강정인. “Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought.

Volume 39 Issue 2

Spring/Summer 2012
109

Thomas Meyer
Michael Zank

More Early Writings by Leo Strauss
from the Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel,
Hessen und Waldeck (1925–1928)

139

Jung In Kang


Reexamining
Political Participation in Rousseau’s
Political Thought: Does Citizens’ Political Participation Include Public Discussions and Debates?

165

Catherine M. A. McCauliff

Book Reviews:
A History of Trust in Ancient Greece
by Steven Johnstone

Charles T. Rubin

Plato and the Talmud by Jacob Howland

L. Joseph Hebert

 oung Thomas More and the Arts of Liberty
Y
by Gerard B. Wegemer

187

René M. Paddags

 ousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment
R
by David Lay Williams
Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion,
edited by Christopher Kelly

195

Jeffrey Bernstein

 he German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National
T
Socialism by William H. F. Altman

213

Andrew Bramsen

 he Nationalization of American Political
T
Parties, 1880–1896 by Daniel Klinghard

217

Lawrence M. Mead

 overning through Institution Building:
G
Institutional Theory and Recent European
Experiments in Democratic Organization
by Johan P. Olsen

223

David Levy

Reply to Leibowitz

169
177

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be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher.
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More Early Writings by Leo Strauss

109

More Early Writings by Leo Strauss from the
Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck
(1925–1928)

Th o m a s M e y e r

M ich a el Z a n k

University of Chicago

Boston University

thomas.meyer@lrz.uni-muenchen.de

mzank@bu.edu

Part I: Introduction
The following texts by Leo Strauss (1899–1973) were rediscovered by Thomas Meyer and translated into English by Michael Zank.1
These writings originally appeared between 1925 and 1928 in a regional Jewish weekly serving the city of Kassel and the region of Hesse and Waldeck
(Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck). In 1929, the same
weekly carried the obituary Strauss wrote for the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig (1886–1929).2
Strauss wrote these pieces in connection with his employment
as a fellow of the Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, an institute
for advanced Jewish research, founded in 1919, that sent Strauss to Kassel for
a seven-month period, commencing on February 15, 1925. The purpose of his
mission, as described in the 1925 report of the scientific board of the Akademie, was for Strauss “to offer lectures and seminars in Jewish studies.”

The authors would like to acknowledge the editorial assistance of Ms. Theresa Cooney, PhD Cand.
(Boston University).
1

Leo Strauss, “Franz Rosenzweig und die Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums,” Jüdische
Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck 6, no. 49 (Dec. 13, 1929); repr. in Leo Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Heinrich Meier, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1997), 363–64; English translation
in Leo Strauss, The Early Writings (1921–1932) [henceforth EW], ed. Michael Zank (Albany: SUNY
Press, 2002), 212–13.
2

© 2012 Interpretation, Inc.

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The choice of location was not accidental. The original gift
required a research fellow to serve as a lecturer in that particular Hessian
city. By sending Strauss to Kassel, the Akademie fulfilled an obligation it had
accepted with the establishment of the Frau Kommerzienrat Rosenzweig
Stiftung whose endowment of 50,000 Mark3 is mentioned in the institution’s
first budget report of December 31, 1919. The donor was Adele Rosenzweig,
mother of the Kassel native Franz Rosenzweig, on whose initiative the institute had been founded.4
Leo Strauss was the only fellow of the Akademie who made
good on the mandate to teach in Kassel. There are several reasons why he
complied with a stipulation that others may have found onerous. His hometown, Kirchhain, was nearby, as was Marburg, where his sister Bettina was
studying at the time. Strauss had avuncular friends in Marburg with whom
he had lodged as a high-school student. Finally, the presence of Rudolf Bultmann and Martin Heidegger at Marburg University were attractive to Strauss,
not to mention the university library at his disposal. None of this, however,
explains why he did not simply move to Marburg but instead accepted the
Kassel obligation.
The reason why Strauss, but none of the other employees
of the Akademie, moved to Kassel at that time can be determined despite
the relatively poor documentation. It was first and foremost because of his
prior relationship with the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig was
perhaps the first to recognize Strauss’s talents as a teacher and gave him his
first teaching opportunities. Strauss’s candid self-assessment (“Postscript to
the Discussion,” here included) and letters of recommendation from a decade
later, when Strauss was seeking employment as an academic lecturer in England and the US, attest to the fact that Strauss, though widely thought of as a
gifted researcher and a brilliant intellectual, was hardly a charismatic teacher.
In 1924 Strauss taught at Rosenzweig’s Freies jüdisches
Lehrhaus, an unaffiliated Jewish adult-education center, where he directed
a seminar (Arbeitsgemeinschaft) on Hermann Cohen’s Religion of Reason
Using http://www.measuringworth.com to determine the relative value of the dollar amount of
roughly 1,500 which, in 1919, would have been the exchange value of 50,000 Mark (conversion according to table at http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/currency.htm), the equivalent
in USD from the year 2000 would be anywhere between $11,800 and $191,000. In other words, it is
difficult to say on the basis of such calculations alone how significant a contribution it was. The year
1919 saw the beginning of hyperinflation of German currency.
3

Franz Rosenzweig, “It Is Time: Concerning the Study of Judaism,” in On Jewish Learning, ed.
Nahum N. Glatzer (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002), 27–54.
4

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111

from the Sources of Judaism (May to July) and taught a course on Spinoza’s
Theological-Political Treatise (October to December). In January 1925 Strauss
started a new lecture course, “Theory of Zionism,” and directed a seminar
on Spinoza’s Tractatus, but once the position with the Academy commenced,
Strauss stopped teaching in Frankfurt. Teaching in two places at once would
have been too much, especially now that Strauss was devoting most of his
attention to his main responsibility toward the Academy, namely, research on
the biblical scholarship of Spinoza and his predecessors. According to what he
wrote later, Strauss began work on the Spinoza book in 1925 and completed
the manuscript in 1928, though work on the manuscript dragged on for
another year owing to Academy director Julius Guttmann’s request for revisions. Strauss later famously quipped that the book, which was published in
1930, had been written under conditions of censorship. By teaching in Kassel
when he did, Strauss ultimately fulfilled a personal obligation toward Rosenzweig who, it may be remembered, suffered from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
Since most letters to and from Strauss from the early 1920s
have been lost it is difficult to ascertain how Strauss had come to know
Rosenzweig. Most likely it was Ernst Simon (1899–1988) who made the connection. Strauss first met Simon in December 1919, at the convention of the
Kartell Jüdischer Verbindungen (KJV) (Confederation of Jewish Fraternities)
in Frankfurt, an event attended by over fourteen hundred members. Strauss
had been a member since the summer of 1917. At the time of the convention
Strauss lived in Frankfurt while Simon, who attended the convention as a
speaker and a reporter, lived in Heidelberg. Despite their differences in background, temperament, and worldview, Strauss and Simon developed a close
friendship they maintained over several decades.
The link between Simon and Rosenzweig was Martin Buber
(1878–1965), then living in Heppenheim (halfway between Frankfurt and
Heidelberg and on the same train line), who taught in Frankfurt and collaborated with Rosenzweig on a translation of the Hebrew Bible.5 As an
editor of Buber’s monthly Der Jude, Simon was able to bring young writers
such as Strauss to Rosenzweig’s attention as possible docents for the Freies
jüdisches Lehrhaus. Simon’s relationship with Buber and Rosenzweig was
never entirely free of tension, as we know from letters. But on occasion Simon
could also exert considerable influence. In 1923, for example, Julius Guttmann (1880–1950) approached the then only twenty-four-year-old Simon
On Buber’s Frankfurt years see Michael Zank, “Martin Buber: A Visualization in the Cities of his
Work,” in New Perspectives on Martin Buber, ed. M. Zank (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 20–23.
5

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in a letter inquiring whether he could imagine Rosenzweig as the author of
an introduction to the planned Akademie edition of Hermann Cohen’s Jewish writings and suggested that, if so, he should let Rosenzweig know that
the Akademie was interested in his authorship. The introductory essay had
originally been assigned to the neo-Kantian philosopher, Cohen student, and
liberal rabbi Benzion Kellermann (1869–1923), who suddenly passed away.
Despite all the reservations Rosenzweig maintained toward the institution,
which he perceived as having strayed far from his original vision,6 Rosenzweig nevertheless undertook the requested writing.
Simon’s influence on Strauss’s work for the Lehrhaus is also
attested by the fact that Strauss took on the very subjects that Simon—now
back in Heidelberg—had taught before. Simon was particularly interested in
two subjects, namely, theory of Zionism and the development of Judaism in
the nineteenth century; he had originally planned to write a doctoral thesis on
the last-mentioned topic under the guidance of historian Hermann Oncken
(1869–1945). Strauss obviously shared Simon’s interest in these questions.
The issue most intensely debated in the various newspapers
and brochures associated with the KJV at the time was the need to educate
the Jewish public, especially the young generation, by disseminating Jewish
knowledge. The various affiliated fraternities could agree on this objective
even while disagreeing with one another on most other goals and the means
by which to attain them. The innovation and enlivening of Jewish education had also provided the impetus for Rosenzweig’s conception of a Jewish
academy of advanced research as well as for his Lehrhaus initiative. Strauss’s
commission for Kassel followed this trajectory, which is evident from the
programs he conducted there.
As an avid reader of Buber’s Der Jude as well as of the mainstream German Zionist Jüdische Rundschau, Rosenzweig must have been
familiar with Strauss’s articles and his views. Strauss’s lecturing at Rosenzweig’s Lehrhaus coincided with the publication of his essay “Cohen’s Analysis
of Spinoza’s Bible Science,” published in the May–June 1924 issue of Buber’s
Der Jude.7 Simon, we believe, helped to launch Strauss in both venues. Once
discovered by Guttmann and recruited for the Academy, Strauss remained in
Rosenzweig’s orbit by accepting the commission in Kassel. There are thematic
See “Bildung und kein Ende,” English trans. by Michael Zank in “Franz Rosenzweig, the 1920s, and
the moment of textual reasoning,” in Textual Reasonings: Jewish Philosophy and Text Study
after Modernity, ed. Peter Ochs and Nancy Levene (London: SCM Press, 2002), 229–50.
6

7

See Strauss, EW, 140–61.

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113

connections between Strauss’s engagement in Frankfurt and his teaching in
Kassel. The documents here presented allow us to deepen our knowledge of
Strauss’s development as a teacher and a thinker in the years during which he
worked on his first published book, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion.
Finally, it should be noted that, only days after Rosenzweig’s
untimely passing on December 10, 1929, Strauss published his obituary in the same venue, the Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und
Waldeck, where the pieces here translated had appeared before. His obituary foregrounds Rosenzweig’s role as the founder of the Akademie für die
Wissenschaft des Judentums, points out the political nature of Rosenzweig’s
initiative, and links him to Hermann Cohen as the “greatest teacher of German Judaism.”8
Until now it was unknown that Strauss ever taught Hebrew,
more precisely biblical Hebrew. The texts here presented attest to the significance of the Bible for Strauss from early on. As he states in the article about
his Lehrhaus colleague Georg Salzberger, his efforts at teaching Hebrew
language were not crowned with great success. This was most likely due to
the fact that Strauss chose the teaching method most commonly practiced
in most religious schools of the time, which was to teach Hebrew by reading
biblical texts. In light of modern methods this procedure no longer appealed
to many Jewish students. Strauss’s choice of readings from Judges, Kings, and
Amos was not due to purely pedagogical considerations, either. The selected
passages matched the program of political Zionism as Strauss understood it,
as attested in other of his early essays and lectures.
We don’t intend to offer an interpretation of the brief pieces
here included, some of which are mere course announcements. There is no
further information about them to be found in the Strauss archives and any
interpretation would need to embed these writings into a broader context.
Instead we decided to include the article by Artur Katz, which gives an impression of how Strauss’s activity was perceived by the Jewish public and provides
a representative reaction to the positions taken by Strauss. Katz, who owned
a well-known bookstore in Marburg and was familiar with Strauss through
his activities in the KJV, was in fact the editor of the Jüdische Wochenzeitung.
The most substantial piece here included is Strauss’s review
of the 1924 three-volume edition of Hermann Cohen’s Jewish writings.
8

See Strauss, EW, 212–13.

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This piece deepens our appreciation for Strauss’s early and sustained preoccupation with Cohen’s philosophical thought and with Cohen’s role as a
representative of German Judaism. It is unlikely that Cohen’s Jewish writings were a new discovery for Strauss. Strauss’s attention was first drawn to
the philosopher and his complex relationship with Judaism by a friend of
Cohen’s, the Marburg teacher Abraham Strauss, with whom the young Leo
Strauss took lodging as far back as his high-school days in Marburg, where
Strauss attended the Gymnasium Philippinum from 1912 to 1917. Teacher
Strauss was a font of anecdotes about Cohen that later appeared in Rosenzweig’s “Introduction.” Strauss was also close to Abraham Strauss’s son Bruno
(1889–1969), who was the editor of Cohen’s Jewish writings, and Strauss later
collaborated with Bruno Strauss, a Germanist and historian of philosophy,
on the Academy’s jubilee edition (Jubiläumsausgabe) of the works of Moses
Mendelssohn. Strauss venerated Abraham Strauss and claimed that it was
“Lehrer Strauss” who taught him how to write German essays. Michael Zank
further conjectures that Strauss’s decision to write his dissertation under the
guidance of Ernst Cassirer, then widely thought the true intellectual heir of
Cohen, had been due to his abiding interest in Cohen as well. Strauss repeatedly refers to Cohen in the early 1920s, including in his 1923 review of Rudolf
Otto’s The Holy. The 1924 essay “Cohen’s Analysis of Spinoza’s Bible Science,”
mentioned above, opens with an explicit reference to Bruno Strauss’s edition
of Cohen’s Jüdische Schriften, which had just appeared in print. Strauss is
likely to have been as familiar with parts of this collection of Jewish writings
as he was with Cohen’s philosophical works. His familiarity with Cohen’s
philosophical system can be deduced not only from his criticism of Walter
Kinkel’s naive Cohen apologetics but also from the fact that Strauss argues
for a mutually constitutive relation between Cohen’s systematic works and
his late writings on the philosophy of religion. Strauss was not convinced by
Rosenzweig’s view, by now widely discredited, that Cohen’s Religion of Reason
out of the Sources of Judaism (posthumously published in 1919) represented a
departure of the philosopher from his system of philosophy. This stance, formulated during his year in Kassel, attests not just to Strauss’s familiarity with
the problems that were at stake in this debate but also to the independence of
his judgment.
A second, more substantial, piece here included, a critical
report on a lecture, held in Kassel, by Strauss’s Lehrhaus colleague Salzberger
in 1928, touches on more than just a local disagreement on the right method
of Jewish religious education. In the first part of the article Strauss tersely
summarizes and brings to bear on his analysis of the lecture a central thesis

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of his Spinoza book when he states that liberal Judaism can neither justify
its own position concisely nor indicate the exact foundation of its critique of
orthodoxy. To the young Strauss, the modern critique of religion, especially
the critique of miracles, stood on earthen legs.
The evidence here provided of Strauss’s presence in Kassel
and Frankfurt during several months in 1924 and 1925 as well as in 1927 and
1928 makes room for further suppositions. Following this period, Strauss
went first to Paris (October 1932) and then to England (1934 to 1938), as a
research fellow supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. Judging by the
correspondence from this period, now conveniently accessible in volume 3
of Heinrich Meier’s edition of Strauss’s Gesammelte Schriften, Strauss maintained a close intellectual companionship with Gerhard Krüger and Karl
Löwith. But while the correspondence, given by Meier, commences only in
September 1928 (Gerhard Krüger) or even later (Karl Löwith, in November
1932), Strauss must have met Krüger and Löwith much earlier to be engaged
in such an intimate philosophical exchange with these correspondents later
on. We surmise that he made these men’s acquaintance during his stint in
Kassel and Marburg, where they formed what Dieter Henrich described as
a Marburger Konstellation centered on the Protestant theologian Rudolf
Bultmann.9 For the reasons stated above, Strauss made frequent visits to
nearby Marburg while teaching in Kassel. We know this from the numerous borrowing slips from the Marburg university library preserved in the
Strauss archives that can be dated to the period in question. Whether Strauss
also heard Martin Heidegger’s lectures on Wilhelm Dilthey, which the philosopher held in Kassel from April 16 to 21, 1925, cannot be said with any
certainty based on our current documentation.
For this edition, abbreviations have been resolved and errors
tacitly corrected. Otherwise the original texts appear here without modification. There are no extant manuscripts for these publications. We must
assume that they were lost, along with parts of Strauss’s library, in the chaos
that prevailed in Marburg in the aftermath of the Second World War.

See Matthias Bormuth and Ulrich von Bülow, eds., Marburger Hermeneutik zwischen Tradition und
Krise (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2008).
9

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Part II: Documentation
Courses, sponsored by the Academy for
Jewish Research, in Cassel10

Casseler Kurse im Auftrage der
Akademie für die Wissenschaft des
Judentums

The Academy for Jewish Research commissioned me to hold courses on a range
of subjects in Jewish studies in Cassel,
beginning in mid-February. The curriculum for theses courses has already
been published in a previous issue (of
this paper). To launch these courses, it
seems advised that I briefly explain the
curriculum in this place:

Die Akademie für die Wissenschaft des
Judentums hat mich beauftragt, von
Mitte Februar d. J. an in Cassel Kurse
aus dem Gebiete der Wissenschaft des
Judentums zu halten. Das Arbeitsprogramm ist bereits in einer früheren
Nummer veröffentlicht worden. Man hat
es für ratsam im Interesse des Zustandekommens der Kurse gehalten, daß ich
das Programm an dieser Stelle kurz
erläutere—was hiermit geschieht.

1. Beginning Hebrew. Time: Wednesday
7–8 o’clock. The only prerequisite is
familiarity with the Hebrew alphabet.
Course goals: (1) Knowledge of elementary biblical grammar. (2) Introduction
to the history of our age of judges and
kings. Reading of Judges 13–21 (Samson;
the cast image of Micah; the concubine
of Gibeah) and the history of the postSolomonic kingdom in the Books of
Kings.

1. Hebräisch für Anfänger. Zeit:
Mittwoch 7–8 Uhr. Vorausgesetzt wird
lediglich Kenntnis der hebräischen
Schrift. Unterrichtsziel: 1. Kenntnis der
hebräischen Elementargrammatik; 2.
Einführung in die Geschichte unserer
Richter- und Königszeit. Gelesen wird
Richter 13–21 (Simson. Gußbild des
Micha. Kebsweib von Gibea) und die
Geschichte des nachsalomonischen
Königtums in den Königsbüchern.

2. Advanced Hebrew. Time: Saturday
6–7 o’clock. Prerequisite: Knowledge
of elementary Hebrew grammar with
experience in the use of a dictionary.
Goal: Introduction to biblical prophecy.
Reading: The Book of Amos.

2. Hebräisch für Fortgeschrittene. Zeit:
Sonnabend 6–7 Uhr. Vorausgesetzt wird:
Kenntnis der hebräischen Elementargrammatik mit Uebung im Gebrauch
des Wörterbuchs. Unterrichtsziel:
Einführung in die biblische Prophetie.
Gelesen wird das Buch Amos.

10

Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck 2, no. 8 (February 19, 1925): 1 (s.p.).

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117

3. Seminar on “German Judaism since
Moses Mendelssohn.” Time: Wednesday
evening at 8:30 sharp. The expression
“Seminar” [Arbeitsgemeinschaft] means
that [course number] 3 requires more
work and collaboration than 1 and 2.
At least some of the participants need
to commit to giving presentations. The
course subject is to be treated as a historical problem [problemgeschichtlich]. The
particular themes will be determined at
the first meeting or possibly from time to
time by agreement. Topics we may consider include “The Relationship between
Judaism and Hellenism [Griechentum] in
the view of nineteenth-century German
Judaism” (Sources: [Heinrich] Heine,
S. R. Hirsch, Moses Hess, Hermann
Cohen); “The Image of Spinoza in German Judaism” (Sources: Mendelssohn,
Heine, Hess, Graetz, Cohen); “Judaism
and the German State”; “Revelation and
Science.” The course will be introduced
by a lecture on “Motives of the GermanJewish Connection” (Wednesday,
February 25, 8:30 pm).

3. Arbeitsgemeinschaft über: Deutsches
Judentum seit Moses Mendelssohn. Zeit:
Mittwoch pünktlich ½ 9 Uhr abends.
Der Ausdruck „Arbeitsgemeinschaft“
besagt, daß für 3. mehr Arbeit, Mitarbeit
verlangt wird als für 1. und 2. Mindestens eine Anzahl der Teilnehmer muß
sich verpflichten, Referate zu halten.
In dem Kurs soll der Gegenstand problemgeschichtlich behandelt werden. Die
einzelnen Themen werden in der ersten
Arbeitssitzung, eventuell von Fall zu Fall
auf Grund von Vereinbarung bestimmt.
Es kämen u.a. in Frage: „Verhältnis von
Judentum und Griechentum nach der
Auffassung des deutschen Judentums des
19. Jahrhunderts“ (Quellen: Heine, S. R.
Hirsch, Moses Heß, Hermann Cohen);
„Das Spinoza-Bild des deutschen Judentums“ (Quellen: Mendelssohn, Heine,
Heß, Graetz, Cohen); „Judentum und
deutscher Staat“; „Offenbarung und
Wissenschaft“. Der Kursus wird eingeleitet durch einen Vortrag: „Motive des
deutsch-jüdischen Zusammenhanges“,
Mittwoch, 25. Februar, abends ½ 9 Uhr.

All courses will start punctually at the
appointed time. Place TBA. Dr. Leo
Strauss.

Sämtliche Kurse beginnen pünktlich
zur festgesetzten Zeit. Lokal wird noch
bekanntgegeben. Dr. Leo Strauß

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

The “Jewish Writings” of Hermann
Cohen.11 By Dr. Leo Strauss, Cassel.

Die „Jüdischen Schriften“ Hermann
Cohens. Von Dr. Leo Strauß, Cassel.

Getting to know the “Jewish Writings”
of Hermann Cohen is not advised by
curiosity. They are barely “modern,”
these writings, which were written
over the course of half a century by the
greatest German Jew of his generation
from within German Judaism and in the
interest of German Judaism. Their coloration is the unpoetic and unsensational
pallor of the just bygone. The process
that filled Cohen’s life—one is tempted
to say: that is filled by this life—is, as it
were, completed by the product of this
life. But only as it were and on the whole.
It is completed for German Judaism as
a historical totality, though not for the
particular Jew of the present generation. Each individual German Jew must
undergo the process for which Cohen is
and remains paradigmatic. This means:
appropriating the “Jewish Writings”
of Hermann Cohen is of the utmost
urgency for our most personal life as
Jews.

Die „Jüdischen Schriften“ Hermann
Cohens kennen zu lernen, rät nicht
Neugier an. Sie sind sehr wenig „modern“, diese Schriften, die im Laufe eines
halben Jahrhunderts von dem größten
Deutschen Juden seiner Generation
aus dem Deutschen Judentum heraus
im Interesse des Deutschen Judentums
geschrieben worden sind. Ihre Farbe
ist die poesie- und sensationslose
Blässe des Eben-Vergangenen. Der
Prozeß, der Cohens Leben ausfüllte,
man möchte sagen: den dieses Leben
ausfüllt, ist durch das Produkt dieses
Lebens gewissermaßen abgeschlossen.
Aber doch nur gewissermaßen und
überhaupt. Er ist abgeschlossen für das
Deutsche Judentum als geschichtliche
Ganzheit, nicht für den einzelnen Juden
der gegenwärtigen Generation. Jeder
einzelne Deutsche Jude hat den Prozeß,
für den Cohen vorbildlich ist und bleibt,
in sich durchzumachen. Das besagt: Die
Aneignung der „Jüdischen Schriften“
Hermann Cohens ist von größter Dringlichkeit für unser persönlichstes Leben
als Juden.

The development of German Judaism
since Moses Mendelssohn unfolds in
such a way that a process of dissolution that lasted until around 1880 was
replaced by a process of consolidation.
In the first stage of this development the

Die Entwicklung des Deutschen Judentums seit Moses Mendelssohn vollzieht
sich in der Weise, daß ein Auflösungsprozeß, der bis etwa 1880 dauert,
abgelöst wird von einem Konsolidierungsprozeß. In dem ersten Abschnitt

11

Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck 2, no. 18 (May 8, 1925): 1–3 (s.p.).

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traditional Jewish connection dissolves
itself under the influence of Europe’s
critique. The new consolidation of the
Jewish connection does not result from
a rejection of this critique, a cowardly
flight from a cold, harsh, illusionlacking, dangerous, open Europe into
the cozy narrowness of the ghetto. It
does not result from such drives as long
as it is more than sentimentality. Strictly
speaking, this is not a kind of severance,
a following of one process on the other,
but rather a legitimate proceeding of the
later from the earlier.

dieser Entwicklung löst sich der traditionelle jüdische Zusammenhang unter
dem Einfluß der Kritik Europas auf.
Die Neukonsolidierung des jüdischen
Zusammenhangs entspringt nicht einem
Sichsperren gegen diese Kritik, einer
feigen Flucht aus dem kalt, ungemütlich,
illusionslos, gefährlich, offen gewordenen Europa in die trauliche Enge des
Ghetto. Sie entspringt nicht solchen
Antrieben, gesetzt, daß sie mehr ist als
eine Sentimentalität. Eigentlich gesprochen, handelt es sich um ein Sichablösen,
um ein Aufeinanderfolgen der beiden
Prozesse, sondern vielmehr um ein
begründetes Hervorgehen des späteren
aus dem früheren.

Hermann Cohen moved from the Jewish context to Europe when he left the
Breslau seminary to avail himself of the
psychology of the school of Herbart as a
means to obtain a certainty that Jewish
theology was not able to give him. An
unambiguous path—the path of scientific man who wants, and is compelled,
to make certain of the foundations of his
science—led him from this psychology
to the Kantian system.

Den Weg vom jüdischen Zusammenhang zu Europa ging Hermann Cohen,
als er das Breslauer Seminar verließ, um
sich mittels der Psychologie der HerbartSchule die Gewißheiten zu verschaffen,
die ihm die jüdische Theologie nicht zu
geben vermochte. Von dieser Psychologie führte ihn ein eindeutiger Weg, der
Weg des wissenschaftlichen Menschen,
der sich der Grundlagen seiner Wissenschaft versichern will und muß, zu dem
Kantischen System.

On that ground—the ground of a Kantian system enlivened and changed in
a particular way by the problems of the
’70s and ’80s (i.e., natural science and
social politics)—Cohen arrived at the
necessity of the concept of God. If one
considers that, according to Cohen, the
system of philosophy is to accomplish

Auf dessen Boden, auf dem Boden des
im Zusammenhang mit den Problemen
der 70er und 80er Jahre: Naturwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik lebendig
gewordenen und damit charakteristisch
verwandelten Kantischen Systems, ergab
sich für Cohen die Notwendigkeit des
Gottesbegriffs. Bedenkt man, daß das

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the foundation [Begründung] of “culture,” i.e., of European culture, and that
the concept of God of Cohen’s ethics
stands in explicit relation to the Jewish
concept of God, as far as it is possible to
speak of this on the basis of the critique
of the recent centuries, this path of
Cohen’s already constitutes a “return”
from Europe to Judaism. When Cohen
asks, what necessity of the system of
philosophy leads to the idea of God, he
implicitly asks: What European necessity
demands the preservation and development of Judaism?

System der Philosophie nach Cohen die
Begründung der „Kultur“, d.h. aber der
europäischen Kultur, zu leisten hat, und
daß der Gottesbegriff der Cohenschen
Ethik in ausgesprochenem Zusammenhang mit dem Gottesbegriff des
Judentums steht, soweit von ihm auf
Grund der Kritik der neueren Jahrhunderte die Rede sein darf, so bedeutet
dieser Weg Cohens bereits eine „Rückkehr“ von Europa zum Judentum. Wenn
Cohen fragt: Welche Notwendigkeit des
Systems der Philosophie führt zu der
Idee Gottes?—so fragt er eben damit:
Welche europäische Notwendigkeit
fordert die Erhaltung und Entwicklung
des Judentums?

It follows from the aforesaid that
Cohen’s doctrine of religion, of Judaism,
of God cannot be understood without
knowledge of his system. This however
represents great difficulties. One knows
that approximately ninety percent of
German professors of philosophy never
studied Cohen’s Logic of Pure Cognition
or, if they studied it, they openly admit
that they did not understand it. This is
not to say that a Jewish reader may not
understand the work anyway. But one
ought to consider that understanding it
presupposes familiarity with the ideas of
three centuries of mathematical sciences
[mathematische Naturwissenschaften].
We therefore try to make do with the
popular exposition of Cohen’s system
that a student of Cohen’s provided.

Aus dem Gesagten ergibt sich, daß die
Cohensche Lehre von der Religion,
vom Judentum, von Gott nicht zu
verstehen ist ohne die Kenntnis seines
Systems. Damit aber hat es große
Schwierigkeiten. Man weiß, daß
schätzungsweise neunzig Prozent der
deutschen Philosophie-Professoren die
Cohensche „Logik der reinen Erkenntnis“ nie studiert haben, bzw. wenn sie
sie gelesen haben, freimütig gestehen,
sie hätten sie nicht verstanden. Nun ist
damit allerdings noch nicht gesagt, daß
nicht dennoch der jüdische Leser das
Werk verstehe. Aber es ist zu bedenken,
daß es zu seinem Verständnis die ideelle
Gegenwärtigkeit dreier Jahrhunderte
mathematischer Naturwissenschaft
voraussetzt. Versuchen wir es also mit
der populären Darstellung des Cohenschen Systems, die ein Schüler Cohens
gegeben hat.

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121

Walter Kinkel’s book Hermann Cohen:
Einführung in sein Werk (Hermann
Cohen: An introduction to his work)
(Suttgart, 1924) indeed undertakes to
present Cohen’s philosophical work to
a philosophically uneducated public. In
the attempt to attain popularity (which
is unattainable) if necessary by force,
the author deems it useful to dissolve
the precision and consistence of Cohen’s
thought into something completely
blurry and lukewarm. Given the purpose
of the book, one could have dispensed
with an exposition of the deduction of
the particular categories. What might
have commended itself instead is a
brief and simple explanation of Cohen’s
concept of “generation” [Erzeugung]. It
is not even necessary to formulate each
sentence so that any reader can understand it at first glance. A few examples
of the style of the book in question may
provide a vivid impression of its literary level. When attending to the style
of a book on Cohen we are not guided
by aesthetic windbaggery; rather we
know ourselves to be in agreement with
Hermann Cohen himself who in many
places expressed how closely related are
the style and the person, thinking and
writing. Literary irresponsibility is ultimately the particular symptom of a more
general deficiency.

