Persecution and the Art of Writing

Leo Strauss collects essays from a novel perspective in this volume. I bought this to read about his take on Maimonides, and esp. his Guide for the Perplexed. He supplies context and continues his work of explicating the complex thought f Maimonides as only he does. I like it.

This book is absolutely central within the body of Leo Strauss's work. It stands as the culmination of his earliest work and the beginning of his middle phase of work (which most readers and commentators seem to focus on). Leo Strauss started his philosophical career directly confronted with what he would come to call the "theological-political problem". As a Jewish intellectual in during the Weimer years, he found himself confronted with the ways that liberal political philosophy had failed the Jewish people. That confrontation led him from an exploration of different forms of Zionism to the roots of the Enlightenment critique of revelation in Spinoza and Hobbes and back to (what Strauss called) the Medieval Enlightenment works of Maimonides, Farabi and Halevi. Particularly in the writing of Maimonides and Farabi (but also in the writings of Lessing), Strauss found the clues that led him to his theory of esoteric and exoteric writing. When talking about this Straussian way of reading, the first thing to emphasize is that it is not a universal hermeneutic. Strauss is not saying that all philosophy or theological books were written with an esoteric component. He is saying that some were and that there are indications that can be used to detect when a book is so written. Before we get to that, let's consider THE basic presumption of Strauss's- that there are two types of men, philosophers and non-philosophers. And the two are motivated fundamentally differently and are capable of fundamentally different lives. Furthermore, it is important to realize that what Strauss believes is going on in an esoteric text is that one philosopher is writing in such a way that other philosophers can discern his hidden meaning. Why would someone do this? This is also key. Strauss feels that since the mid-1800s in most Western cultures that it has not been as necessary to write this way. In fact, as a culture, we have forgotten that this was necessary. The radical Enlightenment determined that all truths must be told to all humanity and we have come to accept that. But not long ago, that was not the case. Men and women died or were tortured for daring to express the heterodox thought. So the first reason philosophers wrote esoterically is to avoid the fate of Socrates. The second reason is more Straussian. Philosophers wrote that way for reasons of propriety. They too believed that most men were not capable of living the philosophical life with its calling into question of all opinion (see p.59 of PAW). They furthermore believed that "opinion is the element of society: philosphy or science is therefore the attempt to dissolve the element in which society breathes" (the quote is from the essay On a Forgotten Kind of Writing in the collection What is Political Philosophy). So the philosophers (the wise men), by disguising their questioning of the dogmas on which any one society is based, acts responsibly. They do not call into question those dogmas for those for whom i

I bought PERSECUTION AND THE ART OF WRITING because I wanted an easy approach to whatever contribution Leo Strauss might be able to make to the understanding of political philosophy, and the idea that writers might be persecuted is fundamental to my understanding of what separates social thinking from what a philosopher might be capable of. The second chapter, which covers the topic "Persecution and the art of writing," is only from page 22 to page37 of this book. The Introduction attempts to provide a basis for understanding all the essays in this book "within the province of the sociology of knowledge." (p. 7). The final chapter, "How to Study Spinoza's THEOLOGICO-POLITICAL TREATISE," is the culmination of a series of articles, which first appeared in 1941, 1943, and 1948, that is primarily concerned with understanding the works of a few philosophers in a manner which might be helpful "for a future sociology of philosophy." (p. 7).The particular work of Spinoza discussed was an attempt "to refute the claims which had been raised on behalf of revelation throughout the ages." (p. 142). Studying the Treatise is primarily philosophical because "the issue raised by the conflicting claims of philosophy and revelation is discussed in our time on a decidedly lower level than was almost customary in former ages." (pp. 142-3). Later it is admitted that Spinoza's own age did not have Spinoza's books to discuss. "The only book which he published under his own name is devoted to the philosophy of Descartes." (p. 152). "But Spinoza, who wrote for posterity rather than for his contemporaries, must have realized that the day would come when his own books would be old books." (p. 153). My own understanding of Spinoza is not helped by the fact that the longest quotations, in note 2 on page 143 and note 19 on page 153, are in latin. Note 13 on page 149 quotes Carl Gebhardt (Spinoza. OPERA, vol. II, p. 317) in German. I thought I was going to be able to understand it best when Strauss wrote, "To ascertain how to read Spinoza, we shall do well to cast a glance at his rules for reading the Bible." (p. 144). Philosophy itself might demand that the most modern conclusion on that effort would be: "For the same reason it is impossible to understand the Biblical authors as they understood themselves; every attempt to understand the Bible is of necessity an attempt to understand its authors better than they understood themselves." (p. 148). In the case of the Bible, the idea of revelation offers the consolation to people who never wanted to be considered its authors that the book was written by someone else, as the angel who dictated the Koran to its prophet is the ultimate target of the book THE SATANIC VERSES by Salman Rushdie in the most modern comic edition of this conflict. The only escapes which Spinoza would offer is "to potential philosophers, i.e., to men who, at least in the early stages of their training, are deeply imbued with the vulgar pr

An excellent text, Strauss explicates on his views of how philosophers in times of persecution will "hide" their most stunning and important ideas "between the lines" of their works. In this way, the authors avoid death, and also provide the deepest insight to only those intelligent enough to find it in the texts. Pay special attention to Strauss's chapter on the "Guide for the Perplexed:" not only is it an interesting read, but one can see Strauss himself using some of the same techniques that he claims authors of the past used. It's all a matter of trying to understand what he truly wants to tell us.

The title essay is a masterpiece I read once a month in the course writing journalism by day and reading of political comedy by night. By day it is extremely helpful keeping my job in a political environment not particularly conducive to complete freedom of expression at times. By night, coupled with Strauss's superb "Socrates and Aristophanes" is has proved a wonderful tool for unveiling meaning in Aristophanes, Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Hasek, Garcia-Marquez, Kundera and the rest of the European comic tradition. I think his idea of a literary criticism "between the lines" based on ancient rhetoricians would be an extremely useful study for younger graduate students to follow - whenever such studies become possible again. The rest of the essays apply the theory of reading between the lines in interesting limit cases of persecution of political philosophy. They may lead the general reader to try such authors as Maimonides and Spinoza. Can't speak for specialists, not being one.