Truth, Philosophers and Reading Between the Lines
Truth, Philosophers and Reading Between the Lines: A Critical Examination of the Methodology of Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss’ Persecution and the Art of Writing contains a striking claim. All great works, we are told, contain two teachings: an “exoteric”, “popular teaching of an edifying character, which is in the foreground”, and an “esoteric” (or “philosophical”) teaching “concerning the most important subject.”[1] This “esoteric” teaching is, however, hidden from popular view. It is written – and therefore found – only “between the lines”[2] and discovering it similarly requires “reading between the lines.”[3] Furthermore – and most startlingly – this “esoteric” teaching is not accessible to all: “[it] is addressed, not to all readers, but to trustworthy and intelligent readers only.”[4]
At first glance, this astounding claim appears to rely on a series of conspicuously poor arguments. We are told that “suppression of independent thought has occurred fairly frequently in the past”[5] and that we must not “confine ourselves to the view of persecution and the attitude towards freedom of speech and candor…prevalent during the last three hundred years.”[6] Rather, “persecution covers a variety of phenomena” so wide in fact that Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Xenophone, Aristotle, Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides, Grotius, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Bayle, Wolff, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Lessing and Kant were all its victims[7]. And it is the phenomena of persecution that “gives rise to a peculiar technique of writing, and therewith to a peculiar type of literature, in which the truth about all crucial things is presented exclusively between the lines.”[8]
This claim about persecution initially appears simply too general to be credible as an account of history. One might point, for example, to the printing license laws of post-1695 Britain as a clear example of an era during which writers (including Locke) were surely as free from persecution as they ever could be.[9]
Strauss appears to rest this claim about persecution generating hidden “esoteric” teachings on a host of arguments which initially appear decidedly third-rate. When Strauss claims esoteric writing is possible because of the “axiom that thoughtless men are careless readers, and only thoughtful men are careful readers” and that the safety of the thoughtful esoteric few is guaranteed by the truth of the “Socratic dictum that virtue is knowledge, and therefore that thoughtful men as such are trustworthy” this may seem not only counter to observed experience of thoughtful men, but question-begging as to the nature and content of virtue and knowledge. [10] Likewise when Strauss tells us that careful esoteric writers hide their meanings between the lines to befuddle censors faced with unattainable burdens of proof in establishing the presence of heterodox writing, it seems obvious to reply that censors rarely bother to satisfy burdens of proof when putting heretics to the pyre, finding suspicion and prejudice quite sufficient. [11]
Similarly, when Strauss states that “If a master of the art of writing commits such blunders as would shame a…school boy, it is reasonable to assume that they are intentional” (and therefore indicative of hidden esoteric teaching)[12] we may feel compelled to object that blunders may simply be blunders; that as Strauss himself points out, even Homer nods sometimes.[13] When Strauss suggests that apparent contradictions within or between an author’s text(s) indicate underlying coherence contained within a secret “esoteric” teaching[14] we might wish to invoke Quentin Skinner’s observation that sometimes a contradiction is just a contradiction.[15]
Unsurprisingly given Strauss’ standing as a thinker there is significantly more to his work than first meets the eye and such easy retorts miss their target. To gain a proper appreciation of Strauss’ position we must view his methodological dictum about hidden teachings and persecution as products of a core underlying contention: that there exist fundamental truths[16] that are accessible only by “philosophers.”[17] When one realises this, Strauss’ position becomes far more difficult to critique.
For Strauss, “persecution” properly understood (i.e. when applied to “philosophers”) means more than simply censorship or suppression by authorities. For the truth that Straussian philosophers perceive is a positively dangerous one, in several ways. Firstly, the philosopher’s access to truth engenders the violent hatred, bigotry and resentment of the brute unphilosophical masses. In turn he aggravates the authorities by unsettling the masses and thereby putting himself at risk of execution, as was the fate of Socrates. But furthermore, the philosopher’s truths are in fact dangerous in themselves: if widely disseminated they could destroy society itself.[18] As a result, all philosophers are necessarily and permanently persecuted at all times: by the bigoted unphilosophical rabble, by the order-preserving authorities, and oddly enough (or so it seems) by themselves, for they must keep their truths secret or destroy the society that allows them to go on existing.[19] As Drury observes, “the conflict does not apply only to those societies that cannot tolerate the freedom to dissent. Strauss is quite earnest about the permanence and universality of the conflict.”[20]
What exactly this terrible society-destroying truth is naturally becomes the burning question. However it will be helpful if we postpone the answer until later. Presently, we simply note that by contending that philosophers alone access dangerous truths Strauss’ claim that they must always be persecuted – and thus hide their esoteric teachings between the lines – appears to follow. The great texts penned by true philosophers will contain esoteric teachings, the result of philosophers communicating with each other and especially the young “puppies” of their “race” under the necessary condition of persecution. [21]
We also see that the apparently bad arguments noted above are in fact quite cogent if we grant that there are fundamental truths accessed only by philosophers. Such truths would (presumably) validate the claim of Socratic virtue, enable censors to be comprehensively duped (presuming non-philosopher censors are fundamentally incapable of recognising philosopher-heterodoxy), and inform the properly-informed as to which apparent contradictions and mistakes are actually indications of esoteric teaching.