Das Buch von Walter Kinkel: Hermann
Cohen. Einführung in sein Werk
(Stuttgart 1924) stellt sich in der Tat
die Aufgabe, einer philosophisch
ungeschulten Oeffentlichkeit das philosophische Werk Cohens zu vermitteln.
Der Verfasser hält es für zweckmäßig,
die Popularität dadurch, wenn nicht zu
erreichen, so doch zu erzwingen, daß er
die Präzision und Strenge des Cohenschen Denkens in eitel Verwaschenheit
und Lauheit auflöst. Für den Zweck des
Buches wäre etwa die Darstellung der
Deduktion der einzelnen Kategorien
entbehrlich gewesen. Statt dessen
hätte sich eine knappe und einfache
Erklärung des Cohenschen Begriffs
der „Erzeugung“ empfohlen. Die Sätze
brauchen ja nicht so geschrieben zu
sein, daß sie ein beliebiger Leser beim
erstmaligen Darüberhinfliegen versteht.
Von dem Niveau des in Rede stehenden
Buches mögen einige Stilproben ein
anschauliches Bild geben. Wenn wir
auf den Stil eines Cohenbuches achten,
so leitet uns nicht ästhetenhafte Windbeutelei: vielmehr wissen wir uns damit
in Uebereinstimmung mit Hermann
Cohen selber, der an vielen Stellen
ausgesprochen hat, wie unmittelbar
der Zusammenhang ist, der zwischen
Stil und Menschen, zwischen Denken
und Schreiben besteht. Literarische
Verantwortungslosigkeit ist am Ende der
Sonderfall eines allgemeineren Mangels.

Sentences with “without” are typical for
Kinkel’s book. A few examples: “Cohen
went through the school of Herbart

Charakteristisch für das Kinkelsche
Buch sind die Sätze mit „ohne“.
Einige Beispiele: „Cohen hat die

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

without ever having been an orthodox
Herbartian” (p. 18). Why explicitly mention the “without?” Would it have been
shameful for Cohen if, for a few years as
a young man, he had looked at the problems of philosophy from the position of
Herbart? Honestly speaking, this would
not have been as bad as a philosophy
professor who spends his life hashing out
the verba magistri [Lat., “words of his
master”] he learned as a student. But the
point is to safeguard Cohen’s originality.
This provides opportunity for a further
sentence with “without.” “Without wishing to pass judgment on Hegel and his
significance we merely wish to remark at
this point that it was the originality and
freshness of Cohenian (!) thinking that
was compelled to revolt against Hegel”
(p. 38). This “without”-sentence reveals
the proper essence of this stylistic device.
It makes it possible to pass judgments
that entail no obligation. Thus on p. 2,
Professor Kinkel criticizes romanticism
“without wishing to pass final or absolute judgment.”

Schule Herbarts durchgemacht, ohne
doch offenbar jemals ein orthodoxer
Herbartianer gewesen zu sein.“ (S. 18)
Warum wird das „ohne“ ausdrücklich
erwähnt? Wäre es eine Schande, wenn
Cohen wirklich als junger Mensch einige
Jahre lang vom Standpunkte Herbarts
die Probleme der Philosophie gesehen
hätte? Es wäre offen gesagt, nicht so
schlimm, als wenn ein PhilosophieProfessor sein liebes langes Leben lang
die während seiner Studienzeit verba
magistri breit und weich träte. Aber es
gilt, die Originalität Cohens zu sichern.
Dies gibt Gelegenheit zu einem weiteren
„Ohne“-Satz: „Ohne ein Urteil über
Hegel und seine Bedeutung damit aussprechen zu wollen, bemerken wir nur
vorgreifend, daß es die Originalität
und Ursprünglichkeit Cohenschen
(!) Denkens war, die sich gegen Hegel
auflehnen mußte.“ (S. 38) In diesem
„Ohne“-Satz wird das eigentliche Wesen
dieses Stilmittels offenbar: Es ermöglicht, Urteile abzugeben, die zu nichts
verpflichten. So tadelt Professor Kinkel
auf Seite 2 die Romantik, „ohne doch
irgendein endgültiges oder absolutes
Urteil zu wollen.“

Note that Professor Kinkel does not
want to pass judgment. To be sure, [he
could] if he wanted… To conclude with a
paradigmatic example: “Cohen’s position
toward the Gothic was in no way one
of unmitigated admiration but actually
rather one associated with a faint hint of
disapproval” (p. 36).

Wohl gemerkt: Professor Kinkel will
kein absolutes Urteil abgeben; aber,
wenn er wollte… Ein Musterbeispiel
zum Schluß: „Cohens Stellung zur
Gotik war keineswegs eine unbedingt
bewundernde, sondern sogar eher mit
einem leisen Unterton der Mißbilligung
verknüpft.“ (S. 36)

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123

The only point in Cohen’s system of
thought Kinkel dislikes is the constitution of a philosophy of religion next to
the ethics that, while not independent,
is still particular [eigenartig]. This ceases
to be surprising as soon as one notices
the massive cluelessness of the author in
regard to Jewish things that must have
appeared to him as Jewish curiosities
[jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten] in the style
of past centuries. I allow myself the following quotation: “Particularly gifted
individuals made it to the Shulkhan
Arukh. The history of revelation and the
second book of Moses were also studied”
(p. 28). By the way, the old Schudt12 of all
people would hardly have written such
a sentence. Without a more specific perception of the context from which Cohen
hailed and to which he “returned” it is
impossible to understand his system as
one culminating in Jewish theology.

Der einzige Punkt des Cohenschen
Gedanken-Zusammenhanges, der
Kinkel mißfällt, ist die Konstitution
einer zwar nicht selbständigen aber
doch eigenartigen Religionsphilosophie
neben der Ethik. Das nimmt nicht
mehr Wunder, sobald man die massive
Ahnungslosigkeit des Verfassers in
Bezug auf jüdische Dinge, die ihm wohl
als jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten im Stile
vergangener Jahrhunderte erschienen
sind, bemerkt. Ich gestatte mir folgendes
Zitat: „Besonders Begabte kamen bis
zum Schulchan Orach. Auch die Offenbarungsgeschichte und das zweite Buch
Mosis wurden traktiert.“ (S. 28). Uebrigens wäre wohl gerade dieser Satz dem
alten Schudt schwerlich unterlaufen.
Ohne eine konkretere Vorstellung von
dem Zusammenhang, dem Cohen entstammte und in den er „zurückkehrte“,
ist ein Verständnis seines Systems, als
welches sich in einer jüdischen Theologie
vollendet, unmöglich.

If we now make mention of the essay that
Franz Rosenzweig wrote as an introduction to the “Jewish Writings” of Cohen
we must first say l’havdil, and not just on
principle. Very tentatively speaking, in
these fifty pages Rosenzweig has brought
the science of Judaism as a historical
discipline to a level of sophistication
never heretofore attained, and it is very
much the question whether it will be able
to hold on to this level. It goes without
saying that Rosenzweig avoids Kinkel’s

Wenn wir nunmehr die Arbeit, die
Franz Rosenzweig zur Einführung
in die „Jüdischen Schriften“ Cohens
geschrieben hat, erwähnen, so haben wir
zuerst einmal, und nicht nur aus dem
allgemeinen Grunde, l’hawdil zu sagen.
Ganz vorsichtig gesprochen—Rosenzweig hat mit diesen fünfzig Seiten der
Wissenschaft vom Judentum, als historischer Disziplin, ein Niveau erobert, das
sie bisher nie erreicht hat, und bezüglich
dessen es sehr fraglich ist, ob es ihr

The reference is to J. J. Schudt, Jüdische Merckwürdigkeiten (Frankfurt, 1714–18), a Christian Hebraist whose scholarship detailed Jewish ritual practices.
12

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

mistake of confusing the less philosophically educated by getting lost in details
that are unnecessary for an understanding of the distinctive system of thought.
It also goes without saying that, instead
of foolishly “emphasizing” Cohen’s originality, Rosenzweig concisely elaborates
the significance of nineteenth-century
philosophy for Cohen, as far as it is
known and acknowledged. What is
decisive, however, is that Rosenzweig
takes the result of Cohen’s life, namely,
the “return,” seriously in the sense that
he understands Cohen’s entire development in light of it and understands that
development afresh. How self-evident
and, at the same time, how surprising is
the observation that Cohen never wrote
his [philosophical] psychology and that
the place of this long-anticipated work
in the system is taken by The Religion
of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism;
that accordingly the goal of the system is
no longer the unity of the cultural consciousness but the standing-before-God
of the human being, of the Jew! The ideas
of Cohen’s philosophical system thus
gain new vitality and new meaning, and
Cohen’s astonishingly far-flung practical
activity in the service of Jewry is really
appreciated in its centrality.

möglich sein wird, es festzuhalten. Selbstverständlich, daß der Fehler Kinkels,
durch Sich-Verlieren in Details, die für
das Verständnis des charakteristischen
Gedankenzusammenhanges entbehrlich sind, die philosophisch weniger
Geschulten zu verwirren, vermieden
ist; selbstverständlich auch, daß die
Bedeutung der Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts für Cohen, soweit sie erkannt
und anerkannt ist, klar und präzis
herausgearbeitet ist, anstatt in törichter
Weise die Cohensche Originalität zu
„betonen“. Das Entscheidende aber ist,
daß mit dem Resultat des Cohenschen
Lebens, jener „Rückkehr“ in dem Sinne
ernst gemacht wird, daß Rosenzweig
von ihm aus die gesamte Entwicklung
Cohens versteht und neu versteht. Wie
selbstverständlich und wie überraschend
zugleich ist die Feststellung, daß Cohen
seine Psychologie nicht geschrieben hat,
und die Stelle dieses von langer Hand
vorgesehenen Werkes das Nachlaßwerk:
„Die Religion der Vernunft aus den
Quellen des Judentums“, einnimmt. Daß
dem gemäß als Ziel des Systems nicht
mehr die Einheit des Kulturbewußtseins, sondern das Vor-Gott-Leben des
Menschen, des Juden erscheint! Und so
gewinnen nicht nur die Ideen des philosophischen Systems Cohens eine neue
Lebendigkeit, einen neuen Sinn, sondern
auch die erstaunlich ausgebreitete
praktische Tätigkeit Cohens im Dienste
der Judenheit kommt so zu wirklichem,
zentralem Verständnis.

More Early Writings by Leo Strauss

Rosenzweig understands Cohen’s
development from its end. Rosenzweig’s
own standpoint is however not the final
point of Cohen’s thought. Therefore
the elements of the preceding stages
that were preserved in the last stage [of
Cohen’s thought] without being decisive
any longer have no immediate vitality
[Lebendigkeit] for him [i.e., Rosenzweig].
All the elements that Rosenzweig
deems “past” have vanished from the
exposition. But precisely this must be the
question in each case, namely, whether
they have passed away. Perhaps now is
the time to retrieve the deep and genuine motives of the nineteenth century
that had been abandoned in a perilous
reaction to the perversions of this most
defamed of all centuries. Let us drop
the rhetorical “perhaps”! It is certain
that things would be different with the
intellectual probity of our time and
with the circus of worldviews if more of
the spirit were alive to which Hermann
Cohen gave unique expression when
he said: “We harbor an irrepressible
suspicion toward a truth that derives its
legitimacy from anything other than
knowing reason”—which is not to say
that philosophy must once again yield
the most serious and profound human
concerns to chemists and apothecaries.
And thus or similar may be the state of
affairs also in other respects with regard
to the relinquishing of motives of the
past century.

125

Rosenzweig versteht die Entwicklung
Cohens von deren Ende aus. Der Punkt,
auf dem Rosenzweig selber steht, ist
nun aber nicht der Endpunkt des
Cohenschen Denkens. Daher haben die
Elemente der früheren Stufen, die in
der letzten Stufe zwar erhalten blieben,
aber nicht mehr bestimmend waren, für
ihn keine unmittelbare Lebendigkeit.
Alle die Elemente, die Rosenzweig als
„vergangen“ gelten, sind aus der Darstellung verschwunden. Aber gerade dies
hat jeweils die Frage zu sein, ob sie vergangen sind. Vielleicht ist es nunmehr
Zeit, die tiefen und echten Antriebe des
neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, die man in
gefährlicher Reaktion auf die Verkehrtheiten dieses verläumdetsten aller
Jahrhunderte preisgegeben hat, wieder
zu holen. Lassen wir das rhetorische
„Vielleicht“! Es ist gewiß, daß es anders
stünde um die intellektuelle Redlichkeit
unserer Zeit und anders um den Weltanschauungsrummel, wenn mehr von dem
Geiste lebendig wäre, dem Hermann
Cohen in seiner Weise Ausdruck verlieh,
wenn er sagte: „Wir haben unbezwinglichen Verdacht gegen die Wahrheit,
die auf anderen Gerechtsamen beruht
als auf der erkennenden Vernunft.“—,
womit nicht gesagt und von Cohen nicht
gemeint ist, daß sich die Philosophie
noch einmal die ernstesten und tiefsten Anliegen des Menschen von den
Chemikern und Apothekern entreißen
lassen solle. Und so oder ähnlich möchte
es wohl auch in anderer Hinsicht um
die Preisgabe der Antriebe des vorigen
Jahrhunderts stehen.

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Our reservation against Rosenzweig’s
interpretation of Cohen concerns the
fact that he ignores the mathematical
sciences [mathematische Naturwissenschaft]. This is and remains the
foundation of Cohen’s system, grounded
in the Logic of Pure Cognition. While the
internally [innerlich] justified extension
of the system toward Judaism motivates
a receding of logic in regard to the
proportions of a building that happens
to turn out differently than originally
planned, it does not reduce its [i.e., logic’s] constitutive meaning. This should be
evident from the fact alone that the judgment of origin, which unfolds itself first,
and not accidentally so, in the Logic,
remains constitutive also for theology.
One hint must suffice here. The necessity
to introduce the idea of God follows
from the difference in kind between pure
thought and pure will. More accurately,
it follows from the difference in kind
between nature and human reality as
moral reality. In the face of the fact
that the human is conditioned by the
extra-human, in the face of this relation
of dependence, arises the necessity of
“God” as foundation [Grundlegung].
This means that in order to understand
the meaning of “God” as elicited in
the Ethics of Pure Will, which remains
decisive all the way to, and within, the
posthumous work, one must presuppose
the insight into this dependence, the perspective of eternal death. This approach
of Cohen’s theology is destroyed if the
exact concept of “nature” as elaborated
in mathematical science and secured

Unser Bedenken gegen die Rosenzweigsche Cohen-Interpretation richtet
sich gegen die Außerachtlassung der
mathematischen Naturwissenschaft. Sie
ist und bleibt, in der Logik der reinen
Erkenntnis begründet, der Grundstock
des Cohenschen Systems. Die innerlich
begründete Ausweitung des Systems auf
das Judentum hin motiviert zwar ein
Zurücktreten der Logik in Bezug auf
die Proportionen, aber nicht in Bezug
auf die konstruktive Bedeutung für den
Bau, der am Ende anders ausgefallen
ist als er am Anfang geplant war. Schon
dieses Eine muß stutzig machen, daß
das Urteil des Ursprungs, das sich nicht
zufällig zuerst in der Logik entfaltet,
konstituierend bleibt auch für die
Theologie. Eine Andeutung muß hier
genügen: Die Notwendigkeit der Einführung der Gottesidee ergibt sich auf
Grund der Andersartigkeit von reinem
Denken und reinem Willen, genauer: auf
Grund der Andersartigkeit von Natur
und menschlicher Wirklichkeit als
sittlicher Wirklichkeit. Angesichts der
Bedingtheit des Menschlichen durch das
Außer-Menschliche, angesichts dieses
Abhängigkeits-Verhältnisses erwächst
die Notwendigkeit der Grundlegung
„Gott“. Das heißt: um den in der „Ethik
des reinen Willens“ eruierten Sinn von
„Gott“, der bis in das Nachlaßwerk
hinein bestimmend bleibt, zu verstehen, ist vorausgesetzt: die Einsicht in
diese Abhängigkeit, die Perspektive
des ewigen Todes. Dieser Ansatz der
Cohenschen Theologie wird zerstört,
wenn der exakte Begriff der „Natur“, den

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127

by the Logic is relinquished or ignored.
With this concept of nature stands and
falls the peculiar “care” [Besorgnis] that
is the carrier of belief in God and that is
necessary only in the face of this nature,
not in the face of a nature that has been
rendered comfortable and familiar by
inference from concepts of life, meaning,
and purpose. This is the meaning natural
science gains in the context of Cohen’s
thought: to be the human agent [Sachwalterin] of the extra-human. And this
meaning, which rules the entire edifice
of the Logic (though this is acknowledged only in the chapter on the “idea of
God” of the Ethics), remains significant
and unshaken even if one rejects Cohen’s
solution to the resulting problem as an
attenuation.13

die mathematische Naturwissenschaft
herausstellt, und den die Logik verbürgt,
preisgegeben oder außer Acht gelassen
wird. Mit diesem Begriff der Natur steht
und fällt die eigentümliche „Besorgnis“,
die das Vehikel des Gottesglaubens
ist und die allein angesichts dieser
Natur und nicht angesichts einer durch
Hineintragung von Lebens-, Sinn- und
Zweckbegriffen wonnesam und traut
gemachten Natur notwendig ist. Diesen
Sinn also gewinnt die Naturwissenschaft
im Zusammenhang des Cohenschen
Denkens: Menschliche Sachwalterin
des Außer-Menschlichen zu sein. Und
dieser Sinn, der freilich erst in dem
Kapitel „Die Idee Gottes“ der Ethik
eingeständlich wird, in dessen Dienste
aber der ganze Aufbau der Logik steht,
bleibt bedeutsam und unerschüttert,
auch wenn man die Cohensche Lösung
des sich hier ergebenden Problems als
Abschwächung verwirft. (Fortsetzung
folgt.)

Cassel Courses of the Academy
for Jewish Research14

Casseler Kurse im Auftrage der Akademie der Wissenschaft des Judentums.

(Cassel.) The courses that were offered
this spring between February 15 and
May 15 will resume September 1. There
will be two courses of two hours each.

Cassel. Die Kurse, die in diesem Frühjahr vom 15. Februar bis zum 15. Mai
stattgefunden haben, werden am 1.
September wieder beginnen, und zwar
finden zwei zweistündige Kurse statt:

The original ends with a parenthetical “To be continued,” but Strauss never wrote or published the
conclusion to this review.
14
Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck 2, no. 34 (August 28, 1925): 7 (s.p.).
13

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

1. Hebrew: Continuation and conclusion of elementary grammar. The main
subject will be the irregular verb. If there
is demand, it is possible to add another
course for beginners (prerequisite: familiarity with the alphabet). Textual basis:
biblical miracle stories.

1. Hebräisch. Der Unterricht in der
Elementar-Grammatik soll fortgesetzt
werden und zu Ende geführt werden.
Der Hauptgegenstand wird das unregelmäßige Zeitwort sein. Sollte das
Bedürfnis vorhanden sein, so besteht
die Möglichkeit, eventuell noch einen
Kurs für Ganz-Anfänger anzusetzen.
(Kenntnis der Quadratschrift wird
aber vorausgesetzt.) Lektüre: Biblische
Wunder-Geschichten.

2. A seminar on the topic of “Religion
and the Critique of Religion.” This
will be the continuation of the spring
seminar where we tried to understand
the path leading from the dissolution
of the German-Jewish context to its
renewed consolidation—we elucidated
this path by looking at the development
of Hermann Cohen. This time the focus
is on understanding the process that
preceded this dissolution historically
and essentially, namely, the explosion
[Sprengung] of the context of Jewish
tradition through the forces of European
criticism. We will orient ourselves by
Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise
(those who do not read Latin will best
use the translation by Carl Gebhardt,
Philosophische Bibliothek, Meiner,
Leipzig).

2. Arbeits-Gemeinschaft über das Thema
„Religion und Religions-Kritik“. Diese
Arbeitsgemeinschaft setzt die des
Frühjahrs fort. Handelte es sich damals
darum, den Weg zu verstehen, der von
der Auflösung des deutsch-jüdischen
Zusammenhangs zu seiner Neu-Konsolidierung führte—diesen Weg machten
wir an der Entwicklung Hermann
Cohens deutlich—, so wird es nunmehr
darauf ankommen, den zeitlich und
sachlich vorangehenden Prozeß: die
Sprengung des Zusammenhangs der
jüdischen Tradition durch die Mächte
der europäischen Kritik begreifen zu
lernen. Wir orientieren uns hierfür an
dem Theologisch-Politischen Traktat
Spinozas (am besten für die des Lateinischen Unkundigen in der Uebersetzung
von Carl Gebhardt, Phil. Bibl., Meiner,
Leipzig, zu benutzen).

For now the rooms of the Sinai-Lodge
(Akazienweg) are available to us. We will
determine the time for these courses at
the first meeting at the lodge, scheduled

Vorläufig stehen uns die Räume der
Sinai-Loge (Akazienweg) zur Verfügung.
Die Zeit der Kurse wird festgesetzt in
einer Vorbesprechung, die Mittwoch

More Early Writings by Leo Strauss

129

for Wednesday, September 2, punctually at 8:30 pm. This discussion will be
preceded by a lecture on the tasks and
methods of the science of Judaism as an
introduction to these courses. Dr. Leo
Strauss.

den 2. September, abends 8.30 Uhr
pünktlich, in der Loge stattfinden wird.
Der Vorbesprechung wird ein Vortrag
über die Aufgaben und Methoden der
Wissenschaft vom Judentum als Einführung in die Kurse vorangehen. Dr. Leo
Strauss.

[Artur Katz]
Kassel. Spinoza’s Criticism
of the Law.15

[Artur Katz]
Kassel. Spinozas Kritik am Gesetz.

Spinoza’s criticism of the law was the
subject of the introductory lecture in
a series sponsored by the Academy for
Jewish Research that Dr. Leo Strauss is
currently holding in Kassel and that is
mainly to deal with Maimonides. The
speaker contrasted the philosophical
reasoning of Maimonides and Spinoza and showed how their different
mentalities inevitably lead these two
philosophers to arrive at opposite results,
whereby Maimonides and his worldview
are in agreement with Jewish doctrine
whereas Spinoza cannot be considered
a Jew, especially because of his stated
position on the law; after all, Spinoza’s
doctrine of unity is radically opposed to
the biblical view.

Zur Einführung in die Vortragsreihe,
die Herr Dr. Leo Strauß im Auftrage
der Akademie für die Wissenschaft des
Judentums zur Zeit in Kassel abhält und
die sich insbesondere mit Maimonides
beschäftigen soll, wurde Spinozas Kritik
am Gesetz behandelt. Der Redner stellte
die philosophischen Gedankengänge
Maimons und Spinozas gegenüber und
zeigte, wie beide Philosophen infolge
ihrer verschiedenartigen Denkungsweise
auch zu entgegengesetzten Ergebnissen kommen müssen, aufgrund deren
Maimonides mit seiner Weltanschauung im Einklang mit der jüdischen
Glaubenslehre stehe, während Spinoza
letzen Endes, insbesondere wegen seiner
Stellungnahme zum Gesetz, nicht als
Jude gelten könne; die Einheitslehre
Spinozas stehe eben zu der biblischen
Anschauung im schärfsten Gegensatz.

More dubious was the speaker’s view
that Maimonides’s interpretation of the
law also fundamentally subjected the law

Bedenken dürfte aber die Ansicht des Redners begegnen, daß
auch Maimonides mit seiner

15

Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck 4, no. 12 (March 25, 1927): 6–7 (s.p.).

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to criticism. Maimonides in fact never
left any doubt that his giving reasons for
the laws represented merely an incomplete and fragmentary attempt that in
no way touched the binding authority of
the law.

Gesetzesinterpretation grundsätzlich
eine Kritik am Gesetz vorgenommen
habe. Maimonides hat vielmehr nie im
Zweifel gelassen, daß seine Gesetzesmotivierung nur einen unvollständigen
und lückenhaften Versuch darstelle,
durch den die Verbindlichkeit des
Gesetzes in keiner Weise berührt werden
könne.

The lecturer pointed to the attempt
among recent intellectual movements,
such as socialism, to claim the philosopher Spinoza for themselves, and
explained to what extent such claims
may be justified by Spinoza’s worldview.
He dismissed as unscientific and contrived the views of those who believe that
Spinoza can be explained from his Jewish origins, from the opposition to his
environment, or even from an alleged
“Jewish” spirit of negation.

Der Referent wies auf den Versuch
neuerer Geistesströmungen, z. B. des
Sozialismus hin, den Philosophen Spinoza für sich in Anspruch zu nehmen,
und legte dar, inwieweit diese Ansprüche
durch die Weltanschauung Spinozas
gerechtfertigt seien. Die Ansichten
derer, die glauben, Spinoza aus seiner
jüdischen Herkunft, dem Gegensatz zu
seiner Umgebung oder gar aus einem
angeblich „jüdischen“ Verneinungsgeiste
erklären zu können, seien als unwissenschaftlich und gekünstelt abzulehnen.

Despite their rigorous scholarship, these
lectures (held every Monday) are so clear
and generally accessible that we can only
recommend attendance.
Dr. Artur Katz

Die Ausführungen sind trotz ihrer strengen Wissenschaftlichkeit derart klar
und auch gemeinverständlich gehalten,
daß der Besuch dieser (jeden Montag
stattfindenden) Vorträge nur empfohlen
werden kann.
Dr. Artur Katz

More Early Writings by Leo Strauss

131

Courses Sponsored by the Academy for
Jewish Research16

Kurse im Auftrag der Akademie für die
Wissenschaft des Judentums.

Topic: The question of “faith and knowledge” and its history. This topic is to be
treated in a sequence of courses.

Thema: Die Frage „Glauben und Wissen“ und ihre Geschichte. Dieses Thema
soll in mehreren aufeinanderfolgenden
Kursen behandelt werden.

We plan, to begin with, to establish a
seminar that is to introduce and clarify
the basic concepts. To this end we will
jointly read and discuss fundamental
passages from the works of the Greek
philosophers; the seminar may therefore
also be said to serve the purpose of a
general introduction to philosophy as
such.

Es ist geplant, zunächst eine Arbeitsgemeinschaft einzurichten, in der
die elementaren Begriffe eingeführt
und geklärt werden sollen. Zu diesem
Zweck werden grundlegende Texte aus
den Werken griechischer Philosophen
gemeinsam gelesen und besprochen
werden; der Zweck der Arbeitsgemeinschaft läßt sich daher auch als
Einführung in die Philosophie überhaupt bezeichnen.

Knowledge of the Greek language and of
the language of the philosophical schools
is not a prerequisite for participation
in the course. The seminar opens with
an introductory lecture on Thursday,
November 17, punctually at 8:30 pm.
Location: Jewish community reading
room, Rosenstrasse 22. Dr. Leo Strauss.

Kenntnis der griechischen Sprache und
der philosophischen Schul-Sprache wird
für die Teilnahme an dem Kursus nicht
vorausgesetzt. Die Arbeitsgemeinschaft
wird durch einen einleitenden Vortrag
am Donnerstag 17. November abends
8 ½ Uhr, pünktlich eröffnet. Ort:
Lesezimmer der jüdischen Gemeinde,
Rosenstraße 22. Dr. Leo Strauß.

Postscript to the Discussion17
By Dr. Leo Strauss

Nachwort zur Diskussion.
Von Dr. Leo Strauß.

The following remarks refer to the
lecture by Rabbi Dr. Salzberger held

Die folgenden Bemerkungen nehmen
Bezug auf den Vortrag, den Herrn Rabbiner Dr. Salzberger am vergangenen

16
17

Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck 4, no. 43 (November 11, 1927): 7 (s.p.).
Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck 5, no. 2 (January 1928): 5–6 (s.p.).

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

last Sunday in the Liberale Vereinigung
(Liberal Association).

Sonntag in der Liberalen Vereinigung
gehalten hat.

Rabbi Dr. Salzberger’s lecture on the
topic “How can we liberal Jews productively shape our divine worship service?”
entailed in truth a justification and
critique of Jewish liberalism as a whole.
Essentially the same principles that provided the foundation for the justification
returned during the critique.

Was Rabbiner Dr. Salzberger (Frankfurt
am Main) in seinem Vortrag über das
Thema: „Wie können wir liberalen Juden
unseren Gottesdienst fruchtbringend
gestalten?“ sagte, das schloß in Wahrheit
eine Rechtfertigung und eine Kritik des
jüdischen Liberalismus überhaupt in
sich. Wesentlich die selben Prinzipien,
die der Rechtfertigung zu Grunde lagen,
kehrten in der Kritik wieder.

To be sure, this is not to say that the
speaker attempted to bring to bear the
same principles on his critique of liberalism that once provided the foundation
of liberalism. To the contrary! In everything essential, the critique rested on an
unambiguous denial of the principles
on whose unambiguous affirmation the
justification had rested. The critique rendered the justification absurd. Everyone
realized the absurdity of such principles
as “brevity,” “beauty,” and “general
accessibility” that had been used to criticize the traditional worship, everyone,
that is, who does not, by means of the
principle of tradition, invoke the hundred-year-old tradition of the rejection
of tradition, thus squaring the absurdity,
or who even uncritically accepts the
tradition of the rejection of tradition.
What was left as the outcome of liberalism was a certain order [Ordnung], or
rather the tidiness [Ordentlichkeit] of
the service, confirmation of girls and the
like. But was it really worth it to shatter

Dies darf freilich nicht so verstanden
werden, als ob der Redner versucht
hätte, die selben Prinzipien, die den
Liberalismus einst begründet haben,
nunmehr für die Kritik am Liberalismus
fruchtbar zu machen. Im Gegenteil!
Die Kritik beruhte in allem Wesentlichen auf der einsinnigen Verneinung
der Prinzipien auf deren einsinniger
Bejahung die Rechtfertigung beruhte.
Die Kritik führte die Rechtfertigung
ad absurdum. Die Absurdität solcher
Prinzipien wie „Kürze“, „Schönheit“,
„Allgemeinverständlichkeit“, die zur
Kritik am traditionellen Gottesdienst
verwandt worden waren, wurde jedem
klar, der nicht in potenzierter Absurdität
sich mittels des Prinzips der Tradition
auf die hundertjährige Tradition der
Traditions-Verwerfung beruft, oder gar
die Tradition der Traditions-Verwerfung
kritiklos übernimmt. Als Ergebnis des
Liberalismus blieb übrig eine gewisse
Ordnung, vielmehr Ordentlichkeit
des Gottesdienstes, Einsegnung der

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133

the beautiful world of tradition for this
result? Obviously not. But liberalism is
more than mere liturgical reform; its
actual principle is the freedom of reason
and of conscience.

Mädchen und ähnliches. Aber hat es
gelohnt, um dieses Ergebnisses willen die schöne Welt der Tradition zu
zerschlagen? Offenbar nicht. Aber
Liberalismus ist mehr als bloße Reform
des Gottesdienstes; sein eigentliches
Prinzip ist die Freiheit der Vernunft und
des Gewissens.

Even if from now on the law once again
determined Jewish life (and especially
Jewish liturgy), as before, as the highest
and exclusive measure, the individual’s
reason and conscience remain free. But
does not the fulfillment of the law, the
preservation of the “form,” presuppose
the affirmation of certain fundamental
convictions, the agreement of all in
regard to these convictions, call them
dogmas or not? Even if one generously
leaves unanswered the question what
convictions sustain the Jewish context,
there is not a moment’s doubt that there
are such convictions that must be clearly
articulated as such. And what is the state
of these convictions in the current liberal
movement?

Mag immerhin von nun an wieder, wie
einst, das Gesetz als oberste und einzige
Richtschnur das jüdische Leben (insonderheit den jüdischen Gottesdienst)
bestimmen—Vernunft und Gewissen
des Einzelnen bleiben frei. Aber setzt
nicht die Erfüllung des Gesetzes, die
Bewahrung der „Form“ die Bejahung
gewisser Grund-Ueberzeugungen, die
Uebereinstimmung Aller hinsichtlich
dieser Ueberzeugungen, ob man sie nun
Dogmen nennen will oder nicht, voraus?
Man mag die Beantwortung der Frage:
welche Ueberzeugungen den jüdischen
Zusammenhang tragen, in noch so
großzügiger Weise offen lassen: daß
es solche Ueberzeugungen gibt, die als
solche klar anzugeben sind, kann keinen
Augenblick zweifelhaft sein. Und wie
steht es mit diesen Ueberzeugungen in
der gegenwärtigen liberalen Bewegung?

