The Origins

Problem
of

of

Political Science

and

the

Socrates

Six Public Lectures

Edited
by

by

Leo Strauss

David Bolotin
St. John's College, Santa Fe

Christopher Bruell
Boston College

Thomas L. Pangle

University

of Toronto

The

following
which

lectures

are part of a series

undertaken

of

lectures

by

the

late Leo

Strauss

Interpretation has

to publish. The editors of these

lectures for Interpretation have been

the lectures from
various

able

to obtain copies or transcripts of the

sources: none of

lectures

was edited

fessor Strauss for the

purposes of publication nor even

left behind his

by Pro by him
that

among his papers in a state that would have it be published posthumously. In order to

suggested a wish on underline

part

this

fact,

the editors
mini

have decided to
These 27
and

present

them as

they have found them,

with

the bare

mum of editorial changes.

six

lectures

were

delivered
at the

November

7, 1958,

by Professor Strauss between October University of Chicago. They were avail

typescript, which was ap based on a tape recording. The original typescript can be found in parently the Strauss archives at the University of Chicago. The typescript contains
some

able to the editors as copies of a mimeographed

handwritten

additions and own with

corrections,
we are

and although

these are

not

in

Professor Strauss's
who worked

hand,

told

by

Professor Joseph

Cropsey,

Professor Strauss for many years and who is now his literary executor, that they might well have been made at his direction. Partly for this reason, and also because the revisions do seem to be improve

closely

ments, we have chosen to present the revised version in the

indicating
for
a

what

the revisions

were

in footnotes. We have few

also

text, while indicated in

in
punctua-

the footnotes any

editorial changes

that we have made on our own (except

small changes

few

corrections of misspellings and a

interpretation, Winter

1996, Vol. 23, No. 2

128

Interpretation
are
grateful

tion, which we made without comment). We Stauffer for his secretarial assistance.
The last five
more of these six

to

Mr. Devin

lectures

were published

previously, in a

somewhat

heavily

edited

form,

under

the title "The Problem of Socrates: Five Lec

tures,"

in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An Introduction to the Thought of Leo Strauss, edited by Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago: University of
[

Chicago Press, 1989

1989

by

The

University

of

Chicago]),

pp.

103-183.

Lecture Series: The Problem

Leo Strauss

of

Socrates

(OCTOBER 27, 1958)

I begin

with a word of

thanks to my colleague
said

and

friend Herman Pritchett. I

of an orphan.

feel

much

happier
would

after

he
I

these

words

because I feel less

Otherwise I
own glad

have
and

presented a series of public am glad

responsibility,

lectures entirely on my that this responsibility is shared. I am also

political

that the introduction implied that I am a bona fide

scientist, be
are1

cause quite a
marginal as

few

passages

of

these lectures

someone might think

far

as political science

is concerned,

an opinion with which

very I do not

agree.

By

political science we understand such a

study

of political

things as is not
or

subject to

any authority, The

nor

simply

a part of political political science

lary
cal

to political activity.
philosophy.

Originally
distinction

activity simply ancil was identified with politi

science and
political

between

political

philosophy is a consequence of the distinction between science in general and philosophy in general, and that distinction is of fairly recent date. Political philosophy or political science was originally the quest for the best regime or the best society, or the doctrine regarding the best regime or the best society, a pursuit which includes the study of all kinds of regimes.
The
political philosopher was

ity

who attempted

to

speak about
we

originally a man not engaged in political activ the best regime. If we seek, therefore, for the

origins of political gaged

science,

merely have to

identify

the first

man not en

in

political

activity

who attempted to speak about

the best regime. No

man.

less

a man

than Aristotle himself informs us about that

regime

His

name was

Hippodamus from Miletus. Hippodamus 's best

teristics. His citizen the fighters. The land

had three

chief charac

body consisted of three parts, the artisans, the farmers, and belonging to his city consisted of three parts, the sacred,
of

the common, and everyone's own. The laws too consisted only

three parts,

laws regarding outrage, laws regarding damage, and laws regarding homicide. The scheme is distinguished by its apparent simplicity and clarity. But, as Aris
totle observes, after

having

considered

it, it involves

much confusion.

The

con

fusion is

caused

by

the desire for the utmost clarity and simplicity.

