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Volume 41 Issue 2Volume 41 Issue 3Double Issue636591123163171181201227247279313Note to ReadersFall 2014Sophie BourgaultRichard BurrowAlexandru RacuSteven H. FrankelMichael HardingWill MorriseySpring 2015Jonathan CulpAryeh TepperJulien Carriere &Steven BergErik S. RootThe Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and PhilosophyFulfillment in As You Like ItStrauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand InquisitorBook Reviews:Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism: Another Reason,Another Enlightenment by Corine PelluchonPolitical Philosophy Cross-Examined: Perennial Challenges to thePhilosophic Life by Thomas L. Pangle and J. Harvey LomaxLocke, Science, and Politics by Steven FordeHappy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good andthe Private Good in Plato’s RepublicThe Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the BibleAncients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe:Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation and CommentaryLiberal Education Imperiled: Toward a Resurrection ofReason and Revelation in Higher Education349359367Book Reviews:Fred Baumann Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn, translated and edited by Martin D. YaffeGregory A. McBrayer On the God of the Christians (and on one or two others) by Rémi BragueRafael Major Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom by Timothy W. Burns©2015 Interpretation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the contents maybe reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher.ISSN 0020-9635

Editor-in-Chief Hilail Gildin, Dept. of Philosophy, Queens CollegeAssociate Editor-in-ChiefAssociate EditorsGeneral EditorsTimothy W. Burns, Baylor UniversityDaniel Ian Mark • Geoffrey SigaletCharles E. Butterworth • Hilail GildinGeneral Editors (Late) Howard B. White (d. 1974) • Robert Horwitz (d. 1987)Seth G. Benardete (d. 2001) • Leonard Grey (d. 2009) •Harry V. Jaffa (d. 2015)Consulting Editors Christopher Bruell • David Lowenthal • Harvey C.Mansfield • Ellis Sandoz • Kenneth W. ThompsonConsulting Editors (Late)International EditorsEditorsCopy EditorDesignerInquiriesemailLeo Strauss (d. 1973) • Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) •Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) • John Hallowell (d. 1992) •Ernest L. Fortin (d. 2002) • Muhsin Mahdi (d. 2007) •Joseph Cropsey (d. 2012)Terence E. Marshall • Heinrich MeierWayne Ambler • Marco Andreacchio • MauriceAuerbach • Robert Bartlett • Fred Baumann • EricBuzzetti • Susan Collins • Patrick Coby • Elizabeth C’deBaca Eastman • Erik Dempsey • Edward J. Erler •Maureen Feder-Marcus • L. Joseph Hebert • PamelaK. Jensen • Ken Masugi • Carol L. McNamara • WillMorrisey • Amy Nendza • Susan Orr • Michael Palmer •Charles T. Rubin • Leslie G. Rubin • Thomas Schneider• Susan Meld Shell • Nicholas Starr • Devin Stauffer •Bradford P. Wilson • Cameron Wybrow • Martin D. Yaffe• Catherine H. Zuckert • Michael P. ZuckertLes HarrisSarah TeutschelInterpretation, A Journal of Political PhilosophyDepartment of Political ScienceBaylor University1 Bear Place, 97276Waco, TX 76798interpretation@baylor.edu

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy6 5The Unbridled Tongue:Plato, Parrhesia, and PhilosophyS oph i e B ou rg au ltUniversity of OttawaSophie.Bourgault@uottawa.caMy tongue has been galloping on and obviously I oughtto curb it constantly; I must keep a bridle in my mouthand not let myself be carried away by the argument.—Plato, LawsIs Karl Popper definitely passé in Plato studies? The temptation is great toanswer in the affirmative. Certainly, his controversial polemic The OpenSociety and Its Enemies (where Plato’s name, we will remember, is associatedwith totalitarianism) has been subject to numerous refutations since the1950s. 1 And yet, the ghost of Popper still seems to haunt North Americanpolitical science departments—as is suggested by the number of politicaltheorists who still feel the urge to wrangle with him over his account of Plato.For instance, it is partially in order to discredit Popper that Arlene Saxonhouse,in a fairly recent article, meticulously analyzes the narrative structureof Plato’s Republic. Based on the ambiguity and multidimensionality of this1Karl R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1966). For criticisms and assessments, see R. B. Levinson, In Defense of Plato (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1957); R. Bambrough, ed., Plato, Popper, and Politics: Some Contributions to aModern Controversy (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967); R. Maurer, “De l’antiplatonisme politicophilosophiquemoderne,” in Contre Platon, vol. 2, Renverser le platonisme, ed. M. Dixsaut (Paris: Vrin,1995); J.-F. Pradeau, Platon, les démocrates et la démocratie (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2005).© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

6 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2structure, Saxonhouse concludes that Plato is—contra Popper—a thinkerwho is sympathetic to democracy. 2Saxonhouse is certainly not alone in putting forward a “democraticPlato”: Peter Euben, Sara Monoson, Gerald Mara, and Dana Villa have all,each in his or her own unique way, tried to show that Platonic thought canbe reconciled in some ways with liberal democracy. 3 (In our conclusion, wewill seek to reflect on the broader motives driving this scholarship.) Despitegreat differences in their methods and conclusions, what unites these interpretersis the fact that all seem to attach great significance to the form, ratherthan to the content, of Plato’s dialogues. For some, it is possible to bracket theoverly harsh things Socrates has said about democracy and to infer sympathyfor democracy from the way philosophy is enacted in Plato’s dialogues.By attaching great importance to form (or style), some of these interpretersbelieve that Platonic dialogues can serve as a rich model for modern liberaldemocracy, since Plato’s dialogues are, at least at their best, a model of freedom,equality, and, most importantly, sincerity or frank speech.A certain kinship is drawn, then, between Socrates and discourse ethics,by underscoring the significance given by Socrates and Plato to parrhēsia—that is, to an absolute and courageous sincerity in philosophy (or politics).Literally, “parrhesia” means “all saying” (pan rhēma); it consists in radicallyfrank, sincere speech. As van Raalte sums the matter up, the term was used bythe ancient Greeks to refer to either of two things: a sociopolitical condition ora character trait in an individual—for instance, “Athens is a city where thereis parrhesia” (democratic ideology was indeed closely tied to the practice ofparrhesia), or “this man speaks with parrhesia.” 4 But the word “parrhesia”was certainly not always used with a positive connotation: in Plato, Isocrates,and Euripides, for instance, parrhesia is also associated with manipulation,empty chattering, and excessive freedom. 52See Arlene W. Saxonhouse, “The Socratic Narrative: A Democratic Reading of Plato’s Dialogues,”Political Theory 37, no. 6 (2009): 747, and Athenian Democracy: Modern Mythmakers and AncientTheorists (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996); Sara M. Monoson, Plato’s DemocraticEntanglements (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 13–14; Michel Foucault, Le gouvernementde soi et des autres (Paris: Gallimard, 2008), 264–66.3Peter Euben, Corrupting Youth: Political Education, Democratic Culture and Political Theory(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements; GeraldMara, Socrates’ Discursive Democracy: Logos and Ergon in Platonic Political Philosophy (Albany: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1997); Dana Villa, Socratic Citizenship (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 2001).4Marlein van Raalte, “Socratic Parrhesia and Its Afterlife in Plato’s Laws,” in Free Speech in ClassicalAntiquity, ed. I. Sluiter and R. M. Rosen (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 279.5For Plato, see Phaedrus 240e; Laws 649b; Republic 557b. Opinions vary regarding the number of

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy6 7The recent turn to the issue of parrhesia in American Plato scholarshiplargely is due to a series of lectures given by Michel Foucault at Berkeley in1983 on the notion of parrhesia (an abridged version of the course offeredat the Collège de France on the same theme). 6 In these lectures, Foucaultpainted with broad brush strokes the history of ancient parrhesia, underscoringthree key moments: the Periclean moment (where parrhesia for the mostpart entails the right 7 of any citizen to address with frankness an assemblyor a jury); the Socratic-Platonic 8 moment (where political parrhesia undergoesa crisis, withdraws from the public sphere, and turns toward the soulof the prince or of any individual); and, finally, the Cynical moment (whereethical parrhesia becomes more radical and brutal). Since this essay is primarilyconcerned with Plato scholarship, we will focus on Socratic-Platonicparrhesia—which is, according to Foucault, to be envisioned primarily as anapproach to philosophy rather than an approach to politics. 9 What we will see,however, is that various students of Plato have appropriated Foucault’s workon Socratic-Platonic parrhesia in order to put forward a “democratic Plato,”a Plato who is sympathetic to democratic political practice. Indeed, contraryto Foucault (who insisted that Platonic parrhesia is hostile to democracy),Monoson and Saxonhouse believe that this hostility is not completely insurmountable,and that it is possible to see a subtle endorsement of democraticpolitics in Plato’s musings on parrhesia.Based on a reading of the Gorgias, this article seeks to show that the characterizationof Platonic philosophy and politics proposed by scholars suchas Foucault, Monoson, Euben, and Saxonhouse, while rich and inspiring,has a few flaws. First, it tends to underestimate the importance of Socrates’schampions of parrhesia in ancient Greece. Robert Wallace insists that these were numerous, whereasD. M. Carter has shown that, aside from Euripides, enthusiastic defenders of parrhesia were ratherrare (Carter, “Citizen Attribute, Negative Right: A Conceptual Difference between Ancient and ModernIdeas of Freedom of Speech,” in Free Speech in Classical Antiquity).6E.g., Foucault is often cited (or implicitly deployed) in the following: Saxonhouse, Free Speech andDemocracy; Elizabeth Markovitz, The Politics of Sincerity: Plato, Frank Speech and Democratic Judgment(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008); Sluiter and Rosen, eds., Free Speechin Classical Antiquity; Christina Tarnopolsky, “Platonic Reflections on the Aesthetic Dimensions ofDeliberative Democracy,” Political Theory 35, no. 3 (June 2007): 288–312.7Foucault is at times more hesitant on this issue, severing the notion of parrhesia from the languageof rights (preferring that of virtue and duty instead); elsewhere, however, he does use the word “right.”Compare, for instance, Le gouvernement de soi, 43 and 330.8I will use the words “Platonic” and “Socratic” interchangeably in this paper even though I am fullyaware of the complex questions of interpretation that this puts aside. I do so because, contrary to afew “democratic Platonists,” Foucault does not posit any clear-cut distinction between Socrates andPlato—he moves quickly between the two.9Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi, 299.

6 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2irony and “strangeness”—and hence, to overlook the importance of manipulation,silence, and attention in philosophy. Second, some of this literaturetends to portray Plato’s thought largely as a question of procedures; it therebyundermines the radicalism of his work. And finally, I want to argue that thecelebration of courage and danger nested at the heart of these discussions ofparrhesia may carry the risk of turning Platonic philosophy into an excessivelyCalliclean affair.I will turn mostly (albeit not exclusively) to the Gorgias for three reasons:first, the Gorgias is at the heart of many “democratic” readings of Plato(e.g., Euben, Monoson). Second, Socrates refers to parrhesia six times in theGorgias; there about twenty references to this notion in the entire Platoniccorpus. 10 Finally, beyond these specific occurrences of the word, the subjectof frank speech—with its complex relation to rhetoric, truth, desires, tyranny,and democracy—is omnipresent in this dialogue. Indeed, everything is here:two pompous orators offering an apology for rhetoric (Polus and Gorgias); ayoung, aggressive, and radically frank aristocrat who is madly obsessed withpolitical power (Callicles); and, especially, the revealing failure of a conversationthat is said to take place between two exemplary parrhēsiastai.Irony, Silence, and AttentionIn Fearless Speech and Le courage de la vérité, Foucault offers a list of criteriafor treating a particular instance of “truth saying” as parrhesia. 11 First, theindividual who tells the truth must do it with absolute sincerity. All mustbe said, regardless of any concern for the demands of civility, conventions,or the sentiments of those who listen: “la parrêsia consiste à dire, sans dissimulationni réserve ni clause de style ni ornement rhétorique qui pourraitla chiffrer ou la masquer, la vérité. Le ‘tout-dire’ est à ce moment-là: dire lavérité sans rien en cacher, sans la cacher par quoi que ce soit.” 12 Therefore,the true parrhēsiastēs according to Foucault is she who tells everything with10This is the number proposed by Monoson (Plato’s Democratic Entanglements, chap. 6) and Foucault(Le gouvernement de soi, 181–90). The explicit mentions are at Laches 178a, 179c, 189a; Gorgias 487a,487b, 487d, 491e, 492d, 521a; Symposium 222c; Phaedrus 240e; Charmides 156b; Laws 649b–d, 694a–b,806c–d, 835c; Republic 557b; Seventh Letter 354a. Evidently, there are other dialogues that deal withparrhesia, without mentioning the word—the Apology could be read as a text entirely dedicated to it.11These criteria have been taken up by others, such as Monoson and Saxonhouse, in part or entirely.12Foucault, Le courage de la vérité (Paris: Gallimard, 2009), 11. In Le gouvernement de soi, Foucaultdefines “parrhēsia” as follows: “le courage de dire tout ce qu’on pense, en dépit des règles, des lois, deshabitudes” (342).

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy6 9frankness. The second criterion (which is of a piece with the first) is truth:what the individual utters must really be what she holds to be the truth. Thespeaker must be convinced not only that her words are a faithful descriptionof this truth; she must also be willing to commit herself fully to this truth.“Le parrèsiaste donne son opinion, il dit ce qu’il pense, il signe en quelquesorte lui-même la vérité qu’il énonce, il se lie à cette vérité, et il s’oblige, parconséquent, à elle et par elle.” 13 (We will come back below to what is understoodhere by “truth.”)Before discussing more closely the injunctions of sincerity and truth, letus mention the other main characteristics of parrhesia. 14 The speaker musttake a risk—the risk of offending the other, the risk of being humiliated by anaudience that refuses to listen, even the risk of being killed (the example ofSocrates killed by Athens is obviously present in Foucault’s mind). No risk,no parrhesia, affirms Foucault. 15 Finally, since parrhesia requires risk taking,the truth teller must necessarily have remarkable courage: indeed, courage isthe moral quality that defines the parrhēsiastēs.Now, what is the goal of all this courageous truth-telling according toFoucault? The intention is to help the other take care of his soul and, perhaps,to convince him to live otherwise—be it Plato speaking to Dion, or Socratestrying to persuade Alcibiades, Glaucon, or Callicles. As Foucault argues,the ideal Platonic philosopher/parrhēsiastēs could be seen as the good doctordescribed by Plato in the Laws (720c–e)—a doctor who is not contentwith prescription, but rather intends to offer at once diagnosis, persuasion/dialogue, and a cure. 16 And indeed, it seems to be one of Foucault’s intentions—throughthis “return to Plato” 17 —to dethrone the modern psychiatrist(or the Christian confessor) and to put, in his place, the parrhēsiastēs, theonly one truly capable of caring for souls.But let us return to the first trait of Socratic parrhesia (the other two traitswill be discussed in the following sections): its brutal and total sincerity, itsdisregard for the claims of civility and conventions. For Saxonhouse, it is herethat we have one of the strengths of Socratic philosophy: its indifference to13Foucault, Le courage de la vérité, 12; my italics.14These two criteria will be discussed in the third part of this essay.15Le gouvernement de soi, 56; Le courage de la vérité, 12, 24.16Le gouvernement de soi, 212–24.17Séverine Mathelin, “Michel Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi et des autres,” Essaim, no. 21 (2008):183–85.

7 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2various traditions and customs. The parrhēsiastēs that was Socrates (“a fullydemocratic man”) 18 and Athenian democracy have in common that both areshameless and seek to overturn the sociopolitical hierarchies that are tied toan unquestioned reverence for history, age, or tradition: 19 “It is only when thisreverence is dismissed, when a people can say freely what they think that theyare able to practice a politics of self-rule.” 20 Other readers of Plato have joinedSaxonhouse, not only noting the fact that radical frankness characterizesPlato’s dialogues but also arguing that this very trait can enrich our reflectionson deliberative democracy. Habermasian avant la lettre, according toEuben, 21 Socrates would thus offer us a precious celebration of sincerity inhuman discussion.But is it entirely convincing to place such a strong emphasis on sincerityin Socratic philosophy? Doesn’t this description threaten to undervaluethe importance of irony and of a certain manipulation of discourse in Plato’sdialogues? Indeed, lengthy discussions of Socratic irony are absent from thetreatments of parrhesia offered by Monoson and Saxonhouse—perhaps forself-explanatory reasons. 22 After all, as Michel Foucault stressed in his Le gouvernementde soi et des autres, parrhesia could be envisioned as an anti-irony. 23Indeed, for Foucault, there was a certain tension between Socratic irony andparrhesia, but unfortunately, Foucault failed consider this tension at length.Perhaps we should turn to the Gorgias now in order to unpack a bit thecomplicated relationship between irony and sincerity. As many readers of theGorgias have noted, the exchanges between Socrates and Gorgias, Polus, andCallicles are dripping with irony and false flattery. For instance, after Gorgiashas offered his interlocutors a definition of rhetoric and an inventory of itsincredible benefits, Socrates exclaims admiringly that rhetoric does seem topossess supernatural powers (456a). The ironic compliment paid by Socratesbears fruit: Gorgias, encouraged by the turn taken by the conversation andemboldened by Socrates’s praise, is content to carry on the discussion and to18Saxonhouse, Free Speech, 123. We will come back to this shortly.19That being said, one of Saxonhouse’s goals is to show that neither can completely sever itself fromshame (and its “limits”). A healthier limit (i.e., one that is more democratic) than traditional Greekshame is that captured in the concept of aidōs—a kind of “procedural” limit that will, among otherthings, determine the length of discourses. See Saxonhouse, Free Speech, 180.20Ibid., 15.21Euben explicitly speaks of Socrates’s “Habermasian voice” in Corrupting Youth, 216.22To speak of irony and manipulation sits uncomfortably with sincerity.23Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi, 54. Saxonhouse touches on the issue of irony briefly at FreeSpeech, 126.

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy7 1reveal his most intimate thoughts. By appealing to Gorgias’s pride, Socrates istrying to lure him into freely joining the camp of those who see being refutedas a beautiful occasion for learning, instead of as a great insult and sourceof shame. Thus, with the help of a certain deception, Socrates makes Gorgiascommit himself to continuing the conversation before he realizes whyhe might not want to be a part of it. The ruse is successful: Gorgias claimsloudly that he is one of those individuals dedicated to the cause of truth, andhence that he is capable of accepting criticism. While this ruse will not initself suffice to convert Gorgias to (Platonic) philosophy, Socrates’s subtlemanipulation does succeed in delaying and perhaps even in circumscribingGorgias’s exasperation. Flattery allows Socrates to keep a minimum of goodwill on the part of Gorgias and thus to have in him an ally when violencelater erupts. 24 Flattery also plays an important role in the fiery exchanges thatfollow between Socrates and Callicles (489b, 494c, 492d). But Callicles is notas blind to Socrates’s stratagem as Gorgias: after having been described asthe “noblest of men” (521b), Callicles retorts testily that Socrates is slavishlygiving in to the demands of flattery. Naturally, the cold response of Calliclesfails to convince Socrates to give up on his strategy: the dialogue is pepperedwith irony until the very end. It reaches a pinnacle when Socrates informs histhree interlocutors—after having laid bare the limits of their knowledge—that they are the “wisest of the Greeks of today” (527a).Particularly intense if not outright violent, the exchanges that take placehere between Callicles and Socrates have been the object of much discussion.It will suffice for my specific purpose here to note that Foucault and Monosonboth derive from these heated exchanges important lessons regarding parrhesia(it is here, after all, that Socrates explicitly identifies parrhesia as one ofthe prerequisites for philosophy). After having lost Gorgias and Polus as conversationpartners, Socrates exclaims that he is quite pleased to have Calliclesas his next interlocutor. Socrates remarks that Callicles has all that is neededto engage in a philosophical conversation: “a person who is going to put asoul to an adequate test to see whether it lives rightly or not must have threequalities, all of which you have: knowledge [epistēmē], good will [eunoia], andfrankness [parrhēsia]” (487a). Faced with this significant passage, some Platointerpreters have taken Socrates at his word and concluded that Callicles isindeed an individual who is truly capable of parrhesia. 25 But it is unconvinc-24Later in the dialogue (497b), Gorgias will try to help Socrates convince Callicles of the need tocontinue the conversation.25Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements, 163. Compare with Josiah Ober, Political Dissent inDemocratic Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 203. The position of Foucault is

7 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2ing to assume that Socrates is sincere in attributing these three qualities toCallicles. First, Socrates immediately adds, right after his “compliment” toCallicles, another compliment that is more evidently doubtful: Socrates notesthat both Callicles and Polus possess knowledge (epistēmē). Yet, at this pointin the dialogue, what has been shown is precisely that Gorgias and Polusdo not have any of the knowledge they claim to possess. Secondly, what thedialogue beautifully captures in its closing moments is that Callicles does nothave good judgment (or knowledge for that matter)—his life is, in Socrates’sestimation, entirely “worthless” (527e). And finally, Plato illustrates veryquickly the limits of the “good will” of Callicles by having him adopt a radicallythreatening and defiant posture towards Socrates.Reassessing the sincerity of this important passage (487a) matters becauseit forces us to reflect on the causes of the breakdown of the conversation in theGorgias and, more generally, on what philosophy requires according to Plato(not according to Foucault). As we will see in the third section of this paper,Callicles has what it takes to satisfy the Foucauldian criterion for parrhesia:he is exceedingly courageous, 26 daring to admit the inadmissible (his desireto exploit others). What various dramatic elements of the dialogue also revealis that Callicles is capable of putting into action his thoughts and his words—there is a harmony between his logos (violent and tyrannical) and his ergon(violent and tyrannical). Callicles stands up for the “truth” that he affirms; heis totally sincere and ready to take the risk entailed by his dark conception ofjustice. Nevertheless, despite all these (parrhesiastic) traits, Callicles embodiesa radical challenge to the good functioning of the dialogue and shows thathe may not be, after all, the dream interlocutor. What Callicles is missing, Iwill argue, is sōphrosunē. Indeed, the “problem” with Callicles is not a lack ofcourage or of sincerity (he exudes both—his tongue is remarkably unbridled),but rather, a radical hedonism and thirst for domination.While it is certainly true that philosophy requires a good dose of sincerityaccording to Plato, philosophy also seems to tolerate (if not call for)some irony and subtle manipulation. Hence, the injunction of absolute sincerityunderscored by Foucault and by some of his heirs may not be whollyappropriate to capture what Plato is trying to convey in his Gorgias. Mymore subtle and ambiguous: he suggests that Callicles possesses true “parrêsia socratique,” whilequickly acknowledging that Socrates’s parrhesia is not exactly that of Callicles (Le gouvernement desoi, 342–43).26“Courageous” in the meaning proposed by Foucault, not by Plato. Platonic courage is philosophicand, in my view, quite distinct from Foucauldian courage.

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy7 3intention here is not to deny the importance of sincerity in political philosophy—animportance underscored repeatedly in the Gorgias (494c, 499c) andmost graphically summed up by the last words of the dialogue (527e). Whatthis section has tried to indicate, rather, is that the praise for sincerity thatis nested within the concept of parrhesia cannot easily be reconciled withSocratic irony. There is evidently a tension between these two things—and itis a tension that needs to be spelled out at length. 27Let us turn now to another aspect of Platonic philosophy that risks beingovershadowed in these discussions of parrhesia. This aspect is, in fact, alreadyneglected by students of Plato: that of silence, of introspection, and of listening.At the heart of the Foucauldian ethics of parrhesia rests an apology forthe vocalization of our thoughts—one must speak, one must say it all. Whileempty and stupid chattering is proscribed (this is correctly stressed), we arenevertheless presented with an invitation to let speech flow out. The tongueof the philosopher/parrhēsiastēs must be free, unbridled. 28 Naturally, onemust acknowledge that the practice of philosophy cannot take place withoutrecourse to words; and needless to say, Plato’s work would hardly make senseif it were divested of its celebration for the spoken word. 29 No conversation, nodialectic. That said, I believe that Plato’s celebration of a “live” logos does notentirely come at the cost of silence and patient, quiet introspection.The silence that interests me here is not the silence of Plato, the authorof dialogues who is said to hide behind his characters, never speaking in hisown name. 30 Rather, the silence that interests me is that of Socrates and thatof other characters in Plato’s dialogues—the silence captured by the dramaitself or described, in words, by some characters. By “silence,” therefore, I amreferring primarily to real silence, the absence of sounds—an absence which,I suggest, cannot be equated with an absence of thought.We have already noted above that Socrates does not say everything; thisis the intended consequence both of his philosophical humility and of hispedagogy. Socrates seeks to lead his interlocutors—via irony—to say, feel, ordo something. But some of Socrates’s silences could be said to derive fromhis conviction that there are things that simply ought not to be said, or27For a detailed and very insightful discussion of irony and its tension with parrhesia, see ElizabethMarkovitz, The Politics of Sincerity.28Saxonhouse emphasizes one concrete “bridle” put on the tongue: the length of speeches.29For a famous passage that takes into account this tension, see Phaedrus 275d–276a.30A type of silence that has been commented on extensively by Leo Strauss. See, e.g., Leo Strauss, TheCity and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 54–62.

7 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2that these things might await a more opportune occasion. In the Lysis, forinstance, Plato portrays Socrates struggling with his desire to utter certainharsh truths to the young Hippothales, yet opting to remain silent. After havingcarefully observed Hippothales, Socrates decides to “bit[e] [his] tongue”(210e) in order to avoid causing an embarrassment that would be futile. Thetongue of Socrates is thus not completely (or always) unbridled; neither, wemight add, is the tongue of the Athenian stranger in the Laws. 31 In the Alcibiades(a dialogue that is pivotal for Foucault’s Le Gouvernement de soi et desautres) we see Socrates explain to the ambitious Alcibiades why, for numerousyears, he has contented himself with following the young man in silenceinstead of attempting to strike up a philosophical conversation. He arguesthat Alcibiades was simply not ready for true listening: talk would have beenfutile. Socrates implicitly suggests here that his silent and disconcerting presence(106a) was by far preferable to an audible speech—for the latter wouldhave resonated merely into emptiness, instead of into Alcibiades’s soul.If silence has pedagogical utility in that sense, it is equally an allyof reflection. Even though the most popular image we have of Socrates isthat of the accused who refuses to cease speaking (Apology), we ought notto forget that Socrates was also capable of silence (and of deriving pleasurefrom it). 32 In fact, it is partially in light of this appreciation for silence thatSocrates seems to have acquired a reputation of “strangeness”—that which ismost vividly captured in the Symposium. At the beginning of this dialogue,Plato presents us with a Socrates who, despite having an interested youth athis side, opts to let his mind busy itself with inner thoughts, as he walks toAgathon’s house (174d). Plato suggests in this passage that Socrates’s silenceis not meaningless, nor can it be envisaged as the result of threats or as thesymptom of alienation (as the silences of Polus and Callicles might be). 33Rather, the silence of Socrates is an active one: it is pregnant with meaningand it prepares the philosophical exercise that is about to take place. Socratesnot only retreats inwardly as he walks to Agathon’s house, he also considersit necessary to retreat to the neighbor’s porch for a significant amount oftime before joining the others. As is indicated by Aristodemus’s words, thisbehavior of Socrates was apparently a fairly typical one—this tendency tosilent introspection is here described as “one of his habits” (175b). And yet,31See the epigraph at the beginning of this paper, quoting Laws 701c.32See, for instance, Symposium 173c, where Socrates notes the great pleasure he takes in philosophicalexchange—even if it only entails listening.33Paul Gooch believes that this type of silence was akin to prayer. See Gooch, Reflections on Jesus andSocrates: Word and Silence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy7 5despite its habitual nature, this behavior on the part of Socrates hardly seemsto have lost its capacity to shock or indispose others, as the repeated demandsof Agathon for Socrates to come in serve to indicate (175c).The “strangeness” of Socrates must have fueled the anxiety Athenians feltabout him. After all, as Silvia Montiglio has argued, ancient Athens had onlyfear and contempt for silence, associating it with servility, conspiracies, boguscitizenship, feminine scheming, or the interruption of the natural course ofthings. 34 No sane individual aspired to be noticed for his or her silence: “likethe Homeric hero, the ideal citizen of Athens boasted to excel at deeds and atwords, but not at silence. Not even as a listener.” 35 It is likely that Socrates wasexecuted because he spoke excessively (and because he spoke with too manyoligarchic sympathizers), but it may also be because, sometimes, Socratesspoke too little. His strange meditative manners and his purposeful silence(manifested also in his twofold refusal to take part in politics and to assertany knowledge dogmatically), mixed with his remarkable capacity to lay barethe ignorance of others, were doubtless instrumental in his death.In short, Plato’s thought aims not only at showing us the significance ofthe spoken word, but also (albeit less centrally) at underscoring the importanceof silence, of listening, 36 and of introspection in philosophy and livingtogether. The “ethic of parrhesia” coming out of the work of Foucault encouragesus to brush this aside a little quickly in my view. 37 And yet, one couldsuggest that nothing is more timely (and radical) in Plato than this invitationto silence and active, attentive listening. Indeed, just as in ancient Greece,silence seems to be a source of anxiety among us (witness the way we quicklyfill any silence when we work, travel, eat, study, read), and active listeningseems to be badly (or rarely) cultivated. To listen, to learn (and to be just), onemust pay attention, which requires much self-discipline and quiet devotion,as Simone Weil (a Platonist of the first order) rightly noted. 38 Weil understood34Silvia Montiglio, Silence in the Land of Logos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), introductionand 289–91.35Ibid., 291; my italics.36Tarnopolsky explores some of this in her insightful “Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants: Plato and theContemporary Politics of Shame,” Political Theory 32, no. 4 (August 2004): 468–94.37But for two important exceptions to this overlooking of silence in Foucault, see Le gouvernement desoi, 26–27 and 217. See also the beginning of History of Sexuality, vol. 1.38In various writings, Simone Weil underscores the intimate links between attention, philosophy,and justice: “Le premier devoir de l’école est de développer chez les enfants la faculté d’attention…enleur rappelant sans cesse qu’il leur faut savoir être attentifs pour pouvoir, plus tard, être justes” (Weil,Écrits de Londres et dernières lettres [Paris: Gallimard, 1957], 177). See also Attente de Dieu.

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy7 7can it be thought through without theōria—and the latter sometimes takesplace in silence. Indeed, the theoretical disciplines that prepare the individualfor dialectic are disciplines that could be described as “quiet” disciplines:arithmetic, geometry, and even harmony. In the Republic, for instance,Socrates mocks those who engage in the science of harmonics with their ears:pretty ridiculous they are. …They talk about something they call a“dense interval” or quartertone—putting their ears to their instrumentslike someone trying to overhear what the neighbors are saying.And some say that they hear a tone in between and that it is the shortestinterval by which they must measure, while others argue that thistone sounds the same as a quarter tone. Both put ears before understanding.(531a)Also, in the Gorgias (508a), Socrates notes that there is an intimate connectionbetween the sick soul of Callicles (i.e., his incapacity to philosophize)and his lack of interest in geometry.Now, this important theoretical (and silent) dimension of Plato risksbeing completely forgotten as scholars seek to draw out what is more visible,audible, and democratic in his work: namely, the frank Socrates engaging onthe street with anybody willing to listen and to be subjected to his relentlessquestioning. For Monoson and Foucault, the ideal of parrhesia is seductivepartially because of its egalitarian flavor: after all, anybody can claim the titleof philosopher-parrhēsiastēs (as long as one has the prerequisites in courageand sincerity, that is). No title or professional certification is required. “Cetautre si nécessaire pour que je puisse dire le vrai sur moi-même, cet autredans la culture antique peut être un philosophe de profession, mais aussin’importe qui…ce peut être un ami personnel, ce peut être un amant.” 42 Andyet, once we look a little closer, it seems that the theoretical route towardsearning the title of philosopher is, according to Plato, a much longer and protractedone than Foucault and Monoson account for. 43 In short, marryingSocrates and Plato to an apology of tout dire, or putting the emphasis onthe necessity of endlessly vocalizing our thoughts, should not make us forgetin Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy, trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven: Yale University Press,1986).42Foucault, Le courage de la vérité, 7.43Moreover, it should be noted that Socrates is quite selective in his choice of interlocutors: eventhough in the Apology he claims to have had conversations with artisans, we never actually engagewith members of the dēmos (as many commentators have noted). Putting aside the brief exchange thatSocrates has with Meno’s slave, Plato’s dialogues put on the scene members of Athens’s elite, and this,not because Socrates was particularly admiring of them. His choice of interlocutors more likely restedon the presumption that these individuals were those with the greatest capacity for evil and injustice.

7 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2the role played by quiet theoretical study and solitary introspection. Politicalphilosophy (just like politics) is not merely speech, noise, and action; it alsocalls—at times—for silence, quiet devotion, and attention, three things uponwhich our capacity for wonder at the world and others rest to some degree(Theaetetus 155d). Indeed, silence can sometimes be significant and rich; it isa part—small but essential—of thoughtful action. 44Opinion, Truth, and Dialectic: Truth as Procedure?What philosophy says always stays the same.—Plato, GorgiasCe sur quoi je voudrais insister pour finirc’est ceci: …la vérité, ce n’est jamais le même.—Foucault, Le courage de la véritéIn Le courage de la vérité, Foucault proposes a typology of the different modesof “truth telling,” associating with each mode a particular type of truth teller:the prophet, the sage, the technician/teacher, and, finally, the parrhēsiastēs. 45Each ideal-type has a distinct relationship to self and to others, and eachfigure holds a different kind of truth. For instance, if the sage speaks of Being(i.e., of “l’être du monde et des choses”), the parrhēsiastēs only speaks ofethos—the object of the truth telling here is the way one lives, the manner inwhich one puts (or not) actions and discourse in harmony. 46 Acknowledgingthat there are in Socrates certain traits of the sage (as well as the basis for asubstantive metaphysics that will blossom in the late Platonic dialogues), 47Foucault nevertheless asserts that the son of Sophroniscus is primarily the44John Zumbrunnen proposes an argument that partially goes in this direction in his fascinatingSilence and Democracy: Athenian Politics in Thucydides’ “History” (University Park: PennsylvaniaState University Press, 2008).45Foucault, Le courage de la vérité, 25.46“Le parrèsiaste ne révèle pas à son interlocuteur ce qui est. Il lui dévoile ou l’aide à reconnaître cequ’il est” (ibid., 19; my italics).47Indeed, Foucault thinks that there are, in fact, two slightly distinct ways of doing philosophy inPlato: first, there is the “aesthetics of existence” put forward in the early dialogues. Here, philosophyis envisioned as an “épreuve” and an attitude. Second, there is the “metaphysics of the soul” thatincreasingly gets deployed in the dialogues of maturity. Here, philosophy is envisioned as a body ofknowledge and a quest for transcendent truth. The history of philosophy is seen by Foucault as a longstruggle between these two types of relationship to the truth. Naturally, Foucault likes to associate hisown work with the first. See Le courage de la vérité, 118–20.

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy7 9“parfait parrèsiaste”—one whose sole concern is ethos. The Socrates of theLaches, for instance, “ne parle pas de l’être des choses et de l’ordre du monde,il parle de l’épreuve de l’âme.” 48The practice of philosophy that is Socratic parrhesia is, according toFoucault, a way of being, an attitude—one that could be summarized asan aesthetics of existence. 49 Philosophy is about constructing, through thiscourageous exchange, a beautiful existence for oneself—it is not about tendingtowards the beautiful or the good. 50 It would not be unfair to claim thatFoucault seeks to empty Plato’s dialogues (especially the so-called Socraticones) of anything akin to a quest for transcendence. 51 The truth spokenof by Socrates must therefore be reworked, chiseled, before it can becomeFoucault’s. As is captured quite well by the epigraph to this section, truth is,for Foucault, always particular, always different, always firmly anchored inimmanence. Thus, it is hardly suprising to see Foucault describe the truthcommunicated by Socratic parrhesia with the following words: “la vérité dece qui est dans la forme singulière des individus et des situations, et non pas lavérité de l’être et de la nature des choses.” 52 As Jakub Franěk succinctly putsit in his study of Foucauldian parrhesia, “Parrhesia is a mode of truth saying,not a system of true propositions.” 53Quite similarly, the discussions of parrhesia put forward by Euben andMonoson tend to paint truth as something devoid of a substantive referenceto the good or to a quest for unity. For instance, Monoson describes the“type” of truth articulated by a Greek parrhēsiastēs as follows:The truth claim did not entail any assertion of a view’s alignment withan absolute, transcendent standard. Rather, it asserted a specific relationbetween the speaker and his view. …The main work the truth claimdid was to assert the honesty and personal integrity of the speaker andthe apparently critical import of his logos—not the certain flawnessnessof the logos itself. 5448Foucault, Le courage de la vérité, 82. With regard to the Gorgias, for instance, Foucault is ready toacknowledge a strong ontological content. See Le gouvernement de soi, 342–44.49Foucault, Le courage de la vérité, 150. See also Jakub Franěk, “Philosophical Parrhesia as Aestheticsof Existence,” Continental Philosophy Review 39 (2006): 113–34.50Le courage de la vérité, 150–51.51As noted above, Foucault does not entirely deny the metaphysical content of the late dialogues.52Foucault, Le courage de la vérité, 25; my italics.53Franěk, “Philosophical Parrhesia as Aesthetics of Existence,” 130.54Monoson, “Frank Speech, Democracy, and Philosophy,” 175.

8 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2The word “truth” therefore seems to become almost interchangeable withthe term “opinion”—as is repeatedly suggested by Foucault in Fearless Speechand Le gouvernement de soi. For instance, he writes that “the parrhesiastesis not only sincere and says what is his opinion, but his opinion is also thetruth.” 55 Monoson and Foucault thus both seem to dismiss a little quicklythe need to distinguish between opinion and truth. And yet, at the heart ofmost of Plato’s dialogues rests this important philosophical intuition: onemust differentiate opinion from knowledge, belief from science (and it is, infact, a distinction already formulated in the Gorgias). Even if the “Socratic”dialogues that are of great interest to Foucault do not end with the strongaffirmation of a stable truth, one can nevertheless witness in these early dialoguesa patient and concerned quest for unity and stability.Philosophy for Plato was not just an “attitude” (pace Foucault), or a wayof caring for one’s soul. It was this, but it was also more than this: it consistedin an endless theoretical quest for as stable a truth as possible (onethat radically differs from the ever-fluctuating object of Callicles’s eros). 56Marlein van Raalte is thus right to define Socratic parrhesia as the “freedomof speech in the service of the truth and the good.” 57 Now, one could arguethat it is not surprising to see Plato interpreters understating the importanceof the good in their comments on parrhesia. After all, as we have noted in theintroduction, one of the intentions behind much of this recent work on Platois to dispute the association of Plato with dogmatism and totalitarianism. Inorder to do so, many feel that it is necessary to increase the importance of thestructure and style of Platonic thought at the expense of its content. By insistingon the fact that Plato’s philosophy is largely a matter of sincerity, attitude,and procedure, these interpreters seem to think that it is possible to evacuatethe “problem” posed by Plato’s metaphysics or by his virulent attack againstdemocracy. As we noted above, what unites the works of Foucault, Monoson,and Euben is the shared conviction that it is possible to separate the wordsfrom the deeds or attitude of Socrates. For instance, Peter Euben writes:the question of whether and how Socrates is a democrat is not onlya matter of what is said but of how it is said, not only a question ofexplicit argumentation but of dialectical “method” and of the dramaticmovement of the dialogue. Thus, it would be possible for the way55Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements, 14. Foucault insists repeatedly on the “caractère absolumentpersonnel de l’énonciation philosophique” of Plato (Le gouvernement de soi, 256; see also 210).56See Gorgias 481d–482c.57Van Raalte, “Socratic Parrhesia,” 301.

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy8 1criticisms of democracy are made—provocatively, frankly, inconsistently,ironically, dialectically, polyphonically—to be “democratic,”even as the particular argument was not. 58These lines are revealing: we see here that reconciling Plato with democracycan perhaps only be done by negating the importance of logos to the profit ofergon. My intention here is not to call into question the importance of dramaor of the dialogical form to Plato’s work—these are in fact essential. Instead,my goal is to suggest that in our desire to rehabilitate the form, we ought tobe careful not to dismiss the significance of the content. Even though theGorgias is a dialogue overflowing with rich reflections on the nature andchallenges of conversation and dialogic procedures (as Euben, Tarnopolsky,and Monoson have all admirably shown), the Gorgias is also a text that putsforth fairly thick moral convictions. For instance, not only does the Gorgiasaffirm the distinction between opinion and knowledge, and the close connectionbetween virtue and wisdom, it also insists on the moral notion thatit is always better to suffer injustice than to commit it. It equally insists on theidea that a healthy governing of cities begins with a knowledge and controlof the self—what Callicles entirely lacks, as we will see below. In short, theGorgias is a lot more than a dialogue about the nature of dialogue; it is also atext pregnant with strong ethical and theoretical claims.If we overlook these claims, on what basis are we to judge the utterancesmade by the philosopher/parrhēsiastēs? How are we to distinguish falseparrhesia from true parrhesia—how do we distinguish flattery from philosophy?Few interpreters give us detailed answers to these questions. Monosonacknowledges that for Plato, good parrhesia (i.e., that briefly described inthe Laws or in the Laches) necessitates a certain “discrimination and moralseriousness.” 59 But on what will this discrimination rest if Platonic thoughtis envisioned largely as a matter of posture or procedures? How can wedistinguish the genuine philosopher from the pompous and self-interestedintellectual? How can we distinguish Socrates from Callicles?“La Vérité dans le Risque de la Violence”:Courage, Hedonism, and ModerationFoucault thought he had found an answer to these questions in the life ofSocrates and the history of Athens. Based on a rich analysis of the Laches,58Euben, Corrupting Youth, 216.59Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements, 160. See also 165.

8 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Foucault suggests that the Athenians possessed a solid proof of the virtue andauthority of the parrhēsiastēs that was Socrates: the harmony between hisactions and his words. 60 Indeed, it is not the fact that Socrates showed courageon a battlefield that authorized him to speak of courage in front of twomilitary figures in the Laches, but rather the fact that he demonstrated, in hisdaily life, a concord between “sa manière de dire les choses et sa manière devivre. La parrêsia socratique comme liberté de dire ce qu’il veut est marquée,authentifiée par le son de la vie de Socrate lui-même.” 61 It is therefore thepresence of a harmony between discourse (logos) and actions (ergon) thatallows one to distinguish the good parrhēsiastēs from the ignorant chattereror the ambitious demagogue.Foucault insists on the great significance of the fact that Socrates’s soulis tuned in a particular musical mode: in the Laches, we learn that Socrates’ssoul is tuned in a Dorian mode (188d). Foucault insists that it is this Dorianmode (a “genuinely Greek” mode, says the Laches) that lends Socrates’s discourseauthenticity and legitimacy, and that gives him the right to speakabout courage with authority. Laches describes Socrates as follows:Such a man seems to me to be genuinely musical, producing the mostbeautiful harmony, not on the lyre or some other pleasurable instrument,but actually rendering his own life harmonious by fitting hisdeeds to his words in a truly Dorian mode…in the only harmony thatis genuinely Greek. (188d)The reason this particular passage is so dear to Foucault is that the Greekscommonly associated the Dorian mode with the virtue of courage. 62 On thebasis of this fairly traditional association, Foucault draws an important (ifincorrect) conclusion: what Plato is trying to indicate via this explicit referenceto the Dorian mode is that the main or most important virtue of thephilosopher is courage. 63Now, putting aside the fact that it is Laches (a military man), not Socrates,who suggests that the “genuinely Greek” mode is the Dorian one, there are60Compare the analysis of Franěk, who insists on the fact that there cannot be a proof of a standard ofjudgment (“Philosophical Parrhesia,” 130).61Foucault, Le courage de la vérité, 138.62See M. L. West, Ancient Greek Music (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992); Andrew Barker, ed., Greek MusicalWritings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Jacques Chailley, La musique grecqueantique (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1979); F. A. Gevaert, Histoire et théorie de la musique de l’antiquité(Hildesheim: Olms, 1965).63Foucault, Fearless Speech, 100.

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy8 3many good reasons not to exaggerate the significance of this passage. First,in the Republic (where the Dorian mode is also associated with courage andmilitary ardor), Plato insists on the fact that a good musical education shallnot limit itself to the Dorian mode. Indeed, this mode should be moderatedby appealing to the Phrygian mode, which imitates a peaceful, self-controlled,and free individual (Rep. 399b–c). The Phrygian mode is associated not onlywith tranquility but, more significantly for us here, with voluntary action(freedom) and something akin to philosophy. Indeed, the Phrygian modewill imitate the human being engaged in persuasion—either that taking placethrough teaching or through exhortation (399b). If Foucault likes to associatethe highest experience of liberty and of thought with the virtue of courage, 64Plato saw rather close links between the virtue of moderation, philosophy,and liberty (understood here as the rule of reason over one’s unnecessarypassions). These intimate links are affirmed not only in the Republic (403a,411c), but also in the Laws, in various passages where the Athenian strangermentions good judgment and sōphrosunē in the same breath. 65 As the magisterialstudy of Helen North has indicated, Plato overturned a long traditionwhen he ascribed to sōphrosunē a superior status to andreia. 66There is an additional reason why one should not exaggerate the significanceof the passage of the Laches where the chief virtue of the philosopherseems to be courage. As is suggested in the Statesman (and the Laws), 67 agood city would certainly not be composed solely of courageous citizens.On the contrary, a wise statesman will know how to weave together a fineblend of moderate citizens and courageous ones (311a). The healthy soul itselfshould consist of a measured combination of sōphrosunē and andreia—as weare repeatedly told in the Republic. An individual who is excessively daringwill simply be unable to do philosophy (Rep. 411c–d). In short, philosophy isnot principally (or solely) a matter of courage, as Foucault sometimes seemsto suggest; contemplation cannot take place without self-control and selfknowledge,according to Plato. This is, in my view, one of the greatest lessonsof the Gorgias and it is one that is almost completely overlooked by Foucaultand his heirs.64E.g., Le gouvernement de soi, 64.65E.g., Laws 693c, 689d, 712a.66Helen North, Sophrosyne: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1966). Needless to say, not all commentators of Plato would embrace this reading.67E.g., Laws 773a–e.

8 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Before returning to the Gorgias, let us recall briefly what the connectionsbetween parrhesia and courage are according to Foucault (and according tosome of his readers). For Foucault, parrhesia necessitates courage becauseit is a mode of truth telling that inevitably raises a risk for the speaker.Indeed, we have here the two last and most important characteristics of theparrhēsiastēs: risk taking and courage. 68 Contrary to the teacher or the sage,the parrhēsiastēs is always in a dangerous position:Il faut pour qu’il y ait parrêsia que, en disant la vérité, on ouvre, on instaureet on affronte le risque de blesser l’autre, de l’irriter, de le mettreen colère et de susciter de sa part un certain nombre de conduites quipeut aller jusqu’à la plus extrême violence. C’est donc la vérité, dans lerisque de la violence. 69In the absence of injury, insult, or humiliation, there is no “true” philosophyaccording to Foucault.Thus, parrhesiastic philosophy is about guts; it is an unpleasant activitythat often ends with a victory of violence. 70 Largely following in the footstepsof Foucault, Monoson argues that Platonic philosophy can be describedas something that is “personally daring, dangerous, and courageous for thespeaker; as performing an unpleasant but ultimately beneficial service forthe polis by subjecting beliefs to rigorous criticism.” 71 We will reflect, in ourconclusion, on the desirability of characterizing philosophy (or politics, forthat matter) primarily in that way. But for now, let us turn to the Gorgias inorder to assess the claim made by Foucault that what primarily defines thephilosopher is courage and risk taking.As we noted above, Callicles seems to possess many of the traits of the“good parrhēsiastēs” (as defined by Foucault and Monoson). First, he daresto speak with a brutal sincerity. Moreover, he defends with ardor the primacyof courage—not only when he describes the true statesman primarily withreference to courage, but also when he claims that an excess of philosophywill lead to cowardice (485d–e, 491c, 492a–b). Finally, Callicles courageouslystands by (almost all) 72 his positions, and he seems to be ready to put his defini-68Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi, 56.69Foucault, Le courage de la vérité, 12; my italics.70Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi, 55. Cf. 217, where Foucault acknowledges that the violence of thephilosopher (and of his interlocutors) cannot go too far.71Monoson, Plato’s Democratic Entanglements, 164.72He will show some resistance when Socrates turns his words into praise for the life of the catamite.

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy8 5tion of justice into action. 73 Just like Thrasymachus in the Republic, Calliclesdemonstrates—in words and deeds—a violent courage and an erotics of risk(note the great admiration they share for great and brave “thieves,” thosecapable of immense acts of injustice). 74 (Is it revealing that Foucault considersCallicles to be a totally ordinary and respectable man, describing him as“un jeune homme à la fois bien, convenable et en somme tout à fait normal”? 75 )Despite all his predisposition to the courageous defense of his truth, Callicleswill not be able to participate for long in the dialectical exchange thattakes place—he will not even be able to open himself up to the possibilitythat his way of living and his conception of justice might be toxic for hissoul or for a city. Towards the end of the Gorgias, Socrates identifies whatprevents Callicles from giving in to philosophy: his immense desire for power(513c). According to Socrates, Callicles loves the dēmos excessively—which isobviously not meant to suggest that Callicles wants to improve the lot of themasses but rather (as is suggested by Callicles’s definition of justice) preciselythe contrary. Callicles loves excessively and loves badly. The good life, in hisview, is that characterized by immoderation and the courageous and endlesssatisfaction of desires—particularly that for power. As he explains to Socrates:[This] is what’s admirable and just by nature—and I’ll say it to you nowwith all frankness—that the man who’ll live correctly ought to allowhis own appetites to get as large as possible and not restrain them.And when they are as large as possible, he ought to be competent todevote himself to them by virtue of his bravery and intelligence, andto fill them with whatever he may have an appetite for at the time.(491e–492a)Now, this seems to be largely what is at the heart of the failure in the Gorgias:Callicles has no sōphrosunē—no control of his desires nor knowledge of theself. 76 In the Gorgias, moderation is described as a mastery of the self, “rulingthe pleasures and appetites within oneself” (491d–e). Callicles is incapableof this governing of the self (and hence, he is incapable of governing others).73Justice is when the courageous and intelligent rule over their inferiors and possess a lot more thanthem (Gorgias 490a).74Injustice here as meant by Plato and not by Callicles. Obviously, there are significant differencesbetween Callicles’s and Thrasymachus’s conceptions of justice, differences we cannot address here.75Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi, 339: “il n’y a rien d’extraordinaire dans le projet de Calliclès.”76What Platonic sōphrosunē calls for is not only a mastery of our unnecessary desires, but also aknowledge of the self. Indeed, sōphrosunē has both a cognitive and an ethical dimension. See WalterT. Schmid, “Socratic Moderation and Self-Knowledge,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 21, no.3 (July 1983): 339–48; North, Sophrosyne; Adriaan Rademaker, Sophrosyne and the Rhetoric of Self-Restraint (Leiden: Brill, 2005).

8 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2After all, Callicles is hardly capable of putting any semblance of order in theanarchy of his desires (nor is he interested in that); he insists that moderationis, in fact, a moral quality appropriate for “stupid” people (491e). Callicleshas failed to wage the most noble and courageous battle of all—that whichconsists in resisting one’s acquisitiveness. 77Callicles is thus essentially drunk, intoxicated by his desires for riches 78and power. Quite significantly for my purposes here, Callicles embodiesprecisely what characterizes bad parrhesia (and democracy) according toPlato: drunkenness and intemperance. In the Laws (within the context of adiscussion that seeks to legitimate the usage of symposiums in the learningof sōphrosunē), the Athenian stranger acknowledges the challenge posed byalcohol for self-control. Under the influence of wine, each speaks withoutrestraint and entertains illusions of grandeur: “Everyone is taken out of himselfand has a splendid time; the exuberance of his conversation is matchedonly by his reluctance to listen to his companions, and he thinks himself entitledto run their lives as well as his own” (671b; my italics). As many have noted,this description of the drunk soul is remarkably similar to that of the democraticsoul offered in the Republic (557b). 79 The close links between the drunk(immoderate) soul and bad (immoderate) parrhesia highlight the key role tobe played by sōphrosunē for achieving good parrhesia (the Athenian strangerwill indeed welcome it into the good city). For philosophy to be somethingother than empty chatter or tyrannical domination of others, the individualsthat participate in it must be moderate. To put it somewhat bluntly: nosōphrosunē, no parrhesia.The political importance of the moderate soul is fairly evident: the tyrannicalsoul (emblematic of immoderation) will be the one that has the mostcatastrophic impact on the city. As such, it seems problematic for Foucault toinsist that Socratic parrhesia in the Gorgias is completely dissociated from the77See Gorgias 526d. For a rich analysis of greed (in Plato and in ancient philosophers more generally),see Ryan Balot, Greed and Injustice in Classical Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).78Even though Callicles is clearly a wealthy man, it is revealing that he is keen on telling Socratesthat one of the benefits of rhetoric is to allow an individual to keep his riches. For some informationon the life of Callicles (largely an object of speculation) see Debra Nails, The People of Plato (Indianapolis:Hackett, 2002), 75–76; or the excellent introduction to the Gorgias provided by MoniqueCanto-Sperber (Paris: Flammarion, 2010).79Pradeau, Platon, les démocrates et la démocratie, esp. chap. 3. See also Marie-Pierre Noël, “Vin,ivresse et démocratie chez Platon,” in Vin et santé en Grèce ancienne, ed. J. Jouanna and L. Villard(Athens: École française d’Athènes, 2002).

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy8 7political problem. 80 Indeed, this dialogue could rather be seen as an attack onthe immoderate soul and immoderate politics: the politics of imperial Athens(which invests its energies in walls and ships instead of education: 515e,517c, 519); that of tyrannical regimes (468c); and that pursued by individualsdrunk with greed (507c–509b). 81 The end of the dialogue is explicit: whatAthens, its rulers, and its would-be philosophers need is not only courage, butalso moderation (518e–519a).This virtue calls for not only a certain renunciation (i.e., discriminateand decreased material consumption), but also, as Foucault has himselfnoted, a patient and regular discipline. 82 This askēsis certainly seems to haveascetic overtones, but it does not exclude the enjoyment of sensuous desires.The radical hedonism of Callicles is harshly attacked in the Gorgias butPlato’s oeuvre also has a hedonism to propose in turn. 83 At the heart of thisreflective and moderate hedonism stands the figure of Socrates, a model ofself-control—as is demonstrated by his remarkable capacity to remain soberat banquets, chaste at orgies, and serene in the face of insults.Put differently (and to say the obvious): Socrates is not Callicles—noris he Thrasymachus. But by elevating excessively the virtue of courage (andby completely overlooking the importance of moderation to true Platoniccourage), we could end up confounding Socrates with these two famouscharacters. Apart from the fact that it is not entirely faithful to Plato’s dialogues,a constant reference to “le risque dans la violence” is problematicbecause it gives (unintentionally perhaps) a certain legitimacy to violenceand injury, since these come to be seen as “proofs” of our critical-thinkingskills. 84 Moreover, by affirming that philosophy necessarily entails a risk tobe worthy of its name, we implicitly suggest that it is reasonable for someoneengaged in a serious dialogue to be wary of the other. If philosophy is to bedefined primarily through a reference to risk and pain (instead of friendshipand pleasure), distrust will likely constitute a great part of what it is about andtrust will become a hallmark of the absence of critical thought.80Foucault, Le gouvernement do soi, 190.81Moreover, Plato underlines the fact that it is rulers who should especially show a solid sōphrosunē(491d)—more than “the stupid” that Callicles mentioned (491d).82E.g. Foucault, Le gouvernement de soi, 249–50.83René Lefebvre, Platon philosophe du plaisir (Paris: L’harmattan, 2007).84Recall that only he who risks harvesting a violent reaction on the part of the other is a trueparrhēsiastēs—a true philosopher.

8 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2And yet, do not many of Plato’s dialogues underscore the importance oftrust and friendship (philia), not only for philosophy but also for all desirablehuman exchange? In the Laws, for instance, the Athenian stranger suggeststhat there is a close link between friendship and good parrhesia. 85 Indeed,we learn here that the latter cannot take place where there is great mistrust.Moreover, many dialogues present us with a Socrates who carefully builds therelationship of trust that he hopes to establish with his young interlocutors—think of the young Charmides, Lysis, Menexenus, Glaucon, or Adeimantus.Obviously, Socrates’s eros is not always successful (the disastrous failure withPolus, for instance, is all too obvious). Nevertheless, the Socrates of Platoseems to care immensely about building a “community of views”—and this,by manipulating discourse, using flattery, appealing to the imagination andto sentiment via myths and allegories, 86 and, often, by appealing to commonexperiences. In the Gorgias for instance, Socrates notes that Callicles andhimself share one highly significant passion (one that will allow conversationto begin): that of love (481c–d). Obviously, the rest of the dialogue will showus that Callicles’s love is all but healthy, but it is revealing that it is by appealingto a shared experience that Socrates tries to attract Callicles’s sick soul.A Progressive Platonism?The immediate aim of this essay was to offer friendly correctives to recentreadings of Plato by underscoring the fact that these underestimate the significanceof irony, of attentive silence and moderation in Platonic thought,and also by pointing out that these interpretations risk transforming Platonicphilosophy into something excessively procedural and Calliclean. Toavoid any misunderstanding: my intention is not to deny the importanceof the virtue of courage for philosophy (or for democratic politics for thatmatter). Rather, I wish to remind readers that this virtue of courage was onlydesirable, according to Plato, if it tended towards truth and the good and if itwas informed by self-control and self-knowledge. Foucauldian courage doesnot rest on a quest for truth or on a conception of the good, and it need notbe tied to a concept of moderation.As was noted in the introduction to this paper, the admitted goal ofsome of these democratic Platonists is to demolish for good the Popperian85Laws 694b. This passage is underscored by Foucault.86For a rich analysis, see Luc Brisson, Platon, les mots et les mythes (Paris: La découverte, 1994).

The Unbridled Tongue: Plato, Parrhesia, and Philosophy8 9accusation that Plato is an enemy of democracy. But there is also a moreimmediate political or ideological goal. To varying degrees, we find in thework of John Wallach, Peter Euben, Sara Monoson, and Arlene Saxonhousea desire to put some distance between Plato, on one hand, and Americanneoconservatism and the Right, on the other. For instance, Euben admitsthat his analysis seeks to overturn the “anti-democratic conservative” readingsof Socrates and thus, to allow for a “liberal or radical” reappropriationof Plato. 87 Monoson also claims that her democratic reading of Plato aimsat criticizing “the use to which the ‘authority’ of Plato has been put by latetwentieth-century conservative critics of democracy in the United States.” 88And while Saxonhouse’s Free Speech and Democracy puts forth a fairly generousand rich treatment of Strauss, Saxonhouse has recently published anarticle that explicitly seeks to challenge the conservative interpretation thatthe author seems to associate with Leo Strauss (or at least with some of hisstudents). 89Thus, Monoson, Saxonhouse, and Euben propose to reread Plato in a waythat makes the philosopher more amenable to a progressive type of politics.But I have suggested that using the Foucauldian analysis of parrhesia (andmore significantly, to apply what Foucault had to say about ethical or philosophicalparrhesia to politics) might not be the most convincing or effectivestrategy. As I noted above, I am not convinced that one can successfullyderive a democratic Platonic politics by playing up the form over the contentof Plato’s dialogues. Plato was no lover of democracy and it is precisely for hisradical criticisms of that regime that we should, again and always, attend tohis work. If critics of American conservatism want to enlist Plato’s authorityin order to enrich their progressive political project (something with which Iam highly sympathetic), they might want to turn, instead, to what Plato hadto say about greed, poverty, oligarchic regimes, and the neglect of education.87J. Peter Euben, “Democracy and Political Theory: A Reading of Plato’s Gorgias,” in Athenian PoliticalThought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy, ed. Euben, John Wallach, and Josiah Ober(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 199.88Monoson, “Frank Speech, Democracy and Philosophy,” 173.89Saxonhouse, “Socratic Narrative,” 732–33.

9 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2

Fulfillment in As You Like It9 1Fulfillment in As You Like ItR ic h a r d B u r rowrburrow@kendrick.reading.sch.ukSince Bloom and Jaffa’s seminal work most political philosophers who haveengaged with Shakespeare have placed him firmly in the classical tradition.1 Few have directly challenged this view, but occasionally it has beenacknowledged that there are elements in his thinking which are impossibleto reconcile with classical philosophy. David Lowenthal notes of Prosperothat it is his “three year daughter’s smile…and not his philosophy that borehim through the ordeal at sea,” and argues elsewhere that in Romeo andJuliet Shakespeare goes “beyond the value placed on sexual love by classicalphilosophers…celebrating a higher form of love in a new way.” 2 Scott Cridereven argues that Shakespeare “enacts a modern love” in the way he celebrates“the lyric will to constancy in love” in his sonnets. 3 If these critics are correct,Shakespeare would clearly be diverging from the classical tendency to valuefriendship only insofar as it facilitates philosophy. 4 The comedies are notoften studied by political philosophers—perhaps precisely because they seemto be concerned principally with love and friendship—but I would argue thatthey contain the heart of Shakespeare’s thought about the ways in which lovecan fulfill us. The events of As You Like It can easily be summarized: the hero,1See Allan Bloom with Harry V. Jaffa, Shakespeare’s Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1981). This approach informs such work as Paul A. Cantor, “Prospero’s Republic: The Politics ofShakespeare’s The Tempest,” in Shakespeare as Political Thinker, ed. John E. Alvis and Thomas G.West (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2000), 241–59; and John E. Alvis, “Shakespeare’s Understandingof Honor,” in Souls with Longing, ed. Bernard J. Dobski and Dustin A. Gish (Lanham, MD: LexingtonBooks, 2011), 3–38.2David Lowenthal, Shakespeare and the Good Life (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), 56;and Lowenthal, “Love, Sex and Shakespeare’s Intention in Romeo and Juliet,” in Souls with Longing, 181.3Scott F. Crider, “Love’s Book of Honour and Shame,” in Souls with Longing, 300.4David Bolotin, Plato’s Dialogue on Friendship (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979), 170.© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

9 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Orlando, and the heroine, Rosalind, are both forced to flee to the Forest ofArden, where they encounter Rosalind’s father, Duke Senior, who has alsobeen exiled. All three are followed into exile by loyal friends: Rosalind byher cousin Celia and Touchstone, her fool; Orlando by Adam, the faithfulfamily retainer; and Duke Senior by a number of lords, including Jaques,a quirky melancholic. Once in the forest, Rosalind tests out Orlando as apotential lover under the cover of her male disguise, and various pastoralcharacters are encountered, one of whom Touchstone marries. I will arguethat Shakespeare uses these apparently trivial events to smuggle in a carefullydeveloped and logically ordered argument. 5The play opens with the hero, Orlando, bitterly complaining about thetyrannical behavior of his elder brother Oliver since his father’s death. Headmits that mere “growth” is a “gain” and that he is given enough to eat, butcomplains bitterly that his brother “mines his gentility with his education”(1.1.10–14, 1.1.21). 6 The intensity of Orlando’s rage suggests that his hunger toadvance himself is as deep-seated as his need to eat, even though he recognizesdimly even at this point that social status, or “the courtesy of nations”as he calls it, is insubstantial compared to his innate “blood” (1.1.44–48). It isa similar desire for honor that seems to underlie his brother’s jealous convictionthat Orlando is more “enchantingly belov’d” by the people than himself(1.1.163–71). Both here and elsewhere in the play such ambitions are presentedas either fruitless or actively painful—in that they lead us to compare ourselvescontinually with others, while diverting us from what is intrinsicallysatisfying—but at the same time as deeply embedded in our nature. It shouldbe noted, however, that Orlando’s bold assault on his elder brother seems tobe provoked primarily by his attachment to his father’s memory, althoughhere, as is typical of his character in the early part of the play, pride and lovemerge in a rather confused way: “he is thrice a villain that says such a fatherbegot villains” (1.1.57–59).Shakespeare chooses this moment to emphasize his key theme throughinsistent references to the power of loyal devotion. We see Adam’s brave anddefiant devotion to his dead master’s memory, even though he is now officiallyattached to the tyrannical Oliver, and we learn the latest news from5For precedents see the work of Leo Strauss, especially Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1980); but see also Michael Murrin, The Veil of Allegory: Some Notestoward a Theory of Allegorical Rhetoric in the English Renaissance (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1969).6All references to the acts, scenes, and lines of the play and to other plays by Shakespeare are to TheRiverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans et al. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997).

Fulfillment in As You Like It9 3court: that the old duke, Rosalind’s father, has been banished by his youngerbrother Frederick, but followed into exile by “three or four loving lords,” whoendure the confiscation of their property as punishment for their loyalty;while Frederick’s daughter Celia has developed such a lasting attachmentto Rosalind, “being ever from their cradles bred together, that [she] wouldhave follow’d her exile, or have died to stay behind her” (1.1.63–64, 1.1.82–88,1.1.99–110). This bunching of parallel instances is one of the ways in whichShakespeare guides his readers and audiences to the philosophical interiorof his plays. All the key issues of the play have, I will argue, been introducedin this opening scene: “gentility,” “education,” and even “feeding” are allexplored at length later, while love and its relationship to spiritedness andself-sacrifice are Shakespeare’s central concern.Shakespeare develops this theme in the next scene by focusing on Rosalind’stremendous effort to restrain her grief over her exiled father: “Well,I will forget the condition of my estate, to rejoice in yours” (1.2.15–16). Allother passions are subordinated to the deep empathy which springs from herdevotion to her cousin. Celia feels exactly the same way:If my uncle, thy banished father,had banish’d thy uncle, the duke my father, so thouhadst been still with me, I could have taught mylove to take thy father for mine; so wouldst thou,if the truth of thy love to me were so righteouslytemper’d as mine is to thee.(1.2.9–14)There is no reason for this reprimand, however, for Rosalind has alreadydeclared that she is “show[ing] more mirth than [she is] mistress of,” forCelia’s sake (1.2.3–4). An early critic came close to the heart of the play whenhe noticed that the two friends possess “the gift of self-renunciation, whichrenders them strangers to all egotism,” adding that Rosalind’s friendshipwith Celia “lightened” her situation, since she “constrained herself from loveto her, to be more cheerful than became her position.” 7 Both women havea strong sense that their happiness depends on their mutual intimacy, soboth strive constantly to restrain any passion which threatens to disrupt thefriendship. This is the alchemy of love, Shakespeare suggests, by which themost intense desires are so “temper’d” as to point towards their own transcendence.Both women accept that their deepest needs are best fulfilled by7G. G. Gervinus, “Shakespeare Commentaries,” in “As You Like It” from 1600 to the Present, ed.Edward Tomarken (London: Routledge, 1997), 294.

9 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2turning away from all other needs, however pressing they may seem at thetime, in order to focus on the happiness of their friend. This section of thedialogue culminates in a great oath of loyalty by Celia, which is aimed atreinforcing Rosalind’s determination to devote herself fully to the friendship,since it should leave her completely confident that this effort will bemutual (1.2.19–22). The trust that Rosalind feels in Celia because of her deedsand vows fosters a lightness of heart which quickly allows her to becomedistracted from her grief and “devise sports” (1.2.24–25).Thus a close analysis of the love between Celia and Rosalind reveals thatit has an importance that is not usually recognized, since, despite occupyingonly two brief scenes, it represents Shakespeare’s most fully extended portrayalof a thoroughly equal, loyal, and mutually sympathetic attachment.He aims to remind us of both the overwhelming power and the paradoxicaleffects of our yearning for such attachments, substantiating his intuitive graspof human nature, as always, through a presentation of human relationshipswhich is so meticulously realistic as to be utterly convincing to harmonioussouls among the audience.Touchstone, who is the court’s clown and a close friend of Celia, is introducedas “Nature’s natural” and as an aid or “whetstone” in reasoning aboutnature and fortune (1.2.54–55). He arrives just as Rosalind is arguing thatbeauty and honesty could be classed as natural qualities (1.2.40–42). In reply,Celia stresses the ephemeral character of beauty, showing that the real questionhere is not which qualities are natural, but which of our natural qualitiescan help us to fulfill our nature: “when Nature hath made a fair creature,may she not by Fortune fall into the fire?” (1.2.43–44). Pleasures associatedwith our bodily appetites are fleeting, but Celia’s comment that “Nature hathgiven us wit to flout at Fortune” reminds us that we have been given onenatural quality at least which allows us to distinguish the transient fromthe durable and substantial (1.2.45). This is exactly what the fool proceedsto do, showing the vanity of “honor” through his story of the knight who“never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away,” and yet still retained hisreputation (1.2.78–79). Beauty is ephemeral and honor is insubstantial, but atleast it seems that those with “wit” are able to restrain their desire for suchhollow prizes. Touchstone himself remains in control of “Fortune” as far asis possible, since he pursues neither beauty nor honor, and so, as his nameimplies, becomes a sort of benchmark for what is naturally fulfilling. Nevertheless,although wit is clearly valued by all three characters and appearsto play a habitual part in their intimate friendship, it is important to note

9 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2cares deeply about his lowly position, and, further, that he sees the wrestlingas a way of regaining some of his pride, since the honor of victory is clearlythe unspoken corollary to the potential shame of defeat. The contest servesas an apt image for the way in which a spirited pursuit of honor involvessurrendering oneself to the vagaries of “Fortune” for no substantial reward,since victory leaves Orlando no better off and defeat would probably have ledto his death if Charles had followed Oliver’s hints (1.1.141–62).During the wrestling scene Shakespeare continues to explore the tensionbetween pride and love. It is typical that Rosalind urges Orlando towithdraw from the fight and to pay no more than lip service to “reputation”(1.2.180–82). Rosalind’s love for Orlando is not impeded by her poverty: asshe gives him her chain she says, “Wear this for me: one out of suits withFortune, that could give more, but that her hand lacks means” (1.2.246–47).She is not affected by “Fortune” in the way that Orlando is, because her lowlystatus is irrelevant to her deepest concerns. Her earlier, frustrated wish todiscuss falling in love has already shown that she is even less likely to bemotivated by conventional standards of honor than Celia (1.2.24–29; seealso 1.3.13–25), and now the speed with which she abandons any pretense ofmaidenly modesty in order to show her interest in Orlando underlines theextent to which she feels free to follow her natural desires: “My pride fell withmy fortunes. …Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown more than yourenemies” (1.2.252–55). Rosalind clearly realizes that love can bring far moresubstantial rewards than reputation. Less typically, however, Orlando is alsoin his turn suddenly overwhelmed by a passion which seems to proceed froma deeper level of his personality than we have previously seen:My better partsAre all thrown down, and that which here stands upIs but a quintain, a mere liveless block.(1.2.249–51)Shakespeare uses the image of the quintain—a wooden figure employed asa target for tilting—to suggest that Orlando has suddenly become at leastpartially aware of the insubstantiality and artificiality of the code of honorby which he has previously lived. This radical, if implicit, self-criticism,combined with his speechlessness and his confused realization that he hasperhaps been “overthrown” by “something weaker” than Charles, all implythat he is beginning to plumb unfamiliar depths within his own nature(1.2.259–60).

Fulfillment in As You Like It9 7At the start of act 1, scene 3 Shakespeare gives us another brief glimpseinto Rosalind and Celia’s friendship, once again examining their mutual selfrestraint.Again Celia remarks on the way Rosalind has withdrawn from her,but this time she invites her to “lame [her] with reasons” for her sadness;a process which she implicitly likens to throwing stones at a dog (1.3.3–6).She alludes here to the blind loyalty which is leading her to brace herself forconfidences that she knows are going to hurt her as if Rosalind’s pain wereher own; no doubt partly because they may reveal that her friend is not perfectlyfulfilled by their mutual attachment. Celia has clearly come to regrether earlier demand for Rosalind to restrain her grief, showing once againhow both women strive to overcome any feeling which threatens to take precedenceover their mutual sympathy and so frustrate their desire for absoluteunity. In response, Rosalind expresses a typically compassionate reluctanceto burden her friend with complaints, since they would then both be “laidup,” or equally crippled. Nevertheless, when Celia demands for a third timeto be allowed to share her friend’s feelings by asking whether she is missingher father, Rosalind seems to decide that it would hurt her cousin even moreto exclude her than to protect her from the truth and finally tells her that sheloves Orlando (1.3.1–12). In other words, she is driven to confide in Celia,not by her own misery, but by a feeling that she owes it to their friendship tobe honest, since she realizes that her friend has detected a potentially divisiveemotion. Thus she allows herself the relief of venting her feelings onlywhen the self-imposed restraints which are the price of this almost perfectharmony allow it. We can see that this harmony is preserved, and indeedadvanced, through both friends’ consistent willingness to prioritize eachother’s needs over their own, which binds them ever more closely togetherwith ties of gratitude and trust. With a characteristic mixture of warmth andprecise analysis Shakespeare has explored a friendship that seems to come asnear as possible to being perfectly harmonious.Celia is hurt in more ways than one by Rosalind’s confession of her lovefor Orlando, if one can judge by the number of times she suggests, apparentlysemiseriously, that her friend should try to restrain her passion. In the end,however, she declares that she “hate[s] not Orlando” (1.3.13–34). In fact sheresigns herself to Rosalind’s love for Orlando relatively quickly, given that itis likely to drive the first major wedge between two friends who have been“coupled and inseparable” from their infancy (1.3.73–76). She clearly realizesthat she must submit willingly to the partial loss of her friend in order toremain close to her. Rosalind’s response shows both her awareness that thesituation is painful for Celia and a confident conviction that she will be able

9 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2to control this pain: “do you love him because I do” (1.3.38–39). Like mirrorsarranged in an endless sequence, the two women strive to reflect eachother’s concerns and desires at every turn, and to moderate or release theirown passions according to the response which they anticipate in their friend.One feels that only a romantic attachment could have caused Rosalind tointroduce such a discordant note. She has evidently decided in the end thatOrlando brings the promise of an even deeper intimacy than she currentlyhas with Celia, and is therefore unwilling to restrain her love in the way thatshe has previously controlled her grief over her father’s exile. This is the firstof several indications that love can be ruthless as well as humble under certaincircumstances.Nevertheless the friendship between the two cousins is the clearest exampleof constancy in the play: an initial attachment is reinforced by an explicitdeclaration of loyalty and a consistent attempt to put the needs of one’s friendbefore one’s own, which creates successive layers of trust and gratitude, sothat, as far as is humanly possible, unity is achieved. In a typically succinctand indirect way Shakespeare has outlined a vision of The Good Life whichestablishes friendship as fulfilling in itself; something to be desired immoderatelyfor its own sake and secured only by moderating all other desires.Again the contrast is drawn through Duke Frederick, whose intense concernwith reputation gives rise to a sort of vicarious jealousy which leads himto warn Celia vehemently against Rosalind:Her very silence, and her patienceSpeak to the people and they pity her.Thou art a fool; she robs thee of thy name,And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuousWhen she is gone.(1.3.78–82)Rosalind’s complete lack of pride is what makes her loveable. It would appearthat even in political life—the main motive of which is honor, if one canjudge by the examples of Oliver and the duke—ambition has to be disguisedand restrained in order to achieve its objectives. To realize this is perhapsto start to ascend Shakespeare’s own version of the ladder of love that Platooutlines in the Symposium. Rosalind’s “silence, and her patience,” however,imply a far more radical indifference to honor itself than would ever becomprehensible to the duke, and this complete indifference to worldly statusis clearly shared by Celia, since her only reply to her father is to declarethat she must follow Rosalind into exile. As their earlier conversation with

Fulfillment in As You Like It9 9Touchstone implied, the two women understand fully the insubstantialityof honor from the vantage point of their own deep sense of intimacy andrealize that constancy consists of a continual struggle to master thoroughlythe tyrannical elements in their own souls. One can infer that self-restraintbecomes ever more important as one ascends what might be called the erotichierarchy. Celia’s great sympathy with her friend is quickly evident after herfather’s speech: “O my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?” She recognizesthat Rosalind’s grief may drive them apart, declaring, “I charge thee be notthou more griev’d than I am,” and quickly reminds her “that thou and Iam one” (1.3.90, 1.3.92, 1.3.97). Her decision to follow Rosalind into exile isonly the most concrete of the many sacrifices she makes as she strives for arelationship of complete harmony.The contrast between Celia and her father implies that the desire for honorwhich characterizes political life represents a more or less disguised expressionof precisely that tyrannical longing to dominate and possess which thetrue lover realizes must be carefully restrained in order to be fulfilled. Thus,in an irony that Plato and Xenophon would have appreciated in some ways,the immoderate duke is in fact less deeply erotic than his apparently muchmore temperate daughter. 9 Ultimately Celia sacrifices her status in the worldto achieve a greater good, whereas Duke Frederick, like Oliver, is constantlytormented by a fruitless envy. One may therefore conclude from the first actof the play that, whatever its political usefulness, the desire for honor representsa pervasive and dangerous distraction for the true lover.Whereas we have seen that act 1 is concerned centrally with the desirefor honor understood in relation to The Good Life, act 2 mainly deals withcommon self-love and the appetites that are rooted in the body; a subjectfirst introduced by Orlando when he grudgingly admitted that his one “gain”under his brother’s regime had been “growth” (1.1.14). The shift to the forestworld of Rosalind’s outlawed father, the ousted Duke Senior, represents atruly decisive break in the play (the stock division of the plays into five actsis a modern addition). The implication is that we have left the artificial worldof the court, in which Oliver, Frederick, and even Orlando are constantlycomparing themselves to others, in order to consider a more intrinsicallyfulfilling way of life. It is worth noting that the forest scenes in As You Like It,which form the backdrop to the explorations of self-love, “wit,” moderation,9Similarly, Plato thought that the tyrant would become a philosopher if he properly understood hisown desires: see Allan Bloom, Giants and Dwarfs: Essays 1960–1990 (New York: Simon and Schuster,1990), 168.

1 0 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2and spiritedness that follow, are unique in Shakespeare’s work in being set ina stylized version of an area close to his own birthplace, namely the Forestof Arden, where several of his forebears had lived, as is suggested by the factthat his mother’s surname was itself Arden. 10 This seems to suggest that thisis Shakespeare’s most directly personal play, perhaps because it deals withintuitions regarding The Good Life which can only be derived from our mostintimate relationships.The need to hunt for food in his exile “irks” Duke Senior because he feelsthat the deer have as much a right to occupy the forest as he does (2.1.22–25).His dilemma allows Shakespeare to explore the proper scope of self-love. Thefact that the duke does nevertheless hunt despite his qualms constitutes theone small exception in a life which otherwise seems to be entirely compassionate.The duke’s naturally loving nature has been reinforced by his Christianbeliefs: he uses the “sermons” of nature to contemplate his own vulnerabilityand responds later to Orlando’s plight with “sacred pity,” recalling his own“better days” when he had “with holy bell been knoll’d to church” (2.1.17,2.7.121–23). Nevertheless, the fact that he must give precedence at times to thepressing and incorrigibly private needs of the body is used to reveal that thereare limits even to “sacred pity.”One has to examine Jaques’s critique of Duke Senior and his followersto understand fully the implications of this point. Jaques—who is one ofthe duke’s attendant lords though very much his own man—declares evenmore radically than the duke that the outlaws are “mere usurpers, tyrants”in hunting animals in their “native dwelling place” (2.1.61–63). His effort atuniversal sympathy is, however, even more flawed than the duke’s, since heis not only perfectly willing to eat venison in the end, but is even the onlyone of the company to react at all greedily and aggressively to Orlando’s desperaterequest for food later on in the play (2.7.88–90). These inconsistenciesshow that both the duke and Jaques are demanding something of themselveswhich is beyond human nature, albeit for different reasons. Jaques’s constant“melancholy” and “sullen fits” are a sign of an inner disharmony whichhints at the failure of his idealistic attempt to transcend self-love completely(2.1.26, 2.1.67). Similarly, the universal charity that Christianity encouragesis reduced to absurdity by the duke’s worries about prioritizing his own species.Although the duke is a far more harmonious character than Jaques,gaining solid secular rewards for his warm-heartedness in the loyalty and10James Shapiro, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (London: Faber and Faber, 2005),270–71.

