Epilogue: Leo Strauss and the History of Political Philosophy

The last chapter of History of Political Philosophy is Nathan Tarcov and Tomas L. Pangle’s epilogue on Strauss himself and why he wrote this book. First off, for Strauss, an understanding of the history of political philosophy was necessary to understand the present crisis of both the West and as well as modernity. The greatest symbol of this crisis was the rise of communism, which Strauss saw as both a form of Western political theory and a form of Eastern despotism. Strauss was also concerned with the loss of the West’s faith in its ability to bring about a universal and free order, which Strauss saw as bringing back the pluralism of cultures and the belief in natural inequality of the ancients. This means that the West had to defeat its own doubt and growing belief in various forms of relativism. Thus, while the limits and problems of liberalism can be recognized, these are not to be seen as fatal to the liberal project as even worse problems have arisen out of the destruction of the liberal state such as communism and fascism.

Strauss saw the study of history as particularly important as for him, the root of the modern crisis is historicism. By studying history, Strauss feels that the problems of historicism will emerge. Still, Strauss still thought that that the past must be understood on its own grounds, a move which Strauss hopes will avoid what he sees as the pitfalls of both historicism as well as historical progressivism. Understanding a historical figure on their own grounds means that a person try and recreate the framework the historical figure was using which includes both terminology and influences.

Strauss also sees philosophers as having a responsibility to investigate without damaging the basic liberal order, which he sees as being greatly tied up in the origins of modernity. For Strauss, the roots of modern political philosophy are to be found in Machiavelli as this is where a shift occurred from having a purely theoretical conception of the right order to trying to actualize it and with this, the birth of the idea of historical progress. According to Strauss, modernity’s belief in a false notion of progress would eventually give birth to the idealization of the past from Rousseau and Nietzsche. Strauss looked to the ancients and the medieval philosophers who followed them for inspiration, but he also realized that their basic ideas must be reformulated.

Following from them, Strauss also placed great emphasis on the political life and looked to it as proof of humans’ place in nature as a social animal. The social nature of humans though is for Strauss rooted more in the idea of the common good than in cold calculation. Through this, Strauss hopes to establish a meaning to society beyond political necessity. A natural understating of the basis of power will develop from this which will help humans fully flourish. Strauss further sees the philosopher as being able to comprehend human problems and the human experience as a whole and thus the true philosopher, as opposed to the Sophist must have a sense of the dialectic.

Strauss was a supporter of liberal democracy, but he was not a flatterer of it. He also tried to inject a degree of classical republicanism into modern republicanism. Despite his aim to inject an ancient understanding into modernity, Strauss thought the ancients were to be admired for their philosophy, not for their social and political order. Modern liberalism is also to be valued as a means, not as an end. What this means is that freedom in a liberal order must not be understood in such a way that it threatens the modern liberal order itself. Social science must be utilized for the understanding and solving the problems of the liberal order and must ultimately protect it. This means that for Strauss, both the fact/value dichotomy and the notion of “value-free” science must be rejected. Likewise, all political science must also focus on the protection of the liberal order. Political scientists must also therefore focus on studying the other types of regimes in the world in order to come to a more robust understanding of them. This should be used to engage in debate with supporters of the other styles of regimes. This is particularly true of the Marxists which Strauss hopes to use this dialogue between the supporters of the liberal order and the supporters of the Marxist order in an effort to understand the Marxist paradigm which Strauss hopes to use to defend the basic superiority of liberalism over Marxism.           

Martin Heidegger

Michael Gillespie provides the essay on the last philosopher covered in History of Political Philosophy, Martin Heidegger, who is perhaps the most controversial philosopher covered in the book due to his association with Nazism. For Gillespie, Heidegger was the first philosopher since Plato and Aristotle to seriously consider the idea of Being. It needs to be noted that Heidegger claimed his thought had no political bearings, but despite this he can still be called a political philosopher because of his affiliation with Nazism, which bears some discussion and more importantly, because of his concern with nihilism.