Outstanding

among the particulars which Hippodamus suggested is his proposal that those who invent something beneficial for the city should receive honors from that

1996

by

The

University

of

Chicago. All

rights reserved.

interpretation, Winter

1996, Vol. 23, No. 2

130
city.

Interpretation

When examining this proposal, Aristotle brings out the fact that Hippo damus hadn't given thought to the tension between political stability and tech we have made closer to nological change. On the basis of some
observations2

home,
bridled but to
of

we

suspect

the

existence of a and

connection

between Hippodamus 's

unbridled concern with

un

concern with

nological progress.
permanent

simplicity clarity His proposal as a whole

and

his

tech

seems

to lead

not

only to

confusion

confusion,

or permanent revolution.
an

The

unusual strangeness

the thought induces Aristotle to give

man who

planned
was

the unusually had fathered it. I quote, "He also invented the division of cities into parts and he cut up the harbor of Athens. In his other activity too he
extensive account of ambition

led

by

to be somewhat eccentric so that some thought

he lived in
expensive
warm3

too overdone a
adornment of clothes

way.

He

attracted

attention

by

the quantity and

his hair, and also by the adorned character of his cheap but which he wore not only in winter but in summer periods as well. And
to be known as learned in giving an
a peculiar account of nature as a
account of nature as a

he

whol

wished

It

looks
build

as

if

whole,

an account which used

the

number

three as the

key

to all

on

it his

triadic plan of
elaborated

things, enabled or compelled Hippodamus to the best city. It looks as if Hippodamus had
a mathematical physics

applied a

formula

in

to political things in the

hope thus to

achieve

the

utmost

clarity

and simplicity.

But in fact he

arrives at

utter confusion since cal

he has

not paid attention to the specific character of politi

things. He did not see that political things are in a class

by

themselves.

Our

search

for the

origin of political science

disappointing
thought4

result.

cannot

mortifying Hippodamus may have been the first political scientist; his have been the origin of political science or political philosophy.
this

has led to

and somewhat

We may
raised raised

wonder whether

is

not5

deserved

punishment

for the fact that

without

we

the question regarding the

origin

of political

science

having

the previous question as to why the

inquiry

into the

origin of our science

is

relevant or necessary.

Every

concern

for the
the
no

past which

is

more

than idle curiosity is rooted in a

case

dissatisfaction

with

present.

In the best

that dissatisfaction proceeds

from the fact that

wisdom of

present

is

self-sufficient.

Given the

extreme

rarity

of

wisdom, the wisdom of the wise men of any present needs for
the wise men of the past. But the

its

support the

dissatisfaction

with

the present
reason.

may have more peculiar or more Let us cast a glance at the present

distressing

reasons

than the general

state of political science.

What I

am

say is less
than with

concerned with what

the majority of

political scientists

going to in fact do

what

the prevalent or at any

rate most vocal at

to do. The majority of empirical political scientists,

methodology tells them least at the University of from every

superseded

Chicago,

are engaged

in

studies which are meaningful and useful

methodological point of view. non-philosophic political

Political philosophy has been

by

science,

by

a positivistic political science.

which

That politi
to the

cal science

is

scientific

to the extent to

it

can predict.

According

The Origins of Political Science

positivistic view political
political

131

philosophy possesses. It will do All

political

remains alive.
no

philosophy is impossible. Yet the It retains the evidence

we remind ourselves of with

question raised which

by

it naturally If it

harm if is

that evidence.
or change.

action

concerned

either preservation

preserves

it

means to prevent a change

bring
of
some

about some and

for the worse; if it changes it means to betterment. Political action is then guided by considerations
one cannot think of

better

worse, but

better

or worse without

implying

thought of good or bad. All political action

is

then guided
appear

by

some notion
character of

of good or

bad. But these

present

notions as

they primarily

have the
on

opinion;
prove to

they
be
bad

themselves as unquestionable, but

reflection

they
of

questionable.

good and and

as are no

As such, as opinions, they point to such longer questionable, they point to knowledge
point

thoughts6

of good

bad. Or

more

precisely they

to knowledge of the complete political the good society. If all

political action

good,
points

i.e.,

of

the

essential character of

to the fundamental

question of political

philosophy,

and

if therefore the

fundamental

question of political

ical philosophy is a constant science is certain that that fundamental

philosophy retains its original evidence, polit temptation for thinking men. Positivistic political
question cannot cannot

be

answered

rationally,

but only emotionally, that is to say, that it

tic political science

be

answered at all.