The criticism of the last three centuries
called many things into question. But
only inessential things. This is precisely
the question on whose answer everything depends. For example, if today’s
liberalism succeeds in overcoming the
criticism of miracles only by suggesting that this criticism has a meaning

Die Kritik der letzten drei Jahrhunderte
hat manches in Frage gestellt. Aber
doch nur Unwesentliches. Gerade dies
ist die Frage, von deren Beantwortung
alles abhängt. Wenn es zum Beispiel
dem heutigen Liberalismus nur dadurch
gelingt, mit der Wunder-Kritik fertig
zu werden, daß er dieser Kritik einen

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

that it does not have—an orthodoxy
that understands itself correctly is not
touched by the criticism of miracles—
then this merely indicates that it is in
truth not able to overcome this criticism,
that this criticism aims for and hits not
the periphery but the center. A productive debate with the liberal movement
of the present will remain impossible as
long as there is no clarity with regard to
the central questions, which are always
theological questions.

Sinn unterschiebt, den sie nicht hat—die
sich selbst recht verstehende Orthodoxie wird von der Wunder-Kritik
nicht berührt—so ist das doch wohl
ein Zeichen dafür, daß er mit dieser
Kritik in Wahrheit nicht fertig wird,
daß diese Kritik nicht die Peripherie,
sondern das Zentrum meint und trifft.
Solange über die zentralen Fragen, die
immer theologische Fragen sind, nicht
Klarheit geschaffen ist, so lange ist eine
fruchtbare Auseinandersetzung mit der
liberalen Bewegung der Gegenwart nicht
möglich.

One must not complain that the speaker
did not address these questions: his topic
was much more limited; nor should one
assume that he does not recognize their
urgency. They were not raised in the
ensuing discussion, either. In accordance
with the purpose of the event, the
discussion was limited to questions of
practice, though it focused on the most
urgent question of practice, namely,
the question of religious education. As
demanded by the matter at hand, it
was mostly men active as teachers who
spoke. If one wishes to deal publicly with
questions that concern the public, amateurism can only be avoided if specialists
speak in public and submit their arguments and counterarguments to public
arbitration.

Daß der Redner auf diese Fragen nicht
einging, ist ihm nicht zu verübeln:
sprach er doch über ein wesentlich
begrenzteres Thema; daß er sie nicht
als dringlich erkennen sollte, ist nicht
anzunehmen. Sie wurden auch nicht
in der Diskussion, die sich an den
Vortrag anschloß, berührt. Die Diskussion beschränkte sich, dem Sinn
der Veranstaltung entsprechend, auf
Fragen der Praxis; immerhin doch auf
die dringliche Frage der Praxis, auf die
Frage des Religionsunterrichts. Wie es
die Sache verlangte, sprachen vor allem
Männer, die lehrend tätig sind. Sollen
die Fragen, welche die Oeffentlichkeit
angehen, öffentlich behandelt werden,
so ist die Gefahr dilettantischer Behandlung nur dann zu vermeiden, wenn in
erster Linie die Sachverständigen vor der
Oeffentlichkeit zu Wort kommen, ihre
Gründe und Gegengründe der öffentlichen Beurteilung vorlegen.

More Early Writings by Leo Strauss

135

One cannot demand that specialists
settle such questions exclusively amongst
themselves; at least one cannot raise
such a demand as long as one continues
to stand by democracy [sich noch zur
Demokratie bekennt]. At any rate, the
question of religious education is of the
highest interest to the Jewish public;
and in this regard everyone is capable
of judging by himself (to the extent that
he is capable of judging at all) in the
sense that he can discern whether he has
learned anything in school that endures.
Now, no one can fail to notice that the
method that has hitherto generally been
used has, on average, failed. This method
arose at an age when the Jewish collective “learned.” The changed situation
requires a different method; it provides
the only method now possible.

Man kann nicht verlangen, daß ausschließlich die Sachverständigen unter
sich die Erledigung derartiger Fragen
unter sich ausmachen; man kann dies
wenigstens so lange nicht fordern, als
man sich noch zur Demokratie bekennt.
Die Frage des Religionsunterrichts ist
jedenfalls von höchstem Interesse für
die jüdische Oeffentlichkeit; auch ist
bezüglich ihrer jeder in dem Sinn urteilsfähig—wenn er überhaupt urteilsfähig
ist—, daß er feststellen kann, ob er in
seiner Schulzeit etwas gelernt hat, das bleibt. Nun kann niemand verkennen, daß
die Methode, die bisher allgemein angewandt wurde, durchschnittlich versagt
hat. Diese Methode entstammt einem
Zeitalter, in der die jüdische Gesamtheit
„lernte“. Die veränderte Lage erzwingt
eine andere Methode, sie stellt die in ihr
einzig mögliche Methode bereit.

What could be presupposed in the past
can today no longer be expected; instead
today something can be presupposed
that could not be expected in the past.
A large part of the students of religion
today learn one or more foreign languages; training in foreign-language
acquisition must and can be utilized for
religious instruction. If every mediocre
student can be brought to the point that,
after nine years of schooling, he is able
to handle even difficult Latin texts or,
after six years of schooling, he is able to
handle intermediate Greek texts, then it
must also be possible to get every mediocre student of religion to the point that
he is able, at the maturation exam, to

Was früher vorausgesetzt werden
durfte, kann heute nicht mehr verlangt
werden; dafür aber kann heute etwas
vorausgesetzt werden, was früher nicht
zu verlangen war. Ein großer der Teil
der Religionsschüler lernt heute eine
oder mehrere Fremdsprachen; die
Schulung im Erlernen fremder Sprachen
muß und kann für den Religionsunterricht nutzbar gemacht werden. Wenn
es möglich ist, jeden mittelbegabten
Schüler dahin zu bringen, daß er nach
neunjähriger Schulung selbst mit
schwierigen lateinischen Texten oder
nach sechsjähriger Schulung mit mittelschweren griechischen Texten fertig
wird, so muß es auch möglich sein, jeden

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

handle Hebrew texts at the corresponding level. That, on average, this goal
is not reached in the circles of liberal
Judaism is admitted by everyone. This
is explained by parental indifference.
Certainly a real reason, but is it decisive?
After all, today it is possible to win over
young people without or against parental
consent.

mittelbegabten Schüler des Religionsunterrichts dahin zu bringen, daß er bei der
Reifeprüfung in entsprechender Weise
hebräische Texte bewältigt. Daß dieses
Ziel heute in den Kreisen des liberalen
Judentums durchschnittlich nicht
erreicht wird, geben alle zu. Als Grund
wird angegeben: die Gleichgültigkeit der
Eltern. Gewiß ein wirklicher Grund; aber
der entscheidende Grund? Heute besteht
doch die Möglichkeit, ohne oder gegen
die Eltern die jungen Leute zu gewinnen.

Of course not everyone can bring this
about but only one who has the necessary personal qualifications. Perhaps I
am particularly entitled to speak to this.
Three years ago I made the attempt here
in Kassel to stimulate the liberal youth
to systematically acquire the language
of the Bible; this attempt has certainly
failed. Since last year Herr Lehrer Bacher
is making the same attempt; this attempt
has certainly succeeded. If under
otherwise equal conditions the factor B
elicits a completely different effect than
factor A, the reason for the difference in
the effect must be found in the essence
of factor B. This means: Herr Bacher
obviously possesses the peculiar gift that
enables its possessor to seize the young
people, to seize them so that they love
to attend his language lessons and participate voluntarily. In this experiment,
conducted here in Kassel according to
every rule of exact scientific research,
the parental factor is a constant; in
the discussion of the preconditions of
fertile religious education that opened

Dies ist selbstverständlich nicht jedem
möglich, sondern nur dem, der die
entsprechenden persönlichen Voraussetzungen mitbringt. Vielleicht habe ich
ein besonderes Recht, mich hierüber
zu äußern. Vor drei Jahren machte ich
hier in Kassel den Versuch, die liberale
Jugend zum systematischen Erlernen
der Sprache der Bibel anzuregen; dieser
Versuch ist durchaus gescheitert. Seit
einem Jahr versucht Herr Lehrer Bacher
dasselbe; dieser Versuch ist durchaus
geglückt. Wenn unter sonst gleichen
Bedingungen der Faktor B eine ganz
andere Wirkung hervorruft als der
Faktor A, so ist der Grund für die
Verschiedenheit der Wirkung in dem
eigentümlichen Wesen des Faktors B zu
suchen. Das heißt: Herr Bacher besitzt
offenbar die eigentümliche Gabe, die es
ihrem Besitzer ermöglicht, die jungen
Leute zu erfassen, so zu erfassen, daß
sie in seinen Sprach-Unterricht gern
und freiwillig kommen. Die Eltern sind
bei dem Experiment, das hier in Kassel
nach allen Regeln exakter Forschung

More Early Writings by Leo Strauss

last Sunday, parental behavior is therefore a variable that may and must be
neglected.18

137

gemacht wurde, ein konstanter Faktor;
das Verhalten der Eltern ist also für die
Diskussion über die Voraussetzungen
fruchtbringenden Religionsunterrichts,
die am vergangenen Sonntag eröffnet
wurde, eine Größe, die nicht [sic] vernachlässigen darf und muß.

Translator’s note: Literally, the sentence ends with an ungrammatical and, in its context, illogical
statement (“eine Größe, die nicht vernachlässigen darf und muß”). The intended meaning is clear,
however, and it is the one given in this translation.
18

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

139

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s
Political Thought:
Does Citizens’ Political Participation Include
Public Discussions and Debates?1
Ju ng I n K a ng
Sogang University, Korea
jkang@sogang.ac.kr
Abstract: Although Rousseau is widely known as a strong advocate of direct democracy,
it is a baffling paradox to find that many passages in his Social Contract seem to deny
citizens’ active discussion and debate in public assembly. Thus, many commentators, including Bernard Manin, Roger D. Masters, and Jürgen Habermas have reached the negative
interpretation that Rousseau excludes such activities from a proper form of civic political
participation and only allows citizens to vote on given legislative proposals. This essay, by
contrast, offers a more positive interpretation whereby Rousseau’s citizens are allowed to
engage in active discussion and debate. In order to develop this argument and demonstrate
its validity, the essay begins by classifying and examining the types of state presented in The
Social Contract in terms of their degree of corruption and various manifestations of political participation. It then introduces various negative and positive interpretations on this
subject. Finally, it presents a critique of negative interpretations and defends its own positive
interpretation by means of textual analysis and logical inferences.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau is known as the strongest advocate
of popular sovereignty and the most consistent defender of direct democracy
through active civic participation among modern Western political theorists.2
However, the baffling paradox remains that most Western commentators
This paper was originally presented to the 69th Annual National Conference of the MPSA in 2011
(Chicago, March 31–April 3). This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea
Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2011-330-B00010) and also partly by the Sogang
University Research Grant of 2011.
1

Of course, Rousseau accepts and prescribes representative democracy on a national level to make
allowances for the size of the territory and the population in a given state in Considerations on the
Government of Poland.
2

© 2012 Interpretation, Inc.

 14 0

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Volume 39 / Issue 2

interpret Rousseau—contrary to wide popular assumption—as denying
citizens the ability to participate in politics through forms of public interaction such as discussion and debate. Rousseau’s work—notably his celebrated
Social Contract—contains certain passages that seem to deny citizens the
right to active public interaction, so that it remains unclear whether citizens
are allowed to engage in such interaction in the process of finding the general
will and making it into law. One of the most typical and frequently cited
passages regarding this question is found in book II, chap. 3 of The Social
Contract: “If, when an adequately informed people deliberates, the citizens
were to have no communication among themselves, the general will would
always result from the large number of small differences, and the deliberation
would always be good” (II, iii, 61).3
If citizens were denied public interaction and political participation in civic assemblies, and therefore confined to voting for or against
given legislative propositions, Rousseau’s strong advocacy of direct democracy
would lose a great deal of its purport and significance. Careful examination
of The Social Contract, Considerations on the Government of Poland (hereafter Considerations), and Rousseau’s other political writings, however, reveals
that discussion and debate are allowed under certain conditions; that is,
according to “type of the state” and subject to certain regulations.4 I therefore oppose the conventional negative interpretation according to which
Rousseau comprehensively forbids discussion and debate, taking instead the
position that it is crucial, in evaluating Rousseau’s direct democracy, to note
the public civic discussion that his political thought allows.
In order to develop and defend my positive interpretation,
I first classify the types of state described in The Social Contract in terms of
degree of corruption and variety of civic participation. I then offer various
interpretations with regard to the question whether Rousseau’s citizens are
allowed to engage in active public interaction in assemblies, before placing
these interpretations into negative and positive categories. Finally, I seek to
refute negative interpretations and support the positive one on the basis of
my reading of Rousseau’s major works.
This passage will be analyzed in more detail later in the paper. Hereafter I refer to this passage
as “P1,” since it is cited frequently below. The text used for The Social Contract in this paper is JeanJacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy, ed. Roger D.
Masters and Judith R. Masters (New York: St. Martin’s, 1978). Whenever The Social Contract is cited
in this paper, this text will be used, with parenthetical reference to book, chapter, and page.
3

4

The meaning of the phrase “subject to certain regulations” will be elaborated later in the paper.

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

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 ousseau’s Classification of Types
R
of State: Degree of Corruption and
Variety of Political Participation
In The Social Contract IV, chap. 1, Rousseau classifies types
of state primarily in terms of degree of corruption. Aspects and consequences
of civic political participation appear to vary according to the type of state.
After presenting his typology of the state, Rousseau offers his main point: “It
can be seen from the preceding chapter that the way in which general matters
are handled can provide a rather precise indication of the current state of the
mores and health of the body politic” (IV, ii, 109). The major assumption of
this paper is thus that we must examine whether civic participation includes
public discussion and debate, according to the type of state. I identify four
types of state in The Social Contract by considering passages in book II, chap.
3 and book IV, chap. 2, although Rousseau presents only three types in book
IV, chap. 1. The validity of this addition will be confirmed through the subsequent development of my interpretation.
 he Ideal State:
T
A Healthy Peasant Community (Type 1)
Rousseau describes as the happy and ideal state the simple
and honest community in which a group of peasants as “a single body” manages its common affairs according to “a single will which relates to their
common preservation and the general welfare.” In such a community, “the
common good is clearly apparent everywhere, and requires only good sense
to be perceived” (IV, i, 108). Here, as citizens do not pursue their private interests or form small factions or associations, there are no clashes between the
general will and the particular wills of individual citizens, so that unanimous
decisions can be reached without trouble. As the citizens are uncorrupted
and the common good is easy to discern, they decide upon the affairs of state
wisely. Rousseau describes how they are dealt with as follows:
A State governed in this way needs very few laws, and to the degree
that it becomes necessary to promulgate new ones, this necessity is
universally seen. The first to propose them merely states what everyone
has already felt, and there is no question of intrigues nor of eloquence
to pass into law what each has already resolved to do as soon as he is
sure that others will do likewise. (IV, i, 108)

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 he Semi-Ideal State: The Early
T
Roman Republic (Type 2)
Rousseau regards the early Roman republic as a kind of
semi-ideal state, not able to reach the level of the ideal state described above.
While recognizing the confrontation of the patricians and plebeians “whose
quarrels often disturbed the comitia even in the finest period” of the Roman
republic, and diagnosing this as deriving from problems inherent in the
constitution itself, he still stresses that “even in the stormiest times, the
plebiscites of the people, when the senate did not interfere with them, always
passed calmly and by a large majority of votes. Since the citizens had only
one interest, the people had only one will” (IV, ii, 109–10). Thus, according
to Rousseau, although some Roman plebeians pursued individual private
interests, excluding the possibility of unanimous will, they were still able to
pass resolutions by a large majority because they were still not divided into
factions or parties.
Rousseau’s description of the early Roman republic shows
that he recognized it as being, overall, a healthy body politic, albeit one that
fell short of the ideal peasant state. Rousseau appears to think that, insofar as
small parties and associations around which private interests partially cohere
are not formed, the general will will prevail at least by a large majority, if not
with unanimity. Such is the difference between the ideal and the semi-ideal
state. Rousseau thus states: “In order for the general will to be well expressed,
it is therefore important that there be no partial society in the State, and that
each citizen give only his own opinion” (II, iii, 61). He describes the deliberation process as follows:
If, when an adequately informed people deliberates, the citizens were
to have no communication among themselves, the general will would
always result from the large number of small differences, and the
deliberation would always be good. (II, iii, 61)5

Here, Rousseau elaborates on the meaning of the “large
number of small differences” deriving from each citizen’s own opinion or
private will:
There is often a great difference between the will of all and the general will. The latter considers only the common interest: the former
“Si, quant le peuple suffisamment informé délibére, les Citoyens n’avoient aucune communication
entre eux, du grand nombre de petites différences résulteroit toujours la volonté générale, et la délibération seroit toujours bonne” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Œuvres complètes, vol. 3, ed. Bernard Gagnebin
and Marcel Raymond [Paris: Gallimard, 1964], 371).
5

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

14 3

considers private interest, and is only a sum of private wills. But take
away from these same wills the pluses and minuses that cancel each
other, and the remaining sum of the differences is the general will. (II,
iii, 61)

This passage reinforces my point that the category of semi-ideal state is independent and distinct from that of the ideal state, by showing additionally
that the way the general will is found in the former is different from that in
the latter.
The Considerably Corrupt State (Type 3)
In Rousseau’s political theory, any state that is healthy to
begin with is inevitably susceptible to corruption and decline. He thus depicts
civic participation in a state with considerable corruption:
But when the social tie begins to slacken and the State to grow weak;
when private interests start to make themselves felt and small societies
to influence the large one, the common interest changes and is faced
with opponents; unanimity no longer prevails in the votes; the general
will is no longer the will of all; contradictions and debates arise and
the best advice is not accepted without disputes. (IV, i, 108)

Here, the decisive difference between the semi-ideal state
and the considerably corrupt state seems to be whether small parties, associations, and societies are formed in the body politic. In the latter state, citizens
now start to form small societies and participate in politics pursuing private
interests (or particular wills) of individuals and small societies rather than
the general will. Rousseau thus distinguishes such a state from ideal and
semi-ideal states:
One can say, then, that there are no longer as many voters as there are
men, but merely as many as there are associations. The differences
become less numerous and produce a result that is less general. (II, iii, 61)

Rousseau makes a similar contrast elsewhere:
The more harmony there is in the assemblies, that is, the closer opinions come to obtaining unanimous support, the more dominant as
well is the general will. But long debates, dissensions, and tumult indicate the ascendance of private interests and the decline of the State.
(IV, ii, 109)

In a state where corruption has advanced to a considerable
degree, the will of all cannot undergo the mutual cancellation of individual
wills necessary to obtain the general will, making the latter a rarity. As the

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passage “the best advice is not accepted without disputes” suggests, however,
this does not mean that the general will is disregarded completely. Rousseau’s
solution for letting the general will prevail in such a body politic is to restore
it artificially to a condition closer to that of the semi-ideal state, suggesting
that “if there are partial societies, their number must be multiplied and their
inequality prevented” (II, iii, 61). If such a measure were successful, the will
of all would approximate to the general will through the mutual cancellation
effect, with resolutions passed by a large majority.
The Severely Corrupt State (Type 4)
Finally, Rousseau describes political participation and its
consequences in a severely corrupt state:
Finally, when the State, close to its ruin, continues to subsist only in
an illusory and ineffectual form; when the social bond is broken in all
hearts; when the basest interest brazenly adopts the sacred name of
the public good, then the general will becomes mute; all—guided by
secret motives—are no more citizens in offering their opinions than
if the State had never existed, and iniquitous decrees whose only goal
is the private interest are falsely passed under the name of laws. (IV,
i, 109)

In such a severely corrupt state, as a consequence of the failure of Rousseau’s
solution, the number of small societies decreases and the equality among
them breaks down completely: “Finally when one of these associations is so
big that it prevails over all the others, the result is no longer a sum of small
differences, but a single difference. Then there is no longer a general will, and
the opinion that prevails is merely a private opinion” (II, iii, 61).
In book IV, chap. 2 of The Social Contract, Rousseau describes
the mode of political participation and its consequence when corruption
reaches its extreme point, citing the case of the abject state of the Roman senate under the emperors:
At the other extreme, unanimity returns. That is when the citizens,
fallen into servitude, no longer have either freedom or will. Then fear
and flattery turn voting into acclamations. Men no longer deliberate;
they adore or they curse. (IV, ii, 110)

Since a few factions (or just a single faction) occupy the dominant position in
the state, the remaining, powerless citizens are overwhelmed by this domi-

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

14 5

nant faction(s) and unable to frankly express opposite or different opinions.
They merely engage in “curses” or “flattery,” out of sheer fear.6
Among these four types, the ideal and semi-ideal states are
those in which simplicity and honesty would prevail among mostly healthy
citizens. The early Roman republic and Sparta before its decline, in which
small societies had not formed, seem to correspond to the semi-ideal state.
Political decisions are made unanimously in the ideal state, but by majority
vote in the semi-ideal state, for there is some embryonic corruption among
the citizens in the latter. In considerably and severely corrupt states, by contrast, most citizens have lost their simplicity and honesty. Athens, the later
Roman republic, and Rome in its imperial stage would correspond to these.
Partial societies and factions form in both types: in the considerably corrupt
state, their number is still plural, they balance one another, and their influence is dispersed; while in the severely corrupt state their number is reduced
to a few, or one, and their influence is severely skewed in favor of the few,
or monopolized by a single faction. If we compare the four types of state in
terms of expression of the general will in relation to the will of all, there are
interesting differences to be noted. While the will of all is naturally identical
to the general will in the ideal state, and the former turns artificially—i.e.,
by mutual cancellation of individual wills—into the latter in the semi-ideal
state, the general will is rarely expressed in the considerably corrupt state
and, when it is, this is often not inevitable but accidental. Obviously, the will
of all or the majority does not coincide with the general will at all in a severely
corrupt state.

 oes Civic Political Participation
D
Include Public Discussion and Debate?
Overview of Existing Interpretations
Now we may turn to the main subject of this paper. Although
the question whether civic political participation includes public discussion
and debate is more complicated than is usually assumed, not many commentators explicitly examine this question and come up with their own
interpretation. In addition, most commentators who manage to advance
explicit interpretations take the negative position that Rousseau does not
allow public discussion and debate. In contrast, my ultimate interpretation
in this paper is the positive one that Rousseau’s citizens are allowed to engage
Therefore, Rousseau prescribes that the decision procedure should change from public to secret
voting, as the healthy body politic turns into a corrupt state (IV, iv, 119).
6

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in active public interaction according to type of state and subject to certain
regulations. Without allowing public interaction, I assert, the true value of
Rousseau’s direct democracy would not be realized or appreciated at all.
In order to argue the validity of my position, a persuasive refutation of the
aforementioned negative position is needed. I thus summarize the critical
passages at issue in The Social Contract, before surveying negative and positive interpretations in this section. Finally, in the next section, I advance my
critique of negative positions and elaborate my positive alternative.
Crucial passages cited to support negative interpretations
are P1 in book II, chap. 3; the passage in which civic public interaction is
described as almost unnecessary in the ideal state portrayed in book IV,
chap. 1; and the passage in which “long debates, dissensions, and tumult” are
described negatively as indicating “the ascendance of private interests and
the decline of the State” in book IV, chap. 2. In addition, there is a critical but
ambiguous passage that seems to validate the negative interpretation, but, in
my opinion, actually suggests the probability that active civic public deliberation is allowed. This passage merits quotation at length:
I could make many comments here about the simple right to vote in
every act of sovereignty—a right that nothing can take away from the
citizens; and on the right to give an opinion, to make propositions, to
analyze, to discuss, which the government is always very careful to
allow only to its members. But this important subject would require
a separate treatise and I cannot say everything in this one. (IV, i, 109;
hereafter “P2”)7

I will now introduce and examine various interpretations of
this subject, before advancing my own. Most of the scholars to be examined
take a negative position, except Hilail Gildin and Melissa Schwartzberg who
recently published an article on the subject under the title “Voting the General Will: Rousseau on Decision Rules.”
James McAdam, in his article on Rousseau’s general will,
offers a negative interpretation in consideration of Rousseau’s negative view
of small associations immediately following P1: “in coming to a decision
regarding the General Will, no individual would even communicate his
thoughts on the matter to other individuals. His reason for this extraordinary measure is precisely that such exchange of views between individuals

7

Interpretation of this passage will be offered in the next section.

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

147

encourages the development of partial general wills which could then be in
direct competition with the General Will.”8
Roger D. Masters, an authoritative commentator on Rousseau’s political thought in the United States, also takes a negative position.
Masters does not make explicit remarks on P1 in his book The Political Philosophy of Rousseau or in his edition of Rousseau’s Social Contract.9 But he
quotes P1 elsewhere in order to argue that Rousseau’s citizens are not allowed
public discussion and debate. In his editorial footnote to P2 in Rousseau’s
Social Contract he states:
Rousseau’s ironical defense of free speech has confused some editors
who read the last clause as a serious statement of principle; such an
interpretation is unlikely given the next chapter as well as Book II,
Chap. 3 [i.e., P1].10

The German social philosopher Habermas, while developing his theory of the public sphere in The Structural Transformation of the
Public Sphere (1989), gives a negative interpretation that merits our attention
for its explicit denial and lengthy elaboration:
Locke’s “Law of Opinion” became sovereign by way of Rousseau’s Contrat Social. Under the rubric of a different opinion publique unpublic
opinion was elevated to the status of sole legislator, and this involved
the elimination of the public’s rational critical debate in the public
sphere. The legislative procedure envisaged by Rousseau left no doubt
in this regard. Bon sens (common sense, gesunder Menschenverstand)
was all that was needed to perceive the common welfare. The simple
people, indeed simpletons, would be merely irritated by the political
maneuvers of public discussion: long debates would bring particular
interests to the fore. Rousseau contrasted dangerous appeals of silvertongued orators with the harmony of assemblies. The volonté générale
was more a consensus of hearts than of arguments. The society was
governed best in which the laws (lois) corresponded to the already
established mores (opinions). The simplicity of mores was a protection
8
James McAdam, “What Rousseau Meant by the General Will,” Dialogue 5, no. 4 (1967): 503. Lester
G. Crocker, who edited one of the popular editions of Rousseau’s Social Contract, offers the same
interpretation: “There is no debate or discussion, and each citizen must deliberate in isolation” (Lester
G. Crocker, introduction to The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, ed. Crocker
[New York: Washington Square Press, 1967], ix). However, as we shall see later, Bernard Manin denies
even the need for isolated deliberation.

Roger D. Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1968), 386ff.; J.-J. Rousseau, On the Social Contract, with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy,
ed. Roger D. Masters and Judith R. Masters (New York: St Martin’s, 1978).
9

10

Rousseau, On the Social Contract, ed. Roger D. Masters and Judith R. Masters, 150n112.

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against “thorny discussions” (discussions épineuses), whereas luxury
corrupted healthy simplicity, subjugated one group to another and all
of them to public opinion (et tous à l’opinion).11

Here, Habermas gives the explicit interpretation, focusing primarily on
Rousseau’s ideal state, according to which Rousseau’s citizens are prohibited
from engaging in any communication, including discussion and debate,
among themselves. I will not present any additional analysis of Habermas’s
long quote, for it shows fully his interpretation and the rationale behind his
defining of Rousseau’s democracy as “democracy of unpublic opinion” or
“democracy without public debate.”12 As textual evidence to support this
interpretation, he refers to book IV, chaps. 1–2 and book III, chaps. 1 and 4 in
the footnotes without offering further analysis.
Finally, French political theorist Bernard Manin offers a negative interpretation in his article “On Legitimacy and Political Deliberation”
and provides detailed grounds for it. His points can be summarized as follows. First, Manin interprets the word “deliberation” (délibération, délibérer)
in The Social Contract as referring not to the “process” of citizens communicating with each other and forming a collective will but to the “decision”
itself. As examples to support this, he suggests two passages in book II, chap.
3 and a passage in Discourse on Political Economy.13 One of the two passages
in the Social Contract is P1, and the other is the following:
It follows from the preceding that the general will is always right and
always tends toward the public good. But it does not follow that the
people’s deliberations have always the same righteousness [rectitude].
One always wishes for one’s own good, but one cannot always see it.
The people cannot be corrupted, but they are often deceived, and it is
only then that they seem to wish for what is bad. (II, iii, 61)

After quoting this passage, Manin asserts:
In this passage, the “deliberations of the people” obviously refer to
the choices the people make, and not to the process that leads to the
choice. There would be no sense in saying that a process is morally
right or not.14
Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, tr. Thomas Burger
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 97–98.
11

12

Ibid., 98–99.

For the passage in the Discourse on Political Economy, see Bernard Manin, “On Legitimacy and
Political Deliberation,” Political Theory 15, no. 3 (1987): 345. I shall not elaborate on it in this paper.
13

14

Manin, “On Legitimacy and Political Deliberation,” 345.

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

14 9

Secondly, he suggests that “Rousseau’s individuals are
already supposed to know what they want when they come to a public assembly to decide in common. They have already determined their will, so that
any act of persuasion attempted by others could only taint their will and
oppress it.”15 In order to support this interpretation, Manin cites the ideal
state in book IV, chap. 1, in which “its maxims [are] clear and luminous…
the public good would be evident everywhere” (emphasis by Manin). Thus,
according to Manin, deliberation that ordinarily presupposes communication of opinions and discussion is a process necessary when the locus of the
public good or the general will is uncertain and the collective examination
of alternative possibilities is thus required. In Rousseau’s ideal state, however,
Manin stresses that “what is evident, simple, and luminous does not need to
be deliberated in the strong sense of that term.”16
Thirdly, Manin cites Rousseau’s argument that criticizes
the harmful effect of discussion, debate, and dissension among citizens in
state types 3 and 4, where corruption plagues the state to considerable and
severe degrees, respectively. Manin interprets Rousseau as rejecting not only
discussion and debate but also “the mere communication between citizens,”
because phenomena such as the manifestation of special interests, the exercise of undue influence, and flimsy persuasion by eloquent rhetoric provide
opportunities for the formation of parties and taint and suppress the will of
individual citizens.17
In contrast to the negative interpretations so far examined,
H. Gildin and M. Schwartzberg posit the probability that Rousseauan citizens are (to a certain extent) allowed public discussion and debate; I agree
with their position overall. First of all, Gildin interprets the “no communication” clause in P1 as meaning that Rousseau wants to ban “secret agreements”
among citizens who are liable to form partial associations and parties, noting
their deleterious effect on the expression of the general will. Furthermore,
citing a passage from Letters Written from the Mountain (hereafter Letters),
Gildin advances the interpretation, similar to that of Masters, that Rousseau
actually seems to permit citizens public discussion and debate in P2, and,
15

Ibid., 346.

Ibid., 347. However, if we take seriously Rousseau’s statement in the quote above, “One always
wishes for one’s own good, but one cannot always see it,” may Rousseau’s citizens not need some form
of deliberation to check whether what they have seen is correct or not? Opinion is related to the realm
of the visible, and so susceptible to deception and self-deception.
16

17

Ibid., 345–47.

