tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post3493435205292936203..comments2024-03-15T19:54:18.063+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Leo Strauss's "Epilogue": Natural Right and BiologyLarry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-18912495217078363792011-05-31T19:48:43.364+01:002011-05-31T19:48:43.364+01:00Tony,
I am not sure I understand what you mean by...Tony,<br /><br />I am not sure I understand what you mean by speaking about cosmic explanations "as salutary mythmaking rather than science."<br /><br />How can "mythmaking" be "salutary" if everyone understands that it's only "mythmaking"?<br /><br />Or are you implying that the inferior many are supposed to believe the myth to be simply true, while the superior few understand it to be false?<br /><br />If so, does the ranking of the superior few as superior depend on a cosmic myth?<br /><br />If the Platonic Theory of the Ideas is itself a myth, does that mean that the supremacy of the philosophic life--as the life of pursuing the intelligible order of things--is also a myth?<br /><br />Why did Aristotle criticize Plato's Theory of the Ideas and his cosmology if Aristotle knew that it was all a myth?<br /><br />Are you implying that Straussian Platonism ultimately coincides with Nietzschean nihilism?Larry Arnharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-52118982660456380482011-05-31T18:44:54.602+01:002011-05-31T18:44:54.602+01:00Dr. Arnhart,
Does Darwinian science really "...Dr. Arnhart,<br /><br />Does Darwinian science really "refute" cosmic teleology? Is it even possible to refute it? Perhaps I don't fully understand what that kind of teleology requires and/or what it means to refute it. Plato's and Aristotle's cosmic explanations strike me as salutary mythmaking rather than science (that for Aristotle, at least, would serve to reinforce the imminent teleology that he saw in the animal kingdom, and which is the focus of your scholarship). <br /><br />Surely, they understood--what modern commentators generally seem not to understand--that there's no way for us to prove or disprove that kind of thing. Isn't it more accurate to say that we tend to assume a nonteleological universe in modern times, whereas a teleological universe was previously what was assumed?Tony Bartlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13470869510360459222noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-25009103136934343012011-05-28T18:45:12.379+01:002011-05-28T18:45:12.379+01:00The criticism of American social science is simila...The criticism of American social science is similar to the criticism he made of neo-Kantianism earlier in his career. That's not surprising, Max Weber being the model of social science for Strauss.lanny zambohttp://straussiana.blogspot.com/2008/11/strauss-on-kant.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-61005481908471639342011-05-27T17:59:30.275+01:002011-05-27T17:59:30.275+01:00I'm going to again suggest that people pick up...I'm going to again suggest that people pick up Ruth Millikan's "Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories", the new locus classicus for understanding teleology Darwinistically. It not only explains how things like hearts and kidneys can have a biological functions, but unique and original behaviors like thought, actions, and spoken language. It had traditionally been thought that since evolution occurred in the past, then original things like thoughts and language could not have a evolutionary function. Millikan explains all of this.Empedoclesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-55398222624213101302011-05-27T13:48:42.852+01:002011-05-27T13:48:42.852+01:00My thoughts about Masters can be found in "Ro...My thoughts about Masters can be found in "Roger Masters: Natural Right and Biology," in Ken Deutsch and John Murley, eds., LEO STRAUSS, THE STRAUSSIANS, AND THE AMERICAN REGIME (1999), 293-304.Larry Arnharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-35348314249904625412011-05-27T03:50:11.719+01:002011-05-27T03:50:11.719+01:00I too am a Roger Masters admirer, though in my cas...I too am a Roger Masters admirer, though in my case I was exposed to his work through footnotes and references from Larry's Darwinian Natural Right. In my opinion some of the most profound thoughts on the rise of the modern nation state from biological foundations lies in several chapters in Roger's The Nature of Politics. I noted his work cited and referenced in several seminal texts in ethology in particular I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt's Human Ethology. <br /><br />Just a comment.<br /><br />edspelunkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07065422422231217747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-61204040082765156452011-05-26T23:53:34.372+01:002011-05-26T23:53:34.372+01:00Kent Guida,
