a nutshell.
Well, I look forward to more discussion and express again my appre-
ciation for your provocative and penetrating discussion.
TomP.
Reply to Pangle
DearTom 1
ever, that such episodes of isonomic freedom are extremely rare and
fleeting (perhaps they are actually less exceptional than she makes out).
A recent example of the experience of isonomy might be the attempt by
shipyard workers in Poland in 1980-81 to seize some control over their
own destiny. This is a rather dramatic example but much more modest
1
ad paras. 6-9 = Arendt states very explicitly that she rejects the doctrine of
the categorical imperative. Her Kantianism, as I described it, is encapsu-
lated in the passage from Critique of Pure Reason (B859) that I cited in n.
38: 'Do you really require that a mode of knowledge which concerns all
men should transcend the common-understanding, and should only be
revealed to you by philosophers? ... we have thereby revealed to us ... that
in matters which concern all men without distinction nature is not guilty
of any partial distribution of her gifts, and that in regard to the essential
ends of human nature the highest philosophy cannot advance further
than is possible under the guidance which nature has bestowed even
upon the most ordinary understanding.' I don't see why one can't
embrace this teaching (contra Plato) while acknowledging theoretical
difficulties in'the doctrine of categorical imperative.
= I'm not sure that the description 'barren formalism' does justice to
Kant's moral thinking, but I would agree with you that Kant fails to offer a
sufficient account of the full range of moral experience. But where does
this [eave us? Everything of course would be fine if Kant's philosophy
were beset with theoretical difficulties while Plato and Aristotle's philoso-
phy were beset with none, but this is surely to oversimplify our theoretical
situation. All positions in the history of philosophy are beset with difficul-
ties; but rather than making us succumb to despair, this should keep alive
in us a sense of the challenge of the original Socratic enterprise. (Corre-
sponding to your objection, one might have put a like challenge to
Strauss, that he ought not have appealed to classical philosophy until
he had satisfactorily resolved the problem of natural science posed on
pp. 7-S of Natural Right and Hist01y [Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1974] - which of course he never did.)
ad para. g: You very rightly celebrate Socratic scepticism. But wouldn't it
be proper for the philosopher to direct his scepticism also at this self-serv-
ing notion of his own superiority? The philosopher has the upper hand
over the artist, the poet, the musical composer by virtue of his superior
capacity to articulate questions about the relationship of truth and
beauty, /.ogosand music. But the-artist, poet, composer are superior to the
philosopher in their power to create the works of beauty that elicit theo-
retical reflection in the first place. Similarly, the philosopher surpasses
the statesman in his capacity to articulate questions about the possibilities
and limits of political life; but the statesman is superior in enacting the
deeds that, again, elicit theoretical reflection in the first place. It strikes
me as a case of iUegitimately '.judging in one's own case' when the philos-
128 Interrogating Modernity
be true as well), but simply because sometimes (more often than not, in
fact) even good or great philosophers make bad (or atrocious) judg-
ments. (But perhaps you have a different reading of the 7th Letter that
puts all of this in a different light.)
ad para. 12: 'For Rousseau, the human being of the highest sort is not a
citizen and is superior to the citizen.' This is certainly not '\vhat Kant read
in Rousseau; and it is not what I read in him either.
=I am inclined to read Rousseau's doctrine of the lawgiver in a quite dif-
ferent light than you do. Indeed, what it is meant to emphasize, in my view,
is that will, and will alone, confers political legitimacy; even a general will
that bases itself on false premises (supplied by the lawgiver) forfeits none
of its ultimate authority. This is certainly quite a striking and even shocking
doctrine relative to the rationalism of ancient political philosophy. (There-
fore the doctrine of the lawgiver, far from betokening an accommodation
with ancient rationalism, stands in the greatest contradiction to ancient
rationalism. Will, not wisdom, is the source ofall authority.) I cannot agree
that the Reveries ofa Solitary Walker finally discloses, contrary to the impres-
sion given by all of his earlier works, that Rousseau reasserts the old hier-
archy of philosopher and citizen. Nor can I accept Strauss' argument, in
'On the Intention of Rousseau.' that Rousseau's aim was as much to safe-
guard philosophy from being compromised by society as to defend society
against philosophy. (Where, for instance, is the textual support for Strauss'
claim that 'since he considers science superior in dignity to soCiety, one
must say that he attacks the Enlightenment chiefly in the interest of phi-
losophy' [p. 268]. or for the claim that central to Rousseau's thought is 'the
admission, and even the emphatic assertion, of the natural inequality of
men in the most important respect' [p. 289]?) But obviously, to pursue
these issues in detail would carry us too far afield.