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contrary to Masters’s perplexity, further argues that this shows Rousseau’s
flexibility with regard to the citizen’s right to submit new laws and debate them:
His [Rousseau’s] remarks have occasioned some perplexity. He clearly
declares that the right to vote on laws is an essential part of sovereignty. He has been believed to hold further that the right to bring a
new law before the sovereign assembly and to state one’s opinion of
its merits or disadvantages must be the preserve of government. In
the Letters Written from the Mountain, however, while he continues
to favor reserving to the governing councils of Geneva the right to
submit new laws to the sovereign he complains of their denying the
sovereign the right to debate them.18

In addition, noting Rousseau’s rather unenthusiastic description of the governmental tendency to reserve the right to submit new laws and to debate
them to its members in P2, and his strong caution against governmental
tyranny and decay encroaching on the freedom of a people, Gildin states
conclusively: “Rousseau’s remarks [in P2] suggest that there are many possible
arrangements regarding the right to propose and to debate laws compatible
with his principles.”19
Although recognizing the significance of P1 and accepting
the mainstream interpretation of it, M. Schwartzberg also carefully advances
the interpretation that, while communication among citizens should be
banned completely at the time of voting, since this is when it poses the
greatest threat, some amount of discussion should be permitted prior to this
point.20 On Rousseau’s ultimate position over the decision rule, Schwartzberg prefers majoritarian to unanimous rules, saying “although the votes as
a whole ought optimally to approach unanimity, the means by which that
might be accomplished is through majoritarian and supermajoritarian rather
than unanimous voting rules.” This is for moral and other reasons.21 She then
argues that majoritarian and supermajoritarian rules require some form of
communication among citizens, including discussions, prior to voting. On
this interpretation, Schwartzberg maintains that when Rousseau’s citizens
make voting decisions, they ought to carefully reflect on the correctness of
Hilail Gildin, Rousseau’s Social Contract: The Design of the Argument (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1983), 159.
18

Ibid. In order to support this argument, Gildin notes the rights of peasants to propose new laws in
the ideal state, in the passage quoted above.
19

Melissa Schwartzberg, “Voting the General Will: Rousseau on Decision Rules,” Political Theory 36,
no. 3 (2008): 418.
20

21

Ibid., 415.

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their own decision, consider other citizens’ opinions from a perspective of
humility and their own fallibility, and be willing to revise their own decisions. This task requires the prior knowledge of other citizens’ opinions and
positions, which is, in turn, to be acquired only by some form of discussion
and debate:
One must be specially concerned to ensure that amour propre has
not blinded oneself to the general will: in the face of almost universal opposition…the prospective voter ought to recognize that one is
very likely to be mistaken, and reverse one’s vote rather than exercise
a veto. However, a representative could not possibly know whether
he was actually using his veto power ex ante—whether his view was
idiosyncratic or in keeping with the other voters—if he did not possess
any prior knowledge of others’ likely votes. This knowledge, however,
could only come from discussion.22

Further, noting that correct decisions depend on a people
“sufficiently informed” (suffisamment informé) according to P1, Schwartzberg still argues that although the “way in which citizens come to know the
perspectives of others cannot take the form of rhetorical appeals or vigorous
debates, and certainly not bargaining,…it must indeed be at least partially a
discursive process.”23 In short, Schwartzberg’s positivist interpretation seems
quite modest, partly owing to being overwhelmed by Manin’s argument
against which she raises her own alternative interpretation.
In order to refute the negative and reinforce the positive
interpretation in the next section, it is necessary to summarize the two positions more succinctly. The negativists I have examined, notably Masters,
Habermas, and Manin, reach the interpretation that public discussion and
debate among citizens are never allowed, regardless of political context
and type of state, because they are unnecessary in the ideal state and even
obstructive when it comes to finding expression of the general will in other
types of state, by encouraging the formation of small societies around which
private interests cohere. First, Masters takes it for granted that P1 supports
the negative interpretation without exception, thus attempting no flexible
interpretation of it. When he finds, however, that P2 seems to hint at the
22

Ibid., 417.

Ibid., 417–18. To reinforce her point, Schwartzberg also calls attention to this passage regarding
the ideal state: “There is no need for intrigues or eloquence to secure passage of law of what each has
already resolved to do as soon as he is sure that the others will do likewise” (IV, i, 108; emphasis by
Schwartzberg). She then suggests that, although the common good is so apparent, the confidence ex
ante that “others will see the matter similarly” requires a “discursive process.” She also raises some
more minor points to strengthen her interpretation (“Voting the General Will,” 418).
23

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right of citizens to submit new laws and debate them, as Gildin’s comment
suggests, he is a little embarrassed but still adheres adamantly to his negative
position, relying on P1 and pondering P2 no longer.
Habermas advances his negative interpretation on the basis
of passages in book III, chap. 4 and book IV, chaps. 1–2, without directly
mentioning P1. When Rousseau discusses democracy in book III, chap. 4, he
stipulates as necessary conditions for it (1) a small state, (2) the simplicity of
mores that prevents a multitude of business and thorny discussions, (3) a great
equality among citizens, and (4) little or no luxury (III, iv, 85). Thus bearing
mostly state types 1 and 4 in mind, Habermas does not hesitate to characterize
Rousseau’s view of democracy as “democracy without public debate.”
Finally, Manin argues strongly that the deliberation of Rousseau’s citizens does not include interactive discussion and debate, saying “the
‘deliberations of the people’ obviously refer to the choices the people make,
and not to the process that leads to the choice.” In addition to his own analysis of the meaning of deliberation in The Social Contract, Manin suggests that
citizens’ interactive deliberation is not necessary in state type 1, and that it is
even harmful in state type 4.
However, the positivist Gildin takes P2 as Rousseau’s principal position and interprets P1 in a rather limited way. But Gildin keeps silent
about the way in which Rousseau’s citizens engage in lively public interaction
and also does not seek to adduce additional textual evidence to support his
argument. Schwartzberg also suggests the probability, based on more careful
inference and concrete textual evidence, that Rousseau’s citizens may need
public discussion on occasion, while still respecting the mainstream negative
interpretation. But her interpretation remains confined to pointing to probability, failing to suggest more concrete textual evidence or further inference
to support it.

 ritique of Negative Interpretations
C
and Defense of the Positive
Interpretation
According to my examination so far, three issues must be
resolved in order to decide whether Rousseau allows public discussion and
debate. First, we must relate our subject more closely to the various types
of state. Negativists strongly assert their own interpretations and admit no
exceptions, relying primarily on Rousseau’s negative comments about discussion and debate among citizens and focusing mainly on state types 1

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

153

and 4. Positivists in turn advance theirs in a very modest and defensive way,
not paying close attention to the various types of state.24 We may well also
approve the interpretation, agreed by both parties, that interactive communication among citizens such as discussion and debate is unnecessary in the
state type 1 and even deleterious in state type 4. However, both parties appear
to fail to examine with discrimination the question whether public discussion and debate are permitted in state types 2 and 3, even though we might
imagine that public discussion and debate would turn out to be useful and
even necessary in these types. Second, it should be decided how consistently
we must match the conditional “no communication” clause in P1 with P2,
which is rather ambiguous regarding whether Rousseau’s citizens are allowed
active public interaction. Third, we must search for any important passages
in Rousseau’s other political writings that show a positive position regarding
this question.
Here, the discussion of the first issue involves my critique
of both positivists and negativists; that of the second relates to the refutation
of Masters’s argument in particular; and that of the third aims to reinforce
positivist arguments while rejecting negativist ones. Thus, although my
respective arguments about these issues may turn out to be insufficient alone,
I hope that they may cumulatively produce an outcome sufficient to refute the
negativist interpretation and strengthen the positivist one as a whole.
 re Rousseau’s Citizens Not Allowed
A
Public Discussion and Debate in General?
Let us examine the first issue. My interpretation is that
although Rousseau issues many critical remarks about public discussion and
debate in The Social Contract, he nevertheless does not reject them across the
board. I shall attempt to develop my argument in relation to the types of state
I have presented up to now.
In the case of the ideal peasant state, all the peasant-citizens
pass any law submitted by an individual peasant unanimously and without
additional public discussion or debate. More accurately speaking, they pass
the law without feeling the necessity to engage in them. It is better to interpret
such a situation as one that does not need public discussion or debate to start
with, rather than one that rules them out. This is because peasants are in tune
with each other and their hearts are in accord. In the case of the state severely
24

As we shall see later, Gildin pays some attention to state type 3.

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corrupted, at the other extreme, most citizens express their opinions spurred
by secret and private interests, so that public discussion and debate are useless and even obstructive when it comes to determining the public good. In
such a state, the general will becomes mute, for it is not found in majority
decisions, and there is therefore no freedom among citizens (IV, i, 109; IV,
ii, 111). In this regard, negativist interpretations that focus on state types 1
and 4 to argue that Rousseau rejects public discussion and debate from civic
political participation gain much plausibility.
What is left to examine, then, is whether civic participation
includes active public interaction in state types 2 and 3—a question that both
negative and positive arguments tend to overlook. It is reasonable to suppose
that Rousseau intends to apply his political theories in The Social Contract
not necessarily only to the ideal peasant state, but also to the semi-ideal and
considerably corrupt states, both of which may need his political theory more
than the former. Thus, although Rousseau describes public interaction among
citizens in a considerably corrupt state in negative terms, using such words
as “long debates,” “dissensions,” “tumult,” and “contradictions and debates,”
it must still be noted that he explicitly acknowledges the probability that the
best proposal will be made into law, despite being confronted by disputes
(IV, i, 108). Noting this point, Gildin also states: “It is important to note that
Rousseau does not despair of the effectiveness of the general will under these
circumstances.”25 Thus, in a type 3 state, public interaction seems necessary
in order to sift the general will from particular wills, or the best proposal
from inadequate proposals. The remaining question, then, is whether public
interaction is allowed in Rousseau’s semi-ideal state. My intention, however,
is to deal with this while examining the second issue: that of how to interpret P1 and P2 consistently. This is because my interpretation of P1 is closely
intertwined with the question whether public interaction is allowed in Rousseau’s semi-ideal state.
Finally, in order to complete our investigation of the first
issue, we need to examine Manin’s apparently powerful argument that
“deliberation” in Rousseau’s political thought always means “choices” and
“decision” reached finally, and does not include the “process” of decision making. Of course, the examples Manin cites of deliberation meaning decision
seem to secure plausibility. There are other passages in The Social Contract,
however, in which deliberation seems to include interactive discussion and
25

Gildin, Rousseau’s Social Contract, 151.

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

155

debate; Manin ignores them. In this sense, his examples are selective and not
exhaustive. For example, when Rousseau describes the return of unanimity
in a completely corrupt state, he uses the word “deliberation” in my interactive sense:
At the other extreme, unanimity returns.…Then fear and flattery turn
voting into acclamations. Men no longer deliberate: they adore or they
curse. Such was the abject manner in which the senate expressed its
opinions under the emperors. (IV, ii, 110)

In this quote, Rousseau contrasts “deliberation” with “adore” and “curse,”
all of which refer to the process or “manner” by which citizens express their
opinions in a public assembly, not to the “decision” itself, even suggesting
that there is a heated debate before voting.
If this passage is insufficient in number or ambiguous in
meaning, I may cite another passage in The Social Contract:
because in this institution everyone necessarily subjects himself to the
conditions he imposes on others, an admirable agreement between
interest and justice which confers on common deliberations a quality
of equity which vanishes in the discussion of private matters. (II, iv, 63)

At first, here, it appears rather unclear whether the “quality of equity” that is
to be conferred on common deliberation refers to the decision or the process,
but if we consider the following relative-noun clause, “which vanishes in the
discussion of private matters,” then “a quality of equity” seems to refer to the
process of public interaction rather than the decision itself. We may also note
that “a quality of equity” disappears “in the discussion” of private matters,
that is, “in the process,” not “in the outcome” of the discussion.
If we are allowed to refer to Rousseau’s other political writings, we find cases where deliberation explicitly refers to the process of
interactive participation, notably in Considerations: “It is better, in my opinion, to have a less numerous council, and give its members greater freedom,
than to increase its size and hamper its freedom of deliberation.”26 In short,
judging from these quotations, Manin’s argument that Rousseau’s use of
deliberation always refers to choices and decisions, not the process of reaching them, turns out to be only partially valid at best, and misleading at worst.

J.-J. Rousseau, Considerations on the Government of Poland VII, in Political Writings, ed. Frederick
Watkins (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), 200.
26

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 ow to Render a Consistent Interpretation
H
of P1 and P2
As examined above, McAdam, Masters, and Manin claim,
primarily on the basis of P1, that Rousseau’s citizens are not generally allowed
public interaction. However, I believe that the “no communication” phrase
should be interpreted in a limited way. In developing this argument, I will
raise two points. First, I intend to interpret the “no communication” phrase
as forbidding private communication that would provide an opportunity
to form small parties and collusion, following Gildin. According to this
interpretation, Rousseau’s “no communication” prohibits secret or private
communication on various matters both in and outside the assembly.27 This
means that Rousseau allows, or at least tolerates, public discussion and debate
in citizens’ assemblies, in the same manner as jurors during their deliberation. Second, while allowing public deliberation, Rousseau takes special pains
to regulate the manner and process of it, as he is keenly aware of the negative side effects of public interaction as well as its benefits. At the same time,
he adopts measures to prevent the government from abusing its authority to
oppress the freedom of citizens to interact in public, as will be discussed later
when I address the third issue: the search for passages in Rousseau’s other
political writings that show a positive position regarding public discussion
and debate.
To elaborate on the first point, the communication among
citizens that Rousseau seeks to discourage or ban is that which is likely to
lend itself to the formation of small parties and private collusion. Here, it
should be remembered that Rousseau discusses the negative effects of factions and partial associations immediately following P1. As is well known,
Rousseau is strongly opposed to what we understand today as liberal-pluralist
democracy or interest-group politics. These associations and factions, Rousseau thinks, encourage the expression of particular wills or private interests
by mutual collusion and aggregation, thereby distorting the public judgment
of individual citizens. It is quite clear that Rousseau takes a negative view of
secret or private communication among citizens that is likely to lead to the
formation of partial associations and private conspiracies.
I believe that, for similar reasons, jurors are prohibited from obtaining information on the cases
with which they are concerned from outside sources, and communicating with others during trials,
except during the formal procedure of jury deliberation, in the United States. Although Rousseau’s
citizens’ deliberation is legislative, while jury deliberation is adjudicative, I still believe that the former
requires public interaction more than the latter, as it is concerned with the general affairs binding the
political community as a whole, even for an uncertain future.
27

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

157

According to Rousseau, when factions and eloquent
speeches prevail in the public assembly, citizens tend to expend their time
and energy “adoring” their own faction and “cursing” other opposing ones,
rather than “deliberating” soberly, so that “long debates, dissensions, and
tumult” take over the assembly. We should thus interpret Rousseau as criticizing discussions, debates, and dissensions only insofar as they are colored
by private interests and clothed in rhetorical eloquence. Thus, the context of
public deliberation (whether it takes place in a healthy or a corrupt state), its
guiding principle (whether citizens seek to find the common good or merely
to achieve private interests), and the manner of public expression (whether
the public speeches are made by rhetorical eloquence or by simple and plain
words) are, for Rousseau, the crucial criteria in deciding whether a given public interaction is worthwhile.
Thus, if we accept the interpretation according to which
Rousseau is not opposed to communication among citizens in itself, insofar
as the corruption of the state has not reached a severe level, civic deliberation is shaped overall by the common good and guided by the general will,
and the public expression of citizens’ opinions is made in simple and clear
speeches, we may interpret the apparently baffling “no communication”
phrase as being meant to prohibit secret or private communication among
citizens that is liable to lead to the formation of factions and collusion, which
in turn hinders the expression of the general will and the pursuit of the common good. This is why Rousseau has to add the following phrase immediately
after discussing deleterious effects of factions: “In order for the general will to
be well expressed, it is therefore important that there be no partial society in
the State, and that each citizen give only his own opinion” (II, iii, 61).
We must now address the second point. My interpretation
to the effect that Rousseau seeks to regulate civic public deliberation through
government intervention is helpful in understanding P2. In P2, while Rousseau stresses that the right to vote cannot be taken away from citizens, he
mentions that the “government is always very careful to allow only to its
members” the “right to give an opinion, to make propositions, to analyze,
to discuss.” However, as we have also seen, he adds a strong qualification by
saying that he “could make many comments” on this matter, even to “require
a separate treatise,” a task that he has to postpone until after The Social Contract. Some scholars have been perplexed by this passage’s suggestion that the
executive exercises powerful influence in the legislative process, with the role

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of citizens relegated to the mere passive task of voting.28 In this regard, the
power of the Rousseauan citizens’ assembly seems much weaker than those
of the Athenian assembly and the Roman comitia, which even enjoyed the
right to initiate legislation as well as the right to public deliberation. However, it seems clear that Rousseau’s passage does not exclude citizens’ right
to public interaction. My interpretation is that the lingering note with which
Rousseau concludes the sentence in P2 suggests strongly that he agonized
over how to strike a balance between the government’s need to regulate “long
debates, dissensions, and tumult,” and its possible abuse of such regulatory
power to suppress lively public deliberation among citizens, a point on which
I shall soon elaborate further.
Before we examine this, however, we need to turn to the
hitherto unaddressed issue of whether Rousseau allows public discussion
and debate in his semi-ideal state. In order to discuss this, it should be
remembered that my construction of the semi-ideal state is derived from my
interpretation of the chapter on the fallibility of the general will (book II,
chap. 3) and Rousseau’s discussion of the Roman comitia (book IV, chap. 2).
I will thus raise two points, one theoretical and the other historical, to demonstrate that active public interaction is necessary in order to find the general
will and to turn it into law in the semi-ideal state.
The theoretical point is concerned with how to find the
general will through majority rule. As we have seen, the general will is still
expressed more often in the semi-ideal state than in the considerably corrupt
state, but is obtained by majoritarian or supermajoritarian rule rather than
by unanimity in the ideal state. Rousseau suggests how to derive the general
will from the will of all in the semi-ideal state in a well-known metaphorical
passage just before P1: “But take away from these same wills [a sum of private
wills, or the will of all] the pluses and minuses that cancel each other out, and
the remaining sum of the differences is the general will” (book II, chap. 3).29
In order to obtain this transformative result, Rousseau stresses the necessary presence of the “large number of small differences” in the deliberation
of citizens, which is of course one of the main reasons for his opposition to
factions and partial associations. It must be noted here that matters in the
citizen’s assembly are not to be decided simply by yes-or-no vote. If this were
Richard Fralin, “The Evolution of Rousseau’s View of Representative Government,” Political Theory
6, no. 4 (1978): 525–26.
28

With regard to this process, see Gildin’s illuminating interpretation (Gildin, Rousseau’s Social
Contract, 55–57).
29

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

159

the case, the simple majority rule would suffice and there would be no need
to go through the cumbersome mutual cancellation process. At the same
time, the task of interpreting what Rousseau metaphorically coins “pluses
and minuses” and canceling them against each other is not one that should
be assigned to the government, which tends to abuse its power and oppress
the freedom of citizens. The task, moreover, should be carried out before voting, not afterward, which suggests that interactive public deliberation among
citizens should take place before voting.30 If these tasks of interpretation and
cancellation were assumed by the government, after voting, the government
would usurp the citizens’ right to vote by arbitrarily manipulating voting
outcomes and popular sovereignty would vanish into thin air.
My second point is the historical argument that Rousseau
takes the early Roman republic as an example of the semi-ideal state, the
characteristics of which I have described earlier. In the Roman comitia, as
Rousseau describes it, resolutions were passed by “a large majority of votes,”
for there were no factions formed and no ascendancy of private interests. It
seems important to note that Rousseau keeps significant silence about the
right of Roman citizens to propose laws and discuss them in his praise of the
Roman republic, while being critical of the same practice in corrupt Athens.
This means that Rousseau approves such Roman practices as long as Rome
remains healthy on the whole.31
 assages Showing Rousseau’s Recognition
P
of Public Discussion and Debate
It is now time to address the third issue by locating passages
that show Rousseau’s explicit admission of active civic public interaction.
With regard to this, we may first point to the fact that Rousseau complained
strongly to the Genevan government in Letters that a Genevan citizen could
not “propose anything in these assemblies [general Conseil], one cannot
By suggesting additional reasons, this interpretation reinforces that of Schwartzberg, that there
should be a discursive process before voting. Interpreting P1, Gildin also suggests that there should be
active public deliberation in order to guarantee its “rectitude”: “Rousseau obviously assumes that the
assembly will include members with the ability to enlighten their fellow citizens” (Gildin, Rousseau’s
Social Contract, 57–58). He does not, however, provide substantial evidence or argumentation to
support this assumption.
30

In this context, it is useful to recall Machiavelli’s chapter in Discourses titled “How Free Government Can Be Maintained in Corrupt Cities, If It Is Already There; And If It Is Not There, How It Can
Be Set Up,” in which he shows that the good Roman custom of granting citizens the right to propose
and discuss laws turned into a harmful practice when people became wicked and corrupt (Discourses
I, chap. 18, in Machiavelli: The Chief Works and Others, trans. Allan Gilbert [Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 1965], 1:241–42).
31

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discuss anything in them, one cannot deliberate over anything,” owing to
regulations imposed by the executive Conseil in the name of public security,
while describing past political practice, where citizens were able to speak
more freely—even to shout—in a comparatively positive light.32
We also find, furthermore, that Rousseau explicitly
acknowledges public discussion and debate among citizens in his last political writing, Considerations on the Government of Poland. When depicting
proceedings in the diets and dietines,33 he stresses that it is more important
to assure freedom than to impose regulation, and asserts that the rights of
citizens to speak, discuss, and debate, which naturally accompany collective
deliberation, be permitted:
All the measures you adopt to prevent licence in the legislative order,
though good in themselves, will sooner or later be used to oppress it.
Long and useless harangues, which waste so much time, are a great
evil; but it is an even greater evil for a good citizen not to dare speak
when he has something useful to say. When it reaches the point where
certain mouths only are opened in the diets, and even those are forbidden to speak freely, they soon will say nothing but what is apt to please
the powerful.34

As this passage shows, Rousseau stresses the evil of lengthy speeches, but
at the same time emphasizes more strongly that they should not be entirely
suppressed.
In a passage immediately following this quote, Rousseau
argues that certain measures regarding the appointment of officials and the
distribution of favors should be taken in order to reduce “vain harangues and
flatteries,” and then that regulation of citizens’ manner of speaking should be
additionally introduced:
In order to prune away some of the farragoes of rhetorical nonsense
you might, however, require each orator to announce at the beginning
of his discourse the proposition he wants to establish and, after presenting his arguments, to summarise his conclusions, as lawyers do in
J.-J. Rousseau, The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 9, ed. Christopher Kelly and Eve Grace
(Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2001), 250–51. Of course, this passage cannot be
interpreted as direct evidence that Rousseau allows public discussion and debate, although it is
suggestive of this. It also merits our attention, however, in that “deliberation” here refers to active
public interaction.
32

Here it should be remembered that dietines refer to regional assemblies in which citizens
participate directly, while diets are representative assemblies.
33

34

Rousseau, Considerations, in Political Writings, ed. Watkins, 198; see 196.

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

161

court. If that did not make speeches shorter, it would at least restrain
those who merely want to talk for the sake of talking, and waste time
to no purpose.35

The two quotes I draw from Considerations clearly show
that the negative interpretation examined thus far falls short of doing justice
to Rousseau’s political thought as a consistent whole. They also suggest that
Rousseau took continuous pains to strike a balance between the governmental need to regulate public proceedings and the danger of the abuse of
governmental regulative power, as he is fully aware of the evils of both.
At this point, we would raise a question: To which type of
state did Poland belong at the time that Rousseau prescribed a system of government for her? Although Rousseau praised the Polish love of liberty and
the Poles’ struggle for independence against Russia, Poland did not seem to
belong to the semi-ideal state; nor did it belong to the severely corrupt state.
The country would thus seem to fit into either the considerably corrupt state
category or between the semi-ideal state and the considerably corrupt state.
If my reasoning is plausible, it boils down to confirmation of my point that
Rousseau was still willing to grant interactive public deliberation in the considerably corrupt state.

Concluding Remarks
As my examination has shown so far, the negativists seem
unable to escape the suspicion that they attempt to fit Rousseau’s more
complicated ideas about civic political participation into their simplified
interpretive schemes, by focusing and expanding on certain selected passages
in The Social Contract and ignoring Rousseau’s agony over striking a fine
balance between “discipline” and “liberty”:
A better system of discipline in the diets and dietines would surely be
most useful: but I can never repeat too often that you must not seek
two contradictory things at the same time. Discipline is good, but liberty is better; and the more you hedge in liberty with formalities, the
more means of usurpation will these formalities furnish.36

At the same time, the positivists as well as the negativists seem to overlook
the point that civic public discussion and debate might well be permitted and
useful in state types 2 and 3 located between the two extreme state types 1
35

Ibid., 198.

36

Ibid.

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and 4, for they derive their general interpretations primarily from passages
relevant to the extreme types.
Finally, negativists may well sidestep my critique by arguing
that the general principle of Rousseau’s political thought is to exclude public
discussion and debate from citizen’s participation and that passages drawn
from Letters and Considerations constitute only exceptions to this general
principle. That is to say, Rousseau’s general principles are laid out in The Social
Contract and some variations are made when he makes actual applications of
them in Letters and Considerations. A similar relationship may be observed
between Plato’s two major political works, the Republic and the Laws. Rousseau, however, is not conscious of the kind of discrepancies between principles
and exceptions that negativists may point to. On the contrary, he makes clear
in many passages that the arguments he puts forward in Considerations are
consistent with the principles he has articulated in The Social Contract. That
is, it is the outcome of direct application of his principles.37
Rousseau does not approve public discussion or debate
enthusiastically or unconditionally. As has been confirmed repeatedly by my
examination, Rousseau favors harmonious decision reached by unanimity or
overwhelming majority, which is not accompanied by wasteful discussions
and exhaustive debates. It may, however, be an unreasonable exaggeration
of Rousseau’s political thought to jump to the conclusion that he bans in
toto public discussion and debate that inevitably accompany civic political
participation, thereby reducing the role of citizens to that of simply casting
votes. This point is confirmed more explicitly in the passages cited from Considerations in which Rousseau still seeks a solution in regulating the right
of citizens to speak in the public assembly instead of banning it completely,
while remaining critical of “long and useless harangues” and “flatteries.”
In light of all the foregoing, my position regarding whether
Rousseau’s civic political participation allows public discussion and debate is
a moderately positive one. If Rousseau attempts, in P1, to suppress communication among citizens that is likely to lead to collusion and the formation of
small associations, he also seeks, in P2 and passages we have drawn from Letters and Considerations, to positively accommodate public civic discussion
and debate. In the latter case, while he is willing to propose governmental
power to intervene in public proceedings in order to prevent the civic right to
free speech from getting out of control through its abuse by a powerful few,
37

Ibid., 190, 195.

Reexamining Political Participation in Rousseau’s Political Thought

163

he also issues a strong warning of the dangers of oppressing civic liberty. In
short, my interpretation is the elaboration and clarification of Gildin’s rather
vague yet flexible interpretation that “Rousseau’s remarks suggest that there
are many possible arrangements regarding the right to propose and to debate
laws compatible with his principles.”

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Book Review: A History of Trust in Ancient Greece

165

Steven Johnstone, A History of Trust in Ancient Greece. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2011, xii + 242 pp., $45.00 (hardcover).

C at h e r i n e M . A . M c C au l i f f
Seton Hall University School of Law
Catherine.McCauliff@shu.edu

The title of this book invoking the word “trust” calls to mind
other studies, such as Francis Fukuyama’s Trust (1995), George P. Fletcher’s
Loyalty: An Essay on the Morality of Relationships (1993), or Martin E. Marty’s Building Cultures of Trust (2010). While loyalty and disloyalty and trust
and self-interest inevitably require consideration, Johnstone’s focus necessarily seems more impersonal, although Marty too talks about the institutions
and boards that make trust work, much like our corporate boards today. It
is easier to approach service on boards and committees today from the point
of view of how the person should act. The distance imposed by fragmentary
references inevitably leads one to think in broad concepts. Trust and risk
travel together. The paradoxical theme of verification for trust ties this social,
political, and economic history of early Greek institutions together.
Thus weights and measures (one of Mabel Lang’s specialties
in her studies of the agora) were insured by a coin tester in the agora, just
as the cashier holds a hundred-dollar bill up to the light to verify the water
marks. If we use the word “trust” for both banking instruments and arrangements for wealth transfer as well as the professional and private conduct of
individuals, we are not surprised that the Greeks mediated these relationships
through the institution of haggling, reflecting relative equality in the marketplace of buyers and sellers despite their unequal information. If this sounds
as though it is a discussion of the duty to disclose (or not), Stephen Johnstone
sets about bringing the agora to life from the ancient Greek sources of the
fifth and fourth centuries BC and reminding us of the actual circumstances
in which the Greeks lived their lives. The work of making the agora work as
© 2012 Interpretation, Inc.

