Welcome back to the new thinkery. My name is David Barn with me as always is my good friend Alex Priyoh Hari Alex. It is a great honor David and at the same time a challenge to accept a task of particular difficulty to speak with you about political philosophy on Zoom. And are you doing our good friend Greg?
I think better than Alex. I don't know what's going on with him. He got smarter all of a sudden. Yes.
Yes. I heard those words. Right, right, right. I've never heard them before.
Only right now. No. So Alex telegraphed a little bit about what we're discussing tonight. What what what what is it out?
We have a stresses essay, what is political philosophy? What what? What what? It's it was originally published back in like the seven, I think, and it was it was given in 54, and the 54 in early 55.
But then ultimately published in the book, What is political philosophy in other studies in 1959 is the opening essay. And many guests we've had have said this is their favorite thing by straws or best introduction to straws they've highlighted and with good reason. I mean, with the title like that, it just smacks of being central to us. So I have a question just to start off.
Usually when you have essays like this, what is it's there some necessity to define the subject matter for whatever reason? But it seems like we all kind of understand or at least sense what political philosophy is, even if it's like pornography, like we know it when we see it. But why did Strauss feel constrained to to define it? I mean, it seems like something that never needed a definitional essay before, if we take seriously that there's been this great conversation between political philosophers throughout the ages, they seem to have been attuned to similar themes.
It's existed without having been defined for all these years. What's what's going on in the essay? I mean, I don't know if this answers your question, but like one, it's important to consider the setting. I mean, he's giving this in Jerusalem, right?
And he mentions this and he refers to it upfront, but then recalls it at various moments. And he even says early on, I'm gonna have to talk about Machiavelli doesn't name him, but he's alluding to him. And he'll eventually get to that. And so there's a stuff that hangs together as a long slides.
But oddly enough, even though he's given in Jerusalem, it's a very socratic title. So it is maybe the most you see Strauss as a political philosopher in the opposing city, right? It's Athens in Jerusalem, in a way. And so whatever reason he might have had to try to define it, the occasion seems to give him a the sort of invitation or going to Jerusalem to give these talks seems to have given him an opportunity to sort of craft a kind of drama to this work.
That makes sense. Great loss to jump in. This is a small point. You think that this is any, the rumors I've heard were that Strauss was up for some position at Hebrew University or something like this, but he was denied for being insufficiently Jewish or something like this.
I always wondered if this was a kind of response in part to that. I don't know if that's right. But a couple other small points. I just another thing that's a little bit out of left field is I've often thought that this might be a response to an essay by Heidegger called what is philosophy.
The problem with that notion is the chronology doesn't quite work out for the publication of Heidegger's talk, but Heidegger's talk occurred before this talk. So if Strauss somehow got a hold of it, I wonder if this is some implicit critique of Heidegger. I mean, Heidegger certainly looms large explicitly, almost at the end. And implicitly.
Yeah, but he names him and then refuses to name him. What's that? Sorry, I was making a joke that I was serious. He names him and then later he doesn't name him.
Yeah. Right. He names him in the early paragraphs and then at the very end of the first section, he says the radical historicist whom he leaves unnamed. We're only doing part one, by the way, right?
We're going to do a three part step. Yeah, we should tell them that. And I mean, they'll see it on the show. Listen, part two will be completed in probably September, October, and then we're going to do 20, 20, we get so many complaints about this.
We're going to record parts two and three the next time we sit down together next week. And we're going to release them in a series. I want to do that. Oh, come on.
We in a row. Yeah, it's going to be gangbusters. I want to release this right after gangbusters. Okay.
What do you think? What did you think I said? I don't know. I'm ashamed to say.
What was the word you thought came after game goes? I think you're saying Ghostbusters. That's all. Yeah.
But you said game what? So you knew I said game. No, I said word. What was the word you suspected I said after gang if it was not busters.
That's a robbers. Was that a robbers gang of robbers? He's a buster's was a robbers. That's right.
Is there another word that begins with the end ends with ERS gang but hers? Something that you were thinking about? I can't. What do you mean?
Greg is so ready. He knows he's caught. You're a naughty boy. I'm a spanky Greg.
No, no. It's why folks come here, by the way, just to do things right here. You don't get that kind of back and forth, that kind of dirty dog humor elsewhere, right? They think they're coming for what is political philosophy now.
They're getting some big smalls, yo. Yeah. So I always that the folks don't get see both shaking your head and disgusted me simultaneously and in unison. Yeah.
Well, that's a really interesting point, Greg or David or guest. But give me a second before we get too into things. Can I take a moment to tell our audience about a very special educational opportunity from our sponsor? Folks at home, either I'll need to clearly not in gas and give me the double thumbs up double.
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What were you about to say? So, yeah, he mentions the most radical historicist and he talks about what he did in 1933. Anyways, it's a, and it does seem like, and Mary says, you can't abandon the question of the good society. That's the biggest of anti-says, right, that you need to sort of attend to the good society.
That would seem to be a criticism of Heidegger for not attending political philosophy. Right. And then he says at the end of part one that, goes without saying that the events, you know, in 1933, right, remind one how important it is to reduce those events. What can we just make explicit?