In particular, Heidegger was concerned with the idea of metaphysical nihilism as this did away with the ground of Being and through this idea, there could be no absolute truth. An outgrowth of metaphysical nihilism is moral nihilism which does away with fundamental moral laws. Heidegger sees two possible consequences of moral nihilism. The first of these consequences is banal hedonism. The second of these consequences of these consequences is the destructive desire to destroy everything. This is important because for Heidegger, at the root of nihilism was a misunderstanding of the idea of Being. This misunderstanding is itself rooted in the Platonic conception of Being as eternal presence. While the growth of nihilism might be a disaster, it can also be used to lay the foundation for a new foundation of the conception of Being that better understands the nature of Being. For Heidegger, Being cannot be simply understood unchanging, but must be viewed in history as Being in history.

The fact that humans have a conception of the question of Being is for Heidegger proof that Being is not set as an acorn has no question of becoming a tree. Being is thus not a question of what man is, but rather of how he exists. The question of Being fundamentally arises with the human confrontation with death as typically people simply blend in with the order of Being. Death though forces people to come into contact with questions concerning the nature of Being. This is important as Heidegger’s belief in a revolution in thought to reformulate the notion of Being caused him to look towards the Nazi party as a way of attaining this goal. It should be noted that he was never completely on board with the Nazi program as he thought that this should be done while maintaining the independence of the German university, which the Nazi government would not do.

Still, Heidegger had great hopes that the Nazi party could help reformulate modern humanity, which Heidegger saw as being too fundamentally tied up in technology. This dependency on technology has radically isolated the individual, separating the individual from a greater order. As a result of this, nature becomes seen as an other. From this, further division is created and conflict becomes more prevalent. This is an important point as Heidegger sees technological thinking as being fundamentally tied up in the act of thinking in categories. Realizing there is now a risk of floating off into nothingness due to this misunderstanding of Being, modern humans have turned to using history as an anchor to know oneself. From this has risen the entirety of historicist thinking.

Heidegger identifies three main ideologies of late modernity. These three ideologies are as follows: 1) Americanism, 2) Marxism, and 3) Nazism. Heidegger sees all three as being part of a subjectivist and nihilistic understanding that leads to the dictatorship of the public over the private and the elevation of natural science, economics, public policy, and technology. Despite these commonalities between these three ideologies, Heidegger is also careful to make note of the differences that exist between them. For example, Heidegger sees Americanism as being tied up in positivism, the industrial complex, and the elevation of economics and planning which organizes through the labor of the common person and rules through the market. Meanwhile, Heidegger sees Marxism as the product of humans being socially reduced. Interestingly enough, Nazism is seen as the most nihilistic form of modernity as it replaces reason with instinct and reduces all to a beast.

For Heidegger, the pre-Socratic Greeks were right to understand Being as a mystery and also to see the polis as the place where the gods and men met. Socrates also understood this through his use of the dialectic, so the real break begins with Plato and Aristotle. It is from this break that reductionist thinking, particularly in science was created. Heidegger is deeply concerned with the effects of reductionistic thinking, so much so that he also seeks to undo the traditional way of understanding history as for Heidegger history is not to be understood as a chain of events, but rather the destiny of Being itself. Still, it should be noted that Heidegger does not seek an overthrow of Being as much as he thinks it should be reinterpreted. Through this, Heidegger has essentially three goals. These three goals are as follows: 1) liberating man from all metaphysical categories and standards through a fundamental destructive reinterpretation of the history of Western thought; 2) fostering an authentic experience of contemporary nihilism by calling man to a resolute confrontation with death and meaninglessness; and 3) convincing man to accept his particular fate within the destiny of his people or generation made manifest in the revelation of Being.                         