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an exchange through verification of standardized measures spilled over into
the political realm.
The meaning of rural life with its back-breaking physical
tasks and lack of routine mechanical aids, to say nothing of easy calculators, takes us far from Vergil’s paean to beekeeping and the farm as literally
a source of culture. The oikos, or household, from which we received our
word “economy,” worked on a finely honed sense of guestimation. Unlike
the rural character of much of ancient society just outside the major citystate, another subject Johnstone covers still shares much in common with us:
the problems of joint and several (proportionate) liability. Johnstone makes
this chapter intriguing by examining Xenophon’s sociological consideration
of “how shared liability affected the behavior of associates in groups” (128,
141–46). Agency costs of disclosure, compliance, and enforcement are treated
conventionally by Plato, Aristotle, and Protagoras as an epistemological
problem of quantum meruit, as after all we still do. Xenophon goes beyond
the methodology of measuring, for example, the value of labor when he tries
to limit agency costs by suggesting that a fair judge (symbolized by Cyrus)
could increase value by setting up competitions for prizes in which agents
labor more zealously, thus, as Johnstone concludes, enmeshing the system
even more fully in personal trust. “The virtue of Xenophon’s irony is that it
allowed him to confront the limitation of his own analysis.”
When trust and distrust are juxtaposed in the reader’s mind
in Johnstone’s eighth chapter, dispute resolution inevitably comes to the fore.
In the last fifteen years, Matthew R. Christ, The Litigious Athenian (Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1998); Victor Bers, trans., Demosthenes, Speeches
50–59, Oratory of Classical Greece, with series preface and introduction by
Michael Gagarin (University of Texas Press, 2003); and Adriaan Lanni, Law
and Justice in the Courts of Classical Athens (Cambridge University Press,
2006) dealt with rhetoric and litigation in their studies, as did Johnstone in
his earlier study, Disputes and Democracy: The Consequences of Litigation in
Ancient Athens (University of Texas Press, 1999). There he built the foundation for the final chapter in this work, a continuation of his study of rhetoric
and persuasion. This time he wants to structure his study around the effect
on the listener, but he does not explicitly link rhetoric to truth until p. 169.
At the outset of the chapter, titled “Deciding,” Johnstone sets forth his aim to
focus on the audience’s “essential role” in receiving the oratory (149).
The audience, whether in the guise of jurors/judges or as theatergoers, evaluate the words of the opposing orators or masked characters

Book Review: A History of Trust in Ancient Greece

167

in a play (Aristophanes’s Knights [152]). Johnstone emphasizes the role of the
audience as a hot bench, “shouting, heckling or otherwise making a noise,
whether in encouragement or challenge” (153). Johnstone concludes that the
listeners “were themselves rhetorical subjects” (153), thus allowing him later
to conclude that they fulfilled a regulatory check on the trustworthiness of the
proceedings in their decision (krisis) at the end of the speeches (169). Perhaps
in an unnecessarily complicated way, Johnstone speaks of the “complexifying
triangulation of rhetorical materials—from a speaker, his opponent, and the
listeners’ past experiences” (156). He seems to mean that with experience as
an adult (“People hanging out in the agora” [158]), a juror might be skeptical
about both speeches. Johnstone concentrates on five elements in Athenian
legal rhetoric: narrative form, legal principles, presentation of character evidence and interpretation, call to emotional identification with the orator’s
moral righteousness in the circumstances, and an assessment of probabilities
in carrying the speaker’s burden of proof (159). The author then hints at the
connection with trust by saying that he will address a sixth element, “the
critical reflection on rhetoric itself.”
The most intriguing discussion deals with the danger that
the rhetorical “system itself could fail” (166). Gaming the system is of particular interest in today’s American politics in the rhetorical discussion of
whether the global economy is to blame for increasing inequality of wealth
or the failure of politicians to regulate the economy because of political
donations caused the insertion of instability into the democracy. Thus the
internal checks and balances in the classical Greek rhetorical system point up
problems of sykophancy (161) and cynicism. While the juror listening to the
speeches may have been suspicious of a particular speech, the juror probably
“retained trust in the system of rhetoric as a whole” (169). Each juror’s suspicion led to trust in the ultimate decision in a particular case since each juror’s
decision was added to every other decision in tallying up the votes for one
speaker or the other, for example, 535 to 280. This reinforced the individual’s
trust in the system. Each juror knew that every other juror went through the
same process of sifting the information in the presentations. Would that we
could have such trust in our political and judicial decisions.
Josiah Ober mentions that the Greeks had a system of various methods of personal trust whereas we today trust in the market and
other impersonal measures. Perhaps this provides a reason for Johnstone’s
linking different types of trust together by including them in the same book.
The reader must trust that a different example of trust will emerge by the end

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of each chapter and that a personal system of trust will emerge from the different chapters. The author includes different types of analysis, from political
(citizens engage with each other through rhetoric and weights and measures in the agora) to economic (agency costs) to sociological (Xenophon as
managerialist). Accurate weights and measures allow the buyer in the agora
to “trust” the marketplace by supplying some deficits in disclosure. A jury
composed of hundreds allows each juror to “trust” the justice system because
the jurors are all skeptical when they arrive to hear the speeches and no
speaker could afford to bribe all the jurors. Majority rule means that enough
of the jurors were paying attention to ensure a “correct” verdict. According to
Johnstone, these indirect checks and balances were the warp and woof of the
classical Athenian democracy. Together, they provide in effect a rug of trust
on the agora floor, smoothing away some of the roughness and holding down
the amount of dust in the eye.
Note: Major presses today use distracting practices such as contractions and
split infinitives; for example, footnote 54 on p. 212, additionally sloppy in
ignoring the singular subject of the sentence: “neither Bickford nor Braet
intend (sic) to accurately describe Athenian rhetoric,” ironic in a book that
argues rhetoric counts and doubly distracting.

Book Review: Plato and the Talmud

169

Jacob Howland, Plato and the Talmud. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2011, xi + 282 pp., $85.00 (hardcover).

C h a r l e s T. R u b i n
Duquesne University
rubin@duq.edu

The normally compelling conventions that play so great a
role in the human story give it an appearance of kaleidoscopic diversity. Yet if
there really is such a thing as human nature, or if there is a human condition,
then we should not be too surprised when intelligent efforts to understand
and explain human things are convergent. Certain problems with or challenges to living our lives collectively and individually are bound to recur, and
there are by no means an infinite number of responses to those challenges.
With some noteworthy exceptions, today believers in secular progress have
a more chastened view than in the past of the prospects for an entirely new
order of the ages. Even within the framework of proliferating technological
change it is not so hard to see the patterns or cycles that might lead one to
conclude there is at least very little new under the sun.
Nevertheless Jacob Howland’s Plato and the Talmud remains,
despite its slightly misleading title, a delightful surprise, particularly (though
far from exclusively) for incautious readers of Leo Strauss’s thoughts on the
relationship between Athens and Jerusalem. It would hardly be shocking to
consider that there would not be a great deal of overlap between the Platonic
corpus, to which, as Whitehead suggested, all subsequent philosophy is
appended as a footnote, and the Talmud’s 2.5 million–word1 compilation of
Jewish law and lore, a record of discussions going back some 2000 years and
the centerpiece, in something like its present form, of study for the incul-

1

Adin Steinsaltz, The Essential Talmud (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1992), 74.

© 2012 Interpretation, Inc.

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cation of pious orthodoxy for over 1000 years. But Howland carefully and
thoughtfully suggests that there is substantial common ground.
Howland, long known as a profound interpreter of Plato,
shows himself to be an equally serious student of at least the relatively tiny
part of the Talmud that he discusses. The book is more narrowly focused
than its title might suggest. His discussion of Plato takes on the Apology and
Euthyphro, and the Socrates of these two dialogues is compared with great
insight to the stories of wonder workers portrayed in chapter 3 of tractate
Ta’anit (or Taanis) from the Babylonian Talmud. “Ta’anit” means “fast day,”
but the broad topic of the tractate includes discussions of fast days and rain,
since fasting is one of the possible responses to drought. Chapter 3 contains
what Howland acknowledges to be a collection of very atypical stories. They
include characters like Choni the Circle Maker, whose prayer can bring rain,
yet who argues with God about getting just the right kind of rain, and Nachman ish Gam Zu, for whose sake a miracle occurs when a gift he is taking
to Caesar is stolen. While it is not that uncommon for the Talmud to illustrate some issue or point of law with a story drawn from the life of one of its
plethora of rabbinic characters, the succession of wonder-working incidents
recounted here is unusual enough for the pious to have given this chapter a
special name, “the chapter of the saintly ones.”2
Howland’s goal in comparing two Platonic dialogues with
the chapter of the saintly ones is “to illuminate the inner connection between
the exemplary lives of philosophy and faith…and to clarify the ways in
which these texts seek to educate their readers to live these lives” (14). He
wants to show how a tension between “rational inquiry and faith” not only
exists between the two, but is inherent within both faith and rational inquiry
themselves. The texts contain “comparable conceptions of the proper roles of
inquiry and reasoned debate in religious life” and share “a profound awareness of the limits of our understanding of things divine” (18). Furthermore,
the texts share a common method of education. Plato and Talmud both reflect
on themselves, and thereby “invite readers to participate in the inquires they
present or represent,” teaching readers by example “how to learn—as well
as what it means, in human terms, to do so” (19). They thereby portray and
inculcate “dispositions of mind and character that cannot be encapsulated in
purely legal discourse or philosophical argumentation” (20).

Hersh Goldwurm, ed., Talmud Bavli: Tractate Taanis (New York: Mesorah Publications, 2004),
xxxvii.
2

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As he concludes his book, Howland suggests that he has
shown “a number of analogies” between his chosen dialogues and the chapter
from Ta’anit, having to do with the “conceptual and practical spaces” occupied by the investigations in the works, the “main ideas” that are at work in
navigating these spaces, and the role the texts play in “mediating the reader’s
relationship to these ideas” (253). More specifically, Howland believes that
philosophy and faith both occupy a realm between the merely mortal and
the immortal, representing the potential human beings have to be called to
an “exemplary” way of being that goes beyond the mere satisfaction of “our
animal nature” (254). Those so called constitute a “never wholly actual” but
rather aspirational community of inquiry and learning (255), a community
of “deeply thoughtful and morally responsible individuals learning from and
teaching one another” (257). This community is founded on never forgetting
“the ignorance of even the wisest human beings,” particularly in relation to
divine things (256–57). The texts themselves call people to this community
by using “narrative, drama, and dialectical argument to draw readers into
debates about fundamental moral and theological issues—issues such as
the nature of piety, justice and charity” (257). These debates are not settled
by the texts, but prompt willing readers to be “active partners” thinking for
themselves (257). Finally, a member of either the Socratic or the Talmudic
community so constituted must ultimately be aware of the problems posed
by being one of the few so called among many fellow human beings who are
not (259).
Such bare summaries of Howland’s conclusions do not do
justice to the grace and subtlety with which he analyzes his texts in order to
reach them. But they are enough to suggest the challenge that Howland is
presenting to Strauss’s view of the conflict between biblical and philosophic
notions of the good life. Where Strauss, Howland says, acknowledged a great
potential for overlap as well as productive tension between the two, he still
held them to be in irresolvable conflict “because divine omnipotence is ‘absolutely incompatible with Greek philosophy in any form’” (4). But what Strauss
missed, Howland argues, is that within both Judaism and Greek philosophy
there are “essential roles” for “wonder and autonomous understanding” on
the one hand and “obedience and humility” on the other. That is because both
depend on the existence of a rational order that is at the same time beyond
human creation and prescriptive, whether that order is by nature or divinely
created. Hence for Howland Socrates illustrates how “the love of wisdom that
springs from wonder is moderated by a sense of awe before, and responsibility to, that which presents itself as divine” (10). In complementary fashion,

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“readers who come to the Talmud after long acquaintance with Plato cannot fail to be struck by the dialectical character of rabbinic thought, by the
text’s preference for raising questions rather than furnishing answers, and
by its open-ended, conversational form” (11). From this point of view, revelation, the presence of an omnipotent God in history, is but the beginning of a
thoughtful investigation into right living; in principle the answers are to be
found in God’s word but in practice a good deal of human rational ingenuity
is required to find them out.
The Socratic life of reason, then, is not without its faithful
elements; the faithful life of the Talmudic rabbis is impossible without reasoned discourse. One might say that Howland is presenting us with a kind of
phenomenology of philosophic and rabbinic lives and that he finds that the
lived experience of the one is not so very different from the lived experience
of the other, the more so when one adds to the picture (as he does) the delicate
relationship between the philosopher and the city, and the equally problematic relationship between Jews and the nations, and the rabbis in relation to
the “am ha’aretz,” people of the land, the not entirely reliable mass of their
fellow Jews.
For many readers, I suspect that one sticking point for accepting Howland’s analysis is his utter willingness to accept the proposition that
the interrogating mission of Socrates as we know it through Plato was indeed
motivated, as Socrates claims in the Apology, as a response to the oracle at
Delphi. Howland’s arguments on this point are intelligent; whether they are
definitive—how, for example, we are to reconcile this account of Socratic
questioning with that given in Phadeo 96aff., about which Howland is silent
here—is a topic best left to those more expert in Plato than I. It might be said,
though, that even if Howland is correct, he has established the existence of
a Socratic piety something akin to what Heidegger states at the end of “The
Question Concerning Technology”: “Questioning is the piety of thought.”3
The actual relationship that kind of piety has with Talmudic piety could still
be an open question, even if both contain a crucial rational element.
For as Howland is well aware, whatever god Socrates might
have believed in, it is emphatically not the God of the Talmud (125). That is
why for the most part Howland is clear that the likeness he is establishing
between Socrates and the sages can only be analogical. Miracles or prophecy
Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lovitt
(New York: Harper and Row, 1977), 35.
3

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would seem to represent the limit of any attempt to analogize between the
philosopher’s efforts to understand human things in accord with nature and
the revelation of an omnipotent God. Howland approaches this difficult topic
with admirable directness in the most compelling part of his book, providing
a fascinating picture of what stories of miracle workers in the chapter of the
saintly ones tell us about miracles and their role in human life. He shows
convincingly that these stories suggest a certain caution and ambivalence
about miracles, a conclusion that is certainly consistent with the broader Talmudic teaching. That miracles happen is undeniable, but praying for them
is normally discouraged, relying on them basically prohibited. There is even
an effort, Howland shows, to distinguish between weak miracles that do not
violate the laws of creation and strong ones that do, and to minimize the role
strong ones play in the order of things by suggesting how they might have
been built into creation from the beginning. Furthermore, particular providence as expressed in miraculous events can be a tricky thing; the Talmud is
perfectly aware of the problem of getting what you pray for.
But if indeed Howland shows that the sages are not simpleminded believers in miracles and that there is even in this respect a powerful
rational element that informs their faith, he can still go only so far to bring
them together with Socrates, or even analogize between them. As Strauss
notes in one of his discussions of Jerusalem and Athens (in which he himself
speaks of Socrates having a divine mission, like the prophets), the Socratic
best regime, a purely human achievement, is built on unchanging human
nature, and therefore represents an unlikely possibility. The Talmud, in contrast, is built on a prophetic tradition that promises at some point in time the
coming into being of a God-given order radically different from anything the
world has hitherto known, with nations united and at peace and lions lying
down with lambs.4 Socrates for his part seems dismissive of the fantastic if
not miraculous stories told of the traditional Greek pantheon, and it seems
at least unlikely that “the god” he refers to as a philosopher would intervene
in the world in such a way. His own daimōn advises him about what not to
do, but does not step in to alter the world for him to prevent harm to him, let
alone to do him good. And on the side of the sages, while it would be wrong
to say that the miraculous past, present, and future intervention of God in the
story of the Jewish people is simply an unreflective given, it remains nevertheless absolutely foundational.
Leo Strauss, “Jerusalem and Athens: Some Preliminary Reflections,” in Jewish Philosophy and the
Crisis of Modernity, ed. Kenneth Hart Green (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 403.
4

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Howland sees some of the limits this difference imposes on
his ability to analogize (128) but I would suggest he does not go quite far
enough. Given the ultimate incompatibility of Athens and Jerusalem on the
matter of divine omnipotence, a point on which Strauss and Howland seem
to agree, the very kind of “informed intellectual imagination” that Howland
seeks to bring to his study of the “actual life worlds” of Plato and the Talmud
could conclude that beyond the level of “a certain unavoidable abstraction”
(16), obedience means one thing in one context and another in the other, as
does autonomous understanding. That is to say, the omnipotence of one God
is not merely a doctrinal difference, but it alters the lived experience of the
Jewish sage in comparison with the philosopher.
We can see the consequences of this difference in a closer look
at how wonder and autonomous understanding work among the Talmudic
sages. Howland is correct that Talmud contains a massive quantity of rational
yet faithful, pious questioning. But any likeness with Socratic questioning,
analogical or otherwise, occurs at a very high level of generality. Look across a
broader range of the text than Howland considers and you will notice quickly
that in a variety of specific ways Talmudic dialectic often does not work the
same way as the questioning that Socrates undertakes. First there is the question of subject matter. One can believe that Plato might have written more
dialogues of Socrates covering a wider selection of topics and still suspect that
a vast amount of the questioning that goes on in the Talmud would have been
bizarre from his point of view. There is no Socratic dialogue—it is hard even
to imagine a Socratic dialogue—that takes up in minute detail the procedures
for the ritual sacrifices of his day, a topic to which the Talmud devotes thick
volumes despite the fact that by the time of its compilation those sacrifices
had long been impossible to perform. We know nothing directly of Athenian
laws of divorce or property ownership from Plato, topics in Jewish law exhaustively treated by the Talmud. Socrates may refer to religious celebrations, as in
the prelude of the Republic, but the Talmud focuses intensively on the proper
celebration of Jewish festivals and holy days. Socrates discusses the art of
medicine in the abstract, but so far as I know says very little about specific
medical practices; the Talmud discusses cures, potions, and fetal development.
The Talmud is an extraordinarily comprehensive description of a way of life
determined by a particular divine revelation, including but not limited to civil,
criminal, and ritual law and procedure; food production, eating, and drinking; sex, marriage, divorce, childbirth, and child rearing; anatomy (human
and animal) and charity; customs and legends. In contrast with The Republic,
then, it could with justice be called The Republic of the Jews. All indications are

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that Socrates had no such exhaustive interest in the Athenian regime or any
other, and his descriptions of his best regimes look like preliminary outlines
when compared with the historical/aspirational elements of Talmudic discussions of the regime of the Jews.
Second, there is the question of method. While Howland is
right that both Socrates and the sages engage in dialectic, it does not work
the same way in both instances. There are, to be sure, not a few eristic and
aporetic moments in the Talmud. The rabbis (very often, unlike what we see
in Plato, arguing with intellectual equals) can be as ferocious as Thrasymachus (if never so long-winded), and become so seduced by wonder and the
dialectic as to pose questions of such exquisite refinement (if not absurdity) as
to lead to a formulaic, one-word conclusion that means in effect “let the issue
stand unresolved.” Yet the far more common use of dialectic is to find the
subtle distinction that allows apparently divergent views across generations
of rabbis to be reconciled. It may seem that these two sages are contradicting each other but actually they are talking about two different cases and on
the basic principle they agree. Or else, agreement is achieved by a sometimes
amazing willingness to assume that the source material under discussion is
corrupted or incomplete, and needs to be rewritten entirely. This effort to
find consistency in the face of obvious divergence, by the way, is no small
feat given that the Talmud is encyclopedic without being systematic. That is
to say, it does not start from first principles and elaborate on them; indeed, it
begins and ends where it does only by tradition. A given tractate is unlikely to
focus on only its nominal subject matter. One could begin studying Talmud
at any point and be no worse off (or better off) than having started somewhere else. Yet amazingly, its orthodox interpreters can make a plausible case
that every part of the text is compiled with full awareness of all other parts,
so that an argument on one topic in one context may be worked out as it is
so that, on an entirely different topic in another part of the text, a consistent
position can be articulated.
In short, then, the Talmud makes great efforts to be dialectical but not aporetic. (How much it succeeds at this goal is a matter where
reasonable people disagree.) When all else fails, rabbis are expected to give
in to majority opinion, no matter what their personal brilliance and stature.
So the Talmud is not teaching that the best way of life is devoted to asking the
question how we should live, but to determining how we should actually be
living day to day and moment to moment within the framework of divinely
given law that is presumptively comprehensive in its scope even if the manner

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in which it is to be embodied comprehensively requires human elucidation and decisions. As Howland admits, the philosophic life of Socrates is
self-contained, an end in itself. Socrates discussing piety with Euthyphro is
doing exactly and exhaustively everything he needs to do to live the best life.
“Socratic philosophizing…blends seamlessly with Socratic piety” (126). But
Talmudic sages discuss prayer not only for the sake of the discussion, as important as that is, but in order to be sure that they and the community engage in
the proper prayers at the proper times of day. They will discuss erotic things
with a view to engaging in appropriate sexual relations with their wives, not
to avoid going home to them. Looking beyond Howland’s abstraction, or,
one might say, looked at more concretely, the seamless Socratic piety that
defines obedience as the exercise of autonomous understanding, the always
questioning philosophic life itself, is quite different from a Talmudic piety in
which there is a perennial if productive tension between the wonder of Torah
study, the lens through which the rabbis view the human world and the world
of what we call nature, and the discipline of pious action that is defined by the
performance of the 613 mitzvot given by God.5
Howland has done a fine job of showing how students of
political philosophy might begin to take the Talmud seriously. (An unprecedented opportunity for such studies is offered by the Mesorah [Artscroll]
edition of Babylonian Talmud and the forthcoming complete Steinsaltz
edition, published by Koren—both of which are slated to be available also
as IPad apps.) My reservations are only intended to suggest some further
considerations that might be brought to bear in such discussions. Doubtless
there is much more to be said. For even were Howland entirely correct on his
own terms, well might one say of Talmud what Rabbi Ben Bag Bag said of the
Torah itself, “Turn it, and turn it again, for everything is in it.”6

5

Compare, for example, Avot 1.17 with Kiddushin 40b.

6

Avot 5.26

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Gerard B. Wegemer, Young Thomas More and the Arts of Liberty. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011, 210 pp., $85.

L . Joseph Hebert
St. Ambrose University
HebertJosephL@sau.edu

In this, the third of his monographs on Thomas More,
Gerard Wegemer returns to ground that will be familiar to readers of his
Thomas More: A Portrait of Courage (Scepter Publishers, 1995) and Thomas
More on Statesmanship (Catholic University of America Press, 1996). Professor of literature at the University of Dallas, Wegemer is also trained in
political philosophy and heads the Center for Thomas More Studies, whose
aims—to deepen our understanding of the life and thought of Thomas More,
and to explore their relevance to questions of contemporary statesmanship—nicely encapsulate the thrust of Wegemer’s own work. Drawing from
an apparently exhaustive familiarity with More’s biography, his writings—
major and minor, published and unpublished—and his literary sources,
Wegemer seeks to draw the reader into a careful study of texts grounded in
the sort of dialectical questioning that drove More’s self-development as a
scholar, author, and statesman. Simultaneously, he outlines the key principles
and conclusions that characterized More’s ethical and political writings and
informed his actions as a lawyer, diplomat, friend, family man, defender of
orthodoxy, advisor to Henry VIII, opponent of the same, and martyr. Taking
advantage of Yale’s recent publication of More’s complete works, completed
in 1997, while himself overseeing the publication of paperback, journal, and
web-based editions of More’s major writings and aids to their comprehension, Wegemer continues his invaluable efforts to facilitate a more profound
and inspiring grasp of More on the part of scholars, teachers, and students.
As in prior volumes, Wegemer focuses on More’s status,
along with his friend and ally Erasmus, as a self-conscious proponent of
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the humanist movement within sixteenth-century Christendom. Eschewing the reductionist historicism and psychologizing sometimes applied
to More’s thoughts and deeds, Wegemer emphasizes the care and subtlety
with which More read, translated, evaluated, and imitated a wide range of
classical authors, from Homer, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, to Cicero,
Horace, Sallust, Seneca, Lucian, and Augustine. Beginning with chapters
devoted to these authors, then proceeding to analyze More’s early corpus,
Wegemer demonstrates how More’s engagement with the former helped him
to formulate the principles and methods with which to diagnose and address
significant shortcomings in the moral, political, and religious practices and
institutions of his day. Reading More’s work alongside theirs helps us to notice
and comprehend the artful use of irony, paradox, indirection, and humor
through which More delivers his constructive critiques. Seeing the grounds
of his criticism in turn enables us to understand More’s positive vision of
humanitas—“his philosophy of human nature and society,” which, following Cicero, “formed the basis of his conceptions of civic and international
law” and of “those arts needed to promote and protect justice, liberty, and
peace” (6). It is ultimately More’s view of humanitas that explains his calls
for political, social, and religious reform, as well as his rejection of alternative
models of change presented or represented by the likes of Machiavelli, Luther,
and Henry VIII. It is in turn More’s position as a neoclassical alternative to
the late scholastic, early modern, and protestant theorists whose influence so
shaped the subsequent development of European political society that renders his own life and writings of more than historical interest today.
As the title indicates, Young Thomas More focuses on More’s
early life and writings, from his first political poems to Utopia, and including
his translations of Lucian, Life of Pico della Mirandola, Coronation Ode (for
Henry VIII), and History of Richard III. Wegemer has treated these works
before, and his conclusions here confirm his previous findings. As always
with great books, however, the effort of revisiting these texts is not without
fruit. Especially interesting is the way Wegemer uses visual art as a means of
illustrating More’s thought. His penultimate chapter (160–75), for example,
is an analysis of Hans Holbein’s portrait Sir Thomas More and His Family,
with close attention to the changes made from the initial sketch to the final
painting, probably in part at the behest of More and his family. Wegemer
considers the texts visible in the final portrait—two by Seneca and one by
Boethius—with their treatment of the themes of virtue, happiness, madness, and persecution; he considers significant alterations rendering signs
of the family’s piety less ostentatious, while emphasizing their fruitfulness,

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hospitality, and love of the arts. These and other details draw attention to
the humanism of More’s Christianity and the particular blend of philosophy,
faith, and politics defining it.
That same humanism is treated in Wegemer’s first chapter
(1–22) through a study of the frontispiece of Erasmus’s 1515 edition of Seneca’s works, an edition Erasmus worked on while visiting More. An element
of this artwork is repeated in the 1518 edition of Utopia: two crowned serpents entwined around a staff and protecting a dove, surrounded by words
in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. The combination of serpent and staff evokes
Asclepius, the Greek god of health. Based on Matthew 10:16—the Greek
text quoted—the crowned serpents represent prudence or the rule of reason
within the soul, while the dove represents integrity or simplicity of heart.
The Latin cites Martial’s claim that happiness is found in “shrewd simplicity
and love of doing right,” while the Hebrew quotes David’s prayer that God
do good “to those who are upright in their hearts.” The whole therefore suggests the convergence of philosophy, poetry, and religion on the lesson that
happiness is found in the practice of virtue consisting in a combination of
intellectual and moral perfection or the well-ordered soul, whose natural or
intrinsic goodness is not to be understood as exempting one from reliance
upon divine assistance.
The political import of this lesson is suggested in Erasmus’s
version. Here Humanitas is depicted as a lady sitting in a chariot drawn by
Cicero, Virgil, Demosthenes, and Homer, “peacefully reading” while riding
triumphantly over Time and Nemesis. The meaning seems to be that the idea
of virtue uncovered by the study of human nature is the key not only to personal happiness but also to the well-being of political society. Philosophy,
assisted by the arts of poetry, rhetoric, and politics, can to some extent master
human affairs and guide political society toward the procurement of “peace,
prosperity, and liberty.” In fact, Wegemer contends, the very essence of the
goodness sought through liberal studies—the fulfillment of one’s humanity
through self-perfection—entails the desire and duty to share this goodness
as far as possible with others who share that humanity. Thus the philosopher
comes to light in this account, drawn especially from texts of Cicero and
Seneca, as a “first citizen” (princeps) responsible for promoting “justice, liberty, and peace” within society, and humanitas appears as a bridge between
the realms of theoretical and practical science, of personal and political
excellence.

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Lest we take More to be hopelessly “utopian” in the colloquial
sense—a sense informed by a misreading of his most famous work—Wegemer stresses the numerous and great obstacles to the achievement of virtue,
personal or public. It is on account of the weakness of reason in the hearts and
assemblies of men that the art of coercive law must be among those studied
and applied by the princeps. Though human vices render law an indispensable
help to society, however, those same vices render it an incomplete help, since
good laws are the product of great prudence, and “even the best laws could
be manipulated unless learned, prudent, and courageous principes exercised
constant vigilance and prudent care.” It is equally “utopian” to expect law
to function without liberal education as it is to expect liberal education to
substitute for law (176–77). The use of the liberal arts to cultivate strength
of mind and character among citizens and their leaders is as necessary to
counterbalance the defects of law as law is necessary to address the limits of
such arts. Properly understood, this mutual aid among the imperfect human
arts, fostering in turn the mutual aid of imperfect human beings, accounts
for both the limits and the prospects of More’s classical realism.
Wegemer’s second chapter (23–34) explores More’s understanding of art as the arduous cultivation of man’s natural potential, showing
its roots in texts of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca. Though he does not
call attention to it here, Wegemer’s account serves as a corrective to the modern concept of art as the negation or conquering of nature. If the rules of art
derive from the structure of being, one must study nature to aid nature with
art, and the highest art—wisdom—will guide us to the completion of our
own nature through virtue. As before, the lesson applies as much to politics
and the common good as it does to personal virtue; or rather, it regards the
two as essentially intertwined, since personal virtue must be pursued in a
political context, and the common good depends on cultivating personal virtue in citizens. Since virtue must be chosen to be genuine, however, “human
beings are by nature free,” and the seeds of virtue within them must be fostered as much through education and rhetoric as by law. Discovering and
implementing the modes of persuasion and coercion most likely to facilitate
virtue in a given political society requires an exacting knowledge of both
universal and particular matters. Unlike the Cynics and Stoics, who latched
on to philosophy’s endurance and hardness, and the Epicureans, who were
seduced by its discussions of pleasure, the philosopher-princeps “needs a full
and complete education in studia humanitatis,” and hence a broad knowledge
of both human nature and human affairs. As More would later write, true

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philosophy is a “civil philosophy,” by which the princeps comes to “know his
stage, adapt himself to the play at hand, and perform his role appropriately.”
In this context Wegemer alludes to an important issue
whose fuller contours he does not explore. How does the Ciceronian idea
of the philosopher-statesman square with the Platonic and Aristotelian
teaching on the distinction between the contemplative life and the active or
political life—along with their corresponding virtues—and the superiority of
the former to the latter? Cicero himself seems to have considered this a difficult problem, but without probing into the competing sides of this question
Wegemer takes Cicero’s emphasis on practicality and civic virtue as a decisive
improvement over his intellectual forebears.
In chapter 3 (35–52) this Ciceronian formula unfolds. The
princeps emerges as the first among equals, whose excellence makes him
fit to rule over free citizens, and whose character sets the tone for society.
As faction is the greatest threat to the common good, and as “peace with
dignity” requires the union of citizens in love, the statesman must be above
worldly goods, ruling for the sake of the citizens and thereby inspiring them
to mutual service. Thus far, at least, Roman philosophy borrows heavily from
the Greek. Where Cicero seems to have surpassed his mentors, however, is
suggested in a comment of Erasmus which Wegemer approvingly cites: “Plato
and Aristotle tried to introduce [philosophy] to the courts of kings.…But
Cicero seems to me to have brought her almost onto the stage…[so] that even
a miscellaneous audience can applaud.” By immersing himself in the history and law of his own people along with the studia humanitatis, Cicero
was able to gain “a truly philosophic perspective” on Roman political society,
noting its strengths and weaknesses, and presenting the lessons philosophy
would teach it through the mouths of its own “greatest leaders from the past”
and ancient legal principles. Hence Cicero shows how the persuasive and
trustworthy leader can utilize the elements that affectively and intellectually
unite citizens to shape the public mind and character in accordance with
right reason. It is precisely such an art that Wegemer sees More—the “English
Cicero”—studying from his youth, and prepared to practice in his maturity.
In the chapters that follow, Wegemer explores the myriad
ways in which More probed the meaning of humanitas and applied it to the
men and manners of his age. Chapter 4 (53–69) begins with More’s “Pageant
Verses” and “Fortune Verses,” which mock the boastful folly of men and
praise the wisdom of a life detached from wealth and honor and grounded
instead in the humble pleasures of nature and virtue. Next, Wegemer notes

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the significance of More’s Declamation in Reply to Lucian, which accompanies his translation of Lucian’s Tyrannicide. In the latter work, the speaker
claims a reward from his city for having indirectly caused a tyrant’s suicide
through the inept murder of the tyrant’s son. In response, More stresses that
the damage done by the tyrant to the people’s liberty stemmed from his lust
for power and disregard for his fellows, and that genuine freedom from tyranny presupposes the opposite virtues: those respecting the law, the gods,
and human life. To escape a tyrant only to honor a lawless and unskillful
murderer would undermine “the republic’s libertas, safety, and prosperity,”
though to the same end it may be lawful to hire a more “resourceful” and
“strong-hearted” liberator. Though Wegemer does not spell out the implications of this text for modern intellectual and political revolutions, the context
rightly implies that the reader would profit from pondering them.
Finally, Wegemer considers the witty and profound lessons
on self-mastery found in “the other three Lucian dialogues [More] chose to
translate.” The Cynic shows how the quest for virtuous self-sufficiency can
become marred by a pride-induced delusion of near-divinity and an accompanying blindness to the goods of human life and society; Lover of Lives and
Menippus likewise expose the follies and contradictions of a pseudophilosophy detached from practical affairs and sound reasoning. Together these
writings indicate the kind of leadership More believed would or would not
serve to advance European civilization in his day.
Chapter 5 (70–87) extends More’s critique of a life carried
away by “the enticements of philosophic pleasure” and hubris. Through careful attention to the changes and additions More made to his sources in the
Life of Pico, as well as a juxtaposition of Pico’s life with More’s, Wegemer
brings to light More’s implicit critique of his great humanist predecessor.
Pressured into theological studies by his mother before his tenth year, presumably on account of the clericalism of the age, Pico became enamored of
arcane knowledge and the liberty and happiness it promised. Losing sight of
the dependence of philosophy on political society, Pico neglected—in practice as well as theory—the duties of a philosopher toward that society. More,
by contrast, was pressured by his father to drop liberal studies and study
practical arts. Resisting this pressure, More carefully discerned his vocation,
opting to make the personal sacrifices necessary to engage in both contemplative studies and a life of active professional, familial, personal, and political
service. The poems More wrote to expand on Pico’s “Twelve Properties of a
Lover” stress—in contrast to the life of the original author—the lover’s “joy…