What do you leave implicit? Was that the speech that Heidegger gave? Was that 33? Yeah, he says, he's talking about certain, whether there are certain permanencies that can be used as criteria for distinguishing between good and bad dispensations of fate, because the historicist turns to fate.
He says, the historicist answers this question in the negative, he looks down on the permanencies in question, because of their objective common superficial and rudimentary character to become relevant, they would have to be completed and their completion is no longer common, but historical. It was the contempt for these permanencies, which permitted the most radical historicist in 1933 to submit to, or rather to welcome, as a dispensation of fate, the verdict of the least wise and least moderate part of his nation, while it was in its least wise and least moderate mood, and at the same time to speak of wisdom and moderation. So he's talking about him accepting the position of the rectorate. And giving the killer being a chancellor.
I think he's talking about Heidegger, though. Yeah, I think about it, but the story is just Heidegger. Okay, okay. I should just say that Hitler became a chancellor in 33, but one more thing on the secret.
You're right, this is sort of the title of this is maybe the most secretic of any of his talks or books. And yet the question is not typical and the typical, what his questions are, what is justice, what is courage, what is moderation, what is piety, right? And so to turn the tables on what is political philosophy is a sort of interesting thing. It's almost like that might be taken for granted by a secretic philosophy.
That's how it would take that back, by the way. But anyway, what is political philosophy is not necessarily that question that Socrates would raised. And in fact, I don't know that we ever see him under that phrase at all political philosophy. That's a, I mean, we see it in Aristotle, but.
Were you Strauss never others? Socrates, sorry. No, you said he I wasn't exactly. Aristotle, Aristotle uses it once in that science of unifers, no, yeah, philosophy, unifers.
And also, Greg, you have me thinking that the, sorry, I'll just go ahead, that the what is political philosophy assumes some understanding of, yes, the what is philosophy. Absolutely. You had dialogues devoted to, right? That that end, almost a pretty common secret to, right?
What is something modified implies that you know the thing being modified first? Yes, exactly right. Yeah. And it's funny because after this brief introductory paragraph where he talks about Jerusalem, we should talk about that.
He's first sentence, you read is the meaning of political philosophy and its meaningful character is as evident today as it as it always has been since the time when political philosophy came to light happens. Okay, I guess I'm done. Though that's not saying it's, it's, it's, it's simply evident. It's just as evident, right?
So it's. Yeah, it could be equally obscured in both times. Right. One first thing on that first paragraph, am I right that there's this is published elsewhere in the first paragraph is not included?
I was listening to the audio version. It might be that the, when the first one was published in, so he says a Hebrew translation with an English song was published in April 55, the first lecture was published in a time translation of 56, a part of the essay was published in the Journal of Politics in 1957. Maybe that's what I think a part of it was published in anyway. Yeah, it was just strange because it is such an important paragraph, I think, for understanding.
What's what's going on here? That's funny because I was right. It was super important to draw a question disregarded the first sentence here. I have a quick question.
Did you guys make any of the last sentence of the first paragraph we talked about compulsion? It just reminisce in of the beginning of the Republic. So he says whether I'm being compelled, which is strange, he's invited to the electoral or he's simply compelling himself. That's what he says, you know, I won't forget for a moment what truth will stand for, etc.
That sentence stand out to either of you or so we would I would go so far as to say, Strauss is comparing himself to Socrates there. Do you want to say? I wasn't prepared to answer it. So I feel like I remember Sartre's some point talking about compelling himself.
Oh, maybe it's in the protagonist, where he's actually not exactly right. It's in the protagonist where Sartre's disagreeing with the protagonist and he says that the wise men all agree that you should come up to double check this mixture. I'm right, but the wise men can tell himself to praise this city. And so that would be a really neat illusion to what he's doing with respect to Jerusalem and what Sartre's said with respect to Athens.
If that's right, I can check that out while we're talking about it. I mean, one thing I'll say that it brought to mind is to wander far away. He's referring to Machiavelli there because he just said, he says, I shall even be compelled to lead you into a region where the dimness recollection of that vision is on the point of vanishing altogether where the kingdom of God is derisively called and imagined to principality. Right.
So there, and then he says again, but while being compelled or compelling myself, right. So is he compelled by his theme, right? Like he just has to or is he compelling himself to go to this? It's hard to make it be clear about what exactly is compelling him or why he would compel himself.
But I would say there's maybe a argumentative or rational necessity, a logical necessity, something like that, or he doesn't want to leave Jerusalem. He doesn't want to wander far away from our sacred heritage, but he has to for the sake of their own us. Those aren't simply separable, but it does raise the question of how reluctant he is and how much he's just following the argument. I'll just say that wonder is a word that's often used a philosophy and played up.
So there's a sense here that he's trying to act like he doesn't want to wander far away, but maybe that's just the nature of the question we'll drive him there and he has to. Well, but he does he pose the question to the answer? Did they just say, did they say speak on this topic? Because if not, he could simply have written on anything.