ad para. 13 = I certainly agree with you that 'all coherent thought must
rest on a claim about human nature.' Insofar as Arendt thought .other-
wise, she was mistaken (as I point out in my essay). But while the question
of human nature is unavoidable, the grasping for answers can never be
too humble (this goes as well for the question of nature as such). This
point is brilliantly stated in a fav0urite quotation of mine: 'It is much eas-
ier to identify the undesirable than the desirable, the ma/um than the
bonum. That diabetes, epilepsy, schizophrenia, hemophilia are undesir-
able, to afflicted and fellow men alike, is noncontroversial. But what is
"better" - a cool head or a warm heart, high sensitivity or robustness, a
130 Interrogating Modernity
· teleological restatement of the doctrine, one could say that while Arendt
argues that equality is a product of artifice, in a deeper sense there is in
effect a natural equality of men.
=Tobe sure, there is nothing illegitimate in the appeal to nature as such.
The point is, though, that it is hard to say what extra force is carried by
the invocation of nature, beyond the simple claim that a theoretical prop-
osition is valid, or othenvise, why this extra force is warranted. (What is
the difference between the proposition 'Xis true' and the proposition 'X
is true by nature'?) ·
= Again: Any theoretical claim may invoke nature. Arendt's egalitarian
claims, no less than Strauss' hierarchical claims, can be couched in the
language of nature. But the problem remains, how do we theoretically
vindicate such claims? As finite beings, of course, we do the best that we
can. Still, it seems improper that one set of theoretical claims should be
given greater weight than another set of claims simply because it claims
for itself the authority of nature.
= The question of the relationship between nature and artifice seems to
be a very complicated one. Relative to what was the norm a couple of
generations ago (to say nothing of what was the norm in antiquity), the
practices of contemporary medicine appear infinitely 'artificial' (= the
product of artifice). But does this by itself prove that it is not better to
intervene artificially in order to save lives that would previously have been
left in the hands of God or nature? This seems to suggest that the bound-
ary between nature and artifice is not fixed once and for all, but must to
some extent be judged relative to context. Moreover1 it seems that Aristo-
tle himself, in Nie. EthicsV.7, acknowledged (quite sensibly and with good
reason) this very complexity.
= You criticize Arendt because it is not clear that her theorizing possesses
an ultimate ground. (This objection recurs throughout your comments.)
But where is the ground in Strauss? In the 1971 preface to Natural Right
and History, he speaks of his 'inclination to prefer' classical natural right.
That is hardly the language of someone fully confident of his grasp ofan
ultimate ground. And indeed he very openly acknowledges the deep
problematicality of appeals to nature in the context of modern experi-
ence (Natural Right and Histo,y, pp. 7-8; Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 299) -
which is not to say that a return to Aristotelian teleology is necessarily
i.mpossible. Hans Jonas' philosophy of nature in The Phenomenon of Life
132 Interrogating Modernity
Ronnie
212 Notes to pages 94-108
1 Elisabeth Young-Brue hi, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1982), 98
2 Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant's Political PhiWsophy, ed. R. Beiner (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1982). 23, 28, 37--9
3 Friedrich Nietzsche, Early Gred< Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. M.A. Mugge
(London: T.N. Foulis, 19H). 11
4 Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, ed. D.F. Krell (New York: Harper and Row,
1977), 232-3. See also Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. R. Man-
heim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), 16
5 Heidegger~ An Introduction t.o Metaphysics, 103. Also, Heidegger, Poetry, Lan-
guage, Thought (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), 62
6 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. M. Oswald (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1962), 153, 157
7 Arendt, Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, 28-g
8 Michael Oakeshott, 'Introduction,' Thoma~ Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. M. Oake-
shott (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960), !xiv
g Arendt, Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, 29 --,
10 Allan Bloom, The Cl-Osing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuste_r~i-
1987), 85, 125
11 See ibid., 188
12 See the discussion below of the correspondence with LOwith. --_::_-"
13 On the danger of "doctrinaire' naturalism, see Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth~~:.
and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), 490. For a statement of Straus·~~f
own repudiation of dogmatism, see Strauss, Natural Right dnd History (Chic_ag_1.
University of Chicago Press, 1953), 163-4, · · ·;
14 Arendt's anti-~istoricism,is expressed most sharply in her motto from Cat1,··
\ .
l.
Notes to pages 108-111 \ 213
Velk.ley, 'On Kant's Socratism' in The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, ed. R. Ken-
nington (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1985), 102.