Positivis

the evident
phy.

is therefore constantly endangered by both the urgent and character of the fundamental question raised by political philoso
compelled

It is therefore

to pay constant polemical or critical attention to

political philosophy.

The

most elaborate as a

form

which

that attention can take is a the

history
cal

of political

philosophy

detailed

proof of

philosophy,
show

see

Sabine,
political

in any

manner or

form. That

impossibility of politi history fulfills the

more

function to
obsolete.

that

philosophy is impossible, or,

political philosophy.

precisely,

Prior to the

emergence of non-philosophic political science men

justi

fiably

dedicated themselves to for

inevitable before the human philosophy is then

still

mind

had

reached

Political philosophy was its present maturity. Political

all practical purposes

indispensable in the form

political

of su

history
begin

of political philosophy.

Or, in

other

words,

philosophy is
would

perseded

at

by history of political philosophy. the beginning and therefore raise the

If it does its job
of with

Such

history
degree

naturally
of

question as

to the
of

identity

the

first
will

political philosopher.

with some

competence, it
that beginning.

begin

Hippodamus

Miletus

and

be

satisfied with

One may, however, wonder whether this kind of history is of any value. If we know beforehand that the history is the
study.

of political of political

philosophy

history

of a capital no reason

error,

One has

philosophy lacks the necessary incentive for dedicated for entering into the thought of the past with sympa
one

thy, eagerness, or respect, or for taking it seriously. Above all the necessary and sufficient proof of the

history by philosophy is logic. Hence people begin to wonder whether

provided not

the

of political science an

impossibility of political but by present day

political

up to date training in

132

Interpretation
in any way the study, however perfunctory, of the history of philosophy. They would argue as follows: The political scientist is is
to
which calls

science requires
political

concerned with the political scene of the present age, with a situation which

therefore wholly unprecedented, say for an entirely new kind of politics,

and psychoanalysis. situation can think

for

unprecedented

solutions,

not

perhaps a

judicious

mixture of politics

Only a man intelligently

about

contemporary with that wholly unprecedented it. All thinkers of the past lacked the

minimum requirement of

for speaking

intelligently

about what

the political scientist, namely, the present

political

is the only concern situation. Above all, all

earlier political thought was

fundamentally

unscientific; it has the status of folk

lore;
not

it the better; let us therefore make a clean sweep. I do believe that this step is advisable. It is quite true that we are confronted
the

less

we

know

of

with an unprecedented political situation.

Our

political situation

has nothing in

common with

The human

race

any is

earlier political situation except that still

it is

a political situation. political societies

divided into is

a number of

independent

which are separated

from

one another still a

by

unmistakable and sometimes of societies and

formida

ble frontiers, but of kinds

and there

of governments.

only variety The distinct political

not

governments,
and

societies

have distinct

by
ent

no means and

ments,

necessarily harmonious interests. A difference of kinds of govern therefore of the spirit more or less effectively permeating the differ
and

societies,

therefore the image which these societies have

altogether

of

their

future,

hope for, from the point of view of our part of the globe, is uneasy coexistence. But one can only hope for it. In the decisive respect we are completely ignorant of the future.
makes

harmony

impossible. The best

one can

However

unprecedented our political situation

may
most

be, it has
important

this in common
respect political

with all political situations of action

the past. In the

is ignorant

of

the outcome. Our scientific political science is as

incapable

reliably to know in

predict

the outcome as the crudest mythology was. In former times

people thought that

advance

the

outcome of conflict

is

unpredictable

because

one cannot or

how

long

this

or

that outstanding man is going to

live,

how

the opposed armies will act in the test of battle. We have been brought to

believe that issues

of7

chance can

be

controlled or

does
said

not

seriously

affect the

broad

of society. chance

Yet the

science which

is

to have rendered possible this

control

has itself become the locus

of chance.

Man's fate depends

technology, hence on discoveries and in ventions, hence on events whose occurrence is by their very nature unpredict able. A simply unprecedented political situation would be a situation of vitally
now more than ever on science and

important dicted
in

political conflict whose outcome and

its

consequences could
of

be

pre

with perfect certainty.