It's worth it's worth. I don't know. Yeah, I'll look on a basic level. I'll say this about that.
If you're Straus and you ask to speak about your expertise in Jerusalem, in a way, you have to address this question. What is political philosophy? You have to give an account, right? Now when he gets to Machiavelli later, he is like so, he gives this is in section three.
He is so harsh. Damn. It's for obvious reasons because of where he is. And so he qualifies the language, but on the surface of it, you read it, you're like, oh, this guy really doesn't like Machiavelli.
Keeping in mind that it was I think also in 1959 that he published that's a Machiavelli, where he calls him a philosopher and obviously treats him with the utmost respect and care. So, you know, there is like there's definitely an exo-teric side to this where he can't go to this most irreverent. I mean, when he gets to Machiavelli much later, I'll just say this point that I'll stop because I think Greg wants to jump in here. He says this is on page 41, Machiavelli was a great master of blasphemy.
The charm and gracefulness of his blasphemies will however be less strongly felt by us than their shocking character. Us must mean him and his audience. So, we'll be primarily taking him as shocking and we'll miss the charm and grace. And therefore, he says, let us then keep them under the veil under which he has hated them, right?
So, he decides not to go into that. So, he backs off from the positive side of Machiavelli in order to... So, I really do think this all really matters to understanding this essay. Yep.
This almost seems like the natural starting point into Strauss's thought, by the way, right? I mean, most of us as undergrads due to the class introduction of political philosophy. This would seem like the natural essay to begin with. So, I wonder if Strauss very intentionally thought about this as this will be a writing that will introduce many of future readers to my thought.
And so, therefore, he gives... I mean, we'll jump in this here in just a moment, but he's going to get an account of what political philosophy is. But I'm not sure if that account here, at least in this first part, is satisfactory upon final analysis. Yeah, it's not clear he finds it.
I guess that's what I meant. Yeah. So, let's just mention one more thing about the beginning before we get into some of the other passages. And this is the question that for me has to be asked.
The first section is called the problem of political philosophy. And then the second section is called the classical solution. And then finally, when you get to the third section, it's the modern solutions. So, we have a problem, and then a tradition that seems to be rounded around one solution, and then a tradition that supplies multiple solutions.
So, it understands essay in the first part, we need to understand what the problem is. And it's not evident. Greg, sorry, you want to say something here about some kind of solution? I was just interested that the modern one is plural, whereas classical is singular.
That might be worth worth mentioning. Yeah. So, I don't want to put the card for the horse, but I mean, the first question therefore, the first part to my mind is what is the problem that political philosophy? Because that's the title of part one of this essay.
I just said... David. Just saying that. He literally said exactly what I said right back to it.
Oh, look at there. Somebody doesn't like it when people don't pay attention and say exactly what you said. Episode 132, that's right. That's called a callback.
That's like over a year ago. That's right. That's stupid. I can tell you.
Anyways, do you want to talk about the structure? Maybe you got something for us? Being a what? Stuke.
No, I'm not going to like Stuke. No, no. Let's talk. Let's talk about the structure, even though we won't be touching parts two and three.
Greg, you did a good job of outlining it. You want to talk about it? Yeah, sure. Thanks.
I mean, we'd sort of maybe said this a little bit together back in January. And Austin and I'd sort of work through paragraphs. And you sent this sort of paragraph by paragraph pretty see of it. And so I just tried to organize it into a way that seemed to make sense to me.
So I find the first essay falling into seven parts. The first is the introduction that Alex already mentioned. The second part is about the emergence of political philosophy, which is paragraph three. Okay.
The first one is first paragraph. The first one is first paragraph. The emergence of political philosophy is the second and third paragraphs, which deal with the notion that all political action is directed toward knowledge of the good. And if that directness is made explicit, political philosophy emerges.
So that's part two. Part three is are some provisional definitions. This is paragraphs four to six where where I would say Strauss offers definitions plural of philosophy and then political philosophy. So he'll define philosophy and then there's a subtle refinement made and the same thing is done with political philosophy.
That's paragraph four to six. Part four is political philosophy versus a bunch of alternatives. That's paragraphs seven through 15. And the alternatives are political thought, political theory, political theology, political science and political knowledge.
The fifth part is about political philosophy today. That's two paragraphs, 16 17. And the first paragraph Strauss argues that political philosophy is in the state of decay. And the next paragraph he explains why that's so it's due to science and history.
Then I would say the medius part of this first part of what is political philosophy. The sixth part of part one is devoted to positivism, which is paragraphs 18 through 24. So the two reasons why political philosophy is where today is science and history then Strauss takes up its some length of science and paragraphs 18 to 24, which is about positivism. And then the final paragraph paragraph, paragraph 26, he takes up history and historicism.
That's one brief paragraph which we've already discussed a little bit in his discussion of positivism. He lays out the tenets of positivism and then he offers four considerations that speak decisively against positivism. He says, I won't go into a theoretical arguments to why it's bad. Here are just four considerations that speak decisively against it.
And we can probably go into those in some length at some point. So that's how I see the structure of it. I haven't worked on it some today, though. Anything to add or correct there?
