tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post2336324798655816919..comments2024-03-28T08:57:53.180+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Leo Strauss's Silly Idea: "There Are No Gods But the Philosophers"Larry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-66924490701728647402019-10-06T11:31:18.359+01:002019-10-06T11:31:18.359+01:00Although I haven't read Guerra's article, ...Although I haven't read Guerra's article, what you say sounds right to me. The Zuckerts have also written about how much of the differences among the Straussians depend on whether they favor the Aristotelian or the Platonic sides of Strauss, although Strauss himself ultimately seems to favor the Platonic side.Larry Arnharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-38523103823608923052019-10-06T00:40:13.242+01:002019-10-06T00:40:13.242+01:00The best discussion of this issue I've seen i...The best discussion of this issue I've seen is in Marc Guerra's article "The Ambivalence of Classic Natural Right: Leo Strauss on Philosophy, Morality, and Statesmanship." Perspectives on Political Science 28.2 (1999).<br /><br />Guerra points out that Strauss's account of classic natural right in NRH wavers between an "Aristotelian" account of natural right which emphasizes natural sociality and community, the nobility of statesmanship and the moral-political virtues and a "Platonic" account which emphasizes philosophical rationality. The two accounts stand in dialectical tension. Your own Darwinian Natural Right would be very much in the Aristotelian camp. <br /><br />Recounting the Aristotelian version, "Strauss goes so far as to claim that "humanity itself is sociality" and observes that human sociality has natural goods attached to it, such as "love, affection, friendship, and pity" (NRH p 129). Strauss maintains that it is sociality, a characteristic shared by human beings as human beings, that ultimately supplies the basis of natural right "in the narrow or strict sense of right" (NRH 129). For since human sociality is natural, it stands to reason that justice, the quintessential social virtue, is itself natural. On the most basic level, this means that the rules that govern human social relations at least implicitly must acknowledge that human beings are not simply free to act in any way they see fit. As Strauss powerfully formulates it, while human reason obviously allows for an elevated, increased form of freedom, it is also "accompanied by a sacred awe, by a kind of divination that not everything is permitted."(10) In the final analysis, nature imposes restraints on human beings that make life in society both possible and tolerable."<br /><br />On the Aristotelian version, then, the highest human being, is not the philosopher but the statesman: "the full actualization of humanity would then seem to consist, not in some sort of passive membership in civil society, but in the properly directed activity of the statesmen, the legislator, or the founder. (NRH p. 133)<br /><br />But then Strauss turns to the Socratic-Platonic description of the philosopher as one who seeks the truth and doesn't desire to rule: "By so doing, he gradually and subtly changes the terms on which his discussion is based. Whereas previously Strauss had spoken of natural right in terms of human beings' natural sociality and their perfection as moral and political beings, he now approaches natural right from the perspective of human beings' perfection as rational beings.(12) As a result of this shift of emphasis, Strauss slowly but perceptibly moves out of the realm of the just and the noble, the realm in which his preceding evaluation of political life had taken place. The prudent statesman who earlier had "seemed" to represent the full actualization of humanity eventually is replaced by the wise philosopher as the highest human type."<br /><br />However Guerra goes on to say that the "mutilated human being" claim (NRH p 151) is a deliberate exaggeration of the Platonic side of the argument, citing a statement in Strauss's review of David Grene's book, cited in the footnote to NRH 152). <br /><br />I don't know if he is right but I found his Guerra's article useful in thinking about these things.Xenophonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09664620430604622777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-58373109985306982212019-09-03T17:22:03.838+01:002019-09-03T17:22:03.838+01:00Strauss's claim is not just that philosophers ...Strauss's claim is not just that philosophers are the best human beings but that the philosophic life is the only naturally good human life, and that those who live all the other lives--moral, religious, political--are "mutilated human beings" who live lives of "misery," "despair," and "delusion." That's the silly idea. It's so silly that I doubt that any sane human being really believes it.Larry Arnharthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-61611987879308034202019-09-03T15:43:49.681+01:002019-09-03T15:43:49.681+01:00Isn't Strauss's line deliberately silly? I...Isn't Strauss's line deliberately silly? It is obviously oxymoronic to say "If we understand by God the most perfect being that is a person," but Strauss says this because he is staging a somewhat comical dialogue between a theologian and a philosopher (quoting the line that you do on its own makes it sound melodramatic, but the larger context strikes me as more tongue-in-cheek). So I don't read Strauss as saying that philosophers are Gods but that philosophers are the best humans. That is still a pretty controversial claim, and you have given good reasons for rejecting it in other posts, but it does not have much to do with "a Dionysian atheistic religiosity with a vision of the superhuman artist-philosopher". The serious objection to Strauss concerns whether philosophers are the best humans, not whether they are gods.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com