Before further exploring Strauss’ notion of fundamental truths and their perception by philosopher elites, it is worth noting that this same contention also serves to inform Strauss’ attack on “historicism” as expressed in Political Philosophy and History.[22]
Whilst it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what “historicism” means to Strauss, it allegedly began in the 16th Century and is characterised “by the assertion that the fundamental distinction between philosophic and historical questions cannot in the last analysis be maintained.”[23] Strauss appears to mean that questions of philosophy (which include notions of value) are mixed-up with accounts of what happened and why, and philosophy is alleged to be intelligible only in respect to historical context. The consequence, Strauss believes, is a methodologically-induced relativism of value and truth. So-called historicism reaches its zenith in the 20th Century with the contention that any attempt to answer or clarify fundamental questions of philosophy “is bound to be ‘historically conditioned’, i.e. to remain dependent on the specific situation in which it is suggested.”[24] Strauss is deeply hostile to this historicism, upon which he launches a scathing critique.
Yet much of Strauss’ critique appears as though it can be resisted, with varying degrees of difficulty. Consider Strauss’ charge that historicism fails to appreciate that philosophers of the past consciously adapted their (timeless, unchanging, fundamental) “non-historical” philosophy for the benefit of their contemporaries’ understanding, thus preserving the “non-historical” teaching for the benefit of later generations. Strauss concludes that: “by proving that teaching as a whole is ‘historically conditioned’, we do not prove that…political philosophy proper is ‘historically conditioned’.”[25] This strategy appears to obviously beg the question against the historicist. It supposes that it is possible for a philosopher to so-adapt his teaching in order to preserve a “non-historical” truth, when it is precisely the contention of historicism (and historicism as Strauss presents it) that such non-historically conditioned truths may be impossible.
At other points, Strauss’ attack on historicism appears vulnerable to one of the basic fallacies identified by what Strauss would surely recognize as a modern historicism par excellence: the “contextualist” approach of Quentin Skinner. Skinner encourages us to realize that when reading texts written in ages past we are always in danger of being locked in a hermeneutic circle: as human beings can comprehend nothing without employing existing conceptions and frames of reference, there is a perennial danger of importing meanings into a text, erroneously believing we have found in a work what we carried there ourselves.[26]
Strauss appears to fall foul of this hermeneutic point on a number of occasions. For example when he writes that “At any rate, the fact (if it is a fact) that each doctrine is ‘related’ to a particular historical setting does not prove at all that no doctrine can simply be true”[27] we might enquire – even granting the possibility of things which are “simply true” – how Strauss believes it is possible to know and find these truths in a text whilst being certain one has not imported them oneself. Strauss’ claims about the discovery of truth appear vulnerable to complaints emanating from basic tenets of sophisticated forms of historicism.[28]
Strauss’ main complaint against historicism, however, is that it is allegedly self-refuting. This complaint in Strauss’ dexterous hands is powerful and compelling.[29] Strauss’ reasoning is at times difficult to follow, but his core contention appears to be that historicism is self-defeating because if it is true then it must be false, but if it is false then it is also false, so either way it is false (a form of reductio ad absurdum). This is because historicism claims that everything must be (and is) “historically conditioned”, yet for this claim to be true then historicism itself must be historically conditioned. It follows that all conclusions historicism comes to are historically conditioned. Yet for historicism to be true, there must be at least one non-historically conditioned truth, namely the truth of historicism. Strauss alleges this to be a self-defeating contradiction, and furthermore “the contradiction is inevitable because, on the one hand, evident reasons compel us to raise the universal questions and to attempt to arrive at adequate answers, i.e., universal answers; and, on the other hand, all human thought is enthralled by opinions and convictions which differ from historical situation to historical situation.”[30]
This seductive and powerful argument is not decisive against historicism, however. For consider: we may be compelled towards “historicist” methodology by persuasive arguments that taking account of historical conditioning is necessary in order to ascertain the correct, or intended, meaning of (say) a text. (Skinner’s hermeneutic warning noted above is a good example). Having embraced a “historicist” method, we may certainly find ourselves troubled by Strauss’ allegation of incoherence. Yet we may resist his implication that historicism is therefore self-refuting. Rather, we might conclude that historicism reveals the limits of human knowing and comprehension on matters of meaning and interpretation, and that this is a feather in its cap not a mark against its name.