But it doesn't he seem to skip over one great challenge to political philosophy at least in this opening section. And that's revealed religion. It's like he jumps hundreds of years serious. Well, yeah, historicism and positivism are on the horizon.
Watch out. Man, the ramparts. But there was an earlier attack. I wonder if that's a great question.
I wonder if that's not discussed in the first paragraph where he's going to be silent. He said I'll be silent about what Jerusalem stands for. Okay. That's a great point.
You're right. That never fun. Never forget sound about it. Whereas an outright history makes clear that the fundamental alternative is a revelation as you say.
Yeah, in many places. So that silence is huge. I think that very question has something to do with why it's so hard to identify the problem of political philosophy. To be too explicit about the problem of political philosophy would somehow bring that in.
And so can I say something about the structure you just laid out and what I think is motivating structure? So he gives the emergence in paragraphs two to three, which allows him to come to some kind of provisional definition. And then he's compelled to clarify it against things that look like it. So thought, theory, theology, all these have political as modified science and then knowledge.
And when he gets to science and knowledge, he starts bumping into the contemporary situation, which occupies him till the end. And I think along that way, you'd want to say, well, it seems like somehow the problem, whatever it is, yet you served replaced by or somehow obscured by the contemporary situation, but it has to be somehow there, right? It has to be somehow implicit. So it would seem to me at least that there are earlier anticipations that something like the problem has to emerge in his discussion of positivism and historicism.
And I think maybe more so in positivism, it feels like it at least. Two things. One is, are you saying that the current situation obscures the problem from us? I don't know if I just said that automatically, but the cave in the cave is like, we don't even see the problem, thanks to science and history.
And that has the problem itself has to be recovered. Are you saying that? Okay. And I think he uses that to keep the problem at bay, given that he's speaking in Jerusalem.
And so therefore he's illuminating the problem, kind of obliquely, right? By focusing on this common enemy, right, he can obscure the degree to which a more direct and less provisional articulation of the problem of political philosophy would mean he gets his head lobbed off and he's drinking hamlock or whatever. Yeah. Interesting.
I took his relative silence regarding resources and to be indicative that his stories and his stories is a real problem, that it's much more dangerous to political philosophy than positivism. And I would just say anecdotally, in my life, I usually work in political science firms that are rather indifferent or hostile to political science. But I mean, most of my positive social science friends just kind of see me as sort of, you're doing silly things. We don't really care.
The people who really think I'm bad are the historicists or those who are sort of in some way in historical school, right? They're the real enemies. Like my positive friends are like, oh, it's cute that you read all books. That's nice.
You know, we would do science and you just, you just pick the lent out of your belly button. I mean, there's this association of historic with of historicism with revelation in natural right in history. I was going to be my next question, actually. Yeah.
And where he says, where he basically says the whole is subject to change and it's unpredictable and it sounds a lot like things Straus says about the meaning of God's name, I shall be what I shall be meaning. I'm essentially unpredictable. It seems like it's a quasi philosophic restatement of the central position of revelation. That might also have something to do with why he pulls back and then he makes simply a moral arguments, right?
I mean, I did in a way that's right, right? Doesn't he commit like the reductio adicular hitlerium, essentially? Like he was a bad Nazi. So not see, man, Nazi.
That's a fantastic one, Greg. That's right. Whereas you could say the positivist here, maybe deserve more treatment because they're somewhat closer in that they still believe in science to some degree and they believe in reason. It's such an emaciated form that it collapses into historicism.
And so science is lost. And I'll say this the one time, as far as I could find it, where the word problem comes up is in paragraph 23, when he's discussing the second point. And he says, the belief is the end of paragraph 23 on page 23, the belief that value judgments are not subject in the last analysis to rational control encourages the inclination to make irresponsible assertions regarding right and wrong or good and bad. One that sounds like hydroemos, one of AIDS serious discussion of serious issues by the simple device of passing them off as value problems.
So somehow value problems is a poor reflection of serious discussion of serious issues. Now, the funny thing is there's a lot of places where you'd expect them to say problems, like you'll speak of fundamental fundamental questions. You'll speak of issues. You'll speak of essential conflicts in this essay.
Places where in other places where he discusses the same sort of arguments, he'll use language of problems. But my guess is that the problem of political philosophy is something like the tension or the heterogeneity of our ends, the good, the just and the beautiful. And if that's right, I'm not convinced this is right, but it seems to me what he's suggesting and the one use the problems, if that's right, then to make that too explicit would make thematic the tension between Jerusalem and Athens, would it not right to bring up the degree to which the Justin and Obel can deliver on their promise to be good. And so he carefully avoids that by just saying the conclusion deduced from the variety of values does not actually follow, right?
It's just a unwarranted conclusion. And then he can just go say, well, and it falls into historicism and historicism gives you Nazis. Therefore, positive isn't spad, we're friends, right? You and me.
So it's actually that you would really like positivism. I like HIV positivism. Well, I just I'm tempted to Greg, judge. Thank you.