Edmund Husserl

Coming in as one of the last entries to Strauss and Cropsey’s History of Political Philosophy, Richard Valkley examines the thought of Edmund Husserl. Firstly, Valkley notes that in many ways, Husserl is an odd choice to have an essay devoted to him in a book about political philosophy as he makes no commentary on political matters. However, Husserl’s conception of the telos can have many important political implications, particularly as it relates to full autonomy as a human goal. This relates to Husserl’s search for new grounds in rationality. This is politically important as he sees reason’s essence as being absolute autonomy. These aspects of Husserl’s thought are important for three reasons. These reasons are as follows: 1) it provides a notion of rationality as essentially normative and sees the task of “rescuing” rationality to be in the service of the human good. 2) It proposes a critique of positivism (or, as Husserl prefers, “psychologicalism”) and historicism which are of course immediately relevant to political science. And finally 3) it engages in a close examination of the inherited premises of the philosophic tradition, an examination that has provided an impetus to fundamental historical inquiries into the sense of the Greek beginnings and the early modern “foundations” of philosophy.

            One of the most important aspects of Husserl’s thought is phenomenology and while he is not the first phenomenologist, his phenomenology is important for two reasons. These reasons are as follows: 1) The science of phenomenology must be without presuppositions in order to create proper grounding for human ideas and 2) The science of phenomenology is the first philosophy and the foundation for all sciences. Indeed, all 20^th century phenomenologists owe something to Husserl is if not all of them fully accept his arguments.

This relates closely to Husserl’s understanding of modernity as for him, modernity is in a crisis of self-understanding and this crisis has brought us to the edge of collapse and barbarism. As such, a new telos is needed which will better conceptualize the idea of reason as autonomy. This also relates to a common criticism of Husserl in that while he claims that thought must be without presuppositions, his own thought ultimately falls into its own presuppositions. Valkey however sees this criticism as not being entirely convincing as fist off, he notes that Husserl’s emphasis on reason causes him to place more importance on human essence than on human nature. Husserl also places a greater emphasis on the relationship between reason and the surrounding world than was done in antiquity.

Furthermore, Husserl also sees the telos as being grounded in history, but separates this from historicism, an idea which he rejects. Husserl also spends a good deal of time developing a critique of psychologicalism, the idea that all human knowledge is rooted in the functions of the brain, which he sees has having two fundamental errors. These errors are as follows: 1) it falls into naturalism by trying to understand the human mind in the same way as physical objects are understood and 2) there is an attempt to create a foundation for all of human knowledge within the confines of these principles and thus falls into relativism. In a way, Husserl is trying to bridge Descartes’ gap between the mind and objects as while physical objects are very real, they are connected together and given meaning in our minds.

Husserl’s radical ideas on autonomy also keeps him from falling into another danger, that of “commonsense realism.” Husserl accepts absolute reason, but understands that humans tend to conceptualize this pure reason through their surroundings. This can be seen in Husserl’s writings on historicism Husserl rejects historicism as he sees it as damaging truth as “truth” always becomes dependent upon the particular age in which it exists. In Husserl’s view, fact must be independent of worldview and philosophy’s scientific impulses must be restrained. This is important as through the modern attempt to closely identify reason with science, the attempt to free humans from science has become transformed into an attempt to free humanity from reason. As such, Husserl understands that understanding worldview is important, but does not want to place philosophy under worldview, which he sees historicism as being guilty of doing.

Husserl sees phenomenology as being better able to make us aware of our own presuppositions. Philosophy in its purest form is without presuppositions, but in order for it to be understood it must be brought down to earth where it will lose some of its purity. As such history has a place in philosophy but cannot be its master. Instead, the telos must be the ultimate guide and indeed, true philosophy must be primarily concerned with comprehending the telos. This is important as for Husserl, the rejection of the telos, particularly as it relates to falsification, has created a major crisis in the West. The rejection of the telos makes manipulation easier and this leads Husserl to place great emphasis on mathematics as the mathematization pf other fields have made them easier to manipulate and thus we must be careful with its use, particularly in relation to philosophy.             

John Dewey

As Strauss and Cropsey’s History of Political Philosophy nears the end, it now turns to Robert Horwitz’s take on John Dewey, who is one of the few Americans to have a place in Strauss and Cropsey’s book. According to Horwitz, one of the elements of Dewey’s thought that is most important to remember is his focus on democracy. Indeed, according to Horwitz, Dewey is a philosopher of democracy and for him; democracy must be realized in every element of life. As such, Dewey’s political philosophy expands beyond the state and makes comment on ethics, education, logic, esthetics, and many other fields in an attempt to understand these things within a democratic framework.