Yet as with our earlier objections to Strauss’ own methodology these replies to his critique may be inadequate. A moment’s reflection reveals that Strauss’ objections to historicism can all be sustained, regardless of the above objections, if there are fundamental truths only accessed by esoteric philosophers. For if there are fundamental truths then Strauss does not beg the question against historicists when pointing them in their direction. If these truths are accessed by privileged philosophers, such esoteric elites obviously need pay no heed to a Skinnerian hermeneutic warning. And if there are fundamental truths, then historicism is self-defeating because what its uncomfortable conclusions prove is not that there are limits to human comprehension, but that historicism is caught in self-defeating contradiction.
The notion that there are fundamental truths that can be perceived only by philosophers is therefore what underpins and informs not just Strauss’ own methodological dictum of “reading between the lines”, but is also a central component in a powerful critique of alternative methodological approaches. Given the importance of Strauss’ notion of truth and its perception by elites, I will hereafter refer to it as his “core contention”, which must now be examined.
An important feature of the core contention is that it cannot be falsified. It is impossible to (for example) pick through great texts (even those Strauss himself indicates are likely to contain esoteric teachings) and demonstrate that they don’t in fact contain hidden teachings. After all, if there are hidden messages a non-philosopher will miss them when trying to prove their non-existence. Any attempt at falsification can be met with the reply that the teachings are present, but that only philosophers can access them, for only they access fundamental truth. If one has failed to find esoteric teaching, that is proof of nothing more than that one is not a philosopher. (Thus the claim of hidden teachings and the core-contention are both non-falsifiable precisely because the former is dependent upon the latter).
Yet simply because Strauss’ core contention is non-falsifiable, it doesn’t follow that we should accept it. We see this if by asking what is required for Strauss’ core contention to be considered plausible, and in the process return to our postponed question of what Strauss’ dangerous truths are.
Imagine a reader who is sceptical of Strauss’ core contention. That reader is surely entitled to more than a simple statement that there are fundamental truths accessible only to philosophers. In particular she is entitled to three things: a metaphysical account of the nature of these truths, an epistemological explanation of how they come to be accessed by philosophers, and a convincing elucidation as to why only (a tiny minority of privileged) philosophers can access such truths whilst the majority are correspondingly incapable.[31] This is necessary if the sceptical reader is to accept the core contention on more than faith in Strauss’ word alone.
There is no doubt that Strauss has a conception of the metaphysics underlying the truths he alludes to. As Stephen Holmes puts it, according to Strauss “Ancient and modern philosophers agree about a whole string of riveting truths: there is no afterlife, the habitable earth will eventually perish, all nations are founded in crime, all borders are unjust, and so forth.”[32] That is, Strauss holds what might be crudely (and somewhat misleadingly) termed a “Nietzschean” conception of the metaphysical: that all values are arbitrary, life is futile, everything is fundamentally dictated by power and violence, and reason is impotent in the face of existential horror. [33] Strauss believes that such dark truths are in some sense not accessible to all. There exists a “distinction between the few and the many, between the supermen who can live authentically, without myths, and the herd who can swallow reality only if it is sugar-coated.”[34]
So Strauss offers an answer to the first demand, a metaphysical account of the truths that only philosophers perceive. Whether our sceptical reader accepts this account is a complex question, but also one that need not be pursued here. For Strauss’ metaphysical picture alone cannot meet the further demands made of the core contention. Even supposing that truth is as Strauss posits it, the explanation of how philosophers access it but why non-philosophers are incapable of doing so remains unclear. This is a serious stumbling-block for Strauss’ core contention. Although Holmes is critiquing Strauss more generally, his comment that “Strauss provides no argument to demonstrate the absolute superiority of philosophers and leaves unanswered a whole range of pertinent questions” is certainly pertinent for the sceptical reader, as is his remark that “Strauss never answered the fundamental philosophical question: how did he know what he pretended to know?”[35]
What if Strauss should reply that the sceptical reader has misunderstood: it is not that ordinary men cannot access the fundamental truths, but rather that they cannot cope with them; that only philosophers can stare into the abyss, can live without dishonest comforts of religion “sugar coating reality”?[36] In fact this changes little. The sceptical reader still requires an account of why only philosophers can stare into the abyss, and why the rest can’t.