That was pretty good. I was just pretty good. Well, that's pretty good. Because I like that you might like the way that in positive is in the value judgments enter through the backdoor.
Well, then call me a value judgment, Greg. What was the phrase you used for Greg that episode where he was gone or laid back your barn storms back door, barn storms, something like that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Volumes one, two, three, episode one, eight, four. Greg's got a list of grievances longer than that. Old Thomas Jefferson.
I can't wait till festivals. So I'm not sure I want to make it that long. I was I was side digression question real quick real quick before we get some serious stuff. Here, I briefly just before we start recording it occurred to me to make this list.
So it's not exhaustive. People he names in part one. For example, I thought I was curious that his very first quote in Jerusalem is to Thomas Aquinas. But it's Aristotle.
I was thinking of the same thing. His first citation to a philosopher's Aristotle. Second is Aquinas. But I guess you're right there, Greg.
You're just saying first quote. I think so. Yeah. And mentioned people by name.
So Weber Descartes, he doesn't mention Kant, but doesn't mention his works. Plato, Comte. There are others. So I didn't finish it.
I didn't finish it. But then the four greatest living or philosophy. Right. Right.
Yeah. Including Heidegger, for example. Yeah. The four greatest thinkers.
Yeah. Just something I think is the first quote is by Aquinas in the Latin. Yeah. So as we prepare for as I prepare for our next episode, I'll try and keep track of all these people names.
Just it seems curious to me. That's all. And you know, I don't know what else to say about that. But it's interesting you read an essay that's, you know, originally I talked a little in Jerusalem.
All you want to do is name names. No, come on, man. Come on, dude. Why don't you go build a tent?
Can we say I want to read a couple lines here because one of the things that's really wonderful about this essay is it's very distilled and it's a great quote. So let me just get to that I think are famous and quite like he says, I read that, daddy. I will. All political actions pair enough to all political action aims at either preservation or change.
When desiring to preserve and wish to prevent a change to the worse, when desiring to change, we wish to bring something about something better. All political action is then guided by some thought of better and worse, the thought of better or worse implies thought of the good. I just like how simple his languages and he just lays out the argument that you get from action to the good and then, you know, then he talks about awareness and eventually gets to knowledge. Well, I mean, he does speak very simply.
Strauss doesn't know. And this is just another way in which I think he's imitating Socrates. And you see, even in this, when he's critiquing positivism, the way that he sort of speaks in common sense, language, he gives you a sort of defensive why I want ought to do that that one should begin from comments, the comments understanding of things. And so all this unnecessary jargon that seems to be so typical and positive as a person or more recent philosophy is a shoeing all that.
It's very simple. Like all your you guys, all of you guys who do things, you're implicitly pointing toward political philosophy. And when you actually sit down and think about it and make it intentional, that's when political philosophy emerges, at least political philosophy, as he provisionally defines it in part two of this first part. Should we talk about those definitions of philosophy and political philosophy, maybe?
Yeah. But did you want to read a few more, Alex? Oh, I'll give one more. I'll give one more.
He says philosophy as quest for wisdom is quest for universal knowledge for knowledge of the whole, the quest would not be necessary if such knowledge were immediately available. The absence of knowledge of the whole does not mean however, that men do not have thoughts about the whole. Political philosophy is necessarily preceded by opinions about the whole. It is therefore the attempt to replace opinions about the whole by knowledge of the whole.
Instead of the whole, the philosophers also say all things. The whole is not a pure ether and unrelieved darkness in which one cannot distinguish one part from the other. So it's not well turned waste, or in which one cannot discern anything. Quest for knowledge of all things means quest for knowledge of God, the world, and man, rather quest for knowledge of the natures of all things.
The natures in their totality are the whole. And to pick up on Greg's point about this simplicity of language, that's so hard, it's so hard to get this clear about and not bring in something that's extraneous. And he's really gotten back to a very rudimentary kind of language and nothing that you would look at and say this is a term from a later thinker and a sort of relic of a later time. I mean, this is an unbelievable clarity and seems simplistic.
But to get that simple requires great exertions of thought and clarity of thought. Yeah, I can't tell listening to that quote in particular, John Touta, me too, Alice, whether or not he's lapping off things like metaphysics, the ankles, or if he's subsuming metaphysics as a division or concentration of philosophy under political philosophy. If he's just subsuming all these things and saying, Hey, well, Aristotle's metaphysics, no, no, no, that's political philosophy. You're just confused about the architectonic umbrella of political philosophy.
We take care of everything, boys, we're just asking kind of in different questions, but everything's related. On that point at that point, he's talking about philosophy, but later when he gets to political philosophy, he says it's just a branch, which is strange. That's not what you would think, Shaus would say. He'd actually say, no, it's the core of it, right?
And it's the encompassing part of it. But if you were to do that, he'd say that political philosophy somehow gets you to not or is the proper way to approach knowledge of God, the world and man. And that would, I think, be another appointment, which you'd have to be a little bit too much directly in confrontation with with his audience. I'm just thinking about the city.
