I am reading Persecution and the Art of Writing by Leo Strauss and I honestly have never been so angry at a man my entire life... Am I being fucked with? Is he contradicting himself to make a point? What the hell is going on?
do tell, I'm curious!
I did mistake Leo for Claude Levi-Strauss for a second lol
Well, graciously ignoring the fact that Leo Strauss attracts some of the worst people on this earth,
Persecution and the Art of Writing (which is an essays which also gives title to a collection of essays) argues that, due to the fact that neither freedom of thought nor religious toleration was present in most societies until very recently, almost all of "old philosophy" is to be understood as written more or less between the lines. For example, Aristotle did publish books, like the Nicomachean Ethics, but also taught privately (for example the Metaphysics is just a compilation of notes, probably by his students, of his lectures at the Lyceum). In his private lectures, he refers explicitly to "exoteric" (public) and "esoteric" (private) works and Strauss thinks that this distinction is present for all philosophers until around the 19th century. Given that Socrates was recently put to death, it isn't difficult to see why Aristotle would want to express some of his teachings only in private... Writing "between the lines" (which was very prevalent in the eastern block, actually) is a way to communicate "the truth" to perceptive readers and avoid censorship, but it requires the reader not to take the what the writer explicitly says for what they actually believe. A common method in the eastern block was, for example, writing a "critique" of some ideology that the regime opposes, making sure that one makes only the most boring and anaemic arguments and that one quotes from their supposed ideological opponents (whose books are most likely banned)
extensively.
This is all well and good, but it means for Strauss that pretty much all self-contradictions in philosophical works are an indication of "esoteric" writing and are to be resolved by careful reading to establish which of the two contradictory views the author
really believed and which one they merely stated in order to avoid heresy, persecution, death, or misunderstandings (in that their real views might be used to justify to immorality, etc.) But, on the one hand, this makes you extremely suspicious and, essentially,
conspiratorial in reading and quick attribute to wilful deception what might be attributed to an actual defect or overlooked aspect of the particular system of philosophy, or an inherent, unresolvable contradiction between two opposing tendencies. On the other hand this rules out the possibility that the writer simply stated in clear terms what they actually believed in. (That Descartes was
really a royalist and a good catholic, that Spinoza was
really a quasi-mystic rather than an atheist, etc.) I do grant that Spinoza is perhaps the greatest genius that has ever lived, but I wouldn't on that account believe that he could never have overlooked something, nor that he could completely rise above the world-view of his age, circumstances and life (which Strauss seems to imply).
What's even more aggravating is the fact that Strauss explicitly rejects any form of "historicism", i.e., the belief that a certain piece of writing is to be understood by "biographical" data: the time-period it was written in, the motivations and circumstances of writing it, the particular class the author belonged to, the dominant philosophical system of the time, etc. He argues that no philosopher considered his "ancestors" in this view but until very recently, (which is true, e.g., Descartes had to consider Aristotle as a contemporary, he couldn't just shake him off on the basis that he was old and of a different time and place) and that this method of analysis therefore makes it impossible to understand an author as they understood themselves, because whereas they view their philosophy as the "
true" teaching, we view them as simply a product of their age and hence "superseded" by a "better" system (which I do grant, in part, but how would I understand Aristotle as he understood himself if
I'm not fucking ancient greek, Leo Strauss?! Maybe that's why you need the
goddamn historical context).
But, when he gets to actually analysing Spinoza's work, he says that because currently the state of philosophy sucks (because of historicism, I assume?)
"[...] elaborate historical studies may be needed which would have been superfluous and therefore harmful in more fortunate times" (???) and also says things like
"In attempting to interpret Spinoza, he [sc. one who studies Spinoza] must try his utmost not to go beyond the boundaries drawn by the terminology of Spinoza and of his contemporaries; if he uses modern terminology in rendering Spinoza's thought, or even in describing its character, he is likely to introduce a world alien to Spinoza into what claims to be an exact interpretation of Spinoza's thought." ...What? But that makes no goddamn sense in light of his rejection of these very principles like
two pages before. Given what he argues about writing between the lines I can't help but think he is fucking with me by being deliberately contradictory here... Or that I am being an idiot and conflating two things. Reading him is annoying for the same reason as reading Freud is annoying: you have pages upon pages of smug sounding nonsense which you cannot simply ignore because occasionally there is a sentence (or two) which is one of the most astute and profound observations you've ever read. But still, God, I
despise them both (lovingly).