Strauss appears not to provide a satisfactory account of why truth is accessible only to philosophers (or, what comes to the same, why only philosophers can cope with truth). In lieu of an explanation as to how and why only esoteric elites access truth, there appears little reason for the sceptical reader to accept Strauss’ core contention on more than faith. Insofar as she lacks that faith, her scepticism is only emboldened in recalling Holmes observation of the impossibility of dividing mankind with a “simple dichotomy” of “real men as distinguished from ordinary human beings”; that “the neatness of this either/or dichotomy falsifies the world in all its messy variety.”[37]
Strauss’ methodological dictum that great texts must be “read between the lines” to discover hidden esoteric teachings, and his powerful critique of historicism, both rest upon his core contention that there are fundamental truths (safely) accessible only to philosopher elites. This contention is not falsifiable, but a sceptical reader appears entitled to find Strauss’ contention inadequate nonetheless.
This is not to say that Strauss’ work has no worth to the sceptical reader. His insistence that we read a text with the utmost care and attention, engage with our authors fully and respectfully, be willing to cast-off dogmas and leave no interpretative stone unturned is sound advice indeed. His critique of “historicism” should give long pause for thought to anyone attracted to such methods. But ultimately, as Drury observes:
Strauss’s method is a philosophy in disguise. It is neither possible nor fruitful to use the method unless one has already accepted his philosophical assumptions: assumptions about what is wise and foolish, noble and ignoble, true and false.[38]
[1] Leo Strauss, ‘Persecution and the Art of Writing’, in Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988), p.36.
[2] Ibid., p.24.
[3] Ibid., p.30.
[4] Ibid., p.25.
[5] Ibid., p.26.
[6] Ibid., p.32.
[7] Ibid., pp.32-2.
[8] Ibid., p.25.
[9] See for example Laurence Hansen, Government and the Press, 1695-1763 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936), p.84.
[10] Strauss, ‘Persecution and the Art of Writing’, p.25.
[11] Ibid., p.26.
[12] Ibid., p.30.
[13] Ibid., p.26.
[14] Ibid., p.27, p.31.
[15] Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics Vol.1, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp.67-72.
[16] See ‘Political Philosophy and History’ in Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988) where Strauss makes repeated appeal to “the truth” and the existence of “fundamental” and “universal” truths.
[17] Strauss, ‘Persecution and the Art of Writing’, p.36.
[18] See Shadia Drury The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, (Basingstoke: MacMillan,1988) pp.19-21; Stephen Holmes, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,1996), pp.63-6.
[19] Strauss does not make this claim explicitly but it is a logical rendering of his position.
[20] Drury, Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, p.19; See also Holmes, Anatomy of Antiliberalism, p.65.
[21] Strauss, ‘Persecution and the Art of Writing’, p.36.
[22] Strauss, ‘Political Philosophy and History’, pp.56-77.
[23] Ibid., p.57.
[24] Ibid., p.60.
[25] Ibid., pp.63-4.
[26] Skinner, Visions of Politics, pp.58-9.
[27] Strauss, ‘Political Philosophy and History’, p.64.
[28] That contextualism largely post-dates Strauss is irrelevant. The critique is intended to undercut what Strauss considered a modern phenomenon, including any versions which might emerge later.
[29] In ‘Political Philosophy and History’ the complaint of self-refutation ranges, in varying forms, over at least 6 densely-argued pages. See pp.68-73.
[30] Strauss, ‘Political Philosophy and History’, p.70.
[31] This tri-partite demand is adapted from anti-realist arguments in the philosophy of ethics. See for example J.L. Mackie, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990), pp.38-42; Simon Blackburn, ‘Error and the Phenomenology of Value’, in Essays in Quasi-Realism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
[32] Holmes, Anatomy of Antiliberalism, p.69.
[33] Shadia Drury, ‘Leo Strauss’, Canada Research Chair for Social Justice: Shadia B. Drury, http://phil.uregina.ca/CRC/encyc_leostrauss.html [accessed 2 January 2010].
[34] Holmes, Anatomy of Antiliberalism, p.65.
[35] Ibid., p.82.
[36] Ibid., pp.65-9.
[37] Ibid., p.79.
[38] Drury, Political Ideas of Leo Strauss, p.12.
–
Bibliography
- Blackburn, Simon, ‘Error and the Phenomenology of Value’ in Essays in Quasi-Realism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) pp.149-166
- Drury, Shadia B., Canada Research Chair for Social Justice: Shadia B. Drury, http://phil.uregina.ca/CRC/encyc_leostrauss.html [accessed 2 January 2010]
- Drury, Shadia B., The Political Idea of Leo Strauss, (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1988)
- Hansen, Laurence, Government and the Press, 1695-1763, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936)
- Holmes, Stephen, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1996)
- Mackie, J.L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990)
- Skinner, Quentin, Visions of Politics Volume 1, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
- Strauss, Leo, ‘Persecution and the Art of Wriring’ in Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988) pp.22-38, originally published by The Free Press, 1952
- Strauss, Leo, ‘Political Philosophy and History’ in Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988) pp.56-77, originally published by The Free Press, 1959