That's it. But I will say today, what's point though, I mean, later on, this is on page 14, he implies that his definition that he this is in paragraph 11, he says basically that his definition of philosophy in paragraphs four and five is provisional. And so I just, I suspect that that there's something inadequate about the definition of philosophy that he's offered there. And I think it's therefore there's also something provisional and therefore insufficient about his definition of philosophy.
Yeah, I think there's at least two ways that I can see how that might be the case. One is the one I just mentioned. He hasn't actually confronted adequately or treated adequately the relationship between the two. He's just asserted it's a branch.
And the other would be it's provisional in the sense that it's on the way. I mean, he's gotten to the quest for knowledge of all things or the quest for knowledge of the nature of all things. But he hasn't specified at all how you're supposed to go about that. What kind of questions you're going to ask.
There's the question of the best regime hasn't even come up or all those later issues. It's just taking you to the beginning and it hasn't really gone you. So that's clearly provision. It's gone into the substance.
So his definition of political philosophy is that's a branch of philosophy. And so it's just the attempt to turn place our opinions about political things with knowledge of political things. But I would say elsewhere and I was looking to see how you find in this essay. He sort of indicates that political philosophy is philosophy done in a political manner.
So let me try this anyway. So political philosophy could be that branch of philosophy that studies politics or it could be the manner of doing philosophy. And therefore, this is a one circle back to microtique of Heidegger that I think there is a theoretical critique of Heidegger that Heidegger didn't do philosophy politically if that makes sense. He separated wisdom from moderation which strikes me as in politic.
Yeah, David, sorry. So is he just to define it so narrowly? Is that a variance with the way Aristotle describes it as an architectonic art? Yeah, that's my point.
Exactly. Okay, sorry. And in a way, it seems throughout here, maybe some of the people who are imitating of Eruis, who begins the decisive trius. Look, philosophy is reflecting on the beings that God's created.
That's all it is. And if the cron says we should do that, then we should do philosophy. It's no big deal. Why is he taught?
But boom, but bang, you should read Aristotle. The Sharia commands you to read Aristotle. Isn't that where he's from? Is that not where he's from?
Is that not where he's not an Italy, modern day Italy? Is that not? Do I have my joke? If you're wrong?
Thanks, Spain. Oh, whoops. I don't know. I just didn't know how to do Spanish.
That's not that's all. Yeah. Despite I do the Spaniard for four years, I should probably do that. You should probably go around to Lucie.
I was just joking. I know we're in Lucie. Okay. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Did you I thought you did it a spaniel? Copper.
Copper. I just matter. Okay. Okay.
It's also else. In section two on the classical solution, he says a really important paragraph paragraph 16, he makes precisely your point, Greg. He says, when he's talking about this question, which really he presents is really strongly in the introduction, natural in the history about whether classical political philosophy is bound up with an antiquated cosmology. He says that Socrates actually was not committed to cosmologies.
His knowledge was knowledge of ignorance. Knowledge of ignorance is not ignorance. It is knowledge of the elusive character of the truth of the whole. Socrates then viewed man in the light of the mysterious character of the whole.
He held therefore that we are more familiar with the situation of man as man than with the ultimate causes of that situation. So this means that it's a different orientation, not a branch, but encompassing our interpretation. It makes this clear. He says, we may also say he viewed man in the light of the unchangeable ideas that is of the fundamental and permanent problems, where to articulate the situation of man means to articulate man's openness to the whole.
This understanding of the situation of man, which includes then the quest for cosmology, rather than a solution to the cosmological problem, was the foundation of classical blue. So here he's saying it actually encompasses cosmology by focusing on it as a human pursuit, an attempt to make clear what is really the essentially mysterious character of the whole of the fundamental or permanent problems, which means that any solution needs to be understood within the mysterious of the whole in light of some kind of science of man. That's not a branch of philosophy. That is war and a whole of it.
So it's exactly your son. Yeah, and that's what I wasn't mad about you, Alex, is just how open you are to the mysterious character of the whole. I mean, your whole is not mysterious. It's all over the internet.
I mean, it's it's run through by every time dick in here. You dirty dog. Here I was trying to praise my friend for his philosophic inquisitiveness. And this is what this is how you're pays me dirty dog.
Should we do something else here? Should we talk about the philosophy of philosophy versus the alternative at all? I didn't I got to admit I didn't find these two. Damn about those alternatives.
You know, the political knowledge that the un-cut kind of interesting, I thought, but the other stuff not so much. I found what he has to say about political theory more interesting in the talk he gave the title of which is what can we learn from political theory. It's a great little speech that he gave because he says, you guys gave the title. I would have called it something else.
I would have called it what can we learn from political philosophy. And here's why I think theory is a bad idea. And he just goes through this laundry list of like, what's wrong with people who call themselves? Blue botheris.
And I just like, man, that's really good. So anyone can have a theory, for example, and it's just sort of creative and inventive. And it's not actually grounded in empiricism or something like this. And you could have a theory of how to cook out dogs or a theory of this, or to post it.
It's not philosophical. Anyway, I find that maybe folks can find that on the internet. I need to get my title changed. I need to get the title, Professor of Political Theory.