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 0 1love of his followers, he resembles the latter in his failure to understand thatthe truly fulfilled life, even at its most nobly self-denying, is founded on selflove.In contrast, both Rosalind’s partial desertion of Celia in order to pursueOrlando and the prolonged testing of her potential lover which follows showhow a deep understanding of one’s own needs leads one to make careful discriminationsin the search for fulfilling friendships.This is not to deny that the open and warm compassion exhibited bothby Duke Senior and the two women is deeply endearing. One may infer fromRosalind’s first meeting with Orlando that our pervasive longing for intimateattachments leads any harmonious soul to approach the world initiallyin a spirit of general benevolence and compassion, but to become more discriminatingwhen the possibility of a fulfilling friendship arises (1.2.173–82,1.2.194–98). The broadly contemporary setting of the play seems to suggestthat Christianity is more conducive to The Good Life than classical philosophy,no doubt because it encourages this broadly loving approach. On a morefundamental level, however, Shakespeare agrees with the classical view thatthe truly fulfilled life involves following one’s own deepest interests, even as hedefines these interests in a way that differs radically from Plato and Aristotle.In contrast with the duke, the philosophical Jaques is subject to a deepmelancholia which seems to stem from his determination to isolate himself.Despite his talk of justice he is an unconscious tyrant in his dealings with hisfellow men, as we see when he rides roughshod over Amiens’s repeated wishnot to sing again, as the two lords while away the time “under the greenwoodtree” (2.5.1–18). He sees gratitude—presented as the foundation of all loyalfriendships elsewhere in the play—simply as a ruse which obscures the factthat life is a matter of gratifying base appetites: “and when a man thanks meheartily, methinks I have given him a penny, and he renders me the beggarlythanks” (2.5.27–29). The contrast with Amiens shows how far Jaques is fromtrue fulfillment. Amiens’s initial refusal to sing is motivated partly by a worrythat music would increase Jaques’s melancholy and partly by a wish not toaggravate his own sore throat (2.5.10–24). Amiens is, in other words, concernedboth about himself and his companion: the song he sings celebratescompanionship and his music making itself functions as a fitting metaphorfor the harmonious interchanges that occur between friends, in which onecan simultaneously create joy for oneself and others (2.5.1–8). Jaques, on theother hand, sees himself as indulging his appetite for music with a purelyprivate relish, “suck[ing] melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs”(2.5.12–14). He sings his own song in a typically mocking spirit, reducing

1 0 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Amiens’s vision of pastoral harmony to “a Greek invocation, to call fools intoa circle” (2.5.59–60).Nevertheless, in demanding so insistently that Amiens continue his song,his deeper nature is asserting itself, for he is normally notoriously unmusical(2.7.5–6). He clearly finds both the music and Amiens’s celebration of friendshipdeeply attractive, but the fact that these moods are quickly followed bybouts of melancholy and mockery suggests that his radical attempt to detachhimself from the world is constantly obstructing this natural response. Ironically,Jaques’s selfishness seems to stem from this effort to focus exclusivelyon contemplation, since his desire for companionship is always assertingitself in opposition to his conscious principles in an uncontrolled and ungraciousway. In contrast, harmonious souls accept that they have needs whichmay lead them to tyrannize over deer—or even potential lovers, as we willsee later—but, once embarked on a close friendship, quickly realize that itrequires enormous restraint, precisely because it has become so central totheir lives.One implication of the contrast between Jaques and Amiens is that deepattachments give us a purpose and focus that allow us to thrive even underadverse circumstances. For Amiens, the joys of companionship outweighthe “winter and rough weather,” but Jaques merely mocks him for “leavinghis wealth and ease” (2.5.1–8, 2.5.51–53). These points are further reinforcedthrough the story of Orlando’s journey to the forest. When Orlando is entreatedto leave home by Adam, his loyal servant, who warns him that Oliver meansto burn him alive, he angrily rejects the idea of making a “thievish living” onthe roads at first, but his willingness to die at the hands of his brother ratherthan turn to theft seems merely proud rather than noble: he scornfully asksthe benevolent Adam whether he would have him beg (2.3.19–34). Orlando’sdismissive response to Adam’s pleas may remind us of Jaques’s desire not tohunt and of his own desperate decision to wrestle Charles, since in all threecases pride seems to lie at the root of a sort of self-destructiveness. Orlando,like Jaques, is reliant for his survival on his friends, who are more vigorouslyattached to life than he because they are more fulfilled.Adam, whose name evokes a state of natural, prelapsarian contentment,illustrates the link between love and vigor (2.3.46–62): although old, he ishealthy because his life has been lived moderately, probably because its mainfocus has been his immoderate devotion to Orlando and his father. It is thisthat leads him now to give his master all his savings and to follow him as heflees from his murderous brother (2.3.45–46). His temperate way of living,

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 0 3avoiding “hot and rebellious liquors,” has made a “lusty winter” of his ageand allowed him to become a wealthy man through “the thrifty hire [he]saved” as a servant of Duke Senior, but these are incidental benefits, stemmingfrom an inner harmony which leads him to sacrifice them all for love ofOrlando (2.3.38–39, 2.3.49, 2.3.52). Shakespeare shows that self-love is transmutedinto courageous loyalty in a truly rewarding life: Adam prioritizeshis devotion to the family not only over any physical appetites which mighthave caused “weakness and debility” if given free rein, but even at this pointover his sense of self-preservation itself (2.3.51). Paradoxically, a thoroughlytemperate and vigorous life turns out to be dependent on a willingness tosacrifice that life at any point. As with the portrayal of Duke Senior, Shakespearealso touches here on the way in which Christianity can support usin overcoming our baser nature: Adam trusts to Him “that doth the ravensfeed [and] providently caters for the sparrow” (2.3.43–44). It is a measureof the gulf between Shakespeare and the classical philosophers that Adamand the duke seem to be as close to finding genuine fulfillment as the morephilosophical Touchstone.Although, as we have seen, Orlando’s pride is initially contrasted withAdam’s humble devotion, it is his gratitude to Adam rather than the thoughtof the five hundred crowns that sustains him as he is eventually persuadedto make good his escape: he praises Adam for his “constant service” with nothought of reward (2.3.57). It is striking, however, that Adam does feel he hasbeen thoroughly recompensed, in that he has been given a chance to expresshis gratitude and so to “die well, and not [his] master’s debtor” (2.3.76). Thefinancial metaphor which he uses here suggests that the rewards he hopes togain from returning his master’s love and thus consolidating their friendshipare absolutely as real as the five hundred crowns.Adam and Orlando’s relationship does indeed develop from now on intoa fulfilling friendship between equals, which, like Celia and Rosalind’s, isbased on gratitude and mutual sympathy. When they too have inevitablymade their way to the forest, Orlando refuses to take food until, “like a doe,”he “go[es] to find [his] faun,” recognizing that Adam has “limp’d” after himin “pure love” (2.7.128–31). Paradoxically, Orlando’s drive to preserve his ownlife is strengthened by his new focus on preserving Adam’s rather than hisown. His gratitude leads him to reject his earlier proud squeamishness andresolve to find food by violent means if necessary, and he initially attemptsto steal food from the exiled duke (2.6.6–8, 2.7.88–99). One can see again therole that suffering plays in strengthening the bonds of friendship, but here

1 0 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2gratitude, which, contra Jaques, is shown to lie at the heart of our impulse totranscend the baser forms of self-love in friendship, proves also to be absolutelycentral to our attachment to life itself, since it leads to that sense ofcomplete trust and harmony upon which a truly fulfilling life is founded.Adam’s humble devotion also seems to make Orlando question his ownpride, an important stage in his development, which perhaps enables him toreach a point where he is worthy of Rosalind’s love. He hopes now to “lightupon some settled low content” and seems to have lost his urge to distinguishhimself (2.3.68).The second part of Shakespeare’s argument is therefore that The GoodLife is rooted in self-love, but a self-love which has been radically transformed.Suffering comes to be seen as the inevitable price of true fulfillment once onehas experienced the robust and temperate joy which is to be found in thosefriendships where both the parties involved are willing to sacrifice their ownpride and pleasures in order to achieve a greater intimacy. The forest settingwhich forms the backdrop to much of the play seems designed to show thatthe true test of love is loyalty in the face of suffering. As Amiens’s song states,“Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly” when seen from theperspective of the “winter wind” and the “green holly,” which is alone truly“jolly,” presumably because hardship binds men together with ties of gratitudeand trust such as those we have seen form between Adam and Orlando(2.7.180–83). In contrast, “the envious court” seems to encourage flattery andingratitude, reminding us again that honor has no place in The Good Life(2.1.1–11, 2.7.175–76, 2.7.185–89).The introduction of the shepherds Silvius and Corin enables Shakespeareto extend his meditation on the proper role and status of self-love andthe bodily appetites to encompass sexual desire. Silvius feels that his olderfriend, Corin, cannot have been a true lover if he has forgotten any of thelittle romantic gestures that characterize the start of a love affair. Touchstone,however, knows that “as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortalin folly” (2.4.55–56). His claim to be a “true lover” despite the fact that his passion“grows something stale” suggests that love is not in its essence the fiercedesire that drives Silvius to run frantically about the forest (2.4.54, 2.4.62).Touchstone’s first love, Jane Smile, no doubt possessed the superficial beautythat her name implies, but he has clearly come to value sturdier qualities, ashis courtship of Audrey is soon to reveal (2.4.46–48). We have already seen inthe earlier conversation between Rosalind and Celia that the main problemwith beauty is its fleeting quality, its exposure to “Fortune,” as well as the

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 0 5fact that it rarely coincides with constancy (1.2.37–39, 1.2.43–44). Touchstonelater echoes this point in his comment on the court ladies, reported by Jaques,that if they “be but young and fair, they have the gift to know it” (2.7.37–38).The hallmark of Rosalind’s love is fidelity rather than intense desire, as isimplied by her prolonged testing of Orlando, although the fact that she identifieswith Silvius’s desperation reminds us that it is physical passion whichgives romantic love its initial impetus (2.4.60–61).As the conversation between Touchstone and the two women in act1, scene 2 might have led us to anticipate, the third issue that Shakespeareraises is the crucial one of the relationship between “wit” and The Good Life.Jaques’s account of the ages of man is triggered by Duke Senior’s typicallycompassionate reflections on Orlando’s plight:We are not all alone unhappy:The wide and universal theatrePresents more useful pageants than the sceneWherein we play in.(2.7.136–39)Whereas the duke uses the theatrical image to reflect sympathetically on thesuffering of others, Jaques hijacks it to express a radical detachment. Theexperience of a lover, for instance, is reduced to a series of clichéd, externalsymptoms (2.7.147–49). The famous speech is undermined, as many criticshave realized, by the entrance of Adam, whose fierce loyalty makes him somuch more vividly alive than the senile, decrepit relic who represents old agein Jaques’s account. One is not surprised to see Jaques begging to becomethe duke’s fool, since this position would allow him to remain a detachedspectator; he would be in the company, but not of it, and would commentgenerally on pride without concerning himself with any specific individual(2.7.42–87). When he overhears the fool philosophizing, he merely begins to“crow” with laughter “that fools should be so deep contemplative,” managingto maintain his superiority even as he relishes Touchstone’s meditations onthe insignificance and ephemerality of human life (2.7.28–33).The difference between Touchstone’s speech and Jaques’s reflections onthe ages of man is that the fool sees human life as a process of “ripening” aswell as “rotting” (2.7.24–27). Shakespeare hints that Touchstone is not exploringthe brevity of human life for its own sake, but as part of a larger desireto lead a thoroughly mature life, which possibly culminates in his humblemarriage with Audrey. In contrast, in his purely negative view of human society,in which pride is seen as universal, “flow[ing] hugely as the sea,” Jaques

1 0 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2is perhaps merely seeing the world in his own image and showing his lackof understanding of the ordinary human attachments by which Touchstonetakes his bearings (2.7.72). He does not realize that his single-minded pursuitof the contemplative life is driving a wedge between himself and his friends,rendering him not only incapable of reciprocating the keen relish which theduke takes in their friendship, but also even incapable as a philosopher ofunderstanding the ways in which such friendships can be fulfilling. From thephilosophical perspective, as Plato perhaps implies at the end of the Symposium,most human affairs may be comic, but here Shakespeare seems to mockthis detached standpoint itself by indicating that the attempt to lead a purelycontemplative life is likely to be in part itself merely an expression of pride.Jaques does occasionally seek philosophical conversations, but the philosopheras he is understood in the classical tradition must always be isolated ina sense, since he must constantly be checking whether any particular friendshipis conducive to the pursuit of his enquiries. Thus Jaques rejects Orlandountil he shows his “nimble wit” (3.2.253–57, 3.2.276–77).All of this is by no means to deny, however, that Jaques is genuinely curiousand “full of matter,” as the duke realizes (2.1.68). Ironically, many of hisremarks, but particularly his response to Touchstone and the ages-of-manspeech, show clearly that he has meditated deeply on human insignificanceand the folly of pride. Moreover, there is no doubt that he is motivated inthese meditations by the intense curiosity which is the primary characteristicof the true philosopher: his gleeful, hour-long fit of laughter is only partly atTouchstone’s expense, for his abrupt decision to imitate the fool shows howmuch he relishes a “deep contemplative” approach to life.The duke’s own curiosity is, by contrast, bound up with his open andsociable approach to life. He eagerly seeks Jaques out even though the latteravoids him, saying that he is “too disputable” (2.5.35). This is not, however,a purely philosophical friendship in the classical sense, even from the duke’spoint of view. The passionate nature of his attachment is evident in the wayhe describes himself as one of Jaques’s “poor friends who must woo [his]company” when reproaching him for his solitary life (2.7.10). He clearlytakes delight in Jaques’s character for its own sake as well as relishing hiswit, frequently teasing him affectionately, as when alluding to his tone-deafapproach to music or his sinful past (2.7.5–6, 2.7.64–69). He notices Jaques’suncharacteristic happiness immediately, even before the latter mentionsoverhearing Touchstone’s entertaining speech, showing a sympathy whichis clearly born of deep affection (2.7.11). By contrasting Jaques’s melancholy

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 0 7detachment with the way in which the duke’s understanding is always regulatedby his loving nature, Shakespeare suggests that thought must servesomething beyond itself in order to be truly useful. This is not, of course,to deny that philosophical conversation forms an enjoyable element of theduke’s friendship with Jaques, just as it does in Celia’s relationships withTouchstone and Rosalind.In contrast to Jaques, as we have seen, Touchstone aims to benefit fromhis recurrent musings. He says to Corin of the shepherd’s life that “in respectof itself it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught”(3.2.12–14). This seeming nonsense in fact points to the difficulty of arrivingat a firm sense of what is good in itself, regardless of social status. Touchstonegoes on to say that the shepherd’s life is good in that it is “solitary” and “in thefields,” but adds that it seems merely “private” or “not in the court” when contrastedwith his previous existence (3.2.15–20). The shepherd’s life certainlyinvolves paring down one’s physical needs, but again it is the contrast withthe “plenty” of the court which causes discontent, rather than the abstemiousdiet itself (3.2.19–21). Touchstone sees that we involve ourselves in ceaselesscomparisons, which distract us from life’s intrinsic joys. This is clearly aninternal dialogue that he is rehearsing, which suggests that he is constantlyemploying philosophy—to which he refers twice in this scene for the firsttime (3.2.21, 3.2.32)—to restrain both his ambitions and his physical desires.Touchstone’s attempt to be fully aware of the demands of his own nature at alltimes means that he remains remarkably unaffected by religious and moraltraditions, as is shown by his initial willingness to be married under a tree(3.3.65–66). Similarly Rosalind sees inconstancy as a sign of weakness ratherthan immorality; the mark of a “sheep’s heart” (3.2.423–24). She does refer toreligion at one point, but only in order to convey the intensity of Orlando’skisses, which are “as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread” (3.4.13–14).On a superficial level we are clearly invited to laugh at Touchstone’s lowstandards when he decides to court Audrey, a poor and ugly farm laborer,but one of the most intelligent critics of the play realizes that Touchstonehas genuinely been “thrown down” by “love’s order” with all its “duties ofservice in just the same way as Orlando and Rosalind.” 11 Another uses thecompliment Celia pays Touchstone when she declares emphatically that hewill follow her “o’er the wide world” to show that “he is a man to be dependedon,” and, unlike many critics, takes absolutely seriously the possibility that11John Russell Brown, “Love’s Order and the Judgment of As You Like It,” in Twentieth Century Interpretationsof “As You Like It,” ed. Jay L. Halio (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1968), 81–82.

1 0 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2his marriage with Audrey will be successful. 12 Touchstone’s desire to marryAudrey is rooted in a cool understanding of his own deep longing for a loyalfriend. His concern lest he be cuckolded is clear, despite being expressedflippantly (3.3.51–63). It leads him to scorn convention and seek out a partnerof low status, whom he considers more likely to be virtuous than theladies of the court. Touchstone’s anxiety on this point is indicated by the factthat he has made her swear to him that she is strictly “honest,” even thoughshe seems extraordinarily chaste anyway (3.3.18, 3.3.25–26, 3.3.33–34).One may be reminded here of Rosalind’s indifference to the conventionalcode of maidenly modesty and indeed to Orlando’s lowly status when shefirst met him. Like Touchstone, the main thing that concerns her is loyalty.Touchstone shows all the desire to serve Audrey—by “fetch[ing] up” hergoats—and the anxiety as to whether he is “the man” for her that we mightsee in more romantic lovers (3.3.1–4), but perhaps goes further even thanRosalind in understanding the very core of the fulfilled life: his relationshipwith Audrey abstracts constancy from all the other elements that could helpto make up a happy marriage, such as wit, status, and sexual attraction (a tripartitedivision which again echoes the earlier discussion of beauty, honor,and wit [1.2.37–80]), because he is aware that it is the one quality which isabsolutely essential. He certainly responds to the “sugar” of beauty, for he“hath his desires,” but he comments approvingly on Audrey’s “foulness,”since he realizes, not only that constancy is a greater good, but also that it isactually aided by ugliness (3.3.30–31, 3.3.40–41, 3.3.80–81).Touchstone’s recognition that his verses “cannot be understood” byAudrey, nor his “good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding,”reveals that he is even prepared to sacrifice his philosophy in his attempt toestablish a thoroughly trusting and loyal relationship. He does, however,regret Audrey’s lack of education much more than her ugliness or low status,declaring that “he would the gods had made [her] poetical” (3.3.12–16). Thissuggests that “wit” could easily play its part in a deep friendship, as it doesin his relationship with Celia, even though it is not absolutely integral to TheGood Life. Touchstone is very much a philosopher in the classical mold in hisdetachment from the conventions of the day and in the way he subordinatescertain aspects of his own nature to his ruling passion, but his evident enjoymentof philosophy does not prevent him from valuing thought primarilyas a means to guide himself towards “ripeness” through a thorough understandingof his own need for love.12J. B. Priestley, “The English Comic Actors,” in “As You Like It” from 1600 to the Present, 448, 452–53.

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 0 9Nevertheless, Touchstone’s very decision to marry, in however unorthodoxa fashion, shows a belief that even the philosophically inclined need socialconventions to reinforce their determination to remain constant (3.3.90–94).He is aware that “as the ox hath his bow…, the horse his curb, and the falconhis bells, so man hath his desires: and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would benibbling” (3.3.79–82). His metaphors point to the paradox that it is marriagerather than unbridled passion which liberates our nature, since it helps usto fulfill our deep yearning for constancy. Touchstone almost “stagger[s]” inhis project, with a “fearful heart,” since he is fully aware of the chaotic powerof physical desires: “as horns are odious, they are necessary” (3.3.51–52). Itseems that he is resisting fiercely the despairing thought that must occurto anyone philosophically inclined—especially in modern and early moderntimes—that our nature is inescapably bestial. He has already expresseddoubts about his paradoxical project of a “natural” marriage, and quicklyagrees with Jaques that it is best not to be “married under a bush” (3.3.49–51,3.3.83–84). He acknowledges the role that conventional religious traditionsplay in restraining aspects of our nature when he reflects that it would bebetter to be married in a church by a proper priest, lest, “not being well married,it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife” (3.3.92–94).He is aware that fickleness is part of our nature, which means that our higherimpulses need every available support from society.It is significant that Jaques’s most useful and least typical action in thewhole play is to advise Touchstone to marry in church rather than followinghis natural bent, for, if he were to be married “under a bush” rather thanin church, his original nature might reassert itself and, “like green timberwarp, warp” (3.3.83–89). Here once again Jaques contradicts his habitualpessimism, perhaps revealing a vicarious longing for an enduring love, aswell as an uncharacteristic faith in the power of sacred traditions to reinforceour rational decisions and harmonize the potentially chaotic elements withinhuman nature.Touchstone’s partial reliance on convention might make us wonderwhether the radical disillusionment of the philosopher is the best way ofachieving The Good Life. One could infer from Jaques’s and Touchstone’sworries about marriage conducted “under a bush” that the latter’s extremescepticism could have endangered his chances of happiness were it not forhis clear understanding of his own ultimate goal. This is especially truebecause, as we have seen, he is prone to define himself as an animal and so tosee adultery as natural. The fact that Audrey has come to set the same value

1 1 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2on absolute loyalty as Touchstone by a very different route seems to suggestthat a thorough habituation in a moral and religious tradition can guide andrestrain our passions at least as effectively as a clear understanding of humannature. Audrey refers to the gods four times in act 3, scene 3 (23–24, 33–34,38–39, 47), even thanking them for making her “foul” and therefore “honest”(3.3.33–39). Similarly, Corin the shepherd has been given a moral code whichenables him to “envy no man’s happiness, [be] glad of other men’s good, contentwith [his own] harm,” so that the “greatest of [his] pride is to see [his]ewes graze” (3.2.74–77).The contrast between the philosopher and the nonphilosopher is hintedat when Corin’s simple feeling of fatherly affection for his ewes is broughtinto question by Touchstone’s blunt reminder that he gets “his living by thecopulation of cattle.” This is merely the culmination of a series of remarks inwhich the fool attempts in a semiserious way to enlighten Corin as to his ownbestial nature by pointing out that the “grease of a mutton [is] as wholesomeas the sweat of a man” and that the civet which is used in perfumes at courtis derived from animals (3.2.55–69). Corin can in the end do no more thanchange the subject without answering Touchstone’s accusation that he is a“bawd” in the way he “bring[s] the ewes and the rams together” in a veryungodly way, even though he has defended his position sturdily up to thispoint (3.2.78–87). Luckily for him, Touchstone, like his creator, is flippantenough to avoid ruffling any deeply held beliefs by these remarks. As with theduke and Jaques, Corin’s treatment of animals has been used to show that hislife is in one sense inevitably rooted in self-love rather than compassion, butin his case it is important that he does not realize this, lest he come to questionthe integrity of the principles by which he lives. Similarly, although thepartly philosophical duke understands that eating meat is incompatible withhis Christian compassion, this insight causes him some discomfort. Touchstone’sthoroughly philosophical insight into his own partly bestial nature is,on the other hand, clearly useful to him, because it spurs him on to marryAudrey. Shakespeare’s recognition that there are two mutually incompatiblepaths to virtue perhaps explains his characteristic strategy of expressing hismost serious points in apparently trivial scenes.The underlying argument in the last few scenes has been that philosophycan help some people to pursue a fulfilling life, but is not essential to TheGood Life itself. Audrey perhaps asks the most important question regardingTouchstone’s poetry: “Is it honest in word and deed? Is it a true thing?”(3.3.17–18). Fulfillment is to be found mainly in an active life of love rather

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 1 1than purely in contemplation, so it is more important to ask whether a poetis honest in his life than whether his poetry is beautiful or profound. Conversely,when Jaques wishes to absent himself from the party at the end of theplay in order to enter a monastery, where he hopes that “there is much matterto be heard and learned,” he may remind us of the fictional lover whomRosalind tells Orlando she “cured” by inducing in him “a living humor ofmadness, which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in anook merely monastic” (5.4.184–85; 3.2.418–21). Rosalind’s covertly scornfulimplication is that to follow a purely contemplative life is to enter a backwaterwhich cuts us off from the current of our deepest desires.Orlando, having made his way to Arden with the faithful Adam, has takento pinning love poems to Rosalind on trees, unaware that she too is living inthe forest. Touchstone mocks the way in which he equates Rosalind’s “worth”with her beauty in his first poem, implying through his scornful references toharts, hinds, cats, and pricks that it is merely an expression of animal attraction(3.2.88–114). He is silent, however, about the second one, which contrastsRosalind’s chastity and Orlando’s own constancy with the brevity of life andthe tragedy of “violated vows,” thus implicitly agreeing with the high valuethat Orlando sets on a thoroughly enduring love (3.2.125–54). The suggestionis that, although it may be beyond human nature to focus exclusivelyon the immutable realm of ideas, we nevertheless still find our fulfillmentthrough resisting the mutability of our own passions as far as is possible. Aswith the earlier contrast between Silvius and Corin, the implied progressionof Orlando’s love shows that the intense physical desire which characterizesromantic love in its early stages can in some cases trigger a more enduringloyalty. In the second poem Orlando praises Rosalind for havingHelen’s cheek, but not her heart,Cleopatra’s majesty,Atalanta’s better part,Sad Lucretia’s modesty.Thus Rosalind of many partsBy heavenly synod was devis’d.(3.2.145–50)Here again Shakespeare employs a tripartite division of the soul, but oncemore he adds a fourth ingredient: Orlando’s list implies that beauty, aCleopatra-like power or spiritedness, and wit (“Atalanta’s better part”) canall play their part in romantic love, but by ending with “sad Lucretia’s modesty”he shows a new understanding that Rosalind’s most important qualityis her chastity; the crucial requisite for a lasting marriage.

1 1 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Unlike Touchstone, Jaques mocks Orlando’s love itself (3.2.259–60,3.2.270–72, 3.2.282, 3.2.291–92). Typically, as we have seen, his only interestseems to be in Orlando’s intelligence: “You have a nimble wit; I think ’twasmade of Atalanta’s heels. Will you sit down with me? And we two will railagainst our mistress the world, and all our misery” (3.2.276–79). Jaques is aseager to talk to Orlando as he was to avoid the duke, as we have seen, showingthat he is as ambivalent in his attitude to dialogue as he is to music and venison.He would perhaps claim that conversation is only to be valued insofaras it facilitates philosophy, but the audience may again feel that he is moresociable than he realizes, since he later tries to engage Rosalind in conversation(4.1.1–2). In any case, Orlando rejects his invitation with some scorn,declaring that he will use his wit to criticize his own faults (3.2.280–94). Thisself-criticism is useful, for Orlando’s aim will presumably be to overcomethe pride which has been one of his chief characteristics, so that he can “liveand die [Rosalind’s] slave,” whereas Jaques’s detached analysis of society will,as we have seen, only serve to bolster his sense of superiority (3.2.154). Thecontrast between Jaques and Orlando is sharpened by their references to theAtalanta legend in the lines quoted above: whereas Orlando uses it to showthat he appreciates Rosalind’s wit as one ingredient of her charm, but balancesthis with praise for her constancy, Jaques focuses on the intellect to theexclusion of all else and has no notion of finding fulfillment through love.Orlando clearly has the intelligence to engage in philosophical dialogue, asJaques recognizes, but, like Rosalind, his priorities are elsewhere. The audiencemay well agree with him when he pugnaciously defends his love againstJaques’s attack, declaring that if it is a fault, it is superior to Jaques’s “bestvirtue” (3.2.282–84).Like Touchstone, Rosalind employs great ingenuity in order to secure aconstant love in a fickle world. Her initial excitement when she learns thatOrlando is in the forest is almost immediately matched by a contrasting prudence:“O ominous! He comes to kill my heart” (3.2.246). She is worried thatOrlando shows none of the signs of suffering that are the usual characteristicof the serious lover, so she decides to test his love in an extremely cautiousand restrained way, while preserving her male disguise; presumably with aview to suppressing her feelings if Orlando should be found to be untrustworthy(3.2.369–84). For some time the outcome is uncertain, as Rosalindcarefully balances Orlando’s apparent loyalty against his occasional unreliability,using his punctuality to measure his capacity for self-control andconsideration (3.4.4–26). She affects to deny that anyone ever died for loveand accuses herself of infidelity in order to test his response, worrying that

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 1 3“men are April when they woo, December when they are wed” (4.1.94–108,4.1.116–19, 4.1.147–48, 4.1.160–69). The strength of her determination toconceal her love is shown by her repeated insistence that she is “counterfeiting”even though she has just fainted out of intense sympathy with Orlando’swounds (4.3.165–82). Rosalind cannot help her passionate attachment toOrlando, but she can prudently protect herself from excessive suffering byselecting only loyal friends. Thus Rosalind’s conversations with Orlandoagain show that the main use of “wit” is extremely practical.Having concluded his tripartite analysis of desire, Shakepeare moveson to measure the value of The Good Life more directly, using Rosalind’srelationship with Orlando to explore the balance between pleasure and painthat the true lover experiences. Rosalind is clearly hurt when Orlando islate, whereas Jaques’s sadness always seems slightly affected, even though hehimself criticizes scholars whose “melancholy…is emulation” (4.1.10–11). Inreality, Jaques too takes pride in his melancholy, claiming self-consciouslythat it stems from “the sundry contemplation of [his] travels, in which [his]often rumination wraps [him] in a most humorous sadness” (4.1.17–20). Thefact that he does not truly suffer is a sign that he is only half alive; Rosalindthinks of him as little better than a “post” (4.1.9). Conversely, the young loversare nothing if not vividly alive; Rosalind comments that time “trots hard”with a young maid about to be married—“If the interim be but a se’nnight,Time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year”—whereas forscholars, who carry the “burthen of lean and wasteful learning,” and forlawyers, who “sleep between term and term,” the implication is that timedrags slowly (3.2.312–33). The potent mixture of pleasure and pain that characterizesintense love is illustrated by the way in which Rosalind breaks offabruptly from her scolding of Orlando for his tardiness to deliver a passionateplea: “Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour” (4.1.68–69). Like the maid who “trots hard,” her “thought runs before her actions,”showing that she is in an agony of excitement as she anticipates her marriageto Orlando (4.1.141). As with the maid, it is Rosalind’s intense physical attractionto Orlando that would inevitably create this mixed experience, even ifshe were not worried about his loyalty. In this early stage of their courtshipRosalind is tempted to see language as merely useful for “entreaty” and loveas culminating in the wordless intensity of a kiss (4.1.72–80).Nevertheless, Rosalind is ultimately far more aware than Jaques that noneof our actions can be truly thoughtful unless they help us to fulfill ourselves,as we can see when she tells him curtly that she would “rather have a fool to

1 1 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2make [her] merry than experience to make [her] sad” (4.1.28–29). Thus it issurprising at first glance that she allows herself to suffer at first much moreintensely than Jaques. Her superior awareness makes it unlikely that she issimply being blinded by sexual desire; rather, her behavior implies a beliefthat, if one is prudent, the inevitable pains of love need never come close toovershadowing its joys. This means that love must ultimately be more thanthe intense mixture of pleasure and pain that she is currently experiencing.For Rosalind, constancy is, as we have seen, not primarily a matter of followingmoral and religious codes, but a natural consequence of deep love, while,conversely, unreliability is a sign that one is “heart-whole” (4.1.49). This suggeststhat the intense early stages of love may provide the initial impetus fora loyal relationship. Passionate love will not last in its initial form, but will,as the earlier argument between Silvius and Corin implies, eventually settledown, if properly managed, into a much more moderate way of life, where thecalm joys of intimacy will outweigh—and indeed be reinforced by—the sacrificeswhich any mature friendship must entail. The fact that the attachmentswhich come closest to illustrating The Good Life—Celia’s with Rosalind andAdam’s with Orlando—are nonsexual suggests that romantic love is onlyone of the ways of developing fulfilling friendships. In the end the lovers’courtship culminates, not in a kiss, but in a mock wedding—one of manyreferences to marriage in the play (4.1.124–41). The mature phase of love isillustrated most vividly in the attachment between the two women—whichalso culminated in Celia’s formal vow of loyalty—but thoughtful membersof the audience might also respect Touchstone’s attempt to move directly tothis phase, even though his cool decision to sidestep the earlier and, from hispoint of view, irrelevant, stages is in one sense comic.This is not to deny that romantic love may in some cases constitutethe most powerful catalyst to a life of loyal devotion; indeed, it should beremembered that Rosalind almost immediately allowed her love for Orlandoto overshadow not only her grief regarding her father’s exile, but even herfriendship with Celia. Rosalind is already, however, shrewdly aware of themiddle ground between the maid who “trots hard” and the living death of thescholars and sleeping lawyers, which is occupied by the “rich man” who “livesmerrily because he feels no pain” and so might be said to “amble” throughlife (3.2.313–33). Such a man is fully alert to the demands of his own nature;more lively than the scholars who pursue “wasteful learning”—who may wellremind us of Jaques—but less impatient than the trotting maid, who mightremind us of Silvius in the way that she is at the mercy of “love’s keen arrows”(3.5.31). It is likely that Rosalind is coyly anticipating life with Orlando here,

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 1 5for the rich man is implicitly contrasted with the maid impatient to be married.This contrast may remind us of the moment when Rosalind goes to“sigh” until Orlando comes, while Celia, still content with the old friendship,is ready to sleep (4.1.216–18). One may conclude that the joy to be gainedfrom a deep attachment ultimately outweighs its pains by some way, sincesuffering is greatly reduced in a mature marriage, where loyalty is assuredand sexual desire no longer dominates, although the constant need to maintainsympathy will still mean that one frequently has to sacrifice one’s ownpleasures, as we have seen.The last part of the play is used for a more detailed examination of theways in which moderation and spiritedness can contribute to The Good Life.In the short scene in which Jaques accompanies his fellow lords as they maketheir triumphant return to the duke after a successful deer hunt, the hunters’song seems to endorse Touchstone and Jaques’s suspicion that cuckoldry is aninevitable byproduct of our animal nature:Take thou no sin to wear the horn,It was a crest ere thou wast born;Thy father’s father wore itAnd thy father bore it.(4.2.13–16)There is clearly some truth in this sentiment, but it was Jaques who suggestedthat this song be sung, and Shakespeare chooses this moment to remind usthat the latter is extremely unmusical through his comment that it need notmatter whether the song “be in tune, so it makes noise enough” (4.2.8–9).Here, as elsewhere, Jaques seems unaware of the power of self-restraint tocreate harmonious relationships. As ever, Touchstone is contrasted to Jaquesin the way he controls his ambition, his sexual desire, and even his wit inorder to become a loyal and humble lover, but it is the shepherd Silvius whocomes to the fore towards the end of the play, declaring that to loveis to be all made of fantasy,All made of passion, and all made of wishes,All adoration, duty, and observance,All humbleness, all patience and impatience,All purity, all trial, all observance.(5.2.94–98)Silvius’s apparently contradictory list shows how the immoderate lover mustprogress towards moderation in order to achieve his goals. His idea of love iscontrasted with that expressed in the song of the two pages in the next scene,

1 1 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2which advises us merely to “take the present time” (5.3.30). Touchstone commentsscathingly on the vapidity of this song, as he did on Orlando’s firstpoem: “though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the note was veryuntuneable” (5.3.34–36). Again the musical metaphor is used to suggest thatpassion must be controlled in order to be pleasing to one’s audience (or lover).This praise of moderation is absolutely central to the whole work, as we haveseen in the portrayal of Celia’s great self-restraint with Rosalind. The story ofSilvius’s love for Phebe, a haughty shepherdess, brings out the utter humilityof a deep love. Silvius is completely at Phebe’s mercy, anticipating herrepeated scorn as the criminal waits for the axe with “humbl’d neck” (3.5.5).When Phebe employs him as a messenger to Rosalind he reflects that his loveis “so holy and perfect” that he willthink it a most plenteous cropTo glean the broken ears after the manThat the main harvest reaps.(3.5.101–03)Later he runs another errand for Phebe, like a “tame snake” (4.3.70). MoreoverPhebe herself falls in love with Rosalind and writes her a humble loveletter, even though the latter treats her with extraordinary rudeness (3.5.37–71, 4.3.40–63).Phebe’s humiliation is typical of the way in which proud spiritedness iscontrasted with the true lover’s willingness to sacrifice himself throughoutthe play. Nevertheless, Shakespeare has implied all along that love bringswith it a particular sort of spiritedness, notably in Orlando’s fierce defenseof his father’s honor in the opening scene and in his later willingness to stealvenison from the banished duke in order to feed Adam; not to mention thereference to “Cleopatra’s majesty” in his song. When Orlando sees his brotherbeing attacked by a lioness,Twice did he turn his back, and purpos’d so;But kindness, nobler ever than revenge,And nature, stronger than his just occasion,Made him give battle.(4.3.127–30)Clearly Orlando is still angry with his brother—and his wounded pride isshown to conflict with his deeper ties just in the way that a close readingof the play might lead us to expect—but we have seen that his conventionalsense of honor has been gradually weakening throughout the play, and inthe end compassion proves to be stronger, creating what one might call a

1 1 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2fear,” could also be seen as symbolizing her great spiritedness (1.3.119–22).Her immoderate determination to possess Orlando is by no means disguisedby the prudence of the methods that she uses to win him. It should be rememberedagain that Rosalind forgot her grief for her father and disrupted herprecious friendship with Celia without a second thought as soon as she metOrlando. The suggestion is that we are all tyrants at the start of a love affair.At the end of the play Shakespeare sums up on The Good Life. Hymensays that Touchstone and Audrey are as “sure together as winter and foulweather” (5.4.135–36). We may contrast the pageboys’ song, referred to above,where the “sweet lovers love the spring,” focusing only on enjoying “the presenttime” (5.3.21, 5.3.30). A careful study of the whole play would suggestthat these lovers are, despite appearances, less erotic than Touchstone andAudrey, since they fail to realize that it is precisely the endurance of “foulweather” which binds us ever more closely together with ties of sympathyand gratitude. Hymen’s song answers the pageboys’ “ditty” by reminding usof the pervasive appeal of marriage:O blessed bond of board and bed!’Tis Hymen peoples every town,High wedlock then be honored.Honor, high honor, and renownTo Hymen, god of every town!(5.4.142–46)Jaques’s belief that Touchstone and Audrey will soon separate showshow he overlooks the nobility of many ordinary marriages, characterized asthey are by a sturdy loyalty (5.4.191–92). Surprisingly, however, he does notdismiss out of hand the duke’s anxious plea for him to stay, but for the firsttime in the play responds to his friendly advances, agreeing to meet him inhis cave before retiring to a monastery (5.4.194–96). Jaques’s descent fromthe contemplative life to the cave reverses the image of the philosopher wholeaves the cave in the Republic. Inconsistent to the last, he may in the end,like the characters in Love’s Labour’s Lost, give way to a deep yearning forhuman companionship and turn away from the contemplative life which hethinks he desires towards the rewards that human society traditionally hasto offer. Foremost among these are the ordinary marriages in “every town,”which are given “high honor, and renown” in Hymen’s song, suggesting howcrucial Shakespeare considers marriage to be in supporting our real needs(5.4.143–46). The core of The Good Life is thus seen to be available to anyonewho can follow their deeper nature. Its attainment therefore depends on achoice between two widely available alternatives rather than on any more

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 1 9rarefied ability to ascend a hierarchy of love. One could, however, overemphasizethis egalitarian perspective, for the thorough, mutual understandingthat characterizes Rosalind’s relationship with Celia, and the potential depthof her intimacy with Orlando—who, as we have seen, values her wit, beauty,and “majesty” as well as her “modesty” (3.2.144–48)—would be beyond thereach of many happily married couples.The traditions, laws, and poetry of particular regimes can clearly beinstrumental in confirming the ordinary citizen’s respect for marriage andthus in improving his chances of pursuing a fulfilling life. One critic commentsthat the “exceptional elaboration” of the play’s conclusion is a sign thatit is “informed to an exceptional degree by Shakespeare’s ideal of love’s order,”and notes further the importance of the injunction, addressed in the epilogueto the men in the audience, “that between you and the women the play mayplease” (line 17), arguing that the play should be seen as a “conjuration,”inviting us to celebrate “love’s harmony.” 13 The slightly unusual preposition“between” in the above quotation indicates Shakespeare’s determination thatthis play should reinforce the reciprocity of married life for his audience. Hewants them to feel the power of Hymen, “god of every town,” as somethinglarger than their own desires—even though the deepest part of their natureyearns for a lasting union anyway—which is why he has the god interruptauthoritatively to “bar confusion” and “make conclusion,” in order to set anofficial stamp on Rosalind and Orlando’s passion (5.4.125–26). This should beseen as the culmination of his attempt throughout the play to present loyaldevotion as admirable.Friendship, according to Shakespeare, is not for something higher thanitself, but is our natural goal whether we know it or not, and one, therefore,that should be pursued without moderation. Rosalind, echoing Bottom inTwelfth Night, says that her “affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bayof Portugal” (4.1.207–8). All other passions should be subordinated to ourdesire for deep attachments, and the slow build up of gratitude and trustwhich is the mark of true friendship requires great self-restraint and a radicalhumility. Even one’s “wit” is best employed in thoroughly understandingone’s need for such attachments, and attempting to transcend the elementsin one’s own soul that obstruct one’s search for a true friend. Whereas thephilosopher sees himself as harnessing or channelling his self-love, the sameends can be achieved through a thorough habituation in a religious and moral13Brown, “Love’s Order and the Judgment of As You Like It,” 74, 87.

1 2 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2tradition which teaches humility and chastity. Romantic and sexual love canact as a strong catalyst for deep friendships, but in the end The Good Lifeis characterized by a moderate, continuous joy which outweighs any pains,although painful sacrifices are an inevitable and even ultimately a positivepart of any trusting and loyal relationship. The spiritedness of the lover isshown not only in his absolute willingness to risk his life for his friend, butalso in the courageous and completely self-assertive way in which he willfight to secure that friend in the first place.Shakespeare thus rejects both positions in the battle between the ancientsand the moderns, because he disagrees with the low value which both sidesplace on ordinary, intimate attachments. For the modern such attachmentscan never be noble because under the influence of science everything is seenin terms of our animal drives for sex and self-advancement. Ironically, AllanBloom—a political philosopher in the Platonic tradition and therefore inone sense a celebrator of Eros—is not far from the modern position when hespeaks of “the bourgeois myth of reciprocity,” adding that the “Socratic teachingmeans from the outset, in spite of the passion, pleasure, and excitementof Eros, it is something of a hopeless business.” Only in philosophy, Bloommaintains, following Plato, can “selfishness and selflessness become for amoment the same.” 14 Thus love between individuals in the Platonic traditionmay acquire nobility, but only insofar as it points towards something beyonditself. Shakespeare’s account of what I have called the alchemy of love, on theother hand, aims to defend ordinary, loyal attachments both from Bloom’sbleak high ground and from the reductionism of the moderns by showinghow such attachments ultimately require those who are able to live in a waythat is thoroughly in accord with their nature to turn away completely fromthe baser or more tyrannical aspects of that nature. To paraphrase Strauss’sremark in his Preface to Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, Shakespeare does notlose sight of the high, but shows it to partake of the low, in the sense thathe takes his bearings by individual attachments in all their transience andimperfection rather than by the immutable realm of ideas. 15Perhaps Shakespeare’s use of a setting which has such strong personalsignificance represents an acknowledgement that a philosopher must base hisreasoning about The Good Life upon a prior, intuitive grasp of its excellence14Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 410, 500.15Leo Strauss, Preface to Spinoza’s Critique of Religion (New York: Schocken Books, 1965).

Fulfillment in As You Like It1 2 1which can only be derived from an awareness of his own deepest longings. 16 Itis not to descend into relativism, however, to say that one’s idea of what is ultimatelyfulfilling may be partly influenced or distorted by one’s experiences.Modern attachment theory postulates a system of “attachment behaviourwith its own dynamics distinct from the behaviour and dynamics of eitherfeeding or sex, the two sources of human motivation for long widely regardedas the most fundamental.” 17 Here science has been led to a conception ofhuman nature which is at odds with the main tradition of modernism itself,in that the longing for close attachments just for their own sake is seen asbeing so strong that it often overshadows the baser impulses so much emphasizedby the fathers of modernism.When thwarted or stunted, it is argued, this yearning can distort ourwhole way of thinking and feeling. Thus, although Jaques thinks that hehas reformed, he still often behaves tyrannically, as we have seen. The dukefeels his friend has only superficially shed the “embossed sores” which heacquired in his former life as a “brutish” libertine, so that even though nowadayshe undoubtedly wants to “do but good” there is a danger that withoutmeaning to he will still “disgorge” his “evils” even as he is trying to benefitsociety (2.7.63–69). Shakespeare’s suggestion is that if we are, as it were, readingthe world off from our own souls, we must first make sure that they arewholesome and harmonious—by which he means rooted in strong attachments—lestour intuitions regarding human nature be hopelessly skewed.Perhaps one can see clearly that Hymen is the “god of every town” only if ableoneself to sense his divinity, at least dimly and intuitively, in the first place. Itis significant that Shakespeare draws heavily on the traditional link betweendeep thought and melancholia in presenting the only purely contemplativecharacter in any of his plays.All of this is not to forget Touchstone’s regret at Audrey’s lack of educationor the evident enjoyment of philosophical conversations shown by allthe more intelligent characters in the play, which clearly suggests that philosophycan become an enjoyable ingredient of The Good Life, even if it isnot absolutely essential to it. Indeed, Shakespeare could not have meditatedso deeply on these matters were he not himself intensely curious. Nevertheless,as we see even more clearly in Love’s Labour’s Lost, he directly arguesagainst what he sees as an immoderate pursuit of philosophy. Indeed, since16Stanley Rosen, Plato’s Statesman: The Web of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 187.17John Bowlby, A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory (London: Routledge, 1998), 26.

1 2 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Shakespeare’s own name is possibly a corruption of the French name, JaquesPierre, one could wonder whether the character of Jaques might represent theplaywright’s extended reflection on the dangers of one aspect of his own temperament;if so this would again show the uniquely personal nature of thisplay. One may contrast Shakespeare’s other alter ego, Prospero, who seems tophilosophize only a third of the time (see The Tempest, 5.1.312). Living TheGood Life is rather more important to Shakespeare than analyzing it, and forhim, in contrast to the classical tradition, these two things are not identical,although they can exist in harmony.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 2 3Strauss’s Machiavelli andDostoyevsky’s Grand InquisitorA l e x a n dru R ac uUniversity of Ottawaalexracu2013@gmail.com1. IntroductionWe learn from a fairly recent article by a brilliant commentator of Joseph deMaistre’s work that “if one wanted to find in the Catholic tradition a discoursethat resembled the one that Dostoyevsky gave to the Grand Inquisitor…onewould undoubtedly turn to Joseph de Maistre,” 1 a reactionary thinker whowas characterized as “the Machiavelli of theocracy” by the Romanian essayistEmil Cioran. 2 The intersection of the two interpretations of Maistre raisesthe question of the relation between Machiavelli and the famous characterfrom The Brothers Karamazov. While Machiavelli’s thought has been thesubject of many diverging interpretations, it is clear that Cioran’s reference toMachiavelli is premised on the popular vision of Machiavelli as “an evil man”and a “teacher of evil,” although, unlike Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor,1Jean-Yves Pranchère, “Joseph de Maistre’s Catholic Philosophy of Authority,” in Joseph de Maistre’sLife, Thought and Influence: Selected Studies, ed. Richard Lebrun (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), 131. In his private correspondence, Maistre makes the followingstatement: “Since it is sufficiently well proven by history that peoples need a religion, and that theSermon on the Mount will always be regarded as a functional moral code, it is important to maintainthe religion that has preached this code. If its dogmas are fables, there has to be at least a unity offables, something that will never happen unless there is unity of doctrine and authority. …If I werean atheist and a sovereign, I would declare the Pope infallible by public decree for the establishmentand preservation of peace in my estates” (Joseph de Maistre, Œuvres complètes, 13:185ff., quoted inRobert Triomphe, Joseph de Maistre: Étude sur la vie et la doctrine d’un matérialiste mystique [Geneva:Librairie Droz, 1968], 333–34 [my translation]).2Emil Cioran, “Joseph de Maistre: Essai sur la pensée réactionnaire,” in Exercices d’admiration:Essais et portraits (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), 56.© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 2 5which is by nature social, is virtue. 5 This means that, as the reflection ofthe well-ordered soul, the natural social order is the one in which “politicalactivity is…directed toward human perfection or virtue” and “the best menhabitually rule.” 6 Since reason is the highest faculty of the soul, it followsthat the highest virtue is wisdom, and those who dedicate their lives to itspursuit, the philosophers, are those who by nature should rule the ideal city.Thus “the best regime” of classical political philosophy is “the absolute ruleof the wise.” 7 Hierarchical and holistic, classical political philosophy has noconcern for democracy or individual rights. 8 By opposition, modern naturalright regards society as a contract between individuals, the purpose of whichis the protection of their presocial natural rights. Presocial nature refers notto man’s “end,” but to his primary condition, or his “elementary wants orurges.” 9 The liberal society then guarantees the right of all individuals tochoose their own ends. The equality of choices, implied by the disappearanceof natural ends, explains why, in contradistinction to classical natural right,modern natural right is democratic and individualistic.As “quest for knowledge of the whole…by the unassisted human mind,” 10philosophy assents only to what is obvious. Being aware of his ignorance, thephilosopher of the Socratic tradition seeks wisdom. But “as long as there is nowisdom but only quest for wisdom, the evidence of all solutions is necessarilysmaller than the evidence of the problems.” Being “zetetic (or skeptic in theoriginal sense of the term),” philosophy is then “nothing but genuine awarenessof the problems, i.e., of the fundamental and comprehensive problems.” 11Philosophy’s main opponent is revelation, which is based on the assumptionthat there are divine realities, by definition inaccessible to human reason,which the gods communicate through prophets whom they choose to be carriersof their message. Incapable of demonstrating the falsity of such a claim,which is irrefutable because unprovable, the philosopher “merely suspends5Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 127.6Ibid., 140.7Ibid., 142.8Daniel Tanguay, Leo Strauss: An Intellectual Biography, trans. Cristopher Nadon (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 2003), 106.9Leo Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” in An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essaysby Leo Strauss, ed. Hilail Gildin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 49.10Ibid., 4, 7.11Leo Strauss, “Restatement on Xenophon’s Hiero,” in On Tyranny (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1961), 196.

1 2 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2judgment” when confronted with it. 12 While the multiplicity of divergingreligious narratives gives birth to the philosophical quest, as an attempt toevaluate them rationally, the biblical religion is, for Strauss, the most rationalreligion and thus the greatest challenge to philosophy because it insists onthe falsity of all other religions. 13 Classical philosophy and biblical revelationboth reject individualistic hedonism as either unnatural behavior or sinfuldisobedience to God’s commandments, and, in the form of either wisdomor righteousness, they both regard virtue as the finality of human life. Butdespite their common affirmation of transcendence, the biblical concept of“an omnipotent and mysterious God” practically excludes the Greek notionof nature and, together with it, the capacity of philosophy to arrive at knowledgeof the whole. 14 Thus “philosophy has to grant that revelation is possible.”This means that “the philosophic life is not necessarily, not evidently, the rightlife,” 15 that it could ultimately be a life of delusion that leads to damnation.As stressed by Strauss, the ancients insisted that philosophical natureswere rare, and their aspirations were in conflict with the vulgar wishes of themajority of people. The irresolvable conflict between reason and revelationfurther complicates the tension between philosophy and the city. For, whilephilosophy is a never-ending interrogation that cannot arrive at definite conclusions,the great majority of men, as Maistre argues, “need not problemsbut beliefs” in order “to conduct [themselves] well.” 16 The order of the cityis a theologico-political order deduced from the city’s religious dogmas. Byquestioning the latter, philosophy undermines the former, threatening to“dissolve the very element of social life.” While the philosopher “suspends…judgment” when “sufficient evidence is lacking,” “it is impossible” to “suspendjudgment on matters of life and death,” all of which “can be reduced tothe question of how one ought to live.” 17 Thus, if wisdom is Socratic awarenessof one’s ignorance, political wisdom is awareness of the threat that thepublic exercise of philosophy poses not only to the city, which may be pushedtowards anomie and anarchy, but, as revealed by the tragic end of Socrates,12Leo Strauss, “Progress or Return? The Contemporary Crisis in Western Civilization,” in An Introductionto Political Philosophy, 296.13Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 177–78.14Ibid., 178–79.15Strauss, Natural Right and History, 75.16Joseph de Maistre, Against Rousseau, in The Collected Works of Joseph de Maistre, trans. RichardLebrun, InteLex Past Masters. Accessed June 10, 2014.17Leo Strauss, “Reason and Revelation,” in Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, by HeinrichMeier, trans. Marcus Brainard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 146–47.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 2 7to the philosopher as well. If “reason and argument are incapable of supplyingpeople with the minimum of mutual understanding required forliving together,” 18 the political philosopher, or the wise statesman, must thenappeal to the authority of myths which must be put to use as “noble lies.” 19Compelled by necessity to return to the city/cave, on which his life and thephilosophical exercise ultimately depend, and to take care of its affairs, thephilosopher, like Dostoyevsky’s Inquisitor, will have to put on a mask. On thesurface, the writings of the philosophers will leave the impression of conformityto the city’s religious beliefs. But the educated reader, who knows howto read between the lines, can discover, beyond the exoteric appearance, theesoteric, hidden meaning of the text, which reveals the radical and dangerousskepticism of philosophy. 20Reconciled to the impossibility of refuting revelation, classical philosophy,according to Strauss, is also reconciled to the fact that, although notimpossible, the “actualization” of “the best regime” is nevertheless “extremelyimprobable.” 21 For Plato, Aristotle, and the other classical philosophers, thebest regime remains “a virtuous city in speech” or an imagined “utopia” that“serves as a standard by which to judge actual political regimes.” 22 But whilethe philosophical exercise is by definition radical, the political exercise mustbe moderate. Prudently reconciled with the gap between theory and practiceand with his limited possibilities, in practice, the philosopher seeks to influencethe political life of the city in ways that will “humanize” it “within thelimits of the possible.” 23 This influence is exerted through education whichnecessitates leisure. But under the conditions of a premodern economy, onlyan aristocratic minority can benefit from leisure, and that is why the classicsrejected democracy and universal education, the ideals that distinguish18Leo Strauss, “The Living Issues of German Postwar Philosophy,” in Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, 127.19Plato, The Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 93.20Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 18, 24.21Strauss, Natural Right and History, 139.22Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 87.23Ibid., 86. The question of the possibility of the best regime nevertheless remains ambiguous inStrauss’s thought. In The City and Man, Strauss returns to this problem, arguing that “the just city” isultimately impossible given the intrinsic evil in human nature, which determines it to resist absolutejustice that takes the form of “absolute communism.” But “the Republic never abandons the fictionthat the just city…is possible,” because the pursuit of this fiction/utopia, moderated by the awarenessof dependency on chance, is the process through which, in practice, the city can be brought as closeas possible to the ideal city (Strauss, The City and Man [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964],126–29).

1 2 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2modern from classical enlightenment. Universal education would requireuniversal leisure and therefore technological innovation that would radicallychange the nature of the economic process. According to Strauss, theancients have contemplated this possibility, but they rejected it because theybelieved that technological progress would ultimately lead to catastrophe.Since technological progress has made the complete destruction of life onearth, and “universal and perpetual tyranny, a real possibility,” 24 “their…prophecy,” Strauss argues, “has not yet been refuted.” 253. Machiavelli and Modern Political PhilosophyAccording to Strauss, all the principles of classical enlightenment havebeen perpetuated in the medieval enlightenment of Jewish and Islamic philosopherssuch as Maimonides and Al-Farabi. In the Catholic West, wherephilosophy has been transformed into a handmaiden of theology, the attemptto liberate the former from the control of the latter has been at the origin ofmodern enlightenment that claimed, against the authority of the church, theright to the public exercise of philosophy. Modern thinkers, beginning withMachiavelli, and continuing with Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, and the othermajor Enlightenment figures from the seventeenth century, 26 no longer seekto protect the city from philosophy, but merely seek to protect themselvesfrom the religious authorities, this being the reason why they sometimesconceal their true intentions. But their ultimate goal, Strauss argues, is topopularize philosophy, or science (according to Strauss, traditionally thetwo terms meant the same thing), as mass atheism and, according to Bacon’sfamous formula, to transform “knowledge” into “power” over nature, aiming,despite the warnings of classical philosophy, at the techno-scientific transformationof man’s environment and therefore, at the continuous improvementof man’s life until “man might feel completely at home in the world.” 27 Therational war against nature, and the enjoyment of its fruits, requires not onlythe liberation of science from the irrational authority of religion but also thecessation of the irrational wars caused by religion, which, at the dawn of themodern age, were tearing Europe apart. Last but not least, the enjoyment of24Strauss, Natural Right and History, 23.25Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 36.26According to Strauss, beginning with Machiavelli, the Enlightenment received its philosophicalexpression before the eighteenth century, when it was merely popularized by Voltaire, Diderot,and others.27Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 40–41.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 2 9the fruits of progress, and the stimulus for pursuing the latter, is a hedonisticethics the premise of which is the liberation from what Freud would later callthe religious neurosis. For Strauss, modern enlightenment is not really new.Opposing classical natural right, for which “the life according to nature”was “the life of human excellence or virtue,” Epicurus already affirmedthat the life according to nature, or the good life, was “the life of pleasure aspleasure.” 28 For Epicurus, then, philosophy functioned as a therapy meant toincrease man’s pleasure by freeing him from the fear of death and the fearof gods threatening to punish him for satisfying his desires. By contrast, theEnlightenment’s critique of religion was meant to produce not only “individualtranquility” but also “civil peace.” 29According to Strauss, the liberation of philosophy from the authority oftheology, and its subsequent popularization, has come at the cost of its degradation.First of all, Strauss argues that modern philosophers have deliberatelyoverlooked the incapacity of philosophy to refute revelation. Aware of the factthat they were lacking decisive arguments in the combat against theology,the representatives of the Enlightenment have appealed instead to dishonestrhetoric and, through propaganda, have popularized as philosophy what wasin fact dogmatic rationalism. 30 Moreover, philosophy has become popular atthe cost of its subordination to the practical interests of the city, which classicalphilosophy regarded as the vulgar wishes of the common man. 31 ForStrauss, Machiavellian thought is the first philosophy that no longer questions“the ends of the demos” but “accept[s] [them] as beyond appeal” andlimits itself to “seek[ing] for the best means conducive to those ends.” 32 Thisimplies “lower…standards of social action.” To be more specific, accordingto Strauss, the key characteristic of Machiavelli’s philosophy is the “rejectionof the classical scheme as unrealistic.” 33 Machiavelli notes in the Prince28Strauss, Natural Right and History, 127.29Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 40. Ivan Karamazov’s poem, from The Brothers Karamazov, entitled “TheGeological Revolution,” gives artistic expression to the Enlightenment’s promethean ideal, and indicatesthe fact that Dostoyevsky and Strauss share a common vision of the latter: “Once mankind…has repudiated God…, then…all will begin anew. People will unite together…only for the sake ofhappiness and joy in this world. Man will exalt himself with a spirit of divine, titanic pride” and will“experience…a pleasure so elevated that it will replace all his former hopes of celestial pleasure.” Manwill become “the man-god” (Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. David McDuff [London:Penguin Books, 2003], 829).30Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 32–33.31Ibid., 46–47.32Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 296.33Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 39, 41.

1 3 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2that “many have imagined republics and principalities that have never beenseen or known to exist in truth” owing to the fact that “how one [actually]lives…is so far from…how one should live.” 34 According to him, one shouldstop wasting one’s energy with the pursuit of the best regime, which cannever be brought into existence, and aim lower. The new goal, on Strauss’sinterpretation, should simply be a state that would benefit from “freedomfrom foreign domination, stability or rule of law, prosperity, glory or empire.”Machiavelli’s “lowering of the standards is meant to lead to a higher probabilityof actualization of that scheme which is constructed in accordancewith the lower standards.” “Dependence on chance” is therefore reduced, asMachiavelli’s new ambition, which distinguishes him from the ancients, is to“conquer chance.” 35 The ability to subdue Fortuna, which controls only “halfof our actions,” 36 becomes Machiavelli’s new virtù that replaces both classicalvirtue (wisdom) and biblical virtue (righteousness). Virtue, for Machiavelli,essentially means efficiency, and “is nothing but civic virtue,” or “devotion tocollective selfishness.” 37The implementation of the “new orders and modes” 38 requires the workof a “new prince,” 39 motivated by “the desire for glory,” 40 a motivation thatreplaces the philosopher’s love of knowledge and the believer’s fear or love ofGod. Strauss argues that “the desire for glory” which Machiavelli cultivates isessentially a selfish passion. According to Machiavelli, men are not motivatedby a generous concern for the common good, but by “the natural desire ofeach to acquire wealth and glory.” 41 Hence, the classical and biblical principleof improving social life through the cultivation of virtue suffers from afundamental lack of realism, with the result that “he who lets go of what isdone for what should be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation.” 42Rather than pointlessly attempting to cultivate a sincere concern for the commongood, through education for virtue, “the task of the” new Machiavellian34Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1985), chap. 15.35Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 41.36Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 25.37Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 42.38Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 6.39Ibid., chap. 24.40Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 42.41Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 269.42Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 15.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 3 1“political art consists…in so directing the passions and even the malignanthumors that they cannot be satisfied without their satisfaction contributingto the common good.” 43 What applies to the leaders also applies to thepeople. “The large majority of men” are selfish and “cannot possibly resist…temptations.” Both “the nature of man” and “man’s situation,” for examplepopulation growth in conditions of resource scarcity, “account for the necessityof sin,” for the necessity of killing others in order to survive. 44 Therefore,the prince should not seek to convince people to be good, but should forcethem to be good through “institutions which make actions detrimental tothe common good utterly unprofitable,” while encouraging “actions” that“are conducive to the common good.” 45 And good institutions “arise frommost shocking things.” The best example is Rome, the most glorious of allcities, which has been founded through Romulus’s murder of his brother.Ultimately, this means that “morality is possible only after its condition hasbeen created, and this condition cannot be created morally; morality restson…immorality.” 46Given his position concerning the relation between individual moralityand social institutions, Machiavelli would be viewed by Dostoyevsky as anancestor of the “environmental doctrine” 47 which, in Dostoyevsky’s view, characterizedmodern Western socialism. According to this doctrine, immoralactions and crimes are the necessary consequences of miserable social conditions.Consequently, humans cannot be blamed for their behavior, whichcannot be modified through inner change, but only through a social revolutionthat would lead to the rational reorganization of society. Thus, there is no moralsolution to evil, but only a scientific solution, the implementation of whichrequires violent or, more precisely, immoral action. 48 To the environmentalist43Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 281.44Ibid., 191–92.45Ibid., 281.46Ibid., 255.47Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Diary of a Writer, trans. Boris Brasol (New York: Octagon Books, 1973), 1:13.48Motivated by the goal to help mankind with the money stolen from a useless, or rather “activelyharmful” pawnbroker woman, Raskolnikov’s murder provides the perfect example of Machiavellianpractice as far as the relation between means and ends is concerned (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime andPunishment, trans. Jessie Coulson [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 62–63). The murder, asstated by Raskolnikov, was a miniature social revolution, which the murderer intended to replicate“on a larger scale” in the future (ibid., 399). But while Raskolnikov ends up repenting, his politicalphilosophy finds its continuation in Demons, through Pyotr Verkhovensky, who argues that oneshould not hesitate to cut “one hundred million heads” for the sake of the triumph of the Revolution,because otherwise “despotism…, in a hundred years or so,” may very well “consume not a hundredbut five hundred million heads,” also definitively compromising “mankind’s” chances of “building its

1 3 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2conception, which “makes man dependent on any error in the social organization,”Dostoyevsky opposes his Orthodox Christian conception, which, “fullyrecognizing the pressure of the milieu, and which having proclaimed mercyfor him who has sinned, nevertheless makes it a moral duty for man to struggleagainst his environment.” 49 Although highly unlikely, the change of the socialenvironment is nevertheless possible, but it can only be the byproduct of thereunited moral efforts, in Christ, of all persons, who are all “guilty” for “allcreatures and all things,” as humanity is a living organism where individualactions, whether bad or good, affect the whole and therefore all the otherindividuals. 50 In opposition to Machiavelli’s thought, Dostoyevsky’s thoughtis therefore marked by what can be called a “utopian” dimension of Christianextraction, although this coexists with a profound awareness of man’s sinfulcondition, this ambivalent vision of man being the key characteristic of Dostoyevsky’scomplex anthropology. 51 On the other hand, Dostoyevsky arguesthat “making man dependent on any error in the social organization,” andtherefore denying his freedom, “the environmental doctrine reduces man toabsolute impersonality…, to a state of the most miserable slavery that can beconceived,” 52 delivering him into the hands of social engineers whose ancestor,according to Strauss, is Machiavelli. For, Strauss argues, Machiavelli is thefirst of a series of Enlightenment thinkers who share the belief “in the almostinfinite malleability of man.” 53 Dostoyevsky’s Christian critique of Machiavellianisminevitably brings us to Machiavelli’s critique of Christianity, or to his“anti-theological ire,” 54 which, according to Strauss, represents the foundationof Machiavelli’s political revolution.4. Machiavelli’s Critique of ChristianityWhen analyzing Machiavelli’s critique of Christianity, the first aspect thatshould be taken into account is his reinterpretation of the cosmic order, andmore precisely, the fact that despite some ambiguous formulations meantown society” (Dostoyevsky, Demons, trans. Robert A. Maguire [London: Penguin Books, 2008], 452).49Dostoyevsky, Diary, 1:13.50Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 216.51As stressed by Jean Drouilly, for Dostoyevsky, man is “neither beast nor angel” precisely becausehe is “beast and angel at the same time” (Jean Drouilly, La pensée politique et religieuse de F. M. Dostoievski[Paris: Librairie de Cinq Continents, 1971], 124; my translation).52Dostoyevsky, Diary, 1:13.53Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 43.54Ibid., 44.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 3 3to conceal his true intentions, in reality, as stressed by Strauss, “Machiavellireplaces God…by Fortuna.” 55 The world can be governed either by blind fateor by divine providence. According to Christian theology, the ChristianGod is omnipotent. Everything happens according to his plan and, while hecauses “his sun to rise on the evil and the good” (Matt. 5:45), he neverthelesslistens to the prayers of those who obey his commandments (John 9:31).In this sense, if one accepts the premise of Christian theology concerningdivine providence, then a break with traditional Christian morality, the aimof which is “to guide man toward the rational society, the bond and the endof which is enlightened self-interest or the comfortable self-preservation ofeach of its members,” 56 could only lead in the end to the same outcome thatresulted from the attempt to build the Tower of Babel, a biblical episode which,according to Dostoyevsky and to his Grand Inquisitor, reflects the essence ofthe modern adventure. 57 Thus, if Christ exhorts his followers to trust Godand leave to him the concern for one’s material necessities (Matt. 6:25–34),Machiavelli views man as a being thrown in a senseless universe, subject toa blind and cruel fate, and who can have no hope of redemption in anotherworld. On the other hand, Strauss emphasizes the fact that in the Discourses,when Machiavelli speaks of the un-Christian and inhuman measures thata new prince may need to take in a newly conquered state, he enumeratesthose of King David, “who filled the hungry with good things and sent therich away empty.” 58 But, as Strauss points out, the phrase is a quotation fromthe Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise to God from the first chapter of theGospel of Luke. The inevitable conclusion, Strauss argues, is that we are dealinghere with “an enormous blasphemy” 59 that reveals Machiavelli’s beliefthat the God of the Christian theologians is a tyrant. This view would bemotivated, according to Strauss, by the doctrine concerning hell, 60 as well as55Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 209.56Ibid., 296.57The same view is shared by Maistre, who, reflecting on the revolutionary terror and wars, but aboveall, on the irremediable dissolution of the social bond that resulted from a whole century of deisticand atheistic propaganda, raises the following question with regard to the modern attempt “to destroyeverything and then rebuild it without” God: “How did God punish that execrable delirium?” Tothat he answers: “He punished it as he created the light, with a single word. He said: PROCEED —And the political world crumbled” (Joseph de Maistre, Essay on the Generative Principle of PoliticalConstitutions and other Human Institutions, in Collected Works, vol. 1, chap. 66, InteLex Past Masters.Accessed June 10, 2014).58Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield and Nathan Tarcov (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1996), 1.26.59Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 49.60According to Jean-Yves Pranchère, the dogma regarding eternal punishment in hell has been “themain objection” that “the thinkers of the Enlightenment,” and Diderot in particular, have raised

1 3 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2by the “pious cruelty” of the Spanish monarchs and inquisitors. 61 Accordingto Strauss, Machiavelli believes that “pious cruelty” is the inevitable outcomeof an authentic concern for the fate of the souls of men, concern that hasdetermined the Inquisition to burn heretics at the stake in order to preventthe spreading of the heresy and, therefore, the subsequent drawing of evermore souls into perdition. 62The divine tyranny and a blind and therefore cruel fate are, in a sense,equivalent, since they are experienced by man in pretty much the same wayand appear as two possible explanations for man’s suffering in the world.But if God’s place is taken by a cruel, although far from omnipotent, fate,then “pious cruelty” is cruelty badly used, or unnecessary cruelty, which onlyincreases the quantity of already existing suffering. However, Machiavellireproduces the theological cynicism of the Inquisition in his own politicalcynicism. In this sense, he praises Cesare Borgia who, through his cruelty,“restored the Romagna, united it, and reduced it to peace and to faith,”while the mercy of other princes led in the end to greater political turmoiland therefore greater suffering. 63 Cruelty well used is then secularized cruelty,directed towards secular purposes. And cruel fate can be conqueredthrough cruel but well-thought means. But in order for this to happen, man,according to Machiavelli, must come to terms with his condition. Acceptingthe limitations of his nature and abandoning all transcendent illusions,man must stop searching for the imaginary kingdoms of the classical andChristian tradition, redirecting his energies towards the gradual transformationof his environment. 64 Forsaking prayers, modern men must “stand bythemselves,” 65 for “fortune is a woman” and “she lets herself be won moreby the impetuous.” 66 Indeed, one can already anticipate at the dawn of theEnlightenment the lyrics of the International: “No savior from on high delivers/ Our own right hand the chains must shiver.”According to Strauss, Machiavelli’s reference to the foundation of theRoman religion by Numa, who “pretended to be intimate with a nymph“against Christianity” in the eighteenth century (Jean-Yves Pranchère, L’autorité contre les Lumières:La philosophie de Joseph de Maistre [Geneva: Librairie Droz, 2004], 414; my translation).61Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 21.62Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 49, 188.63Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 17.64Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 202–3.65Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 6.66Ibid., chap. 25.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 3 5who counseled him on what he had to counsel the people,” 67 as well asMachiavelli’s references to the manipulation of the Aruspices by the Romanpriests, 68 indicate that he regards religion as a human invention the purposeof which is the control of the vulgar multitude. Moreover, Strauss arguesthat Machiavelli does not make any distinction between paganism and biblicalreligion, viewing Moses as just another legislator who made use of afictional religious authority in order to impose new institutions. 69 Machiavelliargues that “religion” is “a thing altogether necessary” in order “to maintaina civilization,” and “there was never any orderer of extraordinary laws fora people who did not have recourse to God, because otherwise they wouldnot have been accepted.” For, although “a prudent individual” understandsthe importance of “many goods,” these “do not have in themselves evidentreasons with which one can persuade others.” 70 If taken for granted, Machiavelli’sstatement apparently contradicts Strauss’s interpretation of him as anEnlightenment thinker who as such wants to undermine religion by popularizingphilosophy. And given Machiavelli’s belief that nothing essentialchanges in the order of human things, the interpretation according to whichhe considers religion a necessity only in the early stages of human historyalso seems to be excluded. Whether we follow Strauss’s interpretation, andread this passage in the Discourses as one of the instances in which Machiavellihides his true intentions, or prefer to see in Machiavelli somebody whobelieved that religion will always be socially necessary, is of little importancefor the purpose of this article. What interests us here is Machiavelli’s beliefthat religion is a “useful falsehood” and the fact that, as stressed by Strauss,“Machiavelli has no moral or other objections to pious fraud.” 71 Moreover,as will be demonstrated in what follows, if we accept that for Machiavellireligion will always be socially necessary, for him, there is one religion inparticular, namely Christianity, which proves to be socially detrimental.For Machiavelli, the Roman religion was the foundation of Roman republicanvirtue, and in particular, of Roman military virtue. The loss of that virtueis the main explanation for Italy’s state of decadence and servitude, the overcomingof which represents Machiavelli’s goal. The decline in virtue resultsfrom a decline in religiosity and this in turn is caused by the scandalizing67Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.11.68Ibid., 1.14.69Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 51, 205.70Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.11.71Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 168.

1 3 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2contrast between the teaching of the church hierarchy and its practice. 72 Butsince one cannot blame human nature, it is more reasonable to put the blamefor the contrast on the founder of the Christian religion, who has simplyraised ethical standards too high. So it is no wonder that the church hierarchyis not able to keep up with them. Jesus was an “unarmed prophet.” Unarmedprophets, according to Machiavelli, are fated to be “ruined.” 73 At first sight,it seems that the religion of the unarmed prophet is in power because, instark contrast with Christianity’s official principles, the papacy has taken uparms in Christ’s name, correcting Christ’s strategic mistake, as otherwisesuggested by Dostoyevsky’s Legend of the Grand Inquisitor. There is thenanother reason why the Inquisition appears as the necessary consequenceof the initial victory of Christianity. For, argues Machiavelli, “the nature ofthe peoples is variable; and it is easy to persuade them of something, butdifficult to keep them in that persuasion. And thus things must be orderedin such a mode that when they no longer believe, one can make them believeby force.” 74 Thus, the contrast between church teaching and practice, and itspernicious impact on civic virtue, are the consequence of what, according toMachiavelli, is the aberration of Christianity in power.Apart from this indirect negative influence on virtù, the decline of thelatter is also directly influenced by Christianity’s focus on the other world,which “makes” men “esteem less the honor of the world, whereas the Gentiles,esteeming it very much and having placed the highest good in it, weremore ferocious in their actions.” Thus, Christianity has “rendered the worldweak and given it in prey to criminal men, who can manage it securely, seeingthat the collectivity of men, so as to go to paradise, think more of enduringtheir beatings than of avenging them.” 75 Of course, one could further quotethe continuation of this passage, where Machiavelli stresses the fact thatChristianity properly understood is a religion that “permits us the exaltationand defense of the fatherland,” 76 and thus arrive at the conclusion that theMachiavellian position is more moderate. However, according to Strauss’sinterpretation, “there is hardly a single passage in either the Discourses orthe Prince in which Machiavelli unambiguously reveals his complete breakwith the Biblical tradition.” 77 This would imply that the last part of the para-72Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.12.73Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 6.74Ibid.75Machiavelli, Discourses, 2.2.76Ibid.77Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 142.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 3 7graph, taken from the second chapter of the second book of the Discourses,merely conceals (from the religious authorities) the radical claim made byMachiavelli in the first part of the paragraph and therefore his anti-Christianproject. Even if one could find a place for patriotism within Christianity, inMachiavelli’s vision, this would be an unsatisfying compromise both forauthentic Christianity, which in Machiavelli’s view is a purely otherworldlyand peaceful religion, as well as for authentic patriots like himself, for whomthe fatherland occupies the highest position in the hierarchy of ends, justifyingtherefore the use of every means for its defense. 78 Ultimately, Machiavelliwants to introduce a change of paradigm, replacing devotion to otherworldlinesswith devotion to worldliness. This is the essence of his project, whetherit manifests itself as a partial or total return to paganism; as the emergenceof a new paradigm in the form of secular modernity; or as an apparentreturn to paganism, with secular modernity the ultimate goal. In this sense,Machiavelli is the founder of a new morality, replacing “the imitation of theGod-Man Christ by the imitation of the Beast-Man,” 79 terrifying as a lion andcunning as a fox, who, unlike Christ, “the prince of peace” (Isa. 9:6), knows“how not to be good, and to use this…according to necessity.” 80Seeing “how much” the contemporary practice of the church was “different”from “its foundations,” 81 Machiavelli believed that Christianity enteredinto an irreversible process of decay, this being the fate of all institutionswhose functioning drifts further and further away from their foundingprinciples. According to Strauss, Machiavelli “reckoned with the possibilitythat the destruction of the Christian Church was imminent.” 82 Believing that“every religion…has a lifespan of between 1666 and 3000 years,” Machiavellisought to accelerate the destruction of Christianity. His campaign canbe seen as “a war of the Antichrist…who recruits his army while fighting or78Machiavelli, Discourses, 3.41. While Dostoyevsky also justified military action, a fact that ledmany to raise an eyebrow as far as the coherence or even honesty of his theologico-political project isconcerned, for him war is legitimate only if a nation fights not for its expansion or even conservation,but for a universal ideal of justice, sacrificing itself for mankind as a whole (Diary, 2:665–71). This alsoimplies that, independently of the purpose of war, not every means of waging it is justified, althoughit is not clear where Dostoyevsky draws the line. In any case, in the context of Russia’s 1877 campaignfor the liberation of Christians from the Balkans, Dostoyevsky dismissed Tolstoy’s pacifism with theargument that to advocate passivity while the tyrants are “piercing the eyes” of the oppressed victims,“so as perchance not to kill a Turk,” would be “a distortion of conceptions” and “the fullest perversionof nature” (Diary, 2:812).79Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 78.80Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 15.81Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.12.82Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 45–46.