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diligently to serve [his love] both day and night.” Thus does More succeed at
preserving the fullness of Ciceronian humanitas, which seeks liberty through
“humor, charm, happiness, friendship, and civic service,” as well as that of
Christ, “a man-god of love who serves and suffers willingly and gladly, in
the roles of both Martha and Mary” (see Luke 10:38–42; Wegemer does not
address the statement that “Mary hath chosen the better part,” often read as
confirming the intrinsic superiority of contemplation).
The next three chapters explore More’s application of
humanitas to English politics. Chapter 6 (89–103) considers More’s Coronation Ode. Its ironic praise of the yet untested Henry VIII, combined with
a bold critique of his father’s tyranny and allusions to problematic kings
such as Saul and Achilles, add weight to its warning about the tendency of
unlimited power to weaken good minds. Though signs already pointed to
Henry’s infatuation with warfare and personal glory, More sought to give
him a model of governance focused on peace, civic virtue, and the rule of law.
To place this advice in its proper context, chapter 7 (104–18) examines More’s
political poems of 1509–1516, in which we see evidence for his belief that right
reason is most likely to find force in society through the sound deliberation
of republican government. More sees a need for the leadership of principes,
but he also regards the power of kings as tempting them to reject the salutary
constraints of both law and the spirit of mutual cooperation among equal
citizens. Though he was willing to advise kings for the better, then, it seems
that More’s idea of the good princeps tended against his age’s idea of a strong
prince. Chapter 8 (119–38) makes a similar point in light of More’s Richard
III and its treatment of the causes of English civil war. Here Wegemer notes
More’s use of dialysis, a “classical trope” by which “the narrator sets forth a
series of alternatives but leaves it to the reader, on the basis of the many clues
given, to decide which is actually correct, or left out.” On the basis of More’s
clues, Wegemer interprets the history as contrasting the faction-enflaming
ambitions of the king and his nobles to the good faith and willingness to
sacrifice for the common good demonstrated (however imperfectly) by the
citizens of ancient Rome and of Ricardian London.
Chapter 9 (139–59) turns to Utopia, a work to which Wegemer devoted three chapters in Thomas More on Statesmanship. As before,
Wegemer argues that careful attention to the details of the text, as well as to
the greater context of More’s life and writings, presents us with a clear sense
of More’s intentions in this famously enigmatic classic. In brief, Wegemer
takes as More’s position the judgment he expresses in the closing lines of

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Utopia: that “many things” in the Commonwealth of Utopia are worthy of
imitation, while “not a few” of their customs—including “the basis of their
whole system”—are “quite absurd.” Close attention to the character as well as
the account of Raphael Hythloday, in contrast to the character and thought
of More himself, reveals a gulf between the former’s knowledge of “human
things” and the latter’s study of humanitas. In Wegemer’s view, More agrees
with Raphael’s critique of the evils caused by faction in England, while
rejecting the chief means by which Raphael believes genuine res publica can
be achieved. It is not only that Raphael’s doctrinaire and monological presentation is full of contradictions and impossibilities—examples of which
Wegemer here multiplies. Most crucially, in his reading, the combination of
Utopia’s incoherent and hedonistic account of virtue with its use of draconian punishments and terror vitiate any claim it makes to the achievement
of humanist goals. By way of contrast, many of the institutions rejected or
minimized in Utopia—from property, law, and family to revealed religion
and free civic discourse—are identified by More as vital to the flourishing
of real political society. By juxtaposing the real and the absurd in this way,
Wegemer persuasively claims, More calls upon the reader to practice sharpsightedness in reading, which in turn will equip him to know and “adapt
himself to the play at hand.”
As is to be expected in a work of this scope, not all aspects of
the subject are examined in equal depth. In general, given the dialogical character of More’s thought, one could wish for a more detailed consideration of
arguments in favor of perspectives More rejects. It would also be of tremendous interest to hear further from Wegemer about how one might apply the
principles of More’s thought to contemporary questions of political theory
and practice. Most of all, as others have noted, Wegemer could say much
more about the influence of Plato, as well as Cicero and Augustine, on works
like Utopia. By way of illustration, consider More’s treatment of the theme of
the best regime. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates, who advances the superiority
of the philosophic life to the political, presents the best regime as existing
only in speech. In Cicero’s Republic, Scipio treats Rome as the best regime,
while admitting that he does so ironically, presumably in order to bring the
insights of Greek philosophy to bear more powerfully on the Roman people.
St. Augustine’s City of God portrays the best regime as existing in seed form
on earth in the virtues and hope of believers, while achieving full fruition
only after the Last Judgment and in the heavenly city. More’s Utopia, like
Cicero’s Republic, purports to find the best regime in an actual political society, while ironically teaching that the just society exists “no place” on earth.

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Unlike Cicero, however, and like Plato and Augustine, More openly dwells
on the defects of the political society he is trying to reform; and like Plato,
he presents a “best” regime possessing both virtues and flaws through which
the reader must sort. Finally, More’s allusions to Augustine and orthodox
Christianity in Utopia—which Wegemer explores in Thomas More on Statesmanship—remain for some reason heavily veiled. Though Wegemer has
provided ample and valuable material toward this end, much work remains if
we are to comprehend the nature of and intention behind More’s adaptation
of his great teachers.
If these omissions in Wegemer’s account might in some cases
constitute flaws, it must be said that they stand out primarily because of the
candor and rigor with which he identifies complex and fundamental questions and possibilities regarding More’s thought. Wegemer’s probing spirit,
combined with the wealth of information he possesses and shares, provides
the reader with ample material for years of study and reflection on More’s
careful treatment of some of the most enduring and important problems in
political philosophy. For this Wegemer continues to deserve the respect and
gratitude of all who agree that the arts of liberty More sought to know and
practice are as important in our season as they were in his.

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Book Review: Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment

187

David Lay Williams, Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007, xxx + 277 pp., $27.95.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion.
Edited by Christopher Kelly. Lebanon, NH: Dartmouth University Press,
2007, xxxiii + 306 pp., $25.95.

R e n é M . Pa d dag s
Ashland University
rpaddags@ashland.edu

Was Jean-Jacques Rousseau a modern or an ancient? In
his book Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment, David Lay Williams is the
first scholar since Iring Fetscher, half a century ago, to argue that he was
an ancient.1 This puts Williams in opposition to the dominant, Straussian
school. Following the publication of Leo Strauss’s Natural Right and History,
and certainly since “Three Waves of Modernity,” Rousseau has been read by
most as a modern.2 There have been some scholars who have disagreed with
this interpretation, such as Patrick Riley, Judith Shklar, and Jean Starobinski,
but others—such as Allan Bloom, Victor Gourevitch, Hilail Gildin, Christopher Kelly, Roger Masters, and Arthur Melzer—have generally followed Leo
Strauss’s interpretation. In determining the latter group’s influence, one need
simply look at the current English translations of Rousseau’s works, most
of which were prepared by them. Nor does David Williams hide the main
opposition to his reading of Rousseau. In the acknowledgments, he identi-

Iring Fetscher, Rousseaus politische Philosophie: Zur Geschichte des demokratischen Freiheitsbegriffs
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1960).
1

Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953); Leo Strauss,
“Three Waves of Modernity,” in An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays, ed. Hilail Gildin
(Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1959), 81–98.
2

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fies the interpretations offered by Roger Masters and Arthur Melzer as most
influential for his own reading while attempting to refute them.3
Williams classifies all philosophers as either idealists or
materialists, Plato falling in the first category. Thus, to deem Rousseau an
ancient, Williams must begin by showing that he was a Platonist. To that end,
Williams defines what he means by Platonism, namely, “the commitment to
transcendent ideas as the ultimate authority for moral and political arguments” (xxvii). He lists four categories to serve as a checklist for determining
whether Rousseau falls into the category of “materialist” or “Platonist”: metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, and politics (xix). Regarding metaphysics,
a Platonist believes in metaphysical dualism, that is, that human beings are
composed of a body and a soul. Second, Platonists claim that there are eternal, unchanging substances which human beings are incapable of changing
through their own art and volition. Further, these substances will be pursued differently according to circumstances. The latter point is important
for Williams as it allows him to argue that justice manifests itself differently
in Plato’s and Rousseau’s times. Third, these substances must be knowable,
although men might not know them without education. Fourth, the ideas of
justice and goodness can be known and effective in politics. The modern Platonists drew four important conclusions from these Platonist assumptions.
These were faith in God, immortality of the soul, free will, and the existence
of immaterial ideas (xxiii). The main task of Williams’s book is to present the
evidence that Rousseau subscribed to this so-defined Platonist doctrine.
After setting forth his definition of Platonism, Williams
situates Rousseau’s political philosophy in its historical context. In the first
of eight chapters he characterizes the materialist political philosophies of
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Showing first that Hobbes and Locke were
indeed materialists and positivists, Williams goes on in chapter 2 to demonstrate that English materialism was beginning to take hold in continental
Europe through the efforts of the philosophes and that it was opposed by
Platonists. Here Williams does some of his best work by briefly summarizing the Platonist positions of Marsilio Ficino, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth,
Benjamin Whichcote, Johann Adam Scherzer, Jakob Thomasius, Leibniz,
Malebranche, Fenelon, and Bernard Lamy. In addition to putting Rousseau in his historical context, Williams shows that Rousseau had read the
Roger Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1968); Arthur Melzer, The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau’s Thought (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1990).
3

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participants in this debate, was often personally acquainted with them, and
consequently reacted to them or took their side. Williams is most successful
in demonstrating that Rousseau knew the works of many of these authors
(50). As further evidence for the influence the Platonists had on Rousseau,
Williams points to the many parallels between their arguments and Rousseau’s (36–37, 40, 40–41, 54ff.).
In the third chapter, Williams compares his checklist against
Rousseau’s positions and concludes that Rousseau believed in the existence of
God, free will, an immaterial soul, transcendent ideas, and human beings
acquiring knowledge through inner sentiment (62). This argument relies most
importantly on Rousseau’s explication of these doctrines in the Profession of
Faith of a Savoyard Vicar in book 4 of the Emile. However, because Rousseau does not present the Profession of Faith in his own name, scholars have
wondered whether it truly reflects Rousseau’s own opinion. This argument
has been made especially forcefully by Leo Strauss and his students. Williams
argues against the Straussians that the arguments of the Profession of Faith
are repeated by Rousseau in his own name in other works and that it is possible to give other reasons for Rousseau to use the Vicar as his mouthpiece (63).
Thus, for Williams, instead of imputing to Rousseau a doctrine of esoteric
writing, one should take him at his word when he claims to be sincere (64). In
order to reject materialism, Rousseau relied heavily on conscience or natural
sentiment. Williams consequently cites the many references in Rousseau’s
oeuvre to conscience (73–76). Most importantly, Williams quotes Rousseau
in the Emile as saying that “I do not draw these rules from the principles of a
high philosophy, but find them written by nature with ineffaceable characters
in the depth of my heart.” Williams anticipates the counterargument that
Rousseau rejected natural law and challenges the evidence, mainly from the
Second Discourse and the Geneva Manuscript.
Williams presents further evidence for his thesis in chapter
4 by showing that only the assumption of Rousseau as a Platonist sufficiently
explains the general will. Contrary to the claim by Roger Masters, Williams
argues that Rousseau’s general will implements his Platonic metaphysics. The
charge against Rousseau had been that the general will lacks any substantive
grounding and depends on the prejudices and misguided judgments of the
people. Contrary to this, Williams shows that the general will is preceded by
an eternal idea of justice which becomes manifest through the general will.
In chapters 5 and 6, Williams takes up Plato’s allegory of
the cave and the problem of tyranny. Both chapters further substantiate

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Williams’s claim that Rousseau was a Platonist. Chapter 5 suggests that
Rousseau was a Platonist because of his extensive use of Platonic symbolism
connected to the allegory of the cave. However, Rousseau was much more
optimistic about the power of education to enlighten men, which leads to
his adoption of democratic political institutions. As Williams argues that
Emile’s education and the Social Contract provide Rousseau’s solutions to the
problem of the cave, he is forced to react to Strauss’s counterargument that
Rousseau was a precursor to the Jacobins. In chapter 6, Williams contends
that Rousseau’s solution does not lead to tyrannical government. Instead,
Rousseau provided the institutional solutions to secure justice for all through
an elaborate system of checks and balances.
Finally, Williams shows in chapters 7 and 8 how a corrupted
version of Rousseau’s thought was adopted by John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas,
and Michel Foucault via Immanuel Kant and Karl Marx. While Kant remained
a Platonist, according to Williams, he also developed a formalist version of
Rousseau’s thought which in turn was used by Rawls and Habermas. In taking up Rousseau’s critique of social power and its manifestations in language
and ideas, Marx and Foucault ultimately founder owing to their rejection of
his Platonism. Williams suggests that contemporary political thought would
be best served by returning to Rousseau and possibly Kant (275), instead of
following the modern sophisms of Rawls, Habermas, and Foucault.
By looking at the contemporary world of the twentieth and
twenty-first centuries, Williams shares with Leo Strauss and his students the
sense that a return to an earlier time is necessary. The difference between Williams and Strauss et al. is that Williams argues that Rousseau should be the
model for our times whereas they suggest a return to either early modern or
ancient thought. Because Williams claims that Rousseau is the uncorrupted
representative of a superior tradition of Platonic philosophy, the Straussians
provide the main alternative to Williams’s solution. But has Williams really
demonstrated that Rousseau was a Platonist? And if Rousseau restates Plato’s
philosophy, why should we follow Rousseau rather than Plato?
Returning to the original argument made by Leo Strauss,
three arguments serve to show that Rousseau was a modern. First, Rousseau
did not succeed in returning to the ancient notion of virtue. He failed because
he substituted the idea of perfectibility for a natural end. Abandoning man’s
highest natural end originated with Machiavelli and had been first applied to
natural science by Bacon and then to morality by Thomas Hobbes. Rousseau
replaced virtue with perfectibility, which implied the possibility of progress

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while avoiding any discussion of a final end. Furthermore, perfectibility is
an attribute of the human species rather than of individuals and is therefore
realized in history rather than by any particular individual. Second, Rousseau introduced the doctrine of the general will, which can be realized only
when every citizen puts the common good above his individual self-interest.
Every citizen can “know” about the general will through introspection,
or following his or her conscience. As conscience is acquired through the
experience of the mores of a political society, it puts the general will on an
egalitarian basis. Hence, anyone with access to the societal tradition can be
a good citizen. Finally, Rousseau is a modern because he ultimately seeks an
exit from all forms of slavery, which includes the good society. Freedom and
happiness can be found only in the experience of the sentiment of existence,
which can occur only outside of society.
Williams focuses his efforts on showing that the general
will is preceded by the idea of justice. However, the pursuit of the common
good can be in conflict with the pursuit of justice. For example, it may be
advantageous, and therefore in accordance with the general will, to defend
one’s borders against impoverished foreigners; but it may also be unjust to
leave them to their fate. As Williams himself notes, Rousseau hardly discusses justice. Williams does not explain what concept of justice one receives
through conscience any more than Rousseau does. It is somehow assumed
that the “inner sentiment” always provides universal and particular answers
to the right decision. This, however, is problematic even for Rousseau. After
all, the Emile has numerous references to Achilles and anger as an alternative
passion leading to the experience of justice. Furthermore, Williams suggests
that conscience or feeling is in agreement with reason. But here the question arises whether the ur-passion, as we supposedly always have conscience,
does not have to be modified to apply only to our fellow citizens rather than
to all of mankind. Yet the particular passion of love of a fatherland is not
once discussed by Williams, nor does he comment on the importance of
mores for Rousseau.
On one occasion Williams discusses perfectibility (68–69)
and in this context challenges Strauss directly. Williams reads Strauss as saying that Rousseau had abandoned free will. Yet in the relevant passage from
Natural Right and History, Strauss merely argues that Rousseau introduces
perfectibility in order to avoid the divisive issue of a dualistic metaphysics
(265). However, Rousseau’s use of the perfectibility argument does not imply
that he necessarily rejected the possibility of free will. Strauss argues that, on

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the contrary, the advantage of the introduction of this new concept is that
it helps Rousseau avoid the issue altogether. Williams’s discussion therefore
misses the point. Strauss would agree that Rousseau argues for free will, but
it is Rousseau’s stipulation of man as a “free agent,” not the discussion of free
will, that provides the clue to his intention.
Finally, Williams is led to ignore the autobiographical works
of Rousseau and especially the Reveries of the Solitary Walker as examples
of Rousseau’s concern with the sentiment of existence. Williams presents
Rousseau as providing a feasible solution to the problem posed in the first
and second Discourses. The Emile and the Social Contract open the way to a
political society that can overcome the ancient abuses of the church and the
wealthy. Yet Rousseau never suggested that he would be happy living in such
a society. Williams criticizes Strauss for saying that Rousseau “lost the only
potential source of objective standards—nature” (104). Yet Strauss does not
make this argument in “Three Waves of Modernity,” and in Natural Right
and History he argued that “in the name of nature, Rousseau questioned
not only philosophy but the city and virtue as well” (263). The difficulty is
rather to explain why the general will is simultaneously based on nature and
opposed to it.
In Rousseau on Philosophy, Morality, and Religion, Christopher Kelly brings together most of Rousseau’s essays pertinent to the questions
raised by Williams. As the title promises, Kelly unites Rousseau’s works on
these themes, such as the Letter to Voltaire, the Essay on the Origin of Languages, and the Preface to Narcissus. It understandably leaves out the first and
second Discourses and the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar, which
even a casual reader of Rousseau already owns. This edition’s convenient and
affordable format appeals especially to the intermediate student who wants
to advance his studies beyond those major works. One particular highlight
of the volume is to make the important Moral Letters easily available in English for the first time. It is, therefore, a volume well suited to providing the
resources needed to engage Williams’s claims.
The starting point must be Rousseau’s Letter to Voltaire,
for, as Victor Gourevitch argues, “the Letter to Voltaire is Rousseau’s most
authoritative discussion of religious issues.”4 Williams uses the Letter to
Voltaire to support his arguments four times (51–52, 64, 66, and 72n; in the
Victor Gourevitch, “The Religious Thought,” in The Cambridge Companion to Rousseau, ed. Patrick
Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 194.
4

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index, the long quote from the letter on p. 64 is missing). First, Williams uses
the Letter to argue that Rousseau endorsed Leibniz’s argument that “all is
well”; second, as an example of an appeal to inner sentiment; third, for proof
of Rousseau’s faith in God; and, finally, to support Rousseau’s belief in the
immortality of the soul. Therefore, almost all of Williams’s arguments for
Rousseau’s Platonism are supported with references to the Letter to Voltaire.
However, does the Letter to Voltaire support Williams’s
claims? First, Williams suggests that Rousseau simply endorses Leibniz’s
argument that “all is well.” While Rousseau does argue that all is well, to
grasp what he means by this one should turn to the opening sentence of the
Emile and recall that “everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author
of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.”5 Contrary to Leibniz,
Rousseau allows for human action to improve the state of man, but—contrary
to Voltaire and in agreement with Leibniz—within the boundaries set by
nature. Williams proceeds too quickly from Rousseau’s explicit endorsement
of Leibniz and Pope to the conclusion that there are no differences between
their respective arguments (see, for example, Rousseau’s explicit praise of
Voltaire for improving upon Pope [Kelly, 56]).
Furthermore, Williams highlights the passages in the Letter
where Rousseau endorses the sentiment of existence (Kelly, 58; see also 52).
For Rousseau, the sentiment of existence applies not only to a short moment
in time, but is in effect a hope for personal immortality. As the body certainly
is mortal, the soul has to be immortal. The immortal soul in turn implies
personal divine providence. Finally, personal divine providence implies the
existence of God. If Rousseau had stopped here, then Williams’s interpretation of Rousseau as a Platonist would be accurate. However, Rousseau also
argues that none of his arguments is free from rational doubt. In other words,
Rousseau cannot scientifically prove to Voltaire that God exists, that the soul
is immortal, or that human beings have free will. Rousseau himself considers
the pros and cons and decides that “a thousand subjects of preference pull me
from the most consoling side and join the weight of hope to the equilibrium
of reason.” In other words, Rousseau’s arguments are based on a “proof of
sentiment” or “a prejudice” (Kelly, 58–59).
Without conclusive proof for or against materialism, the
question remains what propelled Rousseau to take his position. In its stead,
Rousseau says that for him the standard is “that there is some inhumanity in
5

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, or On Education, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 37.

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troubling peaceful souls, and in afflicting men to no purpose, when what one
wishes to teach them is neither certain nor useful” (Kelly, 60). In the Letter to
Voltaire, Rousseau rejects Voltaire’s pessimism on the grounds of his defense
of ordinary folks and their common sense. Rousseau agrees with Voltaire’s
supposed belief in God; but rather than draw Voltaire’s consequence of a
human rebellion against nature, Rousseau opts for the existence of a natural
standard to which human beings must adhere.
Williams’s argument becomes problematic at this point
because the main conflict should be between materialists and Platonists.
However, the debate between Voltaire and Rousseau suggests that the conflict
is rather between two different concepts of nature. Only if the understanding
of nature is at stake does it make sense to oppose Voltaire and the materialists—who argue that nature should be subjected to human will—to Rousseau
and other believers who argue that nature or God provides a standard and
limit for human action. An alliance between Rousseau and believers appears
at this point, but it does not go beyond their mutual opposition to Voltaire
and the materialists. This dimension of the debate, however, does not emerge
from Williams’s portrayal.
Yet uniting Rousseau with Christians such as Malebranche
or Lamy under the heading of Platonism obscures the fundamental differences that separate them. For example, Rousseau rejects divine punishment
(Kelly, 58), resurrection, and the trinity. One wonders, therefore, whether the
category of Platonism is based on an appropriate first principle. Furthermore,
Williams does not discuss the Letter to Voltaire’s deleted paragraph in which
Rousseau doubts even the existence of God.6 While it is not necessary to give
a deleted paragraph the full weight of the published parts, it still would have
deserved a discussion.
Despite my critique of Williams’s book, I consider it one of
the best books on Rousseau to appear in recent years. Its main argument,
that Rousseau tried to recreate Platonic political theology, provides a serious alternative to the currently dominant interpretations of Rousseau. Read
together with Christopher Kelly’s edited volume on Rousseau’s thought on
philosophy, morality, and religion, and maybe the Reveries of the Solitary
Walker, it could serve as a dialectical introduction to the heart of Rousseau’s
political philosophy.

6

See Gourevitch, “Religious Thought,” 211.

Book Review: The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National Socialism

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William H. F. Altman, The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National
Socialism. With a foreword by Michael Zank. Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books, 2011, xix + 589 pp., $90.

“With a Friend Like This”;
or,
How to Begin to Read William H. F. Altman
Jeffr ey Ber nstein
College of the Holy Cross
jbernste@holycross.edu

Having attended a remarkable performance of [Schoenberg’s]
Moses and Aaron in Düsseldorf, I couldn’t help wondering how
they managed to learn it and whether it was worth all the effort.

—Sviatoslav Richter
The above epigram signals the challenge awaiting most readers of William H. F. Altman’s The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National
Socialism. Mammoth in size, prodigious in intellectual resources, and singleminded in purpose, Altman’s text is initially as intimidating as its subject
is interesting and important. While I am not in agreement with Altman’s
interpretation of Strauss, my aim is to suggest why, and in which way, one
might wish to read his book.
Michael Zank and Peter Minowitz have compared Altman’s
project, not without reason, to those of Myles Burnyeat, Shadia Drury, Nicho-

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las Xenos, and Anne Norton (xii).1 This comparison needs qualification for
three reasons. First, Burnyeat, Drury, Xenos, and Norton made less use of the
primary resources than Altman does. Second, with the possible exception
of Burnyeat, the aforementioned authors were primarily concerned with the
reception of Strauss’s thought in American academic and political contexts.
Finally, none of the aforementioned authors goes to great lengths to connect
Strauss’s writing and its American influence back to its inception in Weimar
Germany. In so doing, Altman has created a book-length narrative that (from
the point of view of Strauss critics) is sui generis.
What is the reader to make of a book that traverses the
forms of historical account, biography, textual exegesis, legal brief, apologia, religious testimony, and manifesto? If it is viewed, from the outset, as a
philosophical argument, the reader may mirror Maimonides’s dismay after
reading the Mutakallimun: “every argument deemed to be a demonstration…is accompanied by doubts and is not a cogent demonstration except
among those who do not know the difference between demonstration, dialectics, and sophistic argument.”2 To read it as such, however, would be to
miss Altman’s point almost entirely; as he tells the reader in his preface, his
book is largely a polemic against Strauss and his school (xxi). Michael Zank,
in his foreword, expands: “The vigorous attack launched on Strauss in this
book is to deal a decisive blow to a major enemy of liberal democracy and
of the humanizing faith on which it rests. No holds are barred. In the world
of the spirit, one of the major weapons is naming. Altman calls Strauss ‘the
German Stranger’”(xiii). It is simply not Altman’s objective to provide a reasoned presentation of both sides of “der Fall Strauss” (521). Rather, in taking
up battle against Enemies, Altman self-consciously takes a page from their
book of tactics. This suggests what Altman never ceases to make clear in The
German Stranger: Strauss, like his intellectual coconspirator Carl Schmitt,
operates according to the friend/enemy distinction; in doing battle against
evil, one inevitably (if momentarily) fights on enemy turf: “how do you
fight Carl Schmitt without proving him right? There it stands: Schmitt and
Strauss are necessarily my Enemies. And thus my writing this book requires
embracing their ‘logic of the political.’ So be it: the very fact that the Nazis
cold-bloodedly assumed that liberal democrats would never fight warms my
blood” (524).
Peter Minowitz, “What Was Leo Strauss?,” Perspectives on Political Science 40, no. 4 (October 2011):
218­–26.
1

Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, ed. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1963), 1:180.
2

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Goodness—these are indeed fighting words! And yet, for all
the saber-rattling, Altman remains something of a happy warrior. It is difficult not to find his persona compelling (or at least intriguing). Altman is a
Latin teacher at a public high school—he is therefore (almost by definition)
fighting the good fight of educating the youth. Additionally, he understands
his philosophical compulsions to be of a piece with his teaching responsibilities and his political commitments. I have not yet read his 500-plus-page
book on Plato (also with Lexington Books—the first of a projected trilogy),
but there is enough discussion at the end of The German Stranger, as well as
in his published articles, to bear this general claim out: he orders the Platonic
dialogues not chronologically but rather pedagogically in order to show readers the value of Socrates’s return to the Cave with the purpose of educating
the citizens about the good.3 That good, for Altman’s Plato, is bound up with
“the dualism of mind and body as taught by Plato from Alcibiades Major
straight through to Phaedo [and] makes Crito the classical fons et origo of
the separation of Church and State: it is merely the body of Socrates that will
remain in Athens, in obedience to her laws; his soul will be justly judged in
a higher court” (477–78). That Socrates’s soul will be judged in said “higher
court” cannot but suggest parallels with scripture-based religion (which parallels are wholly and explicitly confirmed by Altman). Put differently, it is
the confluence of biblical wisdom and Greek philosophy, rather than their
dialectical tension, that serves as the basis for all things noble in Western
civilization (e.g., the separation of church and state [27]). This confluence, it
might be said, is the essentially unpolemical “positive” content of Altman’s
reflections (xxi). He is at his most joyful when he is discussing it.
But The German Stranger does not have this content as its
center of gravity. Instead, it is a sharp indictment of Strauss’s attempts at
destroying this noble confluence. In fact, for Altman, Strauss is merely a special case of a spiritual sickness characteristic of (most) early twentieth-century
German intellectuals. Hence, Altman responds in kind: “We provided most
of them refuge, published their books, gave them our best young minds to
teach and mold, trusting that they would honor our liberal and humanitarian
principles; at the very least, we underestimated the demoralizing power and
corrupting influence of the anti-Weimar Zeitgeist. Schooled by this error, we
must now debate the degree to which they betrayed our trust before building any further on the intellectual foundations they offered us in return. But
William H. F. Altman, “Reading Order and Authenticity: The Place of Theages and Cleitophon in
Platonic Pedagogy,” Plato: The Electronic Journal of the International Plato Society 11 (2011): 2, 41.
3

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the first step toward doing so is an unblinking recognition of the intellectual impetus behind National Socialism’s holy war against Israel’s God.”4 By
indicting the majority of German thinkers as he does, Altman inoculates his
critique of Strauss against any purported similarity with other figures—they
are all tainted. It may be that the relatively uncontroversial Walter Benjamin
is the “Weimar intellectual du jour,”5 but this no more helps Strauss than a
person addicted to Merlot can help one addicted to Gentleman Jack; they are
fruits of the same vine (as it were).
Which vine do these trendy German intellectuals come
from? One that also gave rise to Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger (with its
roots steeped in Jacobi and Nietzsche): atheistic nihilism. The only difference
between Strauss and the other branches is that Strauss learned—en route
from Germany to America—how to conceal his atheism from his American
audience so that his project of undermining the biblical-Platonic foundation
of Western (specifically American) democracy would go all but unnoticed.
Were this all, however, Strauss would presumably be no more problematic
than Foucault, Derrida, or any other fashionable (and decadent?) European
intellectual. For Altman, Strauss was an ideal student of German antidemocratic thought insofar as he understood the consequences of atheistic nihilism
and actively worked on behalf of them. These consequences amount to nothing less than articulating (for those in the know) a philosophically coherent
form of life based on self-divinization and the accumulation of power (all
the while leaving the masses clueless as to their true intent). Put differently,
Strauss (on Altman’s account) has imported an intellectual strain of National
Socialism into American intellectual and political life. Altman’s Strauss
(i.e., the “German Stranger”) has done to America what Strauss’s Athenian
Stranger (from Plato’s Laws, on which text Strauss wrote one of his last books)
ostensibly did to Crete—he tried to undermine the religious foundations of a
polity. Hence, “With a friend like this, who needs enemies?” (352).
“But wait,” I hear the reader exclaim, “Strauss couldn’t
have been a National Socialist! Strauss was…Jewish!” Even if one grants (as
I do) that Strauss rejected Jewish belief in favor of “citizenship in Athens,”
this question still has purchase. In fact, although Altman fights against
Strauss’s Judaism at any level (other than birth), he actually provides materials as to Strauss’s deep and abiding knowledge of Judaism, which aids the
4

William H. F. Altman, “Disturbing Proximity,” Jewish Quarterly Review 101, no. 2 (2011): 308.

5

Ibid., 307.