Horwitz goes on to explain that Dewey had three major goals. These goals are as follows: 1) make philosophical investigation relevant to the solutions of contemporary social problems, 2) develop the “method of intelligence” as the chief tool for finding the solution to these problems, and 3) a development of a political theory based on an evolutionary understanding of people and society. Dewey is a particularist who thinks political philosophy must be understood within the confines of the particular society in which it is found. Not surprisingly then, considering he’s writing in the United States during the late 19^th century, class division is a major theme in Dewey’s work and Dewey agrees with many of Marx’s criticisms of capitalism. Dewey however breaks with Marx on the question of what to do with these problems of capitalism as while Marx thought revolution was the answer, Dewey places emphasis on social progress. Social progress is a major theme for Dewey and for Dewey; this social progress must be based in experimentation. For Dewey, the focus on experimentation should lead to an investigation of our institutions. This is important because social problems rise with our institutions no linger match the society in which they exist. Democracy is seen as aiding in the realization of Dewey’s experimentalist goals.

Experimantalization is also important because it is seen as a way of establishing objective truth. Dewey though does realize that it will be difficult to establish objectivity on political, economic, and ethical matters, but thinks that a careful consequentialist approach can solve these problems. Dewey uses Darwin to conceptualize philosophy as going through constant change and as such rejects the idea of fixed species and fixed end. Above all, Dewey seeks growth in philosophy which creates a relativistic understanding within a universalist framework.

Dewey’s philosophy can be understood as falling under two headings. These headings are as follows: 1) a modified pluralistic understanding of society and 2) the “indirect consequence” test for defining the legitimate scope of the state. On heading 1), modified pluralism, Dewey bases this on the idea that humans need society in order to facilitate growth. The simple, local society is the first society and as these societies grow and become more complex they begin to interact with one another. Once this happens, the need for regulation is created in order to provide a way of settling disputes. This means for Dewey, the state will always remain a secondary institution. Dewey likes that pluralism restrains the state from abusing its citizens, but thinks that traditional pluralism reduces the state to playing the role of an umpire. This is an error as Dewey thinks the state should be able to make positive contributions. Dewey’s state can promote positive characteristics and restrain negative ones more easily, such as restraining some of the excesses of capitalism as well as providing some protection to workers. This means pluralism has its limits and destructive groups, groups that refuse to recognize pluralism themselves are not given protection from pluralism. Groups that inhibit growth also are not given protection from pluralism.

In order to provide for all citizens, must grow and this creates the danger of that state becoming totalitarian. Dewey though addresses this concern through his second heading, the indirect consequence test. This requires that indirect consequences be carefully considered and controlled for as Dewey sees the public as being the recipient of these indirect consequences. Democracy is the major way in which Dewey controls for these consequences and as such, it is highly important that the public at large is both aware of and considers these consequences. Therefore, Dewey’s public must be good democrats and be willing to cooperate with one another as democracy forms the foundation for Dewey’s idea of a good order. As such, Dewey’s solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy.             

Friedrich Nietzsche

The next entry in Strauss and Cropsey’s History of Political Philosophy is Werner J. Dannhauser’s take on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who is perhaps one of the most original philosophers featured in the book. Dannhauser begins his essay by first examining the thought of the young Nietzsche. At this point in his life, Nietzsche saw the philosopher as being the physician of culture and was supposed to diagnose a problem with the culture and then search for a cure. Initially, Nietzsche saw this cure as being found in music. Eventually, Nietzsche lost faith that music could produce a cure for the problems of a culture and began to search for other ways to achieve this task. This search preoccupied most of the rest of his life and for Dannhauser; Nietzsche would most fully articulate this search in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

