More about Leo Strauss

I mentioned here earlier this week that, in college, I was taught a Straussian version of Thomas Hobbes. That is: the typical Straussian position in interpreting a wide range of early modern political thinkers is that X was secretly an atheist but was pretending to believe in God because of the whole fear-of-persecution thing. The political philosophy can be understood only once one penetrates beneath the veneer of winking conformism about religion.

Just a quick further note along those lines today.

That is (despite contrary views such as the one I discussed here Tuesday) a fairly easy sell as to Hobbes. And Hume. A little more difficult (IMHO) with regard to Spinoza, and much more difficult with regard to Montesquieu and Locke. And it is almost impossible to look at Maimonides in the manner that the Straussians want.

The founder of the Straussian view was, as one might imagine, Leo Strauss (1899 -1973), and the grand name for his characteristic move is the "hermeneutic of esotericism". Strauss laid it out explicitly in PERSECUTION AND THE ART OF WRITING (1952).

Here is Strauss, commenting on Maimonides in GUIDE TO THE PERPLEXED.

"First, every word of the Guide is chosen with exceeding care; since very few men are able or willing to read with exceeding care, most men will fail to perceive the secret teaching. Second, Maimonides deliberately contradicts himself, and if a man declares both that a is b and that a is not b, he cannot be said to declare anything. Lastly, the 'chapter headings' of the secret teaching are not presented in an orderly fashion but are scattered throughout the book."

By such a reading Strauss tells us that Maimonides is pretending to be providing a reconciliation of Aristotle and Judaism, while esoterically encouraging his readers to abandon the latter for the former.

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