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force and urgency of this question. In a letter to Jacob Klein (December 12,
1938), Strauss notes that “there exists no ‘earlier and later’ in Plato’s writings” (20n84). Given that the formulation of this statement mirrors Rashi’s
commentary (originally from the Babylonian Talmud) on Exodus 31:18 (i.e.,
there is no “earlier” or “later” in the Torah), one might reasonably conclude
that Strauss is (even at a relatively early period in his career) attempting to
think the relation between Athens and Jerusalem. Altman reads this simply
as indicating that several of Strauss’s “important insights about Plato arise
simultaneously” (20). Why does Altman take this route?
For Altman, Strauss’s “close relation to Judaism” is exactly
the pretense Strauss wants the reader to believe. If Strauss had not learned the
art of writing between the lines as well as he had, this claim would not have
the purchase that, for Altman, it does. But Strauss is nothing if not a careful
reader and writer. As such, he knows how to conceal his true intentions in
the interstices of respectable-sounding words in order to pacify his less careful readers (presumably like myself). Strauss used his Orthodox upbringing
and Zionist participation in Blau-Weiss to conceal the fact that he viewed
liberalism as a secularized form of Verjudung (“Jewification”) which needed
to be destroyed. Hence, Strauss’s relation to Judaism is a cover that hides
his extreme anti-Jewish views. At this point, the reader might ask: “Really?
What about Strauss’s close study with the Torah scholar Nehama Leibowitz in which she taught him Saadia Gaon in exchange for his teaching her
the Gorgias in Greek (all this occurring in Julius Guttman’s 1924–25 Berlin
seminar on Maimonides)?”6 I anticipate Altman’s response: “It’s a clever disguise.” Reader: “And Hans Jonas’s account of Strauss’s guilt over not being a
believer?”7 Altman: “Proves nothing. Jonas was ‘on the vine’ as well.” Reader:
“What about Strauss’s statement (in the 1965 preface to his Spinoza book)
to the effect that ‘the founding of modern Israel was “a blessing for all Jews
everywhere”’?”8 Altman: “The statement is ironic.” Reader: “And Strauss’s
1957 letter to the editor of the National Review criticizing their anti-Israel
posture?”9 Altman: “Don’t get taken in by Strauss’s public persona.” Reader:
See Alan Udoff, “On Leo Strauss: An Introductory Account,” in Leo Strauss’s Thought: Toward a
Critical Engagement, ed. Alan Udoff (Boulder, CO: L. Rienner, 1991), 26–27n63.
6

Hans Jonas, Memoirs, ed. Christian Weise, trans. Krishna Winston (Waltham, MA: Brandeis
University Press, 2008), 49.
7

8

Minowitz, “What Was Leo Strauss?,” 225n44.

Leo Strauss, “Letter to the Editor: The State of Israel,” in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity: Essays and Lectures in Modern Jewish Thought, ed. Kenneth Hart Green (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1997), 413–14.
9

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“But Strauss requested to have Psalm 114 (dealing with, of all things, religious
miracles) read at his funeral!”10 Altman: “Mere concealment for posterity.” Etc.
Rest assured, however, Altman is not claiming that Strauss
desired anything like immediate regime change in his newfound residence:
“I see the German Stranger’s project as primarily destructive; it was the
theoretical foundation of Liberal Democracy in general that he sought to
annihilate, not some new form of totalitarianism that he aimed to erect” (26).
Even this modified claim raises questions. Reader: “Are we to make nothing
of Strauss’s critical 1954 mention of Joseph McCarthy?”11 Altman: “How do
we know that he was really being critical?” In short, Altman’s project—taking a page from (his construal of) Strauss’s playbook—seeks to combat and
destroy Strauss’s reputation and corrupting influence. Hence, the polemical
nature of Altman’s book.
My tone thus far has been, admittedly, more polemical than
I would like it to be (or than I am used to writing). This is not because I believe
Altman’s work is fit for mockery—far from it. He writes on interesting topics
and brings a wealth of hitherto untranslated primary materials (in the form
of early essays and correspondence) from Strauss’s Gesammelte Schriften
(edited by Heinrich Meier) to the reader’s view; this occurs both in the body
of the text and in the extensive footnotes (which contain copious references
to, and passages from, these early texts; interestingly, Altman makes no use
of Strauss’s later lecture courses). Moreover, Altman presents his views with
passion and erudition that cannot be mistaken for the neutrality that Strauss
so often criticized. Were I to treat this case as an instance of philosophy, I
would be doing a manifest disservice to Altman’s text. Altman knows very
well that his project strongly aims at persuasion. If I have not misunderstood him, Altman’s argument is, in fact, premised on two indemonstrable
assumptions: (1) atheism implies or leads to nihilism and (2) such atheistic
nihilism leads to (views expressed by movements such as) National Socialism. To underappreciate this essential aspect of his work is to miss how his
claims function in terms of the “whole picture” he is trying to construct. As
a result, Benjamin Wurgaft’s perceptive comment that Altman’s correlations
between Strauss and Heidegger (and Strauss and Schmitt) do not constitute
causal connections between them is simultaneously absolutely correct and
10

Udoff, “On Leo Strauss,” 14.

Robert Howse, “From Legitimacy to Dictatorship—and Back Again: Leo Strauss’s Critique of the
Anti-Liberalism of Carl Schmitt,” in Law as Politics: Carl Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism, ed. David
Dyzenhaus (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 74.
11

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something of a side issue.12 Altman is not attempting to create a logical argument but rather (as Wurgaft recognizes) to prosecute a case. In painting a
picture of Strauss’s intellectual trajectory, Altman aims to discredit Strauss as
a friend of liberal democracy, Judaism, and philosophy (as normally understood). While the topic is dire, dour, and in my view misguided, Altman’s
virtuoso performance makes it impossible for readers to come away from
his book intellectually unprovoked. This becomes clearer when the book is
viewed in its properly polemical light. David Janssens holds that “while [Altman’s] critical readings yield many interesting insights, the framework within
which they are presented—the apocalyptic final battle between atheist nihilism and combative Christian Platonism for the soul of the Republic—finally
risks turning scholarly exposure and autobiography into epic poetry.”13 This
is not wholly a bad thing. As a piece of scholarship, its argument is extremely
problematic—but what a poem! Given that the book is as much about Altman’s journey along the Straussian path as it is about Strauss, one might refer
to it as the Altmaniad. And insofar as his book emphasizes the interpretive
principle that “[Strauss] counts on the fact that you will not believe me” (31),
Altman’s polemical intent is utterly clear.
Chapter 1 deals with Strauss’s initial work on Jacobi (in his
dissertation under Ernst Cassirer). Altman’s claim is that Jacobi was (unbeknownst to many scholars of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German
thought) an exoteric writer who (under the guise of Christianity) was really
a self-divinizing atheist. The claim that Jacobi was an exoteric writer is very
interesting and, if true, could be the basis for an entirely new narrative about
the reception of Spinoza in German Idealism. The current narrative goes
something like this: prior to Jacobi’s texts on Spinoza, the Dutch Jewish
thinker was appreciated as a social-political philosopher (by folks like Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine) whose major text was the Theological-Political
Treatise. However, “the biased manner in which Jacobi would fashion his
reading of Spinoza as a representative of a metaphysical position [based on
the Ethics] also led to the eclipse of interpretations of Spinoza that not only
preceded Jacobi but made his own reading possible.”14 This reading would
Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft, review of The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National Socialism, by
William H. F. Altman, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: An Electronic Journal, June 6, 2011,
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24717-the-german-stranger-leo-strauss-and-national-socialism/.
12

David Janssens, review of The German Stranger: Leo Strauss and National Socialism, by William F.
Altman, http://www.case.edu/artsci/jdst/reviews/German.htm.
13

Willi Goetschel, Spinoza’s Modernity: Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine (Madison: University of
Wisconsin Press, 2004), 12.
14

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be characterized by a Spinoza who was either an atheist or a pantheist (both
metaphysical categories) and it became the dominant reading for Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel. What obsessed these thinkers above all (as that which
needed to be overcome) was Spinoza’s substance-monism. If Altman is correct—if Jacobi’s Christianity was simply an exoteric cover for atheism—then
his bequeathing the metaphysical atheist Spinoza (instead of the social-political Spinoza who emphasizes the separation of church and state as well as a
civic religion based on justice and charity) to German Idealism might have
to be understood differently. Rather than illuminating Jacobi’s (and, thus,
German Idealism’s) concern over Spinoza’s atheism, this new reading might
suggest that Jacobi wanted to conceal Spinoza’s attempt at providing a rational
basis for religion in the public sphere. This would truly be a novel approach to
the German Enlightenment. Unfortunately, this lies somewhat outside the
purview of Altman’s project. Altman is concerned to show that Strauss (in
sharp contrast to his claim that philosophers did not write exoterically after
Lessing) knew of Jacobi’s exotericism, saw his atheistic nihilism, and (himself
not being a believer) followed Jacobi’s path. Since Altman’s Jacobi maintained
an atheistic nihilism in which all important matters were simply the product
of an irrational and self-serving “decision,” Altman holds Jacobi to be the
first proponent of “decisionism.”
Were the reader to ask how this atheistic nihilism is compatible with Strauss’s early activities in the political Zionist movement
Blau-Weiss, Altman stands ready in chapter 2. Having rejected his Orthodox
Jewish upbringing after studying Nietzsche, and having learned (from Jacobi)
the art of exoteric writing with which to mask atheistic (i.e., self-deifying)
nihilism, Strauss adopts a political stance that fits his views. Blau-Weiss, on
Altman’s account, was the most right-wing and antidemocratic of the political Zionist movements and thus (for Altman) fit Strauss’s needs perfectly.
During his time in Blau-Weiss, Strauss wrote essays that attacked cultural
Zionism (the view that Jews did not need a nation-state so much as a cultural
homeland) by means of “double envelopment.” At times, Strauss attacked
cultural Zionism for its connections to liberalism, while at other times he
attacked it for its proximity to Orthodoxy. Given that Altman’s Strauss was
a self-deifying nihilist, no concern about consistency in rhetoric was necessary. Moreover, Altman’s Strauss learned from the history of German
antisemitism to exploit the rhetoric of Verjudung to his own advantage—i.e.,
liberalism, Orthodoxy, even Christianity were at bottom secularized forms of
“Jewification.” Altman’s Strauss never comes out and says as much (except, of
course, “between the lines”). Ultimately, then, Strauss wished to rid the world

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of secularized Judaism (even if he did not call for the elimination of actual
Jews). The reader might wonder about Strauss’s 1962 Chicago Hillel lecture
“Why We Remain Jews” at this point: Reader: “How could Strauss simply
have disdain for cultural Zionism when the very premise of the lecture’s title
is a reference to Ahad Ha-‘Am’s essay ‘Slavery in Freedom’ (mentioned by
Strauss in the question-and-answer period as an essay ‘worthy of being read
by everyone interested in this [topic]’),15 which specifically asks the question
as to why we remain Jews?16 Moreover, how could Strauss want to rid society
of Judaism when the answer he gives to the lecture’s titular question is that
it is impossible to run away from our Jewish origins and remain ‘honorable
men’?”17 Altman: “That’s exactly what Strauss wants you to think.” Etc.
Chapters 3 and 4 treat, respectively, Strauss’s engagements
with the thought of Martin Heidegger and Carl Schmitt. That these two
thinkers embraced (for differing lengths of time) National Socialism is common knowledge. That many Weimar intellectuals (Jewish and Gentile) were
attracted to them is also well known. Finally, that many Weimar intellectuals—Strauss included (see his May 19, 1933 letter to Karl Löwith)—flirted
with far-right-wing ideas in their attempts to pose a credible critique of the
Weimar government is acknowledged. Altman’s claim is not simply that
Strauss knew the work of Heidegger and Schmitt or even that he appreciated
it. His claim is that Strauss took over the projects of Heidegger and Schmitt—
“two cowardly, utterly repulsive, lapel-pin-wearing Nazi philosophers”—and
“did what no mere Nazi could have done or even dreamed of doing: he boldly
brought his anti-liberal project to the United States” (26). If Heidegger and
Schmitt amount to the century’s most extreme German proponents of atheistic nihilistic decisionism, Strauss (in the guise of the German Stranger)
smuggled the virus into America. The claim that Heidegger and Schmitt were
atheists is open to question: Heidegger rejected his Catholic upbringing in
its doctrinal form, never in its cultural manifestation. It is hard to imagine
Schmitt—the author of Roman Catholicism and Political Form and the political theorist of the Katechon (“restrainer”) of 2 Thessalonians—as being an
atheist without qualification.
That qualification comes in chapter 5, in Altman’s discussion
of “secularization.” Altman’s usage of this concept can best be illuminated by
15

Leo Strauss, “Why We Remain Jews,” in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, 341.

Ahad Ha-‘Am, Selected Essays of Ahad Ha-‘Am, ed. Leon Simon (New York: Atheneum Press, 1962),
187, 194.
16

17

Strauss, “Why We Remain Jews,” 317, 329.

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reference to Jacob Klein’s June 19–20, 1934 letter to Strauss in which he refers
to National Socialism as “‘perverted Judaism,’ nothing else: Judaism without God” (257). Strauss’s response (June 23, 1934): “That National Socialism
is perverted Judaism I would admit. But only in the same sense in which I
admit this description for the whole modern world” (263). Altman’s commentary on both: “What Strauss means by ‘perverted Judaism’ is the opposite
of what Klein means by it: Klein assumes that there is an un-perverted core
of Judaism based on God. For Klein, this core becomes perverted when it
becomes National Socialism, i.e., Judaism without God. Strauss, who refuses
even to mention God, is naturally silent about this formulation. For Strauss,
Klein’s un-perverted Judaism, thanks to its dependence on ‘God,’ is already
‘perverted Judaism’” (264). Step one in Strauss’s internalization of Jacobian
atheistic-nihilistic decisionism occurs as a result of Strauss’s rejection of
God. Step two occurs in what Altman takes to be Strauss’s affirmation of
self-deification in place of religion: “National Socialism is only the last word
in ‘secularization,’ i.e., the belief in the harmony that produces itself from
itself or the reign of passion and feeling or in the sovereignty of the Volk”
(264). National Socialism, as Judaism without God, needs nothing outside of
its pure decisionistic willing of its own existence (by its own Volk) in order to
legitimate itself. That Heidegger and Schmitt were National Socialists means,
according to Altman’s definition of “secularization,” that they are atheists and
thus advocates of self-deifying power. The same applies to Altman’s Strauss:
“Secularization,” Strauss holds, “means…the preservation of thoughts, feelings, or habits of biblical origin after the loss or atrophy of biblical faith”
(267). Such usage of religious categories for a nonreligious end amounts (for
Altman) to self-deification. If National Socialism is “the last word in ‘secularization,’” then it (along with modernity) is the logical response to Verjudung.
The Strauss that Altman serves his reader is not only a
radically modern Strauss who understands nihilism, but in fact one who
embraces and desires nihilism. Chapters 6 and 7 give Altman’s first presentation of the “American Strauss” (the German Stranger, properly speaking)
through readings of his lecture “German Nihilism” and Natural Right and
History. Given that Altman’s overall narrative is doubtless familiar to readers at this point, I will point to what I take to be the unique moment in his
chapters: his discussion of National Socialism. In his introduction, Altman
informs the reader that he will oppose Strauss’s definition of National Socialism (from his 1965 preface to his Spinoza book) as “ha[ving] no other clear
principle except murderous hatred of the Jews” (10). Altman tells his readers
that he will not define National Socialism for them but “will rely on them to

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recognize National Socialism when they see it” (8). Fair enough. The problem
is that he continually breaks this promise in order to combat what he takes
to be Strauss’s pivot away from the real issue: “there is one guideline, subject
to later revision, that I will set out at the beginning: anti-Semitism, and a
fortiori eliminationist anti-Semitism, is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
component of Nazism. It is what Hitler sought—tyrannical power over his
nation—and not the specific internal enemies that he targeted in order to
obtain power that appears to be the crucial matter” (9).
I cannot recall a “later revision” to this initial observation.
Instead, Altman appears to fortify it in his reading of “German Nihilism.”
Strauss’s 1941 New School lecture was ostensibly given as a report on the former Nazi Hermann Rauschning’s recently published book The Revolution of
Nihilism: A Warning to the West. The reader discovers that Altman’s understanding of National Socialism coincides with Rauschning’s description
(with which, according to Altman, Strauss’s understanding coincides—albeit
in an inverted form). Thus Rauschning: “A sharp distinction must be drawn
in National Socialism between this genuinely irrational revolutionary passion, affecting not only the mass of followers but the leaders themselves, and
the very deliberate, utterly cold and calculating pursuit of power and dominance by the controlling group.…The doctrine was meant for the masses. It
is not part of the real motive forces of the revolution. It is an instrument for
the control of the masses. The élite, the leaders, stand above the doctrine.
They make use of it for the furtherance of their purposes” (306). Altman does
not question whether Rauschning’s description is exoteric, self-serving (having been a former Nazi, it is not unthinkable that it might be); he simply
accepts it as confirmation of his own, earlier stated views. It is the principle
of pure decisionist nihilism (atheist, self-deifying, etc.) that guides the upper
echelons of National Socialism. For Altman, Strauss shows his recognition of
this by giving it a philosophical articulation later in his lecture: “A new reality
is in the making; it is transforming the whole world; in the meantime there
is: nothing, but—a fertile nothing” (325). National Socialism, that “Judaism
without God,” stands opposed to liberal democracy (with its basis in Plato
and scripture). When confronted with National Socialism, Altman’s Strauss
sees, understands, and approves.
Even beyond the question whether or not Strauss’s ambiguities constitute affirmation of problematic views, something needs to be
said about the Altman/Rauschning definition of National Socialism. It is
clear that the Nazis opposed liberal democracy. It is clear that there was a

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hierarchy composed of élites and underlings. But this definition can also
encompass Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, and any other tyrannical regime.
To be sure, antisemitism is prevalent in places other than Nazi Germany.
Moreover, I agree with Altman’s contention that “it can happen here.” None
of this changes the fact that Strauss was right in his statement of 1965: the
only unique and distinguishing feature of National Socialism was its genocidal mission. Or was Saul Friedländer equally “on the vine” with the other
German intellectuals when he concluded that, given the increase in deportations and the initiations of death marches in 1944–45 (the very moment
when Germany was losing the war), “nothing seemed to have changed in
Hitler’s innermost ideological landscape from his earliest forays into political
propaganda in 1919 to the last months of his crusade against ‘the Jew’”?18
Also puzzling is Altman’s descriptions of “decisionism.” As
he uses it, the term seems to by a synonym for irrational nihilistic faith in
one’s will-to-self-deification. To read this back into Jacobi is anachronistic;
one can make a case that Heidegger’s conception of the “leap” (in his work
from the 1930s) owes its formulation to Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith” (but
Altman does not explore this view for perhaps obvious reasons); the term
was coined to describe Schmitt’s view that politics cannot simply be legitimated by norms (in a Kantian or post-Kantian sense), since those norms are
themselves legitimated within the context of concrete political existence. Let
us see what Schmitt actually says. In his 1928 Constitutional Theory, Schmitt
makes the following statement about constitutional laws and their grounding legitimacy: “For its validity as a normative regulation, every statute, even
constitutional law, ultimately needs a political decision that is prior to it, a
decision that is reached by a power or authority that exists politically. Every
existing political unity has its value and its ‘right to existence’ not in the
rightness or usefulness of norms, but rather in its existence.…Prior to the
establishment of any norm, there is a fundamental political decision by the
bearer of the constitution-making power. In a democracy, more specifically,
this is a decision by the people; in a genuine monarchy, it is a decision by
the monarch.”19 That Schmitt eventually decided to apply this conception
to National Socialism is a matter of historical fact. There is, however, nothing in this description that necessitates an irrational self-deifying nihilism.
All it says is that norms are accepted (and, thus, legitimated) as norms by
Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933–1945, abridged ed. (New York: HarperCollins,
2009), 415.
18

Carl Schmitt, Constitutional Theory, ed. Jeffrey Seitzer (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008),
76–77.
19

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a decision (be it democratic or monarchical). Arguably, this is exactly how
norms function in the United States. To say, as Altman presumably wants
to, that the United States is grounded in norms that ultimately have religious
foundations is prima facie in need of further proof insofar as it has never
ceased to be a subject of contention. In fact, one might argue that Schmitt’s
adoption of National Socialism was due more to his particular conception
of “sovereignty” than to his conception of “decision.”20 But this is all beside
the point for Altman, given his either/or dichotomy regarding the grounds of
politics (i.e., either the actual deity or self-deification).
Even if the reader concedes Altman’s point that a decision
always implies faith—either faith in God or nihilistic “faithless faith”—it is
difficult to see how Strauss can be accused of this. While he does say that
Athens and Jerusalem cannot refute one another (the adoption of either
one being a product of our choice—i.e., decision),21 his “Athenian citizenship” cannot be said to be grounded in an irrational decision (it is, in fact,
no more or less rational—and no more or less a decision—than is Altman’s).
The philosopher’s desire is to understand or comprehend the whole. If this
desire is not completely rational (it is, after all, a desire), it is not for that
reason irrational since its arc would find rest in an (albeit finite) understanding/comprehension of the whole. If there is less security in Athens than in
Jerusalem, it is not by virtue of its being nihilistic but, rather, in its clarity
about the limits of the human. At this point, I am fairly certain that Altman
would consider my reading to be (at best) that of a gentleman.
I will present Altman’s final two chapters (8 and 9) in reverse
order only because doing so will allow me to briefly contrast Altman’s approach
to the subject matter of his eighth chapter—Strauss’s 1954–55 Hebrew University lectures which comprise “What Is Political Philosophy?”—with my
own (in a manner similar to Altman’s juxtaposition of his own reading of
Plato with Strauss’s in chapter 9). That Altman takes extreme issue with
Strauss’s late interpretations of the ancients should not come as a surprise
to his readers. Yet he does, for all this, credit Strauss with making his own
interpretive stance possible: “Strauss’s willingness to read Plato as an exoteric
writer has made it possible to truly read the dialogues as they should be read
once again even though he slavishly employs the technique only to find ‘the
evil doctrine’ hidden between the lines. Despite all this, a post-Straussian
Paul W. Kahn, Political Theology: Four New Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (New York:
Columbia University Press), 9.
20

21

Leo Strauss, “Jerusalem and Athens,” in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, 380.

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awareness of exotericism will eventually revolutionize our understanding of
the Classics” (463). What is the “evil doctrine” that Strauss finds in Plato?
For Altman it consisted in “divorcing Plato from Platonism—and by extension from ‘Jerusalem’” (462). In transforming the forms into fundamental
problems, in separating Plato from the Bible, and in showing the primacy
of the political for the ancients, Altman’s Strauss brings his atheistic-nihilistic decisionism full circle from Jacobi through Heidegger and back to the
Greeks. Altman sets this reading in contradistinction to his own approach:
“The Plato I found was a Liberal Democrat who used the myth of an authoritarian city to persuade some boys—and I never for a moment doubted that I
was one of them—to go back down into the Cave in order to prevent tyrants
from destroying the freedom to philosophize that only Democracy makes
possible” (399–400). For Altman, Plato’s writing between the lines is always
already indexed to a (fully comprehended?) form of the good. The fact that
the good is evident in the city (rather than outside of it) means, for Altman,
that civic education is our primary (and never-ending) responsibility. This
concern is laudable. But his critique of Strauss as “separating Plato from Platonism” is worthy of mention for a different reason. Does Altman wish to
suggest that tradition—and the sectarianism and scholasticism to which it
has always given rise—is good in an unqualified sense? If so, why does Altman oppose those aspects of tradition with which he disagrees? Is there not
rather some sense in the project of recovering original insight (irrespective of
which figures one takes to “lead the way back”)?
The fact that the preceding question is (in a modern context)
inevitably linked to the figures of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Strauss is not lost
on Altman. In fact, his reading of “What Is Political Philosophy?” is premised
on the belief that despite Strauss’s talk about retrieving classical political philosophy, it is Heidegger who is the almost completely “unnamed presence”
(423) throughout the lectures. That Altman’s Strauss was now finally able to
import his evil atheism (nihilism, decisionism, etc.) to Jerusalem qualifies
it (on Altman’s terms) as Strauss’s “masterpiece” (404). Although Heidegger
is mentioned only once in the lectures, “Strauss’s return to classical political philosophy is the political equivalent…of Heidegger’s deconstruction of
the ontological tradition. The attempt to gain ‘a horizon beyond,’ so central
to Strauss’s radical critique of liberalism, is in fact a political application of
Heidegger’s far more sweeping approach” (411). And for evidence? “The most
revealing instance of Heidegger’s concealed influence on the crucial middle
section is visible in the discussion of the anti-democratic orientation of ‘the
Classical Solution.’ For the ancients, democracy is ‘an inferior kind of regime’

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because it can only be ‘government by the uneducated’” (412). Similarly,
“Heidegger’s thoughtful historicism clearly gave [Strauss] a criterion for recognizing when to seize the chance; i.e., when there exists a good dispensation
of fate in order to realize ‘the good society.’ The problem is that Heidegger was
wrong: the National Socialist Revolution failed.…Although he demonstrated
a poor sense of timing, Heidegger did the best ‘man’ can do in 1933. He did
not await the verdict of history—as Hegel would have done or as Strauss’s
Jewish background compelled him to do—but rather embraced the responsibility of putting his philosophy into political action” (419–20).
Imagine delivering this concealed Nazism to a Jewish audience; in 1954; in Israel; in “Jerusalem.” Imagine…
There is, in fact, one thinker who (gentlemanly reading notwithstanding) functions as an actual unnamed presence in “What Is Political
Philosophy?” He is also a figure who is given precious little analysis by Altman
in what is otherwise a “cast of thousands.” That thinker is Maimonides. It is
unclear why Altman spends so little time on the one figure Strauss continuously read in all periods of his intellectual career. The reader is compelled to
ask why Altman shies away from such analysis. In any event, the beginnings
of a Maimonides-centered reading of Strauss’s lectures would go something
like the following.
Taking Strauss’s oral communication to embody the form of
a Platonic dialogue, one would understand the first paragraph of the lectures
as setting the context for the whole. As it fulfills this function, I reproduce it
here in full:
It is a great honor, and at the same time a challenge to accept a task
of particular difficulty, to be asked to speak about political philosophy in Jerusalem. In this city, and in this land, the theme of political
philosophy—“the city of righteousness, the faithful city”—has been
taken more seriously than anywhere else on earth. Nowhere else has
the longing for justice and the just city filled the purest hearts and the
loftiest souls with such zeal as on this sacred soil. I know all too well
that I am utterly unable to convey to you what in the best possible case,
in the case of any man, would be no more than a faint reproduction
or a weak imitation of our prophets’ vision. I shall even be compelled
to lead you into a region where the dimmest recollection of that vision
is on the point of vanishing altogether—where the Kingdom of God is
derisively called an imagined principality—to say here nothing of the
region which was never illumined by it. But while being compelled,
or compelling myself, to wander far away from our sacred heritage,

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or to be silent about it, I shall not for a moment forget what Jerusalem
stands for.22

Strauss is indeed delivering something controversial to the newly formed
state of Israel—Athens. This is a delicate issue precisely because there are
those (in any state) who wish to see politics founded on religion. As a “citizen of Athens,” Strauss cautions against “filling the purest hearts and loftiest
souls” with “zeal” concerning “sacred soil.” The question throughout the lectures is: How does one issue a caution about theological-political fanaticism
while simultaneously allowing the philosophically minded to understand
that the Jerusalem/Athens distinction—while being the dialectically productive basis of Western civilization—has no worldly solution?
There is a barely noticeable gap between his discussion of
classical political philosophy and modern political philosophies (i.e., between
sections/lectures 2 and 3). The one figure who, for Strauss, actively confronted
(and never ceased to confront) the Jerusalem/Athens distinction is missing.
He is not only a figure about whom Strauss has written much, but he is also
a figure on whom Strauss lectured during his year at Hebrew University (in
fact, this event was big enough that the Maimonidean Yeshayahu Liebowitz
acted as Strauss’s commentator).23 However, if classical political philosophy
accepts the role of chance in the actualization of the best regime,24 and if
Machiavelli (as the first modern political philosopher) expresses both (1) an
awareness of religious fanaticism and theocracy and (2) a desire to overcome
chance as a constitutive principle of regimes, the reader is compelled to ask
the following question: Is there a thinker who rejects the theocratic impulse
but at the same time resists the self-divinatory impulses of modern philosophy and preserves the classical ordering principle of nature which includes
an acknowledgement of nature’s limits—i.e., of chance? I would submit that
the answer to this question is Maimonides. To be sure, Strauss viewed him as
a “citizen of Athens.” Moreover, to explicitly locate Maimonides as an Athenian (in that context) might not be terribly helpful for nonphilosophers who
are concerned about forming (and founding) the identity of a Jewish state.
On this reading, Strauss raises the issue of theocratic fanaticism as a cautionary tale for some, while indicating the insolubility of the Jerusalem/Athens
distinction for others. If I am right, if Maimonides is the “silent center” of
Leo Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” in What Is Political Philosophy? and Other Studies
(Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1959), 9–10.
22

23

I should like to thank Warren Zev Harvey for mentioning this fact to me in an email correspondence.

24

Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 34.

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Strauss’s Jerusalem lectures—and given that Maimonides was exposed to
both Athens and Jerusalem and continued to write as he did, defending both
cities (i.e., as a philosopher)—I am compelled to raise the following question:
What can it mean to be a “citizen of Athens” and be open to the challenge of
Jerusalem in a manner affirming the dialectical tension that gave (and continues to give) rise to Western civilization? This is the unpolemical terminus
of my polemical review of Altman’s provocative polemic.

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Book Review: The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880–1896

213

Daniel Klinghard, The Nationalization of American Political Parties, 1880–
1896. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010, xii + 268 pp., $95.00.