1 3 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2through fighting against the army” of “Christ.” 83 Machiavelli seeks to defeatChristianity through the same means that Christianity has defeated paganism:propaganda. But unlike Christ, who spoke “openly to the world” (John18:20), a sincerity that led him to the cross, Machiavelli carefully crafts hispropaganda in order to avoid the cross. Through his shrewd and deceptivewriting technique, Machiavelli seeks to delude “believers whose charity isgreater than their perspicacity,” 84 and at the same time to recruit the futurecaptains of his army from “the lukewarm Christians,” those who are “morefavorable to the earthly fatherland than to the heavenly fatherland.” 85 Thecultivation of this type of lukewarm attitude is the recipe for enervatingChristianity until full secularization is accomplished, and if that is notpossible, or until that becomes possible, a perverted Christianity, devoid ofsubstance, which betrays its principles and is made to serve the worldly interestsof the fatherland, represents Machiavelli’s second best.Strauss underlines the apparent contradiction between Machiavelli’s contentionconcerning the certain defeat of unarmed prophets, and the fact thatMachiavelli himself is an unarmed prophet who fights against the religion ofan unarmed prophet that now rules the Western world. One wonders: “howcan [Machiavelli] possibly hope for the success of his more than daring ventureif unarmed founders necessarily fail?” 86 The fact, already discussed, thatthe religion of the unarmed prophet ultimately maintains its power throughthe force of arms suggests the most obvious answer: from the very beginning,the triumph of Christianity over paganism was brought about not bythe preaching of the Christians, but by Constantine’s political decision. Butaccording to Strauss, such a view is too simplistic, and therefore it is unreasonableto believe that such a subtle intellect as Machiavelli’s would havesubscribed to it. For “Christianity,” Strauss insists, “must…already have beena power in order to become an attraction or a tool for a politician.” 87 Besides,if one accepts the thesis that the purpose of the Empire’s conversion has beento neutralize and therefore compromise Christianity through its cooptationand transformation into the imperial civil religion, that is, through its transformationfrom an ever stronger enemy of the empire into its supporter, oneis faced nevertheless with the fact that, according to Machiavelli, the result83Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 171.84Ibid., 142.85Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 46.86Ibid., 45.87Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 84.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 3 9has been an unfortunate synthesis that is at the origin of the problems thatMachiavelli is trying to tackle. If, on one hand, a Christianity transformedinto an imperial civil religion becomes a caricature that progressively losesits initial force of conviction, on the other hand, the Christianization ofthe empire accounts for the progressive decay of the political and militaryvirtues that Machiavelli wants to resuscitate. Otherwise said, Christianitydestroys the ancient order and itself together with it, preparing the groundfor Machiavelli’s new order. I would argue then that for Machiavelli the trueproblem with Christianity was a fateful reflection of the problem which thepapal state posed to Italian unity. Just as the papal state was strong enoughto prevent Italy’s unification under the rule of any other Italian state, by callingforeign powers in its defense, but not strong enough to unify Italy underits own authority, 88 likewise, Christianity was not strong enough to impose,politically, its order of things on the world and betrayed its otherworldlyprinciples when it tried to do so, and yet was strong enough to destabilizethe old pagan order of things, and to prevent, for the time being, “the newprince” from imposing the new order of things. Or, if we are to believe CarlSchmitt, a realist like Machiavelli and an open partisan of the Grand Inquisitorin his confrontation with Christ, 89 it would then seem that, suspendedbetween Incarnation and Apocalypse, Christianity appears as an essentiallyanarchic and destabilizing force. For, according to Schmitt, “if the politicalpower of a class or of a group…is sufficiently strong to hinder the waging ofwars” against the enemy, “but incapable,” or rather unwilling, in this case,“of assuming the state’s power” itself, “then the political entity is destroyed.” 90While the cultivation of lukewarm Christianity is the means throughwhich Machiavelli seeks to speed up the collapse of the church, the process ofdecay is nevertheless opposed by a counterforce that periodically rejuvenatesthe church, thus prolonging its existence. So Machiavelli argues that “withpoverty and with the example of the life of Christ,” Saint Francis and SaintDominick have revived the Christian religion, saving it from being destroyedby “the dishonesty of the prelates and of the heads of the religion.” 91 But ifwe accept Strauss’s interpretation of Machiavelli, we are forced to concludethat, despite his sincere admiration for the two saints, Machiavelli must also88Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.12.89Théodore Paléologue, Sous l’œil du Grand Inquisiteur: Carl Schmitt et l’héritage de la théologiepolitique (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2004), 51–52.90Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (New Brunswick, NJ: RutgersUniversity Press, 1976), 38.91Machiavelli, Discourses, 3.1.

1 4 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2have been aware that it was precisely charismatic figures of this type, andnot the corrupt church hierarchy, that represented his main enemies. For itwas through them that the evangelical “utopia,” with all its political consequences,lived on. Even more interesting is the fact that cunning and brutalpopes, described in the Prince, such as Alexander Borgia, act in ways that arecompletely opposed to the spirit of the Gospel and yet completely consistentwith Machiavelli’s principles, or, better said, with his lack of principles. Infact, whereas Jesus advises his followers to act in accordance with what theclergy says, not with what it does (Matt. 23:2–3), Machiavelli, “lowering thestandards,” advises his followers to do not what the clergy preaches but whatthe clergy does. And while it is legitimate to wonder whether Machiavellihimself became an atheist because he was scandalized by the practice of thechurch prelates, it is certain that Machiavelli’s moral theory has been shapedby that practice which it confirmed. The problem is not the immoral natureof the actions of the church hierarchy, but the fact that those actions are notdirected towards the edification of the new society that Machiavelli wants toconstruct, and likewise, the fact that they are publicly perceived as immoral;in principle, because they contrast with an unrealistic moral foundation. Buteven this constitutive problem, inherited from Christ, could be overcome, ifonly those immoral actions would be well concealed. Along these lines, inchapter 18 of the Prince, Machiavelli insists that while it is necessary for aprince to be immoral, it is likewise necessary to be perceived as moral and,above all, as “religious.” Interestingly enough, Machiavelli’s example of “agreat pretender and dissembler,” who, although profoundly immoral, alwaysfound people to be deceived, is Pope Alexander Borgia, whose success wasowed to the fact that, like Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, he “well knew”that “the vulgar are taken in by the appearance and the outcome of a thing,and in the world there is no one but the vulgar.” 92 So what if Machiavelli’sobjectives were to coincide with those of the church hierarchy, and what if thechurch hierarchy would be able to save the appearances and inspire withinthe people, by a noble delusion, those dispositions necessary for the realizationof Machiavelli’s project? What if it were proved that Machiavelli’s newsocial order, like any social order, would be in need, as the Discourses seemto suggest, of a religion, because atheism, as all the major conservative thinkershave stressed, is socially untenable? And what if the only alternative tothe utopian and therefore anarchical Christianity of the Gospel would be aCatholicism which, while acting in Christ’s name, managed to completely92Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 18.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 4 1neutralize the spiritual and otherworldly dimension of the Gospel? If oneaccepts all these premises, it can be easily seen how Machiavellian thoughtcould intersect with the thought of Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor. In theperspective of such a conjectural mutation of Machiavellianism, a consistentMachiavellian could find it quite natural to position himself, together withanother Catholic atheist like Charles Maurras, on the side of the efforts of thechurch hierarchy to neutralize what Maurras regarded as the anarchism thatoriginates in the Gospel written by “four obscure Jews.” 93◆ ◆ ◆Before we turn to Dostoyevsky, it is important to briefly summarizeStrauss’s view of the evolution of modernity after the Machiavellian moment.According to Strauss, the rejection of the classical scheme in favor of “lowerstandards of social action” defines the evolution of the first wave of modernity,which begins with Machiavelli and continues with Hobbes. In the latter’sthought, the desire for security replaces the desire for glory as the foundationof the social order. With Locke, the desire to live evolves into the desire tolive well, the main focus being not the Leviathan, but the market, throughwhich the selfish desires of the contracting individuals are satisfied. In thissense, Strauss argues that Machiavelli’s search “for an immoral or amoralsubstitute for morality became victorious through Locke’s…acquisitiveness,”“economism” being “Machiavellianism come of age.” 94 Inasmuch as itscoordinates are the replacement of virtue by self-interest and of communityby the market, the progress of the first wave of modernity might as well beregarded as growing decadence and alienation. As Strauss argues, Rousseau,with whom begins the second wave of modernity, is the first modern thinkerto articulate this perspective. But what first appeared to be a return from thefinancial “world of the bourgeois” to the ancient “world of virtue and thecity” has ultimately materialized in a leap forward that has inaugurated “amuch more radical form of modernity”: historicism. 95 Whereas the thinkersfrom the first wave of modernity reduced the distance between the Is andthe Ought, the doctrine of the general will, through which Rousseau soughtto surpass modern alienation, practically identifies them. 96 “The mere generalityof a will” now “vouches for its goodness,” so that “it is not necessary93Charles Maurras, Le chemin de paradis (1895), http://maurras.net/textes/217.html. Accessed June13, 2014.94Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 51.95Ibid., 51–52.96Leo Strauss, “The Three Waves of Modernity,” in An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 92.

1 4 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2to have recourse to any substantive consideration, to any consideration ofwhat man’s nature, his natural perfection, requires.” 97 In practice, Rousseau’s“actualization of the ideal” means that the “transcendent natural right” isabsorbed into history, as further reflected by Hegel’s identification between“the rational and the real.” 98 But if for Hegel the actualization of the bestregime results with necessity from an inherent rationality of the historicalprocess that culminates with modernity, for Nietzsche, with whom beginsthe third wave of modernity, historicism arrives at its ultimate, nihilisticconclusions. Nietzsche insists that the belief in “historical progress” or the“intrinsic meaning” of history is groundless. Instead, the fully developed historicalconsciousness arrives at the conclusion that there is nothing beyondthe chaotic multiplicity of “human creative acts” that form “those horizonswithin which specific cultures [are] possible.” 99 In practical terms, this meansthat there are no other “standards” for evaluating “choices,” except those“of a purely subjective character.” 100 “Modern man” is completely trappedin the historicist cave, the “oblivion of eternity” being “the price which” he“has to pay…for attempting to be” the “absolute sovereign…of nature” andto “conquer chance.” 101 “The realization” that not God or truth, but simplyorganic weakness or strength, represents “the true origin of all ideals,” opensthe horizon of “a radically new kind of project”: “the transvaluation of allvalues.” 102 Nietzsche redefines the traditional notions of good and bad as“all that heightens the feeling of power” and “all that proceeds from weakness,”respectively. 103 But beyond Nietzsche’s project, the modern age, failingto deliver on its initial promises of terrestrial happiness, displaces insteadall former consoling illusions, leaving us face to face with the unmitigatedtruth of our condition. For the sake of intellectual honesty, Nietzsche wantsus to openly confront this terrible new revelation. In this sense, according toStrauss, if early modern atheism was based on hedonism and therefore soughtto liberate man from the terror that religion inspired, Nietzsche’s atheism, tothe contrary, based on intellectual honesty, seeks to liberate man from the97Ibid.98Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 53.99Strauss, “Three Waves,” 95–96.100Strauss, Natural Right and History, 18.101Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 57.102Strauss, “Three Waves,” 96.103Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1968), 115.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 4 3consolation that religion inspires. 104 Although Strauss agrees that, “in a sense,all political use of Nietzsche is a perversion of his teaching,” he also emphasizesthe fact that “what [Nietzsche] said was read by political men,” fascist politicalmen more precisely, “and inspired them.” 105 Ultimately, Nietzsche “left…his readers” with “no choice except that between irresponsible indifference topolitics and irresponsible political options,” 106 such as that of Nietzsche’s heirand the “most radical historicist,” Martin Heidegger, who in 1933 “submit[ted]to, or rather welcome[d], as a dispensation of fate, the verdict of the least wiseand least moderate part of his nation.” For Strauss, this demonstrates “thatman cannot abandon the question of the good society, and that he cannot freehimself from the responsibility for answering it by deferring to History or toany other power different from his own reason.” 107 And it also demonstratesthat mass political nihilism could very well be the inevitable consequence ofthe Enlightenment’s ambition to turn all men into philosophers.5. Dostoyevsky’s Religious and Political ThoughtWhereas the modern project conceives itself as a break with the past, structurallysimilar to the previous break that has led to the collapse of Greek andRoman antiquity and the emergence on its ruins of the Christian MiddleAges, Dostoyevsky sees beyond these revolutionary changes of paradigm thecontinuity of a single fundamental reality: the West. According to the Russiannovelist, the perpetual Western ideal originates in the Roman Empire. Thereis thus a “Roman idea” that has three stages: the Roman Imperial, the Catholic,and the Socialist. 108 The Roman Imperial ideal was the forced unificationof mankind under the visible authority of the Roman Emperor. Representingthe power that brought the visible world from division to unity, the RomanEmperor resembled the Platonic demiurge who rationally ordered the chaoticpreexistent matter. For this reason, the Emperor was worshiped as a god,being motivated in his political actions by the desire to be glorified, a desirewhich, as indicated, Machiavelli also sought to cultivate and exploit. Thus, forDostoyevsky, the man-god has been the theologico-political cornerstone of104Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 42.105Strauss, “Three Waves,” 98.106Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 57.107Ibid., 23–24.108Paléologue, Sous l’œil du Grand Inquisiteur, 213–14.

1 4 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2the Roman Empire, 109 and will again become the cornerstone of the CatholicMiddle Ages and finally of the modern West. According to Dostoyevsky, theman-god was challenged at the peak of antiquity by God’s descent on earth,or by the incarnation of God as Christ, the God-man. Unlike the man-god,who sought to forcefully unify mankind into a universal “ant-heap,” 110 theGod-man, respecting man’s freedom, preached the unification of mankindthrough brotherly love. Not supported by the force of arms, his preachinghas led to his crucifixion, but his invisible authority continued to be exercisedover the church, the community of repentant sinners who believed inhis resurrection and pursued his ideal while waiting for his return.As revealed by a discussion that takes place in the beginning of the novelThe Brothers Karamazov, the conversion to Christianity of the Roman Empiredid not put an end to the conflict between the principle of the pagan stateand the principle of the Christian church. In Dostoyevsky’s view, integrated,as a consequence of Constantine’s conversion, into the Roman State, whichstill contained “too many vestiges of pagan civilization” and, furthermore,remained pagan through its “very goals and principles” as State, “the Churchof Christ could not…surrender any of its own fundamental principles…andcould not but pursue the very goals that once had been firmly set and prescribedfor it by the Lord Himself, including the goal of converting the entireworld, and thereby the whole of the Ancient State.” 111 This conversion is aconversion from within. It presupposes the transformation of all social relationsbased on power into social relations based on brotherly love. The meansto arrive at this goal are exclusively Christian preaching rendered effectiveby the concrete and personal witnessing through “active love,” 112 to whichall are called, as they are called to repentance in the awareness that all areresponsible for all. According to Dostoyevsky, this theologico-political project,which has been preserved by the Orthodox Church ever since the days ofthe Byzantine Empire but not yet accomplished, is completely different fromthe one which has been adopted by the Roman Catholic Church after theseparation of the Eastern and the Western churches. Reactivating practicallythe Roman Imperial idea, the medieval papacy sought to force its authorityupon states. Furthermore, the church itself transformed itself into a state,109Bruce K. Ward, Dostoyevsky’s Critique of the West: The Quest for the Earthly Paradise (Waterloo,ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1986), 167.110Ibid., 336.111Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 85.112Ibid., 80.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 4 5betraying thus its founding principles. The indicators of this transformation,according to Dostoyevsky, were the acquisition of temporal power by the popeand his proclamation of universal jurisdiction over the church, later followedby the proclamation of infallibility. While, ever since, the Roman CatholicChurch has pursued its ambition of establishing a universal empire ruled bythe pope, Eastern Orthodoxy has continued to pursue the initial Christian“utopia,” with the belief that one day the utopia will triumph over all theworld, a belief that persists despite the awareness expressed by Father Zosimathat “Christian society is not yet ready for this and merely stands upon theshoulders of the seven men of honest report.” 113 Dostoyevsky declares his ownadherence in the Diary of a Writer to this “Utopia”: “If the belief in this ‘newword’ which may be uttered by Russia, heading united Orthodoxy, is a ‘Utopia’worthy of nothing but ridicule,” then “let people class me, too, amongthese Utopians.” 114 In the same work, Dostoyevsky summarizes the differencesbetween Eastern and Western Christianity: on one hand, “we have inthe Eastern ideal—first the spiritual communion of mankind in Christ, andthereafter, in consequence of the spiritual unity of all men in Christ and as anunchallenged deduction therefrom—a just state and social communion.” Onthe other hand, “in the Roman interpretation we have a reverse situation: firstit is necessary to achieve firm state unity in the form of a universal empire,and only after that, perhaps, spiritual fellowship under the rule of the Pope asthe potentate of this world.” 115The idea that political power, not Christian love, is the basis for solidsocial unity is, of course, a Machiavellian idea. Thus, Dostoyevsky appearsas an antimodern Christian utopianist. Moreover, like Machiavelli, Dostoyevskyblames the loss of faith in the West on Christianity’s departurefrom its founding principles, or otherwise said, on Christianity’s Machiavellianization,as reflected in the papacy’s blessing “of every means for Christ’scause.” 116 In this sense, for Dostoyevsky, as for Strauss, modernity begins with113Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 90.114Dostoyevsky, Diary, 1:365. Dostoyevsky’s so-called utopianism has led some to claim that hisreligious thought is marked by chiliasm. But, in accordance with the Orthodox concept of deification(theosis), Dostoyevsky simply insists that by virtue of the unity of transcendence and immanencein Christ, Christian devotion to transcendence brings with it the transfiguration of immanence, asopposed to secular antitheological devotion to immanence which leads to nihilism and dehumanization.For the conformity of Dostoyevsky’s views with Orthodox theology see Richard S. Haugh, “ACritique of the Dostoevsky and Hawthorne Comparison” and “Dostoyevsky’s Vision of the GoldenAge and Human Freedom,” in Theology and Literature, vol. 11 of The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky,ed. Richard S. Haugh (Belmont, MA: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1989), 168, 182, 186.115Dostoyevsky, Diary, 2:728–29.116Ibid., 2:911.

1 4 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2a conscious “lowering of the standards of social action,” but in Dostoyevsky’scase, modernity does not begin with an official departure from Christianity,but rather with a transformation within Christianity that anticipatesMachiavelli’s moral philosophy and that will later become, in Machiavelli’sthought, an officially non-Christian—and ultimately anti-Christian—doctrine.The relationship between the transformation of the Catholic Churchinto a state and the subsequent crisis of religious faith in the West is expressedin a diatribe of Prince Myshkin, who argues that, as “the continuation ofthe Western Roman Empire,” Roman Catholicism has betrayed Christ forthe sake of “universal temporal dominion” and preaches now “a distortedChrist,” or rather “the Antichrist.” Roman Catholicism is worse than “atheism,”which “first came into being through them,” and “gained strength fromthe abhorrence in which they were held.” 117Just as Rousseau, on Strauss’s view, reacted to the first wave of modernity,so too, according to Dostoyevsky, did the Roman Catholic attempt to enforceunity at the expense of freedom trigger a major reaction in defense of freedom:the Reformation. But, unable to go beyond the level of a purely negativereaction of contestation, the Reformation has further aggravated the crisis ofthe West. Unable to find its way back to the Orthodox experience of organictogetherness (freedom and unity reconciled through love) and integralknowledge (reason raised above itself through the loving union between theknower and the known), 118 Protestantism has instead laid the foundations formodern individualism and rationalism. 119 On this new, more or less explicitlyatheist foundation, the French Revolution has attempted once again, that isfor the third time, to accomplish the forced unification of mankind. Born outof the ideals of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution has represented“the last modification and metamorphosis of the same ancient Roman formulaof universal unity.” 120 But the Western world has remained torn apart,as the conflict between the two ideologies that have resulted from the FrenchRevolution, liberalism and socialism, reproduced, as in a mirror, the conflict117Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot, trans. Alan Myers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 574.However, one must underline the fact that, while Dostoyevsky believes that in the West “the mainwell-spring” of the Christian faith “has been made muddy and has been befouled forever,” he alsoargues “that faith and the image of Christ up to the present continue to dwell in the hearts of manyCatholics in all their original truth and purity” (Diary, 1:95–96).118John S. Romanides, “Orthodox Ecclesiology according to Alexis Khomiakov (1804–1860),” TheGreek Orthodox Theological Review 2, no. 1 (Easter 1956): 61, 68.119Dostoyevsky, Diary, 2:564.120Ibid., 2:729.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 4 7between Protestantism and Catholicism. Thus, while liberalism affirmed freedomat the expense of equality and social unity, leading to a society wherethree-quarters of humanity (the working class) “served as raw material and ameans of exploitation” for the rest of mankind (the bourgeoisie), 121 socialismsought to impose equality and social unity at the expense of freedom. Whileliberalism led to “the comedy of bourgeois unity,” to a union of mankind basedon the principle Chacun pour soi et Dieu pour tous, 122 socialism was “nothingelse but a compulsory communion of mankind—an idea which dates back toancient Rome and which was fully conserved in Catholicism.” 123 To paraphraseStrauss’s reference to Locke as successor of Machiavelli, Dostoyevsky regardsboth the capitalist market and the socialist state as amoral, or rather immoral,institutional substitutes for brotherhood, the third ideal from the famousFrench Revolutionary triad, in the absence of which the other two, freedomand equality, could not be reconciled. But brotherhood is an essentially Christianideal that, as indicated, has long been abandoned by the West in favor of“lower standards” of ecclesial life. Or rather, ecclesial life, which is brotherlycommunion, has been abandoned in favor of ecclesiastic order, which is ajuridical formula based on rationalistic utilitarian premises that are also mademanifest later in both socialist collectivism and liberal individualism. 124However, although Dostoyevsky believed that, as an ideology, socialismwas by far more consistent than bourgeois liberalism, and that, for this reason,a socialist revolution that would lead to the collapse of capitalism wasinevitable in the West, he also believed that the project of a universal socialistauthority, as the final accomplishment of the modern project, would beconstantly undermined by the very premise of modernity. More specifically,while the cornerstone of the Enlightenment has been the criticism of religiousauthority by philosophical reason, Dostoyevsky and Strauss both insistthat once “philosophy as such” has been turned by the Enlightenment into“the element of human life,” 125 the incapacity of philosophy to reach a conclusionwith regard to the question of the right way to live inevitably leads tothe incapacity of the political community to find its unity around a commonconception of the way in which society must be organized. Otherwise said,121Ibid.122Ibid., 2:911, 1004.123Ibid., 2:563.124Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, trans. Kyril Fitz Lyon (London: QuartetBooks, 1985), 60–65.125Strauss, “Reason and Revelation,” 146.

1 4 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2the Enlightenment’s fate seems destined to be the same as that of the ancientTower of Babel. Furthermore, as once again stressed by both Dostoyevsky andStrauss, eroding religious faith, philosophical reason opens the path to moralrelativism and practical nihilism. As shown by Dostoyevsky’s man fromthe underground, the first of a series of Dostoyevskyan nihilist heroes whoreproduce Nietzsche’s conclusions, individual reason ultimately dissolvesinto individual will, which must not be “virtuous” or “sensibly advantageous,”but simply “independent.” 126 Of course, one could rightly argue thatfor Strauss there is no necessary evolution from philosophy to theoretical andpractical nihilism. Indeed, strictly from a philosophical point of view, Straussviews dogmatic nihilism as being in no way superior to dogmatic religiousfaith, and adherence to either one of them means the cessation of philosophy.The problem is that while philosophy erodes the authority of religion, it isincapable of providing a decisive refutation of nihilist theory and practice,which, until proved contrary, must be regarded as one of the many equivalentoptions in a world in which, to paraphrase Ivan Karamazov, everything ispermitted because, without a transcendent authority, everything, both goodand evil, is reduced to equivalent value judgments, none of which is obviouslysuperior to the others. But according to Strauss, the argument, formulated inresponse to this crisis, that one needs “revelation as a myth” “is either stupidor blasphemous,” and, interestingly enough, Strauss credits Dostoyevsky forclarifying this issue in Demons. 127 If faith is nothing more than the denialof nihilism, then “the blind choice” of faith, having no other content thanthe need to reject nihilism, becomes rather the final confirmation of nihilism.128 Faith certainly has to be something more than that. However, beyondthe conflict between reason and revelation, which for Strauss remains suspendedat this level, from a political point of view, and taking into account hisreflections on the relation between radical historicist thought and fascism,Strauss must certainly have been impressed by the way in which, in the samenovel mentioned above, Dostoyevsky analyzes the process through which anihilistic tyranny is born and grows in the midst of a society from which therestraint of traditional religion has disappeared.Ultimately, if modern anarchy has been caused by the Enlightenment’sdissolution of the theological authority, then the reestablishment of the latter126Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground, trans. Hugh Aplin (London: Hesperus, 2006),29–30.127Strauss, “Progress or Return?,” 299. See the conversation between Shatov and Stavrogin in Demons,290–91.128Pranchère, L’autorité contre les Lumières, 434.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 4 9represents the necessary premise for ending the modern crisis. However,another problem arises at this point. For according to Strauss, there is a connectionbetween Christianity’s proclamation of the equality of all people andthe Enlightenment’s ambition of making all people philosophers. In Christianity,the basis of this equality is the idea that all people are capable of moralaction, which the biblical tradition, unlike classical philosophy, regards assuperior to philosophical understanding. 129 Although Strauss has seriousreservations with regard to the Hegelian secularization theory, stressinginstead the anti-Christian intentions of the founders of the modern project,he nevertheless admits that the modern world has also been shaped by Christianity,as has been, up to a certain point, the very anti-Christian action ofthe founders of modernity. 130 Intending to defeat Christianity with its ownweapon, namely propaganda, Machiavelli implicitly jettisoned the classicaldistinction between philosophers and nonphilosophers, operating instead inthe logic of a religion that insisted that the revealed truth should be preachedto all human beings, who are all called to practice what the church fathersconsidered to be the “true philosophy,” 131 namely the knowledge of the Godwho revealed himself, knowledge which is not philosophic speculation butlove manifested as obedience to God’s commands (1 John 2:3–5). 132 Moreover,as underlined by Daniel Tanguay, Strauss is of the opinion that, inasmuch asintellectual honesty is a biblical value of no concern for classical philosophy(motivated instead by love of truth, which is something different), the tragicallynihilistic atheism of Nietzsche and Heidegger, as opposed to the joyfullyhedonistic atheism of the founders of modern liberalism, could also be tracedback to biblical revelation. 133 These are problems of which Dostoyevsky’s129Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 116, 140.130Daniel Tanguay, “Colère anti-théologique et sécularisation: Quelques remarques surl’interprétation straussienne de la rupture moderne,” Science et Esprit 51, no. 2 (1999): 185–86, 191–92.131St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 21, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310221.htm. AccessedNovember 20, 2014.132Of course, the biblical tradition does not sanction democratic egalitarianism if by this oneunderstands the relativistic equality of choices deduced from the natural equality of individuals whorecognize no natural finality and no religious authority. Obviously, while all are called to live accordingto God’s commandments, and, at least in accordance with Catholic and Orthodox doctrine, noone is refused the grace to do so, not all live in this way and not all do so to the same extent. Therefore,it is more adequate to speak of a change of axiological hierarchy corresponding to the replacement ofwisdom with righteousness as the highest virtue.133Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 42. “Honest and intransigent atheism,” Nietzsche argues, is “one of thelast evolutionary phases…of a discipline in truth that has lasted for two millennia and which nowprohibits the lie implicit in monotheistic belief. …The Christian ethics with its key notion, ever morestrictly applied, of truthfulness” and “the casuistic finesse of the Christian conscience, translated andsublimated into the scholarly conscience, into intellectual integrity to be maintained at all costs,” have

1 5 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Grand Inquisitor, like Machiavelli “a great master of blasphemy,” 134 and anihilist struggling to contain the social consequences of nihilism, is aware,and this is why he concludes that, while the crisis of political modernity canbe solved only through a return to religion, this new religion has to be anythingbut Christianity. Or, if it formally remains Christianity, it has to bea Christianity divorced from intellectual honesty and the democratic idea,as a result of a fundamental mutation. Only at this point does the twistedand cynical project of the Grand Inquisitor—which shares with Machiavelli’sproject the same concealed aversion to Christianity—become fully comprehensible.As stressed by Bruce K. Ward, for Dostoyevsky, “the final Westernsolution to the crisis of order,” supported by a pseudo-Christianity turnedinto a means of universal unification and homogenization, appears to be auniversal tyranny organized by the nihilists themselves, the only regime thatcan satisfy both “the power-lust” of the nihilists “and the yearning of theweak for order.” 1356. The Legend of the Grand InquisitorThe Legend of the Grand Inquisitor represents the key to Dostoyevsky’sunderstanding of modernity, a fact reflected by the place that the Legendoccupies in The Brothers Karamazov, as well as by the Dostoyevskyan characterwho is the author of this short fictional poem. Like Nietzsche, withwhom he also shares a similar tragic end, Ivan Karamazov is a character“of an intellectual honesty that reaches the point of cruelty and especiallyof cruelty directed against oneself.” 136 If the theologico-political systemexposed in the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor represents the culmination ofthe modern quest for a secular order, the Inquisitor’s solution is a responseto man’s fundamental problem as a being who is thrown and suffers in ameaningless world, a problem that has been exposed in detail by Ivan inthe chapter preceding the one dedicated to the Grand Inquisitor. Startingfrom the observation that innocent children suffer terribly in the existingworld, Ivan arrives at the conclusion that this suffering, together with lifeon earth as a whole, cannot but be meaningless, independently of whetherfinally destroyed Christianity from within (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogyof Morals, trans. Francis Golffing [New York: Doubleday, 1956]), 296–97).134Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 40.135Ward, Dostoevsky’s Critique of the West, 97, 128.136Paléologue, Sous l’œil du Grand Inquisiteur, 197.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 5 1there is an afterlife or not. Unjustifiable suffering, as described by Ivan, canbe explained either by the fact that the world is ruled by a tyrannical God,nay, by the devil himself, or by the fact that there is no God but only man’sexperience of meaningless suffering. In Ivan’s words, “the order of things”is nothing but “a disorderly, accursed and, possibly, devilish chaos.” 137 Aswe saw, this vision of the world, and the implicit demolition of theodicy, isat the origin of the Machiavellian project of conquering chance in order tohumanize man’s environment. Researches such as that of Hans Blumenberg,in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, have confirmed that the Enlightenment’santhropodicy has drawn its energy and legitimacy from the failureof theodicy, as manifested in the thirteenth-century eruption of theologicalvoluntarism that, Blumenberg argues, has practically transformed the ChristianGod into the malevolent demiurge of the Gnostics, with the differencethat, unlike the latter, the former also had the attribute of omnipotence. 138As an expression of a divided personality that ultimately goes insane, Ivan’sresponse to the collapse of theodicy and to the subsequent revelation of aGod-forsaken world appears contradictory inasmuch as, from a Straussianperspective on modernity, it includes both the initial response of the Enlightenment,originating in the Machiavellian revolution, and the later responseof an Enlightenment that culminates in its own nihilistic denial. Ivan’sresponse recapitulates modernity. On one hand, adding a moral connotationto the otherwise pragmatic and hedonistic project of the Enlightenment, Ivandeclares that he wants justice and the end of suffering “not at some place andsome time in infinity, but here upon earth.” 139 The universal socialist systemof the Grand Inquisitor is the practical response to Ivan’s pseudoeschatologicalexpectation. On the other hand, Ivan realizes that a future earthly bliss,like a future heavenly bliss, cannot possibly justify or redeem the evil that hastaken place, and that is unredeemable because it has already taken place andnothing in the world can change that. Consequently, secular faith in progresscollapses together with traditional faith in redemption, as Ivan comes to theconclusion that a more consistent response to the revelation of meaninglesssuffering in a meaningless world would be “to drown in depravity” and then“dash the cup to the floor” once he “attain[s] the age of thirty.” 140 Finally,137Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 300.138Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 1995), 132–39, 142, 154–55, 161–62, 173; see also Michael Allen Gillespie, The TheologicalOrigins of Modernity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 25–29.139Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 318.140Ibid., 343–44.

1 5 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Ivan’s famous statement—for the one who “believes neither in God, nor inhis own immortality…all things [are] lawful” 141 —shows that he is perfectlyaware of the theologico-political problem of modernity: moral authority collapsestogether with religious authority, and political chaos naturally follows.The Grand Inquisitor’s solution is, then, the solution for continuingthe initial modern secular project, as first elaborated, in Strauss’s view, byMachiavelli, in the circumstances in which the modern mind has arrived atthe full awareness of its predicament, or otherwise said, in the circumstancesin which it has arrived at the awareness of the inescapable nihilistic consequencesof its premises. Practically speaking, this presupposes the allianceof socialism and Catholicism, or a universal socialist state led by the pope. 142In this sense, of course, the modern project suffers a drastic modification, tothe point that it looks more like a countermodern project. But whereas thedialectical unity between Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment hasbeen noted by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the solution of theGrand Inquisitor can be justified, by virtue of the Enlightenment’s historicalevolution, with the Machiavellian argument that only the one “who adaptshis mode of proceeding to the qualities of the times” will be successful. 143The continuation of the modern project, in the conditions of the new revelation,requires the highest possible Machiavellian political abilities. We couldwell argue that it would be wise to conceal the new, terrible truth from themany, for the sake of their own happiness and of political stability. And theinquisitorial practices are those that prevent the dissemination of dangerousconceptions. Moreover, together with Machiavelli, the Grand Inquisitorjustifies his decision to burn “nearly a good hundred heretics,” 144 in the nameof Christ, by reminding the latter of the fickleness of human devotion, owingto which he has already been crucified once. “The same people,” the GrandInquisitor tells Jesus, “who today kissed your feet will tomorrow at one waveof my hand rush to rake up the embers on your bonfire.” 145 Like Machiavelli,141Ibid., 94.142The formula is described in Demons by the nihilist socialist Pyotr Verkhovensky: “The pope ontop, we all around, and under us” a political system that presupposes the division of humanity into“two unequal parts. One-tenth is to receive personal freedom and unlimited rights over the remainingnine-tenths. The latter are to lose their individuality and turn into something like cattle and with thisunlimited obedience attain, through a series of regenerations, a primordial innocence.” “All that’sneeded,” Verkhovensky concludes, “is that the Internationale should come to an agreement with thepope, and that’s just what will happen” (Dostoyevsky, Demons, 446–49, 464).143Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 25.144Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 324.145Ibid., 326.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 5 3the Inquisitor criticizes the unarmed prophet’s fatal lack of realism, thus justifyinghis decision to take up arms in Christ’s name in order to complete theGod-man’s work through the only means through which it can be completed:violence, the attribute of the lion, and deceit, the attribute of the fox. RejectingGod’s offer of salvation, the man-god/beast-man decides to redeem throughhis own powers the defective world created by God, which the son of God hasproved unable to redeem. On the contrary, it is not only God’s incompetenceor malevolence as creator, but also his lack of realism as redeemer, that hasgenerated all the trouble that the Grand Inquisitor now has to fix, infinitelyincreasing the additional suffering through which mankind has to pass, untilthe Grand Inquisitor will finally manage to impose his theologico-politicalformula upon the world. From this point of view, the modern project of apurely horizontal redemption presupposes a radical critique of Christianity’s“utopianism,” a critique of the same kind as that attributed by Straussto Machiavelli. Like Machiavelli, the Grand Inquisitor reproaches Christ forhaving ignored the limits of human nature, and consequently raising moralstandards too high. According to the Inquisitor, the God-man has calledhumanity to a way of life that is fit only for the tens of thousands of Christianathletes, not for the billions of “miserable creatures” who are not “to blamefor not having” the strength “to bear the same things as the mighty.” 146 Asa result, rather than being relieved, the misery of the “miserable creatures”has been greatly increased. By “respecting” man “less,” the Grand Inquisitorcontinues, Christ “would have demanded of him less, and that would havebeen closer to love, for his burden would have been lighter.” 147 It is in thename of this compassion, the basis of which is a realistic disdain for man, thatthe Grand Inquisitor sets for himself the task of “correcting” Christ’s “greatdeed,” 148 that is, of “lowering the standards” of spiritual and consequently ofsocial life. The purpose of this revolution, which structurally reproduces theMachiavellian revolution as viewed by Strauss, is to provide, in this world,the only existing one, a degrading, “quiet, reconciled happiness” to “the thousandsupon millions” of “feeble creatures” who are not worthy or capable of asuperior kind of happiness. 149The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor is organized around the three temptationsto which Jesus was exposed in the wilderness, temptations that in146Ibid., 331, 334–35.147Ibid., 334.148Ibid., 339.149Ibid., 337–38.

1 5 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2fact constitute as many Machiavellian counsels, or, in the Inquisitor’s words,“warnings,” that the “clever Spirit” addresses to the “Prince of Peace.” 150“Retorting that man lives not by bread alone,” Christ refuses to turn stonesinto loaves of bread, rejecting therefore the first temptation. If Christ expectsfrom man a love that is free, not one that “is purchased with loaves,” “proclaimingwith the lips of the wisdom and science that there is no crime andconsequently no sin either, but only the hungry,” modern socialism attacksChristianity and calls for the unification of mankind under “the banner” of“earthly bread.” The founding premise of this new “Tower of Babel,” whichreplaces the church, is that one must first “feed” men “and then ask virtueof them.” 151 By so viewing things, the socialists to whom Dostoyevsky refers(and together with them the Grand Inquisitor himself) reproduce the Machiavellianidea, according to which human nature is so constituted that it isforced by unfavorable exterior conditions to act immorally. Hence, the reorganizationof society, through any means necessary, and not the cultivationof virtue, is what is needed in order to bring about effective social change.But the Tower of Babel, the Inquisitor argues, cannot be completed bythe socialists, and the successive failures, which will cause mankind tremendoussuffering, are motivated by the fact that, indeed, “man lives not bybread alone.” 152 Man’s chief concern, continues Christ’s interlocutor, is to findsomeone to whom he can entrust his conscience. Before being a creature whoneeds food and shelter, man is first and foremost a religious creature whoneeds idols to worship, idols from whom he can receive the notions of rightand wrong. And if science/philosophy destroys them, he creates new ones,for there is nothing more tempting, and yet nothing more tormenting, forman than a free conscience that has to decide by itself, with no other support,what is right and what is wrong. The corollary of this existential torment isthat “man seeks to bow down before that which is already beyond dispute, sofar beyond dispute that all human beings will instantly agree to a universalbowing-down before it.” But once again, “thirsting for a love” that was “free,”not for “the servile ecstasies of the slave before the might that has inspiredhim with dread once and for all,” Christ refused to enslave man’s consciencewith a miracle that would have put his divinity beyond dispute, generatingthus a universal “community of bowing down.” 153 Hence, argues the Inquisi-150Ibid., 328.151Ibid., 330.152Ibid., 330, 332.153Ibid., 331, 334.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 5 5tor, man’s torment has been greatly increased precisely by the one who gavehis life for him. Moreover, the Inquisitor insists that, undermining the “old,firm law,” 154 the freedom of conscience which Christ bestowed on the massof “feeble mutineers” 155 is the root cause of modern anarchy. Beyond man’sindividual torment, this freedom prevents the completion of the Tower, thusfurther increasing mankind’s suffering. For freedom of conscience inevitablyundermines the ecclesiastical authority and leads to the “splitting” of“the flock.” For this reason, the correction of Christ’s work presupposes thereplacement of faith based on a free conscience, with blind obedience to theecclesiastical authority “even in opposition to” one’s “conscience.” 156This being said, the Grand Inquisitor’s acceptance of the third satanicoffer that Christ rejected comes as the necessary conclusion and synthesisof the previous two. Whereas Christ refused to receive from the devil “thesword of Caesar,” the Inquisitor accepts this final offer 157 with the awarenessthat the resolution of the modern crisis, and through this of the theologicopoliticalproblem, requires the unification of theological and political poweras the final consequence of the God-man’s evacuation from the world. Notethat, just as in the case of the modern project as attributed by Strauss toMachiavelli and Spinoza, the political option for an earthly kingdom thatcloses itself hermetically to transcendence is not supported by a previousresolution of the conflict between reason and faith in favor of the former.We are dealing here not with a philosophical conclusion, but with a politicaldecision. Like Ivan, his Inquisitor is also aware of the persistence of the mystery,and, together with it, of the possibility of another world that does notsubmit to the laws of “Euclidean geometry,” a fact betrayed by his “shuddering”reaction to the kiss of his silent and therefore mysterious interlocutor. 158But the Inquisitor decides to repress the longing of his heart, and, rejecting as“madness” 159 the Christian mystery that Dostoyevsky—through his voices inthe novel, Zosima and Alyosha—accepts, takes instead a practical, politicaldecision. He accepts “the sword of Caesar” because political science emanci-154Ibid, 332.155Ibid., 334.156Ibid., 335, 337.157Ibid., 335.158Ibid., 307, 342. According to Malcolm Jones, “behind Jesus’s silence in ‘The Grand Inquisitor,’ liesthe Orthodox tradition of apophatic theology with its stress on paradox…and the ultimate unknowabilityof God” (Malcolm Jones, Dostoevsky and the Dynamics of Religious Experience [London:Anthem, 2005], 53).159Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 339.

1 5 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2pated from religious authority—Machiavellian political science—proves thatin this world, which functions according to the laws of Euclidean geometry,the rational distribution of bread, and with it, the pacification of mankind,cannot occur unless the absolute authority that distributes the bread is thesame absolute authority that controls men’s consciences. And if free thought,as the expression of freedom of conscience, can only lead to an unendingdispute, then political necessity requires the inquisitorial annihilation of thefree conscience, annihilation otherwise secretly desired by man’s tormentedheart. “After centuries of the excesses of the free intellect” and science leadthe rebellious creatures, who try to construct “their Tower” by themselves,to “anthropophagy,” prophesies the Inquisitor, an exhausted humanity willfinally cry out to him: “save us from ourselves.” 160 Thus, the Tower will befinished only when the popes “shall be Caesars,” after which they “shall givethought to the universal happiness of human beings.” 1617. ConclusionDostoyevsky and Strauss interpret modernity in ways that are strikinglysimilar, and this fact is reflected in the similarities that characterize theMachiavellian project, as viewed by Strauss, and the project attributed byDostoyevsky to his Grand Inquisitor. Defined by a deliberate “loweringof the standards of social action,” the purpose of which is to reduce man’sdependence on chance, the modern revolution is driven, according to bothauthors, by “antitheological ire,” and is directed against a utopianism which,according to Strauss, characterizes not only the biblical tradition but alsothe classical tradition that Dostoyevsky otherwise ignores when articulatinghis Christian critique of modernity. If Dostoyevsky and Strauss share theintuition of a connection between Christianity, intellectual honesty, and themodern democratic idea, they locate the origins of the modern revolutiondifferently, despite the fact that they identify its spirit in the same way. Thus,for one the modern revolution begins with Machiavelli and is directed againstthe Catholic Church, while for the other, the modern revolution begins withthe separation of the Western church from the Eastern one and is directedagainst the authentic spirit of the Gospel. A careful analysis of Machiavelli’sthought shows, however, that the main target of his attacks is not the otherwiseMachiavellian practice of the church hierarchy, but the utopian and160Ibid., 336–37.161Ibid., 335.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 5 7subversive spirit of the Gospel. And thus, whereas a reconciliation betweenMachiavelli and a de-Christianized Catholicism is perfectly imaginable, ifcircumstances impose it, a reconciliation between Machiavelli and Christ issimply impossible. The transformation of the modern project into the projectof the Grand Inquisitor is justified, according to Dostoyevsky, by the crisis ofmodernity, whose interpretation once again brings Dostoyevsky and Straussvery close to each other.The common theological premise behind Machiavellian philosophy andthe philosophy of the Grand Inquisitor is the rejection of Christian providenceand eschatology, and the consequence of this premise is the abandonment ofman’s transcendent destiny in favor of a secular project, the goal of which isearthly happiness that brings with it spiritual and moral degradation. Thenew, lowered goal of social action is constructed in accordance with whatboth Machiavelli and the Inquisitor define as the inherent limits of humannature, or at least of the overwhelming majority of human beings. One cannotexpect from them inner change resulting from the cultivation of virtue,but one must first “feed” them “and then ask virtue of them.” Moreover, onecannot rely on the free devotion of their hearts; one must enslave their mindsthrough the power of religious manipulation and, furthermore, be ready tocoerce them when they no longer obey. Imitating thus the power of the lionand the cunning of the fox, the Grand Inquisitor replaces indeed the imitationof the God-man with the imitation of the beast-man, which is anotherway of saying that, as he himself admits, he replaces the imitation of Christwith the imitation of the devil. As far as religious manipulation is concerned,we know, as Strauss emphasized, that “Machiavelli has no moral or otherobjections to pious fraud.”If one prefers to see in Machiavelli not a proponent of atheistic hedonism,but a restorer of pagan virtue, then one would be forced to argue that religiousmanipulation can produce different anthropological types. Thus, whereas the“pious fraud” of the inventors of the Roman religion generated republicanand military virtue, the “pious fraud” of the Grand Inquisitor generatescowardice, hedonistic practices (albeit with the permission of the omnipresentsupervising authorities), and cultural infantilism. One is tempted in thiscase to assimilate the differences between the man produced by Machiavelli’sreligion and the man produced by the religion of the Grand Inquisitor to thecontemporary differences between the neoconservative Right and the liberalLeft. However, if one accepts Strauss’s view of Machiavelli as the first representativeof the Enlightenment, then it would be reasonable to believe that,

1 5 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2just as he does not have an objection to pious fraud in general, neither wouldMachiavelli have any particular objection to the Inquisitor’s pious fraud ifthe Inquisitor’s thesis concerning the crisis of modernity is proved to be correct.From this point of view, one should not forget that the religion of theGrand Inquisitor is a therapeutic religion directed at making man happy inthis world, “allowing [him]…even sin, but with our permission,” and “luringhim with a heavenly and eternal reward,” although “beyond the tomb” he“will find only death.” 162 It is important to stress here that, whereas for Straussthe original motive of modern Enlightenment is essentially Epicurean, forEpicurus it is not absolutely necessary to liberate men from the fear of gods,and from their repressive moral authority, through a science that leads toatheism. A therapeutic religion 163 whose gods are indifferent or even benevolentcan also do the job, 164 and, as the Grand Inquisitor claims, it can do itmuch better.Finally, whereas Machiavelli’s atheism is joyful and hedonistic, which iswhy it can become popular, the Inquisitor’s atheism, belonging to a differenthistorical moment, is terrifying and fit only for the minority that cancontemplate the bloodcurdling truth about the human condition. Accordingto Strauss, the ultimate motivation behind Machiavelli’s project is notpatriotism but simply “self-interest…respectfully colored” as patriotism. 165The Grand Inquisitor, on the other hand, claims that he has taken upon himself“the curse” (i.e., the cross) of the secret “knowledge of good and evil,” 166owing to an enormous compassion for mankind, which is superior to that ofChrist, and which therefore justifies his usurpation of God’s authority. Butfrom Dostoyevsky’s Christian perspective, the secret of this compassion is162Ibid., 335–38.163Therapeutic religion not in the sense described by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, namely “thehealing of a person’s passions,” in particular “the three great general passions, self-indulgence, loveof glory, and…love of possessions, to which the temptations of Christ refer,” this healing being theprerequisite for “attaining communion and union with God” (Metropolitan of Nafpaktos Hierotheos,Orthodox Psychotherapy, trans. Esther Williams [Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1994], 27, 222).Rather, therapeutic religion in the sense described by Philip Rieff: a “remissive…religiosity…withnothing at stake beyond a manipulatable sense of well-being,” in which “the psychotherapist” becomesthe new “secular spiritual guide.” According to Rieff, as this “new religiosity” progressively replacesthe old modes of behavior and institutions of Western civilization, “the churchmen” are more andmore pressured by circumstances to adapt and “become…therapists, administrating a therapeuticinstitution—under the justificatory mandate that Jesus himself was the first therapeutic” (Philip Rieff,The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith after Freud [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987],13, 20, 25, 251).164Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 39.165Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 80.166Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 338.

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 5 9an enormous desire for self-glorification, of the same nature with the onethat motivated, from the very beginning, the antitheological rebellion of theprince of darkness.In the end, beyond the comparison between Machiavelli, as interpretedby Strauss, and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, the question that is inevitablyraised concerns the similarities and differences between Dostoyevsky andStrauss. Taking into account the complexity of Dostoyevskyan and Straussianwriting, a thorough treatment of this issue would require a consistent andextended hermeneutical effort that, for obvious reasons of space, must be leftfor another article. Within the limits of this article, I will only limit myselfto a few brief final considerations. Indeed, taking into account Strauss’s reinstatementof the classical distinction between the philosophical minority andthe nonphilosophical majority, from which follows the implicit critique ofdemocracy, the justification of philosophical absolutism, and the legitimationof the noble lie as a political tool, one is entitled to wonder if it is not legitimateto regard Strauss’s thought as a type of “postmodern” Platonism, rediscoveredand reactivated in reaction to the crisis of modernity, a Platonism that thereforeshares many common elements with the worldview of Dostoyevsky’sInquisitor. Strauss’s mysterious suggestion that in the Statesman Platoexpresses his agreement with the Grand Inquisitor’s claim that “the demandfor freedom is not so evidently sound as many present-day lovers of freedombelieve” 167 would seem to encourage such a conclusion. It would then appearthat, despite their common opposition to Machiavelli, Dostoyevsky andStrauss are also, to a great extent, irreducible adversaries. While Dostoyevskyand Strauss both react against the nihilism that results from modernity’santiutopian spirit, the utopias that they defend are different, as are their waysof living the contemplative life. While for Strauss and Plato the contemplativelife means contemplation of the eternal Ideas, or, more precisely, awareness ofthe eternal problems, for Dostoyevsky, the contemplative life means the personalrelation with the personal God of the biblical tradition. Similarly, whilethe utopia of classical philosophy, which implies the critique of democracy, isthe absolute rule of the wise, Dostoyevsky’s utopia is the Christianization ofdemocracy, its transfiguration through brotherly love.There is nevertheless a crucial difference between Strauss and Dostoyevsky’sInquisitor. For what distinguishes the philosopher, as viewed byStrauss, from Ivan’s fictional character is the fact that, while the Inquisitorclaims that his compassion for men is greater than that of the Redeemer,167Leo Strauss, “Plato,” in An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 224.

1 6 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2so that, in this sense, Christ remains the model that he seeks to overcome,the philosopher follows Socrates in his pursuit of knowledge and is calmlyindifferent to the fate of his fellow human beings, just as he is indifferent topleasures and public honors, caring instead only for the acquisition of wisdomand its transmission to the few who are capable of being philosophers. 168But although indifferent to individual human beings, indirectly, the philosopherdoes care for the city, for its proper order, because the philosophical lifedepends on the city. From this point of view, we must stress that in his debatewith Alexandre Kojève concerning tyranny, Strauss argued that if the modernattempt to make man “feel completely at home in this world” were to endin a universal and perpetual tyranny supported by the power of technology, atyranny such as the one depicted in the Legend, then not only authentic faithbut authentic philosophy as well would become impossible on earth. 169 Whatalternative would be left for the lover of wisdom in the socialist state of theInquisitor, if he wanted to pursue his philosophical vocation? To “join forceswith…the clever people?” 170 Strauss denies that the philosopher would acceptsuch a role 171 and in several instances he insisted that, in practical terms, inthe modern age, the best political alternative, for the philosopher as well asfor society as a whole, and the alternative that comes closest to the classicalsolution, has been and remains liberal democracy. 172 Hence, as scandalousas it may seem to us from the perspective of a culture shaped by the biblical168Strauss, “Restatement,” 198–200.169Ibid., 211.170Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 340.171Strauss, “Restatement,” 211.172Leo Strauss, “Liberal Education and Responsibility,” in An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Seealso “Restatement,” 193–94; “The Three Waves,” 98. Others, like Shadia Drury, accuse Strauss and hisdisciples of deliberately “subverting” American democracy with the intention of replacing the decadentdemocratic regime with a shadowy militarized tyranny modeled, at least up to a certain point,on the political system of Dostoyevsky’s Inquisitor. In this sense, comparing Strauss with the GrandInquisitor, Drury argues that, like the latter, Strauss believes that strict hierarchical order and theuse of “pious fraud” are necessary for the functioning of society. But, according to Drury, while theInquisitor’s tyranny is a compassionate tyranny tributary to the compassion preached by the ChristianGod whom the Inquisitor imitates, the tyrants supposedly produced in Strauss’s academic laboratoryand responsible, according to Drury, for America’s invasion of Iraq not only have no compassion forordinary men, but, like the “pagan gods,” are even “entertained” by “the pain, suffering and tragediesof the mortals” (Shadia Drury, “Leo Strauss and the Grand Inquisitor,” http://secularhumanism.org/library/fi/drury_24_4.htm. Accessed November 20, 2014). In this context it is worth mentioning that,characterizing Dostoyevsky as a “Russian Jesuit,” much more subtle than any Western Jesuit, someinterpreters of his work such as Masaryk have argued that Dostoyevsky’s position is in fact that of theGrand Inquisitor (Paléologue, Sous l’œil du Grand Inquisiteur, 181–83). For more details on Drury’scritique of Strauss see The Political Ideas of Leo Strauss (New York: St. Martin’s, 2005); for a defenseof Strauss against Drury’s attacks see Peter Minowitz, Straussophobia: Defending Leo Strauss andStraussians against Shadia Drury and Other Accusers (Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2009).

Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 6 1tradition, it appears that the indifference of the philosopher towards his fellowbeings is what guards him from the path that begins with Job’s lamentationand can end with Ivan’s socialist state as the final and purely immanent historicalsolution to Job’s affliction. Strauss insists on the fact that whereas theclassical tradition was calmly reconciled with the impossibility of surpassingthe evil inherent in human nature, modernity has inherited its belief inman’s power to humanize his environment from Christianity’s eschatologicalexpectation. 173 For this reason, if it is a utopia, Plato’s Republic is not at allutopian in the sense of the word with which we have accustomed ourselvesat least since the French romantic utopian socialism which influenced theyoung Dostoyevsky, and with which Dostoyevsky kept sympathizing evenafter the utopian socialism of his youth had eventually evolved into Christianliturgical socialism. While today we instantly tend to associate utopia withradical democracy, Plato’s Republic is, on the contrary, a hierarchical utopia,articulated in response to the crisis of Athenian democracy, “conveying”at the same time “the broadest and deepest analysis of political idealism,”and therefore of its limits, that was “ever made.” 174 As for Ivan, in whom theconsciousness of the crisis of modernity reaches its culmination, he too isconvinced of the impossibility of overcoming the evil inherent in humannature, but he remains too rooted in the biblical tradition to calmly reconcilehimself to the world as it is. Thus, he is determined to go ahead with hisproject of ending human suffering, even if this means the dehumanizationof man, and to pursue his mutiny, even if he is aware that “one can’t live in astate of mutiny,” “even though,” concludes Ivan, “I am not right.” 175 Ultimately,the decisive element that triggers his psychological collapse and activates thespecter of a universal and perpetual tyranny is the loss of faith (“your Inquisitor,”says Alyosha, “doesn’t believe in God, that’s his whole secret!”) or hisrefusal to accept that the contradictions of this world are solved in “anotherworld”—a world to which the visible world is mysteriously bound in such away that the transfiguration of immanence by transcendence, as manifestedin the mystery of the incarnation, offers the mystical foretaste of the finaleschatological resolution of the problem of evil. 176 This is the Christian theologicalfoundation of Dostoyevsky’s practical response to the problem of eviland of his subsequent critique of modernity.173Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 114.174Strauss, The City and Man, 127; see also “Restatement,” 210.175Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 320.176Ibid., 415.

1 6 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2

Book Review: Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism1 6 3Corine Pelluchon, Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism: Another Reason,Another Enlightenment. Translated by Robert Howse. SUNY Series in theThought and Legacy of Leo Strauss. New York: State University of New YorkPress, 2014, 309 pp., $90 (hardcover).St e v e n F r a n k e lXavier Universityfrankel@xavier.eduRobert Howse’s translation of Corine Pelluchon’s ambitious book marksanother impressive addition to the fine series from SUNY Press on thethought and legacy of Leo Strauss. Pelluchon’s book originally appeared inFrance in 2005 (Éditions Vrin), winning the prestigious François Furet prizein 2006. The book’s enthusiastic reception in France reflects Pelluchon’ssuccess at introducing Strauss to a European audience and reclaiming himas a seminal European thinker. Nonetheless, she does not wish merely topresent Strauss as a European “raised in Germany, [who] studied in Parisand Cambridge,” but insists on the continuing relevance of Strauss’s thoughtto contemporary readers, particularly his analysis of the crisis of the West:“Strauss provides strikingly new perspectives with a view to thinkingthrough the crisis of our times” (3). The crisis is the loss of confidence in allclaims about the good, including those grounded in reason, revelation, andliberalism. Ultimately, she argues, this crisis is rooted in the Enlightenment’sconception of reason and, as Strauss gradually came to see, involves the theologyand politics derived from it. Strauss remains relevant because the crisiswas never resolved in Europe. The status of the Jews in Europe, for example,was hardly resolved by the annihilation of European Jewry. Pelluchon’s bookclaims Strauss not only as a European, but also as a guide who can showEuropeans out of their theological-political cul-de-sac.© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

1 6 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Pelluchon approaches Strauss’s intricate thought by presenting hisintellectual biography, particularly his career in Europe. This is a prudentapproach for an introduction aimed at contemporary readers, who are accustomedto grasping thought by seeing its relation to the context within whichit emerges. It also follows Strauss’s own presentation of the development ofhis thought in his Preface to the English translation of his Spinoza’s Critiqueof Religion. 1 In that account, Strauss presents himself “as a young Jew in Germany”who gradually became aware of the depth of the crisis of the West,even as he struggled to unearth its truest causes. The crisis first comes to viewas the inability of liberal democracy, particularly the Weimar Republic, toalleviate discrimination and defend itself effectively from its illiberal critics.In addition, Strauss describes the crisis in theological terms, as a man whohad wished to honor his faith but struggled to find an intellectually honestmeans to take its claims seriously. At first glance the political crisis and thecrisis of faith appear to have little to do with one another, but as Strauss graduallycame to realize, they are closely related. As the political crisis worsens,modern thought slides into nihilism under the guise of “intellectual probity,”a trait which initially appears compatible with the ancient “love of wisdom”but is distinguished from it by its indifference—if not contempt—for prudenceand political philosophy.In SCR, Strauss outlines the potential pitfalls of describing a seriousthinker in terms of the development of his thought. For one thing, we maycome to see his thought wholly as the product of its times; that is, we mayhistoricize his thought. Closely related to this problem is the temptation tobelieve that we can understand an author better than he understood himself.Pelluchon does not succumb to this temptation; rather, by carefully followingStrauss’s autobiographical account, she teaches us how to avoid it. Her analysissupplements Strauss’s account with background material in creative andinformative ways, so that her picture of Strauss is sensitive to the context withoutreducing him to a mere product of his environment. In fact, she introducesreaders to historicism by speculating that Strauss’s first exposure to it waswith the Wissenschaft des Judentums, a movement with which Strauss wasaffiliated as a young man. This allows her to examine the historicist approachto texts, how the participants of that movement “understood an epistemologicalrupture with the past. They no longer read the Talmud in thinking of theintentions” of the authors. “Far from imagining that there’s a timeless truth1Leo Strauss, Preface to Spinoza’s Critique of Religion (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), 1–31;henceforth SCR.

Book Review: Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism1 6 5necessitating several levels of reading, they embraced historicism…or theidea that all truth is relative to a particular historical period” (59).Once we adopt historicism, we foreclose the possibility of finding truthbeyond the assertion that there is no truth as such. We no longer take seriouslythe possibility of philosophy nor even consider that previous thinkers mighthave achieved some insight into the truth which surpasses our own. The Wissenschaftmovement applied this perspective to Jewish Law and ended updestroying it: “In turning the Law into an object of science, and in applying toJudaism progressive methods of historiography, they destroyed Judaism as areligion and lost a tradition they wanted to save” (58). In the words of MoritzSteinschneider, one of the movement’s most prominent scholars, “the task ofJewish studies is to provide the remnants of Judaism with a decent burial.” 2Pelluchon’s Strauss is acutely aware of the crisis of faith, of living in aworld where the chain of tradition is broken and man is thus alienated fromGod. She recounts Kafka’s short parable “Before the Law” to illustrate theEuropean Jews’ sense of the crisis. In the tale, an ordinary man wishes togain “entry to the law,” but despite his lifetime of efforts is unable to get pastthe gatekeeper (57; see 62). Failing to discover the means to gain entry, theman dies heartbroken, outside the law. Pelluchon interprets the story as anexpression of the modern crisis, namely, that the path to return is blocked inthe first place by the historicist reading of the past.Pelluchon describes Strauss’s efforts to find the key to this door even in hisearliest work. In fact, shortly before his death, Strauss described the centraltheme of his thought as the theological-political problem. Pelluchon structuresher analysis around each element of this problem by neatly dividing herbook into two sections of three chapters each. The first section analyzes thetheological question, or as Pelluchon calls it, “modern religious consciousness,”while the second analyzes “modern political consciousness.” Sincethese parts form a single whole, they are difficult to separate entirely, nor isthat Pelluchon’s intention. Instead, she develops each question separately toshow more clearly how they fit together.She begins by examining Strauss’s earliest work, his dissertation on Jacobi,completed in 1921, which is often ignored by Strauss’s students on the advice2See Charles Mannekin, “Steinschneider’s ‘Decent Burial’: A Reappraisal,” in Study and Knowledgein Jewish Thought, ed. Howard Kreisel (Beer-Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2006),1:239–51.

1 6 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2of Strauss himself, who dismissed it as a “disgraceful performance.” But Pelluchonshows convincingly why it is important nonetheless for understandingStrauss’s approach to the Enlightenment (29ff., 51). One can see how Straussalready took the measure of the moderate, early phase of the Enlightenment inthe thought of Moses Mendelssohn and others and judged it inadequate (37).The moderate phase of the Enlightenment sought to preserve some measure ofreligion, as long as it remained “within the limits of reason.” Jacobi, however,exposed the truly radical, atheistic vision of Spinoza and the Enlightenmentwhich Strauss would trace back to Hobbes and Machiavelli. (Pelluchon herefollows Strauss’s account in SCR, so she tends to put more emphasis on Spinozathan on Machiavelli or Hobbes.) The basis for this radical view is the dogmaticbelief that reason is self-sufficient and, as such, is able to give an account of thewhole. That such a premise is not self-evident and involves a kind of faith, themoderns attempted to conceal. The failure to create a religion of reason, à laHermann Cohen, results ultimately from the insufficiency of reason, as well asfrom the atheism implicit in the Enlightenment.Jacobi attacks the Enlightenment’s ambitious concept of reason in orderto show that, despite its own atheism, we must abandon reason and return toreligious orthodoxy. Clearly, Strauss does not accept this conclusion. But helearned from the defects in Jacobi’s conclusion the inadequacy of attemptsby early modern thinkers, such as Moses Mendelssohn, to claim a moderateposition (257). He also learned that the primary culprit for the modern crisisof faith is the Enlightenment’s narrow conception of reason, which claimsto be sufficient for explaining the whole. As the inadequacy in this claimbecomes more apparent, our confidence in reason is shaken and ultimatelydestroyed. The blindness to the limits of reason leads to its rejection and, ultimately,to the embrace of irrationality and political fanaticism. These defectsultimately help us grasp the superiority of Maimonides’s account of reason,which does not condemn revelation, and of revelation, which maintainssome openness to reason: “Strauss would never become a man of the Anti-Enlightenment. …The return to orthodoxy that he proposes is less a struggleagainst the Enlightenment in the name of faith than a return to another typeof Enlightenment proposed by Maimonides” (46; see 53). The moderns’ beliefin enlightenment and their advocacy of reason reflects a forgetting of thelimits of reason and the need for guidance in nonrational sources such asLaw. This opens the path to Maimonidean enlightenment.In the final chapter of part 1, Pelluchon compares Strauss’s projects toattempts by other German Jews—Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig (and

Book Review: Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism1 6 7later Emmanuel Levinas), and Gershom Scholem—to reinvigorate the traditionof revelation. This further establishes Strauss’s place in a broader Europeanproject and also highlights his unique strategy of recovering the meaning ofpremodern rationalism as a prerequisite for a return to revelation (see 128).The second section of the book, on “the foundations of modern politicalthought,” explores Strauss’s account of the three waves of modernity. Readersof Strauss will recall his seminal essay “The Three Waves of Modernity,”which presents a detailed account of the origin and development of modernpolitical consciousness in three closely related, but ever more radical phases. 3Pelluchon uses this framework to present Strauss’s reading of modern politics,the prevailing opinions on rights, power, the state, pluralism, justice, andso forth. Although the focus throughout is on modern politics, the underlyingquestion is the possibility of return to a premodern mode of analysis,namely political philosophy. Ancient political philosophy begins from thevarious opinions that pervade the nonphilosophic political community. Thegoal is not primarily to choose a side, but rather to ascend from the opinionsto knowledge about justice, virtue, and the good: “Philosophical inquiry isthe attempt to transform opinions into knowledge, but it is also a matter ofreflection on the categories that formed our understanding of the world andthat may come from philosophy itself” (139). Strauss employs this mode ofanalysis, in Pelluchon’s reading, and thereby demonstrates the relevance ofclassical political philosophy.This mode of analysis is evident in his three-waves thesis, which allowsstudents to see the threads connecting the thought of Machiavelli and Hobbesto that of Nietzsche and Heidegger: “Man, in the absence of a consideration ofthe hierarchy of ends, will be the measure of all things. Free to obey his owngods and demons, he will find in the glorification of power, in the exercise ofa will oriented to itself…the possibility of self-affirmation. Barbarism will bethe exultation of the Will to Power” (151). Her nuanced account of Strauss’scritique of Carl Schmitt shows that though Strauss may have shared some ofSchmitt’s criticisms of liberalism and democracy, like Tocqueville he resistedthe temptation to reject them altogether (160–77). Indeed, Schmitt inspiredStrauss to develop a philosophical defense of liberalism by examining itsorigins in the first wave, as well as fundamental criticisms of liberalism thatemerged in the second wave. Strauss’s moderation results from an evaluationof these criticisms, rooted in a critical awareness of the limits of political3Leo Strauss, “The Three Waves of Modernity,” in An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essaysby Leo Strauss, ed. Hilail Gildin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 81–98.

1 6 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2life. Such an evaluation cannot be derived from modernity itself, but onlyby reaching beyond modernity toward classical political philosophy. Forexample, on the Socratic view, not everyone can leave the cave and makethe ascent; not everyone can be a philosopher. Thus Schmitt’s contempt fordemocracy as fostering and encouraging constant entertainment is misplaced.The desire for distractions is not particular to democracy, nor is itpossible to create a society where everyone engages in philosophical speculation(see 167). Schmitt expected too much from politics, and simultaneouslyhe undermined all claims of justice as the mere arbitrary will of the sovereign.Not surprisingly, he was unable to recognize or resist barbarism.Pelluchon describes Strauss’s thesis without insisting on dogmatic certitude.Her lively exposition stresses the open-ended interpretative questionsin Strauss’s thought by focusing on the original works of the thinkers who forStrauss typify each wave of modernity: Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza,Rousseau, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and others. By describing the thought ofeach individual author, she encourages the reader to return to the primarytexts. She skillfully weaves other elements of Strauss’s oeuvre into the narrativein interesting ways. For example, after describing the first two wavesof modernity, she introduces the dialogue between Strauss and AlexandreKojève to show how a novel type of tyranny, typified by communism, emergesas a result of the second wave. Indeed, she uses Kojève and Schmitt to showhow radical and horrible alternatives of liberalism emerge from the waves ofmodernity: “Strauss and Kojève form a trio with Carl Schmitt: the critique ofmodernity is a trialogue. …But Strauss reveals the contradictions of Schmittand Kojève: just as [Schmitt’s] decisionism becomes nihilism, the universaland homogenous state [advocated by Kojève] makes inexplicable how someonelike Kojève could be possible” (192).The purpose of Strauss’s analysis of modern political consciousness isto strengthen and support liberalism. Pelluchon summarizes his project asfollows: “The work of Strauss is, in its critique of historicism, relativism, andthe deconstruction of modernity in three waves, but also in its study of premoderntexts, an attempt to understand that it is possible to reconsider thefoundations of our society. It is a matter of supplementing liberalism, whichhas allowed the promotion of subjective rights—of which Strauss does notcontest the legitimacy but only the absoluteness—by the idea that the end ofman is not reduced to his preservation” (203). The remedy Strauss proposesis not to impose a perfect society by force, but rather to reconsider the definitionof man which refers only to self-preservation and egoistical passions.

Book Review: Leo Strauss and the Crisis of Rationalism1 6 9The final section of part 2 outlines Strauss’s efforts to remedy the crisiswith a pedagogic rather than political program. According to Pelluchon,“Husserl put Strauss on the path of a phenomenological reduction thatdetermines the task of philosophy as the transformation of opinions intoknowledge” (212). At the same time, Strauss learned from Heidegger that onecannot simply return to a natural understanding of the world apart fromone’s historical and political horizon. Strauss discovered the most nuancedview of this process in Socrates, who begins with the diverse opinions of thecity and makes an ascent toward knowledge, fully aware of his ignorance.The citizens themselves, whose opinions are directed by poetry and the law,never attain perfection, but an excellent city allows individuals to make theascent. In a whirlwind tour of Strauss’s analysis of ancient philosophy, Pelluchonintroduces readers to the role of poetry in the city and its tensionwith philosophy, a tension that is moderated by what Strauss describes asphilosophy’s “recognition of essential differences and noetic heterogeneity”(217). Liberal education nurtures this desire for human perfection amongthe few, but at the same time must moderate its students lest they overturnthe opinions of the city, which allow for the ascent to philosophy in the firstplace. One expression of such moderation is the emergence of a certain art ofwriting, which Plato describes in the Seventh Letter, as capable of articulatingonly part of the whole. Strauss’s discovery of Platonic political philosophycame from an unlikely source: the medieval philosophy of Maimonides. InMaimonidean jurisprudence, Strauss finds the truest and the best solution tothe theological-political problem. By balancing the needs of the communitywith the demands of reason, Maimonides is able to teach us the most justrelation between reason and revelation. This final section ties together thetheological and political problems and helps us find a way out of the moderncrisis: “The superiority of the Enlightenment of Maimonides to that of theModerns derives from the fact that in the former, truth and knowledge arepreserved, whereas the latter leads to relativism” (231). Nor does MaimonideanEnlightenment lead to the exclusion of faith or the overconfidence inreason to guide man (see 236).Pelluchon concludes that “the Enlightenment occurred in awareness ofall the essential problems, but its evolution and the increasing rigidity of theposition of the philosophers toward religion resulted in a regression and anobfuscation” (98). She has in mind here not Strauss but Tocqueville, “wholost his faith at sixteen, [yet] held that religion is necessary because democraticman, who is content with the search for personal happiness and profit,can degrade himself of his own accord” (99). Like Spinoza, who appears to

1 7 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2have advocated a religious view to which he himself did not subscribe, Pelluchon’sTocqueville sees clearly the looming crisis, but is unable to checkthe tide of secularization. Pelluchon locates Strauss firmly in this tradition:“The reality described by Tocqueville was experienced by Strauss” (101). ButStrauss’s efforts at return via Maimonides uncovered dramatically differentpossibilities.Pelluchon’s efforts to portray Strauss as a European help American readerssee Strauss’s achievement in a new light. She attempts, for example, tosituate Strauss on the European political spectrum. But Strauss’s place isdifficult to locate if we associate conservatism with a reactionary hatred ofmodernity and liberalism with a hatred of traditions, religious and political.Strauss creates an alternative to these extremes. His view shares somecommon features with conservatism, but there is a crucial difference: “Unlikethe reactionary, who favors a return to the past, the conservative thinks thatmodernity destroys the conditions of its own existence and brings aboutthat which it wished to combat. This political sensibility corresponds to thespirit of the Straussian critique of modernity, to the way in which he showsthe destructive dialectic of Enlightenment. It sets the tone also for Strauss’sreflections on the internal threat to mass democracy” (53). Like Tocqueville,Strauss is a friend to liberal democracy, but this does not blind him to itsdefects or prevent him from criticizing its flaws.Pelluchon’s biographical account describes the way Strauss liberateshimself from historicism and discovers philosophy. Like Wittgenstein’s ladder,the historical account turns out to be a means which can be discardedonce we have recognized the possibility of philosophy. In fact, the discoveryof philosophy exposes the triviality of such claims as that Strauss can beunderstood historically and that his mature thought should be understoodin light of the earlier work. Strauss playfully makes the same point in thepreface to SCR, where he catalogs various misreadings of Spinoza, includingHermann Cohen’s and Franz Rosenzweig’s. These erroneous readings revealthe problems one encounters when trying to understand an author betterthan he understood himself. But, once we recognize that they are errors, theyare less interesting than pursuing and engaging in the actual thought of theauthor. In fact, the two lines of inquiry are so different from each other thatwe may wonder whether the account of historical development contributesvery much to grasping philosophy. Pelluchon’s account of Strauss’s thoughthelps us make this ascent.

Book Review: Political Philosophy Cross-Examined1 7 1Thomas L. Pangle and J. Harvey Lomax, eds., Political Philosophy Cross-Examined: Perennial Challenges to the Philosophic Life. New York: PalgraveMacmillan, 2013, 214 pp., $90.M ic h a e l H a r di ngMontgomery College Germantownmichael.harding@montgomerycollege.eduPolitical Philosophy Cross-Examined, the new festschrift in honor of HeinrichMeier, does an excellent job of addressing the responses of various thinkersto the challenges presented to the philosophic life by the claims of politics,religion, and even reason itself. If there is a deficiency to be found in theessays collected in this volume, it is this: each essay could itself serve asthe introduction to a book in its own right. The attentive reader will findthese essays to be thought-provoking and insightful. That alone is enough tocommend this book to the attention of anyone serious about philosophy asa way of life. The volume itself spans Western intellectual history, aspiringto “reopen the case for the philosophic life in the face of, and while doingjustice to, its most severe challengers” (1). Such a reopening of the case isparticularly necessary today, when something called philosophy has becomeaccepted and respectable—and in the process, perhaps become “blurred” 1 ordomesticated. The essays in the book cover Plato’s presentation of Protagorasand sophistry, Aristotle, the Bible, Tacitus, Maimonides, Machiavelli, Bacon,Hobbes, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, and (lastly) return again toPlato’s Socrates. The authors are all accomplished scholars, and, as expected,the essays are of very high quality indeed. A short review cannot, of course,delve deeply into each individual essay, so I will briefly present overviews of1Leo Strauss, “Restatement on Xenophon’s Hiero,” in What Is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), 127.© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

1 7 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2each essay. These overviews are of necessity distortions, presenting, in thespace allotted, a brief bird’s-eye view of the questions covered by the essays.Suffice it to say, scholars of the thinkers, texts, and questions discussed inthis review will want to read the essays in this collection.The volume opens with Robert Bartlett’s “Sophistry as a Way of Life,” onthe figure of Protagoras. The Protagorean sophist is a hedonist who rejectsthe distinction between good and evil (though not good and bad) (7). Nonetheless,since he teaches politically ambitious students, his teaching mustnot weaken that ambition. His theoretical teaching (9–11) culminates in aradical skepticism that would be corrosive of such ambitions (and thereforeundermines Protagoras’s own financial well-being). He may consider himselfbeyond good and evil, but he is not beyond recognizing his interest and actingaccordingly. Therefore, he takes up the challenge of his great competitor,the mantic art. Philosophy is only possible if denials of “natural necessity orcausation are false.” However, “Protagoras knows that he cannot prove the‘prophet’ to be wrong, and he instead retreats into an extreme relativism thatat a minimum protects his own view of the world from attack. …The extremeversion of Protagoras’s relativism, then, may not so much defend philosophyas fend off belief” (14). Protagoras may offer, in the end, a theoretical agnosticism,but it is a practical atheism (15). “Protagorean relativism and skepticismrepresent a profound challenge to the philosophic life, and in the end, holdthat “wisdom or science is finally impossible” (16). In light of this radicalclaim of the impossibility of philosophy, or of the profound and insurmountableobstacles presented to the discovery of even merely “human wisdom,”Bartlett’s essay is a fitting place to begin the collection, for Protagoras presentsthe rational case against the philosophic life in an extremely clear way.Bartlett’s essay is followed by two essays on Aristotle, one by ChristopherBruell and one by Thomas Pangle, both of which are essential reading forany student of Aristotle, and to neither of which can justice be done here. In“Aristotle on Theory and Practice,” Bruell takes up a consideration of Aristotelianrationalism as an alternative to modern rationalism in the wake ofthe latter’s collapse, on the grounds that the Aristotelian version seems topossess resources insulating it from the postmodern critique of rationality(17). We seek to know that the ends to which Aristotelian prudence directs usare the best and highest ends, and that knowledge of these ends is “genuineknowledge,” but as Bruell points out, there is a difficulty: Aristotle himself“has made no such case” (18). However, the case for prudence turns out torest “upon a prior acceptance of the very principles that we wished him to

Book Review: Political Philosophy Cross-Examined1 7 3show us that prudence can establish” (19). In other words, Aristotle’s case forprudence will not persuade all men, but only those already habituated to theright opinions about the just and the noble. Bruell closes with four points thatmerit further consideration. First, is an argument establishing the primacy ofone way of life not ultimately a practical argument? Second, the critique ofprudence and prudent men began with a “recognition of the precision withwhich they accomplish their task,” which is good reason to leave them be (27).Third, the capacity of the prudent to act well “presupposes an adequate graspon their part of a broad range of human ends, in their proper ordering”; correctingand enlarging that grasp through theory might play a role in “tamingthe savagery of political life” (27). Finally, the end of the Ethics intends topresent theory as parallel to and higher than practical life, but ultimatelyembedded in it: “practice” comes to light as “the matrix of theory” (28).In the next chapter, Thomas Pangle addresses the question, raised inPolitics 7, of which is better, the political or the philosophic life, both for individualsand for cities. This dense essay begins with Aristotle’s presentationof the case against virtue from the crudely hedonistic position, and moves toAristotle’s response (which, Pangle points out, fails as a refutation). Nor doesAristotle offer a response to the thoughtful hedonist, who recognizes the utilityof virtue for both the apolitical life and the life devoted to acquisition (30).Instead, Aristotle turns to divine self-sufficiency as a way of understandinghappiness or blessedness, which consists in “a higher, self-sufficient virtue.”Perhaps there is a way of life that can approximate such divine happiness onearth—“an earthly life engrossed in either blissful or sternly self-transcendingmental activities akin to God’s…which depends on other human beingsas little as possible within mortal limits, and is either purged of or enabled torepress immoral temptations.” Pangle proceeds to highlight an ambiguity inthe mind of the morally serious man: does virtuous activity constitute one’sown greatest good, or does it merely render one deserving of “an otherwiseunattainable divine happiness” (31)? Would such happiness be appropriatefor a city or for an individual? Pangle’s essay compels a confrontation with anumber of hesitations and ambiguities in Aristotle’s presentation, and thereforea deeper confrontation with Aristotle himself.In “Inexhaustible Riches: Mining the Bible,” J. Harvey Lomax discussesthe challenge of revelation. Christianity, of course, has long had a cozierrelationship with philosophy than Judaism, as evinced by the accord reachedbetween the two camps in the Middle Ages. In an outstanding collection,Lomax’s essay particularly shines in the way it presents the challenge of the

1 7 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2biblical tradition. The philosopher is challenged by faith just as much as theman of faith is challenged by philosophy: “How can the faithful overcomethe risk of self-deception?” writes Lomax. “How can they be sure the Godthey worship corresponds to the true Lord of the universe? …How can onewho presumes to live a life of reason know that the life of faith is not infinitelysuperior? How, indeed, can a philosopher achieve certainty that thephilosophic life is not self-destructively based on faith, even an inferior kindof faith?” (45). Lomax approaches the question phenomenologically, boring“through the crust of prejudices and presuppositions left by millennia ofinstitutions and traditions” (46). This is necessary if we are to recover thetrue challenge of the biblical tradition—precisely because it is still, in somesense, our tradition we may find it difficult to approach it clearly. Lomaxwrites for philosophers, who “must face the possibility that the Bible is true”and that philosophy “is a forbidden rebellion against God and…a drasticallyinferior form of existence compared to the life of faith” (60). Lomax allowsthe reader to glimpse a biblical tradition that challenges philosophy in a waythat we contemporaries, because of what we consider our familiarity withthat tradition, cannot always do. Both the contemporary atheist who rejectsreligion simply and the contemporary descendants of Thomas Aquinas 2 whoperhaps underplay the tensions between reason and revelation will benefitfrom Lomax’s insightful essay, which has the virtue of presenting the biblicalchallenge to philosophy in a stronger and deeper light than is commonlydone today.James H. Nichols Jr. takes up the question of whether and how we canthink of Tacitus as a philosophic writer (“On the Philosophic Character ofTacitus’s Imperial Histories”). While one might simply accord this statusto Tacitus on the grounds that thinkers such as Machiavelli, Hobbes, Montesquieu,and Gibbon held him in high regard, Nichols understands thatsuch a view is unfashionable today, and that it requires that a more strenuousargument be made for it. Nichols argues that Tacitus is a philosophicwriter interested in pursuing the truth while being aware that “truth hasbeen impaired in many ways,” including the ignorance of public affairs andthe distorting effects of flattery toward or hatred of imperial masters. TheTacitean account “refers to human passions in their reaction to masters, thatis, imperial rulers. …The concern for historical truth already points towardhis inquiry into political forms and moral traits.” Tacitus wants to elucidate“the causes and reasons of things” (67). Tacitus does so without partisan zeal,2This, of course, is not to say that St. Thomas underplays the tension. As any serious reader of Aquinaswell knows, he is attuned to the difficulties.

