Strauss on Xenophon's Socrates Xenophon's Socratic Discourse: An ...

140 THE POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEWER
stewardship section, Socrates refrains from using the term "just": he
was reluctant, apparently, to accept as justice "abstaining from
another man's property" (178; cf. 95-97). Second, Ischomachos has
some difficulty in understanding what Socrates is after, because "he
did not think that Socrates could be interested in farming" (179).
The third paragraph returns to the theme of the first, the distinction
between art as a kind of knowledge and what is not art. The question
is raised whether Ischomachos's "knowledge" of how to produce
in his stewards (among other things) "justice" is not an art (179).
Knowledge of how to produce justice in someone would, however,
necessarily include knowledge of what justice is. We are not surprised
therefore to learn in this same paragraph that it is the art of
farming which is "the apparently most important cognitive ingredient"
of Ischomachos's life (180)-which could hardly be the case if
he knew also how to make someone just. In this paragraph <strong>Strauss</strong>
also alludes again to the fact or probability that Socrates is reluctant
to farm. His reluctance is still more emphasized in the fourth
paragraph: Socrates refuses to accept the suggestion that farming is
philanthropic (cf. 121-122). Nevertheless, in repeating his summary
of the stewardship section, Socrates indicates a greater interest than
before in taking up farming. <strong>Strauss</strong> links this to another change in
Socrates' summary: "he says now that the steward must be just"
(181). If one accepts Ischomachos's view of what justice is, it is difficult
to avoid the conclusion that Socrates must take up farming:
"Surely a man circumstanced like Socrates can now no longer avoid
desiring to learn the art of farming" (181; cf. 104). Just as the third
paragraph alluded to Socrates' reluctance to farm, the fourth
alludes to the theme of knowledge, in particular to Ischomachos's
view of what constitutes knowledge. According to Ischomachos,
farming can be understood in part "by watching men doing farm
work" and in part "by hearing" (180).
The first paragraph of the next chapter begins with the declaration
"This much is clear: Socrates will not be a farmer, i.e., a practicing
farmer, a farmer ` in deed' (182). The preparation <strong>Strauss</strong>
has laid in the preceding chapter insures that this declaration will
have the proper impact, although <strong>Strauss</strong> softens the blow for the
time being by holding out the possibility that Socrates "may very
well become an outstanding teacher of farming, a man who teaches
farming through and through, most precisely, `in speech' " (182; cf.
191). He thus at the same time brings in the theme of precision, or
speech, or knowledge, or "theory." <strong>Strauss</strong> treats in this paragraph