A ndr ew Br a msen
University of Notre Dame
abramsen@nd.edu

The Nationalization of American Political Parties examines why at the supposed high point of American political parties (the late
nineteenth century), the writings of party leaders contain “a raging debate
over the need to renew party organizations in America” instead of “a ringing
defense of traditional methods” (vii). In investigating the sources of party
leader angst and how it changed the American party system, this book demonstrates that the ideas of party leaders were crucially important in bringing
about this party system transformation. Klinghard here diverges from other
scholars by arguing that the system change was “a political thing, crafted by
practical politicians” rather than the result of a grand ideological shift (ix).
Klinghard’s work attempts to refute three common claims
about nineteenth-century politics. First, the Jacksonian party model was
not particularly representative or participatory, as it involved the use of
local patronage to cultivate party loyalty rather than doing so through the
implementation of effective national policies. While this organizational
model offered certain advantages in the more sectionalized pre–Civil War
electorate, it was ripe for change in the postwar era as increasing links and
common interests were forged across states. Second, Klinghard shows that
while there were undemocratic antiparty reformers, their ideologies were not
implemented by party leaders. Third, McKinley’s 1896 campaign did not lead
to the decline of popular politics, but was instead exemplary in its effective
use of the new national party-in-the-electorate.
Klinghard agrees with the historians—contra some political
scientists—that despite the trauma of the Civil War, the essential nature of
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the Jacksonian party model designed by Van Buren remained in place until
the 1880s. He argues that this changed between 1880 and 1896 as political
party leaders saw the need to adjust their strategic approach to take advantage
of the post-Civil-War-era increase in individualism and issue nationalization.
They did so by paying less attention to the increasingly unrealistic assumption
of Jacksonian parties that “states had definitive and unitary interests” (69),
instead taking advantage of the rapid multiplication of new civic associations
that “emphasized the centrality of independent judgment” (73). While this
came at a cost to party loyalty, it allowed national leaders to bypass the limiting
agendas of local party leaders in favor of a more unified national campaign.
Party leaders reformed the national party organization in
four key ways based on lessons they learned from the experiences of the
new civic associations. First, parties began using educational methods in
campaigning, distributing national campaign literature directly to voters
instead of leaving it to local and state party leaders to decide what issues to
emphasize. These educational campaigns “abandoned the republican values
of communal appeals, compromise, localism, and mobilization, emphasizing
instead substantive appeals that were national in scope, appealed to voters’
interests, and questioned traditional partisan lines” (104). Second, national
committees were formed to coordinate and directly run national campaigns,
as parties attempted to appeal to business by incorporating their methods
and leadership.
The third change involved the formation of party clubs that
created “a direct relationship between the national party and the party-in-theelectorate” (99), as “the procedures for integrating new clubs into the national
association…[brought] local clubs under the influence of national party leaders, breaking their members away from traditional localistic boundaries”
(135). Although party clubs ultimately faded as a means of political organization, they “shaped the notion of a national party-in-the-electorate with a
direct relationship with the national party organizations” (143).
The final major change in party organization involved presidential candidates getting directly involved in national campaign strategy.
Klinghard demonstrates that Grover Cleveland’s trio of proactive presidential
campaigns leading to three popular-vote victories were critical in effecting
the change from the legislative-branch-dominated Jacksonian nominating
convention to a more constitutional and popular approach. He thus agrees
with David Nichols that the “modern” presidency is more of a return to the

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215

original constitutional presidency.1 Cleveland accomplished this new brand
of political leadership by availing himself of the new civic associations, by
effectively combining his veto power with public appeals, and by making use
of executive messages. For example, his 1887 message to Congress focusing
exclusively on the tariff issue demonstrated this new approach by “inviting
public comment and giving the party-in-the-electorate reason to read the
message in the privacy of their homes—it was the campaign of education
applied to presidential leadership” (167). While his 1887 tariff policy was not
implemented, it assured his renomination since a rejection of him would—in
the public mind—have meant rejecting the party’s tariff policy.
Much as Cleveland did for the Democratic Party, William
McKinley changed how Republicans saw the president’s role, as he won a
triumphant victory through a strategy of directly addressing the voters.
McKinley then applied this logic to the presidency itself by using his inaugural address to “bind his fellow Republicans to the results of the election,
as he defined them” (230), a marked change from the Jacksonian-era Whig
approach to shunning executive power and direct party leadership.
The switch to more nationalized political campaigns was
no easy transition as local party organizations “were not willing to sacrifice
their hard-won state and local independence simply to empower national
majorities” (7). While change did occur through the initiative and flexibility
of party leaders and presidential candidates who advocated for it through
emphasizing practical political consideration, much of the old state and local
party organization remained in place well into the twentieth century.
This dual system highlights a major contribution of this
book. Klinghard is clear that he is not “disputing the value of the concept
of path dependency to political science” (241), but he argues that we must
“delineate between types of political institutions that are more or less susceptible to self-reinforcing developmental processes” (241–42). In short, owing to
the greater turnover in party leadership, the continually shifting nature of the
key political issues of the moment, and the layers of party organization, path
dependence is less useful in understanding how political parties develop than
it is in understanding the development of other political institutions. National
Republican and Democratic party organizations moved strongly in a new
direction between 1880 and 1896, yet local and state party organizations won
See David Nichols, The Myth of the Modern Presidency (University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1994), 26–27.
1

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a number of turf battles, thereby suggesting that choices made by the party at
one level did not greatly constrain party leaders at other levels. Ultimately the
more representative national electoral ideal that party leaders were seeking
in this era was not really achieved until presidential primaries finally gained
primacy in the 1970s as the method of selecting presidential nominees. Thus
a process that Klinghard argues began in 1880 took nearly a century to reach
fulfillment, with many steps both forward and backward in the interim, steps
that point to the limits of path-dependence analysis.
My main critique of this generally excellent work is that
Klinghard provides mixed evidence for his argument that the party organizational shift produced better representation. While it did so in that it
made parties more effective in passing policies with national appeal, it also
increased the potential for manipulation from above as parties began to be
more top-down than bottom-up organizations. Thus parties began representing national coalitions more effectively, while paying less attention than
before to the concerns of smaller political communities.
Overall, The Nationalization of American Political Parties
provides a valuable contribution by showing that national party campaigns
began to supersede local party organizations as a result of the contingent political decisions of leaders as they attempted to adjust to the new environment
in which state issues mattered less and in which there were more organizations with which they had to compete. Klinghard’s careful documentation
of the history of the move toward a more national party is exemplary. While
providing a clear statement of what the book will argue at the beginning and
documenting it throughout, the book’s contribution could be more clearly
articulated in the book’s conclusion. Nevertheless, Klinghard’s work on the
whole demonstrates the importance of taking agency seriously in political
science analysis and reminds readers that political changes that seem to be
driven by structural or institutional factors often contain contingent decisions that—made differently—could have changed the course of political
development in important ways. As he points out, the mixed and often conflicted development of American parties both reinforces the importance of
decisions in shaping an organization’s developmental path and reminds us of
the continued role of individual agency throughout the process.

Book Review: Governing through Institution Building

217

Johan P. Olsen, Governing through Institution Building: Institutional Theory
and Recent European Experiments in Democratic Organization. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010, 249 pp., $85 (hardcover).

Institutions at Issue
L aw r e n c e M . M e a d
New York University
LMM1@nyu.edu

Johan P. Olsen is an important figure in political science. Along
with his coauthors, he has formed the leading defense against the total takeover
of the discipline by economics. And he has done it in the name of institutions.
As he recalls in Governing through Institution Building,
political science was once all about institutions. After the discipline first
appeared in the late nineteenth century, political scientists typically studied
the formal structures of government. Woodrow Wilson—the only political
scientist to become president—wrote about Congress, the Constitution, and
public administration.
But after World War II, such description came to seem no
better than high-school civics or journalism. Political scientists longed to discover the actual patterns of political power, which might differ greatly from
the formal structures. So instead of dissecting the institutions, they traced
political influence back to social and economic forces outside government,
a tendency reflecting the influence of Marxism. Even more, they analyzed
politics in terms of individual voters or politicians. Once you did that, many
believed, the institutions became merely the arena in which political combat
occurred, and they lost all independent importance.
In recent decades, the use of game theory has driven this
individualism to new levels. The “rational choice” approach, which first arose
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in economics, presumes that voters and politicians act out of self-interest.
They seek to maximize their own utilities, typically meaning economic
advantage. To analyze politics means to write equations that specify how the
pursuit of individual advantage leads to the behavior we observe. Effectively,
politics becomes a branch of economics. Rational choice provoked something close to a civil war in political science, yet it still advanced. By 2007, 30
percent of articles published in the American Political Science Review used
rational choice methods, up from 9 percent in 1968.1
The resistance was ineffective in part because opponents felt
threatened by the new methods yet made no serious argument against them.
Modelers dismissed the resistance as old-fashioned fuddy-duddies who
should learn more mathematics. A serious argument, however, is just what
Olsen and his allies provided. In 1984, he and James G. March proclaimed a
“new institutionalism.” They questioned the new orthodoxy that only individuals matter. Institutions, they argued, are not just the arena within which
actors maneuver; they also shape the goals and norms of the players themselves.2 In a series of books and articles since then, March, Olsen, and their
allies have continued to make this case.
The new institutionalism is conservative in harking back to
an older political science, yet it is radical in its own way. As Olsen notes, “The
modern project is the pursuit of will, understanding, and control” (74), but
in politics that goal is quixotic at both the individual and collective level.
In government, individuals do not act rationally in the simple, calculating
way assumed in economics. New institutionalists draw on the organization
theory developed by Herbert Simon, James March, and others. That theory
says that action by individuals in an organization is “bounded” by the rules
that body gives them for reaching their decisions. Similarly, political actors
are shaped by their institutions. They are only “boundedly rational” (13).
Their behavior is less calculating than it is “rule-following” (126).
Still more radically, Olsen says, the political system cannot
engage in simple rational action. We presume that in a democracy the institutions are created to achieve goals determined by the people through their
representatives. But this “democratic-instrumental vision” (12) exaggerates
how directly leaders can pursue change. Public institutions are not created
See Lawrence M. Mead, “Scholasticism in Political Science,” Perspectives on Politics 8, no. 2 (2010):
459–61.
1

See James G. March and Johan P. Olsen, “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in
Political Life,” American Political Science Review 78, no. 3 (1984): 734–49.
2

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219

fresh for every new decision. Policymakers face a ground already encumbered by past procedures, programs, and agencies. Any new action will
interact with that institutional legacy, making outcomes indeterminate. The
public is currently disillusioned with government. It yearns for some radical
transformation. Usually, however, only incremental change is possible.
The new institutionalists are latter-day Burkeans. For them,
policymaking is not conducted on a tabula rasa. Statesmen must act using the
building blocks of existing structures, and they are wise to accept this. That
heritage means that they never act alone. Even if they have all power formally,
in practice they share it with those who occupy the existing institutions.
Olsen dramatized this in connection with bureaucracy.
According to Max Weber’s formal theory, bureaucracy is an exercise in
collective rational action. Agencies are set up to do the will of democratic
leaders as codified in law, and to optimize the details of policy where officials
are left with discretion. But in practice, the people who comprise organizations are seldom optimal for the problem at hand, nor is their task clearly
defined, nor are decision procedures clear. In a famous article, Olsen and
coauthors demonstrated that under such conditions, group decision-making can resemble a “garbage can,” or an “organized anarchy,” with highly
variable and irrational results.3
Rational choice modelers dismiss such arguments as insufficiently analytic. Olsen and his allies, they say, are simply describing the
irrationality of government viewed from the outside. They have not driven
their analysis home to the individual actors and their motivations. Had they
done so, outcomes would seem less crazy and could, potentially, be improved.4
Olsen retorted, however, that mere description of what goes on in government is essential, the beginning of theory. To deny this reflects an “imperialist
intellectual tradition,” the false idea that “a single, simple theory of human
action” is enough to understand actual government. A “catholic approach”
that admits varying motivations, some of them shaped by institutions, is far
more realistic.5

See Michael D. Cohen, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen, “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice,” Administrative Science Quarterly 17, no. 1 (1972): 1–25.
3

See Jonathan Bendor, Terry M. Moe, and Kenneth W. Shotts, “Recycling the Garbage Can: An
Assessment of the Research Program,” American Political Science Review 95, no. 1 (2001): 169–90.
4

See Johan P. Olsen, “Garbage Cans, New Institutionalism, and the Study of Politics,” American
Political Science Review 95, no. 1 (2001): 191–98.
5

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In the current book, Olsen elaborates the main themes of
new institutionalist thinking in the context of the European Union. The EU is
an ambitious structure for continent-wide economic policymaking to which
twenty-seven countries now belong. Headquartered in Brussels, it oversees
and regulates a common economic market to which all members have access
without the trade restrictions that usually separate countries. It also subsidizes
European farmers and its poorer member states, among other functions. This
vast edifice has grown up in stages since 1951, every one of them contested
among the members or by various parties and leaders within them.
Secondarily, Olsen contests the “new public management,”
the recent idea that government can be “reinvented” by devolving many
functions to private or nonprofit bodies and holding them accountable for
efficiency or results, as if their clients were private-sector “consumers” rather
than citizens. The author finds that such thinking has not and cannot replace
the older focus on bureaucratic formality. Rather, the two theories exist in
tension, each checking and challenging the other.
These complex settings dramatize Olsen’s moral about the
difficulty of deliberate change. But not every government setting is this complex or conflicted. Rapid and directed change can occur when policymakers
are sufficiently determined to achieve it. One American example was the
enforcement of voting rights for blacks following the civil rights reforms
of the 1960s. And the new institutionalism presumes that there are strong
institutions worth analyzing. The great problem in much of the world is precisely that institutions are weak. Norms of good behavior are insufficient for
government to work well, or to restrain rampant corruption by office holders.
In those regimes, the rational choice presumption that everyone is out for
himself becomes all too true. So the applicability of the new institutionalism
is largely confined to strong governments, most of them Western.
Methodological struggles such as Olsen’s have unfortunately
absorbed all too much of political science’s energy in recent decades. The
more pedestrian work of just getting the facts on how government and politics work has often been forgotten. Olsen says he esteems this journalistic side
of research, but he does not demonstrate that himself. The main limitation of
this book is that the discussion is almost entirely theoretical. Almost nothing
Olsen claims is supported by examples and illustrations. If one knows the
history of the EU and its major institutions, one can, so to speak, fill in the
blanks. But an argument backed up with actual research on the EU would
have had much more authority. As James Q. Wilson has said, few of those

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who theorize about bureaucracy ever studied it close up, and in this book
Olsen is no exception.
In this lack of empiricism, ironically, Olsen resembles nothing so much as his rational choice opponents, many of whom would rather
model government than investigate it. They have dragged him away from the
close observation of government that he says he wants. Olsen opposes their
scholasticism, but—perhaps inevitably—he is tarred with his own brush. The
task begun by political science over a century ago of understanding governing institutions is still unfinished.

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Reply to Leibowitz

223

Reply to Leibowitz
Dav i d L e v y
Emory University
dlevy8@emory.edu

David Leibowitz and I are somehow speaking past one
another. His reply to my review suggests I missed his “fundamental point”
along with many others (98–99, cf. 96), and I believe he has not understood
my objections to his book’s argument and his fundamental point in particular.1 Our exchange thus risks a descent to the relatively uninteresting
question of who interpreted whom correctly. But, as Leibowitz notes in his
reply, behind our disagreements stands our shared belief in the great significance of Socrates’s account of his “Delphic Mission”; strange as it should
seem to those who do not accept our view of the Apology, the very possibility
and goodness of the life we both seek to understand and to live is at stake
(95, 102). Thus, I will not dwell on all our disagreements—I address some
points in my notes, and encourage those interested to compare the relevant
texts for themselves—focusing only on clarifying our disagreements about
his fundamental point and related matters.
In his reply, Leibowitz stresses that his fundamental point is
expressed in a passage in his book that reads, “consciously or unconsciously,
the believer raises the claim that god’s commandments and actions are just,
and this claim can be examined,” or at least Socrates suspects as much (99).
I do not agree that Leibowitz’s book manages to present this point altogether

David Leibowitz, The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato’s “Apology” (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010); David Levy, review of The Ironic Defense of Socrates, by David Leibowitz,
Interpretation 38, no. 3 (2011): 261–69; David Leibowitz, “Reply to Levy: Socrates’s Post-Delphic Refutations,” Interpretation 39, no. 1 (2012): 95–102. All unspecified references are to Leibowitz’s reply.
1

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unambiguously,2 but my review certainly does not miss that this is his point.
This is the reason I went on to argue about the existence of believers who
are exceptions to his fundamental point (Levy, 267), an unnecessary task if
Leibowitz fully acknowledged their existence.3 Furthermore, I said only that
“Leibowitz seems to acknowledge” the exceptions to his fundamental point,
because, though he appeared for a moment to admit this defect in his argument, in my view, he did not face it squarely (Levy, 267; emphasis added).
Leibowitz’s fundamental point is a key premise for that
aspect of his account of Socrates’s Delphic refutations to which I object.
I do not object to the suggestion that “moral man as such is the potential
believer” (100). As my review indicates, I find plausible Leibowitz’s suggestion
that Socrates believes moral beliefs provide some kind of basis for belief in
the gods, and that Socrates’s Delphic refutations were his way of testing this
belief (Leibowitz, Ironic Defense, 72, 88; Levy, 264–65). But in his attempt to
describe these refutations more precisely, Leibowitz argues that they consist
in refutations of beliefs about the gods’ justice or morality (Leibowitz, Ironic
Defense, 92–99). This particular view of Socrates’s Delphic refutations seems
to be what makes Leibowitz’s fundamental point so fundamental to him: if
there are believers who do not believe in intelligibly just gods, Leibowitz’s refutations would leave them unscathed. And it is about the claim that Socrates’s
See Leibowitz, Ironic Defense, 95: to the objection he allows that one might raise to his argument,
namely, that Socrates’s approach does not deal with those who believe that the gods are unjust, he
responds with a tentative suggestion that he quotes in his reply (99). I did not realize that Leibowitz
thought this tentative suggestion sufficient to answer the objection he had raised. Moreover, a few
lines earlier in the book, he announces his suspicion that “Socrates finds that such belief [in unjust
gods or gods unconcerned with justice]…is not only rare but is almost never supported” (Ironic
Defense, 95, my emphasis; cf. Levy, 267). Here, Leibowitz seems to admit that he suspects that sometimes Socrates does find such belief. Finally, see also Ironic Defense, 99n72: “a believer may believe, or
in the course of examination come to believe, that, owing to intrinsic weakness or corruption by sin,
human reason sometimes sees divine truths, and perhaps others as well, as false and even self-contradictory”; Leibowitz does not appear to qualify his remark here with any suggestion about the believer’s
unconscious belief. Later in the note, he refers to “those who reconcile themselves to unfathomable
gods and inexpressible divine experiences.” Leibowitz does suggest an examination of these believers
that might have the effect of changing their beliefs, but this examination, as Leibowitz describes it,
presupposes the existence of believers who are at the outset reconciled to unfathomable gods.
2

To be precise, Leibowitz does not quite say that I missed his fundamental point, saying only that
one of my sentences misses it (98–99), and Leibowitz’s responses to arguments I make against his
fundamental point suggest his awareness that I understood the point (98–100). He similarly implies
that his “fundamental contention” contradicts my suggestion that, according to him, Socrates’s refutations concern the “discrepancy” between believers’ moral views and their beliefs about the gods (96). I
make this suggestion with the support of statements in his book such as the following: “[Socrates] tries
to make these men see that the moral content of their experience—the divine command, let us say—is
incompatible with the moral perfection…that they demand…of god” (Leibowitz, Ironic Defense, 93;
see also especially the top of 94). Leibowitz’s account asserts and depends on this discrepancy.
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Delphic refutations were his refutations of beliefs about the morality of the
gods in particular that my review expresses doubt (Levy, 266–67).
It is not entirely clear that Leibowitz considers his fundamental point to be distinct from the portion of his account that I find plausible. In
a passage from his book that he quotes in his reply, he writes, “perhaps believers, whether they know it or not, expect the gods to be bound by some kind
of humanly intelligible law or justice. That is, however much they may think
that their moral beliefs derive from their beliefs about the gods, the truth may
be that their beliefs about the gods, including the belief that they have had
contact with gods, somehow derive from their merely human moral beliefs”
(97; my emphasis). As his “that is” suggests, Leibowitz seems to link the suggestion that belief in the gods derives from moral beliefs very closely to his
fundamental point, that all believers believe in intelligibly just gods. Now,
Leibowitz’s claim about the basis of beliefs in the gods is certainly logically
distinct from his fundamental point, and it is not self-evident that a moral
basis for belief in the gods necessitates belief in moral gods. If morality provides a basis for belief, it is not unlikely that this basis would be reflected in
the character of the beliefs themselves, but an argument is required to explain
why a moral basis for belief in the gods necessitates that these be beliefs in
moral gods. Furthermore, even on the assumption that belief in gods is
always somehow belief in just gods, it is not clear—especially in light of the
difficulties that the course of the world creates for this belief—that these gods
must be intelligibly just. Therefore, since I do not see why Socrates’s suspicion
of a moral basis of belief would lead to the conclusion that all believers believe
in intelligibly moral gods, I doubt a description of Socrates’s refutations that
includes this claim about believers as a fundamental premise.
My reasons for doubting the accuracy of Leibowitz’s account
of the Delphic refutations do not end here. I also doubt that textual evidence
supports it (Levy, 266). Leibowitz does offer evidence from the Apology that
Socrates was aware of common moral beliefs about the gods, and Leibowitz can point to refutations in the Republic and Laws that are similar to the
Delphic refutations he describes (97–98). But he offers no evidence from the
Apology’s description of these refutations that Socrates refutes beliefs about
the gods in particular.4 And it is doubtful that Socrates regards the refutation
in the Republic, which Leibowitz cites as an example, as a refutation of beliefs

Note that Socrates’s refutation of Meletus, which Leibowitz emphasizes in his reply (98), does
concern morality and the gods, but does not refute Meletus’s moral beliefs about the gods (24b–28a).
4

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about the gods,5 or that Plato regards the refutations Leibowitz cites in the
Laws as serving the purpose of the Delphic refutations.6
As I also suggest in my review (Levy, 267n5), I believe Leibowitz’s remarks about the Euthyphro, which he further develops in his reply,
serve to cast doubt on his description of the Delphic refutations. Leibowitz
describes the Euthyphro as depicting a failed approach to the theological
problem, but by what standard does he judge it a failure? It seems to be that
Socrates fails to move Euthyphro in the manner required by the Delphic
refutations as Leibowitz understands them (96n1; Leibowitz, Ironic Defense,
95)—the very standard I doubt. To prove that the Euthyphro depicts a Delphic
refutation would require a full interpretation of the dialogue, but for those
inclined, as I am, to suspect that Socrates’s ironic statement at the end of the
dialogue contains a serious truth, there is more reason to believe that the
Euthyphro depicts a Delphic refutation than that the arguments Leibowitz
cites do. At the conclusion of the dialogue, Socrates notes that he has given
up his hope to learn from Euthyphro about piety, and, lacking a teacher in
divine matters, he remains in ignorance about them (15e–16a). Socrates’s failure to find such an educator is surely reminiscent of the failures he recounts
in his discussion of his Delphic investigations, and this failure also amounts
to the discovery that Euthyphro cannot teach him. This discovery, then, if it
is meant as a discovery of Euthyphro’s incompetence as a teacher, a subject
the dialogue does not fail at least to touch upon,7 would amount to as great
a success as any Leibowitz’s Socrates could attain through the refutations
Leibowitz describes: it would confirm that Euthyphro does not have genuine
evidence or knowledge of the gods.8
It is not clear that Cephalus regards his belief about justice as a belief about a divine command,
as Leibowitz’s account requires; what is more, Socrates is not concerned to establish that Cephalus
believes this view to have divine sanction (331b–d; Leibowitz, Ironic Defense, 93–94). See also David
Bolotin’s criticism of Leibowitz’s textual evidence (David Bolotin, “Delphic Examinations,” St. John’s
Review 53, no. 1 [2011]: 95).
5

See again Bolotin, “Delphic Examinations,” 95. One cannot even be certain that Socrates is present
in the Laws, which alone would make it a very strange place for Plato to offer one of his two major
depictions of Socrates’s distinctive philosophic activity.
6

7

See Euthyphro 4e–5a, 6a–7a, 11b–c, 14b–c.

That is, according to Leibowitz’s more defensible statements about what Socrates could learn from
his refutations, as opposed to the suggestion that Socrates’s refutations could determine whether or
not there are gods (Ironic Defense, 71; cf. 87–88). In this regard, consider even Leibowitz’s formulation
of what he believes is his “fundamental point,” according to which “the believer raises the claim…that
god’s commandments and actions are just, and this claim can be examined” (99; my emphasis): here,
again, Leibowitz turns his focus to examinations about the gods from examinations of believers’ evidence. Compare his sounder discussions of Socrates’s study of believers’ evidence (e.g., 99, 101; Ironic
Defense, 67–69, 72), and see Bolotin’s criticism (“Delphic Examinations,” 91–94). As his formulation of
8

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I doubt Leibowitz’s description of the Delphic investigations
not only because it is not justified by his claim about the moral basis of belief
and lacks textual support. I doubt also that many believers can be refuted in
the manner Leibowitz suggests, and thus that Socrates would have relied on
these refutations (Levy, 267). As Leibowitz notes in his reply, this issue can
only be settled by testing believers ourselves (100), yet short of such tests, I
believe there is good reason to doubt that Leibowitz’s refutations could be
successful. There are many believers who deny believing in intelligibly just
gods, but Leibowitz believes they are mistaken about their own convictions:
according to his fundamental point, they claim “unconsciously” that god is
intelligibly just (99).9 However, I do not believe Leibowitz offers any good
reason to distrust these claims not to believe in intelligibly just gods, just as
his failure to show that his fundamental point follows from the premise that
all belief in the gods derives from moral beliefs leaves us without good reason
to think that Socrates would distrust these claims. Furthermore, since many
of these believers appear quite convinced that they believe what they claim,
I think it is implausible that many of them would be shaken by arguments
against their god’s justice, as is required by Leibowitz’s account (Leibowitz,
Ironic Defense, 94, 96).10
Still, there seems to be a large group of believers who profess to hold the kinds of views that Leibowitz’s Socrates can refute, and thus
my argument so far could give the impression that the approach Leibowitz
describes merely needs to be supplemented with an alternative approach for
these difficult cases. But I doubt that Leibowitz’s approach could be truly successful even with many believers who profess to believe in intelligibly just
gods, because many of these believers, even when they express this agreement,
may fail genuinely or fully to understand it. And this is a possibility of which
Socrates was well aware, as we can see from the Euthyphro. Regardless of how
one interprets the dialogue’s final teaching, all can see that Euthyphro voices
his fundamental point may well suggest, confidence that claims about the gods are claims about intelligible gods would make it seem easier to refute beliefs about the gods themselves, which would relieve
one of that ignorance about the gods characteristic of Socrates (Euthyphro 6a–b).
For examples of thoughtful believers who have claimed to believe in mysterious gods and mysterious divine commands or who have denied that their claims about the gods can be properly examined
by the reason of unbelievers, see Leo Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, trans. E. M. Sinclair
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 193–209; Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed, III.25–26;
cf. Bolotin, “Delphic Examinations,” 96. Finally, consider Maimonides’s discussion of the Ash’ariyya
sect’s view of providence (Guide, III.17).
9

As Bolotin notes, it also would not be possible for Socrates to be sure in many cases that he had
shaken a believer’s belief (“Delphic Examinations,” 92; cf. 88–89).
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his agreement to a suggestion that would subordinate the gods’ will or commands to an independent standard (10d–e). But then, once Socrates brings
out the consequences of this agreement for the status of the gods’ will, which,
according to the agreement, would merely comply with the higher standard
(10e–11b), Euthyphro realizes he did not understand the earlier agreement
and even blames Socrates for the confusion (11b–d). And at the end of the
dialogue, as Socrates notes, Euthyphro is still convinced that the gods’ will
is prior to any standard (15b–c). Furthermore, the possibility depicted in the
Euthyphro strikes me as one that is likely to be common precisely if Leibowitz
is correct that believers tend to be confused about the beautiful, just, and
good. For in this case, when considering divine commands, believers are
likely to be of (at least) two minds about the commands’ beauty, justice, or
goodness. And it would be in keeping with this confusion if they believe,
as many appear to do, that the god’s command is both manifestly just and
a product of such divine perfection as is superior to any humanly intelligible standard, or that justice means both their performance of tasks which
are intrinsically just or good and their adherence to mysterious commands.
For these believers, refutations of their gods’ justice are much more likely to
leave them puzzled than shaken, since these refutations have not taken into
account their full belief.
Thus, I doubt for many reasons Leibowitz’s claim that the
Delphic refutations focus on beliefs about the gods’ morality, and our disagreement begins with his fundamental point. However, the discussion
Leibowitz offers in his book of the link desert provides between morality and
piety could seem to provide a partial basis for his fundamental point (Ironic
Defense, 177). If belief is possible only for someone who believes he deserves
a divinely given reward, then it would make some sense to claim that all gods
are believed to be just or rewarding (though it would remain unclear why
these gods must be intelligibly just) (cf. Levy, 268). Therefore, after noting
the connection between Leibowitz’s treatment of desert and his description
of the Delphic refutations, my review criticized the suggestion that it is this
concern for desert that provides a basis for belief.
Leibowitz’s reply raises several objections to my criticism.
The most important of these objections is his indication that, by referring to
morality as a “basis” for belief, he meant only that morality is a necessary and
not a sufficient condition for belief (101).11 For in my review, I did not focus
Leibowitz also objects to my neglect of his “more nuanced” formulation, according to which
morality provides a “basis” on which certain experiences are interpreted as divine (101). I neglect this
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my criticism solely on the claim that desert provides a necessary precondition
for belief. Still, I also expressed my doubt that Leibowitz had indicated “any
way in which our moral beliefs provide a basis for piety” (Levy, 269; emphasis
added). And I continue to believe that he has failed to show how morality
serves as a necessary precondition for belief. If morality is a necessary precondition for belief, then it must offer something that the amoral man lacks,
which makes it possible for the moral man to believe when the amoral man
cannot, and I do not believe Leibowitz provides a satisfactory account of what
it is that morality offers. In his book, Leibowitz emphasizes in particular
that desert “links” morality and belief in the gods (Ironic Defense, 177), but
whether and how this link would serve as a necessary precondition of belief
remains unclear. As it seems to me, it is sufficiently clear that a concern for
desert provides moral men a specific need or longing for the gods that amoral
men lack, but an amoral man who merely wishes not to die may also long for
a god. Thus, noting a longing for the gods that morality gives to moral men
does not explain why the moral man may be able to believe in a god who
answers his longing when the amoral man cannot. It is also clear that under
certain circumstances the belief that one deserves a reward can contribute to
the hope or belief that one will receive it, namely, when one also believes in a
power that provides deserved rewards, but it remains unclear in Leibowitz’s
account whether and how the belief in or concern for desert could permit
any confidence that such a power exists. Similarly, Leibowitz also refers to a
variety of moral-religious experiences and beliefs in addition to desert (e.g.,
100–102), and I cannot say an analysis of these experiences and beliefs would
not show how morality is a necessary precondition of belief; I only deny that
Leibowitz offers this analysis. Furthermore, in agreement with the claims of
many believers, I do not believe that this analysis, if it were offered, would
provide solid support for Leibowitz’s fundamental point.
However, it is not entirely clear that Leibowitz intends to
show how morality serves as a necessary precondition of belief. Although he
stresses in his reply that he leaves “open whether—and hence to what extent
and how—moral beliefs are the basis of [divine] experiences themselves”
(101), he makes quite clear that he believes moral beliefs are a necessary precondition for belief in the gods. But to judge by the penultimate paragraph of
his reply, where he merely asks whether it is “hard to imagine” that various
formulation because it merely specifies one way in which the more general formulation would be true,
that is, as he suggests in his reply, morality somehow permits a confidence or belief that there are gods
that is not possible without being moral—regardless of whether morality does so through generating
experiences or facilitating a specific interpretation of them.

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moral beliefs would give rise to various religious experiences or allow one to
interpret those experiences as divine (101–2), it seems possible that Leibowitz
does not think he needs to offer an explanation of how morality serves as a
necessary precondition for belief—for he leaves it an open question. To leave
this an open question is unsatisfactory, because, among other reasons, it leaves
unexplained why Socrates ever suspected that belief in the gods depends on
moral beliefs and took up his Delphic investigations in the first place.
Let me stress in conclusion that despite my many disagreements with it, Leibowitz’s book strikes me as an impressive work; we agree
about the significance of Socrates’s Delphic oracle story to Plato’s philosophy
as a whole, and Leibowitz well explains how many of the Apology’s difficult details accord with this shared view. Our agreement about the Delphic
oracle story probably places our interpretations of Plato much closer to one
another than to those of the overwhelming majority of Plato scholars. But
this agreement should not obscure how much is at stake in our disagreements: If Leibowitz is correct, then I unreasonably reject an account that
would help vindicate my belief in the possibility and goodness of the philosophic life, and thus expose myself needlessly to the painful doubts about
that life which must accompany my rejection of his account. And if I am
correct, Leibowitz accepts an inadequate response to the challenge posed to
philosophy by revelation, and thus conceals from himself the true difficulty
of the philosophic life.

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