Book Review: Political Philosophy Cross-Examined1 7 5aware of the powerful moral effect that writing can have: “the very existenceof truthful history…can have a beneficial effect on human action, by holdingforth the incentive of gaining honor from the memory of virtuous deeds andby deterring evil deeds through fear of infamy” (70). Tacitus has a moral anda political goal—and the moral goal must be considered in relation to thepolitical circumstance: “If one is to act well—morally but not futilely—oneneeds not only good character and upright intention but also knowledge ofthe political regime within which one must act” (72). Philosophical Tacitus’saccount of Roman political history is rooted in the “natural human passions”that are “unleashed by imperial possessions” (73). He “never” tries to explainwhich events are by divine intervention, yet as belief in divine punishmentcan restrain evildoers, “a prudent man can have no sound reason to undermineit, and Tacitus therefore does not do so” (74). Nichols’s Tacitus comesto light as truly philosophic in a Socratic mode, “seeking to know throughdiligent and prolonged inquiry into human deeds and speeches” (76). Nichols’sessay in particular does an excellent job of highlighting the way in whichcontemporary assumptions can prevent readers from recognizing the philosophicalin Tacitus.Ronna Burger takes up Maimonides’s teaching on the knowledge of goodand evil and the fall of man in The Guide of the Perplexed. She ably shows thatMaimonides writes for both careful and careless readers. The careless readerwill not be challenged in his orthodoxy (and if lacking it will perhaps findhimself pulled toward it). The careful reader will find a Maimonides alive tothe tension between revelation and the philosophers. Burger emphasizes theway Maimonides both wrestles with and obscures from the careless reader“the biblical distrust of the human desire for wisdom” which is “the ultimatecause of human resistance to the authority of God” (87). Her Maimonidesdiscerns two different modes of cognition: “intellection of truth and falsehood”and “reliance on generally accepted opinions of noble and base.” Thisis seen in the postlapsarian human condition: nakedness comes to be seen asshameful or base. The original state was beyond noble and base. Burger writes:“What a genetic account presents as the loss of a capacity that was once ourown and rightfully belongs to us could be translated into an eidetic accountas the awareness of a standard of which we fall short, to which we mightaspire. Such awareness is not necessarily an experience of shame; it couldtake the form of knowledge of ignorance” (88). The fall leads to a “new selfawareness,”which turns us in a different direction. Maimonides presents thisas a descent, but the scriptural proofs upon which he relies suggest somethingelse: “The uncovering of mental vision that comes with eating the forbidden

1 7 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2fruit of knowledge of good and evil opens up a potential, it seems, whoseactualization is the goal of the Guide as a whole” (89). Maimonides turns tothe revealed Law, examining it in terms of the way in which it pursues whatis good for the soul (through correct opinions) and the body (through correctliving). To do this “is to evaluate its implicit claim to embody knowledge ofgood and bad. …Here, at least, if not throughout the Guide, what is missingfrom the dichotomy in its speeches at the outset seems to be present in itsdeed” (91). Maimonides does not discuss it: he simply gets about the businessof doing it. Burger points us toward a Maimonides who suggests that the“sweat of one’s brow” in the pursuit of knowledge might be, paradoxically,the means of recovery for the original, prelapsarian condition of man (91–92).Nathan Tarcov begins “Machiavelli in The Prince: His Way of Life inQuestion” with a substantial discussion of the Epistle Dedicatory of the Prince.Tarcov’s essay is particularly attuned to the ironic (and perhaps insulting)dimension of the Epistle Dedicatory. He also shows us that despite Machiavelli’sclaim that princes know peoples and peoples know princes, there isplausibly a third sort who knows both. This sort is capable of traversing thedistance between the two—and Machiavelli’s Prince is replete with “examplesof princes who lose their states and of private men who become princes” (105).Machiavelli himself, Tarcov suggests, is one who can traverse the distance.This immediately compels us to ask, as Tarcov does at the beginning of hisessay, whether Machiavelli pursues knowledge for its own sake or for its practicaleffects (101). Tarcov shows us most directly the way in which Machiavelliconceives of himself and his way of life: he knows (and therefore has inquiredinto) both worldly and natural things, and he holds that it is “good to reasonabout everything” (Discourses, 1.18.1), and he does not now and never shall“judge it to be a defect to defend any opinion with reasons, without wishingto use either authority or force for it” (Discourses, 1.58.1). This is “almost atextbook definition of the way of life of the philosopher” (108). Machiavellicontinually points to himself, to his choosing of examples, to conversationshe has himself had, and to dialogues with hypothetical interlocutors (109–10).In these dialogues, writes Tarcov, “Machiavelli himself resembles his Philopoemen,who reasoned with his friends, asked them questions, listened totheir opinions, gave his opinion, and supported it with reasons” (111). Whatis this, if not the behavior of a philosopher? Tarcov admirably draws outMachiavelli’s ambition to be a ruler of princes. In his counsel that princesimitate imitations (as Alexander imitated Achilles), Machiavelli underscoresthe power of the writer: “writing can be the most effective kind of action, andMachiavelli’s knowledge of the actions of great men includes their writings”

Book Review: Political Philosophy Cross-Examined1 7 7(112). With this recognition, we ask: who are the ancient men with whomMachiavelli converses in the famous letter to Vettori? Are they those whoacted, or those who wrote? The writer provides the model to be imitated, andtherefore is the true educator of princes: “Machiavelli knows that the writershave made these men and only they can answer his questions and that theirwritings are their actions.” Machiavelli, then, is a philosophic author, a writer“who desires or is compelled both to reason without deference to authorityand to advise princes or conspire against them” (114).In “Of Human Ends in Bacon’s Essayes,” Ralph Lerner discusses Bacon’sintention, and does not claim to uncover “Bacon’s presumed grand design,”but instead offers some suggestions as to how it appears from a certainpoint of view (119). He suggests the first and last of Bacon’s Essayes indicatetwo audiences in addition to the general run of readers: lovers of truth andpolitical men (either rulers, rulers of the rulers, or would-be rulers). Baconaddresses himself to the lies that we often believe, but does not want to robmen of comforting illusions with nothing to replace them. Bacon intends toreplace unwarranted hopes with “hopes only partly unwarranted, becausethey are partly grounded in an observable, verifiable world; hopes that havesome rational basis” (124). Bacon offers the possibility—made explicit in theCartesian project—of conquering nature for the sake of the improvement ofman’s earthly condition. This theme is continued in Bacon’s final essay: itmoves from managing nature to managing changes wrought by religion orviolence. In these last two instances Bacon counsels temporizing with prophetsand suggests that all states have life cycles. Nonetheless, Bacon turns fromsuch sober-minded consideration of the limited capacity of men to influenceevents by noting that excessive consideration of such things proves detrimental.Bacon aims to liberate us from unease by solving—or promising tosolve—“riddles about the nature of things and…the nature of man” (132).Bacon’s program could not be brought about without his political as well asphilosophic acumen: he knew that it was not enough to offer a new teaching;he must undermine the old teachings and attract followers to his banner.Devin Stauffer’s essay is one of the gems of this excellent collection:clear, articulate, and provocative. He focuses on Hobbes’s natural rather thanrevealed theology, arguing that just as his revealed theology functions as acritique of scripture, his natural theology has a critical purpose. Hobbes’snatural theology is a variant of the argument from the first cause; his version(perhaps more honestly than others’) culminates in a God that sits at the

1 7 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2beginning of all causal chains, but is “incomprehensible” (140). 3 Hobbes’s ownpolitical principles do not require a god, so this proves no objection to Hobbesunless one argues from a religious viewpoint. Leviathan 31 deals with God’snatural (as opposed to prophetic) kingdom, and is concerned with “whetherGod even has a kingdom in the strict sense of the word by nature, and what,if anything, natural reason can tell us about God’s attributes.” Presupposing(rather than justifying) divine omnipotence, Hobbes justifies God’s right torule on the basis of power: “From God’s irresistible power follows…the rightto treat all men—indeed, all things—at his discretion” (141). God differs fromman in the state of nature in that man is weak and God is not. But if that isso, why would an all-powerful God rule for the sake of the weak? Stauffernotes that Hobbes does not raise this question explicitly; instead, he raisesthe difficulties presented by the sufferings of the good and the prosperity ofthe wicked. A further problem emerges: how does worship benefit God? Perhapsit benefits the worshiper instead. Turning to divine attributes, Hobbespresents an apophatic natural theology, because a positive teaching, in limitingGod, would dishonor God. “As God’s positive attributes are cast asidewith the movement to his incomprehensible infinity, our conception of Godis reduced, it would seem, to a mere ‘I AM,’ the ultimate meaning of whichis mysterious. …In this argument about God’s attributes, Hobbes uses oneelement of the traditional view of God against all of the others.” Hobbes’sargument “operates as a kind of ad hominem critique” of traditional views ofGod (145). His emphasis on the limits of knowledge compels one to realizethat the limits of “natural reason render boastful and groundless all claimsthat reason can disclose the truth about God’s nature; but…these same limitswould seem to leave reason unable to rule out the possibility of a creator Godwhose powers we cannot fathom” (149). Hobbes’s natural theology is less apositive teaching than a critical one, which “cannot stand alone because itdoes not decisively settle the most important questions it raises” (150).Hasso Hoffman’s contribution, “Rousseau’s Happiness of Freedom,”traverses Rousseau’s anthropology and history of civilization in order tohighlight some difficulties with his teaching in the Social Contract. This isonly preliminary. Hoffman’s real quarry proves to be the two different sortsof freedom and happiness available to the citizen and to the philosopher.Focusing on the Reveries, Hoffman writes: “the Walker’s happiness resemblesthe ‘highest’ happiness of the ‘savage’ who aspires to nothing but quiet andfreedom and only wants to ‘live and be indolent’ as the Second Discourse3But cf. 149, where it is acknowledged that De Corpore poses a “serious problem” for the view thatGod as first cause is at the center of Hobbes’s natural theology.

Book Review: Political Philosophy Cross-Examined1 7 9claimed” (166–67). But this requires the presence of society. In Rousseau’scase, it is persecution that enables him to achieve this sort of freedom: societyis the precondition for the possibility of transcending society and, throughthe philosophic life, reclaiming in a higher form the happiness and freedomof natural man. The citizen’s ego turns outward, “forming a common ego andreaching the higher form of existence of a participant in the state’s sovereigntyand power.” The philosophic life involves an “expansion of the ego inward”through self-reflection (166). This “profound self-absorption” and “godlikeself-sufficiency” can become a self-abandonment that leads to literal “ecstasy:being outside oneself through an expansion of the conscious self. The highesthappiness of freedom of the solitary individual life…is self-abandon insteadof alienation totale, is unio mystica with the universe instead of…with thepolitical corps moral et collectif of the ideal republic” (167–68).Robert Pippin takes up Heidegger’s understanding of Nietzsche andnihilism, arguing that even though Heidegger’s approach “helps a great dealto clarify Nietzsche’s understanding of and diagnosis of nihilism,” nonetheless,his post-1936 turn against Nietzsche “distorts Nietzsche and misses anopportunity to make better use of Nietzsche’s diagnosis in addressing thecentral points of the issue” (177). In particular, Pippin wants to examineHeidegger’s Seinsfrage, what Heidegger means when he claims Nietzscheunderstands Being as will to power, and finally, why Heidegger thinks thewill-to-power teaching reveals Nietzsche’s failure to overcome a metaphysicaltradition that tends toward nihilism. Employing the orientation towardeveryday being-in-the-world in terms of concern, Pippin presents the Seinsfragein terms that prove quite illuminating for Nietzsche’s understanding ofnihilism: the Seinsfrage “concerns the significance of there being anythingat all, a horizon of the general significance of anything at all—the way inwhich we understand how the meaning of our own being ‘fits in’ with therebeing anything at all—always already presupposed and taken for granted inour dealings with entities” (181). The post-1936 Heidegger identifies will topower as continual and aimless flux, which requires that the overman dominatethe earth. While it “would not exclude it as a possible response,” it doesnot require it, says Pippin. Heidegger’s critique of Nietzsche is a “forced andunfounded reading of Nietzsche. Nietzsche is much better read in the termsof Being and Time…concerned above all with how anything could matter…and how mattering is a condition for the possibility of intelligibility” (184).Heidegger, in his post-1936 thought, forces Nietzsche into a role for whichhe is not suited; rather, “Nietzsche can be viewed as in many ways, at least

1 8 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2when compared with Heidegger of the twenties, more Heideggerian than thephilosophical master of Messkirch himself” (185).In the final essay, Laurence Lampert discusses Seth Benardete’s readingof Socrates’s philosophic education in the Symposium. Those acquainted withLampert’s excellent work on Nietzsche, as well as his recent study of Plato,will find familiar themes presented here. Lampert’s essay is certainly themost radical piece in the collection. Lampert presents Benardete’s Socratesas “at home in his homelessness,” which is not the same as occupying “a stateof rest, satiation, or completion”; he affirms his own erotic neediness as desirable,as “satisfying for itself in itself”; he is fearless as a knower, indifferentto the “psychic or spiritual comfort thought necessary in the face of the terrifying”truth about eros; and his self-knowledge allows him to be at homein his homelessness, for he knows that “to be is to be eros and nothing else.”He “blesses the innocence of becoming” (195). Eros both desires wisdom andphilosophizes, but “that desire generates a desire to have an effect” (in thiscase, on Alcibiades), “a desire on which Socrates acted. Philosophy generatespolitical philosophy”; this leads to the view that the last stage of philosophiceducation entails a caring for “home through tending to the various formstaken by ‘Alcibiades’” (197). Lampert cites the Baconian project as an example,but he could just as easily have offered Nietzsche’s view of Plato. Lampert’sessay closes with an explanation of the way in which Socrates saved Athens—not Athens as a city, but Athens as opposed to Jerusalem or as representativeof philosophy. Lampert’s essay allows the reader, through a consideration ofBenardete’s reading of the Symposium, to confront the action taken in defenseof philosophy by both Plato and Socrates.Overall, this is an outstanding book that addresses a permanent question:can philosophy defend itself against the most compelling opponents?Because it is a permanent question, and a question that many are simplyunaware of in our age, it is a particularly timely collection, and deserves tofind a mainstream readership.

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 8 1Steven Forde, Locke, Science, and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2013, 263 pp., $95.00.Wi l l Mor r i seyHillsdale Collegewmorrisey@hillsdale.eduDuring his lifetime, Leo Strauss enjoyed conversations and correspondencewith several philosophic friends who disagreed sharply but intelligently withhim. It is nonetheless fair to say that the intelligent scholarly responses to hiswork—apart from those by men and women who have modeled their workon his own—remain rare. While Strauss has never lacked scholarly critics ofserious and even well-nigh deadly intent, they have inclined toward polemics.How refreshing and instructive to read Professor Forde’s book, whichstrikes me as exactly the sort of non-Straussian scholarly work that Straussians(and every other stripe of political-philosophy scholar) can study withpleasure. He writes in a good cause, bringing clarity to the writings of JohnLocke, that philosopher of supreme discretion and even indirection.By “non-Straussian,” I mean that Forde departs from the main line ofStrauss’s account of Locke, namely, that Locke presented himself as a respectable,Christian writer along the lines of “the judicious” Richard Hooker, but infact took his philosophic bearings from the decidedly un-Christian ThomasHobbes. Forde dissents, arguing that although Locke considered himself botha philosopher engaged in the modern-scientific project of Francis Bacon—aswas Hobbes—and a literary defender of that project, he rejected Hobbesianmaterialism and founded his version of natural right on a version of divineright—not, to be sure, the divine right of kings, but rather a natural rightdivine in origin. Further, Locke’s god endowed rights to humanity as a whole,not simply or even primarily to individuals; Forde thus challenges or at least© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

1 8 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2qualifies what has come to be called Lockean individualism—a rubric thatStrauss, and not only Strauss, endorsed. Forde also dissents from Strauss’sinterpretive approach to Locke. He does not regard Locke as a writer withan esoteric teaching protected by an exoteric shell; he contends that Locke’sargument, though convoluted, can be discovered by allowing for differentemphases in his different books. Just as Locke contends that the human mindclassifies most of the things it encounters according to the use it wants to makeof them, so did Locke present his teaching somewhat differently in differentbooks, depending on the purpose he intended each book to serve. Locke’strue teaching is not so much secret or disguised as elaborately nuanced.In his introduction, Forde identifies as “the foundation” of Locke’sphilosophy not individual rights, but natural law “that exists, and can onlyexist, as divine command” (1). Nature consists of atoms in motion, as Locke’sfriend, the chemist Robert Boyle, had maintained, and as Aristotle and theScholastics, who took their bearings from Aristotle, had denied. Aristoteliansunderstood nature not as a concatenation of atoms, and perhaps notprimarily as material at all, but as formal and teleological—to be understoodas “ordered into species or kinds” (4), each aiming at a telos or purpose. Lockefollows his new-science colleagues by saying that species or forms do not existin nature at all, but “are pure products of the mind” (5). Applying this claimto human beings, Locke argues that natural right must be completely revisedto conform with the epistemology of the new science. The Is/Ought problem,so memorably identified by David Hume, already preoccupies Locke, whooffers an answer to it. But this answer cannot be found in its entirety in anyone of Locke’s books, which collectively form a sort of network or system,each making its own indispensable contribution to the whole.Forde’s four substantive chapters address the scientific foundations ofLocke’s doctrine, its moral dimensions, its political dimensions, and his teachingon education, respectively. He begins with the Essay concerning HumanUnderstanding. “Locke will essentially wipe away all the traditional forms ofknowledge, including moral knowledge”; “the new original of knowledge”will, “perhaps above all,” promise “results that will be useful to mankind”(14–15, italics added). In so doing, Locke follows the lead of Francis Bacon,whose empiricism and experimentalism yield “only probable knowledge,”not certainty. But mere probability will not suffice, “in Locke’s own view, formorality,” and “empirical investigation, in any case, can never yield moralinsight” (17). Before showing how Locke meets this dilemma, Forde stepsback to describe the thought of Locke’s relevant antecedents.

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 8 3Aristotle “had confronted arguments similar to those later made bythe Baconian empiricists, weighed them, and rejected them” (19). He, too,propounded an “approach to knowledge [that] was resolutely empirical atits root,” an approach deriving from “Socrates’ turn away from airy abstractionsto a more common-sense approach to reality, as reflected in ordinaryhuman speech” (19). The empirical matter in question was speech, whichleads quickly to consideration of the noun—that is, to ideas or forms, “thepatterns or templates for the concrete objects we encounter in experience”(19). The Socratic/Platonic answer to Heraclitus’s claim that all is flux is thatall could not be flux because we detect relatively stable entities all aroundus, entities that moreover can be seen to fall into identifiable kinds or species.“It makes sense to call these patterns ‘forms,’ to reflect the empirical,even visual, root of the theory” (19). To know nature is to know the forms inwhich it manifests itself. In distinction to Plato’s Socrates, but not simply incontradiction of him, Aristotle maintained that although “the particulars areprior” to the forms, the forms “have independent being”; although the formswe see in the particulars exist only in those particulars, they serve as causesof the particulars—causes independent of material causes (21–22). Withoutan appreciation of form, one “cannot account for the order of nature, or forthe fact that there is qualitative as well as quantitative change” observable init (22–23). In particular, one cannot account for the capacity of what we nowcall organic beings to grow towards a form, to perfect themselves, to movetowards a telos. Things or substances “are compounded of form and matter,”both (24), with form the same in each individual within a species and matterthe source of individuation. To know, “we must always begin with senseexperience” but then “get beyond it or behind it, to a grasp of the forms andpermanent realities that will alone allow us to understand the world” (25). Asthe senses receive sensations that detect objects, the mind receives the formsthat permit us to understand those objects.Some of this fits the biblical account of Adam, charged by God withthe task of naming—that is to say, classifying—the objects in the Garden ofEden in accordance with their “kinds.” On the basis of this and other congruitiesbetween scripture and Aristotelianism, Thomas Aquinas achievedhis impressive synthesis of the two lines of thought. Although the Bible precludesthe Aristotelian claim that the cosmos is eternal, it does allow for theexistence of forms, now understood as “creations of God, or more precisely…part of the divine mind or essence” (27). God also implanted in His highestcreation, man, both the capacity to do good—syndaresis—and the capacityto fail, willfully and therefore culpably. “Aquinas follows Aristotle and Plato

1 8 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2in holding that the forms or species are real entities—all three are ‘realists,’as modern philosophical terminology has it,” considering species or kindsas “templates according to which nature is organized” (28). Led by Williamof Ockham, the realists’ opponents, the “nominalists,” maintain that formshave no status “out there”; they “are concepts by which we organize ourexperience,” with “no existence outside of our minds” (28). Our only wayto perceive the world outside our minds is sense perception of particularobjects; therefore, Aristotelian/Thomistic formal causation is unnecessary tounderstanding nature. If nature is in fact directed by a final cause, Ockhamaccepts this “only as an article of faith,” not as a result of “natural reason”(30). What replaces the forms for Ockham is the divine will, a will unconstrainedby forms, templates; to think otherwise, as Aquinas does, amountsto a sort of sacrilege—the theological equivalent of a restraining order onGod’s freedom. “True knowledge such as God has, is knowledge of each andevery particular, in its particularity”—of every sparrow that falls, of everyhair on every head (31). The human resort to universals betrays the weaknessof our minds, their finitude; while in our feebleness we need such concepts,they do not convey reality as God created it.This leads Ockham to distinguish between God’s ordinate power andGod’s absolute power. “God’s absolute power consists in the fact that he wasfree to create the world in radically different ways”; but once He decided uponcreating this world he manifested his “ordinate” power, “remaining withinthe ambit of this created order” (33). This is why Ockham himself relies onspecies (although as mere concepts) to describe the world as God has establishedit. The world “remains somewhat conditional,” dependent on God’scontinued will to keep it the way it is (33). Jewish and Christian faith entailsour acknowledgment of this dependency. Moral law is the same way: “In thiscreation…God has condemned adultery and murder, and commanded loveof himself,” but in some other creation He might not have done so. We needdivine revelation of His moral law for that reason, inasmuch as we cannotknow God’s reason or reasons for setting it down the way He did. However, inconsidering God’s creation as “grounded in God’s ordinate power,” we may“arrive at some understanding of moral law,” as indeed Aristotle had done,unaided by scripture (34).Nominalism will look quite different if God disappears. Forde offers anilluminating account of the background of Locke’s thought in the Baconianproject. Bacon took over the nominalists’ empiricism but, “unlike them,indeed in complete opposition to their spirit…conceived a sweeping plan forthe mastery of nature by human power, rooted in a new empirical science”

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 8 5(37). The regularities seen in nature derive not from forms but from matteritself, motion, and the laws of matter and motion. Intellectual intuitionor noesis supplemented by logical deductions from supposed noetic insightswill get us nowhere; empirical observation of particulars, aided by the inductivelogic of experiment—torturing nature to reveal her secrets, in Bacon’sphrase—will obtain the only knowledge of nature we can have, which turnsout to be enough for the project of mastery. We need to torture nature becausenature consists fundamentally of atoms; not only is an atomistic nature toocomplex to understand adequately by noetic apprehension of forms, butatoms themselves are too small to see. Both our minds and our senses areinadequate to understand nature, unaided by the method of torture. To theobvious question—Why are there atoms in the first place?—Bacon replies,simply, that’s the way it is; it is “one of the follies of the human mind to seekan explanation beyond this, a ‘why’” (42). One might as well ask a theologianwhy God exists. In any philosophic or theological system, there must be some“given.” For Bacon, atoms are as far back as we can get.Because matter is always in motion, so are forms. What we call kindsor species are the shapes in which atoms now manifest themselves. As inOckham, natural reality consists of two levels: ordinary or regular, mechanicalnature—“nature in its species and activities as we find them today”—and“metaphysical,” nature’s “fundamental and universal laws which constituteforms” (44). God has disappeared from the picture. We will know that weknow nature insofar as we can control it; this, not noesis and not divine revelation,is the new source of intellectual certainty for human beings, insofar aswe can reach certainty. Such a project will “require the labor of many hands,and many minds” (45)—hence the formation of the Royal Society in Englandin 1660, the institutionalization of the Baconian project.Locke’s friend Robert Boyle became a charter member of the Society,and remained one of its most distinguished. Aristotelianism does not—thenew scientists maintain that it cannot—tell us “how exactly…form exert[s]its influence” over matter (51). How does the form of the oak actually causethe acorn “to develop properly” (52)? Boyle defends atomism by claiming thatthe “corpuscles” or atoms can cause forms to exist because they differ in their“texture”—that is, in their size and shape. Form derives from the textureof the corpuscles that combine to make an object; “when an object changescolor, or becomes liquid, this is not the supervention of a new Aristotelianform, but merely a change in the body,” a rearrangement of its corpuscles.Crucially, the size and shapes of material corpuscles are not Aristotelian

1 8 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2forms but “modes of matter”: “modifications of a single underlying materialor stuff” with “purely physical or material variations.” “There is no suchthing as a change in kind in Boyle’s material nature” (57). Boyle calls nature a“cosmical mechanism” or “great automaton,” with no mind or purpose of itsown. Any purpose it has it owes entirely to God: the teleological nature of theScholastics “verges on pantheism,” and thus on impiety, by making nature “asubaltern deity, carrying out God’s plan” (60).Two problems arise. First, there is the matter of gravity, which “seemslittle better than the neo-Aristotelian ‘appetite to fall’” as an explanation forhow it is that things do fall when “gravity” is present. To say that a horse isa horse because of its horseness may not help us much, but neither does sayingthat things fall because it’s grave around here. Forde observes that thisproblem remains unsolved for modern scientists to this day. Second, thereis the persistent problem of accounting for species in terms of corpuscular“modes of matter.” How do atoms get to be differentiated in size and shape?Here Boyle makes an un-Baconian move, bringing God back. “Boyle makesGod the first mover” (62)—again, in the manner of Ockham, distinguishingbetween the ordinary operations of nature and its origin. This frees sciencefrom the charge of impiety while freeing scientists to concentrate theirminds on the mechanisms of nature as we now experience it. Whereas Baconaccounted for species by a process of natural selection, Boyle simply contendsthat “in the beginning God created the ‘seeds’ from which the species sprang”(63), imposing the modes upon matter. “An unbaptized Epicurean,” Fordenotes, “might accuse Boyle…of taking an easy way out” (64). Be this as it may,Boyle carefully shifts scientific terminology away from speaking of the natureof a thing and toward speaking “of a thing’s ‘constitution’ or ‘individualmechanism’” (66). This causes a further problem, however, when the scientistconsiders such phenomena as natural disasters and defective specimens or“monsters.” If the existence of these calamities requires us to question theScholastics’ teleology (does nature really produce nothing in vain?), then dothey not also pose questions for Boyle’s providentialism? “Boyle mentionsthis difficulty, only to say that dealing with it is not part of his present topic.It never seems to have been part of his topic” (67). Forde suggests that Boylemight argue that calamities arise because the divinely ordered seeds or corpuscles“operate from the ground up, as it were,” not through constant divinesupervision, and that this accounts for imperfections and occasional mishaps(68). Locke would propose a more radical solution.

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 8 7Locke has yet another difficulty to address: the origin of morality. “Thetheory of forms allowed morality to be built into nature, so to speak, by thesame means that the species were built into nature” (69). Subtract the forms asindependent causes, and where does that leave morality? Boyle “simply relieson the presumptive validity of Christian morality and the Christian revelation.”“This is the point at which Locke ceased to be guided by him” (70).Forde turns to Locke’s “moral epistemology” in his second chapter. Inthe Essay concerning Human Understanding, Locke argues that “there are nospecies, in the sense of a class of things brought into being according to apattern, each of which shares certain ‘essential’ traits by virtue of being amember of that species”; “monsters” are as natural as any other specimen ofa putative kind. Species are useful concepts “of our own devising,” but particularsare the only beings that actually exist (73). Neither biological sciencenor moral science can regard man as a real being—an essence or template towhich individual specimens may be compared. Our concepts or categories,including man, depend (in the Baconian way) “on the purposes for whichwe are making the distinction” between the thing we are thinking aboutand all the other things we perceive. Analogously, our moral principles are“mixed modes,” “concepts that are not grounded in nature, but, like speciesconcepts…constructs of the mind” more or less useful to whatever our purposesmay be (74). Locke posits no innate moral ideas—no syndaresis with orwithout God. “Locke’s almost macabre fascination with the barbarism thathuman beings, and indeed entire cultures, have displayed puts a point” onthis claim (74–75).The human mind begins as a tabula rasa, or better, a camera obscura: “adark room, into which light can enter only through the portals of sense” (75).Without innate ideas and with no way of transcending these sense impressionsor “ideas” in the direction of forms, the mind receives only the mostelementary signals from outside itself—“hard,” “white,” and so on. “Ourentire mental universe, including ideas seemingly far beyond experience, isconstructed in camera, as it were, using elements acquired only from (internaland external) experience.” Thus Locke’s empiricism actually maintainsthat we cannot really know the empeiria directly; “we begin with sensoryinformation, but we do not know how objects stimulate the senses, nor howthe senses transmit their reports to our minds.” In this, Locke concurs withboth Descartes and Hobbes; “the anti-Aristotelianism of this approach iscomplete” (76). This does not generate skepticism for Locke because “it isnot reasonable, or even psychologically possible, to deny” the existence of

1 8 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2external reality (77). Epistemological sensualism comes to its own rescue, onemight say. “To one who argues all is a dream, Locke asks derisively whetherhe would rather dream of being in a fire, or actually be in it.” This does not ofcourse commit Locke to claiming that every sensory report accurately reflectsexternal reality. Locke explains sensory error by first distinguishing between“primary” and “secondary” qualities. Primary qualities—solidity, extension,shape—come to us infallibly through our senses; “our senses reveal to usattributes that really do inhere in objects” (78). Secondary qualities—color,smell, taste—are not intrinsic to the object perceived but vary with our ownsenses; one person might perceive colors differently than another, for example.Hence the wise monition not to dispute matters of taste. Thus far, Lockefollows Boyle.A further complexity arises in Locke’s distinction between “simple” and“complex” ideas or sense impressions. Simple ideas, such as yellow, white,heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, “merely signify that some external qualityis having the effect in question on our senses” (79). Complex ideas, however,are “compounded of simple ideas” and therefore involve the mind in theactive arrangement of the impressions it has received. From the simple ideasof brown, hard, rough, and cylindrical, our mind forms the complex idea,tree trunk. Such “bundles of qualities do appear together regularly in ourexperience; there really are tree trunks,” but “we must not imagine that wewill ever have fully adequate ideas of them”—only ideas more or less adequate“to our purposes” (79–80). Our minds “create” them, assembling them out ofpreexisting materials, calling certain sorts of order out of our perceptionswithout ever fully knowing if we’ve got it right. As we now say, the mind“abstracts from” sensory experience to construct its concepts. To “know” isnot to perceive a formal template but “to say that we have grasped somethingof the different modes in which matter may exist, and the regularitiesobserved by matter in those modes” (82). This is not (yet) “postmodernism”or a form of conventionalism; we are indeed perceiving something, or somethings that are out there. We are not creating ex nihilo. And of course reasonremains unchallenged; the sense impression white is not the sense impressionblack. There is no whiteblack in Locke’s world any more than there isin Plato’s or Aristotle’s or Aquinas’s. We may, without contradiction, defineman as a rational animal, a political animal, or a featherless biped, but wecannot run it together with donkey—at least, in any nonmetaphorical way(85). On the other hand, these species concepts remain only concepts; “thosebrought under a single species name often differ more among themselves

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 8 9than they do from individuals nominally of another species,” as the exampleof monstrosities shows (86).If so, how does Locke found a morality on any of this? 1 Some of the complex“ideas” assembled from the simple ones are what Locke calls “modes.”Unlike the other kind of complex idea, exemplified by the tree trunk, modesare at three removes from physical reality; the tree trunk is our mentalabstraction from a number of simple ideas or sense impressions. A moderefers not to any physical object—they are not ideas of things; “they carryno implication that they correspond to real objects” (87). When forming asimple mode, the mind “conceptualizes modifications of a single idea.” Forexample, the mind takes the simple idea of space and modifies it to conceiveof extension, distance, shape; it takes the simple idea of motion and modifiesit to conceive of sliding, rolling, rising. It takes the simple idea of thought andconceives of memory and contemplation; the simple ideas of pleasure andpain “include love, hatred, joy, sorrow, hope, fear, and many others.” “Noneof these notions is innate; they are all the product of mind working on thesimple ideas of sense.” Mixed modes are “more complex versions of the samemental abstraction and combination,” a combination of two or more simplemodes. Wrestling and fencing serve as Locke’s examples: “complex formsof physical activity, the parts of which have no natural connection to oneanother, whose unity exists only in the term and the mental concept describingit,” concepts “constitut[ing] the activity as a whole” (88). The mixed modegives the constituent parts “a meaning they do not possess inherently.” Mostsuch activities “exist by convention and not by nature” (89).“All moral concepts are mixed modes” (88). “Murder” consists of a set ofacts that have no intrinsic moral significance; the “moral meaning” of suchacts as murder and rape, rescue and liberation, “is given to them, or imposedupon them, only by the application by mind of the moral code.” “After all,has not the line between killing and ‘murder’ been drawn very differently atdifferent times and places?” “Locke draws attention to the immense powerthat would accrue to one who succeeded in defining or redefining mixedmodes for a culture or civilization. It is past doubt that he aspires to play thisrole himself, with his new understanding of natural law, natural rights, limitedgovernment, religious toleration, and the like” (89). One is reminded ofMachiavelli’s musings on such great lawgivers as Moses and Romulus, which1Additionally, remaining on the “epistemological” level, one might wonder why, or at least how, themind tends to assemble sense impressions into concepts. Locke might have recourse to Boyle’s differentlyshaped and sized corpuscular “givens” as an explanation of brain function.

1 9 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2are not unrelated to his project of mastering Fortuna, a project itself somewhatreminiscent of Bacon’s conquest of nature. But I digress.Having refused the Aristotelian/Scholastic “leap” from “the empiricalworld to the realm of forms” (90), Locke also refuses the Cartesian claimthat our ideas are innate. He agrees that mathematical ideas are certain, butonly because they refer strictly to relations among abstractions and have noempirical content. But—here is the novelty he introduces—this also appliesto moral ideas. Far from producing moral relativism, the purely abstractcharacter of moral mixed modes gives the mind the possibility of attaining“ironclad certainty” about them (92). Mathematics and morality are the mentalrealms of certainty, even as science is the mental realm of empiricism andtherefore of nothing more than probability. “Euclid’s geometrical proofs areparadigms of demonstrative knowledge,” but so, Locke writes, is the existenceof God—“the only being external to ourselves of whose existence we can beabsolutely certain.” Further, God’s commands, the laws of morality, are asnonempirical as God is. If the laws of morality had empirical content, if theywere linked in any way to physical nature, “they could not be absolute,” theycould not be commands at all (93). Morality would indeed look more likewhat Aristotle said it was, a matter of prudential reasoning aimed at securingthe good—that is, the best possible fulfillment of the natural form of a humanbeing, family, or political community. In recommending Cicero’s De officiisas a moral guidebook, Locke does not endorse the ontological foundation ofCicero’s moral philosophy; he endorses the abstract, universal validity of hisideas as abstractions, as “mixed modes” of thought.All of this raises hard questions about how such abstractions relate tothe world, very much including the world of human relations that moralitygoverns. On some level, morality must engage practice. To better understandLocke on this point, Forde considers the writings of Locke’s contemporarySamuel Pufendorf, whose works Locke recommended in Some Thoughtsconcerning Education. What Boyle did with “modes” in the realm of physicalscience, Pufendorf did in moral philosophy. Certain modes, Pufendorfteaches, “added to physical things or motions, by intelligent beings,” directus and “secure a certain orderliness and decorum in civilized life” (98). Suchmodes are not descriptions, as in physical science, but prescriptions, commands,precisely knowable. “Aristotle correctly identified certainty withsciences that proceed deductively from axioms, but incorrectly identifiedethics or morality as a field incapable of such precision,” precisely because hefounded his morality on human nature and not on modes (100). In Pufendorf,

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 9 1as in the Bible, “all morality takes the form of law, a binding rule that serves asthe measure of right and wrong” (100); such law is “the free creation of God,who could have ordained that law differently” (101). God is “the only agentwith the capacity, and the authority, to impose moral modes upon humanityin a universally valid way”; this authority comes “not from his overwhelmingpower, as Hobbes had supposed,” or “from his superior perfection, asCicero had supposed,” but from human consent or else by some “specialservice” done by God to human beings. This special service was the act ofcreation, which put human beings in God’s debt. The relation between morallaw and reality runs from God to man; God gave us not only the commandsHe reveals in His Bible but also in the rest of His Creation. We can “deviseways” of “achiev[ing] the goals of peace and civilization” that God has givenus by thinking about our experience. Such “empirical observation” gives us“signposts” that point beyond “the empirical realm” that we observe; “natureis an indication of the law God has imposed on us” (103). This is how morallaw can nonetheless be described as “natural” law; although modern sciencehas revealed “material nature” to be “morally vacuous,” God must have madeour nature such that they are consistent with His moral law. In other words,like Ockham, Pufendorf distinguishes God’s “absolute” power from His“ordinate” power. God could have done things differently, but having donethings the way He did, what He did serves as a moral guide for human beings.“Natural reason is sufficient to the task of discovering the moral law” (104),although those favored with having received God’s revelation will be greatlyaided in that discovery.“Locke embraced Pufendorf’s approach to morals in its fundamentals”—morality as one of the mixed modes, the modes of “creations of intellect,which superimposes them on the material world,” an object of “a demonstrativescience.” “The resulting theory, as both Pufendorf and Locke emphasize,cannot dispense with divine legislation.” Here Forde dissents from Strauss,Pangle, and Zuckert, who regard “Locke’s appeals to God” as “a rhetoricalploy, cover for a completely secular moral and political theory” (105). “It isonly through divine legislation…that Locke can combine his very prominentaccount of moral concepts as ‘arbitrary’ mixed modes, with his equallyprominent account of the moral law as ‘the eternal law and nature of things’”(108). On the other hand, Forde almost immediately asks, “What is the flawlessmoral demonstration that the theory of moral modes promises us?” andobserves that “notoriously, Locke never provided this demonstration” (108).One might also wonder what Locke means by “divine.”

1 9 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Man is subject to moral law. By “man” Locke here means a creature, bothcorporeal and rational. We need say no more because for this particular purpose,the consideration of morality, other features we might include in theconcept man (his featherlessness, for example) are irrelevant. But if man iscorporeal as well as rational, how can we relate the empirical fact of corporealityto rationality in order to give a coherent account of a law relating theone aspect of man to the other? Forde mentions that in the Essay concerningHuman Understanding, Locke addresses this problem in two chapters: “OfPower” (2.21) and “Of Identity and Diversity” (2.27). There, Locke identifiesthree senses in which “we speak of a human being”: person, man, and substance.“Substance” is the human being as a material object among others;“man” refers to its shape or form; “person”—the only one of moral significance—means,in Locke’s words, a “thinking intelligent being” with “reasonand reflection.” This “self”—which need not be an immortal “soul”—has “consciousness,”without which it could have no moral responsibility, inasmuch as“no one may be held responsible for acts which he is not conscious of havingperformed (112). (“It is easy to see how [this rule] applies to the doctrine oforiginal sin,” Forde notes, “as [Locke] does not point out” [113]). “The criticaldivide between man and beast is not reason per se; it is rather the abilityto abstract, to create general terms, and mentally to manipulate those terms”(113). To explain the existence of such a composite being, Locke has recourseto a version of the argument from design. Because “the mechanism of nature,as the new science has uncovered it, is incapable of producing a conscious,‘cogitative’ being,” “any such beings must therefore be the workmanship ofGod.” Forde doubts that this proof carries much water; even if it convincedus of God’s existence, it would not prove His (its?) eternality, omnipotence,perfect wisdom, or perfect goodness, “as moral demonstration requires” (115).“At any rate, Locke proceeds with his philosophical project as though it hasfoundation enough to support it” (116). A cool customer, that Locke.In addition to moral responsibility, consciousness also entails “self-concern.”Locke posits “no strict dualism between body and soul”; “our bodiesare part of our conscious ‘selves.’” Appetites, pleasure and pain stem from ourbodies, but like other manifestations of the corporeal they point to “god”—inthis case serving as “dispensations of divine wisdom that spur us to perfectourselves” but which also can “lead us astray” (117). Moral reasoningempowers us to judge and bridle the appetites, guiding us to “true and properhappiness” (118). This mental self-direction is what we mean by our freedom.Unlike Hobbes, Locke regards will and appetite as distinct, because the willcan act “in defiance of appetite”; “the essence of moral volition in Locke is

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 9 3the control of appetite by reason.” This sounds much like Aristotle, with thisdifference: although in Locke as in Aristotle “happiness is reason’s goal,” forLocke happiness “is compounded of pleasure and pain”; for Aristotle, pleasureand pain amount to what we might now call “indicators” of happiness,not happiness itself. 2 “Locke sounds quite like Hobbes…when he says that wecall ‘good’ what causes us pleasure, ‘evil’ what causes us pain, and that theseare different for different individuals” (119). But Locke departs from Hobbes,who puts morality to the service of self-preservation, “the one appetite universallyshared” (120). Locke instead looks to the longer term, encouragingus to live with a view to future as well as immediate pleasure and pain. Thedrunkard allows present pleasure—or at least the relief of present unease—toovercome his knowledge that his overindulgence will ruin his health, causinghim pain and even death. Happiness is pleasure, in Locke—his psychologydoes not make it possible to “foresak[e] appetite for reason”—but pleasuremust be understood reasonably, as a sort of lifelong coordination and disciplineof the appetites and of their satisfaction (120–21). To be maximizedover a lifetime, our pleasures must be calibrated. Locke significantly broadensHobbesianism.But does he abandon it? Strauss and his followers deny that he does.Forde regards Locke’s morality as too closely associated with a noncorporealmoral law, and too far beyond the pursuit of self-preservation, to qualify asHobbesian at its core. Although Locke “concur[s] with the Hobbesian dictum,that the human appetites are neither good nor evil in themselves, untilthey know a law to judge them”—in this, both philosophers hew closer tothe book of Genesis than to Aristotle—Locke “differs with Hobbes on thenature, and perhaps the source, of that law” (123). Locke lists three kinds oflaw: divine, civil, and reputational—the second of these being what we thinkof as human legislation, the third being the informal “law” set by public opinion.Although the Questions concerning the Law of Nature and the SecondTreatise make much of a “natural law,” “natural law, in the old sense of a lawingrained or embedded in nature, cannot exist for Locke,” any more than itcan for Ockham or Pufendorf; what we call natural law is really divine lawpromulgated by “the light of nature” (124). But, Forde argues, this does notsignal a shift from moral law to “individual natural right” (126), despite thelanguage of the Second Treatise. “Locke nowhere says that he, or anyone, has a‘right’ to pursue happiness as he sees fit. He, and we, have not so much a rightto pursue happiness as a duty to pursue happiness aright”—a duty we can2Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.5, 7; 2.3; 7.11–13.

1 9 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2only find in the moral law; “the priority of law to right separates Locke’s philosophyfrom that of Hobbes” (127). At the same time, although Locke holdsup happiness as the human summum bonum, he is no Aristotelian becauseAristotelians vainly sought the purpose of human life in human nature ratherthan on “its true ground, which stems from mixed modes not devised bynature” but by “divine intelligence” quite “outside of material nature” (132).This teaching also distinguishes Locke from Immanuel Kant, who likewiserejected nature as a moral standard but at the same time rejected happinessas the moral purpose of human life (133). Kant retains the moral law whilerejecting eudaimonism, replacing it (and Locke’s “god”) with the categoricalimperative, a sort of rule of pure reason.Forde’s third chapter elaborates on Locke’s understanding of moral lawand spells out some of its social and political implications. Far from commendingany narrow self-regard, Locke insists on the importance of “civility,”a virtue praised by a Catholic writer he esteemed, Pierre Nicole. But althoughfor Nicole civility rests squarely upon Christian charity, for Locke things arenot so simple. He begins with his version of natural law, “the only comprehensiveexplication” of which he places in chapter 2 of the Second Treatise.The natural law, divine in origin, prescribes not “only my own preservation”(as in Hobbes) but “preservation of all mankind.” This law enjoins me “notto harm others” or even myself, and thus serves “the human common good”while reflecting the bedrock “equality” of human beings, no one of whichmay be sacrificed for the pleasure of another, and who may only be harmed ifhe threatens to harm me or other persons (139). This makes self-preservationfirst of all a duty prescribed by law; the right derives from the duty, and theduty derives “from the common good of mankind rather than the primacyof the individual per se” (140). This principle—the duty to preserve humanityitself—is “the key to understanding much” in Locke’s thought (141). Lockegoes so far as to insist that each individual may “punish violations of thenatural law on behalf of mankind, whether he is directly affected by the violationor not” (143).What Forde calls the “communal” character of Lockean natural lawmanifests itself also in his treatment of the family. The “mutual and reciprocalobligations” of parents and children come not from any social contract“but directly from the law of nature” (144). Children, for the most part lackingin reason, lack the full moral status of persons; they have no rights thatdo not derive from parental duty. Forde acutely observes that Locke takes theGenesis command “be fruitful and multiply” to mean something rather more

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 9 5extensive than scripture appears to suggest: a general command not only togenerate more human beings but to improve the arts and sciences and “conveniencesof life.” “This god might be dubbed ‘nature’s god,’ and Locke makesclear, even in the First Treatise”—his critique of Robert Filmer’s divine-rightbaseddefense of monarchism—“that he is not relying exclusively, or evenprimarily, on Scripture to discern his intent.” Locke calls reason “the voiceof God in” man; Forde remarks that “this is true, Locke pointedly informsus, whether God ever literally spoke to anyone on this subject or not”—revelation,“in this matter at least,” being “redundant, perhaps even subject tocorrection by reason” (146). Forde also observes that “the chapter on familyin the Second Treatise relies more prominently upon God as legislator thandoes most of the rest of the work,” that the conventional and limited characterof the larger civil society leads him to allow “the figure of the divine legislatorto recede into the background” (145). It might be added that this move servesat least two functions: first, it keeps “god”—even the god discerned primarilyby reason not revelation—at some remove from politics, where claims aboutdivinity can work against the preservation of mankind by fomenting wars ofreligion and persecution in God’s name; second, it addresses the problem ofthe mighty Leviathan, the modern state, empowered to wage war and enforcelaws in accordance with the systematic laws of modern science, including thetechnologies invented under the auspices of that science, but which, by thatvery power, may threaten the very lives and liberties it is intended (by Hobbesmost especially) to preserve. In the Lockean state, religious men will tolerateone another and all will be ruled by consent, understood as rational assent.Similarly, the natural law prohibits spoilage—wasting the natural goodsprovided to all—and requires charity. Locke’s account of property in chapter5 of the Second Treatise serves as the locus for those who regard Locke as themost influential philosopher of modern individualism, and Forde agrees thatindividual rights come to the forefront there. We may accumulate propertywithout limit and have a duty merely to refrain from plundering the possessionsof others; we need offer no charity to the needy. This contradicts theteaching of the First Treatise, however, which not only enjoins us to exercisecharity but gives the needy title to the excess property of others, withouteven the duty to repay their benefactors at some later time (149–50). The contradictiondisappears, however, when one notices that the right to propertyderives from the right of men to self-preservation; Locke employs the pluralform because natural goods originally belong to mankind in common.Private property comes later. “A purely individualist theory would not likelybegin this way” (151), inasmuch as the individual property right “is not an

1 9 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2absolutely original or fundamental right” but instead arises in order to preservemankind (151–52). Even our ownership of ourselves stops at the right tokill ourselves—a clear signal that human beings are above all “the propertyof God” (153). Our property rights, on Forde’s reading, are therefore only userights,“absolute within the human sphere, but not absolute simply.” Fordemaintains that such an interpretation of individual rights better accounts forthe apparent contradictions in Locke’s several writings than the Straussianexotericism/esotericism interpretation does (155).Forde argues that Locke follows not Hobbes but, to some degree, Aquinas,Grotius, and Pufendorf in these matters, particularly with respect to the existenceof common property at the origins of human life and the authorizationof private property “by a principle of the common good” derived from theoriginal condition (162). But Locke “makes [private] property more fundamentalthan it is for his predecessors,” inasmuch as “natural and divine law”established it, not human consent or convention; in a well-known passage,Locke describes how human beings “mixed their labor” with natural objects,thereby not merely acquiring them but acquiring a right to them, by dint ofthat effort (163). Further, the state of nature was a state of scarcity—“the originalprovision was necessarily inadequate”—so human beings needed privateproperty not merely for “social progress, but for human survival” (174). In afascinating teaching derived partly from scripture, Locke claims that “God,when he gave the World in common to all Mankind, commanded Man alsoto labour” (175). (In Genesis, God does indeed do those two things, but atdifferent times and in different circumstances—one before and one after thehumans sinned.) The standard set by the common good remains, but theright of the individual is unalienable—as it is not for Grotius or Pufendorf.As Forde puts it, “God is aware of basic economic principles. He is aware thatif the love of money is the root of many evils, it is also the source of generalgood. In all its honest forms, therefore, he smiles on this love. He knows thatthe pursuit of one’s own interest is not the expression of a corrupt or fallennature, but a benign, indeed useful attribute” (176). Accordingly, while theFirst Treatise commends charity, the Second Treatise makes justice a matter ofprotecting property, broadly defined to include natural rights. He “does notprovide us with any systematic account of how ‘justice’ and ‘charity’ relate toone another” (184). “Many Christians of Locke’s day, and for ages past, wouldbe surprised to learn that the biblical injunction ‘be fruitful and multiply’signifies, among other things, God’s approval of the limitless acquisition ofwealth”—with, to be sure, a concomitant moral if not political duty to sharethe wealth acquired. Locke’s advocacy of religious toleration as a duty (“the

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 9 7chief characteristical mark of the true church”) must have been similarlysurprising, Forde ventures to say (196). This underlines the importance of theone “who defines the mixed modes by which others live” and who thereby“sets the moral horizon for them” (197).The “twin foundational principles” of that horizon are, first, that “personalhappiness is the necessary and proper motive of all human beings” and,second, that “the preservation of mankind as a whole imposes moral dutieson all” (198). Given the possibility that these imperatives might conflict,Locke “minimiz[es] the demands of duty,” “building politics (and economics)on the broad common ground between private and public interest” (199).To smooth any rough edges that may remain, Locke turns to the education ofleading citizens in Some Thoughts concerning Education, the topic of Forde’sfinal chapter.The Thoughts makes obedience to the moral law more likely by upholdingthe “rational control of the appetites”—what Locke himself calls “the artof stifling [one’s] desires”—as “the essence of virtue” (201). Because infantsand small children have yet to acquire that art, parents need to bring themto it. He does not foolishly suppose that this can be accomplished by simpleinstruction; the way to the head is through the heart—specifically, that partof the heart that desires esteem and dreads disgrace. As Hobbes sees, childrenlove dominion, but esteem and disgrace, appealing to the spirited element ofthe child’s self, can be used to tame this dangerous propensity to tyranny.The road to the rule of reason runs through “pre-rational habituation” (203).Part of early childhood education will consist of a kindly catechism, holdingup the thought of a liberal, benevolent God Who seems not to punishthe wicked. Indeed, “the word ‘sin’ appears nowhere in this work” (206n9).“This simple creed, of course, has nothing that is distinctively Christian”(205). Exceptionally naughty children will be punished by having somethingof their own taken from them, but most children will respond powerfully tosocial rewards and punishments. These can be deployed to teach charity, too,particularly by parental compensation of their child when he exhibits liberaland charitable behavior, thus “ensuring that their children always profit bybeing liberal” (208). This should not be viewed too cynically; Locke is confidentthat children will soon find pleasure in liberality itself, after which thetraining wheels of compensation may be removed. “Locke believes that a trueliberality, and a true regard for others, will emerge from his education” (209).True liberality culminates in civility. Civility for Locke means a stancebetween the selfless love commended in the Gospels and the sort of teaching

1 9 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2popularized in the twentieth century by the American writer Dale Carnegie,who taught that an other-regarding attitude pays off. Lockean civility combinesthe “no harm” principle of justice with toleration and considerateness.Our “pleasure cannot be had unless [our] benevolence is heartfelt”; at thesame time, the moral law does aim at pleasure (218). Locke endorses “whatcould almost be described as an extension of the self to share in the pleasureof others” (219). Although Forde does not say so, this expansion of pleasureto some degree links the individual to the original god-ordained conditionof commonly held rights, including property rights. Forde emphasizes thatLocke understands happiness differently than Aristotle does. In Aristotle,happiness means the full exercise of virtue; “Aristotle famously identifiedbeauty or nobility as the heart of morality, as well as the motive for moralaction, but this is not, and cannot be, Locke’s view,” which stays within thebounds of pleasure and pain, reward and punishment (220). What is more,Aristotle grounds his claims about happiness on his “analysis of humannature,” which has a hierarchy; “although Locke’s virtue is also based upon arational screening of the appetites, and is also designed to lead to happiness,Locke makes no equivalent arguments to bolster his claim” (220). His “epistemologicalfoundations make…an [Aristotelian] appeal to human natureimpossible”; appetites are better or worse “only in comparison to a rule”—a“mixed mode”—“imposed from without” (221). This mixed mode, ordainedby “god,” rests first of all upon the equality of human beings as human; butagain, “human” cannot mean a species in the Aristotelian sense because nosuch thing can be apprehended noetically, according to Locke’s understandingof human understanding.Forde concludes with an engaging discussion of the relationship betweenLocke’s thought and that of Benjamin Franklin, “Locke’s great Americandisciple” (222). He shows how Franklin adapted Locke’s teachings—mostparticularly his educational teachings—to American conditions. WhereasLocke’s education centers on the task of inculcating civility in the younggentleman—scion of the English/European gentry class—Franklin writesin a much more egalitarian social and political regime, one in which mostchildren will be educated in public schools. “It is Franklin who systematicallyundertakes to educate the poor to industry” (226–27); Franklin also takes asomewhat more lax view of moral self-discipline, and he writes as if moreskeptical that human beings can be brought to unselfish charitableness, nomatter how carefully habituated they may be. But in his esteem for civilityand for works of public service, Franklin joins hands with the philosopher.“Liberalism, as these two authors see it, does not confine itself to a narrow

Book Review: Locke, Science, and Politics1 9 9and merely economic understanding of individual self-interest, but opens upto a broader field of sociable human fulfillment” (242).Strauss’s response to Forde’s criticisms can be at least partly imagined,inasmuch as Strauss himself is fully aware of at least some key points Fordeadvances, as seen in the section on Locke in Natural Right and History andthe chapter on Locke in What Is Political Philosophy? 3 Scholars influencedby Strauss who have published on Locke—Michael Zuckert, Thomas L.Pangle, Peter Myers, Thomas G. West, and others—may well proffer theirown responses. What might also prove instructive would be a study of Lockemodeled on Catherine Zuckert’s study of the Platonic dialogues, 4 consistingof exegeses of all the key texts showing the relations among them. Such adifficult and massive undertaking would be the work of many years. In themeantime, the serious study of Locke continues to accelerate, especially inthe United States and England, where his political as well as his philosophicimportance endures.3Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 202–51;“Locke’s Doctrine of Natural Law,” in What Is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies (Westport, CT:Greenwood, 1973), 197–220.4Catherine Zuckert, Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 2009).

I s s u e 4 1 , V o l u m e 3

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 0 1Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Goodand the Private Good in Plato’s RepublicJonat h a n C u l pUniversity of Dallasjculp@udallas.eduI.In the conversation recounted in Plato’s Republic, Socrates and his interlocutors(chiefly Glaucon and Adeimantus) seek to discover the nature ofjustice in order to determine whether it is always better for an individualto be just rather than unjust. In pursuit of a definition of justice, Socratesproposes that they build a city in speech so that, by discovering the natureof justice in the city, they might more easily discover the nature of justice inthe individual (368d–369b). 1 Although the city in speech is therefore ostensiblyjust a means to a further goal, it becomes an object of interest in itsown right, taking up a significant portion of the conversation. 2 The city itselfpasses through a number of incarnations before settling on a final form. Itbegins as a rustic collective aimed at providing basic material necessities ofits members (369b–372d). It briefly passes through a stage of excessive luxuryand military aggression (372d–373e), only to become a moderate city wherefarmers and artisans provide material sufficiency while being guarded andruled by a class of guardians comprehensively educated in political virtueand fiercely devoted to the city (374a–427c). In book 5, the city undergoes aneven more radical transformation, when it emerges that the guardian class1The Republic of Plato, trans. Allan Bloom, 2nd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 357b. All translationsfrom the Republic will be taken from this edition. Textual references are by Stephanus pagenumber, and all further Stephanus references are to the Republic. I have used Burnet’s edition of theGreek text in Platonis Opera, vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1902).2369b–434d, 449a–487a, 517a–541b.© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

2 0 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3will be made up of both sexes (451c–457b) and that private families will bedone away with, replaced by a public breeding program wherein maritalunions are short-lived and citizens do not know their natural children, butinstead become “fathers and mothers” to whole cohorts of younger citizens(457b–466d). And, finally, atop these arrangements stand a select few philosopherkings with ultimate authority (473c–541b). This city Socrates namesKallipolis—the beautiful city (see 527c).Although the reader gets the general impression that the brothers approveof the city Socrates has built with them, there are two occasions where oneof them accuses Socrates of organizing the city is such a way that membersof its ruling class—the guardians—are unfairly forced to sacrifice their ownhappiness for the sake of service to the city (419a–422a, 519b–521b). On bothoccasions, Socrates responds by saying that their goal in building the city isnot to make a particular class within the city exceptionally happy, but ratherto make the city “happy as a whole” (420b, 519e). 3 However, neither time doesSocrates go on to say what constitutes the happiness of the city as a whole—whether this means the happiness of all the citizens or rather some kind ofhappiness that pertains solely to the city and that is other than and perhapsindependent of the happiness of the citizenry.Within the scholarship, there have been two basic ways of interpretingSocrates’s statement that Kallipolis is happy as a whole. Some scholars, suchas George Grote and Karl Popper (and also, it seems, Aristotle), understandSocrates to be saying that the happiness of the city as a whole is somethingother than and independent of the happiness of the parts of the city or thecitizenry as a whole. 4 Following the standard scholarly nomenclature, I callthis the holistic interpretation of the Republic. At the other scholarly pole onefinds what I will call (following Rachana Kamtekar 5 ) the reductionist interpretation,which holds that the happiness of the city as a whole is ultimatelyreducible to the happiness the citizens who make up the city. Representativeof this position are Gregory Vlastos, C. D. C. Reeve, and Kamtekar herself. 63The happiness of the city as a whole is also mentioned a third time at 465e–466a. I will discuss thispassage as well as the two mentioned above.4George Grote, Plato, and the Other Companions of Sokrates (London: John Murray, 1865), 3:166;Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, vol. 1, The Spell of Plato (London: Routledge and KeganPaul, 1962), 76, 79–81, 169; Aristotle, Politics 1264b15–25.5Rachana Kamtekar, “Social Justice and Happiness in the Republic: Plato’s Two Principles,” Historyof Political Thought 22, no. 2 (2001): 205.6Gregory Vlastos, “The Theory of Social Justice in the Polis in Plato’s Republic,” in Interpretationsof Plato: A Swarthmore Symposium, ed. Helen North (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 1–40; C. D. C. Reeve,

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 0 3In between these two extremes, but ultimately leaning towards reductionism,is the semireductionist interpretation offered by Donald Morrison. 7 Thisposition argues that the happiness of the city is something other than thehappiness of the citizens and is not simply reducible to it, but is nonethelessultimately dependent upon it, both conceptually and causally.The purpose of the following essay is to show that both reductionismand semireductionism are untenable interpretations of the Republic, and thatholism is problematic as well. I will also argue that, once one sees the failureof the reductionist interpretation, it becomes clear that the Republic revealsa persistent and unresolved gap between the private good and the commongood, even in Kallipolis. Finally, I will argue that Socrates’s ambiguity and (attimes) dissembling regarding this gap reveal in a particularly clear way thatone cannot understand the message of the Republic if one attempts to read itas the reductionists do: namely, as a philosophical treatise rendered in dramaticform, where the drama and characterization are only accidental to thesubstance of the argument. Rather, one must read the Republic as a dramaticdialogue if one hopes to understand what Socrates—and Plato—are attemptingto communicate. 8 Only when the book is read in this way do Socrates’sambiguity and reticence become intelligible.I will proceed in the following way. The proponents of reductionism tendto build their case by assembling claims from various places in the Republic,or by looking to the meaning of a few particular sentences. None devote significantattention to all three passages that have the greatest bearing on thequestion of the city’s happiness and interpret them in light of each other andtheir context. Thus, I will begin by presenting, in sections II–IV, an analysisof each of the three passages, showing that all of them, taken on their ownand in relation to each other, are ambiguous at best regarding the relationshipbetween the happiness of the city and that of the citizenry; and, overall, theylean toward a holistic interpretation. In the process I will also show that thePhilosopher-Kings: The Argument of Plato’s “Republic” (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988);Kamtekar, “Social Justice.”7Donald Morrison, “The Happiness of the City and the Happiness of the Individual in Plato’s Republic,”Ancient Philosophy 21 (2001): 1–25.8This is hardly a new approach, of course. It is shared by those who have been influenced by Strauss.See Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 50–62, for an explication.In a manner somewhat different from Strauss, this approach has also been adopted by Ferrari andBlössner. See G. R. F. Ferrari, City and Soul in Plato’s “Republic” (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 2005) and Norbert Blössner, “The City-Soul Analogy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s“Republic,” ed. G. R. F. Ferrari (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 345–85.

2 0 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3reductionist interpretations offered by Kamtekar and Vlastos are unsound. Insections V–VI, I will analyze the reductionist or semireductionist argumentsof Reeve and Morrison, showing that they, too, are unsound. In section VII, Iwill draw out the conclusions mentioned above: the persistent gap between theprivate and the common good and the need to read the Republic as a drama.II.Socrates three times declares that the goal in building the city in speech is tomake the city happy as a whole (420b, 466a, 519e). 9 The first discussion of thehappiness of the city as a whole comes at the beginning of book 4, after theintroduction of communism of property among the guardians (415b–417d)and shortly before the building of the city reaches its first conclusion (427c–d). Socrates argues that the guardians must not be allowed private homes,private wealth, or even private rooms, lest such possessions tempt them toabandon their role as guardians and, like predatory wolves, to use their powerto exploit their fellow citizens. Rather, the guardians will live in common, andthey will be paid for their services with food, which they will eat in commonlike soldiers (415d–417a). Socrates asserts that, living this way, the guardians“would save themselves as well as save the city” (417a). Glaucon is apparentlyconvinced that these arrangements are good all around, but they prove toomuch for Adeimantus, who interrupts the conversation to ask Socrates whatdefense he might offer were someone to accuse him of making the guardiansmiserable by forcing them to live in this austere manner. He says:What would your apology be, Socrates, if someone were to say thatyou’re hardly making these men happy, and further, that it’s their ownfault—they to whom the city in truth belongs but who enjoy nothinggood from the city as do others, who possess lands, and build fine bighouses, …and make sacrifices to gods, and entertain foreigners, and,of course, also acquire…gold and silver and all that’s conventionallyheld to belong to men who are going to be blessed? But, he would say,they look exactly like mercenary auxiliaries who sit in the city and donothing but keep watch. (419a–420a)Far from rejecting these charges, Socrates amplifies them by noting that,since the guardians are paid in food, they are unable to leave the city on aprivate journey, or to give gifts to mistresses, or to gratify any other desirethat requires spending money. As a result, they are unable to do the various9The word “happy” (eudaimōn) is not used at 519e, but rather a synonym: the law is concerned withmaking the city as a whole “fare exceptionally well” (diapherontōs eu praxei).

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 0 5things that “men reputed to be happy” do (420a). They are, in short, deprivedof any semblance of a private life and live solely for the city. 10 Are they not,then, wretched?Socrates provides a twofold response to this accusation. In the first place,he says that “it wouldn’t be surprising if these men, as they are, are also happiest”(420b). He does not elaborate on this claim, however, because he says,in the second place, that the specific happiness of the guardians has not beentheir concern: “in founding the city we are not looking to the exceptionalhappiness of any one group among us but, as far as possible, that of the city asa whole,” because it is by crafting such a city that he and his interlocutors willbest be able to discover their primary object—the nature of justice (420b–c).He then goes on to explain that Adeimantus’s objection is misguided, becauseno class in the city, and especially not the guardians, should be allowed anykind of happiness that would make its members fail to do their jobs for thecity, and the kind of happiness implicit in Adeimantus’s objection—namely,a happiness that centers on private, material gratification by means of wealthand luxuries—would do just that (420d–421c).Socrates initially illustrates his meaning by an analogy:Just as if we were painting statues and someone came up and began toblame us, saying that we weren’t putting the fairest colors on the fairestparts of the animal—for the eyes, which are fairest, had not beenpainted purple but black—we would seem to make a sensible apologyto him by saying: “You surprising man, don’t suppose we ought topaint the eyes so fair that they don’t even look like eyes, and the samefor the other parts; but observe whether, assigning what’s suitable toeach of them, we make the whole fair. So now too, don’t compel us toattach to the guardians a happiness that will turn them into everythingexcept guardians.” (420c–d)Thus, just as painting (the pupil of) an eye purple would cause it to cease toresemble an eye, just so giving to the guardians the kind of happiness implicitin Adeimantus’s objection would cause them to cease to be guardians of thecity (as already asserted at 416a–c). Indeed, Socrates goes on to say that itwould corrupt any of the city’s classes were they given this sort of happiness.If craftsmen, farmers, or guardians were treated to a life of luxuries, feasts,and material gratifications, and asked to work only “at their pleasure,” they10While it is true that the guardians will be taught to believe that their own well-being dependsentirely upon the well-being of the city (see 412c–414a), no argument is supplied there or elsewherefor this questionable claim. Thus, however much concern for the common good had been guiding thediscussion, the private good of the citizens had hardly been considered.

2 0 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3would neglect their proper jobs within the city (420e–421b). While a city cansurvive having some negligent cobblers and other craftsmen, it cannot survivehaving a ruling class that fails to be “guardians of the laws and the city”and is instead concerned with private gratification (421a–b). Hence, Socratesconcludes that they are not to arrange the city so that the guardians have“the most happiness,” but rather so that “the city as a whole” has the mosthappiness, and the way to do that is to “compel and persuade” the guardiansand also the producers to be “the best possible craftsmen at their jobs”(421b–c). As for the happiness of the city’s classes, Socrates declares that they“must let nature assign to each of the groups its share of happiness” (421c). 11Finally, since only the guardian class had been deprived of private property,Socrates concludes by prescribing that the producers (who will be allowedprivate property) will not be allowed to grow too rich or too poor, since bothconditions would cause them to do their jobs poorly (421c–422a). In short,all the classes will be allowed the material conditions most conducive to thebest performance of their particular jobs.Although aspects of this passage are fairly straightforward, overall itdoes not provide decisive support for either the holistic or the reductionistinterpretation of the claim that the city is happy as a whole. On one hand,there are at least two statements that support the holistic interpretation. First,the analogy to painting statues (420c–d) seems to suggest that the happinessof the city is something other than the happiness of the parts. Socrates doesnot say that a beautiful whole is composed of beautifully colored parts, butrather of “suitably” colored parts. If happiness is the analogue to beauty, itfollows that the happiness predicated of the city does not follow from thehappiness of the parts. The parts must have a “suitable” happiness, but that isnot necessarily the same as the greatest possible happiness.This interpretation has not gone unchallenged. Rachana Kamtekar offersan alternative. She reads the analogy as asserting that “for the whole [statue]to be beautiful, each of its parts must be a beautiful part, and that requiresthat each part continue to be a part (i.e., retain its function in relation to thewhole).” But a purple eye “would no longer be an eye…and, a fortiori, not abeautiful eye,” and thus would render the whole defective and not beautiful.Hence, “each part’s being as beautiful as possible is a necessary condition forthe whole’s being as beautiful as possible.” 12 Mutatis mutandis, the same holds11eateon hopōs hekastois tois ethnesin hē phusis apodidōsi tou metalambanein eudaimonias (421c4–6).12Kamtekar, “Social Justice,” 207.

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 0 7for the happiness of the parts of a city and of the whole. Since, “without a city,most of the (would-be) citizens will not be happy,” and since each part of thecity must perform its proper function in order for the whole city to subsist,it follows the citizens are, on the whole, best off when given a happiness consistentwith their civic function because only such a happiness “endures andmeets lifelong human needs.” 13 Hence, each part of the city will be a happypart and as a result the whole which is composed of those parts will be happy.This reading does not fit the text, however. 14 To repeat, Socrates does notsay that a black eye is beautifully colored; he says it is “suitably” colored—which, in the context, can be most naturally understood as being colored inthe way that makes it resemble a real eye, or the real eye of a beautiful, realanimal (see 420c–d). Kamtekar appears to read into this passage the notionthat suitably colored parts are also beautiful parts. Socrates does not say that,however—though he could have if that had been his intention. In addition,reading the passage in the holistic way (beautiful whole from suitably coloredparts) coheres better with Socrates’s subsequent statement that their purposeis to give to parts of the city the way of life or conditions of happiness thatmake them “the best possible craftsmen at their jobs” (421c). Just as a beautifulwhole comes from suitably colored parts, a happy whole comes from suitablyformed classes. The rulers look to the proper functioning of the citizens,while nature distributes happiness (421c). Thus, the holistic interpretation fitsbetter with the analogy, whereas Kamtekar’s interpretation introduces disanalogies.The statue analogy therefore lends itself to a holistic interpretation.The second support for the holistic interpretation of the city’s happinessis Socrates’s previously mentioned statement that they will leave it to natureto distribute happiness (421c), which implies that the rulers will not directlyconcern themselves with the happiness of individual citizens or groups of citizens,but only with the quality of their civic functioning. Nor does Socratesaffirmatively declare that nature will make each class as happy as it can bewhen they are properly civically formed. He does not say what quality ordegree of happiness nature will distribute. Perhaps the greatest support forholism in this passage is that Socrates speaks here as though it is possible tomake a city happy as a whole without being directly concerned with the happinessof the parts, which suggests that the happiness of the city is somethingother than and even independent of the happiness of the citizenry.13Ibid., 208.14See Morrison, “Happiness,” 13–14, for an argument similar to mine.

2 0 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3On the other hand, there are two elements of the passage that lend supportto a reductionist interpretation. First, Socrates begins by saying that itwould not surprise him if the guardians were happiest (420b). If the guardiansare indeed happiest, then it is at least possible (though far from certain)that the happiness of the city as a whole is reducible to the happiness of thecitizenry. (One would need a more concrete depiction of the happiness of theclasses in order to be certain.) Second, sandwiched between the statue analogyand the reference to nature is a passage that seems to imply that the cityas a whole is made happy by its citizenry being made happy. Explaining whythe kind of happiness implicit in Adeimantus’s objection is unsuited to theircity, Socrates says:We know how to clothe the farmers in fine robes and hang gold onthem and bid them work the earth at their pleasure, and how to makethe potters recline before the fire, drinking…and feasting, and havingtheir wheel set before them as often as they get a desire to make pots,and how to make all the others blessed in the same way just so the cityas a whole may be happy. (420e)As Vlastos has argued, this is the only passage in the Republic where thehappiness of the city as a whole and the happiness of the individual citizensare discussed in relation to each other, and in this case, the happiness of thewhole is said to be identical to the happiness of the citizenry. 15 This suggeststhat it is at least possible that the happiness of the whole city as Socrates hasconstructed it is also reducible the happiness of the citizenry. 16 We cannot becertain, however, because the statue analogy and reference to nature discussedabove conflict with this implication, insofar as they imply the happiness of thecity can be provided for without looking to the happiness of the citizenry. 17On the whole, then, Socrates’s response to Adeimantus is ambiguous. Heneither identifies explicitly the happiness of the whole with that of the citizens,nor does he explicitly dissociate them. The evidence in favor of the holisticinterpretation seems stronger overall, since Socrates quite clearly speaks asthough the rulers can attend to the happiness of the whole without attending15Vlastos, “Social Justice,” 16.16In this context Vlastos also notes that Socrates contrasts the happiness of the whole with the exceptionalhappiness of a particular class. He never explicitly contrasts the happiness of the city with thehappiness of its citizens (see Vlastos, “Social Justice,” 15–16).17Also, Donald Morrison has noted that Vlastos’s interpretation of the happy-banqueter passageestablishes that making the citizens happy is a sufficient condition for making the city happy as awhole, but it does not establish that making the citizens happy is a necessary condition of the city’shappiness (see Morrison, “Happiness,” 15).

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 0 9to the happiness of the parts, but this evidence is not decisive, and the relationbetween private happiness and public happiness is left obscure. We do notknow exactly what it means for a city to be “happy as a whole,” except that itrequires citizens being “the best possible craftsmen at their jobs,” which rulesout lives devoted to luxurious self-gratification and pleonexia. 18 We do not yetknow enough about the character of private happiness or the human good todraw a firm conclusion. 19III.The second passage in which the happiness of the city is discussed (465d–466c)does not resolve the issue, even though it might seem to. It comes after therevelation of the equality of the sexes among the guardians (451c–457b) andthe communalization of women and children among them (457b–466d).Having laid out this last institution, Socrates praises its benefits to Glaucon.Through the community of pleasure and pain that comes from abolishingthe private family, there will be a community of interests among the auxiliaries,thereby drying up the sources of faction among them and securing theirfriendship with the producers and with each other (461e–465c). In particular,the auxiliaries, as one big family, will enjoy a kind of fraternal solidaritywith one another that will greatly reduce quarrels among them and virtuallyeliminate lawsuits (464e–465b). Further, because they do not need to providefor private households, they are spared the many indignities and evils thatso often attend providing for a household: the need to make money to payallowances, the need to flatter the rich in order to get money, and so forth(465b–c).Socrates then asserts that, given all these various advantages, the auxiliaryguardians will “live a life more blessed than that most blessed one theOlympic victors live” (465d), forsurely the Olympic victors are considered happy for a small part ofwhat belongs to these men. Their victory is not only fairer but the publicsupport is more complete. The victory they win is the preservationof the whole city, and they are crowned with support and everythingelse necessary to life—both they themselves and their children as well;18See 433e–434a; contrast with 343d–344c. Pleonektein (to have more, to get the better) and pleonexiaare words used in the Republic and commonly associated with injustice. See K. J. Dover, Greek PopularMorality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 193, formore on pleonexia.19See Strauss, City and Man, 104.

2 1 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3and they get prizes from their city while they live and when they diereceive a worthy burial. (465d–e)In other words, if the Olympic victors live a “most blessed life” because theywin an athletic competition on behalf of the city and are rewarded withpublic meals and honor, then the auxiliaries must enjoy an even greater happinessbecause they achieve an even greater victory for the city and receiveeven greater support and honor from it as a result.Socrates then recalls Adeimantus’s previous objection and notes that,at that time, they had deferred discussing the happiness of the guardians 20because they “were making the guardians guardians and the city as happyas we could, but…were not looking exclusively to one group in [the city] andforming it for happiness” (466a; recall 420b). Now, however, they can see thatthe guardians are in fact happiest—and certainly happier than the producers.If the Olympic victors are happier than common craftsmen and farmers (asGlaucon grants), and if the auxiliaries are happier than the Olympic victors(as they have just established), then clearly the auxiliaries must be happierthan the craftsmen and farmers, and are therefore the happiest class in thecity (466a–b). Indeed, Socrates goes so far as to assert that the “moderate,steady” life of the guardians (more precisely, of the auxiliaries) is, in fact, the“best life” (446b). He then concludes by once again denigrating the conceptionof happiness that lay behind Adeimantus’s original objection, mocking itas “a foolish, adolescent opinion about happiness” (466b). And he asserts yetagain that, were a guardian to pursue that kind of happiness, he would ceaseto be a guardian and would be led “to appropriate everything in the city withhis power” and thereby harm the city (466b–c).In light of our previous analysis of Socrates’s response to Adeimantus,it should be clear that this passage does little to resolve the ambiguities ofthe first response. Socrates still speaks here as though the happiness of thecity can be attended to without attending to the private happiness of citizensor groups of citizens: the city is made “as happy as we could” make it by“making the guardians guardians” (466a, italics mine), not by making themhappy. In this sense, this passage also lends itself more to a holistic than to areductionist interpretation. At the same time, there is once again no explicitdescription of what it means to make a city “happy as a whole,” and thusno explicit statements to help us decide between holism and reductionism.20After 414b, the term “guardians” becomes somewhat ambiguous, but it is only after 473c–e thatmaking a precise distinction between auxiliary and complete guardians might have any bearing onour question.

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 1 1Since, however, Socrates asserts that the guardians are happiest, and since itwas specifically their happiness that had been in question before, this passagedoes not rule out a possible reductionist interpretation (so long as we couldbe assured that the producers were also happy).Nonetheless, the actual discussion of the auxiliary guardians’ happinessdoes little to establish in any plausible way that they truly are happy. Recallthat the previous discussion had begun with the surmise that they are happiestin the city and had ended with the statement that the founders would leaveit up to nature to distribute happiness. One might have expected, then, thatwhen Socrates returned to the topic of the guardians’ happiness, he wouldexplain why nature would distribute great shares of happiness to the guardians—buthe does not do this. Rather, he makes use of a dubious comparisonto the Olympic victors. But why should we believe that the victors are happy,and that the auxiliaries will be even happier because of the benefits theyreceive? Socrates does not prove, for example, that public service and honorare natural goods necessary for great happiness. (In fact, one could argue thatboth are fairly conventional goods.) Indeed, Socrates does not actually addmuch here to the portrait of guardian life already known when Adeimantusmade his objection. The material conditions in which the guardians liveprovoked Adeimantus’s objection, and he apparently did not believe honorsfrom the city (much less the paltry “support” they receive) were sufficient tomake up for their deprivations. Why should these same goods now be thebasis for declaring their way of life the best? We are not told. We should alsonote that, although the “banqueter” conception of happiness is mocked hereby Socrates as “foolish” and “adolescent,” it is hardly proved false. We do notknow that a life of civic duty that eschews luxury is, in fact, better.In sum, the same problems recur in this passage that occurred in the previousone. Because we lack a full picture of the human good, we cannot knowwhether the life of the guardians (or of the producers) makes them happierin Kallipolis than such people could be in any other potential order, and thuswe do not know whether the happiness of the city is something other thanthat of the citizenry or identical to it. Overall, the happiness of the city wouldseem to be something other than that of the citizenry, but there is still a slighttextual basis for the reductionist position.