I saw that. I assumed that was because you knew your rightful place in this world. I got to email Jake Hall and Jake if you're listening, you got to fix this. You know, that one?
It's a really hilarious takedown. I have. I have. Yeah.
That's like one of those liberal education responsibilities. Like, I didn't choose this theme. What the hell is responsibility? I mean, it's oh, yeah.
Right, right, right, right. And he's like, actually, it's not too bad. I can talk about this. And then he moves on.
Right. It's like, actually, you just asked me to clarify two sentences. So I'll just do that. It's masterful.
But yeah. I don't know. What else should we talk about? Should we talk about positivism and historicism?
Or anything? Nothing to sing with other alternatives, really? Not really. Political theology gets scant, sort of mentioned.
And you think that might be important here in Jerusalem, but. Yeah, does he mean Schmidt there? That's what I was wondering. Yeah.
I mean, it wasn't me. Well, yeah, because he didn't rise to the great. You know, it's funny. It's like his list of the great 20th century philosophers.
What is the great? So there's Heidegger, pastoral, white head. And I can't recall. I can't recall the first one.
Oh, man. I thought white head was masked. Yeah, I don't know. Sorry.
I got it. It's Bergson, white head, Bristol, Haddinger. Yeah. Yeah.
Re-bearsall. It's, you know, anything about Bergson? I've read some of this stuff. It's just for French bull coming out or.
He's quite he's actually was very influential in figures like, Proust of Picasso. He was like a massive, he's like one of these guys who's like massive celebrity people attended all of his lectures. It was like bursting from the rafters. I think that everyone moved on.
It's like the sort of thing that clearly happens in France. You know, this is a fair and then, you know, the narration was on. They're not these like massive consequential figures the way the Germans are. But he was very influential.
There's a great book called Bergsonism by Almerich. And where and the Liz has this he compares his manner of interpretation to Bugery. And he says, it's not really interpreting. I'm making a monstrous like offspring, a monster that's born of us.
I'm like, I don't think that's how you conceived the Liz, but whatever. And he's a busser. But the bugery is a bugery is a sex. Thank you.
That's what that means. Made like 50 jokes about it. In the course of this episode, Greg. Was episode 87 50,000 in the course of our 200 episodes.
That's right. So why don't you take us through paragraph 16 and 17 and then let's talk about positism? Because that's, as I sort of suggested, I think that's the meat of what's going on here in the first part. Well, let me rephrase that.
It's the part that gets the most extensive treatment it seems to me. Let's do some more. Well, I mean, as I mentioned, sort of flog gets a paragraph, a little theory gets a paragraph, the logic gets a paragraph, a little knowledge gets extensive treatments. But as far as where we stand today and what he discusses at the most length, it's positivism.
And positivism seems to be responsible for the putrified state of political philosophy today. Although, as you already alluded to, positivism becomes when it thinks itself through historicism. But we only get scant one paragraph on historicism. So most of his attention, which is weird if there's this thing that's important blah, blah, but then it manifests in this much more problematic theory.
We don't get discussion of that at all. We get a really long discussion of the thing that pertains to the thing that's really problematic. Like comps, no one's reading comps going like, ah, for goodness' sake. I mean, this is where again, I don't want to maybe I'm relying too heavily on this, but the fact that it's just into Jerusalem, I think it's what if he gave an extended treatment based on chapter two of natural right in history where he takes it very seriously.
And he was just like, this is the most serious challenge. And you know, it's this, this, uh, this, uh, for, I mean, in chapter two of natural in history, it seems clear to me that Strauss is crediting radicalist orism with allowing him to recover philosophy, his original socratic sense, just like you see with that paragraph I read from part two, he's focusing on Socrates. He somehow forces him to look behind or within Aristotle and Plato to the socratic core of it. And that's the thing that Heidegger can't undo, even if he can't undo the dogmatism of Platonism or medieval or stotelianism.
He can't undo Socrates if that would be to give it too much credit. So better just reference that historicism is associated with Heidegger is associated with Hitler and do the very thing you're saying, right? He says you shouldn't do and then move on. Right.
That's, that's my sense of why he spends so much time on positivism versus sources. So should we just skip the positive and partners are stuff interesting there that's worth looking at? Why don't you just summarize each of the four points? Like, what is the thesis of?
Yeah, sure. Um, so he discusses the tenets of positivism in paragraphs 18 through 20, where basically the notion is that you can study human phenomena like you can study the natural sciences. He sort of lays out that positivism was developed by Auguste Colton and Max Weber and is the predominant what line of thought that undergirds most contemporary social science. It rejects any kind of, it rejects the notion that any rational investigation of values is possible.
And so it tries to make impossible the notion of philosophy, the political philosophy. I suppose I don't know what else there's to say about that. I mean, one of the funny things is you're reading all these lines that you sort of find memorable. I always laugh at the part where he says, these folks who don't believe that there's rational investigation of values.
Curiously, I've never been a single social scientist who wasn't also whole heartedly devoted to democracy. So that curiously, they all agree on the values. And so then he says, basically that all you all you have left in is an uninvestigated set of value judgments. You still have them.