37 Arendt, Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, 29: 'If there is a distinctive line
between the few and the many in Kant it is much rather a question of morality:
the "foul spot" in the human species is lying, interpreted as a kind ofself-
deception. The "few" are those who are honest with themselves.' See also
Judith N. Shklar, Ordinary Vices (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1984), 233:
the exemplary Kantian character 'above all else ... must not lie.' That this rep-
resents a real inversion of the traditional hierarchy can be gathered from
reflecting that, according to Strauss, what defines philosophers as a class, at
least politically speaking, is that they are liars - that they must practice decep-
tion (although not self-deception) to ensure their own survival. See Bloom,
Closing of the American Mind, 266--79.
38 Arendt, Lectures on Kant's Political Phil.osuphy, 28. The crucial Kantian text in
this context is the passage from Critique ofPure Reason (B859) quoted by
Arendt on the same page: 'In matters which concern all men [viz., philoso-
phers and nonphilosophers alike] without distinction nature is not guilty of
any partial distribution of her gifts.' One may reasonably assume that these
matters are from Kant's point of view the most important matters ('the essen-
tial ends of human nature').
I ,I
39 Arendt, Lectures on Kant's PoliticalJ>.hil.oso-phy, 21-2, 29; Strauss, The City and
Man, 18
40 Strauss, Dberalism Ancient and Modern, 14
41 Arendt, Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy, 29
42 'A Giving of Accounts: Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss,' The College 22 (April
1970):4
43 This point is reaffirmed in the L0with correspondence, 113. See also Tarcov
and Pangle, 'Epilogue,' 924, See also the reference to philosophers' exemp-
tion from categorical imperatives in Strauss's account of the Crito: What is Polit-
ical Philosophy? 33.
44 Strauss, Liberalism Ancient and lvfodern, 8
45 Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Viking Press, 1965), 23. Also, Arendt, The
Human Conditi<m (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 32-3
46 Arendt, On Revolution, 23. Arendt borrows the term 'isonomy' from the speech
ofOtanes in the 'Debate on Government' in Herodotus's History (III.80, 83).
It is, of course, open to doubt whether Herodotus himself intended to cele-
brate the isonornic or democratic regime, as Arendt seems to imply; for as
Arendt acknowledges in On Revolution, 289, n. 11, a defence of democracy
according to its 'fairest name' suggests that there are aspects of democracy
(ii
that the fair name obscures.
I
i
216 Notes to pages 117-138
47 Hill, ed., Hannah Arendt: The Recovery of the Public World, 317-18
48 Arendt, The Human Condition, 5. Strauss offers a matching disclaimer of his
own in The City and A-Ian, 11.
49 Hannah Arendt: The Recovery of the Public World, 331
50 Natural Right and History culminates in a critique of Burke. Harvey Mansfield,
Jr's contribution to the third edition of Strauss and Cropsey's History ofPot.itical
PhiWSephy likewise adopts a fundamentally critical stance toward Burke. One
might even read Arendt's critique of Plato in Chapter 31 of The Human Condi-
tion as a direct answer to Strauss's critique of Burke in Natura.l Right and His-
tory, 313-14. An excellent statement of this anti-Platonism is to be found in the
n:iotto from Burke that is at the head of volume 1 of Karl Popper's The Open
Society and its Enemies, 5th ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1966). vi. .
51 Tarcov and Pangle, 'Epilogue,' 928
1 Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs: .&says, 1960-rggo (New York: Simon and_:)?
Schuster, 1990), 17 ('My teachers- Socrates, Machiavelli, Rousseau, and
Nietzsche - could hardly be called consetvatives'). Bloom clearly unders-t()' -
himself to be a Socratic gadfly trying to sting the complacency of studen~ ·
readers for whom liberal dogmas had become a matter of automatic ref(
Reflection on the character of Bloom's 'conservatism' may call to mind ..-
thing Jacob Burckhardt once confided in a letter to his sister: '[For O~C_
had the courage to be conservative and not to give in. (The easiest thf~-,
is to be liberal)' (The Letters ofJacob Burckhard/, ed. Alexander Dru [Ne·
Pantheon Books, 1955], 60 [letter to Louise Burckhardt, 5 April l84t]
there is an important difference: Burckhardt was speaking of sumin·Jf
the courage to be the conservative he really was. · · --,
2 I don't think one can mitigate the severity of what I take to be Bl~)
mate teaching: namely, that the claims oflove are, in the final ret
low as compared with those of friendship. It certainly seems imJlf
perhaps also dismaying, that Bloom does not shirk from carrying
to this radical conclusion. - ,. --
3 How far does theory really shape practice? dnr must decide'\J'.
opposing positions. On the one hand is KeyneS's famous sta_i(
of economists and political philosophers, both when they arf
they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly und_e.f_§
world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe the'__':·
exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the st,{