Thanks. I am aware of Masters (prima...Kent Guida,<br /><br />Thanks. I am aware of Masters (primarily from this blog and Prof. Arnhart’s books). The book you reference is somewhere on my Amazon “wish list.” I clearly need to get around to tracking it down and reading that essay. <br /><br />(By the way, the Strauss description of the Greek “nature” I was thinking of above is in the Introduction to “History of Political Philosophy” - as both of you are probably aware. In addition to noting that the Greek idea of nature needed to be discovered [and does not exist in the Hebrew Bible, for example], and that it is contrasted with both nomos and art, he also refers to it as having an original meaning related to “growth” which is obviously biologic. In any case, on re-reading that passage these years later, I am left with more questions than I was before regarding Strauss’ description).<br /><br />Thanks again.W. Bondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11876061563314623223noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-58951205778634844142011-05-26T22:03:54.637+01:002011-05-26T22:03:54.637+01:00I have a special fondness for that Masters article...I have a special fondness for that Masters article. I read an early version of it in 1978, when Masters presented it as a conference paper in Chicago. It got me started on my road to Darwinian natural right.Larry Arnharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-21109701099667621792011-05-26T19:42:05.608+01:002011-05-26T19:42:05.608+01:00Mr. Bond,
Roger Masters wrote about Strauss making...Mr. Bond,<br />Roger Masters wrote about Strauss making an esoteric hint in the direction of the biological approach to natural right. It was the piece that put me on the trail that led to Arnhart. <br /><br />"Evolutionary Biology and Natural Right" in Deutsch and<br />Soffer, THE CRISIS OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY: A STRAUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE 1987, SUNY Press.<br /><br />I'm not sure anyone took Masters seriously on this, as I don't recall a follow-up from anyone, including Masters. But you should read it, because it's exactly what you suggest.<br />Kent GuidaKent Guidahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00119882444127499607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-1547996512847482682011-05-26T01:15:48.166+01:002011-05-26T01:15:48.166+01:00Dr. Arnhart,
This is a wonderful post.
Since St...Dr. Arnhart,<br /><br />This is a wonderful post. <br /><br />Since Strauss was so notoriously careful and circumspect in his writing, and particularly his later writing, and as you point out since he seems to hint at the animate/inanimate distinction within an understanding of nature (and by extension, natural right) – and explicitly acknowledges it in his quote about Biology in the presumably less guarded correspondence with Kojeve - do you think he was pointing at your broad argument, or at least its possibility, for the careful reader? If so, it calls into question, why he did not want to raise its possibility more directly or forcefully. <br /><br />I don’t have it in front of me, but somewhere (one his essays? in his chapter on Plato in the History of Political Philosophy?) he gives a description of the Greek understanding and use of physis. It really contains biological elements (potential, becoming, arête, telos, etc.). This raises the question of his understanding of the “Greek” view of how biology and nature more broadly differ.<br /><br />And, of course, your Aristotlean emphasis on biology does also point to the question of “what is biology,” and the nature of the distinction within nature of animate from inanimate. The concept of emergence seems helpful in this setting, but, perhaps, raises as many questions as it answers.<br /><br />To pose a possible answer to my first two questions above, perhaps Strauss preferred to hint at these questions or raise them as questions rather than take them on directly as his topic since he did not view them as his primary focus (viz. his various themes regarding the “human things” as understood at the commonsensical, or pre-scientific, level such as the [moral] “crisis of the West,” how to restore the ground for moral judgment against the intellectual forces of positivism and historicism, etc.)?<br /><br />Thanks, and excuse the rambling comment, Wbond<br /><br />P.S. To those who find Strauss’ writing oblique and frustrating rather than profound and charming, one needs only to point to his ability to use rhetoric flourish when he desired such as you quote in that concluding paragraph: “It is excused by two facts…” Absolutely brilliant.W. Bondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11876061563314623223noreply@blogger.com