In

other

words, the victory

of

science would require a word, the

the

disappearance

disappearance

of situations

predicting vitally important political conflict, of political interest.

political

But let
sound.

us assume

that the positivistic notion of political science

when

We

see

already today

that science

is

still

in its

infancy

that there

is entirely is

The Origins of Political Science

a gulf
cal

133
politi

between the

political scientist's and

the citizen's understanding of

things.

They literally

do

not speak
clearer of

the same language. The

more political perspective of

science

becomes scientific, the

the perspective the
more

becomes the fact that the

the

citizen and

the political scientist differ. It therefore be

comes all

necessary to understand the difference of perspective and to

perform the transition

from the primary perspective, the perspective of the citi zen, to the secondary or derivative perspective, the perspective of the political scientist, not dogmatically and haphazardly, but in an orderly and responsible fashion. For this
the
purpose one requires an articulate

understanding
of

of

the citi

zen's perspective as such.

perspective of

Only

thus can one

understand of

the essential genesis of

the political scientist out

the perspective

the citizen.

The

safest empirical

basis for
or

such

an

inquiry
how

is the study

of the

historical

genesis of political

science,

the study of the origin of political science. In

political science emerged

this way

we can see with our own eyes and

for the

first time,
scientific emerge

therefore,
out of

of course

in

a still primitive

form,

out of

the pre

understanding

of political

things. Positivistic political science did not

directly

the citizen's understanding of political things. Positivis

tic political science came into

of modern emerged political

being by

virtue of a

very

complex

transformation

philosophy,

and modern

political

philosophy in its turn

science,
as

by

virtue of a adequate

very

complex transformation of classical political phi of positivistic political

losophy. An
guished of

understanding Plato
and

distin

from

a mere use of
writings of

that science, is not possible except through a study

the political

Aristotle, for

these writings are the the

most

important documents
tific understanding of the
most

of

the emergence of

political science out of

pre-scien-

political

things. These writings of Plato and Aristotle are

of

important documents

the

origin of political science.

striking tion between facts and

The

most

characteristic of positivistic political science values.

is the distinc
in

The distinction be
settled

means

that only questions of fact

and no questions of value can

general. end which a man

by

science or

by

human

reason

may pursue, is, before the tribunal of reason, as Any good as any other end. Or, before the tribunal of human reason, all ends are equal. Reason has its place in the choice of means for pre-supposed ends. The
most

important question, the

the

province of reason at all.

regarding the ends, does not lie within A bachelor without kith and kin who dedicates his
question

whole

life to the amassing

benefactor
of

of

the largest possible

most efficient

amount of

money,

provided

he
the

goes about this pursuit greatest

in the

way, leads as rational a life as

race.

his country

or of

the human

The denial

of

the

possibility of rationality, distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate ends, leads naturally to the denial of the possibility of a common good. As a consequence, it becomes impossible to conceive of society as a genuine whole
which

is

capable

to

act.

Society

is

understood as a

kind

of

receptacle,

or a

pool,

within which

individuals individuals

and groups
and groups.

act, or, society becomes the

resultant of which

the

actions of

In

other words political

society,

is

134

Interpretation
qua

society

acting, namely acting through its

society.

government or as

government,
an append all

appears as

derivative from
Since

Hence

political science

becomes

age of sociology. conduct

a choice of ends
non-rational.

is

not

and cannot

be rational, any

is, strictly
a

speaking,

Political

science as well as other

other

science, is
science

study

of non-rational

behavior, but like any

behavior.

science,

political

is
us

a rational

study
at

of non-rational

Let

then look

the rationality of the study.

Scientific knowledge

of

political

things is

preceded

by

what

is

loosely

called common sense

knowledge

of political things. mon sense

From the

point of view of positivistic political science com

knowledge

of political

things is suspect

prior

to examination;
status of

i.e.,

prior to transformation

into

scientific

knowledge, it has the

toil and money

folklore.

This leads to the

order

consequence that much

must

be invested in

establish facts with which, to say the least, every sane adult is thor familiar. But this is not all and not the most important point. According oughly to the most extreme, but yet by no means uncharacteristic view, no scientific

to

finding
and all

of

any kind

can

be definitive. I
no

quote:

"Empirical

propositions are one common sense

hypotheses;

there are

final

propositions."

