This is an odd book. Take the following excerpts as examples: “The idea of natural right must be unknown as long as the idea of nature is unknown. The discovery of nature is the work of philosophy. Where there is no philosophy, there is no knowledge of natural right as such.” And along similar lines: “ The discovery of nature necessarily precedes the discovery of natural right. Philosophy is older than political philosophy.” Now, just before these statements were made, we had read that “political life that does not know of the idea of natural right is necessarily unaware of the possibility of political science and, indeed, of the possibility of science as such, just as a political life that is aware of the possibility of science necessarily knows natural right as a problem.” These last remarks, when read in light of what follows them, and which I have presented above, might be thought to suggest that the idea of natural right presupposes the possibility of political science, and that the idea of political science presupposes the idea of science. Yet when read in the order presented by Strauss, they may rather be thought to suggest that natural right makes political science, and even science itself, possible. This more difficult reading would force us to explain how Strauss could hold that natural right could make science itself possible when he also says it presupposes the idea of nature, which itself is a discovery of philosophy. For science, if it indeed is philosophy, must have preexisted natural right if science as philosophy is based upon the discovery of the idea of nature and so that upon which the idea of natural right may rest. Nevertheless, in what follows Strauss would apparently favor this more difficult reading insofar as he suggests that there was a false start to science such that it was not truly scientific until the idea of natural right appeared and made possible its subsequent grounding.
As for what may have been philosophy’s false start, he suggests, given the difficulty as he presents it, that its attempt to replace opinions about the whole by knowledge of the whole presupposes that the whole is knowable, that is, intelligible. And this presupposition leads to the consequence that the whole as it is in itself is identified with the whole in so far as it is intelligible. Furthermore, to say that the whole is knowable or intelligible is tantamount to saying that the whole has a permanent structure or that the whole as such is unchangeable or always the same.
The presupposition is said to have its root in the dogmatic identification of “to be” in the highest sense with “to be always,” The dogmatic character of the basic premise of philosophy is said to have been revealed by the discovery of history or of the “historicity” of human life. Radical historicism compels us to realize the bearing of the fact that the very idea of natural right--prior to its analysis and subsequent contribution to grounding/correcting philosophy--presupposes the possibility of philosophy in the full and original meaning of the term (which is the attempt to replace opinions about the whole by knowledge of the whole). It compels us at the same time to realize the need for unbiased reconsideration of the most elementary premises whose validity is presupposed by philosophy.
As for such premises, the fundamental one mentioned elsewhere, and which is in agreement with the foregoing critique, was that something cannot come from nothing; that the world is eternal or governed by necessity. But the reason for this idea was never provided for in an adequate manner. How, then, could it be scientific? The question therefore arises as to whether the analysis of natural right addresses this difficulty insofar as its examination bears on the question of eternity, or the "first causes".
If so, we wonder what would become of the historicist position. Would historicism’s critique still hold, or would it not? For to the extent that historicism remains reluctant to look at natural right insofar as it believes it has no need to (because of natural right’s supposed dependence on a discredited philosophy which it presupposes), would it not be barred from understanding the possibility of a philosophy, i.e., philosophy properly understood, that does not rely on a fundamental premise (of eternity) that is dogmatic and therefore unphilosophic; that is instead made possible by means of an analysis of political things?
One last related curiosity. Natural right in its classic form is said to be connected with a teleological view of the universe. it is said as well that all natural beings have a natural end, a natural destiny, which determines what kind of operation is good for them; that in the case of man, reason is required for discerning these operations such that reason determines what is by nature right with ultimate regard to man’s natural end. This deductive understanding of man is called into question by Strauss on numerous occasions.
Suffice it to look to one such example, wherein Strauss remarked that the teleological view of the universe, of which the teleological view of man forms a part, would seem to have been destroyed by modern natural science. More strikingly, he adds that from the point of view of Aristotle, the issue between the mechanical and the teleological conception of the universe is decided by the manner in which the problem of the heavens, the heavenly bodies, and their motion is solved. Now in this respect, which from Aristotle’s own point of view was the decisive one, the issue seems to have been decided in favor of the nonteleological conception of the universe. Two opposite conclusions could be drawn from this momentous decision. According to one, the nonteleological conception of the universe must be followed up by a nonteleological conception of human life. But the alternative solution has prevailed. This means a nonteleological natural science and a teleological science of man has been accepted by todays defenders of natural right. This is the position which the modern followers of Thomas Aquinas, among others, are forced to take, a position which presupposes a break with the comprehensive view of Aristotle as well as that of Thomas Aquinas himself.
Now, if Aristotle’s view was comprehensive, and he settled in favor of a nonteleological view of the universe, doesn’t this mean, to our surprise, that he did not have a teleological (one might say deductive) view of man? And if not, then what could be made of the classic idea of natural right in that case? What is the nature of its “connection” to a teleological view of the universe, unless it be to examine the contradictory opinions of such a view (as are found in opinions about justice)? And if such opinions are contradictory, might that simply mean for the adherents of them that the whole is, in fact, unintelligible, or would they deny that this so? And in either case, how would the "right" to philosophize stand?
Strauss then concluded: The fundamental dilemma, in whose grip we are, is caused by the victory of modern natural science. An adequate solution to the problem of natural right cannot be found before this basic problem has been solved, i.e., before the problem with the classic teleological view of the universe is revisited with a view to its connection to the possibility of establishing natural right. Needless to say, the present lectures cannot deal with this problem. They will have to be limited to that aspect of the problem of natural right which can be clarified within the confines of the social sciences.
But did we not began our inquiry with that other perplexity, namely, that philosophy may or may not itself be grounded or made possible by the very idea of natural right—or was it the other way around?—and so by just these “social sciences”, as though the limited examination Strauss proposes in this book is actually the means by which we could, in fact, achieve what is at bottom sought by us?
ISBN-13:
978-0226776941
ISBN-10:
0226776948
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