You just haven't submitted them to any kind of inquiry. Um, I don't know what else you want to say about it. I can outline his critique of it again, if you want. Can I put to another line I like in this section?
He says, he says, when he's trying to prove that value judgments can be made, right? Right. She takes recourse to a biblical example. Yes, avail.
Yes. If we cannot decide regarding a war between two neighboring nations, which have been fighting each other for centuries. Oh, curious, which which nations causes more just cannot we decide that just about actually against an above was inexcusable. Then he goes and so he buries the conflict of values.
He's trying to prove that mountains are greater than molehills. Though there is an essential controversy about which now in his higher, right? And he admits that right and way back in paragraph 15, he says the common good is essentially controversial. So its essence is controversy.
And so it's a problem, maybe. Yeah. And so he will he concedes that there is a conflict of values or their conflict of ends or internal tension. But when he's arguing against the conclusion, he relies on his audiences, you'd say moral certainty to sort of establish this point.
It's a really rhetorically subtle essay. Yeah, it really is. When he says that it's impossible to study social phenomena without making a value judgment. This was, I mean, I remember when I first started encountering this line of argument as an undergraduate or major or later after, which was, yeah, I mean, how do you pull a scientist?
I just remember being in my introductory research methods classes, a first year grad student. And the professor saying, there's no room for values here. This were scientists. But then like, I remember dismissing one of the topics I wanted to study is, well, this isn't important.
But what's the standard of basis of which you're making the claim that something isn't politically important? That was a huge turning point for me to Greg. I remember that so clearly, once I last on to this argument, it turned everything upside down for me. Yeah, like, why is more important?
Why should Warby studied? I mean, you want to relegate this stuff entirely out. And just, I mean, as I joke, we mentioned a little bit ago with Alex, it just comes right back in the back door, like all the things that even the simple dichotomy like a authoritarian versus democracy, these social scientists don't realize that viewing all the politics on that continuum is viewing it from the point of view of the regime you happen to inhabit. Like, you have not escaped common opinion, you've just rested up with sort of priestly or scientific robes.
I don't know. I found this pretty devastating for me. If I just sort of persuasive, even though he says I'm not going to get into the theoretical, maybe Alex gets one, he says I'm not going to get into a theoretical argument against it. I'm just going to lay out some considerations that speak decisively against it.
How is this not theoretical? I mean, it's not, it's nothing like as thorough analysis as he gives in other places. But it's, but I mean, your point exactly, like I had, I remember reading a bunch of shots, I talked to one of my con law professors and she's like, oh, what are you doing next? I was like, oh, I'm going to go to grad school for a place.
She's like, oh, yeah, she's like, well, I was like, I'm really interested in political theory and, and, and, and, and then she, she's like, oh, well, whatever you do, you should do something empirical, right? Like, you know, I just remember, it just popped into my head like the straw stuff. So sometimes giving inadequate, but concise reflections that speak decisively, and I'm not going to spell out everything, but you'll figure it out if you're smart enough is enough to just kind of, yeah, rather than if you wrote a 500 page critique and you'd be like snoozing right here. And this goes back to Greg's point that they could be the incision point into Strauss's thought for younger people.
Yeah, just pointing out so easily, like, here are the problems with the assumptions that your whole science rests on. Boom. And the other one that I've come around to see more and more, the more I studied, which I sort of sensed maybe was there was the notion that he says that, you know, these positives believe that modern science is the highest form of human knowledge. And I just remember, you know, wrestling with that and sort of realizing, because at the time, you know, in the argument, that common sense is important.
I'm like, okay, but I mean, science really is more impressive than common sense, right? Like, but the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized how wholly inadequate, that one took more work for me to get to seeing the inadequacies of modern science, especially as compared to common sense. I mean, I really had to work through Aristotle's scientific writings to see how it's almost an escape, but you sort of have to begin from common opinions. There's just no getting around it.
I mean, he makes this point that even if you're going to come up with statistics about the number of dogs, or you have to define what a dog is. And he says here, what he doesn't make the joke, else where like all the people scientists take for granted what a human being is, but in class, the class notes, he makes that joke that nobody goes around accidentally interviewing a dog, right? You all know what a human is. But that requires to define what a dog is, you have to know how, you know, how is a wolf different from a dog?
What if a dog in a wolf breed an offspring? How is that different? And suddenly you start to realize that you use that. What's that?
You do that? Yeah. That sounds awesome. Or a man dog hybrid.
You can not start at work at your lab. No, no, no, that's not that's not a thing we can happen, right? Okay, good. But you have to distinguish it.
You start to realize there are sort of fuzzy things at the edge and just start just even deciding what a thing is requires understanding what it is as a whole, some principle of unity, and you've got values in there, right? Right. Right. Right.
I remember the example I gave when I taught this in classes, like, even just like, is this, you get a marker that doesn't write? And so was this a marker? And people like, yeah, I'm like, okay, so if I actually bring a marker and I brought you this, you'd be happy with that? And like, well, no, why?