One of the major problems Nietzsche saw in modern philosophy was its dependency on historicism and a belief in world progress. According to Nietzsche, both this problems largely laid at the feet of Hegel. Humans are seen as historical creatures because they can remember the past, and it is this that both makes humans fully human and also slaves. Therefore, according to Nietzsche, the task before us is to strike a balance between remembering and forgetting the past. Nietzsche does not want to do way with history, as he sees it has great value. In particular, Nietzsche thinks that there are three types of history that can serve life. These three types of history are as follows: 1) Monumental history provides the man of action with models of greatness by its depiction of the great men of the past, 2) Antiquarian history addresses itself to the preserving and revering element in man, imbuing him with salutary love of tradition, and finally 3) Critical history, which places obsolete aspects of the past before the bar of judgment and condemns them and by doing this, it brings to light injustices surviving from the past so that they can be abolished in the present. Still, even though Nietzsche sees positive aspects to these three types of history, he also sees ways in which all three are open to abuse. For example, Monumental history may hinder the development of present greatness while Antiquarian history may preserve current injustices. Critical history can also be abused as it can separate people from their past.

Historical science is seen as disrupting life as it places more emphasis on the desire to know than on the desire to serve life. Connected to this is Nietzsche’s idea that Hegel has removed the challenge of dealing with calamites from the historical process. Furthermore, for Nietzsche, a major failing of historicism was that it placed man below history and with this; it also placed wisdom over life. Nietzsche was this as a problem because for him, life should be placed above wisdom. This is not to say Nietzsche wants to do away with wisdom as his ultimate goal is to actualize what he sees as a unity between wisdom and life. Nietzsche also thinks that history should be viewed as being made by great men. Because of this, for Nietzsche there is no objective history, but rather only interpretations of historical facts. History must be viewed as being entirely man made. The ancient Greek civilization understood this and is viewed as the height of humanity due to their emphasis on master morality and conflict. And just as the ancient Greeks are seen as the height of humanity, Greek tragedy is seen as the height of ancient Greek civilization.  

Socrates however is seen as initiating the beginning the fall of this civilization, a trend that was further developed with the rise of Christianity and with that, the triumph of slave morality. What Nietzsche means by “master/ slave morality” is that all morality involves the imposing of values, a fact that master morality fully understands, accepts, and embraces. Slave morality rejects this and thus tries to elevate the weak. Despite Nietzsche’s contention that pagan societies, particularly the ancient Greek one, understood the true nature of morality better, it should not be inferred from this that Nietzsche is seeking a restoration of pre-Christian morality. Rather, Nietzsche’s goal here is to create a reformulated version of master morality.

Slave morality as rooted in Christianity has also brought with it other egalitarian movements such as democracy and socialism. This is greatly troublesome for Nietzsche as he feels that this will bring about the triumph of mediocrity. The attack on democracy and socialism also ties closely in with Nietzsche’s contention that modern society, far from destroying the old idols like they thought that had, merely produced new idols to replace the old ones. And much like the old idols if the past, these new idols must be destroyed. Needless to say, Nietzsche is indeed an atheist, but his atheism is atypical from the rest of the atheism of the day in three major ways. These ways are as follows: 1) it is explicitly stated, 2) it is of the political right and rooted in aristocracy, and 3) it is historical. All this ties into the idea of the Death of God and with that the realization that God and morality are the products of human creation. Though he is a staunch critic of the left, Nietzsche rejects conservatism for four major reasons. These reasons are as follows: 1) It has been forces to make concessions, 2) it embraces nationalism, 3) it relies on the old nobility, and 4) it is allied with Christianity.

What all this means is that initially, only decline can happen, but from this decline and collapse a better order will be able to emerge. The highest goal in life then is seen as the ability to enact the will to power and overcome problems, a move which leads Nietzsche to see humans as primarily being a creative being rather than a rational one. Nietzsche’s radicalization of human will and creativity creates a problem as it creates a question as to if all problems could ever be overcome and what would happen if this ever was the case. Nietzsche’s ideal on this radicalization is what he calls the Übermensch,[1] an absolutely creative and unique individual, a move that shows Nietzsche’s indebtedness to radical individualism. In the last part of the essay, Dannhauser addresses the most controversial aspect of Nietzsche’s thought, his supposed connection to Nazism. Here Dannhauser notes that while Nietzsche abhorred the nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism of what would later become fascism, his ideas on the radicalization of creativity and his anti-egalitarian Übermensch did indeed help lay the groundwork for the development of fascism.      