2 1 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3IV.The final discussion of the happiness of the city comes at the end of Socrates’sexplication of the Cave allegory (519b–521b). Socrates presents this allegoryto illustrate the manner in which the education of the future philosopherkings will progressively lead them up a dialectical path to the peak of wisdom:apprehension of the idea of the good (519c–d; see also 503e–506b and531d–535a). Socrates then remarks that these philosophers, now fully fledged,will not be allowed to do what philosophers who achieve wisdom in existingcities do: namely, spend the rest of their days living a private life devoted tothe pursuit of wisdom (519c–d; see 496a–e). On the contrary, philosophers inKallipolis, having attained wisdom, will then be compelled by law to descendback into the cave by sharing in the labors and honors of the city by ruling it.Glaucon objects: “What?” he asks. “Are we to do them an injustice, and makethem live a worse life when a better is possible for them?” (519d). Socratesresponds by reminding Glaucon that the purpose of the city’s institutions isnot the happiness of a part of the city but rather the happiness of the whole.My friend, you have again forgotten…that it’s not the concern of lawthat any one class in the city fare exceptionally well, 21 but it contrivesto bring this about in the city as a whole, harmonizing the citizensby persuasion and compulsion, making them share with one anotherthe benefit that each is able to bring to the commonwealth. And itproduces such men in the city not in order to let them turn whicheverway each wants, but in order that it may use them in binding the citytogether. (519e–520a)The nascent philosopher kings receive their education so that they might beof use to the city, though that education also equips them for the greatesthappiness. Because the happiness they could enjoy has been made possiblefor them by the city, it is therefore fair for the city to ask in return that philosophersabandon it and instead spend time ruling on occasion (520a–c).Nonetheless, both Socrates and Glaucon agree that the philosopher kingswill approach the task of ruling as something necessary (because fairlydemanded of them) but not good (because there is something else they couldbe doing that would make them happier) (520e–521b). They will “despisepolitical offices” because they “have other honors and a better life than thepolitical life” (521b).It should be clear that this final passage fails to resolve the ambiguitiesof the previous ones. In favor of a holistic reading, we see Socrates yet again21diapherontōs eu praxei, which is synonymous with 420b’s estai diapherontōs eudaimon.

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 1 3speak as though the happiness of the city can be promoted without attendingto the private happiness of citizens, and once again he declines to describein detail what the happiness of a city consists of. Further, Socrates quiteexplicitly says here that the philosophers (at least) do sacrifice some shareof happiness for the sake of the common good, which suggests that the happinessof the city is something other than the happiness of its parts. 22 Evenfurther, the life of the guardians that had previously been declared “the bestlife” (466b) is now declared (by Glaucon himself) to be a “worse life” thanthat of the philosopher. In light of the benefits of the philosophic life, thesupreme goodness of the life of the guardians, whose labors and honors areconcerned solely with the city, has now become questionable.On the other hand, as Gregory Vlastos has noted, 23 this passage containsone statement that could be seen as strongly favoring the reductionist position.Socrates says that the law looks to the happiness of the city as a whole by“making [the citizens] share with one another the benefit that each is able tobring to the commonwealth” (519e–520a). The language here would seem toequate the happiness of the city with that of the citizens, since the happinessof the city is apparently equated with citizens benefiting one another. 24 Thismight seem to support reductionism.Nonetheless, although this statement is surely compatible with reductionism,it does not provide decisive support for it. It is certainly true thatthe city is arranged in such a way that citizens have no option but to providebenefits for one another. As Socrates elsewhere says, “for all men obedient togood laws a certain job has been assigned to each in the city at which he iscompelled to work, and no one has the leisure” not to do this job (406c). Todo one’s job for the city certainly consists of providing benefits for fellow citizens:food, shelter, clothing, labor, security, and so forth, depending on one’sspecific job. When considering the division of civic labor embodied in theconstitution of Kallipolis, it makes sense to identify the city with its citizens,since that division of labor is rooted in human need (see 369b–c). But noneof this proves that the happiness of the city and that of the citizens are identicalto one another. Rather, it is perfectly consistent with the holistic reading22See Morrison, “Happiness,” 19–20.23Vlastos, “Social Justice,” 17.24As Vlastos says, for the citizens “to ‘impart benefit to the community’…is to ‘impart benefit to oneanother’; they, and they alone, are the beneficiary; the well-being of the polis is theirs” (17). Vlastos, itshould be noted, bolsters this interpretation with the earlier-mentioned argument that identifies thehappiness of the city with that of the citizenry as well (see Vlastos, “Social Justice,” 15).

2 1 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3according to which the city is made happy as a whole by making each citizenas good as possible at his particular job. Whether that results in the happinessof individual citizens is another question. That the citizens must benefitone another does not prove that they make each other happy. More evidencewould have to be provided that the citizens receive the goods necessary forhappiness; but the text does not provide such evidence, at least not explicitly.Nonetheless, the passage does not rule out reductionism.Hence, the ambiguities of the first two passages persist in the third andlast one. There is some possible suggestion that the happiness of the wholeconsists of the happiness of the parts, but there is also language suggestingthat the happiness of the whole can be provided for without having to attendto the happiness of the parts. We lack both explicit definitions of the happinessof the city and of the happiness of the private individual, and thus welack the kind of plausible link between the two that would be necessary tosupport a reductionist reading in the face of the statements that lend themselvesto holism. To the extent that private happiness is allowed in Kallipolis,it is only insofar as such happiness is compatible with civic duty. We cannotknow whether such civically conditioned happiness is greatest until we knowmore about the human good. The text, on its face, is ambiguous to the end,though it leans on the whole in the direction of holism.V.Throughout the analysis so far, we have seen that the reductionist positionsof Kamtekar and Vlastos are not borne out by the text. There are, however,two other variants of reductionism or semireductionism. Perhaps the mostsubstantive defense of the reductionist position is that of C. D. C. Reeve inhis book Philosopher-Kings. On a number of occasions Reeve says both thateveryone is happy in Kallipolis and that nobody can be happy outside of it,including philosophers. 25 Thus, the happiness of the city just is that of itscitizens. The key to this position is his claim that each of the three classes inKallipolis is populated by persons of a distinct psychological type: the philosopherkings are wisdom lovers; the auxiliaries are honor lovers, and the25“Everyone is better off in the Kallipolis than out of it” (Philosopher-Kings, 37); “Kallipolis—thepolis in which everyone is as happy as possible” (95); “it is only in the Kallipolis that private happinessis possible” (155); “the philosopher is happier ruling in the Kallipolis…than being a private citizenunder someone else’s rule” (157–58). Reeve appears to share Kamtekar’s (“Social Justice,” 208) understandingof happiness, which he defines as “the stable optimal satisfaction of real interests throughoutlife” (Philosopher-Kings, 36).

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 1 5producers are money lovers. 26 He argues, further, that each of these types iscapable of a distinct kind of happiness as well as a specific level of cognitiveachievement. 27 The philosophers are happiest, because they enjoy the highestpleasures and possess the intellectual virtue requisite for guiding them reliablytowards the attainment of this highest happiness. The auxiliaries andproducers enjoy successively lesser pleasures and are successively less capableof guiding themselves even toward the more limited happiness of which theyare capable. Both the honor lovers and the money lovers are therefore betteroff being ruled by someone wiser than themselves—someone who is capableof guiding them toward the greatest happiness that they can attain.In support of this claim about the unique psychic constitution, happiness,and cognitive ability of each class, Reeve relies on Socrates’s discussion,in book 9, of the pleasures particular to each part of the soul and his consequentdivision of people into three types, according to which part of thesoul predominates in them. 28 It should be noted, however, that Socrates neverexplicitly applies this taxonomy to the classes in Kallipolis. (The passagein question concerns the rule of the philosophic part of the soul over thesoul’s other parts.) Nonetheless, there is some evidence that love of moneypredominates in the producers, and love of honor among the auxiliaries. 29(It goes without saying that philosophers are wisdom lovers.) Thus, Reeve’sclaims are not prima facie false.Reeve further claims that in Kallipolis, the honor-loving auxiliaries andthe money-loving producers are both ruled by philosopher kings in such amanner that they are in fact able to enjoy the greatest sustainable happinessof which they are capable given their respective psychic constitutions. 30 Insupport of this claim, he cites Socrates’s assertion that only a soul ruled by thewisdom-loving part is capable of attaining the “best” and “truest” pleasures26See Reeve, Philosopher-Kings, 36–37, 170–204.27“Because people have different natures, they have different real interests, are made really happy bydifferent things and have different degrees of insight into themselves and the world. These differentnatures are of three primary types: money-lovers, honour-lovers, and wisdom-lovers or philosophers.Each is ruled, or has his ultimate goal determined by, the desires in one of the three parts of thepsyche: appetite, aspiration, and reason. Each has his own distinctive pleasure, his own peculiar Weltanschauung”(ibid., 36). Reeve elaborates on these statements at 43–49, 153–59, and chap. 4 passim.28Reeve, Philosopher-Kings, 36–37, 43–49, 176–97; see Rep. 580d–581c for the passage he relies on.29See, for example, 434a–c for love of money. At 414a and 468b–469b it is presupposed that love ofhonor is a powerful motive for the auxiliaries.30Reeve argues for this at length at Philosopher-Kings, 76–204. In summary, “Money-lovers andhonour-lovers can achieve what is for them real justice and real happiness only in a polis ruled by justphilosophers” (ibid., 37).

2 1 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3that each part of the soul is capable of (586d–587a). As he reads the divisionof persons into three types, so he reads this passage as applying to the classstructure in Kallipolis and not just to the internal rule of the wisdom lover.Thus, thanks to philosophic rule, all citizens of Kallipolis enjoy the greatestsustainable happiness of which they are capable, given the kind of people theyare, and the city is therefore happy as a whole. 31Reeve’s interpretation fundamentally rests on the assumption that a fewcrucial passages in book 9 are applicable to the workings of Kallipolis. Acloser look at the text reveals, however, that the passages in question do notsupport Reeve’s interpretation of them.It is highly questionable to assume that the division of types in book 9is meant to be read back into the class structure of Kallipolis, given the lackof any explicit statement to that effect. 32 Even if we grant this point, however,and even if we further grant that each class therefore has a characteristicform of happiness, the text still does not let us conclude with any confidencethat, in Kallipolis, the lower classes are ruled in such a way that their happinessis maximized. The passage that Reeve relies upon to establish this claim(586d–587a) is not a passage about political rule; it is, rather, a passage abouthow philosophers govern their own souls, the notion being that a personwho is wise knows how to provide what is best for all of his soul. 33 Reeve’sposition is based on the assumption that the account of the philosopher’srule over himself can also be analogously applied to the rule of philosophersover the other classes in the city. There are, however, several parts of the textthat render this assumption problematic. We may note, for example, thatwhenever Socrates introduces some institution or policy while building thecity, it is always with a view to making the members of the various classes asgood as possible at their particular jobs. That is what justifies the education ofthe guardians, as well as their lack of private property and privacy (see 378c,416a–417b). That is the motive for introducing great honors for the guardians(414a). That is what justifies forbidding the producers to become too rich or31“The unity of the Kallipolis requires…maximal universal happiness” (ibid., 204).32It has the result, for example, that Reeve must implausibly argue that the producers possess oligarchicsouls, even though the descriptions of the many in Kallipolis (for example, 431b–c) presentthem as a rather variegated bunch, nothing like the grubby, fearful miser that is the oligarchic man(553a–555a) (see Reeve, Philosopher-Kings, 48 and 285n2). Overall, I believe Ferrari has proved thatthe individual psychological types cannot be read into the class structure of Kallipolis; see Ferrari,City and Soul, 42–50, 65–75.33This claim is reiterated at the end of book 9 (591a–592a), where, once again, it is the philosopher’sself-governance that is under discussion.

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 1 7too poor (421d–422a). That is what justifies even giving the philosophers aphilosophic education. They are raised for the sake of harmonizing the cityand only incidentally for their own good (recall 520a). To be more specific,the money allowed the producers and the honor allowed the auxiliary guardiansis dictated by the need to make them “the best possible craftsmen at theirjobs” (421b, as 421d–422a implies), not by the goal of making them as happyas possible given their psychological type. Thus, the conditions of life for eachclass are dictated by the needs of the city and the civic functions of its parts,not by the happiness of the members of each class. At best, the happiness ofthese various classes is an incidental product of being formed to do their civicfunction. Given that Socrates says it will be up to nature to distribute happiness,one must supply some argument to show that nature will distributemaximum happiness to each class when they live under these conditions. Thepassages Reeve relies on do not do that.Beyond that, Reeve’s claim that no one is happy outside Kallipolis seemsto be not only unsupported by the text but actually in contradiction withit. To recall, Reeve asserts that the greatest sustainable happiness for eachtype can be attained only in the kind of political order found in Kallipolis;anywhere else, happiness will be lesser in degree or of lesser security andsustainability (or both). 34 Yet, at the end of book 9, Socrates quite pointedlysays that for the person whose soul is justly ordered and who thus is happy, “itdoesn’t make any difference whether [Kallipolis] is or will be somewhere” onearth (592b); and he certainly speaks as though fully fledged philosophers inactual cities lead happy lives (see 496a–e and 519c–d). Philosophers, at least,do enjoy private happiness outside Kallipolis. Further, the discussion of lawat 589c–591b and the exhortations in the Myth of Er (618b–619b and 621b–d)at least suggest that happiness may be available to nonphilosophers outsideof Kallipolis.Thus, the text does not allow us to conclude that the happiness of everyonein Kallipolis is maximized, or that persons outside Kallipolis are barredfrom attaining happiness. Reeve’s version of reductionism lacks adequatetextual support.34Reeve, Philosopher-Kings, 37.

2 1 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3VI.There is one final reductionist—or semireductionist—interpretation of theRepublic: that of Donald Morrison. Morrison argues that the happiness of thecity and the happiness of the citizenry are in fact distinct from one another.On one hand, the happiness of the city is constituted by the “goodness” ofthe city’s “structure”—that is to say, its virtue (justice, courage, temperance,and so forth). 35 A city is happy when it is structured in a way that allowsit to attain and exercise the virtues proper to a city, and this comes aboutwhen each class minds its own business; everyone is in harmony about whoshould rule and who should obey; the guardians preserve the lawful opinionabout what is truly terrible; and the rulers rule with a view to what is best forhow the city should relate to itself and to other cities (427e–434d). It followsthat, if the city’s happiness is its virtue, then this happiness obviously is notidentical to the happiness of the citizens. It is, rather, a property of the whole,and, as such, it is in principle compatible with both the temporary and thelong-term sacrifice of the private happiness of some citizens. 36Morrison further contends, however, that despite being different fromthe happiness of the citizenry, “the happiness of the polis is both conceptuallyand causally dependent upon the happiness of the citizens.” 37 The happinessof the city is conceptually dependent because it depends on the city’s beingstructured by good laws; but the aim of good laws is the well-being of thecitizenry. 38 Thus, the happiness of the city, properly understood, implies thehappiness of the citizens (or most of them), even though it is not synonymouswith it. The happiness of the city is causally dependent upon the happinessof the citizenry because (according to Morrison) the city’s virtue cannot bemaintained unless all the citizens do their part, while all the citizens doingtheir part requires that they be virtuous, and virtue (according to Plato) isnecessary and sufficient for happiness, which implies that the city’s virtue35Morrison, “Happiness,” 6–7. “The primary component of the happiness of the city is the goodnessof [its] structure. …The goodness of this structure is called by Plato the city’s virtue: justice, temperance,and courage in the city are aspects of the goodness of this structure” (7).36“When Plato contrasts the happiness of the city as a whole with the happiness of certain of its parts,what he has in mind is the goodness of the structure. The aim of the statesman is to promote the happinessof the city, rather than that of any special class, and therefore he will sacrifice the interests ofany particular person or group in order to promote or preserve the happiness, i.e., virtue, of the city asa whole” (ibid., 7; see also 13–14).37Ibid., 7.38“The goal or purpose of [the city’s] structure is to promote the greatest possible well-being of theindividual citizens, into the indefinite future” (ibid.). Morrison provides no supporting textual citation.

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 1 9cannot maintain itself unless (most of) the citizens are happy. 39 In sum, onecannot conceive of a happy city unless it has happy citizens, nor can a goodcity maintain itself without happy citizens.In light of the previous analysis, Morrison’s position is much more persuasivethan that of the other reductionists because it manages to harmonizethe happiness of the citizenry with the fact that Socrates speaks as thoughone can attend to the happiness of the city without directly attending to thehappiness of the citizens. Morrison fails to prove, however, that the happinessof the city is either conceptually or causally dependent on that of the citizens.While building the city in speech, Socrates never says that the happinessor well-being of the citizenry is the object of the laws. As already noted, thecity and its regime are ultimately rooted in a number of basic human needs(369b–e), but the meeting of basic needs cannot be equated with the provisionof happiness—at least not without a further argument. When Socrates speaksof the concern of the law (at 519e–520a), he says that its goal is the happinessof the city (not that of the citizenry), which it provides for by persuadingand compelling citizens to be useful to one another. 40 Thus, the text does notsupport the claim that the happiness of the city is conceptually dependent onthat of the citizenry.Nor does it support the claim that the happiness of the city is causallydependent on the citizens’ happiness. Morrison’s argument here relies uponthe assumptions that virtue is sufficient for happiness and that the citizensof a happy city must be virtuous. Even if we grant that virtue of some sort isnecessary for happiness, however, Morrison still fails to disambiguate “virtue”in this context. The virtues of the city and thereby of its citizens 41 arenot the same as the virtues of the soul (compare 427c–434d to441c–444b). Topick the most obvious and relevant case, the justice of the city consists of eachclass doing its part (432b–434c). We could take this to mean that the justice39“Unless many of the citizens possess a considerable degree of virtue, the overall structure of thecity will be unsound”; and “in Plato, it is true of both the individual and the city that the primarycomponent of its happiness is its virtue” (ibid.). The note appended to this last sentence contains notextual reference to the Republic or any other dialogue supporting the substance of Morrison’s claim.He could, perhaps, have cited Rep. 352d–354a.40On two occasions late in the Republic Socrates speaks as though the law aims at producing justicein the soul of those under it (see 589c–591a and 604a–605a). Both of these passages rely on a problematicequating of law with reason (logos) and thus do not provide unambiguous evidence for theconceptual dependence of the city’s happiness on that of the citizenry.41If we assume that the virtues of the city can be predicated of the citizens.

2 2 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3of the citizens consists in each of them doing his or her particular job. 42 Butthe justice of the individual consists in each part of the soul doing its properwork (441d–442b, 443b–444e). But, as I have argued elsewhere, the Republiccontains no compelling evidence that civic justice implies psychic justice—or, more broadly, that civic virtue entails psychic virtue. 43 But it is psychicvirtue, not civic virtue, that leads to happiness. 44 Thus, although a happy citycertainly requires that its citizens be civically virtuous, this fact does notestablish that the city requires (and therefore attempts to bring about) thatits citizens are psychically virtuous; therefore, we cannot conclude that thehappiness of the city is causally dependent on the happiness of its citizens.VII.The results of the foregoing analysis can be briefly summarized as follows.Three times Socrates declares that the founders and rulers of Kallipolis willbe concerned with making the city happy as a whole rather than with makingany particular part of the city exceptionally happy. The text itself is ambiguousconcerning whether the happiness of the whole city ought to be identifiedwith the happiness of the entire citizenry (the reductionist interpretation) orit ought to be understood to be something other than and independent of thehappiness of the citizenry (the holistic interpretation). Attempts to constructa reductionist interpretation from the passages in question and other passagesin the Republic have proved to be unsupported by the text. We are,therefore, left with ambiguity, albeit an ambiguity leaning toward the holisticinterpretation. That is to say, the Republic resists a reductionist interpretationmuch more than it does a holistic reading.Nonetheless, we should have grave reservations about adopting astraightforwardly holistic approach to the city’s happiness. If we are to saythat happiness of a nonmetaphorical sort can be attributed to the city, thisrequires that the city itself exist somehow in its own right, and not merelyas a set of institutional relations. (Institutional relations cannot, I think, be“happy” in a nonmetaphorical way.) The city must be some kind of “super-42This is Vlastos’s understanding of Plato’s conception of social justice; see Gregory Vlastos, “Justiceand Happiness in the Republic,” in Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Vlastos (NotreDame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1978), 2:79–80.43Jonathan Culp, “Who’s Happy in Plato’s Republic?,” Polis 31, no. 2 (2014): 288–312.44The three proofs for the superiority of justice concern justice in the soul; see 576b–588a.

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 2 1individual” (in Popper’s words). 45 Yet there is much in the text that arguesagainst characterizing the city in this way. The unity of the city is manifestlya product of artifice. The borders of the city are changeable (373d–e) and aredetermined by the ruler’s policy (423b–c). The size of the population is determinedin the same way (423b). Likewise, the fraternity or solidarity amongthe citizens is the product of a lie (414b–415d) and of the artificial suppressionand rechanneling of natural ties of blood (457b–466d). Although foundedaccording to nature in the sense that natural talents and potentialities areguided toward their best public use (370a–c, 455b–c), Kallipolis as a singularentity is clearly an artificial whole made up of natural human beings. Thus, apurely holistic reading of the city’s happiness does not seem tenable.We are left, then, not only with an ambiguous statement (“the city ishappy as a whole”) but also with significant obstacles to resolving the ambiguityin any direction. This means, further, that the Republic leaves us withan unresolved tension or at least an unbridged gap between the happiness ofthe citizens who make up the city, on one hand, and the “happiness” of thecity as a whole, on the other. The situation can be described more preciselyas follows. In Kallipolis, all citizens are made to be useful to one another bybecoming “the best possible craftsmen” of whatever job for the city naturebest suits them for (421b–c). Hence, Kallipolis is an order in which eachcitizen has what civic responsibility best suits his talents and character, andhe receives in turn the fruits of the labors of others also suited by nature totheir particular tasks. In order to perform their jobs as best they can, citizensare allowed only those material conditions conducive to their occupations.Hence, the producers will not be allowed to grow too rich or too poor, andthe guardians will live ascetically and communally (415d–417b, 421d–422a).The city as a whole will be pervaded by solidarity, harmony, and a ratheraustere spirit of virtue. The Republic does not allow us to conclude, however,that anyone is made happy specifically by living in such an order. We simplydo not know whether being formed to live and work in such an order,while receiving its benefits, is sufficient to render a person happy. This is anespecially troublesome conclusion given what would seem to be the greatsacrifices required of the auxiliary guardians. How are we to make sense ofthese results?Someone might say that it is not surprising that we cannot fully determinethe relation of the city’s happiness to that of the citizenry—at least not45Popper, Open Society, 1:76.

2 2 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3for most of the Republic. After all, it is clearly the case that all citizens ofKallipolis will be required to practice justice of the conventional or “vulgar”sort: they will be required to keep their hands off the belongings of others,to shoulder their share of the public burden, and on the whole, to refrainfrom pleonexia (see 433e–434a). The practice of this sort of justice is a necessaryconcomitant to activity that makes the city happy as a whole. Yet thequestionable (even doubtful) value of this sort of justice is precisely whatmotivated Glaucon to resuscitate Thrasymachus’s critique of justice. Thus,until we know whether it is better to be just than unjust (even if conventionaljustice is not the whole of justice), we cannot possibly know whether a happycity necessarily or even probably contains happy citizens. Thus, at least priorto book 9, the status of the city’s happiness must remain in question.It might be thought, however, that Socrates does resolve the issue afterthe three proofs for the superiority of justice (576b–588a). Although thethird proof contains language suggesting that none but the wise is happy(see 586d–587a), the proofs are followed by an argument that law serves as asubstitute for wisdom among the nonwise, and, in particular, that law servesto foster justice in the soul of the nonwise (589c–591b). If we assume (as weare invited to do) that justice of soul is necessary for happiness, then we couldconclude that, by virtue of their law-abidingness, the citizens of Kallipolis arein fact happy and that the happiness of the city as a whole converges with thehappiness of the citizenry.Nonetheless, as I have argued elsewhere, 46 Socrates’s defense of law is difficultto credit. First, it is unclear whether this argument applies solely toKallipolis or to all cities. Socrates speaks quite generally. Yet the Republiccontains many passages suggesting that existing cities do not have laws thatreliably instill virtue in the souls of those subject to them. 47 Further, sincethe just soul is ordered toward the attainment of wisdom, the Republic leavesit unclear why those who are incapable of wisdom are nonetheless happierhaving souls ordered in a way analogous to the wise man’s rather than (say) ina way approximating Thrasymachus’s tyrant. If, on the other hand, the passageis read as applying solely to Kallipolis, we are still left with uncertainty.The second objection just mentioned would still apply: why should nonphilosophersbenefit from this sort of psychic constitution? And, beyond that,this statement about the purpose of the law conflicts with Socrates’s earlier46Culp, “Who’s Happy in Plato’s Republic?,” 297–98.47See, for example, 425c–427a, 488a–489a, 492a–494a, 496a–497a, and 514a–517a.

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 2 3statement that the purpose of the law is to harmonize the citizens by persuadingand compelling them to be useful to one another (519e–520a). The twostatements about the purpose of the law could be harmonized only if we wereable to conclude that being formed so as to be useful to the city (as in Kallipolis)also serves to foster genuine psychic justice and (therefore) happiness(provided, again, that this psychic order is genuinely best for nonphilosophers).But that is exactly what the text does not allow us to conclude. Theambiguity remains to the end.If I am correct, we are forced to conclude that Socrates and, therefore,Plato do not want to resolve the question for us. Plato does not want thethinking reader to be able to conclude that, in Kallipolis, everyone is happy,or that Kallipolis is simply indifferent to the happiness of its citizens. Butwhat purpose does it serve to lay out such a radical city in such detail, only torefuse to resolve one of the most important questions about it?There are several hypotheses that could address this question. It could bethat everyone in Kallipolis is indeed happy, but that Plato wants the reader todo the reasoning it would take to figure out why. Or it could be that many ormost citizens are not particularly happy in Kallipolis, but (again) Plato wantsus to be the ones to figure out why. Or it could be that no one but philosophersare capable of a condition truly meriting the name happiness, and thatPlato is ultimately not concerned with the happiness of nonphilosophers. Orit could be that Kallipolis is not a serious proposal and that the problematicstatus of the citizens’ happiness is one indicator of this intention. It would bebeyond the scope of this essay to test these (and other) hypotheses againstthe text. Nonetheless, two conclusions (at least) follow from the analysis asit stands.First, the primary reason we cannot conclude with any degree of certaintywhether the citizens of Kallipolis are happy is that Socrates refuses togive Glaucon and Adeimantus an account of the good, and thus of the humangood, that would be sufficient to determine the issue. 48 Until we have a robustaccount of the human good—especially the good of nonphilosophers—wecannot know the extent to which life in Kallipolis is or is not conducive tohappiness. A second, more tentative conclusion, is that Plato wishes thereader to be skeptical of the notion that everyone in Kallipolis is happy. Asalready noted, the text resists the reductionist reading much more than itdoes a holistic one, even if the holistic reading has its own problems. Were48See 435c–d, 504b, 505a, 506d–e, 611b–612a.

2 2 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3the reductionist reading correct, however, it is odd that Socrates would notdo more to establish it. Doing so would serve to make Kallipolis more attractive,and it would reinforce his overall argument that everyone is better offbeing just than unjust, since everyone would be better off in the society whereeveryone is just (at least in the conventional sense). The lack of support forreductionism verges on a rejection of it. But, as already noted, the issue couldnot be decisively resolved until we know more about the human good.These conclusions lead to a final reflection about how to read the Republic.The various reductionist arguments have in common that they read theRepublic as though it were a philosophic treatise rendered in dramatic form.Socrates is taken to be saying everywhere what he believes, and the argumentshe gives for his claims are taken as always genuine arguments. Interpretationsare constructed in ways intended to salvage as much as possible Socrates’sclaims on a literal level. The failure of the reductionist arguments illustrateswith particular clarity the weakness of this kind of literal approach wheninterpreting the Republic. Scholars who read the work in this manner are ledto implausible interpretations of the text, sometimes running counter to themost obvious meaning; as a result, they fail to notice or to give due weightto the persistence of ambiguity and, thus, fail to address the possibility thatSocrates is being deliberately ambiguous and deliberately fails to resolve theissue. Persistent ambiguity and deliberate failure would certainly make forbad argumentation in a treatise; on the other hand, if we read the Republicas a dramatic dialogue—one in which characterization, for example, hasimplications for the substance of the argument and not merely for its presentation—thenwe can make some sense of Socrates’s ambiguity, for it serves atleast two definite purposes.First, it serves at crucial points to keep the conversation going in thedirection that Socrates wants to take it. With regard to the first passage, Glauconis clearly convinced in book 3 that the guardians in Kallipolis live a mostchoiceworthy life. 49 Socrates must find a way of responding to Adeimantusthat neither begs the Republic’s larger question about the value of justice (bysaying outright that the citizens are happy) nor dampens Glaucon’s enthusiasm(thereby harming the case for justice Socrates is building). Socratestherefore responds ambiguously, mentioning the possibility that the guard-49This is especially evident at 401b–402d, coupled with his statements at 407a, 412a, and 416b. It isalso clear, subsequent to Adeimantus’s objection, that Glaucon believes the education given the guardiansproduces justice in the soul and, therefore, happiness (441d–442b, 445a–b).

Happy City, Happy Citizens? The Common Good and the Private Good in Plato’s Republic2 2 5ians are happiest, and he is able to keep the conversation progressing withoutexploring the question any further.In the second passage, Socrates confirms Glaucon’s belief that the guardianslive “the best life,” but with a transparently inadequate argument. (Theclaim itself is subsequently undermined.) In context, however, this argumentfor the goodness of the auxiliary guardians’ life serves to intensify Glaucon’salready evident desire to learn how to found a city such as Kallipolis. Byencouraging Glaucon’s enthusiasm, Socrates more or less “forces” Glaucon toforce him to introduce the topic of philosophic rule—and therewith the topicof the philosophic life and the truer “answer” to Glaucon’s initial challenge.(It is the philosophic life that resolves the problem of justice and happiness,to the extent that this problem is resolved.) Thus, again, Socrates’s secondinvocation of the happiness of the city—and, this time alone, the superiorhappiness of the guardians—serves to keep the conversation moving towardthe end Socrates has in mind, and does so in a way that keeps the ambiguityalive when the arguments are analyzed more closely.In the third and final passage, Socrates is more blunt about the conflictbetween the common good and the happiness of the philosophers. He goesso far as to say that, in the eyes of the philosopher, the life of a nonphilosopheris unequivocally wretched. At the same time, however, and as Vlastoshas insisted, the description of the happiness of the city in this passage isconsistent with the reductionist claim that, through the mutual conferringof benefits, the citizens of Kallipolis are rendered happy. This allows Socratesboth to insist upon the superiority the philosopher’s happiness and to maintainthe conviction that Kallipolis is indeed the best political order. By doingso, he is able to return to the city-soul analogy in books 8 and 9 and use it tosupport the claim that the just life is best. (This is especially true of the firstproof for the superiority of justice.) Had the belief in the happiness of citizensin Kallipolis been completely undermined, Socrates would not have been ableto use the analogy in the way he does (which is already projected at the end ofbook 4 and beginning of book 5, 445c–e, 449a).Thus, Socrates’s ambiguity makes sense if the Republic is read as a dialoguewhere Socrates makes use of (and even encourages) certain questionableconvictions of his interlocutors in order to lead them toward a position thatthey are not at the outset likely to accept or understand (that the case forjustice rests on the case for the philosophic life). And this leads to a finalreflection. Given the importance of maintaining Glaucon’s belief that all citizensare better off in Kallipolis, why even call attention to the gap at all? Why

2 2 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3does Plato have Adeimantus object, thereby possibly upsetting the convictionsSocrates is relying on? One plausible answer presents itself if one reflectsthat the Republic is not, of course, an actual conversation, but rather a writtenimitation of one. Understanding Socrates’s intentions with regard to theinterlocutors (as well as the interlocutors themselves and their motivations)is a necessary part of coming to understand Plato’s intentions for the reader.It seems likely that one of the main reasons Adeimantus joins Glaucon as aninterlocutor is precisely because he will raise questions or objections that hisbrother will not (and vice versa). Thus, Adeimantus’s initial objection servesto call the reader’s attention precisely to the fact that there is a gap betweenthe common good and that of the citizens—one that Glaucon is disposed toassume is not there, or is not disposed to notice. Adeimantus’s objection thusserves to signal to the reader a problem in the argument, even as Socrates’sresponse hides the problem through ambiguity. We, as readers, are thus ableto come to a more precise understanding of the kinds of questions we shouldbe raising as we read, as well as a clearer understanding of what problemsPlato refuses to resolve for us—at least within the confines of the Republic.Careful attention to the passages about the happiness of the city as a wholecan take us this far, at least.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 2 7The Problematic Power ofMusical Instruments in the BibleA ry e h Te ppe rBen Gurion University, Israel; America Sephardi Federationaryeh.tepper@mail.huji.ac.il1. IntroductionThere is an old political-philosophical tradition dating back to Plato andAristotle that takes seriously the power of music in shaping, for better or forworse, the character of individuals and societies. 1 In this article I argue thatthe Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, likewise contains a broad and sophisticatedteaching regarding the power of music. To be more precise, the Bible containsa teaching regarding the problematic power of musical instruments.In order to discern that teaching, however, the biblical text needs to be readwith both philosophical awareness and literary sophistication. 21See, for example, Plato, Republic, bk. 3, and Laws, bk. 3; Aristotle, Politics, bk. 8; Jean-Jacques Rousseau,“Essay on the Origin of Languages: In Which Something Is Said about Melody and Imitation”;and Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, The Case of Wagner, and Nietzsche Contra Wagner. Seealso Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 68–81;Carson Halloway, All Shook Up: Music, Passion, and Politics (Dallas: Spence, 2008); Matthew JasonVorhees, “The Musical Public: Music, Reason and Passion in Political Thought” (PhD diss., RutgersUniversity, 2005).2A number of learned treatments of music in the Hebrew Bible have been written over the courseof the past century, and it is possible to identify two broad approaches among these works. Oneapproach uncritically uses the Bible as a source for reconstructing musical life in ancient Israel whilethe other takes a more skeptical view. The first approach is evident in the work of Curt Sachs, a leadingtwentieth-century musicologist who penned The History of Musical Instruments in 1940 and TheRise of Music in the Ancient World in 1943, both of which turn to the Bible in order to treat ancientIsraelite musical life within the overall context of antiquity. Sachs’s student Alfred Sendry advancedand focused his teacher’s investigations with his 1969 work Music in Ancient Israel. In interpretingthe Bible, both Sachs and Sendry isolate biblical texts featuring music and musical instruments andthen use their immense musicological erudition to shed light on those texts. The best example of thesecond, more skeptical, approach is Joachim Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine: Archeological,© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

2 2 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Philosophical awareness means reading the biblical text as, at least inpart, a work of reason. 3 In the present case, I argue that the Bible implicitlyresponds to a problem that historically has been treated within the Westernpolitical-philosophical tradition, namely, the problematic power of music.As for literary sophistication, the Bible should be read as a single narrativestretching from Genesis to Kings, with special attention paid to the themesintroduced by the text as well as the variations on those themes. 4 The Biblecouches its arguments in narrative form, and it is by carefully attending to thethemes and their variations that we can discern the text’s overall intention.2. The Problematic Origins of Musical Instrumentsin the BibleMy reading begins in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Evecommit one transgression and as a result they are exiled from the garden andthe presence of God. Once outside of Eden, Eve gives birth to two sons, Cainand Abel. Cain, jealous of the favor that Abel finds in God’s eyes, kills hisWritten and Comparative Sources, written in German in 1999 and translated into English in 2002.Braun departs from Sachs and Sendry by casting “serious doubts” on the reliability of the biblicaltext as a source for understanding musical life in ancient Israel, and he accordingly supplements hisstudy of the Bible with archaeological and iconographic evidence. Like Sachs and Sendry, however,Braun treats biblical texts piecemeal, isolating various references to musical performance and musicalinstruments and using those texts, together with archaeological and iconographic evidence, to shedlight on musical culture in ancient Israel. Braun’s approach was taken up by Theodore W. Burgh,Listening to the Artifacts: Music Culture in Ancient Palestine, in 2006. Burgh, sharing Braun’s doubtsregarding the Bible as a historical source, supplements his study of the Bible with archaeology, textualanalysis, anthropology, art, and philological and ethnographic studies. Burgh, however, also readsthe Bible by isolating various texts and, together with evidence from other disciplines, painstakinglyreconstructing a picture of ancient Israelite musical life. A third, functional-historical, approach,initiated by Jonathan Friedman’s 2013 study Music in Biblical Life, should also be noted. Like Sachsand Sendry, Friedman turns to the Bible to reconstruct musical life in ancient Israel. Unlike Sachs andSendry, however, Friedman is interested in identifying the functions played by musical production.Yet in making explicit those functions, Friedman, like Sachs, Sendry, Braun, and Burgh before him,focuses on biblical texts in isolation. Most fundamentally, all of these approaches turn to the Bible inorder to reconstruct musical life in ancient Israel, while my interest is restricted to understanding theBible itself.3See Yoram Hazony, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture (New York: Cambridge University Press,2012), 1–27, 259–73. One need not agree with Hazony’s thesis in its strict sense in order to appreciatethe tremendous service that he has rendered in reading the Bible as a book that advances argumentsabout the good life.4Hazony, Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, 68–83; see also Edward Greenstein, “The Torah asShe Is Read,” in Essays on Biblical Method and Translation (Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), and Spinoza,Theologico-Political Treatise, 8.1.73.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 2 9brother. The story thus introduces a theme that will reappear throughout ournarrative: where there is jealousy, bloodshed will not be far behind.As punishment for shedding his brother’s blood, Cain is exiled from theearth and condemned to be a wanderer. In other words, Cain’s disconnectionis now twofold, from God and from the earth. An argument can be made thatthe disconnection is implicitly threefold, for both the murder itself and Cain’sresponse to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” reflect a profound disconnectionfrom humanity.When the Bible then tells us in Genesis 4:17 that either Cain himself orhis son—the text is ambiguous—builds a city, we should not be surprised.The city, the home of “anonymous humanity,” emerges from the threefolddisconnection from God, the earth, and other people. The Bible is telling usthat the origins of cities are highly problematic. But the line of Cain doesnot found only the first city. In Genesis 4:21 we are introduced to anotherof Cain’s descendants, Jubal, who is “the ancestor of all who play the lyre(kinnôr) and the pipe (‘ûgāb).” 5 According to the Bible, the origins of musicalinstruments are of a piece with the emergence of urban civilization, and theyare also highly problematic. 6At this point it is necessary to note that Cain in particular, and his linein general, represent a type. The elements that characterize this type arejealousy, bloodshed, disconnection from the earth, dwelling in cities, and aconnection to musical instruments. It is important to keep these characteristicsin mind as we progress in the text, for we will see that the Levites are avariation on the Cainite type. This point will become particularly importantwhen we treat the founding of the Levitical musical service.It is also helpful at this point to contemplate the point of departure forthe Bible’s teaching regarding the invention of musical instruments. 7 Cainitemanners and mores, or if one prefers, the Cainite “attitude” characterized bythe threefold disconnection from heaven, earth, and humanity, facilitated theinvention of musical instruments. 8 Moreover, in delineating the connection5All translations are from JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh, 2nd ed., except where otherwise noted.6See Isaac Abravanel on the line of Cain’s “dissatisfaction with natural things” and proclivity toengage in “superfluous arts,” in Medieval Political Philosophy, ed. Ralph Lerner and Muhsin Mahdi(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963), 256–68.7See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1:2.8A classic statement on the significance of “manners and mores” for political philosophy can befound in Rousseau, The Social Contract, 2.12.

2 3 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3between Cainite manners and mores and the invention of musical instruments,the Bible is implicitly making an argument that Rousseau explicitlyarticulated in his first Discourse and which he composed in response to thequestion, “Has the restoration of the sciences and the arts contributed to refiningmoral practices?” While Rousseau first argues that the sciences and artscorrupt moral practices, in the course of his essay he reverses the trajectory ofthe problem and ends up arguing that moral corruption leads to the foundingof the arts and sciences in the first place. 9 Parallel to Rousseau’s argument inhis Discourse, the moral corruption of the Cainite line leads to the founding ofurban civilization in general, and musical instruments in particular. 10In light of the problematic origins of musical instruments in Genesis, weshould not be surprised that musical instruments by and large disappear fromthe biblical narrative between Genesis 4:21 and the end of the book of Judges. 11What is more, two of the three stories explicitly involving musical instrumentsfrom the time of Cain until the generation of Samuel and David appearin negative contexts. We should be radically surprised, however, when musicalinstruments suddenly appear with great frequency in the book of Samuel.3. Miriam’s Frame Drum and the Measure of RhythmAfter Genesis 4:21, musical instruments first reappear when Jacob flees fromhis uncle and father-in-law, Laban. Laban has proven himself to be everyson-in-law’s nightmare, deceiving Jacob and abusing his labor for twentyyears, so Jacob decides to flee with his wives, children, and wealth. But Laban9Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts, in The Basic Political Writings, trans.Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), 11. Likewise, Roger Shattuck speculates that Cainserved as an inspiration for Goethe’s Faust, with a special emphasis on “striving.” See Roger Shattuck,Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography (New York: St. Martin’s, 1996), 102: “In hislast speeches, Faust sounds like a megalomaniac Cain.”10See Leo Strauss’s comments: “Cain…founded a city, and some of his descendants were the ancestorsof men practicing various arts: the city and the arts, so alien to man’s original simplicity, owetheir origin to Cain and his race. …It goes without saying that this is not the last word of the Bible onthe city and the arts, but it is its first word. …One is also tempted to think of the difference betweenthe first word of the first book of Samuel on human kingship and its last word” (Leo Strauss, “Jerusalemand Athens,” in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, ed. Kenneth Hart Green [Albany:State University of New York Press, 1997], 388). Strauss contrasts the Bible’s first and last word onthe city, the arts, and kingship, and thus points to the overall trajectory of the text. He does not note,however, the Bible’s particular concern with musical instruments.11As Abraham Z. Idelsohn notes, the šôpār and ḥᵃṣōṣᵉrâ are used in the Bible for signaling purposes.It is thus fitting that, as Idelsohn also notes, the šôpār and ḥᵃṣōṣᵉrâ were played by priests and not theLevites. David, however, charges the Levites with playing musical instruments in the Temple. SeeAbraham Z. Idelsohn, Jewish Music (New York: Dover, 1992), 9–11.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 3 1sets out after Jacob, finally reaching him and complaining, “Why did you fleein secrecy and mislead me and not tell me? I would have sent you off withfestive music, with frame drum (tōᵽ) 12 and lyre (kinnôr)” (Gen. 31:27). Laban,the first character connected to musical instruments since the corrupt lineof Cain, wants Jacob to believe that, contrary to twenty years of experience,he would have sent Jacob off, “with festive music,” if only Laban wouldhave known that Jacob was leaving. Consistent with Laban’s character andthe problematic origins of musical instruments, Laban would use musicalinstruments to fashion a false emotional reality, to steal the hearts of Jacoband his wives, as it were.After the reference to musical instruments by Laban, the next case involvingmusical instruments is Miriam’s frame drum accompanying the song atthe sea, a story to which we will return shortly. The final mention of musicalinstruments prior to the book of Samuel appears in the story of the sacrificeof Jephthah’s daughter in the book of Judges. Once again the context is negative.Jephthah vows to offer the first thing to come out of his home as a burntoffering to the Lord if he is successful in battle, and the first thing to appearis “his daughter…coming out towards him with frame drums (tuᵽîm) andwith dances” (Judg. 11:34). In the case of Jephthah and his daughter, musicalinstruments appear in a context of excessive emotionalism that ends inhuman sacrifice.The context surrounding the story of Miriam’s frame drum is, however,positive, and it requires explanation. It is the only case in which a musicalinstrument appears in a positive context from the emergence of the line ofCain until the sudden appearance of musical instruments in the book ofSamuel. The story preceding Miriam’s musical performance is well known.After the splitting of the sea and the death of Pharaoh and his armed forces,Moses leads the Israelites in praising the Lord in what is traditionally knownas “the song of the sea.” 13 Miriam follows Moses by leading the women:“Miriam the prophetess…took a frame drum (tōᵽ) in her hand, and all the12I have translated tōᵽ as frame drum in line with Doubleday’s translation in V. Doubleday, “TheFrame Drum in the Middle East: Women, Musical Instruments, and Power,” Ethnomusicology 43, no.1 (1997): 101–35.13The Bible implicitly distinguishes vocal music, often in the form of rhythmic chanting, from instrumentalmusic. This distinction is explicitly found in the Islamic tradition, as Doubleday points out:“In Muslim cultures, a broad distinction is often made between ‘musical instruments’ and ‘singing’”(“Frame Drum in the Middle East,” 103). See also 2 Chron. 29:27 and the distinction between “theinstruments of David” and “the song of God” (my emphases). The phrase “the (musical) instruments ofGod” nowhere appears in the Bible.

2 3 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3women went out after her in dance with frame drums (tuᵽîm). And Miriamchanted for them: Sing to the Lord” (Exod. 15:21). How are we to understandthis exception?One interesting ethnographic parallel to Miriam’s drumming can befound in a story connected to Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazi communityin the nineteenth century. In the middle of the century, the leaderof the community, Rabbi Meir Auerbach, ruled that musical instrumentsshould be banned from wedding parties. The basis for Rabbi Auerbach’s banwas a message he claimed to have received in a dream according to which theexcessive passion animating Jerusalem’s wedding parties was responsible fora cholera epidemic then ravaging the community. 14 Rabbi Auerbach ruled,however, that one kind of musical instrument was permissible at weddingparties, namely, drums. 15 The parallel to the Bible’s suspicion of musicalinstruments, excepting the drums played by Miriam and the women ofIsrael, is remarkable.More remarkable, and even more precise, is a parallel found in the IslamicSalafi tradition. Salafi Islam is characterized by a puritanical and originalistapproach to interpreting Islam. The aspiration that animates Salafi Islam isto imitate the model of Muhammad as passed down by Muhammad’s companionsand found in reliable traditions of oral law. There are Salafis of bothactivist and quietist stripes, but both groups strive to jealously, zealouslypreserve the purity of what the Salafis perceive to be authentic Islam. Withregard to musical instruments, Salafi scholars consider them to be haram,forbidden. 16 Moreover, this ban is not purely theoretical. When the Talibanruled Afghanistan they implemented the ban on musical instruments,and Salafi Jihadis in Mali recently did the same. 17 One clear articulation ofthe Salafi view is set out in a late twentieth-century English-language text14The ban is still observed in Jerusalem today in certain Ashkenazi Jewish circles.15See Rabbi Aharon Kahn, “Music in Halakhic Perspective,” Journal of Halacha and ContemporarySociety 9 (1986–87): 22–24.16A helpful introduction to intra-Islamic polemics regarding the permissibility of music is AmnonShiloah, “Music and Religion in Islam,” Acta Musicologica 69, no. 2 (1997): 143–55. Especially interestingin the present context are Shiloah’s comments regarding the line of Cain: “Ibn al-Jawzi refers toa tradition reported by the historian al-Tabari (d. 922) according to which the inventor of musicalinstruments is a descendant of Kabel [Cain] named Tubal, who constructed pleasure-giving instruments.…The descendants of Cain used them to divert themselves” (154).17On the Taliban’s ban on music, see Nicholas Wroe, “A Culture Muted,” The Guardian, Oct. 13, 2001,http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/13/afghanistan.books. As for the ban on music in Mali,see Robin Denselow, “Mali Music Ban by Islamists ‘Crushing Culture to Impose Rule,’” The Guardian,Jan. 15, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/15/mali-music-ban-islamists-crushing.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 3 3composed by a Salafi scholar, Abu Bilal Mustafa Al-Kanadi, The Islamic Rulingon Music and Singing. 18 In his text, Al-Kanadi cites a distinction made bythe Medieval authority Ahmad Ibn-Hanbal between “rhythmic chanting,”which is permissible, and “affected melodies,” which are forbidden. 19 In thesame spirit, Al-Kanadi writes that there is agreement among scholars that“all musical instruments are forbidden.” 20 There is, however, one exception tothis rule, which Al-Kanadi cites in a footnote: “other than the simple handdrum known as the daff (daᵽ),” an Arabic term etymologically related to theHebrew tōᵽ which Miriam and the women of Israel played after crossing thesea. 21 Moreover, Al-Kanadi writes that the daᵽ must be devoid of rattles, acommandment that matches Braun’s description of the biblical tōᵽ. 22 Finally,the hand drum is to be played by women on specific, ceremonial occasions. 23The parallel to the biblical text is clear.Why is the daᵽ permissible? Because, according Al-Kanadi, “it sufficientlysatisfies the need for proclamation, provides moderate rhythm which enlivens,and results in joy for the partakers.” 24 The key term is “moderate.” Al-Kanadi,like Rabbi Auerbach, and, I would argue, like the Bible from Genesis throughthe end of the book of Judges, is wary of how “instrumental color” can lead toemotional excess. While drums have the power to enliven, they also providemeasure while constituting a less emotionally expressive power. 2518Abu Bilal Mustafa al-Kanadi, The Islamic Ruling on Music and Singing in Light of the Quraan,the Sunnah and the Consensus of Our Pious Predecessors (Bilal M. Al-Kanadi & Brothers, 1985). Al-Kanadi’s book can be downloaded at Islamhouse, http://d1.islamhouse.com/data/en/ih_books/single/en_Music_and_Singing.pdf.19Ibid., 22 (pagination added).20Ibid., 23.21Ibid., 29n136; Joachim Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine: Archeological, Written, and ComparativeSources, trans. Douglas W. Scott (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 30. See also HenryGeorge Farmer, A History of Arabian Music (New Delhi: Goodword Books, 2001), 14.22Al-Kanadi, Islamic Ruling, 43; Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine, 30.23Al-Kanadi, Islamic Ruling, 47n238; see also 33–35: “it is permissible to let the women and younggirls sing and beat upon the daff (daᵽ) during the wedding feast. …[According to] a number oftraditions…a woman made a vow to beat upon the daff (daᵽ) in the Prophet’s presence if he arrivedsafely from one of his military expeditions.” See also Doubleday, “Frame Drum in the Middle East.”24Al-Kanadi, Islamic Ruling, 43.25This assessment of the relationship between drums and musical instruments in general will soundstrange to readers raised in the postrock era and who instinctively associate rhythm with primitivismand excess, but the fear of “affected melodies” and the insistence upon the moderating characterof rhythm also appeared in the heart of the European classical music scene in the late nineteenthcentury, namely, in Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of Richard Wagner. In short, Nietzsche consideredWagner to be a “decadent” because, as Nietzsche argued in both The Case of Wagner and NietzscheContra Wagner, Wagner’s music aimed for emotional effect. In particular, Nietzsche claimed that

2 3 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 34. The Appearance of Musical Instruments in IsraelAfter the absence of musical instruments from Genesis through the end ofthe book of Judges, musical instruments appear with a sudden and surprisingfrequency in the book of Samuel. Musical instruments appear shortlyafter Samuel’s secret coronation of Saul; when David plays the lyre for Saul;after David returns from battle; when Saul pursues David into the wilderness;and as David brings up the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem (1 Sam.16:23; 18:6–7; 19:18–24; 2 Sam. 6; 1 Chron. 13–16). It should also be notedthat according to the book of Chronicles, David founds the Levitical musicalservice at the same time that he brings the ark to Jerusalem (1 Chron. 16:1–6).In order to understand the radical change in the role played by musicalinstruments, it is necessary to note the crisis in Israelite life that precededthe change, or in other words, to note the point of departure for what wouldbecome perhaps the greatest revolution in ancient Israelite life. Ancient Israel,as portrayed in the book of Judges, was intensely tribal and politically fluid.Warrior-saviors occasionally rose up to defend tribes against external threats,but God ruled over the tribes without a permanent human intermediary (seeesp. Judg. 8:22–23). That world did not sustain itself, however, and the bookof Judges concludes with the story of the Levite’s concubine and the dissolutionof the tribal confederation and civil war in which the tribe of Benjaminis almost completely destroyed (Judg. 19–21). The book of Samuel begins, inturn, by portraying the corruption of the tabernacle at Shilo (1 Sam. 2:12–17,22–25). To make matters worse, the Ark of the Covenant, the cultic objectthat went out to battle with the Israelites and that embodied God’s presencein Israel, is stolen by Israel’s archenemies, the Philistines (1 Sam. 4:11–22).The text is portraying the collapse of the foundations of Israelite life: the distheeffect of Wagner’s “infinite melody” was to overpower his audience and undermine their selfpossession.Most significantly for present purposes, the flip side of “infinite melody” was “chaosin place of rhythm.” It was in light of the overpowering effect of Wagner’s extreme expressiveness,purchased at the price of rhythmic chaos, “degeneration of the sense of rhythm,” that Nietzsche calledWagner “a danger.” Why was rhythm so important for Nietzsche? Rhythm provides measure, whichWagner’s music lacks. Listening to his infinite melodies, “one walks into the sea, gradually loses one’ssecure footing, and finally surrenders oneself to the elements without reservation: one must swim.”By way of contrast, Nietzsche celebrated Bizet’s Carmen by noting, “It approaches lightly, supplely,politely. It is pleasant. It does not sweat. ‘What is good is light; what is divine moves on tender feet.’”See The Case of Wagner, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), 157, 184; NietzscheContra Wagner, in The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Penguin Books, 1954),665–67. See also Albert Murray’s letter to Ralph Ellison in Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters ofRalph Ellison and Albert Murray, ed. Albert Murray and John F. Callahan (New York: Random House,2000), 212: “I also pointed out that jazz represented CONTROL not abandon.”

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 3 5solution of the tribal confederation, the corruption of the tabernacle, and theloss of the Ark of the Covenant. 26A new age begins, however, with Samuel and David. And one of thedefining aspects of this new age will be the use of musical instruments. Oneof the turning points of the new age occurs when God commanded Samuel“to heed the demand of the people” and to appoint a king (1 Sam. 8:7). Unlikethe world portrayed in the book of Judges, the connection to God would nowbe mediated by a permanent political structure. God chooses Saul to be thefirst king of Israel, and after Samuel secretly anoints Saul, Samuel tells thenew monarch:You are to go on to the Hill of God, where the Philistine prefects reside.There, as you enter the town, you will encounter a band of prophetscoming down from the shrine, preceded by harps (neḇel), framedrums (tōᵽ), flutes (ḥālîl), and lyres (kinnôr), and they will be speakingin ecstasy. The spirit of the Lord will grip you, and you will speak inecstasy along with them. (1 Sam. 10:5–6)True to Samuel’s word, a band of prophets appears on the scene and Saul,gripped by the spirit of God, speaks in ecstasy with them. What is most significantfor present purposes is the musical character of the event, which isunprecedented in the Bible.This event replays itself, with a twist, in Samuel 19. There the story istold how Saul, in a fit of paranoia, seeks to capture David, but he and hismessengers are thwarted by “prophets speaking in ecstasy” who are beingdirected by Samuel: “The spirit of God came upon [Saul] too; and he walkedon, speaking in ecstasy, until he reached Naioth in Ramah. Then he toostripped off his clothes and he lay naked all that day and all night” (19:23–24).Musical instruments are not explicitly mentioned in this passage, but in lightof the preceding event in 1 Samuel 10, it is reasonable to conclude that theecstasy was once again engendered by the prophets’ music making. What ismore, Saul’s extreme response in which he stripped off his clothes and laynaked for an entire day is behavior that characterizes a musically triggeredtrance. 27 As for David, he is secretly anointed by Samuel to be king after Saulsinned by sparing the king of Amalek along with the choicest part of theAmalekite spoils (1 Sam. 15:7). In the very next scene, Saul’s courtiers recom-26See Hazony, Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, 146–49.27On music and trance, see Judith Becker, Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion and Trancing (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 2004), and Gilbert Rouget, Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relationsbetween Music and Possession (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).

2 3 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3mend that the depressed monarch find someone “skilled at playing the lyre”who will musically drive out the evil spirit of God, and one of the courtiersrecommends David, “skilled in music…a stalwart fellow and a warrior,sensible in speech, and handsome in appearance, and the Lord is with him”(16:18). The plan works: “Whenever the [evil] spirit of God came upon Saul,David would take the lyre and play it; Saul would find relief and feel better,and the evil spirit would leave him” (16:23). 28It is important to pause and note the different ways in which Saul andDavid relate to music. David is in control of the musical experience. He playsfor Saul and in so doing enables Saul to undergo a fundamental transformation.Saul, however, is consistently overcome by the musical experience.First, after being anointed king, the prophets’ music moves him to speak inecstasy. Then he is fundamentally moved by David’s playing the lyre for him.He is later overcome by jealousy when the women musically celebrate David’sachievements on the battlefield. And finally, in pursuing David, Saul falls intowhat appears to be a musically induced trance.I would argue that the different ways in which Saul and David respondto the musical experience correspond to Saul’s failure as political leader andDavid’s success. Saul is overcome by the musical experience in the same waythat he is overcome by his emotions, from his fear of the people, to his needfor recognition, to his jealousy, to his paranoia, to his elementally wild fear. 29David, by contrast, knows how to stop on a dime and control, and sometimestranscend, his emotions, a response that parallels his control of the musicalexperience. 30 For instance, after Nathan the prophet tells David the story ofthe rich man who stole the poor man’s lamb, a veiled metaphor for David’s sinwith Uriah and Bathsheba, David exclaims that the rich man deserves to die.When Nathan then turns to the king and pointedly says, “You are that man!”David responds with, “I stand guilty before God” (2 Sam. 12:5, 13). Likewise,the Lord punishes David’s sin by afflicting the child born from his union withBathsheba. David desperately wants the boy to survive, and he prays, fasts,and spends his nights lying on the ground for the infant’s sake (12:16–17).When David learns that his entreaties have failed and that the baby has28For an examination of the various theories regarding the musical encounter between David andSaul, see Rouget, Music and Trance, 154–58.29See 1 Sam. 16:24; 16:30; 18:8; 20:30, 33; 28:8–20.30This contrast is further heightened when we consider that according to 2 Chron. 7:6, Davidinvented musical instruments. While it is possible to interpret David’s invention of musical instrumentsalong the lines of Solomon’s “building of the temple,” it seems to me reasonable to conclude,based upon the overall context, that David actually invented these instruments himself.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 3 7died, he gets up, bathes, anoints himself, prostrates himself before the Lord,and eats. When his confused courtiers ask David to explain his behavior,David responds, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept becauseI thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may have pity on me, and the child maylive.’ But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again?I shall go to him, but he shall never come back to me” (12:22–23). In the nextscene, David, so far from indulging his own emotions, consoles Bathsheba.The child born from that union will be Solomon. David is a passionate man,but once he discerns the will of God he refuses to let his passions master him.But the most politically and religiously charged event involving musicalinstruments in David’s life remains to be considered, namely, when Davidbrings up the Ark of Covenant to Jerusalem amid what appears to be a “holyrolling” good time. The story of how the ark was brought to Jerusalem is toldtwice, once in the book of Samuel and again in Chronicles. According to thebook of Samuel, as the cart was being guided to Jerusalem, “David and all theHouse of Israel danced before the Lord to [the sound of] all kinds of cypresswood [instruments] (ʿᵃṣê ḇᵉrôšîm), with lyres (kinnôrot), harps (nᵉḇālîm),frame drums (tuᵽîm), sistrums (mᵉnaʿanʿîm) and cymbals (ṣelṣᵉlîm)” (2 Sam.6:5). A disaster occurs, however, when Uzza, entrusted with guiding the cart,is struck down by God for touching the ark. David ends the procession andhouses the ark with a man named Obed Edom.When David is told after three months that Obed Edom has been blessedby God, the ark is brought up to Jerusalem again in a festive procession inwhich “David whirled with all his might before the Lord” (6:14). This time theark makes it to its destination in “the city of David.” Meanwhile, David’s wifeMichal, the aristocratic daughter of Saul, has been watching her husband theking “leaping and whirling before the Lord” and she despises him for it (6:16).We will return to the significance of Michal’s response in the last sectionof this paper, but first it is necessary to note a very important detail that isadded to the story in Chronicles. 31 There the story of Uzza’s death is also told,but when David brings up the ark to Jerusalem a second time he also usesthe occasion to establish the Levitical musical service. We are left to wonder:what is the connection between the tribe of Levi and music? And why didthe author of Chronicles choose to tell the story of David’s establishing the31Aside from the differences in the instruments recorded in 1 Chron. 13:8.

2 3 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Levitical musical service in this context? 32 We turn our attention to thesequestions in the following two sections.5. Variation on the Line of Cain: The LeviticalMusical ServiceIn the book of Genesis, Leah is deeply jealous of Jacob’s love for her sisterRachel. With each of her births, Leah hopes to earn her husband’s affection.The text tells us that this jealousy especially informs the birth of her thirdson, Levi, as Leah declares, “This time my husband will become attached tome, for I have borne him three sons” (Gen. 29:34). It is as if all of Leah’s jealoushopes are invested in Levi’s birth. Jealousy will accordingly characterizeLevi and all of his descendants, and as we learned from Cain’s jealousy ofAbel, when there is jealousy, bloodshed will not be far behind. The Bible doesnot disappoint. Levi is a variation on Cain, but, as we will see, not only withregard to jealousy and bloodshed.Levi’s jealous character clearly emerges five chapters later when Levi’ssister Dinah is raped and kidnapped by Shechem, the son of Hamor.Schechem falls in love with Dinah after raping her and Hamor attempts topurchase Dinah for his son by proposing to the sons of Jacob that the tribesunify. The brothers feign agreement but demand circumcision as the pricefor unification. Three days later, after all the men in Hamor’s tribe circumcisethemselves and when the pain of circumcision is especially intense, Levi andSimon “took each his sword, came upon the city unmolested, and slew allthe males” (Gen. 34:25). 33 Jacob is disturbed by his sons’ response, and at theend of the book of Genesis, Jacob “blesses” his sons Levi and Simon in thefollowing words: “When angry they slay men. …Cursed be their anger sofierce, and their wrath, so relentless. I will divide them in Jacob, scatter themin Israel” (49:6–7).At this point it seems that Levi has failed. We are thus surprised to readin the beginning of the book of Exodus, after the children of Israel slippedinto Egyptian bondage, that “a certain man from the house of Levi went and32I read Chronicles as a midrash, or commentary, on the history stretching from Genesis to Kings. Inthe present case, in delineating the founding of the Levitical musical service by David, the chroniclerwas responding to, and supplementing, the scheme of the general history that drew a parallel betweenthe Levites and the line of Cain.33Simon, it should be noted, is also Dinah’s full brother. The manner in which the tribe of Levi laterdistinguishes itself from the tribe of Simon will be treated later in this article.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 3 9married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son” (Exod. 2:1–2,emphasis added). The text does not tell us the names of the Levite man andwoman, only that they are Levites. That is, of course, what the text wantsus to note. In light of what we read in Genesis, the bells should be ringing:soon there will be bloodshed. And again the Bible does not disappoint. Theson born to the Levite man and woman is Moses, and the first thing he doeswhen he steps on the stage is to slay an Egyptian he sees beating a Hebrew.It seems that while the Levite quality of zealous jealousy is a vice in a certaincontext, it becomes a virtue in another context. Moses proceeds to intervenein a dispute between two Hebrews, and after fleeing Egypt to Midian, he risesto the defense of Midianite women, a fight in which he has no personal interest.Cain and Levi were, in different degrees, jealous for their own, but Mosesis jealous for justice in general. 34 Likewise, he will teach his fellow Levites tochannel their zealous jealousy from the love of their own to the love of God.The first step in this education occurs after Moses comes down from themountain and finds the people worshiping the golden calf. After shatteringthe tablets, making the Israelites drink the ashes of the calf, and interrogatingAaron, Moses stands in the gate of the camp and calls out, “Whoever is for theLord, come to me” (Exod. 32:26). 35 His fellow Levites gather around him, andMoses commands them to slay those who worshiped the calf (32:27; see Deut.33:8–9). The Levites comply. They are jealous for the Lord at Moses’s command,and as we know, when there is jealousy, bloodshed is not far behind.Ultimately Moses charges the Levites with attending to the Tabernacle. TheLevitical jealousy for the Lord is on display again in the book of Numberswhen Phineas spontaneously takes a spear and kills a Moabite woman andZimri, a chieftain from the tribe of Simon who had been consorting with her. 3634This emphasis on Moses’s concern for justice in general is based on Ahad Ha’am, “Moshe,” in KolKitvei Ahad Ha’am (Jerusalem: Hozaah Ivrit, 1947), 342–47.35What is the meaning of the kol anot that Moses hears in 32:18? Moshe sees dancing (meholot) in thecamp in 32:19. If kol anot signifies music, as Ibn Ezra reasonably suggests, then perhaps this is anothercase where music is connected to moral corruption. It is not clear, however, according to Ibn Ezra’sinterpretation, that musical instruments were involved.36While Levi and Simon had led the massacre at Schechem and were condemned together by Jacob,Phineas’s zealous action in this context formally separates the tribe of Levi from the tribe of Simon.In time, the image of the jealous Levite who defends the honor of the Lord by rising to fight foreignoppression and internal corruption would become a kind of cultural trope in Israel, an internal traditionto which the Hasmoneans, who were Levites, appealed when they rose up in rebellion against theGreeks and the Jewish Hellenizers. Lest we forget, Judah Maccabee called the countrymen to his sideby echoing Moses’s cry, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me” (1 Macc. 2:27).

2 4 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3We noted that the line of Cain and the Levites share a family of characteristics.One of those characteristics is jealousy that issues in bloodshed. Bythe time we get to the end of the book of Numbers, however, what began asthe Levites’ jealous love of their own becomes the jealous love of the Lord. Inaddition to jealousy that issues in bloodshed, both the Cainites and the Levitesare also characterized by their disconnection from the earth and dwellingin cities. Here too, however, the Levites correct the Cainite flaw. Cain is exiledfrom the earth as punishment for murdering his brother, while the Levites donot receive a portion in the land of Israel because they are wholly dedicatedto the Lord. 37 Where will they live instead? The first city was founded by aCainite, and the Levites are likewise allocated cities to live in, including thecities of refuge, the places where accidental and, one assumes, sometimes notso accidental murderers fled out of fear of the enraged blood avengers. 38But the element missing from this series of parallels between the lineof Cain and the Levites is music. This element will reappear when Davidbrings up the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and, according to Chronicles,institutes the Levitical musical service. The Bible carefully delineates Cainitequalities along with their Levitical parallels; the book of Chronicles fills in alacuna in the Bible’s overall structure by telling the story of the founding ofthe Levitical musical service. 39David establishes the foundations of a new order in Israel, and in thefollowing section I will turn to the connection between monarchy, music,and friendship. First, however, I will attempt to answer the question of whyDavid chose the Levites to be the temple musicians. One likely answer is thatsince the origins of musical instruments were so problematic, only those fullycommitted to the Lord could be trusted to wield this power. David himselfknew how to do it, and he considered the Levites, the spiritual elite of Israel,to be fitting as well.Another possible answer is that David appointed the Levites to be thetemple musicians in order to tone down, as it were, the Levitical zealous, jealousardor. 40 If this is the case, then David’s political wisdom would resemblethe Arcadian wisdom described by Polybius in his Histories. There, in book 4,37Perhaps political wisdom also informed this decision. What might happen if Levitical jealousy wereto be connected to a piece of land?38It is possible that the Bible imagines the cities of refuge functioning as centers for “anger rehabilitation,”with the Levites playing the role of group leaders.39See note 32, above.40It is worth recalling that the anger of a Levite set off the civil war at the end of Judges.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 4 1Polybius asks why alone among the Arcadians, the Cynaetheans had becomeso brutal, lawless, and altogether savage. His answer is that although the Arcadiansare known as a whole for moral virtue, the Cynaetheans “were the firstand only Arcadians to abandon an excellent practice that had been institutedby their forebears.” 41 The excellent practice in question was musical education:Making music…is beneficial for everyone, but for Arcadians it isa necessity. We should not regard music…as a human inventiondesigned to merely beguile and charm. …Nor should we suppose thatthe earliest Arcadians had no good reason for incorporating musicinto Arcadian life so thoroughly that not only children, but also youngmen up to the age of thirty, are required to make it their constant companion,even though in all other respects their lives are very harsh.…It seems to me that the old men who introduced these practiceshad a very good reason for doing so. They did not consider music asuperfluous luxury. …It was because they wanted to soften and temperthe inflexibility and insensitivity of the Arcadian character that theyintroduced all these practices. …In short, the sole purpose for whichthey were striving was to introduce practices that tamed and mitigatedArcadian obduracy. 42If we only read Genesis, it would be reasonable to conclude that music isindeed “a human invention designed to merely beguile and charm.” However,the Bible also tells us how David revolutionized the role of music andentrusted the Levites with playing musical instruments. But we should notassume that David’s intention was limited to creating a musically inspiredexperience for those who would ascend to Jerusalem. I would argue thatDavid, like the Arcadian elders, understood one of the benefits of music tobe its power to “tame” a harsh character. We already saw this principle inaction when David used music to soothe Saul’s troubled soul. David’s musicalappointment of the Levites likewise would be the general application ofthis therapeutic musical treatment, using music to “tone down” the zealous,jealous Levites.6. Music, Monarchy, and FriendshipPrior to the founding of its monarchy Israel existed as a loose confederationof tribes. However, by the end of the book of Judges the confederation41Polybius, Histories, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 240. Cf. Montesquieu,The Spirit of the Laws, 1.4.42Polybius, Histories, 240–41.

2 4 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3degenerated into civil war in which the tribe of Benjamin was almost completelywiped out. In his role as monarch, David needed to moderate thetribal bonds and fashion a center for pantribal loyalty, and I would suggestthat one of the ways he created this new community was through music.In beginning to think about how music can contribute to the cultivation ofcommunity and why David was uniquely qualified to initiate that process, itis necessary first to think about friendship and the role it played in the livesof David’s ancestors, as well as in David’s own life.The first thing to note regarding friendship is that there aren’t manyfriends in the Bible. This claim is liable to sound strange to some readers—there are plenty of people in the Bible who “like” each other—but friendshipin this context means something more than mutual affection. One helpfulplace to begin is Allan Bloom’s remarks regarding the complex character offriendship in his extended study, Love and Friendship: “The Greeks inventedfriendship…the free choice of total association without consideration of familyor other legal ties. Friendship involves the possibility of conflict betweenitself and family, each bidding for the higher place.” 43 Friendship refers not toties of affection between people, as such, but to ties that transcend family ortribe, to association with others than one’s own, or to love of something otherthan one’s own. In other words, friendship transcends traditional loyaltiesand as such is politically threatening. It is thus no wonder that we find sofew friends in the tribal society of the Bible. Bloom, however, also notes that“David, his ancestors and heirs, are remarkably and distinctively free in theirattitude toward family, tribe, and even nation.” 44 Bloom does not explain whyDavid is “remarkably and distinctively free” in his attachments, but we will,and the answer is connected to music.As for David’s ancestors, the first example of friendship is Yehuda’s relationshipwith Hira the Adullamite, delineated in Genesis 38. Yehuda turns toHira after he and his brothers sell Joseph into slavery. The two elements areconnected: after having sold a brother, Judah connects up with someone outsidethe family. The chapter begins, “About that time, Judah left his brothersand camped near a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah” (Gen. 38:1).In the ensuing narrative, Hira plays a significant supporting role after Judahimpregnates his daughter-in-law Tamar, believing her to be a cult prostitute.Tamar goes on to give birth to twins, the first of whom, Peretz, is David’s43Allan Bloom, Love and Friendship (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 438.44Ibid.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 4 3ancestor. Peretz’s descendant, Boaz, will later have a child with the mostfamous “friend” in the Bible, Ruth. Ruth was born a Moabite, but in a remarkableact of love she leaves her people to follow Naomi the Israelite, declaring,“Your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). And thechild born to Ruth and Boaz is Obed, Jesse’s father and David’s grandfather.As for David himself, the Bible delineates in detail his friendship withSaul’s son Jonathan. Jonathan’s love for David is so strong that he is willingto renounce his right to the throne, while David famously laments Jonathan’sdeath at the hands of the Philistines: “I grieve for you, my brother Jonathan.You were most dear to me. Your love was wonderful to me, more than the loveof women” (2 Sam. 1:26; see 1 Sam. 27:2). Why is it so important that David’sancestors and David himself were uniquely capable of friendship? David’scapacity for friendship, a capacity inherited from his ancestors, was crucialin establishing the monarchy, for David needed to create bonds of affectionthat transcended tribal loyalty. I propose that David’s musicality, his playingand his use of music, enabled him to create these new bonds. In other words,monarchy, friendship, and music go together. We visibly see this threefold connectionin the story of the bringing of the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.The bringing of the ark is marked by a festive musical spirit as David“whirled with all his might before the Lord” (2 Sam. 6:14). All of Israel celebrateswith the king that day, with one important exception: David’s wife,Michal. So far from celebrating with the king, she greets David with a rebuke,“Didn’t the king of Israel do himself honor today—exposing himself today inthe sight of the slavegirls of his subjects, as one of the riffraff might exposehimself!” (6:20). David’s answer is pointed, and it points to the liminal elementof this event, “David answered Michal, ‘It was before the Lord who choseme instead of your father and all his family and appointed me ruler over theLord’s people Israel! I will dance before the Lord and dishonor myself evenmore, and be low in my own esteem; but among the slavegirls that you speakof I will be honored’” (6:21). Note how hierarchies are overturned in David’sspeech: David is dishonored while the slave girls are respected. One can imaginehow strange and wondrous the festive procession must have appeared toan ancient Israelite, the king ecstatically dancing with the slave girls as themixed multitude accompanied the Ark of the Covenant. How did David easethe tension that naturally accompanies the meeting of different social classes?Through music. David ushered in a new age by staging a musically charged

2 4 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3event in which hierarchies were leveled while the people, as one, broughtIsrael’s most important cultic object to the tribes’ new center. 45As previously mentioned, the book of Chronicles links the bringing ofthe ark to Jerusalem to the founding of the Levitical musical service, andthis connection is consistent with our narrative (1 Chron. 6:16; 16:4). Aftermusically escorting the ark to Jerusalem and temporarily creating a radicallyegalitarian community, David instituted the Levitical musical servicewhich served all Israel in the temple in Jerusalem (6:17). In other words, Iwould also suggest, based on the timing of its founding, that the Leviticalmusical service was intended, in part, to cultivate this sense of transtribalcommunity. Further literary evidence for this claim lies in the musical superscriptionsattached to the Psalms; the superscriptions that explicitly connectcertain Psalms to David and his Levite contemporaries; and the appeals toserve God with musical instruments found within the Psalms themselves. 46These elements are then reflected, for instance, in the transtribal atmospheredescribed in Psalm 122, “A song of ascents. Of David”: “I rejoiced when theysaid to me, ‘We are going to the House of the Lord.’ Our feet stood inside yourgates, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem built up, a city knit together, to which tribeswould make pilgrimage” (1–3). 47 And the musical dimension is articulated inthe superscription and body of Psalm 92, “A psalm, a song; for the Sabbathday”: “It is good to praise the Lord, to sing hymns to Your name, O MostHigh…with a ten-stringed harp, with voice and lyre together” (1–4). 48How far we have come from Genesis! There, the line of Cain foundedthe first city and invented musical instruments in order to fill the absencecreated by the disconnection from God, earth, and fellow human beings. ByChronicles, however, David has established the Levitical musical service inhis new capital city in order for all of Israel to serve God.45Present-day concertgoers know how a live musical performance can level routine hierarchies andcreate a temporary sense of intense communitas.46According to scholars, these superscriptions are later additions. There is also a question howmany Psalms were actually sung in the Temple. See J. A. Smith, “Which Psalms Were Sung in theTemple?,” Music & Letters 71, no. 1 (1990): 167–86. But the question of historical veracity is irrelevantfrom a literary perspective. What is important is that the text’s editors decided to explicitly connectseventy-three Psalms to David. These attributions are consistent with the Tanakh’s teaching regardinginstrumental music as a whole.47See Smith, “Which Psalms Were Sung,” 175.48See ibid., 176; Babylonian Talmud, Tamid 7:4, Rosh HaShana, 31a.

The Problematic Power of Musical Instruments in the Bible2 4 57. ConclusionI have tried to show in this article that the Bible contains a sophisticatedteaching regarding the problematic power of musical instruments. Thatteaching comes to light when the biblical narrative is read globally, fromGenesis through Samuel and complemented by Chronicles. That teachingalso comes to light when the Bible is read as a book of reason. In short, theBible teaches that although the origins of musical instruments are highlyproblematic, they can aid in creating community, shaping character, andserving God. In delineating the low origin but elevated end of musicalinstruments, the Bible carves a middle path between those who would banmusical instruments altogether, as in the Muslim Salafi tradition, and thosewho romanticize music making. 49In addition, important figures in the classical political-philosophicaltradition, such as Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Nietzsche, also treatedthe problematic power of musical instruments, and I believe that the Bibledeserves to be brought into dialogue with this tradition. I hope that thisarticle will contribute to that end.That said, much work remains to be done in fully explicating the Bible’steaching. For instance, what is the Bible’s teaching regarding the role of particularmusical instruments? In this article I treated the case of the framedrum (tōᵽ). But, to take one thought-provoking example, what about thenēbel, often translated as “harp” or “lyre”? As Braun notes, “The Hebrew andAkkadian derivative nāḇāl can mean ‘to degenerate; ritually impure, wicked,obscene; villain; carcass,’ as well as ‘flame.’” Braun also notes that “such associationsbetween musical instruments and idioms of scorn or disparagementoccur in other contexts as well,” but one is left to wonder how the Bible understandsthis strangely named instrument that played an important role in theLevitical musical service. 50Lastly, I claim that the biblical model can shed light on our contemporarycontext. It is an amazing fact and a cause for wonder that in the Bible,49See Eva Mary Grew, “Martin Luther and Music,” Music & Letters 19, no. 1 (1938): 67–78. Grewquotes Luther as saying, “Music is a fair gift of God, and near allied to divinity.” See also Arthur WareLocke and E. T. A. Hoffmann, “Beethoven’s Instrumental Music,” Musical Quarterly 3, no. 1 (1917):123–33. Hoffmann writes: “That inspired composers have raised instrumental music to its presentheight is certainly not due to the improvement in the medium of expression, the perfecting of theinstruments, or the greater virtuosity of the performers, but comes rather from the deeper spiritualrecognition of the peculiar nature of music” (127).50Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine, 22. The term appears eleven times in Chronicles 1 and 2.