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[1] The essay actually uses the term “Superman”, an older translation of Nietzsche’s term that is now rejected as inaccurate by virtually all Nietzsche scholars.  

Karl Marx

For his second entry in History of Political Philosophy, Joseph Cropsey turns his attention to Karl Marx, one of the most radical philosophers in the book. For Cropsey, Marxism must be seen as an account of human life in past, present in future as grounded in continuous change. Furthermore, Cropsey notes that Marx sees economics as the foundation for all of society, so to understand economics is to understand society. Because of this, humans must be understood as empirical creatures attempting to fulfill their biological and economic needs.

Humanity’s economic conditions are determined by the tools they have available. These tools create the conditions that determine the prevailing property relations. These property relations create social relations that create a division between the people who own the means of production and those who work the means of production. Thus, for Marx economic “laws” are not really laws as they are a product of the particular economic conditions of the historical period in which they exist. Marx does not merely think this about economics either as for him all of human thought is grounded in the particular historical period they inhabit. Every historical period has been divided between the workers and owners and it is this conflict that drives the historical process as the workers have been prevented from becoming fully human. For Marx, these divisions are rooted in in natural inequality in the distribution of talent.

Marx also sees civil society as an outgrowth of the fractioning of society as civil society works as an individualistic oasis against the community. For Marx, this is a highly negative aspect as for Marx, people’s status as a social creature demands that institutions be public. But because this is not the case, a badly divided society forms which needs coercion in order to stay together. According to Marx, this is where the state comes from. Because of this, people are discouraged to work with each other. In order to solve this problem, a proper alignment of the means of production are needed in order to bring people together. Under current conditions however, other people are seen as more of a product than as full human beings.

Marx takes a dim view of much of what made of the discipline of political economy of his day. This is because for Marx, as economics are rooted in the particular historical period it exists in, political economy is essentially a tool for the ruling class. Marx sees society as being in constant flux and sees this flux as being grounded in the material conditions. Marx calls this process dialectical materialism. According to Marx, all of history is governed by this process. This process will eventually bring about the end of capitalism as machinery will become more and more developed, but under private ownership the lives of the workers will become worse and worse. As a result of this process a revolution will eventually occur which will bring about the end of capitalism. Once this has occurred, the workers will abolish private ownership and with that, the class system. This move will mark the beginning of purely human history. Marx says that the workers will establish socialism, but he does not explain how socialism will work because he saw his main task as offering a critique of capitalism.  

One of the most significant contributions Marx made to political philosophy is his work on value. For Marx, the capitalist concept of profit distorted true value as value is grounded in labor. Marx saw a distinction between value in use and value in exchange with value in exchange producing distortions if value in use. Without these distortions, labor could be more properly seen as the basis of value. Under capitalism however, these distortions are inevitable as capitalism a turned labor power into a commodity. This is because there is, under capitalism, a discrepancy between the amount of labor done and the amount of labor paid for. This creates a surplus which the capitalists take. Capitalists have an incentive to increase this discrepancy, primarily by pushing the use of machines that cause more pauperization. Because of this push towards the greater use of machinery, capitalism must be in ever increasing flux to survive. Marx sees this as the natural process of capitalism, and because of this, the bourgeois (middle class) will become proletarianized (working class) while the proletariat is reduced to poverty.

Marx’s predictions on capitalism have not panned out while his predictions on socialism have not been falsifiable as every existing socialist society has claimed to be in a state of transition. Still, under socialism Marx thinks that people will achieve the ancient ideal of the active man. Because of this, Marx sees socialism as people’s highest calling. It should be noted, that whatever faults Marx has, one of the most important parts of his legacy is his unwillingness to make peace with the currently existing order as many of those who came before him did. For Marx, people may be imperfect, but it that imperfection that moves history towards to perfection of humans and Marx sees this desire as having very old roots as in many ways, Marx sees socialism as being the actualization of religious longing for justice to correct currently existing injustice.