2 4 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3the spiritual elite of Israel are temple musicians. 51 This rather startling factabout the Bible should, however, ring familiar to modern Westerners whoare familiar with the outsized role that music plays for many in shaping theirnotions of identity. 52 And not only identity. Many Westerners, religious andsecular alike, turn to music for spiritual sustenance—to get the “big feeling.”The Tanakh validates the authenticity of these experiences—Israel’s spiritualelite were temple musicians—but it resists the temptation to idealize them.That combination is not completely in tune with contemporary sensibilities,and it is thus a helpful place to start thinking about the problematic characterand potential nobility of music. 5351See also Judah HaLevi, The Kuzari, 2:6452See Bloom, Closing of the American Mind, 68–81.53Popular twentieth-century rock operas such as Tommy and Jesus Christ Superstar exploredthe messianic role that musical megastars sometimes play for their fans. A helpful place to beginthinking deeply about the relationship between artist and audience in a broadly modern context isThomas Mann’s monumental Doctor Faustus. Mann implicitly critiques the romantic notion that, inHoffmann’s words, “we should honor only that which is inspired and that everything else comes fromevil,” by having the novel’s protagonist, the classical composer Adrian Leverkuhn, get his inspirationfrom the devil himself. In so doing Mann takes us back to the beginning—to the problematic originsof music. See note 9, above.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 4 7Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe:Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation and CommentaryPart One: Translation †Ju l i e n C a r r i e r eTexas A&M International Universityjcarriere@tamiu.eduThe Golden Ass(L’Asino d’oro)Nic c ol ò M ac h i av e l l iChapter OneThe various unforeseen events, the pain and sorrowwhich in the form of an Ass I endured,I will sing, if Fortune 1 is willing.I do not ask that Helicon 2 pour out other waters,5 or that Phoebus 3 put down his bow and quiverand with the lyre accompany my verses;both because this grace is not to be beseechedin these times, and, for I am certainTranslation is of the Italian text of Machiavelli’s L’Asino d’oro in Tutte le opere, ed. M. Martelli, vol. 1(Florence: Sansoni, 1971).1Goddess of chance, luck, and fate.2Mt. Helicon, famous for its two springs sacred to the Muses.3Another name for Apollo.© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

2 4 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3that along with the sound of braying there need be no lyre.10 Nor do I seek from this price, prize, or merit;and furthermore I do not care if I am bitten bya detractor, either open or covered;I know well how deaf is Gratitudeto the requests of everyone, and I know well how much15 an ass remembers of her benefits.Bites or blows I do not esteemas much as I used to, having becomeof the nature of him that I sing.If I should even now, by my effort be held20 longer than I am accustomed, so I am commandedby the ass under which I have lived.Long ago, well all of Siena wanted to make one drinkfrom the Branda fountain; and they put a drop of water inhis mouth with great effort.25 But if the heavens do not overflow with new disdainagainst me, a bray will be heard,everywhere, may they get what they deserve.But before I begin to recountthe various accidents of my ass,30 be not sorry to hear a story.There was, and not yet entirely extinguishedis his family, a certain young manamong the ancient people right here in Florence.This man had a growing defect:35 that everywhere he would run in the streets,and in all weather without a care.And so much the father suffered morefrom this case, as the causesof his illness were less known;40 and he wanted to hear many opinionsfrom many wise men, and over time administereda thousand remedies for a thousand reasons.In addition to this he also made vows for him, perhaps;but each one of the remedies was in vain,45 so that always and everywhere he ran.Recently, a certain charlatan,of which every day you see many,

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 4 9promised his father to make him healthy.But, as always happens that one always believes50 those who promise the good (whence it is derivedthat so much faith is lent to doctors:and often believing them, a man deprives himselfof the good: and this one only among the other sectsfeeds and lives on the sickness of others),55 thus this person was not in the least doubt,and in his hands he put this case;because he believed in the words of this man.And so he passed a hundred scents under his nose;drew blood from his head, and then60 seemed to have dissuaded him from running.And having given his other remedies,yielded his son up to the father as healthy,with these conditions which now we shall tell you:to never let him go out alone65 for four months, but with him someonewho, if by chance he should rise to take flight,could in some good way hold him back,in part by showing his mistake,asking him to have regard for his honor.70 So he went out well over a monthhonest and well-behaved, between two of his brothers,full of reverence and awe;but coming one day into the Via de’ Martelli,whence he could see the Via Larga,75 his hair began to stand up.Nothing could keep this young man,seeing this straight and spacious path,from returning to his former pleasure;and, putting off everything else,80 the impulse to run returned to him,that swirling in his mind never rests;and having arrived at the head of the streetlet his cloak fall to the ground, and said:“Here Christ will not hold me,” and ran away.85 And from then on ran forever, while he was alive,so much so that the father lost his money

2 5 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3and the doctor his effort devoted to this case.Because our mind, always understoodafter its natural fashion, does not allow us90 any defense against its habit or nature.And I, having already turned my mindto bite at this and that, for a time remainedvery quiet, humane and patient,no longer observing the defects of others,95 looking for another way to improve;such that I believed myself to be healed.But in this time so spiteful and sad,without one having the eyes of Argus,he always sooner sees the bad than the good;100 therefore if sizable amounts of venom I spill,although I have weaned myself of speaking ill,this time of abundant material compels me.And our ass who over so many stairsof our world has moved his steps,105 to see the genius of every mortalif one could in every place observealong his routes his long walks,not even the heavens could hold him back from braying.Therefore, no one should dare approach110 this rough and stubborn herd,who does not want to hear asinine jokes:for everyone knows, who reads its nature,that one of its most adroit jokes that it knows how to playis to give a couple of kicks and two farts.115 May each in his own way prattle and blaband have his fill of smoke and pomp,for by now it is fitting that this ass must hit us;and you will hear how the world is corrupted,because I want him to paint it for you exactly,120 before his bit and packsaddle are eaten:and he who wants to take it badly can loosen his belt.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 5 1Chapter TwoWhen the bright season returns,when spring chases away winter,enemy of ice, cold, and snow,the heavens show a very benign face,5 and Diana 4 with her nymphsbegins again to go hunting in the woods;and the day proves more resplendent,especially if, between one and the other hornof the celestial bull the sun is blazing.10 One hears donkeys, going around,clamoring together sometimesin the evening when making their return home;so that anyone who speaks is hardly heard;whence the ancient custom was15 to say one thing a second time;because with a booming and sharp voiceone of them often either brays or laughs,if he sees something that he likes, or smells.In this time, when day divides20 itself from night, I found myselfin a place as harsh as was ever seen.I cannot say exactly how I entered there,nor do I know well the cause for which I fellthere where I let go all freedom.25 I could not take any stepsbecause of my great fear and the dark night,I could not see in the least where I was going.But my fear increased much moreat the sound of a horn so fierce and strong,30 that even now my mind is not reassured about it.And I seemed to see Death nearwith his scythe, and painted a colorthat each one of his consorts paints herself.The air was darkened by a thick and somber fog,35 the path full of stones, undergrowth, and thorny bushesthat had my virtue prostrate and defeated.4Virgin goddess of the hunt, sister to Apollo.

2 5 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3I had barely leaned against a tree trunk,when a light suddenly appeared to menot otherwise than when lightning strikes;40 but as the lighting was not disappearing,on the contrary, growing and coming near me,ever bigger and brighter it appeared to me.I had fixed my eye steadily on it,and around it I heard a murmur45 of rustling branches, which was coming after it.I was deprived of almost every sense,and, frightened at this new thing,I kept my face turned toward what I heard,when a lady full of beauty,50 but fresh and vivacious, showed herself to mewith her blonde and disheveled tresses.With her left hand she carried a great lightthrough the forest, and in her right handshe was holding a horn which she sounded.55 Around her, across the solitary plain,were innumerable animals,that followed behind her in a troop.Bears, wolves, and proud and beastly lions,and stags and badgers, and with many other wild animals,60 an infinite number of boars.This made me fear much more,and I would have fled pale and wan,had my will and power been joined.But which star would have shown me port?65 And where, miserable, would I have gone?Or who would have escorted me to my path?They were doubts all of my thoughts,if I had to wait for her to come to me,or reverent introduce myself to her;70 such that before I could leave the trunk,she suddenly appeared, and in an astute wayand with veiled smile: “Good evening,” she said.And it was such a familiar greeting,with such grace, as she would have done,75 if she had seen me a thousand times.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 5 3I was completely reassured by this act;and all the more by her calling me by namein the greeting that she gave me at the start.And then, with veiled smile, she said, “Now how,80 tell me, did you fall into this valleythat no inhabitant cultivates nor tames?”My cheeks, which were pale and yellow,changed color and became inflamed,and falling silent I shrugged my shoulders.85 I would have liked to say: “My little wit,vain hope, and vain opinionled me to ruin in this place,”but I could not compose these wordsin any way, so much shame of myself90 seized me and so much compassion.And she smiling: “You do not have tofear speaking among these stumps;But speak, and say what your heart longs for;for, although among these lonely crags95 I lead this flock, for many monthsthe entire course of your life I have known.But because you cannot have understoodour cases, I will tell you on what side ofruination you are, or in what land.100 When it came time, in the past,for Circe 5 to abandon the old nest,before Jove 6 could take over the state,not finding any loyal refuge,nor any people to receive her,105 so great was the cry of her infamy,in these dark woods, shady and thick,fleeing all human society and law,she made her home and her seat.Among these, therefore, solitary cliffs110 as an enemy of men, she dwells,nourished by the sighs of this herd.5Daughter of Helios and Perse, goddess of magic who could transform her enemies into animals.6King of the gods, preeminent god in the Roman pantheon.

2 5 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3And because no one ever leaves,who comes here, thus no newsof her was ever made known, nor is yet known.115 Many maidens are at her service,with whom alone she governs her kingdom,and I am one of their number.To me is given the eternal chore,that with me this flock to pasture comes120 through these woods and each of their caves.Thus it is fitting that I hold this lightand this horn: the one and the other is good,if it happens that the day, when I am out, extinguishes itself.The one shows me the way; I sound the other125 if any beast in the deep woodswere lost, to know where I am.And if you were to ask me, I answer you:know that these beasts you see,men, like you, they were in the world.130 And if my words you do not believe,look carefully for a moment at how they gather around you,at how they look at you and how they lick your feet.And the reason they look at you as they dois that each one of them feels sorry for your ruin135 and your suffering and your loss.Each one, like you, was a wandererin these woods, and then was transmutedinto these forms by my queen.This proper virtue has been given her from the heavens,140 that in various forms she may convert a manas soon as she gazes intently on his face.Therefore it is fitting you come with me,follow the tracks of this flock of mine,if in these woods you do not want to die.145 And so that Circe doesn’t see the shapeof your face, and to come in secret,you’re going to come on all fours among this troop.”Then she moved on with a happy face;and I, seeing no other succor,

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 5 5150 went on all fours with the animals after her,between the shoulders of a stag, and of a bear.Chapter ThreeMoving behind the soles of my duchess,with my back to the heavens,among that thick multitude of animals,I was overcome now with heat now with chill,5 next, arms trembling I felt to see ifthey had changed hide or hair.My hands and knees I ruined;oh you who sometimes go on all fours,you may discern the state I was in.10 I had been maybe an hour on my kneesamong those animals, when we arrivedat a ditch between two large walls.See what was before us, we could notbecause the light of that lady that we15 were following blinded us all;when we heard a voice that was whistlingwith the sound of an entrance opening,of which the one and the other door squeaked.When the view allowed itself to be looked upon,20 before our eyes, a large palaceof admirable height was revealed.Magnificent and immense was the space;but it required, to arrive at it,wading through the water in the ditch.25 A beam made a small bridgeacross which only our escort passed,the beasts not being able to go over it.As soon as we arrived at the foot of the high door,full of grief and anguish I entered inside,30 among that crowd that is worse than dead,and I was rather less afraid;because my lady so that I would not fear,had there in the entrance extinguished the light.And this was the reason that I did not see

2 5 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 335 whence it was that had come the whistling,nor who had opened the door in the entrance.So unknown among those beasts,I found myself in a large courtyard,totally lost, without being seen.40 And my beautiful lady, tall and kind,for the space of an hour, or more, waitedfor the beasts to settle in their fold.Then all happy she took me by the hand,and led me into one of her chambers,45 where a great fire by her own hand she lit;with which she courteously dried me off completely ofthat water that had soaked me,when I was obliged to pass through the ditch.After I was dried off, and rested50 somewhat from the anxiety and sorrowwith which that night had tormented me,I began: “My lady, my silenceis born not at all because I do not know exactlyhow much good you have done me, how much pleasure.55 I had come to the end of my life,to a dark place, tenebrous and blind,when I was overcome by the night.You led me with you to save me:therefore, I owe my life to you60 and that which surrounds it that I carry with me.But the memory of the dark forestand your beautiful face (in which my every good Isee and recognize), have mademe now sorrowful now happy:65 sorrowful for the pain that came before;joyous for that good which came after;such that my voice has not been ableto explain nor to speak until I amrested in part from the long road.70 But you, in whose arms I abandon myself,who have shown me such courtesy,that cannot be paid with another gift,courteous in this part you will be too,

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 5 7to not feel it a burden to tell me75 the course of my life that you know.”“Among peoples modern and ancient,”she began, “no one has ever bornemore ingratitude, nor greater difficulty.It is not your fault this happened to you,80 as it happens to some, but because fatehas been opposed to your good work.She shut the doors of pity before you,above all when she led you tothis place so ferocious and strong.85 But because crying has always been ugly on a man,you ought, to the blows of fortuneturn your face dry of tears.You see the stars and the heavens, you see the moon,you see the other planets go wandering90 without any rest now high now low;when the heavens you see tenebrous, and thenlucid and clear; and thus nothing on earthcomes persevering in its own state.From this is born peace and war;95 on this depend the hatreds among thoseenclosed together by one wall and one ditch.From this came your first affliction;from this above all the cause was bornof your labors without relief.100 The heavens’ opinion has not changedyet, nor will it change, while the Fates 7maintain toward you their hard will.And those humors the ones that have beenso adverse and such enemies,105 are not yet, are not yet purged;but when their roots are dryand the heavens show themselves benign,there will return times more felicitous than ever;and they will be so happy, cheerful,110 that the memory both of past and of future pain7Called the Parcae by Romans and Moirai by Greeks, ancients believed these three goddesses spun,measured, and cut the thread of life of all mortals and immortals.

2 5 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3will give you pleasure.Maybe you will even be vaingloriousin recounting to these peoplethe long story of your labors.115 But before these stars show themselveshappy toward you, you must roamthe world seeking under a new skin;because that Providence which maintainsthe human species, wants you to bear120 this discomfort for your greater good.From here it is necessary that every bit of yourhuman likeness must be extinguished, and, without it,you come to pasture with me among the other beasts.This tough star cannot change;125 and, having put you in this place,the pain is deferred, not canceled.And you are permitted to stay with me long enough,that you may gain experience of the place,and of the inhabitants who are in it.130 Therefore do not be discouraged;but frankly take this weighton your solid and strong shoulders;it will for some time be beneficial to have taken it.”Chapter FourWhen the lady stopped speaking,I rose to my feet, remaining confusedby the words she had said.However, I said: “I accuse neither the heavens nor others,5 nor do I wish to lament such a tough fate,because I am more used to the bad than the good.But if I had to go through infernal doorstoward the good of which you spoke, it would please me,as well as those paths to which you have led me.10 May Fortune do, then, all that must andshould be done with my life;I know well that she would never be troubled by me.”Then my lady opened her arms,

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 5 9and with a lovely countenance, all happy,15 kissed my face ten times and more;then said celebrating: “Discreet soul,this voyage of yours, this difficulty of yours,will be sung by a historian or poet.But because I feel the night passing by,20 I want us to take some consolationand change this reasoning.And first we will find something light to eat,because I know that your need for it may not be small,if iron is not your condition;25 and we will enjoy it together in this place.”Having said this, she set one of her little clothson a certain table by the fire.Then she took a box out of an armoire,in which were bread, glasses, and knife,30 a chicken, a salad prepared and neatand other things of that type.Then, she turned to me, and said: “Every nighta girl prepares this dinner for me.Even this carafe she brings full35 of wine, which will seem, if you taste it,like what Val di Grieve and Poppi produce.Let us be joyous, therefore, and, like the wise do,think that good may come again;and he who is upright, in the end must fall.40 And when evil comes, which comes always,send it down like a medicine;what a fool is one who tastes or savors it.Let us now live happily, until tomorrow morningwhen it is time to go out with my herd,45 to obey my high queen.”So leaving behind our cares and pains,happy together we had dinner: and reasoned abouta thousand little songs and a thousand loves.Then, since we had dined, she got undressed,50 and into the bed with her she made me enter,as if I were her lover or her husband.Here I must burden the Muses,

2 6 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3to describe her beauty, for without themour reasoning would be in vain.55 Her hair was blonde like gold,curly and wavy, like the raysthat appear from a star or the supernal choir.Each one of her eyes appeared a little flameso bright, so clear, and so lively,60 that all acute vision was extinguished in it.Her head had such an attractive grace,that I do not know to whom I can compare it,because the eye in looking at it would become lost.Her brows were thin, arched, and black,65 because they were molded by all the gods,all the celestial and supernal counselors.I would like to say something that respondssufficiently to the truth about that which slopes down from thesebut I keep it quiet, because I would not know how to say it.70 I do not know who cleaved that mouth;if Jove with his own hand did not make it,I do not believe that another hand could make it.Her teeth were more beautiful than ivory;and a tongue vibrating could be seen,75 like a serpent, between her lips and those:whence came a speech, which couldstop the winds and make plants move,It was so pleasingly harmonious and sweet.Her neck and chin were also visible, and many80 other beautiful things, which would delightevery miserable and ill-fated lover.I do not know if narrating it is unbecomingwhat followed after that, because truthoften makes war on him who speaks it.85 Although I will speak it, leaving the worryto those who want to blame, because silencinga great pleasure, leaves that pleasure incomplete.I came forth well with my eye passing overall her parts up to her breast,90 the splendor of which still inflames me;but seeing more was denied me

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 6 1by a rich, white cover,with which the little bed was covered.My mind was stupid and uncertain,95 frigid, sad, shy, and doubtful,not knowing how open was the path.And as the new bride lies tiredand ashamed and wrapped in the sheet,the first night near her husband,100 so around me, afraid,the bed covering enveloped melike one who is not inspired by his own virtue.But then after the lady had for a whilelooked at me, with veiled smile, she said:105 “Would I be with nettles or brambles armed?You may have what many alreadysighing to have it, let out more than a yell,and made a thousand quarrels and a thousand fights.You would well enter in some treacherous place,110 to find yourself with me again, or you would swimlike Leander 8 between Sestos and Abydos;why do you have so little virtue, that theseclothes which are between us make war on you,and you have laid so far away from me?”115 It is like when in prison one is locked,doubtful of life, an offender,he remains with his eyes looking at the ground;then, if it happens that he wins grace from his lordhe leaves every extraneous thought120 and takes much of boldness and valor,such was I, and such I became thanks to her humanereasoning, and I moved close to her,extending between the sheets my cold hand.And then as I touched her limbs,125 a sweetness so pleasing came into my heartthat I do not believe I will ever taste greater.My hand did not remain in one place,8From the Greek myth of Hero and Leander, he was the young man who swam across the Hellespontevery night to be with his beloved. One night he lost his way in a storm and drowned. Hero committedsuicide to be with him.

2 6 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3but, conversing with her limbs,my lost virtue was soon recovered.130 And not being shy anymore,after a gentle sigh, speaking I said:“Blessed be your beauties!Blessed be the time when I steppedfoot in the forest, and if ever I did or wrote things,135 things which touched your heart.”And full of amorous gestures and words,wrapped up in those angelic beauties,which made me forget human things,about my heart I felt so many joys140 with so much sweetness, that I faintedenjoying the finest of all sweetnesses,all prostrate on her sweet breast.Chapter FiveAlready the cold night was coming to an end:the stars were fleeing, one by oneand everywhere the heavens were turning white;the light of the moon ceded to that of the sun5 when my lady said: “It is necessarysince such is the will of Fortune,if I do not want to acquire some shameto return to my flock, and lead itwhere it longs to take its usual food.10 You will remain alone in this cell,and this evening, upon my return, I will lead youwhere you can in your own way see it.Do not go out, this reminder I give you;do not respond if someone calls, because many15 of the others this error has misled.”Then she departed, and I, who had turnedall my thoughts to the loving face,which shone more than all the other faces,being all alone in the room,20 I got up from the bed, to mitigatethe great fire that burned in my chest.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 6 3As soon as I distanced myself from her,I was filled with thoughts by the arrowwhose wound I had cured thanks to her.25 And I was like one who is suspiciousof various things, and confuses himself,desiring the good that he does not anticipate.And because to one thought the other respondsmy mind raced to things past,30 that time thus far does not hide from us;here and there it discoursed rethinking,how the ancient peoples, high and famous,Fortune often now stroked and now bit;and it seemed so marvelous to me,35 that I wanted to converse with myself the causeof the variation of worldly things.That which ruins kingdoms from the highest hills,more than anything else, is this: that the powerfulare never satiated by their power.40 From this is born that those who have lostare discontented, and this awakens the desire toruin those who remain victorious;so it happens that one rises and the other dies;and he who has risen up, is ever consumed with45 new ambition or fear.This appetite destroys states:and what is all the more remarkable is that everyoneknows this error, yet no one escapes it.San Marco 9 impetuous and importunate,50 always believing he had the wind astern,did not take care to ruin each one;nor did he see that too much powerwas harmful, and that it would be bestto keep underwater both tail and croup.55 Often one has complained about the state he had,and, after the fact, then realized howto his own ruin and harm he increased it.Athens and Sparta, of which such great renown9St. Mark the Evangelist, patron saint of Venice. Here a metonym for the Republic of Venice.

2 6 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3was once in the world, then only fell into ruin60 when they had dominated the powers around them.But in Germany in the present dayeach one of the cities lives secure,by having less than six miles around.Henry 10 did not make our city afraid65 with all his power,when his border neared her ramparts;and now that she has increased her poweraround herself, and has become great and vast,she is afraid of everything, as well as big armies.70 Because that virtue which sufficesto sustain a body, when that body is alone,is not enough to bear a greater weight.He who wants to touch the one and the other pole,finds himself ruined on the ground,75 like Icarus 11 did after his mad flight.It is true that a power usually lastslonger or more briefly, according to how muchor little its laws are good and there is order.That realm that is driven by virtue80 or by necessity to act,will always see itself go upward;and on the contrary that city will always befull of thorny bushes and wild briars,changing government from winter to summer,85 such that in the end it fittingly consumes itselfand always takes aim in error,that city which has good laws and bad customs.He who reads past things, knowshow empires begin with Ninus, 1290 and then end up in Sardanapalus. 13That first one was held to be a divine man,10Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor (1312–1324), briefly revived the imperial cause in Italy and isreferred to as the alto Arrigo in Dante’s Paradiso, Canto 30.11Son of Daedalus, whose attempted escape from Crete failed when he flew too close to the sun, meltingthe wax in his wings, and fell into the sea.12Legendary founder of Nineveh, ancient capital of Assyria. Appears in Dante’s Inferno, Canto 5.13The last king of Assyria, according to Ctesius of Cnidus.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 6 5that other one was found among the servantslike a lady dispensing flax.Virtue makes regions tranquil:95 and from tranquility then resultsidleness: and the idleness burns countries and cities.Then, when a province has been wrappedin disorder for a time, virtue usually returnsto live there again.100 He who governs us allows and wantsthis order, so that nothing isnor may ever be still under the sun.And it is, and always was and always will bethat the evil succeeds the good, and the good, evil,105 and the one is always the cause of the other.It is true that one believes to be a mortal thingfor kingdoms, and to be their destruction,usury, or some carnal sin;and the reason of their greatness,110 and what keeps them high and mighty,are fasting, alms, prayer.Another, more discreet and wise, holdsthat to ruin them this evil is not enough,nor enough to preserve them this good.115 Believing that without you God fightsfor you, while you remained idle and on your knees,has ruined many kingdoms and many states.And prayers are well necessary:and completely mad is he who prohibits the people’s120 ceremonies and their devotions;because from them in effect one reapsunion and good order, and on thatgood luck and happiness depends.But there should be no one with so small a brain,125 as to believe that, if his house were falling into ruinthat God would save it with no other support;because he will die under that ruin.

2 6 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Chapter SixWhile I was uncertain and withmy troubled mind wrapped up in that thought,the sun had turned half his circle:the half, I say, of our hemisphere;5 such that from us the day was distancing itself,and the east was growing black;when I knew from the sound of a hornand bellowing of the troubled herd,that my lady was making her return.10 And although I was intently in that thoughtthat all day to itself had drawn me,and from my chest extinguished every other care,as I heard my lady, in factI thought that every other thing was vain15 outside of her whose servant I was made;that, she having arrived where I was, all humanwith one of her arms she encircled my neck,with the other took my farther hand.Shame somewhat painted my face,20 nor could I say anything to her,such was the sweetness that overcame me.However, after a little while, she and Itogether we reasoned many things,as one friend with another speaks.25 But, when her anguished limbs wererested and restored by the usual food,thus speaking the lady proposed:“I have already promised to guide youto the place where you could comprehend30 the total condition of our state;therefore, if you please, get readyand you’ll see people with whom in the pastgreat knowledge and great practice you had.”Then she rose, and I kept behind her,35 as she directed, and not without fear;however, I seemed neither melancholy nor happy.The night was already shadowy and dark;so she took a lantern in her hand,

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 6 7which according to her pleasure could uncover or conceal the light.40 When we had gone some distance, but not that far,I thought we entered into a large dormitory,such as one sees used in convents.A corridor was just like theirs,and from each of the sides could be seen45 doors made of poor work.Then the lady turned toward me,and said that inside those doorsher great herd lay idle for me.And because fate was varied,50 varied were their abodes,and each one is with his consort.“They are on the right hand, at the first door lions,”she began, as soon as she resumed her speech,“with sharp teeth and hooked claws.55 Anyone who has a magnanimous and courteous heart,by Circe into that beast is converted;but there are few from your country.Your meadows are indeed made desertand deprived of all the glorious foliage,60 that made them less steep and rocky.If for some too much rage and anger abounds,taking life rough and violent,among the bears they stay in the second room;and in the third, if I remember well,65 there are wolves voracious and starved,such that no food satisfies them.Their home in the fourth location hasbuffalo and cattle, and if with those wild beastsone of your people finds himself, too bad for him.70 He who is delighted to have good cheerand sleeps when he keeps vigil around the fire,is among goats in the fifth troop.I do not want to converse with you about each location:because in wanting to speak of all of them,75 the talk would be long and the time short.Let this suffice: that behind and in front of youthere are stags, panthers, and leopards,

2 6 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3and beasts far greater than elephants.But try to look a little at that large door80 opposite, placed at the intersection,and into which we will enter, although it is late.”And before I made any answershe moved away, and said: “One must alwaystake pleasure when there is no cost.85 But in order that, when you are inside,you may know every effect of the placeand better consider what you see,you must comprehend that, under every roofof these rooms there is for a reason90 some of these brutes, as I already told you.This one alone does not uphold the rule,and, as happens in your Mallevato 14into which goes to dwell every prisoner,here and there in this place I am showing you,95 can each beast go to enjoy himself,that are in the cells of this cloister;such that, by seeing this one, you get an idea of them all,without seeing again the others one by one,which would be too many scattered steps.100 Also in this part gather togetherbeasts that are of greater knowledge,greater rank and greater fortune.And if they seem beasts in appearance,well you will know some of them in part from105 their manner, gestures, eyes, and presence.”As she spoke, we came to the placewhere the door in its entirety appeared,with its features bit by bit.A figure, that seemed alive,110 was in front carved from marbleabove the great arch that covered the door:14The Upper and Lower Mallevato were two of seven divisions of the Stinche prison complex, Florence’slargest and most important for more than five hundred years. The upper section housed atribunal while in the lower prisoner-scribes copied manuscripts and thereby gained the privilege ofliving in a larger, more comfortable room, also called a mallevato. Macchiavelli was briefly held in theStinche in 1513 for questioning related to an anti-Medici conspiracy.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 6 9and as Hannibal 15 on an elephant,he seemed triumphant, and his dresswas of a serious man, famous and handsome.115 A laurel garland was on his head;his face was very joyous and happy;all around, were people celebrating him.“He is the great abbot of Gaeta,” 16said the lady, “as you must know,120 who was already crowned as a poet.His likeness by supernal gods,as you see, in this place was put,with others that are around his feet,so that each one that comes near to him,125 certainly without further thought, could judgewhich are the people locked up beyond it.But let us do so without delay, such that we not loseso much time looking at him,that the time to return overtakes us.130 Come, then, with me, and if ever I wascourteous, I will appear so to you at this time,in revealing these dark places,if such grace is not by heaven taken from me.”Chapter SevenWe already were setting foot on the thresholdof that door, and the lady had madethe desire to pass through it come to me;and with that wish I remained content,5 because the door immediately opened,and revealed the crowded cloister.And so that it could be seen better,the light that she had covered under herclothes, in the entrance there she uncovered all.15Son of Hamilcar Barca, considered one of the greatest military commanders in history. Famousfor taking a land route to Italy from Iberia and crossing the Pyrenees and Alps with an army thatincluded thirty-eight war elephants. Appears in Dante’s Inferno, Canto 31 and Paradiso, Canto 6. SeeLivy’s History and Machiavelli’s Prince and Discourses.16A poetaster given a satirical triumph in Rome by Pope Leo X in 1515.

2 7 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 310 In that light so bright and quick,as it happens in seeing something new,more than two thousand beasts raised their heads.“Now look well, if seeing pleases you,”said the lady, “at the copious troop15 that comes together again in this place.It should not seem tiresome to see this,because they are not all terrestrial animals;indeed there are among so many beasts some birds.”I raised my eyes, and I saw so many and such20 brute animals, that I do not believeI could ever tell how many there were and which kinds;and because to say it I would be tedious,I will narrate some of them, whose presencegave more wonder to my eyes.25 I saw a cat for too much patiencelose its prey, and remain humiliated over it,although prudent and of good breed.Then I saw a dragon all troubledturn around, without ever having any rest,30 now on the right now on the other side.I saw a fox, malicious and importunate,that still cannot find a net that can catch it;and a Corsican dog barking at the moon.I saw a lion that by itself had pulled35 out its own claws and its teeth too through itsown not good and not sagacious counsels.Just beyond there, certain animals defeated,some not having tails, some without ears,I saw standing quietly sniffing the air.40 I perused them and knew quite a few;and, if I remember correctly, for the most partit was a mix of rabbits and goats.Nearby these, although a bit apart,I saw another animal, not like those,45 but by Nature made with more art.He had rare and delicate fleece;he seemed superb in aspect and courageous,such that I wanted to please him.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 7 1He was not showing his noble heart,50 his claws were chained as were his teeth;but he was ready to escape and disdainful.A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 I saw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Then I saw a giraffe, who benthis neck over each one, and on one side60 was a tired bear that was snoring.I saw a peacock with his graceful mantleturning strutting about, and he was not afraidof the world turning completely upside down.There was one animal that was unrecognizable65 so variegated was his skin and his back,and he had a crow on his croup.I saw a vile beast with red fur,which was a bull without horns that from a distancedeceived me, because it appeared to me a big horse.70 And I saw one ass so ill-disposed,that he could not even carry the packsaddle;and really seemed a cucumber in August.I saw a bloodhound, whose sight was ruined:and Circe would have made an asset of him,75 if he had not moved, like a blind man, by touch.I saw a tiny mouse, who took it badlyto be so small, and went around nippingnow at this one, now at that other animal.Then I saw a bloodhound, that went around sniffing80 at this one’s muzzle and that one’s shoulder,as if he were looking for his master.The time is long, and the memory fallible;So much that I cannot narrate well for youwhat I saw in one day in this stable.85 A buffalo, that made my hair stand on endwith his gaze and his bellowing so strong,of having seen him I want to remember.

2 7 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3I saw a stag, which was in great fear,now here and now there varying his path,90 so afraid he was of death.I saw on a beam an ermine,not wanting to be looked at, nor touched by others,and it was close to a lark.In many holes more than a hundred owls95 I saw, and a goose white as snowand a monkey that was feeding it.I saw so many animals, that it would be as dulland long to speak of their conditions,as the time to look at them was short.100 How many already seemed Fabiuses 17 and Catos, 18who, since I learned of their being there,turned out to be sheep and rams!How many graze these hard crags,who sit high in the highest seats!105 How many aquiline noses turn out to be kestrels!And although I was wrapped in a thousand troubles,I really would have wanted to speak to some of them,if there had been any interpreters there;but my lady, who came to know110 my desire and my appetite,said: “Do not doubt that it will be fulfilled.Look a little there where I am pointing my finger,without moving a step fartheralong the wall, as you have been doing.”115 Then I saw in a low place,as I had toward him directed my brow,covered in mud a big fat pig.I will by no means say whom he resembles;it is sufficient for you to say he would be three hundred pounds120 and more if you weighed by the ankle.17Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator, Roman politician and general famous for devisingthe “Fabian strategy” during the Second Punic War when he avoided direct confrontation and insteadwaged a war of attrition. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, also named Fabius, were allfamous consuls. The Fabii feature prominently in Machiavelli’s Discourses. See Livy’s History andPlutarch’s Lives.18There were seven Catos in the Roman family Porcii, the most famous of which are Cato the Elderand Cato the Younger. See Livy and Plutarch.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 7 3And my guide said: “Let us go down therenear that pig, if it really would please youto hear his desires and his words.Because if you wanted to pull him from that lake,125 making him turn into a man, he would not want to;as a fish that was in a river or lake.And because this would not be believed,in order that you can decide in full faith,you will ask him then if he would come out.”130 Thereupon my lady moved her foot;and not to be separated from her in the least,I took her by the hand she gave me;such that I came near to that pig.Chapter EightAs we reached him that pig raised his snout,all marked with shit and mud,such that looking at him disgusted me.And because I was already known to him a long time,5 he moved toward me showing me his teeth,with the rest being still and motionless.So I said to him, in the most gracious tones:“May God give you a better fate, if it seems good to you;God sustain you, if it pleases you.10 If it pleased you to reason with me,I would be grateful, and so that you know it certain,provided it is your will, you can satisfy yourself.And to talk to you freely and openlyI say it to you with license from her,15 who has shown me this deserted path.With such grace the gods have given me,that it did not appear to her a labor to save meand pull me from the sorrows where you are.For her part she also wants me to tell you20 that she will free you from so much evil,if you want to return to your old form.”He stood up straight on his feet, the boar,hearing that, and made this response,

2 7 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3all upset, the muddy animal:25 “I do not know whence you come or from what shore;but if you have not come for anything elsethan to draw me out of here, go away.I do not want to live with you, and I refuse;and I see well that you are in that error,30 which had held me even longer.So much your own self-love deceives you,that you do not believe there is any other goodoutside of human existence and value;but if you direct your imagination to me,35 before you depart from my presence,I will make certain that you remain in this error no longer.I want to begin with prudence,excellent virtue, through whichmen increase their excellence.40 They know better how to use this virtue thosewho know, without other discipline, how to pursuefor themselves their own good and avoid distress.Without a doubt, I affirm, and I confessour position to be superior;45 and even you will not deny it shortly.Who is that preceptor that shows uswhat any plant is, either benign or harmful?Not any study, not your ignorance.We change region from shore to shore,50 and leaving a refuge does not pain us,provided one lives content and happy.One flees the ice and the other flees the sun,chasing the weather friendly to our way of life,as nature, who teaches this, desires.55 You, much more unhappy than I can say,go round looking for that country and this,not to find cool air or sunshine,but because your dishonest appetitefor having does not hold your soul firm60 in living frugal, civil, and modest;and often in air rotten and sick,leaving the good air, you move;

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 7 5not that you protect your life.We, the air only, you flee poverty,65 seeking with dangers wealth,that has blocked you from the way of doing good.And if we want to speak of strength,how much our position is superioris as evident as the sun for its brightness.70 A bull, a wild lion, an elephantand an infinity of us in the world are thosebefore which man cannot appear.And if reasoning of the soul is good,you will see we have received a greater gift75 of hearts invincible, noble, and strong.Among us valiant gestures are madewithout hope for triumph or other glory,as among those Romans who were famous.One sees in the lion much vainglory80 of the noble deed, and desire to extinguishall memory of the disgraceful deed.Some beasts still among us have been seen,who, to flee the chains of prison,acquire glory and freedom in dying;85 and this valor they preserve in their cheststhat having lost their liberty,their hearts do not bear to live as slaves.And if you examine temperance,again it will seem to you that in this game90 we have exceeded your side.On Venus 19 we spend brief and littletime, but you, without measure,follow her in every time and place.Our species does not care about other food95 than the product of the heavens without art, and youwant that which nature cannot make.Nor are you content with only one food, as we are,but, to better satisfy your greedy cravings,you journey for them all the way to kingdoms of the East.19Roman goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. Here a metonym for sexual desire.

2 7 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3100 What can be gathered up from the ground is not enough,because you enter into the ocean’s bosom,to be able to sate yourselves with its spoils.My speech would never fail,if I wanted to show how much more unhappy105 you are than every earthly animal.We are greater friends to Nature;and thus to us she dispenses more virtue,making you beggars for all of her good things.If you want to see this, use your senses,110 and you will be easily persuadedof that which perhaps you think the contrary.The eagle’s eye, the dog’s ear, nose, andtaste we can still demonstrate are better than yours,if touch remains more your own;115 it is given to you not to honor you,but only so that Venus’s appetiteshould give you more trouble and annoyance.Each animal among us is born clothed:which defends him from the cold and raw weather,120 under every heaven and on any shore.Only man is born nude of every defense;and has no hide, nor thorns nor feathers nor wool,nor bristles nor scales, that make him a shield.His life begins with crying that,125 with agonizing and hoarse tone of voice,makes him miserable to look at.From then, growing, his life is short,without any doubt, compared to that whicha stag, a crow, and a goose lives.130 Nature gave you hands and the power of speech,and with those also ambition she gave you,and avarice that cancels out any good.To how many infirmities you are subjectedfirst by nature, and then fortune! How135 much good she promises you without any effect!Yours is ambition, lust, and weeping,and avarice that generate scabsin your lives that you esteem so much.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation2 7 7No other animal can be found which has140 a more fragile life, and more desire to live,more confused fear or greater anger.One pig does not give to another pig sorrow,nor one stag to another, only mananother man kills, crucifies, and plunders.145 Think now how you want me to return to being a man,being deprived of all the miseriesthat I endured when I was a man.And if any among men appear to you a god,happy and pleased, do not believe him much,150 because in this mud I live happier,where without thought I bathe and roll.”

2 7 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 7 9Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe:Machiavelli’s The Ass, Translation and CommentaryPart Two: CommentarySt e v e n B e rgBellarmine Universitysberg@bellarmine.eduWe have learned from Socrates that the political things, or thehuman things, are the key to the understanding of all things.—Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli 1Wrapped in a military cloak so that the enemy would notnotice the leader going about, he surveyed all these things.—Machiavelli, Discourses on LivyIt is characteristic of the founders of modern philosophy to boast of theirdeparture from the ancients. The affirmation of novelty presupposes the rejectionof tradition, and sharp critique, if not dismissive ridicule, of precedentphilosophy is likewise ubiquitous in the treatises that initiate the modernventure. Declarations in this vein, found in the writings of Bacon, Hobbes,and Descartes, however, take their inspiration from the arguments andattitudes of the first mover of modernity, that author who proudly declaredhimself to be a discoverer of “modes and orders” that are “wholly new.” In1The following essay is very much indebted to Strauss’s work on Machiavelli. Indeed, it is in largepart simply an attempt to think through some of the implications of Strauss’s analysis of Machiavelli’sthought.© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

2 8 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3the fifteenth chapter of the Prince Machiavelli rejects the central concern ofall prior political philosophy when he insists on the useless character for “onewho understands” of the construction of “imagined republics.” Machiavellideclares that he will no longer take the best regime as such, or the regimein which virtue and wisdom rule, as his clue to uncovering the truth of thenature of the political, the nature of man, and the nature of things simply.It was this shifting of attention from “that which ought to be done” to “thatwhich is done,” in the interest of preserving oneself and avoiding ruin, thatmarked the initial break with the tradition and set the course of philosophicalthought on a new trajectory.This new trajectory, however, as directed above all to uncovering “effectualtruths,” required the renovation not simply of philosophy, but of the politicaland religious orders of mankind. Philosophy became, for the first time, beneficentnot only in itself, but in the practical effects that were designed to issuefrom it. Philosophy took upon its shoulders responsibility for the well-beingof ordinary men. Since no philosopher prior to Machiavelli ever aspired toassume such a burden, and virtually all those who follow in his wake seemnever to have considered casting it off, 2 we are tempted to conclude that theterms “philosophy” and “political philosophy” are equivocal when applied toboth ancient and modern thought. And we are hardly surprised by the paucityof references within Machiavelli’s works to Plato and Aristotle, whose thoughthad dominated the scene for nearly two thousand years when Machiavellifirst put pen to paper. Machiavelli and his progeny seem to part companydecisively with these thinkers and, therefore, also with the tradition to whichtheir thought gave rise, a tradition stretching from Plutarch and Apuleius toAquinas and Dante.It must be of some interest to scholars whose attention is drawn to theissue of the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, then, that Machiavellihas left behind a writing which, on the very face of it, acknowledgesa heavy debt to three of the foremost authors of the Platonic-Aristoteliantradition named above. The Ass is a work that clearly announces its literaryantecedents: Apuleius’s Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass, as it has cometo be called), Plutarch’s Animals Are Rational, and, above all, Dante’s Comedy.In his composition of The Ass, Machiavelli borrows not simply narrative2Hobbes, Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau, Mendelssohn,Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, despite the many significant differences dividingthem, all agree on the proposition that philosophy must assume a “humanitarian” or altruistic characterin the sense of providing for the well-being and advancement of all men on the material, moral,and political planes.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 8 1gambits, poetic conceits, and forms of verse from these works of his predecessors,but above all the themes and problems they are devoted to articulating.As Apuleius’s Metamorphoses takes up the issue of the decline and translationof ancient philosophy into a novel religious sect; 3 as Plutarch’s AnimalsAre Rational examines the question of the necessary preconditions for thepossibility of mind in human life or the necessary relation between humandefectiveness and human rationality; 4 and as Dante’s Comedy assigns itselfthe task of recovering and restoring philosophy in the wake of its absorptionby Christian theology 5 —so Machiavelli, as we shall see, takes up withinthis single work each of these themes in turn according to the order of hisargument.In addition, following Dante’s lead, Machiavelli has built the issue of hisrelation to ancient wisdom not only into the argument, but into the drama ofThe Ass by portraying himself in the figure of the hero of the poem, lost in aharsh and obscure wood at its opening, and ancient wisdom in the figure of abeautiful woman who effects his salvation from this predicament. 6 Somewhatto our surprise, since it is contrary to what we have been led to expect fromMachiavelli’s other, more famous writings, that relation is depicted as a loveaffair. If we wish to gain a full understanding of Machiavelli’s debt to anddeparture from the philosophical tradition that preceded him, it behooves usto turn our attention to this work in which that debt and departure are madethematic as in none of Machiavelli’s other writings. 73Seth Benardete, The Archaeology of the Soul: Platonic Reading of Ancient Poetry and Philosophy(South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s, 2012), 305–11.4Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 12, trans. H. Cherniss and W. C. Helmbold (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1957), 986c–e, 991e–992a5Steven Berg, “An Introduction to the Reading of Dante,” Interpretation 35, no. 2 (2008): 123–52.6As Machiavelli’s references in The Ass to Apuleius, Plutarch, and Dante suggest, and as the argumentof this paper will attempt to demonstrate, the tradition of ancient philosophy with whichMachiavelli is here concerned is that of Socratic political philosophy. That Machiavelli was familiarthrough his reading of Lucretius’s On the Nature of Things with an alternative “tradition” of ancientwisdom, namely, Epicureanism, is well known. It must be observed, however, that Lucretius both lacksa political philosophy properly speaking—he offers no teaching on the question of the best regime—and dismisses the problem of natural teleology: according to Lucretius nature is devoid of any and allfinal causality (On the Nature of Things 2.167–82, 4.823–57, 5.195–227, 837–77). Now the question ofthe best regime simply and that of the best practicable regime are issues that Machiavelli addressesprominently in his confrontation with the ancients, as the quotation from chapter 15 of the Princeoffered above indicates. Moreover, as the arguments of this paper will show, the problem of naturalteleology or of the good as a principle operative in the nature of things is an issue central to Machiavelli’sreflections here in The Ass regarding the ancients and his relation to them. One must conclude,therefore, that the Epicurean tradition is not represented here in The Ass and that Machiavelli is notconcerned in this work to clarify his relation to that tradition.7An insurmountable obstacle, however, might be thought to stand in the way of such an effort—the

2 8 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3The poem opens with the author identifying himself with the protagonistof his work. “The various chances, the pain and sorrow which in the formof an ass I endured, I will sing, if Fortune is willing.” He ascribes his sufferingto chance and declares that even his ability to sing of these sufferings isin the hands of fortune. According to the beautiful woman who effects hissalvation, the cause of our hero’s having fallen into the dark wood and harshvalley is also chance or fortune; moreover, she identifies chance and fortunewith the disposition of the heavens; and the latter is said to be responsible forCirce’s power to “convert” men’s “forms,” that is, to bestialize them (III.79–86, 100–105; II.140). When our narrator declares that it is chance that hasmade the present “time so spiteful and sad” (I.97), he is then identifying thatevil for which chance may be held responsible with the empire of Circe overthe contemporary scene. The fact that chance or the heavens will also providethe preconditions for the coming to pass of a time of unprecedented happiness(III.106–11) indicates that, according to the beautiful woman, the samechance that has thrust Circe to prominence must return her to the exile fromwhich she was once recalled. Chance appears to exercise almost universalsway over the world and its vicissitudes.The operations of chance, however, are not purely random. The heavensthat are identified with chance are also identified with “the fates” (III.100–102, 106–11); and the beautiful woman’s assurance that Circe must one dayfall seems based upon this identity. Chance events occur within a frameworkof necessity that makes it possible to predict with certainty the fate of Circe’sempire (IV.39). On the other hand, as our hero declares in his solitary meditationsduring the course of chapter 5, virtue or necessity may insure that akingdom or empire “will always see itself go upward” (V.79–81). A man inpossession of virtue and acting in concert with necessity may prove the masterof chance or fortune. Both the rise and the fall of Circe indicate that suchvirtue as can exercise a mastery over chance is now lacking, and has been forsome time. It will be among the tasks that our hero takes upon his shouldersapparently fragmentary nature of the piece. As Allan Gilbert remarks, “evidently Machiavelli hadintentions not to be inferred from the fragment that he left” (Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others,ed. Gilbert [Durham: Duke University Press, 1989], 2:750). If The Ass has not in every respect beenbrought to a state of perfection—as the lacunae in chapter 7 indicate—it seems clear that it is nota mere fragment. That the poem’s conclusion at the end of chapter 8 is the conclusion Machiavelliintended can be inferred from the fact that both the figure of Circe, off-stage though dominant at theopening of the poem, and that of the “big, fat pig,” endowed with the gift of speech and offering anencomium in praise of the virtues of beasts and an invective against the vices of human beings at itsend, are characters drawn most proximately from Plutarch’s Animals Are Rational. Plutarch’s workends precisely where Machiavelli’s work ends: at the point where Plutarch’s talking pig, Gryllus, ceaseshis similar diatribe in condemnation of the viciousness of human life and celebration of the bestial.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 8 3to reimport such virtue and knowledge of necessity into a world deprived ofits presence. This restoration, however, will require, in the hero’s case, takingon the guise of an ass, that is, relinquishing to all appearances his properhuman shape (III.115–20). It is only by these means that the total dominionof chance and the empire of Circe may be subverted and the “greater good”secured for our hero. 8A sign of our hero’s asinine disguise is evident in his refusal, as author,to call upon the Muses and Apollo to inspire and support him in his singing.He cannot appeal, as did the ancient poets, for their favor. In these bad timessuch favor is not to be had for the asking. The evil of the times is indicatednot only by the lack of virtue, but also by the absence of the gods of the poets.A new god has overturned their sovereignty and seated himself upon theirthrone. In any case our author-hero will need no accompaniment from thelyre of Apollo: he will, after all, be braying like an ass (I.4–9). His speech willconform to the tenor of the times, which is defined by the omnipresence ofasses. The empire of Circe and the rule of her new god have combined to effectthe complete ascendancy of the demotic. 9 The lowest of the low have expelledeverything subtle and high from the field and occupied completely the presentterrain. Under such conditions no appeal to the gods of Homer couldpossibly be efficacious. Our hero will conform himself to these circumstancesin appearance, but not in truth: when he describes the beauties of his belovedhe does indeed appeal to the Muses to aid him in his effort (IV.52–54).It might appear then that our author-hero will appeal outwardly to thecommon pieties of this evil age, while concealing beneath this surface a reverencefor the wisdom of antiquity. It might appear, that is, that his conduct willtake Dante’s conduct as its model in his outward conformity to the dogmasand sensibilities of the Christian religion. Nothing could be further from thetruth. Machiavelli makes clear his departure from Dante’s example, and that8And not for our hero alone; for not only does the author-hero declare that he expects no gratitudefor the song he is about to sing, but the beautiful woman who comes to his rescue declares that no oneamong ancients or moderns has “ever suffered more ingratitude” (III.76–78). Only one who providesbenefits without thanks can complain of ingratitude. The implication is clear: no one among ancientsor moderns has ever provided greater benefit to greater numbers, at least not without acknowledgementor recompense. But “asses” are always ungrateful (I.10–15). Through the resurrection of adeceased virtue, the mastery of fortune it will permit, and the securing of his own good that mustfollow, our author-hero will simultaneously provide more good for more men than anyone has everprovided before.9This ubiquity of the asinine seems to have been guaranteed by the distinguishing characteristic ofthe asinine nature: as “everyone knows who reads its nature…one of its most adroit jokes that it knowshow to play is to give a couple of kicks and two farts” (I.112–14). The asses are experts in driving awayanyone who does not conform to their vulgar dispositions.

2 8 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3of the whole of the preceding philosophical tradition in this respect, by pausingto tell a story that, he hopes, we will not regret hearing. The story involvesan almost undisguised ridicule of Christianity and its foundational claims,according to which, through the advent of Christ, man’s nature has, in principle,been “changed.” For, on one hand, those who put their faith in the graceand power of the incarnate god are said, through that grace and power, to beliberated from the “victory” of death; 10 and, on the other hand, the promiseof leaving behind a corruptible for an incorruptible body is accompanied bythe promise of being made a sharer in the divine nature, of ascending beyondman’s mortal and rational nature to a transhuman and supernatural perfectionof mind. Even a man of the humblest natural capacities and intellectualendowments may, through the sincerity of his faith, be made to participatein the cognition of the first principle of all things. For, as Aquinas argues,man does not “attain [this] blessedness by his own natural powers,” but onlythrough a transformation of those powers wrought by the grace and powerof god. 11 The story of the young man living in the Florence of times past whocould not be cured of his longing to run—“everywhere he would run in thestreets, and in all weather without a care” (I.35–36)—denies that any suchtransformation is possible. In the words of Horace, “You may throw natureout with a pitch-fork. She always returns.” 12This young man’s irrepressible nature was understood by his family, andespecially his father, to be a disease. His father wished to “cure” him of this“illness” and sought the advice of several wise men—to no avail. At last hefound a “certain charlatan” who claimed to possess the power to relieve hisson of this indisposition. In recounting the father’s conversion to the programof the charlatan, Machiavelli employs the terms “belief” (crede) and“faith” (fede) to describe the gullibility of men in regard to such “sects” that10“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will be changed, in a moment, in thetwinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. …For this perishable body must put on imperishability, andthis mortal body must put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:51–53; see also 10:17, 12:12–14, 15:16–23).11Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Happiness, Question 5, article 5. Athanasius goes so far as to declarethat god “was made man that [man] might be made god” (De incarnatione verbi Dei, 54.3). Similarly,Gregory of Nazianzus encourages the faithful Christian to recognize that he has “become a son ofgod, fellow heir with Christ, if I may be so bold, even very god” (Oration 14:23, in Select Orations,Fathers of the Church, vol. 107, trans. Martha Vinson [Washington, DC: Catholic University Press ofAmerica, 2003], 56). Clement of Alexandria insists that through Christ and his “heavenly doctrine”men have been granted “the Father’s truly great, divine and inalienable portion, making men god”(Exhortation to the Greeks, in Clement of Alexandria, trans. G. W. Butterworth [Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1982], 245). See also Origen, Contra Celsum 6.44, and Augustine, Sermons13 and 81.12Horace, Epistles 1.5.24

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 8 5“feed and live on the sickness of others” and “promise the good” where noneis to be had (I.46–57). 13 The preponderance of such terms leaves little doubtas to the sort of man, and the precise vocation, the figure of the charlatan ismeant to represent.Any lingering doubts on this score are dispelled by the denouementof the story. Having employed his remedies and recommended a series ofprecautions the charlatan declares his “patient” cured. And for more than amonth the youth is indeed held back from his inclination by “reverence andawe” (I.72). In the end, however, his nature triumphs over his reverence andawe and when he sees the Via Larga, “so straight and spacious,” nothing canprevent him from returning to his “old [antico] pleasure” (I.78). The “impulseto run…that swirling in his mind never rests” (I.81) returns in full force and,dropping his cloak, the young man declares, “Here Christ will not hold me”and off he runs. “From then on he ran forever, while he was alive” (I.84–85).Priestcraft, founded upon the ostensible power of Christ, promises a totalconversion of the nature of man. Such a conversion is not forthcoming. Thisis because “our mind, always understood after its natural fashion, does notallow us any defense against its habit or nature” (I.88–90). Human natureis nontransformable. But human nature is double. There are those who bynature follow nature, the “runners,” or potential philosophers, and those whoby nature are disposed to follow “habit,” that is, convention and conventionalhabituation, the “walkers,” or nonphilosophers. One cannot turn a sow’s earinto a silk purse, nor, as the story has it, vice versa. Horace, the ancient poet,is correct and Christian doctrine false. The implicit denial of miracle here isperhaps too obvious to dwell on, as is Machiavelli’s agreement with ancientphilosophy on these points. 14Machiavelli reiterates this distinction between those whose natures aredisposed to follow nature and those whose natures are disposed to followconvention in speaking, on one hand, of himself and his inalterable inclinations(I.91–108) and, on the other, of the asinine and theirs (I.109–17). It isMachiavelli’s disposition to observe others’ defects or to speak ill, particularlyof a “time so spiteful and sad” (I.97). He is an incurable “critic”; whereasit is the disposition, as previously noted, of the asinine to drive these rare13He concludes his remarks with the observation that the father “was not in the least doubt…becausehe believed in the words of this man” (I.49–57).14Machiavelli’s agreement with ancient philosophy in regard to the permanence of class-kind distinctionsand the impossibility of the miraculous transformation of nature implies his further agreementin regard to the issue of the eternity of the world (Discourses, 2.5).

2 8 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3and ill-speaking men from their midst. The philosopher must appear tothe nonphilosopher as merely “negative” and his speeches will be heard asrefuting and undermining all that he holds sacred. As a consequence, thenonphilosophers cannot help but expel the philosopher, and virtually all thatsupports him from political society. “Runners” such as Dante, therefore, haveprudently adopted the guise of “walkers.” Again, it is precisely this tactic ofdisguising his criticism of prevailing opinion in the costume of prevailingopinion that our author rejects. He may bray like an ass in order to be heardover the asinine din of the present time, but he will not conceal his “critical”bent when it comes to those opinions that the nonphilosophic considersacred—philosophy’s critique of religion will be made sufficiently audible tofinally be heard by even the longest ears of the dimmest ass. We have justbeen given an initial specimen of such techniques of broadcasting. 15In combining the critique of religion that has always been a part of theesoteric speeches of philosophy with the “braying of an ass,” that is, in goingpublic with this critique, Machiavelli becomes the source of the philosophicaland political movement that came to be known as the Enlightenment. He isthe initiator of that philosophical tendency that seeks to dispel “superstition”from the minds of all men, “nonasses” and “asses” alike. 16 With The Ass we15Machiavelli is the first philosopher to pose as an advocate of what has become known as “freedomof speech.” He also makes clear the bond between such freedom and what came to be known as “religiousliberty.”16One might assume that Machiavelli in fact has at least one philosophical precedent for his openor public critique of religion: Lucretius. Like Machiavelli, indeed in one sense more forcefully thanMachiavelli, Lucretius makes explicit his opinions regarding the harmful effects of religion uponhuman life. Unlike Machiavelli, however, whose most obvious concern is the evils produced by theChristian religion within political life, Lucretius is above all concerned with the evils that religion assuch has imposed upon the soul or mind of the individual (1.62–79). The terrors instilled in the mindby the belief in punitive gods and so retribution in the next life, or the fear of death in this specificsense, are the afflictions that religion has imported into human life in Lucretius’s view (1.101–17;3.35–40). It is this fear that proves to be the obstacle to tranquility of mind and so the happiness of theindividual. Lucretius seeks then to liberate the individual who is capable of such liberation from thesefears. He brings the medicine for the soul or mind to those whose minds are naturally sound to sucha degree as to make possible the cure required (1.927–42). At the same time, Lucretius recognizes thatthe great multitude of men will always turn away with horror from the teaching that comprises thiscure (1.943–45), since this teaching reveals the infinitude of the universe, the insignificance of man,and the fact that the world that men inhabit is only one of an infinite number of worlds and, moreover,destined to be utterly destroyed. Men are living in a city without walls not only in regard to their ownindividual death but also in regard to the inevitable death of the world and everything within it thatmen hold dear (2.1144–45; 5.95–98, 243–46). Moreover, Lucretius appears to recognize that the fear ofthe punitive gods that stands in the way of the happiness of the individual is not only an indispensibleprop to the law and so political life as such (5.1141–1240), but also that the belief in these gods is, in aseemingly paradoxical way, a comfort to men, insofar as they believe that these gods also guaranteethe endless duration of our world (6.565–66, 601–2). Lucretius never dreamed of a “secular” politicalsociety as something either possible or desirable. Lucretius is not a political reformer or revolutionary,

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 8 7are given some of Machiavelli’s deepest reflections on what he perceives to bethe specific necessity determining the founding of such a movement and themotives and ends that animate this effort and effect its shape.Having provided us with a proem to his work in which he distinguisheshimself from Dante and the tradition, our author begins his narration properin such a way as to affirm his link to Dante and the tradition. The hero ofThe Ass is found at the opening of the poem in a difficulty similar to that inwhich the protagonist of the Comedy is involved at its commencement. He islost in “a place as harsh as was ever seen” and lacking in wakefulness to sucha degree as to be ignorant of the cause of his misfortune (II.19–24). Dante isand is not Machiavelli’s teacher. Machiavelli’s thought is and is not a continuationof the prior philosophical tradition.Machiavelli gives us rather precise information about the temporal settingof the action he will recount. The season of the year is springtime (II.1–2).The time of the day is dusk (II.19–20). The temporal setting of the actionnarrated is, therefore, radically ambiguous. In winter giving way to spring“the day proves more resplendent” (II.7); in day giving way to night darknessenshrouds the world and one is bound to lose one’s way without a lamp orguide. The change of times is pregnant with the opportunity for renewal andrenovation, but also the danger of decline and dissolution.The characters that populate the valley into which our hero has strayedare suggestive of a similar ambiguity. On one hand, Diana and her selectband of virgin nymphs are now “hunting in the woods” (II.4–6). On the otherhand, a promiscuous herd of assess is raising a ruckus as it returns home inthe evening (II.10–12). We are familiar with the significance of noisy asses.What is the meaning of the presence of the chaste hunters pursuing theirquarry through the forest? The gods of the poets, among whom the sisterof Apollo may be numbered, were previously associated with a subtlety andelevation of mind alien to the current climate. The activity of hunting furtherbut rather follows, in the end, the advice of his teacher Epicurus to “live hiddenly,” that is, to retreatinto private life in the company of a small number of philosophically minded friends (1.140–48).In this Lucretius resembles the whole tribe of ancient philosophers. By contrast it is precisely thisdream of a secular society that Machiavelli is the first to propose as a blueprint for political action andrenovation. Machiavelli is a revolutionary in a sense that Lucretius and the rest of the ancients simplyare not. In the last analysis, therefore, Machiavelli and his modern followers’ critique of religion mustbe much more public than that of Lucretius or any other ancient philosopher. Machiavelli’s critiqueof religion is not accomplished merely in speech or argument, but is meant, as we will see, to issuein a practical demotion of the status of religion (the divine and the sacred) in the political affairs ofmankind. Machiavelli “went public” in a way that is entirely contrary to the retiring spirit of bothEpicurean philosophy and ancient philosophy generally speaking.

2 8 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3specifies their character. Hunting is a metaphor employed by Machiavellifor the activity of philosophizing. In chapter 14 of the Prince, for example,Machiavelli recommends that a prince “ought to be always out on the hunt,”in order to “learn the nature of sites—to know how the mountains rise, howthe valleys open, how the plains lie.” 17 In the dedicatory letter at the beginningof the Prince, Machiavelli excuses his apparent presumption in offeringan account of the nature of the prince to one who might be considered tobe a prince, by comparing the character of the prince and that of the peopleto mountains and high places, on one hand, and plains and low places, onthe other—just as one may best sketch the figure of a mountain from theplain and that of the plain from the mountain, so “to come to know well thenature of the people one needs to be a prince and to know well that of princesone needs to be of the people.” This analogy may be inadequate to dispel theappearance of presumption, but it is perfectly sufficient to inform the readerof the fact that Machiavelli employs “the knowledge of sites” as a metaphorfor the knowledge of the various natures of men—high and low.“Hunting,” or philosophizing, then, is the means to “knowledge ofsites” or the capacity to discriminate among the variety of natures or kindswithin the apparently general species “man.” Only one who has gained suchknowledge of sites through the constant practice of “hunting” will be able,as did Philopoemen, prince of the Achaeans, to confront all accidents withthe proper remedy. 18 Only one who has knowledge of human nature will beable, in ambiguous times of decline and possible renewal, to seize upon suchaccidents and bring forth the good of renovation from the evil of the destructionof the old order. Knowledge of nature is that without which the discoveryand founding of new modes and orders must prove impossible. Lacking thisknowledge such discovery must be stymied by the obstacles confronting theattempt, for “it is no less dangerous to find new modes and orders, than toseek unknown waters and lands.” The danger of this discovery springs fromthe “envious nature of men.” 19 The envious are above all those who benefitfrom the old orders. They will oppose the discoverer and the founder of newmodes and orders at every step. The capacity to thwart the opposition of theenvious is dependent upon a deep and extensive knowledge of the terrainupon which one must combat them—the minds or souls of men.17See also Discourses, 3.3918Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 14.19Machiavelli, Discourses, Preface.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 8 9At the opening of the poem the hero is utterly deficient in such knowledge.He has fallen into the harsh valley; knows neither where he is nor howhe got there; and any exploration of the terrain he might attempt is blockedbecause of the darkness setting in and the paralysis that his own “great fear”has caused. He seems to fear above all “death…with his scythe and painteda color that each one of his consorts paints herself” (II.31–33). The color thatdistinguishes the appearance of death and his spouses is black. It is the Christianpriesthood with the pontifex maximus at its head that has paralyzed ourhero with fear and made it impossible for him to begin an exploration of theterrain that might lead him to a knowledge of sites: that terrain is securelyheld by the opposing forces. These forces comprise a novel army whose weaponsare those of the mind: teachings, dogmas, and doctrines. With theseweapons this army has conquered and gained possession of a novel, spiritualempire, an empire over the minds of men. It is this empire that is now decayingand it is these men who comprise the weakened legions that continue tosupport it in its decline. It is their envy, fear, and hatred of novelty that wouldoppose any effort to accelerate the destruction of the old order in the interestof the erection of the new. 20As a consequence of the occupation of the terrain by the spouses of death,our hero at the opening of the poem has been afflicted with two related evils.First, he has “let go all freedom” (II.24); second, his “virtue” (virtu) has beenrendered “prostrate and defeated” (II.36). The terms “freedom” and “virtue”are both used equivocally by Machiavelli. This is most easily demonstrated inthe latter case. Machiavelli employs “virtue” in The Ass to mean, on one hand,that virtue which propels realms upward (V.79–81) and, on the other, thatvirtue which makes possible his union with the beautiful woman (IV.129).“Virtue” can mean political virtue or it can mean erotic virtue, the warlikevirtue of the citizen or the aphrodisian virtue of the lover. Now the hero’slove and intimacy with the beautiful woman, as well as the beautiful womanherself, are clearly of allegorical significance. The beautiful woman standsin relation to the hero of The Ass as Virgil stands in relation to the hero ofthe Comedy. Virgil, however, is a figure of ancient wisdom. The allegoricalsignificance of the beautiful woman, we may therefore infer, is comparable tothat of Virgil. We are led to the suggestion that the hero’s love for her is hislove for ancient wisdom and his union with her his coming to understand the20The current ambiguous time of transition is articulated by the presence of at least three differentclasses of men: the select band, which hunts with Diana; the asses who bray and laugh; and death andhis spouses. The empire of death has made possible the ubiquity of the asinine and necessitated theconcealment of Diana and her fellow hunters.

2 9 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3teachings of ancient wisdom. 21 The virtue by which he is enabled to join withancient wisdom, therefore, is the virtue or capacity of mind. We arrive thenat the primary equivocity in regard to Machiavelli’s use of the term “virtue.”It has a cognitive, philosophical and a noncognitive, political sense. Thesetwo kinds of virtue are fundamentally distinct. All the same, in Machiavelli’spresentation they are related: both are portrayed as “manly.” Both requireas precondition a species of courage or daring; if in each case a species of arather different sort. All species of courage or daring, however, have beenexpelled from the terrain through its occupation by the legions of Circe—death and his spouses. Without courage, freedom and the preservation offreedom, in both their political and philosophical forms, are impossible. Theeffect of the dominion of death has been to instill fear, cowardice, impotence,and slavishness in both the spirits and the minds of men. Death uses hisscythe not to kill but to emasculate. 22The darkness pervading the landscape and blocking the acquisition ofknowledge of sites is first broken by the advent of the beautiful woman. It isher lamp that penetrates the gloom, while her horn summons her strayingfollowers back to the path its light illuminates (II.28–60, 121–26). Both hornand lamp are the means by which the beautiful woman navigates the terrain,the instruments that allow for the revelation of the nature of sites. Initially,for our hero, however, they are confounding and her lamp only sporadicallyilluminating; he is dazzled by its light and terrified by its novelty (II.46–47;III.13–15). It is only much later, following upon his intimacy with the beautifulwoman, that he is in a position to enjoy its proper benefits (VI.37–39;VII.7–8).The significance of these facts appears to be the following: for men of thepresent time a direct illumination of human nature has become extremelydifficult if not simply impossible. It is only or at least most easily throughintimate familiarity and intercourse with ancient wisdom that one may nowacquire knowledge of sites. This seems to have everything to do with the influenceof Circe upon the harsh valley over which she rules. Circe, in concert withdeath and his spouses, has obscured the natures of men. She has transformedinto beasts all who have come under her sway. This bestialization, however, is21This interpretation of the allegorical meaning of the figure of the beautiful woman is confirmedwhen one inspects the discourse she offers upon the revolutions of fortune and the strategy necessaryto weather them. As we shall see, one cannot fail to recognize in these teachings the teachings ofancient philosophy.22In this regard he begins with his own followers—they are his “consorts.”

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 9 1of a particular sort in that it is necessarily accompanied by the emasculationeffected by the spouses of death. What this means can be illustrated mostconveniently by an appeal to the example of those “beasts” that the beautifulwoman tends as her particular herd: “bears, wolves and proud and beastlylions…with many other wild animals” (II.58–60). We learn later what, forexample, we are to understand by “lions”: they are those men possessed of aheart “great-souled and courtly” (VI.55). Very few of such “high-class” politicalmen are to be found in contemporary civic life and those few who remainare diminished and domesticated. 23 There are no contemporary equivalentsof Alcibiades, Alexander, or Caesar. Through her “proper virtue,” “given toher by heaven” (II.139)—that is, through her teachings and doctrines regardingvirtue as transmitted by the spouses of death—Circe has bestialized andtamed such men. Christianity has successfully proposed a novel understandingof good and evil, according to which magnanimity or pride is not thecrown of the virtues but the fundament of all vice, and this-worldly glory,which the prideful pursue, the path not to apotheosis but to perdition. Theonly glory worthy of acquisition is glory before god and the only road tosuch glory, humility. 24 The exclusive emphasis on otherworldly glory in anascent to the transhuman and supernatural has effected the denigration ofthis-worldly glory and a reassessment of its quality—it is subhuman, bestialrapacity. Apotheosis has been democratized and thereby detached from thepolitical grandeur (good or evil or both) that once alone secured it. Thosewho now continue to pursue glory in this life in the climate of the empire ofCirce do so with a bad conscience that renders them ultimately feeble andsubject to the authority of the priesthood. 25 Political life and the conduct ofpolitical life have been utterly transformed by being entirely discredited. Men23They lick the feet of the hero in pity and regret over his fate, which they assume to be similar totheir own (II.130–35).24Machiavelli, Discourses, 2.2.2. If one wishes to be exalted to the heights of the divine nature onemust be numbered among the lowest of the low, the meek and poor of spirit.25Machiavelli, Discourses, 2.2; Cesare Borgia, who fancied himself capable of acquiring a principateby means of his own arms and his own virtue, could in fact never perceive his complete dependencyupon his father (who happened to be the father of the church as well), let alone think of the properremedy that might rid him of such dependency (Prince, chap. 7). Giovampogolo, “who did not mindbeing incestuous and a public parricide,” through his “cowardice” allowed Pope Julius, unarmed andvirtually alone, to arrest him while surrounded by his men-at-arms and without putting up the leastbit of resistance, let alone dealing with Julius and the college of cardinals as a man who possessedgreatness of soul and knowledge of how to be “honorably wicked or perfectly good,” and so securehimself “perpetual fame,” must have dealt with them (Discourses, 1.27). The empire over men’s mindsthat the “ecclesiastical principality” exercises is so complete that “these states, although undefended,are never taken away and the subjects, although ungoverned, never care—they never think of alienatingthemselves from their princes, nor can they” (Prince, chap. 11).

2 9 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3can no longer put heart and soul into political action. Even the greatest ofpolitical men now at least doubt whether it is not really the case that a transpoliticalgood is the real and highest good. Men have been “depoliticized” toa degree that would have appeared incredible to the eyes of the ancients. 26 Itis this depoliticization that Machiavelli portrays as the bestialization of manat the hands of Circe: if in the case of the “universality” it is man’s politicalcharacter that distinguishes him, the loss of that character is the loss of whatis distinctively human. The promise of glory before god leads to the ingloriousdecay of man into a weak and disordered beast.The weak and disordered state of “human” affairs has been all to theadvantage of death and his companions: only where the civil principate isinfirm can the power of the ecclesiastical principate extend its sway. Theabsence of men of sufficient prudence and spiritedness to build politicalstructures on solid foundations has allowed Circe and her legions to exerciseunprecedented influence over the things of the world they pretend to despise.Their rule is preeminent. Their rule, however, is misrule or nonrule—it isanarchy. Theocracy, having denuded political life of political virtue, has madethe world almost entirely subject to the variability of chance or fortune. 27In fine: Circe’s flattening of the high points of the political terrain, thatis, the defanging and declawing of the “lions” of political life, has made it difficultif not impossible to determine, from an inspection of the contemporarylandscape, the range of possibilities ingredient in human nature as far as it isexpressed on the political plane. Men have been debased and homogenized tosuch a degree that certain “elevated” human possibilities have been renderedinvisible. Men such as Romulus, Theseus, Cyrus, Junius Brutus, Alcibiades,Epaminondas, Philopoemen, Camillus, Cincinnatus, Fabius, Hannibal, andAlexander can no longer arise and flourish given the impoverished characterof the modern terrain. Ancient wisdom, therefore, has become the sole sourceavailable for making manifest the full range of the possibilities available tohuman nature. 28 Yet the very leveling of the terrain that makes recourse toancient wisdom indispensible makes the survival of ancient wisdom doubt-26Richard Kennington, On Modern Origins: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy (New York: LexingtonBooks, 2004), 69; Leo Strauss Thoughts on Machiavelli (Seattle: University of Washington Press,1958), 118.27Machiavelli, Discourses, 2.30.5.28Only such works as Livy’s history and Xenophon’s Anabasis make plain the capacities that maydevelop and exercise themselves upon a political scene uncorrupted by the “modern education.”

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 9 3ful. The landscape has been left open to chance “floods” that may sweepeverything before them. We must return to this issue in due course.For the moment let us direct our attention to Machiavelli’s description ofancient wisdom or the beautiful woman as she appears for the first time to ourhero. She is portrayed as both “fresh” (fresca) and “vivacious” (frasca). She isyoung or new and, in the fullness of her life, inviting and alluring. Her blondehair is “disheveled,” that is, unrestrained by the conventions of the coiffeuse(II.49–51). So-called ancient wisdom is perpetually “young,” or new, becausethe revelation of nature must always appear radically novel in the context ofthe conventional suppression or denial of nature. This is especially true ofthe modern situation. Its novelty must appear shocking and unnerving toall, but it must also appear infinitely alluring to one whose mind is by naturedisposed to follow nature. From the standpoint of the current conventionalorder, however, ancient wisdom’s novelties can only appear “disheveled” orout of place. Indeed, the discovery of nature must always appear as an eruptionor an earthquake destructive of the terrain as conventionally disposed.Philosophy has no choice as to whether its own presence will transform the“status quo.” It can only decide between attempting to control that transformationand letting it take its own unpredictable course.The beautiful woman has come to save the hero from his predicament.But she has not come to usher him out of Circe’s kingdom. On the contrary,she leads him straight to the interior of Circe’s palace. She is, after all, aservant in Circe’s employ (II.115–17): philosophy has been made the handmaidenof Christian theology. 29 Above all, the beautiful woman wishes thehero to know “on what side of ruination” he is and into what land he hasfallen (II.97–99). He will come to know Circe from the inside. She begins bytelling him something of Circe’s history. At one time she had been expelledfrom her “nest” and forced into exile (II.100–101). With the destruction of thesecond temple and the sack of Jerusalem the Christian sect was transferredabroad and under the pressure of persecution it was forced underground. It iscertainly the case that the power that effected that persecution looked uponthe Christian sect as “an enemy of men” and a fugitive from “all human societyand law” (II.106–11). The beautiful woman merely echoes the descriptionsof Tacitus, Celsus, Julian, and Porphyry. Once “Jove,” that is, the Christian29She is one, if first among equals, of a number of “maidens” who are also compelled to do the biddingof Circe—the various disciplines and sciences of antiquity are subordinate to the queen of thesciences. Law, history, astronomy, even mathematics have been made instrumental to the peak ofChristian science and education: theology (Discourses, 2.5).

2 9 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3god, seized dominion, Circe was recalled from exile (II.102). 30 More properlyspeaking, however, the darkness and solitude that distinguished Circe’sdwelling place has expanded outward to encompass the world. With theextension of Circe’s terrain comes the extension of her power to deprive menof their humanity. Her enmity towards mankind expresses itself practicallyin her attempt to eliminate the human.At the beginning the beautiful woman insists that the hero hide himselfamong her herd by proceeding “on all fours.” He goes “on [his] knees”(ginocchioni) among the animals (II.145–50). 31 The hero is persuaded by thebeautiful woman to disguise himself in the garb of orthodoxy in order bothto escape Circe’s enchantments and come to know the truth of her characterand power. The narrator, however, reveals his estimation of this strategy alsofrom the beginning: in the present context it is ruinous (III.7). Be that asit may, making use of this strategy, the beautiful woman secretes the herowithin the center of Circe’s realm. Whatever reservations the hero entertainsconcerning the beautiful woman’s tactics, he is effusive in regard to the debtthat he owes her and the benefit she has provided. He says that he is fullyaware of “how much good” she has done him. She alone has saved him and,therefore, to her alone he owes his “life and that which surrounds it.” Finally,he declares that in her “beautiful face” he sees and recognizes his “everygood” (III.52–63). The goodness of the beautiful woman is the chief topic ofchapter 3, as her beauty is of chapter 4. Her goodness is that without whichlife for the hero would not be life properly speaking. Life without the love ofwisdom is not worth living—it is equivalent to death. The life devoted to thelove of wisdom or philosophy is, therefore, the happy life. On these pointsthere is no disagreement whatsoever between the ancients, up to and includingDante, and Machiavelli. 32 Both recognize wisdom as the most beautiful ofbeautiful things and the life devoted to the love and pursuit of wisdom as thehappy life. They speak with one voice in declaring philosophy to be the goodfor a human being as such. 3330Machiavelli follows Dante in employing the Roman designation for the chief of gods as a name forthe Christian deity (see Inf. 14.52, 70; 31.45; Purg. 6.118). Both thereby indicate the links between theOld and the New Rome.31The significance of our hero’s traveling in this fashion is made clear at the end of chapter 5 whereinthe author reflects that anyone who believes that the passive virtue of piety—remaining “on one’sknees” (ginocchioni)—is sufficient to preserve one’s state is indiscreet, unwise, and possessed of anunusually small brain.32Plato, Apology 29d, 38a; Republic 516c, 519c; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1177b17–25; Dante,Convivio 3.2, 8, 12–15; De Monarchia 1.3, 2.16.33Letter to Vettori, December 10, 1513, in The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, 2nd ed. (Chicago:

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 9 5The hero’s happiness is, however, qualified at the moment by the difficultiesin which he has found himself. The evil of the dark wood in whichhe encountered the beautiful woman, and the good of her beautiful face,between them render him “now sorrowful, now happy” (III.64). He wouldprefer to have the good without its accompanying evil so that his happinessmight be unalloyed. In this he resembles all men who, in their preference forthe good, believe it would be to their ultimate advantage to enjoy this good inthe absence of any evil whatsoever. This belief displays their assumption thatgood and evil are essentially disjoined and their being together an accidentalconjunction.The hero surrenders himself into the arms of the beautiful woman, tosuch an extent as to appear to wish to acquire his knowledge of himselfexclusively from her reports. He wishes her to do him the courtesy of tellinghim the “course of my life that you know” (III.73–75). In complying withhis request, the beautiful woman corrects him in regard to his assumptionsconcerning the relation between good and evil: they are not disjoined as heassumes, but related in a nonarbitrary way. The ground of their necessaryrelation appears, by her account, to be the disposition of the heavens and theheavenly bodies: behind her teaching about the good lies an implicit cosmologyor at least an account of the nature of things.She begins by insisting on the unparalleled character of the ingratitudewith which our hero has been met. He has been subjected to a similarlyunprecedented quantity of “difficulty” (fatica). None of this, however, andespecially not his having been led into this “ferocious and strong” place,may be attributed to any error on his part. It was rather, in the beautifulwoman’s estimation, chance or fate (sorte) that was opposed to his “goodwork” (III.76–81). If the hero is the lover of (ancient) wisdom or the philosopher,wisdom herself tells him that the philosopher and philosophy havefallen under the empire of Circe through no fault of their own. It is merelychance that philosophy should be subjected to such savage hardship. Thissubjection, however, ought not to be a cause of lamentation. One need onlyobserve the heavens and the heavenly bodies in their constant, restless wandering,“now high, now low,” and a similar restlessness visible both in thesky, sometimes shadowed, sometimes “lucid and clear,” and on the earth,where nothing maintains a constant condition, to know that human affairsmust reflect the perpetual revolutions of nature, where motion necessarilyUniversity of Chicago Press, 1998), 107–11.

2 9 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3predominates over rest (III.88–99). It is from these fluctuating conditions inhuman affairs, rooted in, or reflective of, the motions of nature that our hero’smisfortune springs. But as the heavens alter and their hostile “humors” arepurged, human affairs will alter and “there will return times more felicitousthan ever.” The pleasure and delight produced by these glad times will sotransform his understanding of his prior afflictions that the memory even orprecisely of these afflictions will then be a source of joy (III.100–111).Until that time, however, “that Providence which maintains the humanspecies” “wills” that to his current afflictions he add that of covering himself“under a new skin”—the hide of an ass. By these means Providence notonly provides him with a shield against bad weather, but also makes surethat, under its cover, he may “roam the world seeking,” that is, continue tophilosophize. The will of this providence is directed by these means to hisgreater good (III.115–20). This providence does not seem to be a species ofdivine governance: the beautiful woman does not appeal to god or gods inthis context, but, as we have seen, to the revolutions of nature and naturalbodies. It is a natural providence, then, in which the beautiful woman putsher faith. The nature of things, according to her understanding, supportsthe human species and ensures that its advantage is ultimately secured: theorderly disorder of change, bringing evil or a “tough star,” must ultimatelyusher in “times more felicitous than ever.” Such a state of affairs could bedescribed as providential toward the human species, however, only if thegood were so infused within the nature of things as to ensure the permanentpossibility and availability of the good for man despite or even because of thepresence of real and necessary evil.The most manifest and significant of the evils confronting our hero is thesubordination of the beautiful woman to Circe and the confinement of thehero to her dark and savage wood. “Unless…the philosophers rule as kingsor those now called kings and chiefs genuinely and adequately philosophize,and political power and philosophy coincide in the same place…there is norest from the evils for the cities.” 34 The apparent impossibility of the rule ofphilosophy in the city is the necessary evil that has resulted in the furtherevil of the absorption of philosophy by Christian theology. In the absenceof the rule of philosophy, various claimants to rule, lacking a proper rightto rule, must assume authority in its place. The Christian priesthood in takingon this authority has subordinated philosophy to its rule and made it a34Plato, Republic 473c–d (trans. Allan Bloom, with slight change).

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 9 7“handmaiden” to its “divine science.” Yet the beautiful woman suggests thatsuch necessary evils are necessary also and above all to preserve the goodof man. Philosophy cannot rule in the cities because the element in whichphilosophy is alive is doubt and inquiry; while the city lives of necessity inthe element of opinion. Only opinion or compulsion, therefore, can exercisepolitical rule. The cave cannot be made to ascend into the light of the sun. Thefoundation of this impossibility, however, is the inalterable double nature ofman: “walkers” and “runners.” No persuasion or force is powerful enough totransform a nonphilosopher into a philosopher. But this is all to the advantageof philosophy insofar as the very possibility of philosophy is premisedupon the permanence of the distinction between belief and opinion, on onehand, and doubt and truth, on the other. 35 The same inalterable conditionsthat make the elimination of evil from the cities of men impossible renderpossible the existence of philosophy. The current climate may obscure, butit cannot abolish those conditions, and those conditions must, in the courseof the revolutions of the political lives of men, come to the fore again. 36 Thetheocracy ingredient in the orders of Christian politics cannot help butweaken those same orders and lead inevitably to their decline. In the wakeof that decline one can anticipate a return to sounder, more “natural” politicalorders. In the meantime the present and temporary (and also future orpermanent) evils of political life require that the hero and all who are of hiskind adopt a prudential esotericism in the conduct of their inquiries and theexpression of their thought.The beautiful woman has presented us with something like a teleologicalaccount of the nature of things and human affairs. It is a teleological accountin which chance and necessity are granted a genuine and independentexistence and real evils prove to be that without which the good would beunavailable. This is the view concerning the good that Machiavelli attributesto ancient philosophy. 37 That Machiavelli’s hero himself seems to endorse this35Moreover, the erotic and therefore private character of philosophy—made visible in the love affairbetween the hero and the beautiful woman—makes its translation into a public and spirited enterpriseimpossible. As we shall see, it is not philosophy that is made to “go public” through Machiavelli’s novelstrategy, but a new science of politics and morality; and that science, like all science, is on a non- orsubphilosophical level.36Aquinas, Siger of Brabant, and Bonaventure, On the Eternity of the World, trans. Vollert, Kendzierski,and Byrne (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1964), 93; Aristotle, On Generation andCorruption 337b25–338b20; Plato, Laws 676b–c.37Plato, Timaeus 47e–48a, 51d–53c; Theaetetus 176a; Aristotle, Physics 2.9. See Seth Benardete, TheArgument of the Action: Essays in Greek Poetry and Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,2000), 381–82; John M. Cooper, “Hypothetical Necessity and Natural Teleology,” in PhilosophicalIssues in Aristotle’s Biology, ed. Allan Gotthelf and James Lennox (Cambridge: Cambridge University

2 9 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3same viewpoint is clear when, after having enjoyed fully the charms of hisbeloved, he abandons his earlier assumption that the good he enjoys is relatedonly adventitiously to the evil from which he suffers, and instead declares,“Blessed be your beauties! Blessed be the time when I set foot in the forest”(IV.132–33). 38 He comes round, that is, to the position articulated by Dante atthe opening of his Comedy (Inf. 1.1–9).The account of the hero’s intimacy with the beautiful woman tells usmore about what stood in the way of that intimacy than about the characterof this union itself. The seemingly naked beauties of the hero’s belovedhave the same effect upon him that would be produced if she were covered in“nettles or brambles” (IV.105)—rather than encouraging his virtue, they renderit inoperative. Why this is the case is the puzzle that chapter 4 proposesfor solution.At the opening of the chapter the hero, to all appearances, accepts theproposals that the beautiful woman has made in regard to the conduct necessaryon his part to endure the malignant times in which he finds himself. Indoing so he seems to suggest that he understands that conduct as followingthe precedent set by Dante: “if I had to go through infernal doors toward thegood of which you spoke, it would please me” (IV.7–8). 39 As we have alreadyindicated, however, the hero will accept the beautiful woman’s recommendationonly with significant qualification and in doing so will depart fromDante’s precedent. Machiavelli’s departure from Dante is signaled by the factthat his hero, though willing like Dante to pass through hell in pursuit ofthe good, is shown in his relations to his beloved to be much more down toearth than Dante in his relations to his. The protagonist of the Comedy nevereats during the course of his journey and drinks but once of waters that areclearly exclusively allegorical in character. He is certainly not permitted toindulge in the pleasures of sex with the one woman who might have enjoyedsuch pleasures with him, namely, Matelda. 40 The hero of The Ass, by contrast,shares a meal with his beloved and then is invited by her to share her bed.The needs and satisfactions of the body will not be neglected in Machiavelli’sPress, 1987), 262–65.38See Discourses, 3.37.139The beautiful woman is so pleased with his declaration that she embraces and kisses him for thefirst time, declaring him to be a “discreet soul” and promising that his suffering will lead him not onlyto the good but, ultimately, to fame and glory (IV.13–18).40Apart from Dante himself, Matelda is the only other living human being encountered within thepages of the Comedy. That the beautiful woman not only stands in for Dante’s Virgil but also, andequally, for Matelda is made clear when one compares IV.109–11 with Purgatorio, 28.70–74.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary2 9 9account. His presentation will exclude the “idealism” of Dante and the philosophicaltradition even or especially when treating of the beautiful.Still, that the “idealism” of ancient philosophy is the topic underlyingthe description of the charms of the beautiful woman’s body seems to beindicated by the fact that the author declares himself incapable of portrayingthem without the aid of the Muses. Towards the center of this portrayal theauthor-hero describes the beauties of his beloved’s mouth, including aboveall her tongue and her voice (IV.70–78). This description is the key to thesignificance of all of the beautiful woman’s charms and to the explanationof the reticence that they at first inspire in the hero. The hero attributes themaking of the beautiful woman’s mouth to Jove, the god of the law and thename the beautiful woman employs, after the manner of Dante, to designatethe Christian god. How could the god of the law, let alone the god ofAbraham, be held responsible for the creation of the mouth of the figure representingancient wisdom? The voice that issues from the beautiful woman’smouth is said to possess the capacity to “stop the winds and make plantsmove” through the sweetness of its harmony (IV.76–78). This metaphor isof Dantean and, ultimately, Ovidean provenance. At the beginning of thesecond book of his Il Convivio, Dante describes how the allegorical meaningthat lies behind the literal sense of the fables of the poets is the truth thattheir “beautiful lies” convey. He employs Ovid’s account of Orpheus as anexample: when Ovid says that “with his lyre Orpheus tamed wild beasts andmade trees and rocks move toward him,” his words convey the allegoricalsense that “the wise man with the instrument of his voice makes cruel heartsgrow tender and humble and moves to his will those who do not devote theirlives to knowledge and art, for those who have no rational life whatever arealmost like stones.” Allegorically interpreted, Orpheus’s song points to therhetorical self-presentation of ancient wisdom. It signifies, that is, the apologeticalrhetoric deployed by the ancients to reconcile the majority of men tothe presence of philosophy in their midst despite their natural opposition toit. Through this allusion, Machiavelli indicates that the voice of the beautifulwoman, with its sweetness and harmony, has an identical significance. Itis this rhetorical self-presentation of ancient wisdom, then, that leads to thefailure of virtue that the hero experiences in the presence of the beautifulwoman’s charms such that, “timid and ashamed” like a new bride, his naturaldesire falters, overpowered by shame. The mouth of the beautiful womanmay plausibly be described as “made” by the hand of “Jove,” then, because theeffects of the sweetness of her voice are similar to the effects of Circe and herlegions—they emasculate.

3 0 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Machiavelli suggests that the apologetical rhetoric of ancient philosophy41 leads to a suppression of nature through the encouraging of somethinglike lawful shame or a fear of the bad reputation consequent upon departurefrom conventional moral opinion. One need only consider a few examplesdrawn from the dialogues of Plato in order to lend a degree of plausibilityto this suggestion. Plato’s Socrates insists that it is better to suffer injusticethan to commit it; that it is never right for “someone to whom evil is doneto defend himself by doing evil in return”; and that the proper understandingof just action is not doing “good to friends and harm to enemies” butrefraining from harming anyone at all. 42 Ancient philosophy, in its rhetoricalself-presentation, not only appeals to conventional or lawful morality and theshame that supports it, but “improves” upon or “purifies” that lawful moralityby rendering its claims “consistent” and, therefore, stricter. Philosophy,in this way, appears as a teacher of a new morality, superior to and moredemanding than that of the political community. 43 Machiavelli, therefore,indicates that by these means ancient philosophy both paved the way for thereception of the Christian teaching—which, in its moral aspect, appears tobe similarly strict, demanding, and pure—and also erected an obstacle forthe uninitiated to the understanding of the true intention of philosophy, anintention that requires for its fulfillment a shameless courage in pursuit of thetruth of nature.We might add that the most famous and perhaps most effective defense ofphilosophy penned by an ancient author, Plato’s Apology of Socrates, deflectsthe charge of not believing in the gods of the city leveled by the Atheniansagainst Socrates and philosophy in general by making it appear that Socratesin the conduct of his philosophizing follows the command of a god whosedivinity transcends the city and who has made Socrates his sole instrumentfor the instruction and improvement of the Athenians (20c–23e, 28e–29a,30d–31b). That instruction seems to lead to the conclusion that the truth ofthe good, the just, and the beautiful is to be found not in the laws and practicesof the city, let alone in the political actions of men, but solely in the conduct ofSocrates in the pursuit of his philosophy, and that therefore the “unexaminedlife is not worth living for a human being” (38a). Since, however, the political41By “apologetical rhetoric of ancient philosophy” I simply mean that exoteric self-presentation ofphilosophy that is designed to effect an accommodation with conventional opinion and thereby providea defensive covering for philosophy.42Plato, Gorgias 469c; Crito 49d; Republic 335d.43Plato reveals this issue in all of its complexity in the Symposium through the reactions of Apollodorusand Alcibiades to the speeches and deeds of Socrates.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary3 0 1life as such is necessarily the unexamined life, measured by the standardof the transpolitical good and the transpolitical divine, civic life is drainedof all substantial worth. The life of the citizen, deprived of the gods of thecity and lacking the properly human good, is a non- or subhuman life. Thedenigration of political life by the apologetical rhetoric of ancient philosophypaves the way for the similar, if more effective, denigration of political life byChristianity and thereby for the depoliticization of man.Despite or because of its transpolitical character, therefore, ancient philosophypresents itself as the end of human life. Even if philosophy cannotrule in the cities of men, it governs in this sense: it is the highest good. ThisPlatonic teaching appears to prepare the ground for the Christian doctrinethat the divine or spiritual destiny of man is the proper end of man’s lifesimply and so also of his political life, which is justified or redeemed only asa means to the fulfillment of this end.Thus, in Machiavelli’s view, the character of the defense of philosophyoffered by the ancients made possible the illegitimate “alliance” of philosophyand the Christian religion and thereby paved the way for the latter’sacceptance. 44 Such a defense, however, is wholly self-defeating in the moderncontext. One can no longer provide advantage to philosophy by concealing itbeneath a cloak of moral idealism, let alone Christian piety.Here is the foundation for that opinion which is manifest on the face ofall of Machiavelli’s writings, especially the Prince and the Discourses, namely,the opinion that political philosophy may be preserved intact while jettisoningan appeal to a “purified” morality, the transpolitical divine, and the ruleof wisdom as the best regime. Machiavelli seems to take these to be aspectsof the apologetical intention of ancient philosophy alone and, therefore, anexternal “idealism” that may be peeled away and discarded without transformingthe core of political philosophy. One might be led to suspect on thesegrounds that he is insufficiently aware of the inseparability of the apologeticalfrom the philosophical intention of ancient thought. The “idealism” of theancients is the indispensible starting point of their inquiry, since that inquiryis guided by the insight that the speeches or opinions of political life are ofgreater weight than the deeds of political life or that what men say is a moreeffective clue to the nature of things than what men do. One cannot turn44Machiavelli also indicates that the fact that the apologetical rhetoric of ancient philosophy hasresulted in great harm to both the political community and philosophy itself shows that it is not possibleto benefit one’s friends while harming no one. Even or especially such remedies required for thedefense of the good ultimately result in both extrinsic and intrinsic evils.

3 0 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3from what men “ought to do” to what men in fact do without sacrificing thecore of political philosophy as embodied in Socrates’s turn to the speeches. 45The hero’s flagging virtue revives only when, under the encouragementof the beautiful woman, he relinquishes sight for touch in their encounter.He ceases to gaze from a distance at the beautiful externals of ancient wisdomand proceeds to touch upon its internal truth. 46 When he lets his handsroam over the beautiful woman’s body he affirms the truth that Machiavelliappears to understand to be the central teaching of ancient philosophy(IV.124–35). That teaching is pointed to by Machiavelli’s description of thebodily organ that is the source of the sweet and harmonious speeches of thebeautiful woman—her tongue, which moves “like a serpent between her lips”(IV.75). The serpentine knowledge of good and evil and their necessary relation—the“teleology of evil” of ancient philosophy 47 —is the truth which thehero grasps when he penetrates the external beauty of his beloved. He comesto understand that, at its core, ancient philosophy is not only transpolitical,but transmoral in character. With this insight the hero’s virtue returns andmakes possible the pleasure of their coupling. Yet his embracing the beautifulwoman and her teaching leads to a specific kind of lack of awareness on hispart: “full of amorous gestures and words, wrapped up in those angelic beauties,”he becomes forgetful of “human things” (IV.136–38). He has arrived onthe Isles of the Blessed. 4845Thus the beautiful is a central issue for the political philosophy of the ancients; while, startingwith Machiavelli and following in his footsteps, modern political philosophy puts the beautiful at aradical discount. All discussion of the beautiful as an object of philosophical concern is conspicuouslyabsent from the thought of Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, and Spinoza, that is, those inheritors ofMachiavelli’s thought who are the founders of modernity. This discounting of the beautiful is weddedto modern philosophy’s constant emphasis on the issue of self-preservation. The selfless character ofadmiration, and the rushing outside oneself of longing before the beautiful are wholly alien to theconstant awareness of the need to defend and preserve the self that is a hallmark of modern thoughtas initiated by Machiavelli. As a consequence, philosophy is considered almost exclusively from thepoint of view of the conditions required to support and preserve it as the proper good for man, ratherthan as embodying the truth of the apparent freedom and self-sufficiency of the beautiful. Moreover,for the moderns philosophy at its origin is suffused with the practical aims and utility of prudence andthe arts, rather than finding its beginning in wonder (Plato, Theaetetus 155d; Aristotle, Metaphysics982b13–14). Wonder, of course, is held at arm’s length by the moderns because of its association withbelief in miracle (Machiavelli, Discourses, 3.14, 33). In the place of Socrates’s dictum that wonder is thebeginning of philosophy, the moderns substitute the Stoic maxim, “admire nothing” (Cicero, TusculanDisputations 3.14.30; Horace, Epistles 1.6.1). Nevertheless, consider the author-hero’s descriptionof his beloved in IV.55–81.46Machiavelli, Prince, chap. 18: “Men in general judge more by their eyes than by their hands, becauseseeing is given to all, touching to a few.”47Benardete, Argument of the Action, 382.48Plato, Republic 519c.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary3 0 3That the hero counts even the beautiful woman’s serpentine teachingregarding good and evil as a portion of her “angelic beauties” and that thisteaching itself renders him forgetful of human things raises the suspicionthat Machiavelli considers this teaching about the good to be too good to betrue and, therefore, a teaching not about the good, but rather the apparentgood, or the beautiful. The idealism of ancient philosophy permeates it to itscore. Our suspicion is confirmed when the hero is left to his own thoughts forthe time during which the beautiful woman must attend to her herd at Circe’sbehest. He is like “one who is suspicious of various things, and confuses himself,desiring the good that he does not anticipate” (V.25–27).The hero begins to doubt that portion of the beautiful woman’s accountaccording to which one may rely upon chance and necessity to produce a situationin which the good is made effectively available. Yet the general thrustof the hero’s solitary reflections seems to confirm rather than contradict hisbeloved’s declarations regarding the revolutions of the natural bodies andhuman affairs. The author-hero claims that he considered past things and“ancient peoples” and their fortunes (V.28–33). Nevertheless, though hecertainly mentions Sparta and Athens, he also takes note of the fortunes of contemporaryVenice and the German states (V.49–63). He calls these reflectionsa “discourse” (V.31) and discussions of all these cities figure in Machiavelli’sDiscourses on Livy alongside the manifest topic of that work—the characterand history of Rome and her empire. The hero, however, in a remarkableomission, seems never to refer to Rome, her history, or her empire. Instead, onthe basis of the fortunes of the cities he does consider, he develops an accountthat seems to be a restatement of the beautiful woman’s position and a confirmationof Machiavelli’s suggestion at the beginning of the Discourses thatthere is a perpetually recurring cycle of regimes (V.94–105). That such a cycleis necessary must remain undemonstrated, however, given the short life ofany one city, and in any case revolutions of regimes can be arrested, it wouldappear, by the establishment of a mixed regime through the agency of eitherprudence or chance or both. Rome was one such mixed regime. 49Though unnamed by the hero, Rome is implicitly present in his discoursewhen he acknowledges that a “realm that is driven by virtue or by necessityto act, will always see itself go upward” (V.79–81). Rome, by Machiavelli’saccount in the Discourses, was a regime propelled by both virtue and necessityon such a continual ascent. Rome is the exception that disproves the49Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.2

3 0 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3ostensible rule of the recurring cycle of regimes. The unchecked expansion ofRome’s dominion over the course of several centuries, however, effected theelimination of political life by political means, that is, the complete destructionof political freedom within the territories of her empire and the city ofRome itself. 50 This destruction in turn paved the way for the complementaryelimination of the vestiges of the political by theological means that was thework of Christianity: political freedom, the thought of such freedom, and,finally, freedom of thought itself, were suppressed. Rome’s unlimited ascent,so to speak, was in fact an unstoppable descent, a descent continued andexpanded by the New Rome. The free-fall initiated and driven on by the twoRomes seems to call into question the beautiful woman’s sanguine assessmentof the infiltration of necessity by the good such that the providence of natureinevitably turns evil to advantage. The diminution of man’s political characterand the unchecked decline of “postpolitical” affairs seems to suggest that men,taken on the subphilosophical level, are more malleable and necessity moreindependent of the good than the ancients, by Machiavelli’s account, werewilling to admit. 51 The existence of a natural providence is dubious. 52Indeed, rather than a reversal of fortune and the initiation of an ascentfrom the present low point anticipated by the beautiful woman, the most likelyevent on the horizon of the immediate future would appear to be a “flood”that will sweep everything away before it: the Turks, unified and ordered to adegree unknown to European politics, wait upon the frontier for an opportunityto acquire. 53 The very survival of Europe has been put in jeopardy by theempire of Circe. But through an accident of the manner in which Circe wascompelled to acquire that empire—not by the sword but by the power of thepen, that is, by means of persuasion and propaganda—the books and the languagesof ancient wisdom have been left in her hands. 54 Since the eliminationof philosophy has already been accomplished in the lands of the caliph, the50Machicavelli, Discourses, 2.2; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 118.51Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 253.52Seth Benardete commented upon this difference between the ancient and the modern points ofview in regard to the discrepant premises of their natural philosophies: “You might put it this way,Aristotle seems to have underestimated the matter-like character of matter, which we call inertia.Inertia is equivalent to Sod’s law…[which] states that if something can go wrong it will: if you’re goingto a picnic it will rain. That is, this absolute nitty-gritty of things, which resists one’s will, plays a muchlarger role in the world than Aristotle thought it did” (unpublished transcript of lectures on Aristotle’sMetaphysics, lecture 13, p. 17).53Machiavelli, Prince; Discourses, 2.4.2: “Since we are prey to this ignorance, we are prey to whoeverhas wished to overrun this province.”54Machiavelli, Discourses, 2.5; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 144.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary3 0 5fall of Europe to the Turks and the defeat of Christianity by Islam would meanthe eradication of philosophy or the remnants of philosophy from the world. 55It would usher in the extinction for the foreseeable future of the conditionsrequired for the cultivation of the human mind in the proper sense.We are now in a position to understand the implicit disagreement betweenthe hero and the beautiful woman in regard to whether or not the hero, thatis, the philosopher, is in any way responsible for his having been consignedto the savage wood. The beautiful woman absolved him of all responsibility;while he himself, if his shame had not stood in the way, would have made hisfirst speech to her a declaration of his culpability on this score: in his ownestimation his “little wit, vain hope, and vain opinion led [him] to ruin inthis place” (II.82–87). It is not primarily the adoption of several elements ofthe rhetorical apologetics of ancient philosophy by the Christian religion tothe disadvantage of philosophy and the political orders of men to which thehero in his thoughts refers—something of this sort is perhaps inevitable. 56He seems to refer rather to the fact that ancient philosophy, in the light ofits inordinate optimism regarding the providence of the good, consideredspeech or writing alone sufficient as a means of defense. In perfect agreementwith the ancients in taking philosophy to be the proper good for man, Machiavelliparts company with the ancients in his assessment of the reliability ofa support for that good effective even or especially through the operationsof chance and necessity. 57 He seems to be more struck by the precarious andfragile character of the good vis-à-vis the nature of things than his predecessors,and appears to conclude that nature may be more hostile or indifferentin this regard than they had conceived.The practical lesson to be drawn from these meditations is that philosophymust act to secure its own conditions of existence in a world in which55Machiavelli has always before him the fate of philosophy in the context dominated by the secondgreat universalist revealed religion: it was effectively exterminated.56It is inevitable that the defense of philosophy, appealing to and absorbed by opinion, shouldultimately pose an obstacle or threat to philosophy, since that defense is “understood” by the nonphilosopher,and the distinctive trait of the nonphilosopher and of opinion is that they are not simplyalien, but opposed to philosophy. The premises of opinion are the alleged solutions to those problemsthat are the permanent and animating source of philosophical inquiry. Opinion, in pretending tosolve the human problem, intends the elimination of the human.57Unlike Plato and Aristotle, Machiavelli takes the possibility of philosophy and the goodness of thelife devoted to philosophy for granted. He presupposes the ancients’ demonstration that philosophyis both the way of life proper to a human being and that that way of life, and so human life as such, isgood. Taking these points as given, he turns his attention instead to the preconditions of that life inorder to secure, promote, or revive those preconditions.

3 0 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3such conditions are not guaranteed. The apologetical speeches of philosophymust be directed for the first time toward generating deeds that will alter thecondition of all men so as to preserve or reinstate those conditions conduciveto the existence of those men devoted to the pursuit of philosophy. Effectivedefense requires broad offensive measures and philosophy must be willing togo to war. If the beautiful woman is the savior of our hero, he must effect hersalvation in turn and do so precisely by taking on a task unknown to or atleast unattempted by her: spiritual warfare directed to the founding of newmodes and orders. 58 This spiritual warfare will be devoted to defeating theremnants of the empire of Circe over the minds of men as a precondition forestablishing a new empire on new foundations. It is Machiavelli’s view thatthe true captains and the true founders are the greatest authors and that thewritings of these men lay the groundwork for whatever is built by the politicalmen who are the imitators of the “imitations” of these writers. Thus Scipiowas an imitator of Xenophon’s imitation of Cyrus, and Caesar an imitatorof Alexander who was, in turn, an imitator of Homer’s imitation of Achilles,and, finally, Machiavelli implies, any faithful Christian is an imitator ofthe imitation of Jesus that is the work of the Christian authors, Paul aboveall. 59 Machiavelli will turn the weapons of Paul against Paul and combat theregnant Pauline doctrine with a new Machiavellian doctrine designed to cutaway the branches and tear up the roots of the Christian plantations.In the final three chapters of The Ass, Machiavelli gives us a taste of thecharacter of this new anti-Pauline teaching. In doing so he reveals that thisteaching is no less asinine than the teaching that now prevails, but is neverthelessfar from being, after the fashion recommended by the beautifulwoman, in external conformity to it. If the hero-author is to take on the guiseof an ass, it will not be of the kind that afforded Jesus a vehicle to his pacificconquest of Jerusalem and from there the world.On her return in the evening from her quotidian duties, the beautifulwoman fulfills the promise she had made to the hero to take him to a placewhere he could discover “the total condition of our state” (VI.30). She nowshows him the natures of men as they present themselves on the contemporarystage and as illuminated by the teachings and examples of ancient58Though unknown to her, this task can only be accomplished with her support: the discovery andfounding of new modes and orders presupposes the knowledge of sites, which can only be gained byrecourse to ancient wisdom. Ancient wisdom is that undefended “peak” above the position of theenemy that represents “the citadel of our hope and salvation” (Discourses, 3.40.2).59Machiavelli, Prince, chap. 14.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary3 0 7wisdom. Their variety reflects the perennial diversity of species found withinthe human genus; their similarity, the peculiar condition of human natureunder the rule of Circe: men are weak. Near the center of the list recountingthe series of animals he observes, the hero mentions “one ass so ill-disposed,that he could not even carry the packsaddle” (VII.70–72). The specificfeebleness of this ass is not to be found in his incapacity on the farm or inthe marketplace, but in his worthlessness as an instrument of war. 60 Ourhero-author will not stoop to portray his own condition as one that entailsenfeeblement when it comes to carrying provisions or munitions for combat.His assumed asininity will be openly warlike in aspect. Machiavelli, that is,will appear as a thinker whose thought is never lifted from the things of warand whose prudence is wholly in the service of warfare and its aims—victoryand the glory and acquisition that accrue to it. 61 His teaching will appearthen as philosophy or, more precisely, a new science in the service of the cityand especially the city as an engine geared to war. This bellicose science willappear to be entirely subordinate to political life and the belligerent endsof political life. Philosophy will no longer come forward, therefore, as thetruth of the transpolitical divine and the transpolitical good. That elevatedground, after all, is now occupied by the opposing forces, and it appears tobe Machiavelli’s view that any appeal to such a position would only solidifyChristianity’s hold on that terrain. Philosophy attacks that position while orby retreating behind the mask of a novel political science built on “low butsolid ground.”Machiavelli may appear wholly warlike in his intention, but he cannot helpbut appear extremely weak as far as the disposition of his forces is concerned.At the outset of his campaign he stands alone. Thus while having rejected outwardconformity to the tastes and pleasures of the reigning prince, he cannotafford, at least initially, to declare open hostility to that prince, whose position,despite the corruption of his orders, remains strong. 62 He must conductconcealed, not open warfare. He must then oppose Circe and her Prince ofPeace on the terrain of certain teachings that, though necessary consequencesof their essential or core doctrines, are not directly associated with those doctrines:to all appearances, Machiavelli eschews any discussion of physics or60That warfare in relation to ancients and moderns is the issue here is made clear when the hero summarizesthe conclusions he has arrived at on the basis of his inspection of the animals: “How manyalready seemed Fabiuses and Catos, who, since I learned of their being there, turned out to be sheepand rams” (VII.100–102).61Machiavelli, Prince, chap. 15.62Machiavelli, Discourses, 3.2.

3 0 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3natural philosophy, and metaphysics and its “sister science” theology appearto be entirely beyond his ken. 63 Instead he comes forward to offer a teachingconcerning a new morality appropriate to his exclusive emphasis on the politicalas determined by combat. This new moral teaching, as directed to the aimsand shaped by the hard necessities of war, will be allowed to dispense withany appeal to the sacred and any divinity but the god or goddess of war—Fortuna.The new political science, while ostensibly taking men as they are, notas they ought to be, will offer a portrait of man unrestrained by the limits ofthe sacred and unconcerned, when properly aware of the universal sway ofnecessity, with any divine reward or retribution. 64The specifics of this teaching, however, will be, of necessity, determinedby the specific character of the opponent to be confronted and defeated.Machiavelli gives us a portrait of that opponent as determinative of his ownnew moral teaching in the figure of the “big fat pig.” The pig is the perfectlysatisfied and loyal subject of Circe’s subpolitical regime: he is convinced ofthe superior status of his bestial condition and the vicious defectiveness ofthe human. The pig, that is, represents the moral and political teaching ofChristianity detached from its association with its more “sublime” doctrines,for example, its eschatology and theology.The pig’s argument, given in rejection of the hero’s offer to return himto his human shape, is meant to demonstrate the extreme inferiority of thehuman in comparison to the animal. It is a condemnation of the humanthings. Though “all marked with shit and mud” the pig is capable of providinga lucidly ordered account and structures his argument tightly aroundthe roster of the cardinal virtues, proceeding to demonstrate that in the caseof, for example, prudence and courage, men are on all points defective incomparison to the natural perfection of animals. Man is above all morallydefective. One might grant the moral failings of men and yet still doubt thatanimals could possibly fulfill the requirements of the moral law. Accordingto the pig, however, nature tends towards and supports the moral good andthe virtuous dispositions of animals are evidence of this. The pig, therefore,offers his own version of a natural teleology, if one infinitely cruder andmore conventional than that offered by the beautiful woman. In the pig’s eye,63However, see Discourses, 2.5; also Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 208–23.64In Machiavelli’s writings, parricide and incest are taken to be unexceptional or even quotidian anda point is made of asserting that pious observance can never win a battle, nor prayer preserve a kingdom.Hobbes simply follows Machiavelli’s lead in constructing his prepolitical foundation of politicalsociety, the state of nature, along similar lines.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary3 0 9nature, when unobstructed, is directed toward the good as the pig conceivesit as its proper end. Nothing in the nature of things, therefore, compels manto evil. Man in his immorality is contra naturam. Man is perversely evil.Man’s perverse or unnatural malice is shown in his migrations, whichrun directly contrary to those of the beasts. Animals flee insalubrious climatesto seek out friendly sites, “as nature who teaches this desires”; whereasmen leave a healthy climate for one that is “rotten and sickly.” What compelsthem to this imprudent behavior is their “dishonest appetite for having”(VIII.49–66). Man’s avarice drives him to actions that run against the grainof the teaching of nature. The superior natures of the beasts are also on displaywhen it comes to the strength and courage they exhibit, both of whichmanifest themselves simply as an abundance of spirit and an inability toendure slavery. 65 Man cannot hope to live up to the standard set by certainbeasts in this regard unless, like the Romans, they are driven on by a “hopefor triumph or other glory” (VIII.67–81).Man’s avarice and his pride are condemned by the pig as vicious in comparisonto the natural prudence and courage of the beasts. The pig echoesthe doctrine of Dante’s Ciacco, who also condemns the Florentines—and byimplication all men—for their pride, envy, and avarice (Inferno, Canto 6).But just as in the case of Ciacco’s account of the corruption of Florence, thepig condemns men for those passions that, though “unnatural,” neverthelesslie at the foundation of political life and that, when properly developed anddirected, provide for the freedom and greatness of the city. Praising natureand the beasts, the pig condemns the political life of men. It is man’s politicalcharacter that he judges to be perverse in relation to a nature reinterpreted onthe basis of a “pure” or severe, and in any case antipolitical, morality. It is not,however, only his political character that the pig condemns in his condemnationof man’s desires for limitless wealth and eternal fame. These desirespoint in the direction of man’s more essential trait: his limitless desire foreternal truth.That the pig finds this aspect of the human equally culpable is made clearwhen he turns to boast of the superiority of the beasts when it comes to the65The pig here abstracts completely from the case of domesticated animals, among which he, ofcourse, must be numbered, despite his dreams of wild freedom. The domesticated animals have, byhis account, sold their birthright for a mess of potage. All “animals,” through the power of Circe’senchantments, however, have now been domesticated. The pig cannot consistently defend the superiorcourage of the “beasts,” that is, the inhabitants of Circe’s realm or the Christian faithful. When itcomes to courage he hasn’t got a leg to stand on, let alone four.

3 1 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3virtue of temperance or moderation. Men follow “Venus…without measure…in every time and place” (VII.91–93) and the most refined of men’s senses,touch, simply increases the itch that only Venus can scratch (VIII.112–17). Aswe have seen, however, Machiavelli, following Aristotle, associates an exquisitesense of touch with the possession of intellect and the apprehension oftruth. 66 The pig’s exaltation of the virtue of animal life necessarily entails thecelebration of mindlessness. The pig condemns both man’s political characterand his rational nature. This condemnation of the political character of man,however, obviates the need for the pig to compare beasts with men in regardto the fourth and final of the cardinal virtues, namely, justice. As the paradigmaticpolitical virtue, justice must be discounted in light of his negativeassessment of political life. 67Machiavelli’s novel moral teaching will invert that of the pig when itcomes to all of its chief points. It will recognize the naturalness of the desirefor gain and condemn only the failure to acquire the knowledge necessary tosatisfy that desire. It will insist that glory in this world is the supreme goodbeyond which none other may be had. Above all, however, it will deny theprinciple of the pig’s teaching, namely, that nature has as its end the (moral)good and that any deviation from that end, that is, the practice of (moral)evil, is contrary to nature. Nature will rather be shown to be indifferent if nothostile to the (moral) good and men’s “wickedness” to be compelled by theharshness of a near universal necessity. Men, he will argue, are by nature andin accordance with necessity “bad,” but their “badness,” if properly understoodand deployed, can lay the foundation of every civic good. A hostilenature and an inconstant fortune will be asserted to be the natural conditionsof man. And, in the wake of their discarding all of their teleological prejudices,men will be encouraged to set about mastering and subduing bothfortune and nature. 68 By these means Machiavelli sets out to undermine orcorrupt the dominance of the Christian teaching over the minds of men andlead them to a readiness to accept modes and orders that are “wholly new.”In The Ass we are given to understand that the novel moral teachingsoutlined above are the loud and asinine exterior of Machiavelli’s thought. The66Aristotle, De anima 421a 22–27.67His speech does conclude with a reference to the injuries that human beings inflict upon oneanother: “one hog to another hog causes no pain. …Man by another man is slain, crucified, and plundered”(VIII.142–44). This statement, however, is in praise not of the justice but the peacefulness ofanimals and involves a barely disguised reference to the fate of the “apolitical” Prince of Peace amongmen of the most intensely political and warlike disposition—the Romans.68Machiavelli, Prince, chap. 25; Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 167.

Ancients and Moderns under the Empire of Circe: Machiavelli’s The Ass, Commentary3 1 1controlling source for this exterior, however, its intrinsic philosophical core,is revealed most clearly in Machiavelli’s quiet dialogue with ancient philosophyregarding the question of what support may be found in the nature ofthings for the human good or how necessity and chance operate to advanceor thwart the possibility of philosophy. Even in its extrinsic teaching, however,and especially in the aims that shape and guide it, Machiavelli’s partialagreement with the ancients can be detected: both Machiavelli and his predecessorsrecognize the theologico-political problem as among those centralproblems to which the inquiry of political philosophy must be devoted. Theyperhaps disagree concerning the degree to which that problem may be ameliorated,but they do not disagree on its urgency and importance. 6969Machiavelli seems to have deduced from the depoliticization of man effected by the Roman empireand the Christian religion, the possibility of man’s “secularization” at the hands of a new, politicallyeffective science. Ordinary men, he concedes, must always be ruled by opinions, and opinion mustalways be at the foundation of political life, but those opinions can be modified, in his view, in such away as to exclude, to an unprecedented degree, man’s reliance on the sacred and the divine.

3 1 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3

Liberal Education Imperiled3 1 3Liberal Education Imperiled: Toward a Resurrectionof Reason and Revelation in Higher EducationE r i k S . Ro o tWest Liberty Universitychaireconphil@me.comNo two cities have counted more with mankind than Athensand Jerusalem. Their messages in religion, philosophy, and arthave been the main guiding lights of modern faith and culture.—Winston ChurchillLiberal education is an ideal imperiled. Some say that it is past decline andin ruins. 1 That may or may not be true. But what seems certain is that ourmodern colleges and universities suffer because they lack an understandingof their purpose. If it is true that higher education is beyond repair, we as academics,who still believe in liberal education, are thus left to wander amongthe ruins. There has been an overabundance of articles and books recognizingthe inadequacy of higher education. Anthony T. Kronman’s Education’sEnd: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning ofLife is another in a long list reflecting on the demise of liberal education.As Kronman, a professor at Yale, tells his story, he left college at an earlyage expecting to find the meaning of life in political activism. That experimentfailed and forced him to reconsider the role of higher education. Highereducation should address the most important questions about life, such ashow it should be lived and the all-important question of what life is for. Eachindividual must answer these questions for himself. But we are living in a1A recent article along these lines appeared on the website Inside Higher Ed: Victor E. Ferrall, “Canthe Liberal Arts Be Saved?,” http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2008/02/11/ferrall (accessed February13, 2008).© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

3 1 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3time when the question of life’s meaning is most neglected, even though thepurpose of college is to help students reflect on living in terms of the Good.This means that a liberal education is not one that is narrow in purpose—that is, for the training of students in order that they might obtain gainfulemployment—but one that forces students to look beyond mere monetarygain. To put it differently, there is more to life than simply getting a job, winningan election, or being practically deft at living in the immediacy thataccompanies this life. Higher education, while it may acknowledge and providevocational training, is much more than that; it is designed for studentsto consider a “life worth living.” 2In order for this kind of education to flourish, Kronman asserts, collegeshould be intellectually open, thus allowing the exploration of different“horizons.” 3 This is essentially the argument Allan Bloom made over twentyyears ago in his Closing of the American Mind. This approach admittedlytends to emphasize the mysteriousness of life, but it also will yield much fruitfor the individual. The purpose of liberal education must be kept in mind:“all liberal arts education is defined in consciously non-vocational terms. Itis not a preparation for this job or that, for one career rather than another.It is a preparation for the ‘job’ of living, which of course is not a job at all.” 4Persuading students of the value of liberal education may be a difficult andserious task, but they are in the perfect setting to consider the good life; theyare at leisure and have more nerve to challenge themselves and to questioncommonly accepted truths.Students are more likely to challenge themselves by reading great books.These books are great because they facilitate that conversation about whatour human existence means. However, Kronman laments that this has allbeen lost:Even a half-century ago, the question of life’s meaning had a morecentral and respected place in higher education than it does today. Butthe questions of how to spend one’s life, of what to care about and why,the question of which commitments, relations, projects, and pleasuresare capable of giving a life purpose and value: regardless of the nameit was given, and even if, as was often the case, it was given no nameat all, this question was taken more seriously by more of our colleges2Anthony T. Kronman, Education’s End (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 2–3, 9, 10–11,35, and 39. Many of Kronman’s criticisms were laid out more extensively in Eva T. H. Brann, Paradoxesof Education in a Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 23–30.3Kronman, Education’s End, 40.4Ibid., 41.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 1 5and universities in the middle years of the twentieth century than itis today. 5The aim of the great-books program, and the directed-studies program atYale, is no “anything goes” education. Kronman believes that educationshould prepare students to be good citizens in a democratic republic. Whenit comes to the consideration of the best life and how we ought to live it, theauthor asserts approvingly that students should be exposed to a myriad oftexts and immersed in a debate over that question which has gone unsolvedfor thousands of years: what is the good life? It may seem like this would leadto radical skepticism; if students are offered only possibilities, then they willnot have any certainty. What if, in their pursuit of the meaning of life, theydiscover life has no meaning? Kronman’s answer to this is a revival of secularhumanism because, perhaps surprisingly, he contends we are a societyplagued with certainty. He fears there is a “rising tide” of religious fundamentalismin the country: “the revival of secular humanism is needed to helpus be doubtful again.” 6 We need more uncertainty in our lives because of theinstitutional success of political correctness. Sowing doubt for doubt’s sake isnot his aim. Rather, Kronman wants to sow a disbelief in certainties that arebad. He does not appear to want to cause disbelief in good things, or goodideas. But what exactly does he deem good?There is much that is profitable in Kronman’s book, but I will limit mydiscussion to his ideas about religion and higher education. In a chapterdedicated to political correctness, Kronman appears to conclude that thedialogue between reason and revelation is important to Western civilization.He asserts that one of the two has been completely defeated in higher educationand no longer exists, much less is able to be addressed in the classroom.Higher education used to claim the authority to investigate life’s meaning,but that has since been abandoned. The only source that professes the abilityto do so in the modern world is the church. While our author claims thatchurch and college were once synonymous—a claim that may be disputedsomewhat—higher education is now unwilling to pursue the question of life’s5Ibid., 44. This is a disputed question. Some have argued that the twentieth century saw a declinein proper education. This includes Allan Bloom and Leo Strauss, along with traditionalists such asRichard Weaver.6Ibid., 255; see also 251–54; Ben Wildavsky, “Death of the Humanities,” Commentary, April 2008,68. Kronman is not speaking of conservatives simply, but all religious fundamentalism, on the leftand the right of the political spectrum. His critique is directed against religion per se since all are, heargues, intolerant in some way. It seems that, for Kronman, religious answers should be set aside, ordevalued, in the academy so that humanism may operate in freedom.

3 1 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3meaning. However, Kronman asserts that churches are woefully lacking intheir ability to address the question of the meaning of life, especially as itapplies to higher education. The reason for this is provocative.Religion cannot, by its very nature, be pluralistic. Secular humanismaccepts pluralism and different interpretations of the meaning of life. Religionmay be tolerant, but in the end, it must answer any question decisively. Themanner in which it arrives at such decisive answers sacrifices the intellect.Kronman contends that the mind must be left behind because the religiousbelieve in the finitude of human thought. While even secular humanistsconclude that human reason is finite in its abilities, they do not assert, asthe religious do, that there is something beyond reason able to carry us tothe truth. Religion is ultimately fundamentalist and intolerant. In the finalanalysis, it asserts that there is only one answer to the question of life’s meaning.Therefore, the most fundamentalist religion, and even the most tolerant,are, in the end, intolerant. In that religious sects reject pluralism and dismissat some point reason’s ability to know, it follows that religion is incapable ofserving the aim of higher education in any open way. 7 Is this true? Pope LeoXIII’s encyclical “On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy” is for the mostpart a positive appraisal of the role of the mind in discovering truth and themeaning of life absent of the authority of the church. 8Kronman laments that religious institutions are now practicing thatwhich higher education has abandoned, arguing that it impedes the questfor life’s meaning when churches are in charge of the investigation. In otherwords, our existence is left in the hands of clerics who ultimately will not toleratediffering answers to the question. One inconsistency about Kronman’sposition is that he wants it both ways—he wants students not to be relativists,yet his position seems in the end to foster precisely the type of relativism thathe finds disturbing in the modern university. He places his hopes in a revivalof secular humanism because it is more open to differing views about life’smeaning, but American universities have had a history of religious pluralismwithout fundamentalism. Further, he bemoans the fundamentalism ofreligious denominations in society, yet as such fundamentalism pertains to7Kronman, Education’s End, 162, 198–201.8Pope Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris (1879), http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris_en.html(accessed March 14, 2008). Pope Leo not onlypraises the early church fathers for their acceptance of Greek philosophy, but also lauds Thomas Aquinasand his ability to make Aristotle coherent in the church. Still, perhaps it is problematic that he alsoseems to consider theology the queen, the nondespotic ruler, of philosophy. The Catholic Church hasmade theology friendly to philosophy, but at what cost to philosophy?

Liberal Education Imperiled3 1 7higher education, those influences do not affect most colleges. They are fewindeed, and we could conclude they are ineffectual and not much of a threatto the purpose of higher education. By the author’s admission, religion doesnot have a role inside academe so it is hard to understand how there may bethat particular threat emanating from within. We ought not to dismiss thefunction of religion in higher education, however. It has had an important,and positive, impact in the past.Kronman notes that there were three stages of higher education: the ageof piety, the age of secular humanism, and the modern age, the latter of whichbegins in the 1960s and consists of the rejection of the importance of themeaning of life as a basis of study. The age of piety was one of dogmatism; theage of secular humanism is one in which dogmas were not taken for grantedand there was a more serious study of the great works of Western civilization. 9The age of secular humanism, in which there was a separation of church andeducation, is clearly the era the author prefers. Before considering the meritsof his argument, we should reflect on our past, our ancient faith.A Brief History of Higher EducationNo discussion of higher education would be complete without a look at itshistory, especially in the context of the United States. Our project here is tooutline the development of higher education and determine the proper role,if any, of religion in higher education. Many religious conservatives yearn fora return of the Harvard of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whichwas supposedly a golden age of education. 10 The American college was shapedby a Protestant heritage and the university system was built on the foundationof Protestant sects. However, Christianity was displaced effortlessly.Institutions like Yale, Princeton, and Harvard abandoned their commitmentto Christ to pursue academic excellence. 119Kronman, Education’s End, 46–47.10By conservatives, I am speaking more specifically about evangelical Protestants. These conservativeslook back on the glory days of higher education in the seventeenth century when colleges such asHarvard adhered to their religious foundations. In reality, these were not the glory years at Harvard.It had horrible beginnings. Its first master acted in ways that can only be called tyrannical, and thatincluded the beating of one of his students. The conditions were so unbearable that many students in1638–39 deserted the college. The experience actually delayed the development of higher educationin America. See Joe W. Kraus, “The Development of a Curriculum in the Early American Colleges,”History of Education Quarterly 1, no. 2 (1961): 64.11Nathan O. Hatch and Michael S. Hamilton, “Can Evangelicalism Survive Its Success?,” ChristianityToday, October 5, 1992, 30; George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University (New York:

3 1 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Most date the beginning of American higher education to 1636, whenHarvard opened its doors. At this time the aim of the college was not to helpstudents discover the meaning of life as much as it was to shape, or save, thestudents’ souls. Piety was most important, as it trained students in the rightcharacter, or intellectual and moral habits. Still, the American colleges weresomewhat more tolerant than their older and more impressive counterpartsin England. If there was instruction in the pagan authors, they were placedin the “proper Christian perspective.” 12 At a time when Oxford and Cambridgewere requiring belief in (or adherence to) the thirty-nine articles ofthe Book of Common Prayer, Harvard did not apply any religious tests forentrance into the school. It did not even require a promise from its studentsto enter the ministry. Students knew, however, that they would be instructedin the biblical knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. It was in that sense that thecolonial colleges rested on a religious foundation and operated as Christianinstitutions. 13 But Harvard had its share of troubles. The school did not toleratedissent from its faculty or administrators. When the president of Harvardquestioned whether infant baptism was required, he was forced to resign. YetHarvard still had its critics.In the mid-seventeenth century, Harvard was embroiled in a great debatewhen fundamentalist Puritans, who believed that schooling should not containanything absent from the Bible, attacked the school’s method of teaching,and that meant no teaching about, or from, the pagan philosophers. Salvationwas from faith alone, and instruction should be from scripture alone. CharlesChauncy, Harvard’s president, answered this criticism in a commencementaddress in 1655. He stated that the Bible cited human authors to emphasizecertain points because certain truths were accessible to all. The president thenasked: “Who can deny that there are found many excellent and divine moraltruths in Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Seneca, etc.?” 14 Chauncy was not elevatingthe pagan authors above scripture. He was simply stating that their workscontained some truth. Pagan philosophy was not coequal with the revealedOxford University Press, 1994), 4 and 31. This argument was made famous by Marsden.12Kronman, Education’s End, 48.13Bernard J. Kohlbrenner, “Religion and Higher Education: An Historical Perspective,” History ofEducation Quarterly 1 (1961): 45–46; William C. Ringenberg , The Christian College: A History ofProtestant Higher Education in America (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 25. Of course,colleges were formed out of a strict denominationalism and there was usually clerical control of theboards that conducted oversight of the colleges. The schools required chapel services and teachingfrom the Bible. Most of these colleges were Protestant in nature. No Catholic school had any successuntil after the Revolution. See Kohlbrenner, “Religion and Higher Education,” 47–48.14Quoted in Marsden, Soul of the American University, 43. Italics as in Marsden.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 1 9Word. Chauncy’s position was similar to the Calvinist doctrine of commongrace, according to which nature, or the natural law if you will, reveals itselfto the saved and unsaved equally. It was even similar to the Catholic teachingthat God spelled his logos in the world. Yet even that was controversial.The religious instruction of students who may or may not have beenbelievers was nevertheless important to the identity of early colonial colleges.The original aspiration of Harvard was “to know God and Jesus Christ, whichis eternal life (John 17:3), and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom as the onlyfoundation of all sound knowledge and learning.” 15 In a 1754 advertisement,Columbia president Samuel Johnson asserted that education wasto teach and engage the children to know God in Jesus Christ andto love and serve him in all sobriety, godliness, and righteousness oflife with a perfect heart and willing mind; and to train them up in allvirtues, habits, and useful knowledge as may render them credible totheir families and friends, ornaments to their country, and useful tothe public Weal in their generations. 16Similarly, the primary goal at Yale in the 1700s was described as follows:“every student shall consider the main end of his study, to wit, to know Godin Jesus Christ and answerably to lead a Godly, sober life.” 17 Colleges requiredstudents to attend chapel in order to inculcate them with the divine Word.Though the colleges were tolerant by seventeenth- and eighteenth-centurystandards, there were serious conflicts when dissent arose.Calvinists at Yale in 1722 engaged in an investigation of rector TimothyCutler and tutor Daniel Brown because they were suspected of acceptingAnglicanism. After they were dismissed for their denominational heresy, theboard of the college instituted a rule that students could be taught only Calvinisttheology. Yale was founded in 1701 because it was thought, remarkably,that Harvard was too theologically unorthodox, and too tolerant of dissent.Yale thus made all appointees sign the Westminster Confession and placedother requirements on employees, including forbidding them to attendEpiscopal services. Yale administrators believed that subscribing to a confessionwould guarantee institutional adherence to sectarian principles. Whilethey had heard the names Locke and Newton, they were “warned againstthinking anything of them” because it might corrupt the “pure religion15Ringenberg, Christian College, 38. For more on this, see Marsden, Soul of the American University, 40.16Ringenberg, Christian College, 38.17Ibid.

3 2 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3of the country.” 18 The growing sectarianism in the Union caused religiousand political rivalries, and even feuds in colleges both within and betweendenominations. 19 While there was much competition in the free market ofhigher education between rival colleges, there was rarely toleration for viewsthat even appeared to run counter to an understood theological positionwithin an institution. Employees and professors who expressed “unorthodoxviews” were threatened with termination or fired. 20 The history of Christianeducation is one in which the learning environment was rigidly closed. Tolerancewas not a virtue.Some contend that denominationalism increased in the late 1800s, evenas early as 1850. 21 This development caused some college presidents to lamentthe rise of sectarian colleges as a “grievous and growing evil” and thus disastrousfor liberal education. 22 The developments led to a curriculum that madelearning useless to the needs of the young republican government. Accordingto historian David B. Potts, it was rare that narrow denominational interestsdrove college presidents or their boards. Institutions before 1850 weremore involved in their community and less denominational. Colleges drewtheir students, and their funding, from the surrounding community. Collegeswere essentially local. Because they were community oriented, theyreflected the diversity of the local populace. However, after 1850, with the rise18Thomas G. West, “The Transformation of Protestant Theology as a Condition of the AmericanRevolution,” in Protestantism and the American Founding, ed. Thomas S. Engeman and Michael P.Zuckert (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), 204. As West notes, this began tochange in 1715 when Yale received a gift of modern philosophy books from Jeremiah Drummer. Thegift had the effect of converting some to “new learning.”19Beverly McAnear, “College Founding in the American Colonies, 1745–1775,” Mississippi HistoricalReview 42 (1955): 27; Ringenberg, Christian College, 39. Yale was not a tolerant school. In additionto firing “heretical” faculty and administration, it expelled two students in 1744 for attending thewrong (in this case a “new light”) religious service when they were in town. And they were expelleddespite being on vacation. The president of Yale sent them packing because even their action allowedtoo much of the pluralism of the age to seep into the institution. “New lights” accepted and even likedrevivalism, while “old lights” found revivalism a threat to the authority of the church. The presidentof the college (Clapp) was a heresy hunter. He fired many tutors and forbade books to be taught in theclassroom that he deemed “heretical.” Though the college lost money and was on the brink of financialruin, it was kept afloat by the charismatic Clapp until the 1760s. Clapp was such an authoritarian thatthe townspeople and students of the college finally had enough, rioted, and damaged his home in1765, forcing his resignation in 1766. See Marsden, Soul of the American University, 52–53, 55–56.20Ringenberg, Christian College, 83. Sometimes these theological positions were understood only bythe administration. In other words, they tended to be arbitrary.21David B. Potts, “American Colleges in the Nineteenth Century: From Localism to Denominationalism,”History of Education Quarterly 11 (Winter 1971): 363.22Quoted in ibid., 364. The quote is from Presbyterian theologian Philip Lindsley, president of theUniversity of Nashville. Julian Sturtevant, president of Illinois College, also found liberal education tobe under threat from the growing sectarianism of many colleges.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 2 1of sectarianism—especially among the Baptists—these schools became notonly more ideologically rigid on the administrative side, but also less attachedto their community. Administration came increasingly under the control ofindividuals from outside the community and even outside the states in whichthe institutions were located. They also drew more denominationally friendlystudents from outside the local community. This led to increased monitoringof what constituted orthodox faith on campus. The faculty, college presidents,and other employees were closely monitored for “doctrinal impurity.” 23The decline of liberal education before the Civil War does not explainwhat colleges looked like at the time of the Revolution, or more precisely,how they were influenced by the Revolutionary spirit. The rationalist Revolutioninfluenced the Protestant religions in the newly constituted states.Two developments are especially worth noting. First, reason was acceptedas a legitimate “supplement to the authority of scripture.” 24 Second, becausereason was a complement to faith, institutions and their pious administratorsaccepted reason as an authority. They even adopted as a part of their faith theLockean standard of a social compact and limited government. The AmericanFounding, then, enlisted a variety of sectarians not to advance a country forChrist, but to secure the inalienable rights of all. This was not the approach ofearly Christians in the colonies, where reason was replaced by the doctrinesof grace and the gospel: “the consequence of this [earlier] view was an earlytendency…to disparage reason and learning and to elevate the dangerouspassions connected with fanaticism and persecution.” 25 Seventeenth-centuryPuritan theology represented a rejection of learning rather than its propagation.The dedication to a “by faith alone” theology fostered an “irrationalspirituality.” 26 This hostility to reason did not continue indefinitely, nor, as wehave already noted, was it evident in all places.The acceptance of human reason began to emerge in places such as Harvard,and the pagan philosophers were not found wanting. Harvard took Aristotle’sEthics seriously, and his works were admired. Reason became respected “as alegitimate path to God’s order and law.” 27 Respect for the Catholic tradition of23Ibid., 371. The narrowing of the mind to make room for a more sectarian education was the “originalstumbling block” to the liberal arts and intellectual inquiry. See Linda Eisenmann, “ReclaimingReligion: New Historiographic Challenges in the Relationship of Religion and American HigherEducation,” History of Education Quarterly 39 (Autumn 1999): 297.24West, “Transformation of Protestant Theology,” 187. West is here referring to Protestant approachesto Christianity in particular.25Ibid., 195.26Ibid., 196.27Ibid.

3 2 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3learning in philosophy and science created an openness to the basic authors ofpublic right, such as John Locke. The lesson of this period is that as the AmericanRevolution approached, higher education was increasingly grounded inboth reason and revelation. There was little pride in the mere irrationality offaith that we find in many Protestant denominations today.Interest in the importance of colleges and of higher education increasedduring the Revolutionary period. The founding of colleges coincided withthe advance of the Revolutionary spirit, which was not strictly theological.The colleges, though certainly religious in focus and instruction, were notausterely religious. As mentioned above, they accepted students regardlessof faith. Dartmouth’s graduating class of 1799 had only one person publiclyprofess to be a Christian. At Yale in 1796, only one member of the seniorclass claimed to be a believer, and at Williams College of Massachusetts, fiveof ninety-three graduates identified themselves as Christians. Indeed, fewerthan half of all antebellum students were professing Christians. In 1790,approximately ten percent of all Americans professed membership in a Christianchurch. 28 We may say that American colleges in the era of the Revolutionwere religious and evangelical, in the sense that they instructed students inmatters of reason and revelation, but did not limit the class to believers orbelievers of a certain denominational stripe. They were godly institutions inthe most general sense. Parents usually sent their children to colleges with theexpectation that the experience would make them more open to God’s Word.What is perhaps remarkable about this is that the colleges formed in the timeof the Revolution were open to Enlightenment rationalism and found reasonsupportive of the Christian faith. 29Liberal Education at the American FoundingProtestant theology came to support the principles of the American Revolution,and eventually adopted as a portion of its theology the social-compact28Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 63;Ringenberg, Christian College, 58, 62; McAnear, “College Founding in the American Colonies,” 24.The toleration of student beliefs in those days is much different from today’s version, where the fundamentalistschools are far more aggressive and boastful in their demands on the students. For example,the catalog at Bob Jones University currently asserts that any student who “in the opinion of theUniversity does not fit into the spirit of the institution, regardless of whether or not he conforms to thespecific rules and regulations of the University,” may be expelled. See Ringenberg, Christian College,178.29Ringenberg, Christian College, 61–62, 68.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 2 3theory of Locke, which became a serious ground of the principles of the Revolution.Religion and philosophy at the Founding found a way to be generallysupportive of one another. The Founding was broadly religious, but was alsogrounded in self-evident truths. It was a political order that had its roots inboth reason and revelation. The Founding was not exclusively Christian, norwas it exclusively rationalist. As Thomas West notes:For the idea of self-evident truth, and of the laws of nature’s God,implied that any reasonable human being, whether Christian or not,can discover principles of moral and political truth. The founding wasnot intended, as were the Puritan settlements of the early 1600s, “toadvance the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.” …It was intended tosecure the inalienable rights of all mankind. 30This theological transformation was not a secularization of the faith; quitethe opposite. It was a sacralization of the faith by reasonable means. The reasonablearguments appeared to encourage Puritans to take a more realisticview of the world, and hence become more attuned to their own theology—for example, to recognize that divine grace would not cleanse this world.This development encouraged them to support limited government and therule of law. Ultimately, Protestants recognized the instances where scripturesupported the conclusions of reason.Along those lines, Reverend Jonathan Mayhew preached one of the mostfamous pro-Revolutionary sermons in 1750:Tyranny brings ignorance and brutality along with it. It degrades menfrom their just rank into the class of brutes. It damps their spirits. Itsuppresses arts. It extinguishes every spark of noble ardor and generosityin the breasts of those who are enslaved by it. It makes naturallystrong and great minds feeble and little, and triumphs over the ruinsof virtue and humanity. This is true of tyranny in every shape. Therecan be nothing great or good where its influence reaches. For whichreason it becomes every friend to truth and humankind, every loverof God and the Christian religion, to bear a part in opposing thishateful monster. 3130West, “Transformation of Protestant Theology,” 188–89, italics in the original. Much of the materialin this paragraph is taken from the same source. In one of the most astounding developments,some theologians developed a state-of-nature view of scripture, arguing that the law of nature taughtman to preserve himself. In this way, West argues, some theologians adopted (via Luke 22:36) theconcept that “God helps those who help themselves.” See “Transformation of Protestant Theology,”199–200. On the Founding being rooted in both reason and revelation, see Harry V. Jaffa, AmericanConservatism and the American Founding (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1982), 38.31West, “Transformation of Protestant Theology,” 208–9.

3 2 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Mayhew’s position found scripture reasonable on the determination of theconduct of men in politics. Those who are would-be tyrants in all forms arehostile to reason and the development of the mind. Worse, tyrants diminishthe best and brightest. Samuel West’s 1780 sermon demonstrates the importanceof reason’s ability to know in a way that complemented faith:We want not, indeed, a special revelation from heaven to teach usthat men are born equal and free; that no man has a natural claimof dominion over his neighbors, nor one nation any such claim uponanother; and that as government is only the administration of theaffairs of a number of men combined for their own security and happiness,such a society have a right freely to determine by whom andin what manner their own affairs shall be administered. These are theplain dictates of that reason and common sense with which the commonparent of men has informed the human bosom. It is, however, asatisfaction to observe such everlasting maxims of equity confirmed,and impressed on the consciousness of men, by the instructions, precepts,and examples given us in the sacred oracles; one internal markof their divine original, and that they come from him “who hath madeof one blood all nations to dwell upon the face of the earth,” whoseauthority sanctifies only those governments that instead of oppressingany part of his family, vindicate the oppressed, and restrain and punishthe oppressor. 32Reason might be seen here as being in the service of God and Christianity.In accord with the self-evident truth of the Declaration, Mayhew and Westunderstand that the principles of freedom are capable of being understoodby all men. Put simply, the Revolutionary spirit found reason and revelationas indispensible supports.Before the mid 1800s, few colleges survived. Eighty percent of the collegesfounded prior to 1850 did not endure. 33 Yet by 1840, there were manyinstitutions of higher learning. Colleges of the nineteenth century lookedremarkably, and uniformly, liberal for the time. The classics loomed largein the classroom. Freshmen at Yale, for example, read Livy and Herodotus,sophomores read Cicero and Xenophon, juniors read Plato, Thucydides, andEuripides, and seniors read logic and Enlightenment authors, just to name afew. Students did not pick and choose their curriculum à la carte as they do32Samuel Cooper, A Sermon on the Day of the Commencement of the Constitution, in PoliticalSermons of the American Founding Era, 1730–1805, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund,1998), 1:637.33Kohlbrenner, “Religion and Higher Education,” 49.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 2 5today. 34 The spirit of the Revolution led to the founding of many colleges anduniversities that were influenced by the principles of the American Founding.The goal of many of the colleges in the Revolutionary era was to producemorally upright citizens, and moral philosophy became the common groundon the basis of which to build republics of virtue. Aristotle was found usefulbecause he taught that anyone could be virtuous by forming good habits. 35Theology increasingly was relegated to chapel services and one’s local church,but it was not discarded from intelligent life.While there were sectarian conflicts through the eighteenth century,new schools, such as the College of New Jersey, made efforts in the directionof toleration and rights of dissent. Much of this toleration developed out ofpersecutions at places like Harvard and Yale. John Witherspoon, the onlyclergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence, symbolizes the Revolutionaryspirit that moderated the sectarian conflict. According to George M.Marsden, Revolutionary statesmen believed that “service to the Republic hademerged as the preeminent good. For this there was hardly any distinctionbetween the benefits of religion and the benefits of the science of morality.” 36This was not a rejection of religion, for the belief still prevailed that religionassisted in the development of public morals. However, the sectarian edge ofthe destructive conflicts throughout history subsided in the Revolutionaryperiod. In post-Revolutionary America, there was general agreement thatrevelation could be seen in nature, and that it confirmed his divine work.While there was some disagreement over the proper relationship betweenreason and revelation, even the most ardent supporters of scripture—fromAlexander Campbell’s restorationists to the evangelical Presbyterians—were“all…convinced that in fair controversy universal truth would eventually34Kronman, Education’s End, 54, 58. At the College of New Jersey in 1751, students read Xenophonin Greek and Cicero’s De oratore in Latin and took courses in Hebrew grammar. Under John Witherspoon’stenure (in 1772) students took Greek and Latin and studied Roman antiquities and rhetoric.They also had to study mathematics, history, philosophy, natural and moral philosophy, and geography.Harvard and Yale required conversation to be conducted in Latin in the early 1700s. See Kraus,“Development of a Curriculum,” 67, 71. Many colleges required Greek or Latin the first two years;see McAnear, “College Founding in the American Colonies,” 34, and Ringenberg, Christian College,37. Making admission still more demanding, colleges required applicants to translate an elementaryLatin or Greek text. For example, at Rutgers in the late colonial period, prospective students had totranslate into English Caesar’s Commentaries, the Eclogues of Virgil, and one of the four Gospels. SeeRingenberg, Christian College, 50.35Marsden, Soul of the American University, 51–52. By the mid-1800s even those denominationsthat were founding their own colleges could not attract students on a narrow or sectarian basis. Theyappealed to religion, but in a more socially acceptable way that emphasized the general moral aspectsof religion and its moral benefits, rather than on theological peculiarities. See ibid., 80.36Ibid., 63.

3 2 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3flourish.” 37 While there was tension between reason and scripture, it was ahealthy tension. This may be considered the era of good academic feeling. Atno other time did the two poles exist in such harmony.Thomas Jefferson’s idea of education will shed some light on the understandingof the relationship between religion and philosophy that obtainedat the time. In his 1779 “Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge,”Jefferson contended that liberal education was an important part of equippingfree citizens to rule and be ruled in turn:Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government arebetter calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exerciseof their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves betterguarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that evenunder the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, andby slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed thatthe most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, asfar as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especiallyto give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that,possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, theymay be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt toexert their natural powers to defeat its purposes. 38While Jefferson believed in the practical side of education, the deeper andmore serious moral elements were most important and those elements couldbe imparted without a strict adherence to religious instruction. This is thereason the student needed illumination: so that the use of his natural powersof reasoning could know and defend the ends of man. Liberal education alsohad the added benefit of revealing those worthy to serve the public in thedefense of public morals and natural rights:And whereas it is generally true that that people will be happiest whoselaws are best, and are best administered, and that laws will be wiselyformed, and honestly administered, in proportion as those who formand administer them are wise and honest; whence it becomes excellentfor promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature37Ibid., 91. This is a remarkable occurrence in the early republic. While there were certainly fundamentalists,most religious Protestants were of one mind on this matter. They were not afraid of debateand seemed to believe that scripture, or the Holy Spirit, had nothing to fear from an honest and freedebate about the ideas. I would contend that Marsden makes too much of scientific discovery of theEnlightenment as it pertained to Jefferson. Jefferson was concerned, as we shall see, with philosophyas well and the ability of reason to know moral truths that could not be determined via empiricalresearch.38Thomas Jefferson, “A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge,” in The Works of ThomasJefferson, ed. Paul Leicester Ford (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1904), 2:414–15.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 2 7hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberaleducation worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit ofthe rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should becalled to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or other accidentalcondition or circumstance. 39In his proposal for a University of Virginia, Jefferson laid out the aimsof his college. Among those things he believed should be taught included acurious reference to the “Law of Nature” as a teaching that should arise underthe general rubric of “government” courses. 40 According to Jefferson, one ofthe aims of college education at the university would beto expound the principles and structures of government, the laws whichregulate the intercourse of nations, those formed municipally for ourown government, and a sound spirit of legislation, which, banishing allarbitrary and unnecessary restraint on individual action, shall leave usfree to do whatever does not violate the equal rights of another. 41A liberal education, according to Jefferson, should instruct students in theknowledge of their rights and how they should exercise those rights “withorder and justice.” He asserts that education should develop the students’“reasoning faculties” and “enlarge their minds, cultivate their morals, andinstill into them the precepts of virtue and order.” 42 Understanding our naturalrights and the law of nature not only leads to the improvement of moralsand sharpens our reason; it has the added benefit of helping citizens understandtheir duties to other human beings. Liberal education contemplates thelaws of nature, and hence the structure and order of our world. It is, then, aform of education in which the ends of life and of government become intelligible.43 It is the study of nature, of which man is a part. It is indisputable thatJefferson’s understanding of a liberal education carved out a spot for reasonto flourish. In his initial document to the Virginia legislature on the creationof the college, Jefferson asserted that in conformity with the Virginia Constitution,no religious seat would be established at the university. Indeed, the39Ibid., 415.40Report of the Commissioners for the University of Virginia, 4 August 1818, in The Portable ThomasJefferson, ed. Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Penguin Books, 1975), 338. In his 1779 report on amendingthe charter of William and Mary College, Jefferson asserted that philosophy and the principlesof the Christian religion should be taught, but his proposal specifically mentioned philosophy andinstruction in the law of nature in a variety of forms and classes. See Thomas Jefferson, Writings, ed.Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Library of America, 1984), 432, 434.41Report of the Commissioners, 334.42Ibid.43Harry V. Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding, 41–42.

3 2 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3college was not specifically sectarian at all, but allowed the presence of manyreligious faiths without establishing one as predominant. However, his relegationof the religious community to a competitive position within the academiccommunity is not evidence of his hostility to religion; quite the opposite.Jefferson believed that even in the absence of a professor of divinity, God,the creator, preserver, and supreme ruler of the universe, would have a placeon campus in a general sense. Liberal education, then, included a space forGod. It is striking that Jefferson speaks of God nonspecifically. This is nota God of a specific sect. The Sage from Monticello perhaps reveals a morephilosophical reason for the exclusion of a particular religious denominationalcontrol from higher education. Though he found room for manydenominations, he did so to preserve a place for reason: “By bringing therival sects together and mixing them with the mass of other students we shallsoften their asperities, liberalize and neutralize their prejudices, and makethe general religion the religion of peace, reason, and morality.” 44 It shouldnot go without mention that religion was both beneficial and viewed withcaution—as something potentially destructive—in the young republic. Theeffect of bringing together several faiths and sects not only moderated them,and moderated their appeals, but it allowed reason an exalted place on thecampus. Taken together, reason and revelation had the effect of fostering ageneral morality in the community, which in turn would be beneficial to theyoung republic. Part of the problem, according to Jefferson, was that religioussects could become fanatical and hence hostile to reason or the mind. If theywere allowed unchecked power in education, they would be so ambitious asto tyrannize over others. 45 It is in the context of education that he explains,44Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Thomas Cooper, 2 November 1822, in Writings, ed. Peterson, 1465. See alsoRingenberg, Christian College, 80.45Jefferson to Cooper, 2 November 1822, in Writings, 1464. We should note that Jefferson certainlyhad a bias against certain sects, but his position was consistent with respect to liberal educationand sectarianism. See Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monicello (Boston: Little,Brown, 1981), 378. Some have noted that the word “fundamentalist” has been dropped for “evangelical”because of its negative connotation. Not all evangelical schools are fundamentalist, however. Thereaction to the secularization of many colleges led to the creation of fundamentalist schools. Thesereligious schools have such a passionate attachment to their theological position that they have endedup denouncing those who one would think would be their allies. For example, Bob Jones Jr. condemnedJerry Falwell and the Moral Majority as “one of Satan’s devices to build the world church ofthe Antichrist.” The stifling intellectual atmosphere of these schools led none other than Billy Grahamto leave Bob Jones after only one semester. The danger of these fundamentalist schools is that theyclaim to have speculative surety in all things, and that leads them to express surety in nonspeculativethings. Therefore, these schools are authoritarian in institutional organization and campus politics.See Ringenberg, Christian College, 83, 172, 179, and 180. A more recent and popular treatment of thisphenomenon is Hanna Rosin, God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America (NewYork: Harcourt, 2007).

Liberal Education Imperiled3 2 9in a letter to Thomas Cooper, that the proposal for a University of Virginiadoes not offer a permanent seat to any denomination, but instead supportsreligious pluralism. 46 The competition not only preserves the independenceof each sect, but also the independence of human beings in the communitywho may not, out of personal conviction, subscribe to a particular sect. Religionshould become a field of study and inquiry like any other subject. 47 Thisdoes not mean that Jefferson was indifferent to religion, or believed it was ofno value.In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Jefferson held (in article 3) that“religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government andthe happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of education shall foreverbe encouraged.” Religion might be included in education, but as we noted inhis development of the University of Virginia, religious freedom is necessaryfor the discovery of a rational truth. A unifying truth must be sought freelyin the “anvil of debate.” 48 This would allow the truth to flourish. We mightsay that religion and philosophy (knowledge) are the North and South Polesof morality. The separation of church and state in politics corresponds to theseparation of religion and education at college. The separation would encouragea “rational religious commitment” and make for a more “enlightenedfoundation for morality.” 49Several colleges noted the potential problems associated with religiouscontrol of colleges in terms of the potential effects it would have on thecitizens. One aim was to offer an education that bolstered republican government.Therefore, most colleges founded between 1776 and 1800 wererepublican in nature. The characteristics of such republicanism were a loveof “liberty, industry, orderliness…piety, sobriety, and temperance.” 50 JamesBowdoin noted of his college that instruction in religion generally, morality,46It should be noted that Jefferson personally believed that the overall trend would be toward auniveralist religion. See Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, 26 June 1822, in Writings,1458–59; and Jefferson to Cooper, 2 November 1822, in Writings, 1464.47Malone, Jefferson and His Time, 393. See also Marsden, Soul of the American University, 74.48See Benjamin R. Barber, “The Compromised Republic,” in The Moral Foundations of the AmericanRepublic, ed. Robert H. Horowitz (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 50–51. InQuery 14 on Religion in the Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson details a law put forth by revisorsin the state, and he explains that at least initially, the teachings of Bible and Testament should not beimmediately proffered. Especially where the young teen is concerned, Jefferson would rather studentsspend time in history and ancient languages: see The Portable Thomas Jefferson, 197–98.49Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding, 54.50Hyman Kuritz, “Benjamin Rush: His Theory of Republican Education,” History of Education Quarterly7 (Winter 1967): 437.

3 3 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3and the laws would “determine the fate of the country.” 51 At the Universityof North Carolina, the liberal nature of the college was noted in this statement:“nothing can be more conducive to the existence of liberty, than such asystem of education as gives every citizen the opportunity of gaining knowledgeand fitting him for places of trust.” 52 The moderating effect of a collegeeducation was one of the reasons none other than Benjamin Rush rejecteddenominational or doctrinal control of education, believing instead in theunity of religious diversity. 53A country founded on the concepts of equality and liberty should havean education system dedicated to that end. Such a republic would respectthe freedom of others to choose their own path to heaven. A man’s conductmatters more than his speculative opinions. In the Notes on the State of Virginia,Jefferson noted that the early history of the colonists was one in whichreligious freedom was not realized. Indeed, the freedom of the “reigning sect”was the norm. This was antithetical to the principles of the Declaration ofIndependence:The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of themind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of thelaws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only aswe have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted,we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. Thelegitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injuriousto others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there aretwenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. 54Jefferson concluded that reason and inquiry were the only means with whichto contend against a supposed error, religious or otherwise. A free people isduty bound to respect the rights of others. Its members must have a respectfor the mind, or reason’s ability to know, to be convinced of that duty. Indeed,it was by the freedom of inquiry that Christianity got its rise, according toJefferson. Reason is the instrument of persuasion and political argumenta-51David W. Robson, “College Founding in the New Republic, 1776–1800,” History of Education Quarterly23 (Autumn 1983): 324.52Ibid.53Kuritz, “Benjamin Rush,” 436. Rush was active in the founding of Dickson College and believedstudents should have a heavy dose of republican classics, philosophy, and history in the curriculum. Inorder to make a people amenable to republican government, they needed to be exposed to republicanarguments. See Robson, “College Founding in the New Republic,” 327. In that spirit, some collegesexposed their students to the full range of religious arguments, from pietists to skeptics. See ibid., 331.54Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, in The Portable Thomas Jefferson, 210; see also 208, andMalone, Jefferson and His Time, 378–79.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 3 1tion. It is the most important thing common to all men. Religious force andcoercion have failed and ever will. In order for a citizenry to respect the lawsof nature, and reason’s ability to know, Jefferson wrote, the university neededto be “broad and liberal.” 55 In his efforts to establish the University of Virginia,Jefferson noted to Thomas Cooper that he hoped sectarian criticismswould subside, and thought that college education should be the “bulwarkof the human mind.” 56 Jefferson’s aim in the creation of the University ofVirginia was to give fair play to the cultivation of reason through a nonsectarianeducation, albeit one in which religion was not excluded from themarketplace of ideas.American colleges were to cultivate a natural aristocracy in political rule,as well as lead the citizens to virtue and enlightenment. James Madison concurredwith Jefferson, believing that higher education should partake ofthe true doctrines of liberty, as exemplified in our Political System,[and] should be inculcated on those who are to sustain and mayadminister it. …Sidney & Locke are admirably calculated to impresson young minds the right of Nations to establish their own Governments,and to inspire a love of free ones. 57Madison would go further, writing that the university was the “Temple”through which the liberty of the Union would be secured. 58 The sacred textsof the republic were not the works of theology, but works of philosophy. It isevident that, for Madison and Jefferson at least, a liberal education includedphilosophy, or the love of wisdom. Still, Madison would write to Jeffersonthat “after all, the most effectual safeguard against heretical intrusions intothe school of politics, will be an able and orthodox professor, whose courseof instruction will be an example to his successors, and may carry with ita sanction from the visitors.” 59 So that it might appear that even Madison’sopposition to educational indoctrination had its limits. However, nothing55Jefferson to Dr. Joseph Priestly, 18 January 1800, in Writings, 1070.56Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 14 August 1820, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert ElleryBergh (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1907), 15:269. We should note thatJefferson believed the university would be a bulwark for the mind, as opposed to the soul, in the senseof salvation. See also Malone, Jefferson and His Time, 380; Marsden, Soul of the American University,68.57Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 8 February 1825, in The Mind of the Founder: Sources of the PoliticalThought of James Madison, ed. Marvin Meyers (Hanover: Brandeis University Press, 1981), 349.58Madison to Thomas Jefferson, 24 February 1825, in James Madison, Writings, ed. Jack N. Rakove(New York: Library of America, 1999), 810.59Madison to Jefferson, 8 February 1825, in Mind of the Founder, 350.

3 3 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3could be further from the truth. Madison is not saying that a liberal educationshould be an indoctrination of a different kind. Madison and Jeffersondid not dilute the religious influence only to institute their own brand of religioustruth; rather, they were seeking to broaden the learning of the citizenby including a philosophical teaching:They were talking about a “nature” and “laws of nature,” that are accessibleto reason, and better known if the reason is trained to see them.Jefferson and Madison thought that an educated man would haveinvestigated these matters, indeed, that he would have come to someconclusions about them that would decisively shape his life. Students,when they are young, must have a reason to begin the journey of learning,or they will not begin it at all. 60In Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance,” he urged caution against thepublic ascendancy of religious institutions because if any one sect were toreceive favor, it would banish all other, opposing sects. Madison was nothostile to religion per se, or against Christianity, but dedicated to preservingliberty for all men, which he found more amenable to the appeal to a person’sreason and conviction. 61 James Kent, the lawyer and legal scholar educatedat Yale, thought that an education should be conducted on reasonable principles.He reasoned that the principles of government were accessible to allmen and hence the principles of unalienable rights were discernible. SamuelWilliams concluded that the best remedy to religious superstition and ignorance,not to mention infidelity to the faith, was an “increase of knowledgeand education.” 6260Larry P. Arnn, “Why the GOP is Flunking Higher Education,” Claremont Review of Books 6, no. 4(Fall 2006): 21.61James Madison, “Memorial and Remonstrance,” in American Political Writing during the FoundingEra, 1760–1805, ed. Charles S. Hyneman and Donald S. Lutz (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 1983),1:632–33. Somewhat more favorable is Benjamin Rush, who believed the Christian religion should becentral to an education, even while he found religion of any sort—say, Islam or Confucianism—beneficial.However, Rush was not speaking about a college education, but the education of children. Onething that Rush believed religion should inculcate in all school-age children was republican principles.See Benjamin Rush, “A Plan for the Establishment of Public Schools and the Diffusion of Knowledgein Pennsylvania,” in ibid., 1:675–92. Likewise, John Adams thought that a liberal education was necessaryfor youth: John Adams, Thoughts on Government, in ibid., 1:407. Zabdiel Adams believed thatthe government should only generally encourage education in God, all other matters related to himbeing individual and left to our conscience. See “An Election Sermon,” in ibid., 1:556. In Charleston,an anonymous author deduced from the law of nature that a college education was valuable and thatstudents should be taught their duty to God generally and to their countrymen. See Rudiments of Lawand Government Deduced from the Law of Nature, in ibid., 1:582.62Samuel Williams, The Natural and Civil History of Vermont, in American Political Writing, 2:962;James Kent, “An Introductory Lecture to a Course of Law Lectures,” in ibid., 2:938–39.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 3 3◆ ◆ ◆Returning to the where we began this inquiry, Kronman rejects the idea thatthere are no truths, or that there are no right answers, only opinions. A studentwho allows himself to be indoctrinated in that will not believe learningis valuable to his soul. However, if someone assents to the view that truthis found only in the revealed Word of God, he will also not begin a philosophicaljourney. He will resist, nay reject, philosophy and reason, whichare essential to the quest for wisdom. The opposite of belief in the benefits ofreligious indoctrination is the belief that college should not impart any truth.The concern is that students ought not to be “browbeaten” by their professorsor the administrators of a college. The college experience is nothing if not aconsideration of all serious arguments. Evidence, from any source, shouldnot be suppressed. In that sense, both the faculty and the student should beallowed to pursue their work. Finding a place for reason and philosophy isnot the rejection of truth. Rather, it ensures that both reason and revelationmay have the freedom to engage each other over the meaning of life. Thereshould be an academic debate over the one thing most needful. 63 Students,then, are not to be instructed in nothing, nor are they to be taught radicalskepticism, but they are to be invited to look beyond their own opinions tosomething above them. They are to be, in a sense, skeptics of a certain typeand yet reject relativism. 64What is Liberal Education?Abraham Lincoln’s view of liberal education was one of moderation: “everyman [should] receive at least, a moderate education, and thereby [be] enabledto read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may dulyappreciate the value of free institutions.” 65 Liberal education is an educationin culture, or toward a certain culture. 66 It is not an education that guarantees63Leo Strauss, The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1989), 72.64Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College asserts that “apart from the fact that the progressive idea of academicfreedom undercuts the principles of college, and apart from the fact that it robs the student ofhis reason to study anything outside himself, it has the disadvantage that it will not work. Well-intentionedadvocates like [David] Horowitz apply this principle to open campuses up so that conservativeswill not be hazed from the student body and faculty” (“Why the GOP is Flunking Higher Education,”22).65Quoted in ibid.66Leo Strauss, Liberalism Ancient and Modern (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 3.

3 3 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3a payoff at the conclusion of study; it is an education specifically fitted for afree people. The cause of freedom would be advanced through the properuse of liberty; a liberal regime requires a liberal education. 67 It has meant aneducation in certain great books, that is, works written by the greatest mindsof the Western canon. Since America is a Western nation, and since the colonists’heritage was derived from Western nations, schooling in the works ofthat tradition was encouraged. Liberal education, then, has always been aneducation of a certain kind and toward a certain end, and as Cardinal HenryNewman wrote in his Idea of a University, it is for the cultivation of the intellect,teaching universal knowledge. The Eastern Orthodox Jaroslav Pelikanstated in a review of Newman’s seminal work that knowledge has its ownend, and that is in its deciphering of some chief good. 68Ancient liberal education made citizens fit for liberty; it inculcated civicvirtue, courage, justice, self-control, and patriotism. 69 It was not to make citizensopen-minded, and it was not a practical education. The business art wasconsidered vulgar. However, the rooting of education in nature—the discoveryand thinking of it—made the ancient city less stable because it detachedthe educated from the polis. It undermined the pious fidelity to the city andhad the effect of undermining the authority of politics and jeopardizing liberty.Ancient philosophical education seemed to liberated the citizen fromthe polis in some way. 70 The American Founding resolved this problem bymaking nature the authority of the Union. Therefore, it was able to groundliberty in nature.Allan Bloom contended that a simple attachment to a great-books curriculumwas not enough to foster a liberally educated person. What is mostimportant is the way those books are studied, as politicized instructioncan make learning abhorrent; students should first and foremost endeavorto understand authors as they understood themselves. Liberal education isdedicated to human completeness and is the “home of reason.” 71 Our modern67Mark Blitz, “To See Ourselves,” Weekly Standard, 16 June 2008, 34.68Jaroslav Pelikan, The Idea of the University: A Reexamination (New Haven, CT: Yale UniversityPress, 1992), 43; John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame, IN: University of NotreDame Press, 1982), xxi, xxxvii.69See in particular Lorraine Smith Pangle, “Liberal Education and Politics: Lessons from the AmericanFounding,” Academic Questions 8, no. 1 (March 1995): 34.70Ibid. Pangle makes the interesting argument that philosophy became more intertwined with liberaleducation, thus making the relation to “civic education…far more ambiguous.”71Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 22; Wildavsky,“Death of the Humanities,” 69.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 3 5education ignores the self-evident truth of natural rights as an origin of theAmerican republic. Bloom could easily be speaking of the Union when hewrites that a “in a nation founded on reason, the university was the templeof the regime.” 72 It orders the types of questions that are worth asking andanswering. The question “what is man?” for example, is one of those questions:“the liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy andpreferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows othersworthy of consideration.” 73 We have already discovered, at least for theFounders, something of what that looks like. In a statement similar to that ofMadison and Jefferson, Strauss wrote thatwe understand most easily what liberal education means here and now.Liberal education is the counterpoison to mass culture, to the corrodingeffects of mass culture, to its inherent tendency to produce nothingbut “specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart.”Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from massdemocracy to democracy as originally meant. Liberal education is thenecessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic masssociety. Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracywho have ears to hear, of human greatness. 74A liberal education was supposed to teach a new kind of statesmen. The trulygreat are the philosophic minds, and for Strauss, one of those was Plato. Educationin the highest sense of the word was an education in philosophy. Thequest for wisdom is the highest pursuit for man; attaining knowledge thatleads to virtue and happiness is his end. Though we cannot acquire perfectwisdom, we can try to philosophize by spending time with those greaterthan we, those philosophers who because of circumstance and abilities arethe greatest minds of the West. Liberal education means, then, we must listento the conversation between great minds of the past. Thus, we ought to have asense of humility. The problem is that we often think we are superior to thesemen. To overcome this sense of superiority is perhaps a highly difficult task.We are incompetent to be judges of the arguments made, yet we must judge.We are faced with our desire to know, yet do not, initially perhaps, knowwhere to begin.72Bloom, Closing of the American Mind, 244–45. Bloom also notes that in a regime dedicated to “freeand equal human beings,” such “reverence” is “appropriate.”73Ibid., 19, 21, and 344.74Leo Strauss, An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989),314–15. Strauss makes a pointed argument concerning how difficult philosophy/philosophizing is.Not only is it elusive to attain wisdom, a philosopher must constantly begin from the beginning forknowledge must be acquired, and reacquired. See ibid., 328–29.

3 3 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Liberal education is the “constant intercourse” with the great minds. Theinteraction requires a sort of skepticism of common opinion. To question thegiven opinions of the day—to question custom—requires a certain courage:It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard theaccepted views as mere opinion, or to regard the average opinions asextreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the moststrange or the least popular opinions. Liberal education is liberationfrom vulgarity. 75The philosophic concern, or interest, with common, or vulgar, opinion is to liftus higher to the most important things, and, as Strauss wrote, the most beautifulthings. We might conclude that to be concerned with something above ourmere opinions means to be interested in the “isness” of things. To have thatoccupy us means that we think there is a truth, a wisdom, worth pursuing.Liberal education is the concern with the finest or highest things. Liberallyeducated human beings pursue politics and philosophy: “they are inearnest because they are concerned with the most weighty matters, with theonly things which deserve to be taken seriously for their own sake, with thegood order of the soul and of the city.” 76 The liberally educated man, Strausscontends, is the gentleman. He is concerned with the health of the body politic,and therefore, about justice. The gentleman is concerned with ruling inthe interest of the entire society.Generally speaking, “liberal education in the original sense not onlyfosters civic responsibility: it is even required for the exercise of civic responsibility.By being what they are, the gentlemen are meant to set the tone ofsociety in the most direct, the least ambiguous, and the most unquestionableway: by ruling it in broad daylight.” 77 Just rule, a just politics, is not conductedby force or in secret in a free society. The just city is framed by men overmen, and the men who make the laws, if liberally educated, will also obeythose laws. Yet a liberal education is not merely concerned with the here andnow or with various policy preferences in themselves. As mentioned above,liberal education understands philosophy as a higher pursuit than mere politics.Certainly, as Strauss writes in “Liberal Education and Responsibility,”politics ought to be about a pursuit of certain ends, but there should be someknowledge of the ends themselves: “For everything which comes into being75Ibid., 319.76Ibid., 324.77Ibid., 327.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 3 7through human action and is therefore perishable or corruptible presupposesincorruptible and unchangeable things—for instance, the natural order ofthe human soul—with a view to which we can distinguish between right andwrong actions.” 78 Liberal education, then, is a preparation for philosophy, andphilosophy is, in the rank order of things, more weighty than gentlemanship.Why is Kronman, not to say Strauss himself, concerned about liberaleducation and its demise? Strauss offers a seemingly innocuous statementafter claiming that the status of the liberal arts is waning: “Permit me tosummarize the preceding argument. In the light of the original conceptionof modern republicanism, our present predicament appears to be causedby the decay of religious education of the people and by the decay of liberaleducation.” 79 At first glance, we might conclude that Strauss believes religiouseducation and liberal education are synonymous, or tied together in someway that has since been lost. However, Strauss does not claim that religiouseducation is liberal education. Indeed, he seems to separate them. The declineof religious education, or catechism, is not necessarily the fault of colleges.This becomes evident later in the same paragraph:Still, I cannot help stating to you these questions: Is our present concernwith liberal education of adults, our present expectation fromsuch liberal education, not due to the void created by the decay ofreligious education? Is such liberal education meant to perform thefunction formerly performed by religious education? Can liberal educationperform that function? 80Religious education and liberal education are two different things with twodifferent ends. Yet Strauss seems to suggest that they may both work inthe pursuit of justice. Liberal education was originally supported by classicalpolitical philosophy, not theology, generally speaking. The oldest of thesciences is what Aristotle called political science. 81 It is synonymous withpolitical philosophy and the academy that he helped found. The problemwith modern education—Kronman in many ways rightly recognizes this—is78Ibid. Strauss makes the argument at this point that there is a tension between the philosopherand the city. The reason for that is that the philosopher is necessarily skeptical of common opinion,which finds its full force in the city. Who is the constituent part of the city? The priest. The ends ofphilosophy, then, are not the same as the ends of the city. Philosophers find it very difficult to havenoncommon conversations with members of the city, and that makes them suspect. Of course, the cityneeds philosophy in some way, but in a diluted form. See ibid., 328–31.79Ibid., 336.80Ibid.81Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, editors’ introduction to History of Political Philosophy, 3rd ed.(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 1.

3 3 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3that modern philosophy has taken over the education, thus making philosophysubservient to practical ends. In other words, classical philosophy isovertaken by modern philosophy, which makes philosophizing in a classicalsense more difficult.This development has generally taken over not only the modern secularuniversity, but also religious institutions. Strauss seems to underscore thispoint when he writes that “philosophy thus understood [i.e., understood inthe modern sense] could be presented with some plausibility as inspired bybiblical charity, and accordingly philosophy in the classic sense could be disparagedas pagan and as sustained by sinful pride.” 82 The problem here istwofold. Not only is religion, or theology, different from philosophy, but itmay have also been co-opted by modern philosophy to serve ends that arehostile to both orthodox theology and classical philosophy. Therefore, liberaleducation today is something that exists in name only at most institutions ofhigher learning. Though it may be found in some places and at some institutions,it is not meant to be a political power. With classical philosophy as itsguide, it is more concerned with the Good, or the eternal: it “seeks the lightand therefore shuns the limelight.” 83The divide or tension between reason and revelation is evident in Strauss’sthought and it is a venerable problem since Tertullian asked the question,“What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” 84 If Tertullian had his way,religious education would have nothing to do with pagan philosophy, orindeed any philosophy, because everything contained in scripture is necessaryand sufficient for living. Most early church fathers were more moderate.St. Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Gregory the Theologian were cautious andcritical of philosophy, but even these fathers used Hellenic thought in the serviceof Christianity. So too in the academy there has been a struggle betweenphilosophy and theology, reason and revelation. Christian scholars of allstripes have grappled with the issue. What is undisputed is that this conflictgoes back to the foundations not only of Christianity, but of all three monotheisticrevealed religions. Maimonides contended that the pagans could bereconciled in many ways with Judaism. Thomas Aquinas extraordinarily82Strauss, An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 337. Strauss goes on to question whether the biblicalclaims of inspiration for these matters are raised in sincerity, especially since theology is usedto serve the ends of human power, which in the Straussian context are the ends of science—makinghuman life longer, easier to live, but not happier.83Ibid., 345, 337.84David Novak, “Body and Soul,” First Things, April 2006, 50.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 3 9begins his Summa Theologica with the question whether anything besidesphilosophy is needed. Neither did the Reformation solve any of these problems.Luther criticized pagans such as Aristotle from inside the academy,contending his works should be discarded; Calvin believed that reason on itsown was of no value, but considered it competent of things in this world. Heat least believed that the life of the mind could be used in glorifying God. 85The Dialogue between Reason and RevelationWe could say that the problem we have been examining in liberal educationis similar to the crisis afflicting Western civilization. The decline of liberaleducation is a part of a broader symptom: the dismissal of both biblicalrevelation and ancient political philosophy. To put it another way, Westernman has profited from reason and revelation. The West is in crisis in partbecause of the attempted rejection of that which is inherent in man: the abilityto reason. Biblical faith also seems under attack in the modern world, andcertainly in most universities. If the West is to survive, or be revived, thedialogue between reason and revelation should be exhumed. If it is to comeback to life in the West, it needs to be resurrected in higher education, forboth provide fertile ground for moral education. 86The tension between reason and revelation is intelligible enough:85Marsden, Soul of the American University, 35–37. We should note that Catholics also had a boutwith the importance of philosophy and reason. Pope Leo XII criticized America for being too materialand did not like the Americanism of the Founding. Catholics were suspicious of the opennessof America and wondered whether freedom could produce a moral people. Long into the twentiethcentury, Catholic universities went through many of the problems that Protestant colleges did some250–300 years earlier. Part of the reason for this, it seems, was that Catholic colleges generally got alate start developing institutions of learning. See ibid., 271–73. On some of the early debates, whichfor example saw Origen condemned by an ecumenical council for blending the Greeks too much withChristianity, see James R. Payton Jr., Light from the Christian East (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,2007), 52–54.86Harry V. Jaffa, “Humanizing Certitudes and Impoverishing Doubts: A Critique of The Closing ofthe American Mind,” in Essays on “The Closing of the American Mind,” ed. Robert Stone (Chicago:Chicago Review Press, 1989), 133; Leo Strauss, “Jerusalem and Athens,” in Studies in Platonic PoliticalPhilosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 147; Strauss, An Introduction to PoliticalPhilosophy, 125; Leo Strauss, “Progress or Return?,” in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism,238. On the primacy of reason as being necessary to save reason from its self-destruction, see Harry V.Jaffa, “Leo Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy,” in Leo Strauss: Political Philosopher and JewishThinker, ed. Kenneth L. Deutsch and Walter Nicgorski (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994),195–96. Strauss speaks of the “crisis of the West” in The City and Man (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1964), 1. Susan Orr makes a more explicit link between this crisis and education in Jerusalemand Athens: Reason and Revelation in the Works of Leo Strauss (Lanham, MD: Rownman & Littlefield,1995), 5–6.

3 4 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3We must then try to understand the difference between biblical wisdomand Greek wisdom. We see at once that each of the two claims tobe the true wisdom, thus denying to the other its claim to be wisdomin the strict and highest sense. According to the Bible, the beginningof wisdom is fear of the Lord; according to the Greek philosophers,the beginning of wisdom is wonder. We are thus compelled from thevery beginning to make a choice, to take a stand. Where then do westand? We are confronted with the incompatible claims of Jerusalemand Athens to our allegiance. 87The divide is further described as being two different approaches of the“one thing needful”: for the Bible it is the obedient love of God; for Greekphilosophy, it is the life of autonomous understanding, which is the beliefin autonomous reason. 88 Despite this tension, reason and revelation are inagreement with one another over what the moral law should be. They concuron its importance, most of the content, and on how insufficient it is in politics.They agree even in the fact that reason tends toward monotheism by thecontemplation of a single and eternal Good. The problem that exists betweenthe two different ways of life—the one of the philosopher and the other of thetheologian—is in the interpretation of the divine law. How they arrive at thelaw is from two completely different paths. It probably would not be as muchof a problem if philosophy did not make claims on the divine as it inherentlydoes. In other words, philosophy is somewhat theological and that makes ita direct competitor of theology, properly understood as the biblical theologyof the personally revealed God. Western civilization has rejected both of thepoles of Western thought, being seduced by the promise of infinite progress,which has nefarious designs on nature. It is debatable whether man has progressed,or is happier, than premodern man. 89From the philosophic perspective the rational contemplation of theGood is an end in itself, but for the faithful, the believer, it issues in repentance,guilt resulting from wrongdoing, and divine grace and mercy from anomnipotent God. For the religious, at the heart of morality is action, whereasfor the philosopher it is contemplation. The discovery of nature is a philosophicalpursuit. This is not the case for the believer, or theologian. Generally,there are all sorts of divine texts that disagree on the laws that mortals should87Strauss, “Jerusalem and Athens,” 149.88Strauss, “Progress or Return?,” 246; Harry V. Jaffa, “The Legacy of Leo Strauss,” Claremont Reviewof Books 3, no. 3 (Fall 1984): 14.89Much of this is drawn from Strauss, “Progress or Return?,” 245–46.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 4 1follow. The Bible claims, however, that all other divine laws are frauds, andthat the law it proclaims is the one true divine law.This law comes from the one true God who is also a personal God. He isalso omnipotent, unknowable, and not controlled by anything outside Himself.God is mysterious, something He acknowledges when He says in Exodus“I shall be what I shall be.” 90 God is free to do what He wants, when He wants.We know God only because He has imparted to us His promises. This presentsa problem for philosophy because the philosopher cannot contemplatethis kind of God because God is “the only possible one.” 91 Philosophy contemplatesthe whole and understands ideas—class characteristics—that areuniversal. Common nouns are an example of this phenomenon and assistus in making ideas intelligible. 92 Once someone understands the idea of atree, he can imagine particular trees and distinguish the particular from theuniversal. The God of the Bible cannot be imagined. The fact that He cannotbe imagined, or contemplated in reason, requires believers to accept God onfaith. Therefore, in any attempt to reconcile reason and revelation, even bythe Christian theologians of whom St. Augustine is the most important, faithtakes the primary position: “If God is one, and if there can be no other God,there can be no idea of God.” 93 Philosophic reasoning about the Whole, theGood, or Nature will never lead men to the idea of God that we read aboutin the Bible. For the theologian, who is a partisan of the unknowable God,philosophy becomes a challenge to the way of life of the faithful.Despite these tensions, the American experience made reason and revelationallies for the first time. Nature’s God and the Creator were inspirations ofthe Founding. They became friendly to one another in the service of freedom.As opposed to the ancient city where the foundation of the polis was obedienceto the gods, the American Founding formed a détente between reason90Strauss, “Jerusalem and Athens,” 162.91Jaffa, “Leo Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy,” 197; Strauss, “Progress or Return?,” 253–57.92Jaffa, American Conservatism and the American Founding, 71. Scot Zentner has a nice discussion ofthis idea as well in “The Philosopher and the City: Harry Jaffa and the Straussians,” Interpretation 30,no. 3 (Summer 2003): 290–91.93Jaffa, “Leo Strauss, the Bible, and Political Philosophy,” 197; Ernest L. Fortin, “St. Augustine,” inHistory of Political Philosophy, ed. Strauss and Cropsey, 177. Payton, Light from the Christian East,55, writes that Augustine more than any other paved the way for Western Christianity’s acceptanceof philosophy. However, while that may be true, he was preceded by many who also tried to makephilosophy and Christianity friendly. They include Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.See ibid., 52.

3 4 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3and revelation. 94 The summum bonum has had a salutary effect: philosophyhas the capability of teaching political moderation. Expelling philosophyfrom the city, from humanity, would mean to exorcise moderation itself. 95Though the tension between reason and revelation cannot be resolved, classicalphilosophy always had a dose of skepticism associated with it. The classicalphilosopher knows that he does not know. This skepticism not only providesa motive to pursue things the mind wonders about, but it also allows revelationto challenge philosophy. 96 The converse is also true: since revelationmay be misunderstood and turned into a convention-based extremism, themind’s ability to know tempers the irrational expressions of the theologian.The modern rejection of reason by the partisans of revelation was notedby Mark Noll in his work The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Though he didnot try to flesh out the reason for rejection of philosophy in many modernreligious colleges, he understood the consequence: “the scandal of the evangelicalmind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” 97 Evangelicalsin particular played down the role of the intellect in favor of a narrow theologyand fideism. As a result, they became at worst hostile to reason and the mind,at best suspicious of them. This led to a crisis in Christian formation of theperson because the mind of the person was excluded. Ambassador CharlesHabib Malik said at Wheaton College that “the greatest danger confrontingAmerican evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism.” 98Piety alone (reason alone) is insufficient and denies human beings a pivotaltool to order the soul. His remedy was for Christians to spend years poringover Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine. According to Malik, the recovery of theChristian mind was the province of the American university.His call was not heeded. Many evangelical colleges remained suspiciousof philosophy and mistrusted reason’s ability to know. The rejection of philosophy,and hence man’s ability to reason, is, in essence, a misunderstanding of94Harry V. Jaffa, The American Founding as the Best Regime: The Bonding of Civil and ReligiousLiberty (Claremont, CA: Claremont Institute, 1990), 15–16, 20. For the importance of the gods to theancient city, see Charles Kesler, Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the American Regime (Lanham, MD:Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 277, and of course, Numa Denis Fustel De Coulanges, The Ancient City(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), 5.95There is a nice discussion of this in Ivan Kenneally, “The Use and Abuse of Utopianism: On LeoStrauss’s Philosophic Politics,” Perspectives on Political Science 36, no. 3 (Summer 2007): 146.96Strauss, “Progress or Return?,” 270. A nice summary is in Kenneth L. Deutsch and Walter Nicgorski,editors’ introduction to Leo Strauss: Political Philosopher and Jewish Thinker, 11–12.97Noll, Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, 3.98Charles Malik, “The Other Side of Evangelism,” Christianity Today, November 1980, 40.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 4 3reason’s ability to know. This development has led to anti-intellectualism. Philosophyhas been replaced by activism, populism, and political pragmatism:Evangelicals perceive moral vitality in terms of loyalty to variousideological positions and behavioral standards rather than as animaginative endeavor to resolve social dilemmas or to discern ethicalduties. Among modern evangelicals aesthetics run toward the commercialand pragmatic, as modern technology and media are embracedwidely as tools of utility for worship and witness; they are far less concernedabout philosophical and belletristic assessment. …Althoughevangelical churches have shed much of the separatist language of thefundamentalist past, sermons still routinely remind students of thedangerous lure of culture, encouraging avoidance rather than engagement,and offering occasional jeremiads on the debilitating state ofpostmodernity. Quite often, discussions of morality in public lifeamong evangelicals have been captive to partisan politics, which oftendiscourage students from thinking beyond conventional rhetoricabout social problems and possible remedies. 99Those who fall short of God and seem threatening to the Christian communityare labeled un-Godly. This development is partly the result of pietism,which has the tendency to move arguments from the complex to the simple.Thus, the spiritual and individual relationship with God is demoted to merepersonal association. Evangelical colleges emphasize simplicity and inspiration.Scripture alone is the goal of learning, and that makes them moreseminaries, or theology schools, than colleges. Because they teach that scriptureis inerrant, nothing but the consistent proof-texting will suffice. Yet theycannot hope to influence the culture when they despise the very culture theyescaped from when entering the school. Malik asserted that the mind is thetool of evangelization. In order to evangelize, a person must make argumentsand persuade, which is a province of the mind.The perplexing problem with this brand of religious education is thathuman beings have a mind. It must be used properly if we are to find the truthof things. We are living according to nature if we are using our mind. Firstprinciples may be lost if we are not reasoning rightly, or not reasoning at all:Each man can judge competently the things he knows, and of these heis a good judge. Accordingly, a good judge in each particular field isone who has been trained in it, and a good judge in general, a man whohas received an all-around schooling. For that reason, a young man is99Douglas V. Henry and Michael D. Beaty, eds., Christianity and the Soul of the University (GrandRapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), 146. See also ibid., 40, 46, 47; Henry Lee Poe, Christianity in theAcademy (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 7; Newman, Idea of a University, xxii.

3 4 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3not equipped to be a student of politics; for he has no experience in theactions which life demands of him, and these actions form the basisand subject matter of the discussion. Moreover since he follows hisemotions, his study will be pointless and unprofitable. Whether he isyoung in years or immature in character makes no difference; for hisdeficiency is not a matter of time but of living and pursuing all his interestsunder the influence of his emotions. Knowledge brings no benefitto this kind of person, just as it brings none to the morally weak. 100These principles apply to all men, believer and unbeliever. What is, and whatis not, is something accessible to us all:Socrates: Since knowledge depended on what is and ignorance necessarilyon what is not, mustn’t we also seek something betweenignorance and knowledge that depends on that which is inbetween, if there is in fact any such thing?Glaucon: Most certainly.Socrates: Do we say opinion is something?Glaucon: Of course.Socrates: A power different from knowledge or the same?Glaucon: Different.Socrates: Then opinion is dependent on one thing and knowledge onanother, each according to its own power.Glaucon: That’s so.Socrates: Doesn’t knowledge naturally depend on what is, to know ofwhat is that it is and how it is? 101Man’s reasoning capabilities make him able to come together, to congregate,and to pursue noble ends. According to Cicero, the “learning of truth mostclosely relates to human nature. For all of us feel the pull that leads us todesire to learn and to know; we think it a fine thing to excel in this, whileconsidering it bad and dishonorable to stumble, to wander, to be ignorant, tobe deceived.” 102Part of the reason early Christian colleges collapsed was that they refusedto tolerate philosophy. This conflict led to ecclesiastical conflict and division.Marsden describes this conflict aptly:100Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Martin Ostwald (New York: MacMillan, 1986), 5–6. See alsoJames V. Schall, A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2000), 2, 11.101Plato, The Republic, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 157 (names of interlocutorsadded).102Cicero, On Duties, ed M. T. Griffin and E. M. Atkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1991), 8; Newman, Idea of a University, 78–79.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 4 5In each case there was an assumption that classical learning couldbe made subservient to the cause of Christ. The resulting tensionwas, in other words, inherent even in the most successful efforts atmaintaining fully Christian learning while still doing justice to paganscience. …Even though pagan shortcomings on matters pertainingto salvation were often cited, much of pagan thought that implicitlychallenged Christian first principles was nonetheless revered. Thus abalancing act was maintained between a strict biblicism and opennessto recognizing that mundane aspects of God’s truth were revealed innature or the created order, and therefore could be learned from nonbiblicalsources. 103The Puritan, or religious, answer to this was to approach higher educationmore or less as a theological school. Kronman rightly notes the decline ofhigher education in this regard. Religious schools declined, paving the wayfor the rise of secular humanism. He believes that it is not enough for a studentto know about Plato, but that a student must choose between Plato andanyone else. In a debate between Plato and Nietzsche, students must endorsea position and take a side, and if neither position, the student must articulatewhich position is most persuasive. Secular humanism makes it possible toexplore the meaning of life in a deliberate fashion, and this may be donewithout a religious foundation. The decline of religious foundations of theuniversity allowed secular humanism room to flourish, but Kronman assertsthat the antebellum college never had to address the problems associatedwith a declining religious faith. Religion in that era answered unequivocallythe question of the ends of life:Secular humanism neither reaffirmed the religious dogmas of the oldorder nor embraced the most radical doubts of the new one. It refusedto endorse the idea that human life has meaning only in a world createdby God and directed toward His ends. But it also rejected thenotion that we are able to create for ourselves, as individuals, whateverstructures of meaning our lives require in order to have purpose andvalue. Instead, it emphasized our dependence on structures of valuelarger and more lasting than those that any individual can create. Itstressed the need for individuals to locate themselves within thesestructures as a condition of their leading purposeful lives. This muchsecular humanism shared with the religious outlook of the old-timecollege. But it did not insist that these structures be eternal, like theideas in God’s mind. It accepted their mortality, and ability to decay,requiring only that they have a longer life than the lives of the individualswho are born into them and die out of them, one by one. 104103Marsden, Soul of the American University, 43.104Kronman, Education’s End, 81; see also 69, 74–76.

3 4 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3According to the author, from 1869 to 1968 secular humanism was able to dojust that. It reinforced the idea that the meaning of life could be taught. Oneproblem with Kronman’s thesis is that, as noted above, the colleges at the timeof the American Revolution allowed a space for philosophy beside theology.Kronman seems to miss the moderating effects of the American Revolutionon colleges. He also shares a thesis with Bloom. Kronman believes thatwe need more doubt in society because people have a certainty stemmingfrom political correctness. On the surface, Bloom disagrees: he asserts thatall modern students are relativists. However, Bloom disdains their certaintybecause students are certain in their relativism. The relativism that Bloomrejects has been transformed into political correctness—certainty in thepolitical correctness of one’s own faction.When people meet as representatives of a certain group, they are notinterested in dialogue. Truth is lost in the dogma of the group. For collegeto be productive students must be free to participate as individual humanbeings. If they are going to be personally engaged in the material, they mustbe free to enter the conversation. College is a quest for truth, not a crusade. 105According to Kronman, students must be open to the idea that their opinionscould be wrong, and that other students may change their mind. Kronmanasserts that the “restoration of the humanities to a position of authority inour colleges and universities is a matter of signal importance. …The traditionof secular humanism must be reclaimed.” 106 He prefers secular humanismbecause it is pluralistic and more open than the antebellum college. He likesthe skepticism that undermines theological certitude even as he appreciatesthe theological contributions of Augustine to the discussion on the meaningof life. 107 Yet in this sense, Kronman is no different from Bloom: “liberaleducation flourished when it prepared the way for the discussion of a unifiedview of nature and man’s place in it, which the best minds debated onthe highest level. It decayed when what lay beyond it were only specialties,the premises of which do not lead to any such vision.” 108 Both Bloom andKronman want to decrease the importance of theology in the academy and,further, political life.105Harry Neumann, “Teachers or Propagandists? A Note on the Decline of Academic Freedom,”Religious Humanism 4 (1970): 125.106Kronman, Education’s End, 203. See also Neumann, “Teachers or Propagandists?,” 125.107Kronman, Education’s End, 121–22.108Bloom, Closing of the American Mind, 346–47.

Liberal Education Imperiled3 4 7Encouraging this debate within the halls of academia should be a desiredgoal—providing a space for each to exist:No one can be both a philosopher and a theologian, nor, for that matter,some possibility which transcends the conflict between philosophyand theology, or pretends to be a synthesis of both. But every one of uscan be and ought to be either one or the other, the philosopher opento the challenge of theology or the theologian open to the challengeof philosophy. 109Kronman’s remedy is incomplete even though he is correct that the reasonparents sent their children to college was that these august institutionsclaimed to be an authority on life’s meaning. There were moral and spiritualbenefits to higher education. Certainly, the intellectual life can be a complementto the moral and religious life. When St. Paul addressed the Stoicsand Epicureans in the Areopagus, he dealt with philosophical and religiousissues that Athenians understood. The apostle spoke in a way and in termsthat the pagans understood. 110 Kronman’s position is therefore limited. Theway to revive liberal education is to revive the dialogue between Jerusalemand Athens.109Strauss, “Progress or Return?,” 270.110Kronman, Education’s End, 196–97; Newman, Idea of a University, xxiii; Poe, Christianity in theAcademy, 22. Poe goes on to lament that Christians are called to the marketplace of ideas to propagatethe Truth of salvation, but that pastors have been wont to say that St. Paul was wrong (sinned?) toconverse with philosophers on their own turf. See ibid., 25–26.

3 4 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3

Book Review: Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn3 4 9Leo Strauss, Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn. Translated, edited, and withan interpretive essay by Martin D. Yaffe. Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 2012, 322 pp., $45.00 (hardcover).F r e d Bau m a n nKenyon Collegebaumann@kenyon.eduAll right then; so what do I think about what Martin Yaffe thinks about whatLeo Strauss and Alexander Altmann (not to mention Frederick Beiser) thinkabout what Moses Mendelssohn and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi think aboutwhat Gotthold Ephraim Lessing thinks about what Baruch, a.k.a. Benedict,Spinoza thinks about? Not as many layers as Schliemann’s Troy perhaps, butenough to go on.Before that though, some preliminary and high praise is in order. Asthe first sentence suggests, the scholarly labor alone that is necessary to dojustice to such complexity is likely to be enormous. Here the task was madeeven more difficult by the fact that the “present volume,” as Altmann calls itin preliminary remarks dating from 1974 (3), is in fact ten introductions byLeo Strauss, translated by Yaffe, to “various philosophical writings by MosesMendelssohn” (xi), which were supposed to come out in the Jubilee edition ofMendelssohn’s collected works. The Third Reich had something to say aboutthat, however, with the result that the project did not revive until the 1970s.Dr. Yaffe has translated these ten introductions, and as far as I can tell, doneso with great care and precision. Where, as often, Yaffe thinks it useful, heoffers a translator’s footnote to explain why he has translated the particularGerman word as he does. To me his explanations are just about always persuasive.Let the reader consult, for instance, footnote 21 on page 62 aboutthe various uses of vorstellen, which exemplifies Yaffe’s linguistic sensitivity© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

3 5 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3and nuanced judgment. In addition, Yaffe has transformed Strauss’s ownparenthetical notes into numbered footnotes “interspersed among my owntranslator’s footnotes.” For the scholar who wants to consult the Germanedition, the relevant page appears in boldface in curly brackets. Then thereare the appendices. Just to whet the appetite: Yaffe offers a “Chronology ofWritings Mentioned in Strauss’s Introductions,” and of course a set of abbreviationswhich make references to the various Mendelssohn works that arebeing introduced easier to handle. Then too there is, as mentioned above, atranslation of Altmann’s preface written after Strauss’s death and serving,Yaffe says, as a kind of eulogy. And after all this come English translations ofStrauss’s preface for a book on Lessing which he never, alas, wrote, “a hithertountranslated Mendelssohnian passage that Strauss cites in his Natural Rightand History,” and a particularly relevant passage from Lessing’s famous (i.e.,I’ve actually read it once) “The Education of the Human Race” (xviii). Then,in the lengthy second appendix, we reach further elucidations of Yaffe’s ownnotes, most of them taken from Strauss’s writings on related subjects, somefrom other thinkers.Only then do we get to part 2, which is Yaffe’s own interpretive essay.Thus, even if (as I hasten to emphasize, is manifestly not the case) that essaycontributed little to the understanding of the issues involved in these works,we would have to conclude that Dr. Yaffe had performed a remarkable feat.The staggering amount of work and its (I keep wanting to avoid this word asoverused but find I can’t) meticulous execution would require of those whowant to understand the origin of Strauss’s thought or who concern themselveswith the essential issues in these introductions, to offer Dr. Yaffe theirheartfelt gratitude.Yet perhaps all the intellectual archaeology we are about to embark onis of essentially pedantic interest. Could it be that, since Strauss was such animportant figure, anything he deigned to write on, even antiquated quarrelsabout things that might have been shocking once but are commonplacetoday, must be ipso facto interesting but not much more than that? As it happens,no. For, as it turns out, and as Yaffe knows well, the work he has doneilluminates perhaps the single most important turn in Strauss’s developmentand explains from within what caused the single greatest substantive obstacle—I’dsay esotericism is the single greatest methodological obstacle—toStrauss’s acceptance by the academia of his time and ours. When I was doingmy best to translate Philosophie und Gesetz, I remember being struck, notentirely pleasantly, by Strauss’s judgment that the moderate Enlightenment

Book Review: Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn3 5 1had had to suffer (as I translated it) “a contempt from which even the greatestfair-mindedness of historical judgment cannot save it” (5). In Yaffe’s bookwe get first from Strauss, and then from Yaffe himself, an account of the rootintellectual experiences which led Strauss to this judgment, spelled out withgreat care and insight. As Yaffe puts it in his interpretive essay: “For Strauss,it [the Pantheist Controversy] is an ongoing theologico-political issue whoseripple effects extend, for example, to his own, pressing situation as a Jewishescapee from the Germany of the 1930s, where Jewish life in its assimilationto German life had been radically shaped by Mendelssohn’s oeuvre” (238).From that account it is possible to develop an understanding of how Strausswas forced to a kind of philosophic radicalism, which viewed with knowingdismay the efforts of his American contemporaries to cobble up the weaknessesof a regime based on, if not Mendelssohn’s moderate Enlightenment,then on another, similar though by no means identical, historically produced,moderated Enlightenment, with the inadequate remedies and toolsthat were thought to be available (whether social scientific, pluralist, or, later,what Allan Bloom was to call “Left Nietzschean”). Hence the irony of themistaking of Strauss as an enemy of free government by those who thoughtthey were its only true friends.The central issue at stake in these writings is the dispute between Mendelssohnand Jacobi about whether Lessing had become a Spinozist pantheistin his old age, the “Pantheism Controversy.” (Here I follow Yaffe in the translator’spreface [xi–xiii].) This was partly a very personal matter, with Jacobimaliciously trying to show Mendelssohn that he had never understood Lessing,who had been Mendelssohn’s ticket to respectability among Germangentiles and philosophers, and that he, Jacobi, was really the one favored withthe deep and secret insights—so there! But there was much more to it.To begin with, the real issue with “pantheism” is atheism. Could the twobe distinguished? It was then generally understood that if everything is Godthen there is no transcendent God. And Spinoza forced that point on theworld in the Theological-Political Treatise, which attacked the authenticity ofthe Mosaic revelation. A century later Hermann Samuel Reimarus extendedthe historical critique of revelation to the New Testament as well. He remainedunpublished, but Lessing published him without attribution, though he added“Counterpropositions” in his own name, as Yaffe says, to “separate his ownviews somewhat from them.” The respectable theist alternative to Spinoza’saccount was found in Leibniz. Publicly Reimarus had presented himself asa Leibnizian. A controversy with the orthodox theologian Goeze about the

3 5 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Reimarus “Fragments” led to suspicion that Lessing may really have been aSpinozist, though nowhere did Lessing present himself as an orthodox Spinozistin print.Jacobi however set a trap for Mendelssohn by alluding in a private letterto Reimarus’s daughter Elise to a conversation he had had with the recentlydeceased Lessing in which the latter allegedly had confessed his allegiance toSpinozism. Jacobi affects to leave it to her whether to tell Mendelssohn (andpretends not to know that Lessing had not already revealed this to Mendelssohn),but Strauss concludes that he was desperately eager for Mendelssohnto find out so that he could compel a public dispute which he knew, havingLessing’s comments up his sleeve, that he would win. The reason Strauss givesfor Jacobi’s malice is a prior brush between the two men where, in short,Jacobi had, while seeking to enlist Lessing in the cause, pushed the democraticimplications of the Enlightenment from critique of the church to oppositionto princely rule. The more cautious Mendelssohn had demurred. The quarrelin other words was from the outset about the conflict of the radical Enlightenment(perversely championed, for the sake of its greater clarity, by Jacobieven though he ultimately wanted to reject it) with the moderate Enlightenment(Mendelssohn). It is, as Strauss says, a conflict, started by Jacobi, aboutwho was the true heir of Lessing (62–65; see also 67, 75, 77).Jacobi (about whom Strauss wrote his doctoral dissertation) figures inStrauss’s description as something of a contrarian, whose consistent principlewas a preference for radical thought, whether he agreed with it or not, to anykind of wishy-washy compromise (75). So, while in this dispute he insists thatLessing was a Spinozist and uses the most radical understanding of pantheismto eviscerate Mendelssohn’s effort to maintain a middle position betweenreason and revelation, in fact he was a critic of the Enlightenment and ofSpinoza. Jacobi himself thought that rationalism, as he understood it, lednecessarily to atheism and nihilism, and it was Spinoza who proved for Jacobithat the Enlightenment was headed into a dead end. (If the reader begins todraw parallels between Jacobi’s view of Spinoza and Strauss’s eventual viewof Nietzsche in the significance of his thought for modernity, the reader is notalone.) Yet, as Strauss tells the story, above all Jacobi had a visceral disdain forintellectual muddiness, which in the end he understood as a moral failing, asself-centeredness (77). This allowed him to excuse his bad behavior towardsMendelssohn with self-righteous moralism.The story plays itself out in stages. First, Jacobi is out for a war. Mendelssohn,to whom Jacobi appears to matter far less than he mattered to Jacobi

Book Review: Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn3 5 3(which in turn further enraged and embittered the latter), does not seem evento realize it, but does see he has been put in a bad spot by having to admitthat Lessing probably was some kind of Spinozist. First, this can only aid theorthodox who have been saying this sort of thing all along during the Reimarus“Fragments” dispute, and second, it turns out, humiliatingly, that Lessingtold the relatively insignificant Jacobi important secrets that he had never letMendelssohn in on. So he downplays the importance of what, after all, is ananecdote, and notes that Lessing was a fan of paradox and conversationalextremism on occasion. So one should not make too much of this. AfterJacobi persists, Mendelssohn comes up with a new idea (Strauss is insistent,and argues persuasively, that there is plenty of evidence that Mendelssohncooked up the explanation ad hoc and had never thought of it before [91–92,94, 96–97]), which, however, he calls an old one, namely that he’d alwaysknown that Lessing was a kind of Spinozist, but not, in the end, a really, fully,wholly atheistic one, so that all this is not such a big deal after all. That is, hedoes his best to muddy the waters. Jacobi, however, rips him to pieces, andMendelssohn, very ill at the time anyway, dies. Though Strauss’s philosophicalsympathies are always with Jacobi he is at pains to let the reader know thatas a human being he vastly prefers Mendelssohn (see 64, 76, 107–8).More specifically (but not very specifically—who wants the often fascinatingand even occasionally perverse details must read Strauss, as wellas Yaffe’s very clear guide to them), Jacobi drew materialist and atheisticconsequences from Spinoza’s denial that infinite substance (God) has intellectio(understanding), though he admits it does think (i.e., uses cogitatio).By contrast, Mendelssohn wanted to understand Spinoza as thinking thatfinite things do not exist outside of divine understanding (88–89). This ledhim eventually to come across an early essay of Lessing’s which presentedwhat Mendelssohn could claim was a “purified” version of Spinoza. That versiondiffers from what Mendelssohn now acknowledges is the true Spinoza,where the necessary being consists “in the sum of infinitely many contingentbeings,” but (quoting Strauss quoting Mendelssohn) “teaches rather ‘thatthe one necessary being must be infinite in its unity and in accord with itspower’” (99). The difference would appear to be that for Spinoza, the infinite,or God, is a polite title for the accumulation of a meaningless mass of stuff,whereas for Mendelssohn’s Lessing’s Spinoza, God is a lot more than that. Inother words, Lessing had indeed been a pantheist, but not an atheist. Mendelssohnpresented this argument in The Morning Hours, a book originallyintended as a popular presentation of the arguments for the existence of God,but one which now he wanted to extend to a critique of Spinozism and, only

3 5 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3apparently incidentally, an account of Lessing’s beliefs. The latter, Strausstells us Mendelssohn thought, would meet a lot of needs. First, it wouldbring Lessing back at least close to the respectable Leibniz-Wolff tradition ofnatural theology, thus protecting his posthumous reputation (82); second, itwould protect the Reimarus children, who were very worried about a renewalof the attacks of the orthodox on their family (86); and third, it would showthat Jacobi hadn’t learned anything from Lessing that Mendelssohn hadn’talready known (since he claimed to find this “purified Spinozism” in Lessing’sChristianity of Reason), thus protecting his own reputation and his claim tohave known Lessing particularly well. Jacobi, however, was able to turn thetables in his On Spinoza’s Doctrine, in Letters to Mr. Moses Mendelssohn, byrevealing a fact (which everyone in the dispute seems to have accepted was afact) that he had previously concealed, namely that Lessing had told him thathe did not talk about this kind of thing to Mendelssohn (103). Mendelssohnwas desperately wounded but tried to overcome his hurt feeling (104). Shortlybefore he died he completed a reply called “To the Friends of Lessing.” Init Mendelssohn, by Strauss’s account, did himself no credit, and was easilyrefuted by Jacobi (105).Yaffe’s account of the significance of this dispute is both persuasive andvaluable. Lessing, it appears, was right to describe Mendelssohn (accordingto Jacobi’s account) as “a bright, accurate, superior mind, but no metaphysicalone. Mendelssohn needed philosophy, found what he needed in thedominant doctrine of his time, and clung to it” (76). That doctrine was theLeibnizian one as transformed by Wolff. But Mendelssohn had come to agreethat that system had failed to prove the existence of the God of believers.On one hand, Mendelssohn would have liked to retreat to a philosophy ofcommon sense, but on the other he understood how vulnerable that was tometaphysical critique (87–88). In the end, he made do with a self-contradiction.Yaffe recounts Strauss’s discovery that, as Yaffe puts it, “Mendelssohncasually switches between conceiving the self as an image whose archetypeis a thought of God’s, and, vice versa, conceiving that same thought of God’sas an image whose archetype is the self” (294). Much hangs on this, especiallythe fate of enlightened religion. Does man need to obey God and hisdivine law? Or is God ultimately a creation of the self, in which case religionof any kind would seem to be supererogatory, and the path lies open not justto scientific nihilism (La Mettrie’s Man the Machine had alerted Europe tothe problem forty years before all this), but, down the road, to will to powerand its vulgar expressions? Mendelsson’s humane and humanistic beliefspoint to human autonomy, democracy, and liberalism (despite his earlier

Book Review: Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn3 5 5cautious and prudential defense of enlightened despotism), but the ultimatelogic of that alternative, which Jacobi so insisted on, led to places Mendelssohn,very understandably, did not want to go. In a certain way, therefore,Strauss’s working through of Mendelssohn’s situation was a rehearsal for hisconfrontation with American liberalism, so humane, so well-meaning, andso incapable, in fact if not necessarily in theory, of defending itself intellectually,perhaps most importantly, after Strauss’s death, against what came to becalled “postmodernism.”If the climax and central significance of this book is the Pantheist Controversy,Strauss’s introductions to earlier Mendelssohn works should not beneglected. Briefly, they are models of what introductions should be. Historicalquestions are raised and judged (who, for instance, is really the author of Popea Metaphysician!—Lessing or Mendelssohn? [7–13]). But the intellectual issueat stake is also clarified—what was the issue between the followers of Leibnizand the Berlin Academy? And at times, where Mendelssohn gives himselfaway, Strauss is there to notice, as in the former’s incapacity to understandjust how radical Rousseau is (14–17). The introduction to Mendelssohn’sversion of the Phaedo, in which he seeks to defend the doctrine of the immortalityof the soul on the grounds of modern metaphysics, is worth a good dealof attention, which it will not get from me here. Suffice it to say that here tooone can see Mendelssohn’s decent and humane sentiments come up againstthe necessities of philosophic argument, and emerge bruised but fundamentallyunaffected. Strauss’s gifts as a careful reader are displayed graphically,in a table showing the significance of certain changes Mendelssohn makesin Plato’s text (38). All of them point to Mendelssohn’s softness and evenhis sentimentality. (As an aside, this observation: Strauss is known generallyas a careful and deeply insightful reader of great philosophers, whosetexts contain riddles that in some cases only he has fathomed. Here we see,very instructively, Strauss reading a thinker of the second rank. It turns outthat in some ways this is even harder, because it is necessary to bring intoclarity exactly what the confusion is that escaped the author. An examplecan be found in Strauss’s tenth introduction, to God’s Cause, or ProvidenceVindicated, which works out in remarkable complexity and clarity the relationof Mendelssohn’s thought to Leibniz and Leibniz’s to Bayle, culminatingin a deadly judgment on page 154, one which demonstrates in a nutshell howStrauss saw the difference between the sobriety of the great philosophers andthe sentimentality of a thinker who wasn’t.)

3 5 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Yaffe’s essay is a faithful guide to Strauss’s introductions. It does what itshould; it clarifies what could use clarification. It is, as far as I can see, alwayshelpful and always to the crucial point. But Yaffe does not merely rehearseStrauss’s argument. His epilogue, which looks forward from Jacobi’s critiqueof the Enlightenment to the second, Rousseauan, and third, Nietzschean,“waves” of modernity, does much to demonstrate the ultimate significancefor Strauss’s later thought of these early works. Yaffe also describes the backgroundof Strauss’s engagement with Mendelssohn and his turn, after theSpinoza book, to Jewish things. Additionally, Yaffe deals with competitiveaccounts of the Pantheist Controversy.For Frederick Beiser, perhaps the leading contemporary historian of theperiod (and whom Yaffe discusses in his translator’s preface [xiii–xvi]), Jacobiis a critic of rationalism as such. Beiser also thinks that Jacobi was simplycorrect about Lessing’s Spinozism. Strauss, by contrast, notes that the conversationJacobi reported falls short of outright confession of adherence toSpinoza. For Lessing had only said that if he had to name himself after onephilosopher it would be Spinoza. And he also said he hoped Jacobi would notmake his credo any one book. This turns out to be crucial for Yaffe’s Strauss,because in his view, while Jacobi wholly accepted the modern understandingof reason as instrumental, that is, Hobbes’s view (thus leading him to theperceived necessity to reject reason altogether as more than a tool), Lessinghad already begun to see the power of ancient thought (xv). (Thus, if Strausstook from Jacobi the lesson of the need for philosophic clarity, he found inLessing a kind of predecessor in the return to classical thought.) It is worthremembering, in this regard, the first footnote in Philosophy and Law—myversion again—which reminds us that “‘Irrationalism’ is only a variety ofmodern rationalism, which is ‘irrational’ enough itself” (111).Alexander Altmann, to put it simply, bought Mendelssohn’s story abouthaving known about Lessing’s “purified Spinozism” all along. Similarly, hefound no deep contradictions in Mendelssohn’s own position in MorningHours (238–39). For him the synthesis that is enlightened Judaism seemedsatisfactory. Yaffe is with Strauss in doubting it. Still, Strauss does write aletter at the end of his life accepting that Altmann may have discoveredsomething that would cause Strauss to rethink things. Altmann thus claimedthat it may not have been stress over Jacobi’s final attack, but a symptom ofthe disease that was killing him, that accounted for Mendelssohn’s strangebehavior on one occasion (227–29). In itself, not a big point, perhaps, but Yaffethinks that it led Strauss to want to undertake a larger reconsideration. This

Book Review: Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn3 5 7would involve reconsidering Lessing and “clarifying what was at stake forMendelssohn, not only personally. . . but also theologically and politically,as the philosophical founder of modern Jewish thought.” That carries withit, Yaffe points out, the “prospect of a non-ghettoized life for Jews as Jews inmodern times.” Yaffe goes so far as to suggest, strikingly, in view of Strauss’sdevastating critique of Mendelssohn as a philosopher, that “Strauss writes asMendelssohn’s theological-political heir.” That is, Strauss wanted at the endof his life to “illuminate the combined private and public perplexities thatMendelssohn bequeathed to subsequent Jewish life and thought,” but whichMendelssohn had “never quite succeeded in illuminating for himself” (229).To say this is, I think, to say something very important about how Strausssaw himself. I do not know if Yaffe’s suggestion is right, but I would like itto be. For it accords with my own hunch (unphilosophic natural Mendelssohnianthat I am), that Strauss’s concern for how nonphilosophers live wasfar from a trivial one, that his philosophic radicalism went along with a kindof decency, itself a philosophic taste though not an argument, which in partperhaps even explains his refusal to go with the Jacobis and their heirs, bothfideist and fanatical, and which brings him back, with a desire to be of someassistance, to the Mendelssohns and their latter-day heirs. (Alas, predictablyand foolishly, those heirs generally spurn that assistance with pious horror,and turn instead for aid to precisely those proffered remedies which containthe most lethal poisons.) But the possibility remains open, and it is one ofthe many things for which one needs to thank Martin Yaffe, namely that hisgreat scholarly effort also reminds us of that.

3 5 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3

Book Review: On the God of the Christians3 5 9Rémi Brague, On the God of the Christians (and on one or two others). Translatedby Paul Seaton. Notre Dame, IN: St. Augustine’s, 2013, 176 pp., $26.00(hardcover).G r e g ory A . McBr ay e rMorehead State Universityg.mcbrayer@moreheadstate.eduOn the God of the Christians (and on one or two others) is a deeply personalbook that relates the author’s considered thoughts on the attributes of theGod of the Christians; it is a work animated by a spirit of pious devotion. Thebook, written in 2008 and recently translated from the French, aims, aboveall, to “describe the image made of [God] by a certain religion (Christianity)”(xv). The heart of Brague’s exploration, as the title of the book clearlyannounces, is Christian: Quid est Deus, in Christianitate? What is God inChristianity? Anyone interested in this question will undoubtedly find thisbook a rewarding read.Rémi Brague, a French intellectual whose influence extends across bothsides of the Atlantic, is a distinguished scholar with an enormous breadthof expertise, ranging from the ancient philosophy of Plato and Aristotle totwentieth-century philosophy. Among other things, he has traced the culturalgenealogy of Europe over this immense expanse of time, arguing that Romeplayed the central or definitive role in forming European culture by bringingtogether, more or less consciously, the two great roots of Western civilization:Athens and Jerusalem (the title of his book The Eccentric Culture: A Theoryof Western Civilization is literally translated as “Europe: the Roman road”).In Brague’s view, a synthesis between reason and revelation, between Athensand Jerusalem, is possible. As he says in another book, “It is possible that thetheological-political problem is a serious problem in appearance only” (The© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

3 6 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea [University of Chicago Press,2007], 263). Seaton, the translator of the work at hand, tells us that Bragueis both a philosopher and a Catholic believer (xi), and deems him almost a“Catholic Socratic” (xii). To be sure, the author draws upon both his personalexperience of God as well as his philosophically informed theology in writingthis book (xi) and refers to philosophers as regularly as he does to theologiansand apologists in On the God of the Christians. Brague, known and celebratedfor his many contributions to the study of medieval philosophy, brings hisexpertise in this field to the fore throughout On the God of the Christians.The title of the work gives an indication of the subject matter and presentsthe possibility that the book is academic or even historical in character,and while the book undoubtedly reflects its author’s extensive scholarly background,it goes beyond traditional scholarship. The subtitle of the work, forexample, strikes a somewhat flippant tone (as the author himself says [xvi]),and is a bit vague. At times, the book is deeply personal and endearing, asis reflected, for example, in Brague’s remarks dedicating the work to hiswife (xvi; see also 39). Sometimes, however, the book strikes a defensive orapologetic tone, while at other times it in fact appears to be quite scholarly oracademic, as in his sustained treatment of St. John of the Cross’s Subida delMonte Carmelo in chapter 5. While it may be difficult to pin down the genreof the book, it is nonetheless or perhaps for that very reason a passionate,interesting, and learned book.The book seems to be aimed, above all, at a Christian audience, as Bragueevinces no overarching desire to convince non-Christians to believe in theGod of the Christians. He does, however, indicate that non-Christians maywell read his book, and he only hopes that the potential Christian who readshis book and rejects the God of Christianity will do so having become betterinformed about the image of God that Christianity presents (xvi). The nonbelieverwho comes to Brague’s book will find an answer to the fundamentalquestion presupposed in the very first paragraphs. In the introduction, thereader is immediately greeted with what Brague calls “grand truisms”: “Inhimself, God is the same for all. Secondly, he is beyond all the representationsthat men have made of him” (xv). It would seem that the description of God,rather than any demonstrative argument, would provide the basis for anypossible conversion of the nonbelieving reader.The book consists of an introduction by the translator, a foreword by theauthor, and seven chapters. There is also an index of proper names and selectedtopics. In the introduction, Seaton provides a gracious account of Brague’s

Book Review: On the God of the Christians3 6 1scholarly life to an audience that may not be familiar with Brague. The forewordcontains Brague’s pronouncement of the two grand truisms previouslyalluded to. The first two chapters are preludes of a sort, where Brague clearsup or disposes of widespread confusions, and chapters 3–7 examine attributesassociated with the God of the Christians.In the first chapter, Brague goes to great lengths to distinguish the Godof the Christians from other gods or Gods. This chapter is far and away themost defensive or apologetic—indeed it strikes a somewhat hostile tone attimes. In it Brague’s primary task is to dispel the notion that Judaism, Islam,and Christianity are sympathetic and similar or compatible religions. Theyare not similar, in his view, and he encourages his readers to stop speakingof Judaism, Islam, and Christianity in the same breath as “the threemonotheisms,” “the three religions of Abraham,” and “the three religionsof the book.” Using these expressions, he says, is “false and dangerous” (2).Brague treats each of these expressions in subsections of the first chapter.And while Brague persuasively argues that there are significant differencesbetween these three religions, he perhaps goes too far. For surely there arecommonalities between these three religions. Moreover, his use of the term“dangerous” is striking, but upon further reading one sees that he speaksonly of intellectual danger, insofar as using these expressions conduces tointellectual laziness. He does not say that it is politically dangerous to point tocommonalities between these religions. One wonders, then, whether it mightnot be politically salutary to emphasize the points of agreement between thethree, since agreements surely exist, rather than insist upon the differences.At any rate, his treatment of alternative divine law codes is largely apologetic.Chapter 2, “To Know God” (Connaître Dieu), is rich and merits sustainedattention. In it Brague aims to make very fine distinctions regarding howwe know God and what precisely we know about Him. Given its emphasison precise terminology, this chapter invites consideration of the quality ofthe translation. Generally speaking, it is very good; it is readable, true tothe French, and it even captures the author’s tone. Seaton has done Englishspeakers a great service by making this book accessible to them. It wouldhave been helpful, however, to see the translator discuss his principles oftranslation. Similarly, footnotes that provide justifications for the translator’schoices when difficult ones had to be made would aid the reader in thinkingthrough problems. And while readability is certainly a concern of any translator,it would be useful to render key terms consistently throughout. At leastin this chapter, where precision seems so important, Seaton does not do this.

3 6 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3For example, he uses “to know” with quotation marks to cover three differentterms used by Brague: to know (in English), connaître, and savoir. It wouldbe useful to keep these three terms separate or indicate the differences somehow—if,at any rate, the translator suspects that the author is distinguishingthese terms in a consistent and intelligible manner. Continuing with thistheme, it would in general be very useful to know when Brague uses savoirversus connaître. The title of the chapter, for instance, uses connaître, andwhile that might be what one expects, the translator does not confirm this forus. This may seem like an overly pedantic complaint, but we are talking abouthow one knows, or becomes acquainted with, or becomes aware of God, atopic of great, if not the greatest, importance.In any event, Brague argues that there are many ways of knowing, and heargues, persuasively, that common parlance reflects this fact. One can “know”Paris, or “know” that the sky is blue, and one can even “know” particularpersons. Of course, he says, one can also know God. It would appear that ourknowledge of God is not scientific (savoir), but is more akin to recognitionor familiarity (connaître). We know God in a manner similar to the mannerin which we are familiar with other human beings. Additionally, one mustknow where to look for God, Brague tells us, and the seeker’s heart must bein the right place. The nature of the object, Brague tells us, “dictates to me theway I am to gain access to it” (33), and he cites in support of his claim Aristotle’sfamous contention that the well-educated man seeks out the precisionin each class only to the extent that the nature of that matter allows. But whatis the right method for inquiring into what God might be? How or to whatextent does the nature of God allow for human beings to know Him? Aristotle,whom Brague cites approvingly here, made his own inquiry into thegods, a rational, or at least dialectical inquiry (Metaphysics, bk. 12), whereasBrague indicates that one has to seek God with the heart, not with the mind(35–37). Quoting Jesus Christ from the Gospel according to Matthew, Braguereminds the reader that “he who seeks, finds” (Matt. 7:8).After having disposed of these confusions, Brague turns in chapter 3 tohis central aim: exploring and describing the attributes that characterize theGod of the Christians. The attributes that he examines are God’s oneness(chap. 3); the image of God as a father (chap. 4); the finality of revelation inChristianity (chap. 5); the lack of demands that God places on human beings(chap. 6); and God’s forgiveness (chap. 7). Appropriately, the first chapterdevoted to the attributes of God is devoted to the question of monotheism.God’s oneness, according to Brague, is obvious, and it is even provisionally

Book Review: On the God of the Christians3 6 3intelligible. It is more important, however, to confess or acknowledge theoneness of God, because even if God’s oneness is provisionally intelligible,it is nevertheless a difficult attribute to understand fully (58). Moreover, henotes, Christians confess a Trinitarian God, a mysterious conception hestates is a novelty of Christianity (63). One wonders to what extent the mindcan assent to something that it does not understand. In any event, he goeson to say, “The dogma of the Trinity maintains that the three divine Personsare not distinguished in anything (they have, or are, the same substance),except for the relations that unite them” (64, emphasis mine), and love playsa central role in his attempt to understand this most mysterious dogma. I donot believe that I can do full justice to Brague’s treatment of the doctrine ofthe Trinity, but he concludes that “monotheism is the doctrine of the Trinity.…[The doctrine of the trinity] deepens the confession of the fact that God isone, by means of the manner in which he is one. The Trinity is the manner inwhich God is one” (67, emphasis in original). Even with his beautiful treatmentof the Trinity, the doctrine remains a mystery.Chapter 4, “God the Father,” is by far the shortest chapter and the onlyone without main sections (there are, however, smaller subsections). In thischapter, Brague goes to great lengths to show that the conception of God asfather is not meant to imply masculinity. Nor is it meant to impute to Godany sexuality. The God of Israel, to whose attention Brague now directs us,is “either beyond the sexual difference or above sexuality in general” (71).He is not male. Insofar as God is Creator, however, He is Father. Brague’saccount is persuasive, but one still wonders why the Bible regularly uses malenouns, adjectives, and articles to describe God—might there be some deeperwisdom that the authors of scriptures are trying to convey? Pagan Greeksand Romans, as is well known, had female deities, and in pre-Islamic Arabia,three goddesses were worshiped. Both Hebrew and Greek, the languages ofthe Bible, have a neuter gender, so the authors of scripture had the meansavailable to describe God free of masculine terminology. In any event, Braguetraces God’s masculine attributes almost solely to His act of creation. Andwhile Brague goes to great lengths to argue that the Bible does not privilegethe male sex over the female, one cannot help but notice that males greatlysurpass women in the Bible—and this is even more the case in the New Testamentthan in the Old.In chapter 5, Brague discusses a “God who has said everything.” The overarchingclaim being made in this chapter is that the New Testament is God’sfinal revelation to man; we can expect no further communication from God.

3 6 4 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3But, as Brague notes, there are problems with this claim. First, other religionssimilarly present themselves as final and definitive as well. In particular, “allthe religions that appeal to Abraham attempt to present themselves as finaland definitive” (87). Recognizing the fact that many religions make such aclaim—although one wonders where such a claim to present itself as final anddecisive is found in Judaism—how does one determine which religion is thecorrect one? Which, among the various divine law codes, is the right way? Isit simply the case that “Christian boys [grow] up only to be Christians, Jewishboys only to be Jewish, and Muslim boys only to be Muslim”? 1 Brague doesnot attempt to answer this problem in relation to other religions, but limitshimself to exploring Christianity’s claims to be definitive. God has expressedHimself through history, preparing the way for Christ. And “with the deathof Christ, God has said all He has to say” (115). But even within Christianity,the claim that God has finished speaking to humankind is controversial.In addition to parts of the New Testament recounted after Christ’s death—including the resurrection, the works of the Holy Spirit recounted in Acts ofthe Apostles, Paul’s epistles, and John’s revelation—many Christians believein the possibility of continued private revelation to this day.Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to showing that God asks nothing of us andpardons us for our sins. The movement of the book gives the impression thatwe have arrived at the most significant attribute of the God of the Christiansin the final chapter. God is responsible for the meaning in our lives and forgivesus when we depart from the right way. God does not demand that weconduct ourselves in an overly rigid manner, but he reveals to us rules to live amoral life. There are, of course, more rules for how we ought to live in the OldTestament in contrast with the dictates of the New Testament, but Brague,following in the spirit of Jesus’s claim that Jewish scripture commands us,above all, to love God and to love one’s neighbor (Mark 12:30–31), reducesthe teaching of the Hebrew Bible to the exhortation of the prophet Micah:“do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God” (Mic. 6:8). This does notmean that rules or laws are useless, Brague asserts, but rather that “in principlewe have in ourselves what is needed to satisfy the need” of being clearabout law and morality (120). Not law itself, but Christianity, the fulfillmentof the law, unveils the meaning of life (138). God is willing to forgive us whenwe depart from the right way, and in this context, Brague discusses importantterms, including “remission,” “pardon,” and “sin.” Regarding sin, Brague1Al-Ghazālī, The Rescuer from Error, in Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans.Muhammad Ali Khalidi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 60.

Book Review: On the God of the Christians3 6 5corrects several misconceptions: sin is not identical to pleasure; it does notoffend God (the sinner is the one hurt, not God); nor does it presuppose forgiveness.Rather, to sin is to separate oneself from God, depriving oneself ofthe ability to love and to believe in Him. The only way to be reconciled withGod is to recognize the sin as such. Only God can cancel our debts or restoreus to ourselves. “God does not discharge sin except by restoring the subject tohimself and to his liberty” (153).Brague refers only occasionally to the scriptures themselves in orderto explore the image of the God of the Christians. More often, he cites theauthority of churchmen, the fathers of the church, and theologians. Whilethese references are no doubt greatly informative, it would have been moremeaningful to see sustained treatments of specific passages from the NewTestament supplemented with references to these thinkers. The book ishighly structured, with chapters divided into sections and subsections, butthere does not appear to be a principle of division other than breaking upthe text into manageable parts. Also, while the attributes of God that Braguedescribes are no doubt compelling, Brague does not make clear his principleof selection—why these attributes and not others? Why not speak of God’somnipotence, omniscience, or justice? Moreover, Brague’s focus is unequivocallypositive, or free from problems. In speaking of God’s seeking our good,for example, Brague glosses over the fact that frequently bad things happen(41). In other words, he avoids the problem of theodicy. God’s omnipotenceand omniscience could pose similar problems, regarding, for example,human responsibility. Perhaps Brague’s choice in these matters is guided byhis desire to present an unambiguously good God. If this book is an expressionof his devotion to God, perhaps raising such problems would be out ofplace. My critical remarks here and in the body of this review are not meantto detract from the quality of this book. To the contrary, I have focused on mydisagreements or questions only in order to show the kind of fruitful discussionthat can arise from thinking through the issues Brague raises.This book is devoted to a topic of great and enduring importance, onethat has captured the interest of the West for roughly two thousand years:the character of the God of Christianity. Brague distinguishes the God ofthe Christians from the God or gods of other religions and describes Hisattributes in ways that are both thoughtful and moving. He refers to familiarChristian thinkers and revives neglected ones who merit attention. The bookis the product of profound reflection and soul-searching of a deeply learnedand serious man, one who is also clearly a believer. The presentation itself is

3 6 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3an act of reverence by the author for the God whose image he describes. Forone who wants to learn about the God of the Christians, there is no scarcityof options. Rarely, however, does one get to see the considered judgmentsabout God from such a widely respected scholar. The book deserves to beread with care by anyone who would like to understand better the image ofGod offered by Christianity.

Book Review: Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom3 6 7Timothy W. Burns, Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom. New York: PalgraveMacmillan, 2013, x + 234 pp., $100 (hardcover).Recovering Shakespeare’s Political WisdomR a fa e l M ajorUniversity of North TexasRafael.Major@unt.eduShakespeare’s Political Wisdom, by Professor Timothy Burns, will be awelcome surprise for many of its future readers. Few academics—and consequentlyfew undergraduate students—can resist the temptation to speakabout the possible meaning of Shakespeare’s plays except in terms of externalevidence. Shakespeare’s supposed biography, political events occurring duringeach play’s composition, Renaissance historiography, the authoritativemeaning of certain literary devices, and almost anything else other thanShakespeare’s text are the usual starting points for scholars, and this includesscholars who are desperate to prove that the plays have no “meaning.” Burns’scritical approach is quite different from beginning to end, and the book asa whole is unapologetically aimed at discerning Shakespeare’s view of themost serious issues the human mind can pursue. Some examples: Is all ofnature arbitrary? Does god exist? Is there any basis (even a human basis) forjustice? Can the worst imaginable deeds be called inherently evil, or can anyprudential decision or action rightly be characterized as abhorrent or shameful?These questions are related and seem familiar enough, but Burns takeson the essential task of considering Shakespeare’s view of these questionswithout forgetting that they cannot be addressed without accounting for the© 2015 Interpretation, Inc.

3 6 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3verifiable human hopes and desires that predispose each and every one of usto decide the issues before we investigate them.It is impossible to judge Burns’s efforts to understand Shakespeare withoutfirst describing his approach. As the editors of the Recovering PoliticalPhilosophy series in which this book appears explain, Burns makes thesimple assumption that Shakespeare has attracted generations of readerswith “the moving depth and humanity” portrayed in his dramas (ix). WouldShakespeare not also have given a great deal of thought to the precise way wewould be moved? An author with the technical ability to excite our passionswith such regularity would be very aware of the subsequent inducement forsome portion of his audience to try to understand the cause of their experience.To note an obvious and related issue, there are several instances in thedramas where characters play actors, directors, and theatergoers, and it isunimaginable that Shakespeare wrote these lines without reflecting on hisown craft as a playwright. But the same logic impels us to consider whatShakespeare thought of the deepest moral, theological, and psychologicalquestions, that is, all political questions. Could Shakespeare move us withouthimself considering and even understanding—better than we do—the questionsthat prick human interest? This poet has wisdom. According to Burns,this wisdom is not only what allowed Shakespeare to create exceptionallyvivid portrayals of political life, it makes each play a kind of “educationalproject” (13). Whether we like it or not, these plays shape the way audiencesunderstand the world, and it is the result of a conscientious understanding,not the byproduct of creativity or good “storytelling.”This summary of Burns’s simple approach will be sufficient for thosesympathetic to reading and discussing Shakespeare in a similar way, but adeeper explanation is ultimately required. 1 I was initially disappointed thatBurns did not offer one. Rather than confront examples of criticism andalternative approaches to reading Shakespeare, he chooses to ignore secondaryliterature altogether. He writes about the plays “naively, without thesophistication that is lent to our thinking by contemporary social science andby modern political philosophy, as well as by contemporary literary criticism1For the best introduction to the issues surrounding Burns’s approach to Shakespeare, see the debatein the American Political Science Review between Allan Bloom and Sigurd Burckhardt (APSR 54,nos. 1 and 2 [1960]: 158–66, 457–73); also see John Alvis, “Introductory: Shakespearean Poetry andPolitics,” in Shakespeare as Political Thinker, ed. John Alvis and Tom West (Durham, NC: CarolinaAcademic Press, 1981), 3–26. For an extended defense of reading literature as a necessary supplementto political science, see the contributions of Paul Cantor, Werner Dannhauser, and Michael Zuckert in“Symposium: Literature and Politics,” PS: Political Science and Politics 28, no. 2 (1995):189–200.

Book Review: Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom3 6 9which is so deeply shaped by postmodern philosophic thought” (2). BecauseBurns abandons the use of conventional scholarly support for his arguments,Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom can at times be disconcerting or perplexing.Reading Shakespeare without contemporary assumptions is appealing,though the procedure potentially exposes the interpreter’s own point of viewto undue criticism. This book forgoes the usual protection given to scholarswho couch arguments either in opposition to or in agreement with secondaryscholarship. In his own name, Burns gives detailed accounts of JuliusCaesar, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, and The Tempest, buthis arguments often hinge on subtle readings of details that are not normallygiven so much interpretive weight. For example, characters such as Brutus,Macbeth, Antonio, Edmund, Ferdinand, and Miranda each make statementsthat appear contradictory. These contradictions, according to Burns, are nothappenstance or simple indications of the ordinary complexity of humanmotivations. Rather, the contradictions within the carefully crafted lines ofShakespeare’s text point to the poet’s own assessment and criticism of theprinciples by which individuals ordinarily claim to be guided. On one level,this approach yields plausible interpretations, but in order to judge if theyare correct, readers are ultimately asked to judge issues that are between thelines (217).Many readers are familiar with Shakespeare’s Brutus and Macbeth, forexample, but Burns’s treatment of both will likely be a spur to revisit bothJulius Caesar and Macbeth. Brutus is often seen as a hero of the ancient republicanvirtue of Rome. A reader as astute as Nietzsche points to the Roman’smoral purity and suggests it is identical to Shakespeare’s own deeply heldsentiments. 2 Other critics have noted the problematic character of Brutus’svirtues, but Burns gives such an extended and compelling criticism that itbecomes impossible to take Brutus’s moral purity seriously. Shakespeare doeshighlight Brutus’s own claims of moral consistency (27–30) and uncompromisingpurity (51–55), but the poet’s emphasis on this idealism ultimatelyserves the purpose of undercutting it. Just as obvious, though seldom seen,the same man is simultaneously consumed with his own ambition for glory(59–60). This leads to remarkable prudential missteps, and, more seriously,to Brutus’s willing blindness to the immoral actions of others that makehis own pretense to nobility possible. 3 Burns’s treatment of Macbeth yields2See Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books,1974), 96–98, 150–51 (§§ 23 and 98).3When Brutus confronts an apparition in 4.2—“Speak to me what thou art”—it is no accident theghost replies, “Thy evil spirit, Brutus.” Brutus and Caesar are both driven by personal ambition; the

3 7 0 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3similar iconoclastic results. Macbeth is popular as an image of the destructioncaused by unfettered ambition and the inevitable madness that attacksthose willing to dare anything in pursuit of power. Under Burns’s guidance,however, it becomes clear that Shakespeare has a different view. On one hand,Macbeth is willing to forgo and preach against any type of moral constraint,but on the other hand Shakespeare makes it discernible that Macbeth isunwittingly guided by a queasy conscience that ultimately betrays his ownself-understanding (78–80, 85–86, 88, 90). Even as Macbeth utters his mostresolute and famous declaration that life is an idiot’s tale signifying nothing(99–100), his subsequent words and actions expose his nihilism as a kind ofboasting. 4 Brutus and Macbeth are not the paragons they claim to be, butalternate sides of the same self-contradictory coin.The structure of the overall argument of Shakespeare’s Political Wisdomis clear. After discussing contemporary assumptions that inhibit our abilityto read Shakespeare’s text, Burns begins with an analysis of Julius Caesar,whose political setting is far removed from the modern world. By beginningthis way, Burns encourages readers to see and reflect upon a politicallife filled with unapologetic ambition, and upon individuals who claim tomerit the city’s highest honors. The same underlying political realities alsoexist in Macbeth and The Merchant of Venice, but in the setting of Scotlandand Venice, the clarity of the political questions raised in ancient Rome isfiltered (“distorted”) through the religion of Christianity. The claims of thevirtuous and meritorious are more likely to be embedded in supernaturaljustifications, or even suppressed by an increasing reliance on divine providenceover commonsensical prudence. The heart of Burns’s effort, however,is contained in the last two chapters, on King Lear and The Tempest, where headdresses “the deepest question explored in these five plays, and the one onwhich Shakespeare invites us most often to reflect”: “Does the universe careat all about human beings?” It is here that the book’s disconcerting characteris most pronounced. How is it possible to know that the plays even addresssuch questions? Even if we assume that Shakespeare invites us to reflect onthese serious issues, how is it possible to discern his view?Characters such as Brutus and Macbeth are not the only individuals inShakespeare whose public statements are contradicted by their subsequentactions or private thoughts. Most characters, like most readers, fail on someonly one who cannot see this is Brutus himself. The text of the 1623 Folio edition of Shakespearemakes the ambiguity of the ghost’s identity clearer.4The character of Edmund in King Lear suffers a similar, but more philosophically interesting delusion(141–45).

Book Review: Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom3 7 1level to explore their deepest motivations. There are some rare individualsin Shakespeare’s plays, however, who do seem to understand themselvesin a more consistent way. These characters thrive and wield a great deal ofinfluence—even if only in private—because their inner sobriety makes themprofoundly aware of the inadequate self-understanding of those aroundthem. 5 For Burns, the characters of Edgar and Prospero are two such individuals,and they deserve intense scrutiny because they use their understandingin a ministerial capacity. Edgar, for example, engages in elaborate theatricsto give consolation to his troubled father (160–62). He restores his father’sfaith in the justness of the universe: mankind is not the arbitrary playthingof the gods. What is also clear, however, is that Edgar himself has a muchdifferent view of the matter (155–58, 176–82). Burns’s readers will have tomake up their own minds about the plausibility of Edgar’s alternative view,but it is important to see that his educational project comes very close toShakespeare’s own methods. Edgar’s use of artful conventions (compare 12,181, 194, 210) is made all the more powerful because his father is unawareof the deception, but readers can see the truth behind the episode and passjudgment on the understanding that made its resolution possible.Finally, as many others before him have tried to do, Burns turns toProspero as the character who seems to be the most autobiographical inShakespeare’s works. Unlike most of these interpreters, however, Burnsresists the temptation to go whoring for convenient extratextual parallels. 6Rather than assume that The Tempest stands apart from the other plays,Burns takes the fundamental questions of the play to be the same questionsraised throughout Shakespeare’s oeuvre. We know, for example, that Prospero’splan is much more elaborate than that of Edgar in King Lear, but theaim and intentions of both seem to be identical. Even if none of the othercharacters in the Tempest is fully aware of the depth of Prospero’s deception,readers are given the opportunity see the unvarnished content of his educationalproject. As horrific as it may sound, all of human life shall dissolve, thegreatest feats of mankind and the hopes that drive us to pursue them are theinsubstantial retinue of a pageant that will fade to nothing. Prospero refusesto console himself with the intellectual palliatives that make life bearable formost of us, but his refusal turns out to be the source of a sobriety that ulti-5Shakespeare often highlights these individuals—e.g., Portia and Edgar—by giving them the abilityto speak in both prose and verse, depending on their audience and purpose.6“The Tempest has sent people whoring after strange gods of allegory” (Frank Kermode, editor’sintroduction to The Tempest [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958], lxxx).

3 7 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 3mately benefits those who witness his artful endeavors. 7 Burns concludes bysuggesting that the playwright’s displeasing a part of his audience throughProspero’s open blurting out of an important truth is one of the “crimes” towhich Shakespeare playfully refers in the epilogue and for which he seeks“pardon” from his audience (216–17). Again, readers will have to decidewhether Burns’s analysis of The Tempest is plausible, but the overall argumentof Shakespeare’s Political Wisdom proves that these plays demand the kind ofinterpretive attention Burns pays them.It turns out that Burns’s decision to avoid the scholarly subplots expectedin academic monographs is actually one of this book’s virtues. Because hehas the patience to simply read the plays, it is Shakespeare’s own wisdomthat emerges as the cause of the perplexity I mentioned earlier. All of theplays can be said to raise unexpected or disconcerting issues, and rather thanignore them or explain them away, Burns makes them his central theme.Encountering Shakespeare in the theater or on the page does not have to beperplexing, because the plays are written to entertain everyone, but readingShakespeare’s Political Wisdom is a welcome surprise and reminder of thethoughtfulness of a poet that can be examined and perhaps understood byreaders who are inclined to do so.7He is even willing to couch this sobriety within traditional Christian appearances in order for hispedagogy to be more successful (212–16). Prospero makes the impious claim to have several miraculouspowers of Jesus Christ that have not been presented on stage (e.g., raising the dead).

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