For

the

proposition, "Hitler's regime was destroyed in 1945", is a final proposition, in no way subject to future revision or in no way a hypothesis. If propositions of this kind and nature must be understood as hypotheses requiring further and

further testing,
ever8

political science

is

compelled

to become

ever more

more remote

from

what

the citizen

cannot

issues. Yet
tion;9

science cannot rest satisfied with

it

consists

the

discovery
in

that there can

ceeds

in inductive reasoning, or As regards causality, present-day positivism teaches be no other justification for inductive reasoning than that it suc
of causes.

help regarding as establishing facts of its observa it is concerned with prediction, or

empty and the important

practice.

In

other

words,

causal

laws

are no more

than laws of proba

bility.

Probability

statements are
same

derived from frequencies

will

observed and

include

the assumption that the

frequencies
no rational

ture. But this assumption has

basis. It is

hold approximately for the fu not based on any evident

to the assump
not

necessity; it is

a mere assumption.

There is

no rational objection

tion that the universe will

absolute

disappear any moment,

that this

nothingness,

and

happening

will

be

only into thin air, but into a vanishing not only into
the possible end of the

nothing, but through nothing

world must

as well.

What is true

of

apply to its
and

dence, nothing
out of

prevents us

nothing radically

causality has no evi from assuming that the world has come into being through nothing. Not only has rationality disappeared from

beginning. Since

the principle of

the behavior studied

come

by

the science, the

problematical.

All

coherence

rationality has

of

that study itself has be

gone.

Rationality

may be

thought to survive

by

virtue of

the retention of the principle

of contradiction as

a principle of necessary and universal validity. But the status of this principle has become wholly obscure since it is neither empirical nor dependent on any agreement, convention, or logical construction. We are then entitled to say that

The Origins of Political Science

positivistic
science

135

in

general10

and

therefore positivistic political science in

of

particular are characterized

by

the abandonment

reason,

or

by

the flight

from

reason.

The flight from

scientific reason which

rational

has been

noted with some regret

in

certain quarters

reason.

is the perfectly However this may be, the

not

abandonment of

reply to the flight of science from reason, hitherto discussed,

is only the weak, academic,

to say anemic reflection, but

of a much

by

no means

an"

uninteresting and unimportant cess whose fundamental character Present

origins to
place:

reflection,12

broader

and

deeper

pro

we must

try

to indicate.

day

positivism

is logical

positivism.

With

some

justice it traces its In the first

Hume. It deviates from Hume in two decisive

respects.

is

not

deviating from Hume's teaching, it is a logical teaching, that is to say, it a psychological teaching. The supplement to the critique of reason in
positivism

logical
is

is

symbolic
and natural

logic

and

theory

of probability.

In Hume that
positivism

supplement
a

is belief
analysis

instinct. The

sole concern of

logical

logical

of science. of

It has learned from

of science

Kant,

the great critic of

Hume,

that the question

the validity

is radically different from the

its psychological genesis. Yet Kant was enabled to transcend psy because he recognized what he called an a priori, let us say, act of chology pure reason. Hence science was for him the actualization of a potentiality natu
question of ral

to man. Logical positivism rejects the

a priori.

Therefore it

cannot avoid

becoming involved in psychology, for it is impossible to avoid the question, why science? On the basis of the positivistic premises, science must be under
the activity of a certain kind or organism, as an activity fulfilling important function in the life of this kind of organism. In brief, man is
stood as which cannot or an an

live well, without being able to predict, and live, organism, the most efficient form of prediction is science. This way of accounting for science has become extremely questionable. In the age of thermo-nuclear weap
ons

the positive

relation of science

to human

survival

has lost

all

the apparent

evidence which

it

formerly

opment of science requires

societies renders ever more or pre-industrial societies.

may have industrial

possessed.
society;9

Furthermore,

the high devel

the predominance of industrial

difficult the
still

survival of underdeveloped

societies,

dares to say that the development of these Who societies, that is to say their transformation, that is to say, the destruction of their traditional manner of living, is a necessary prerequisite for these people's

living,
without

or

living
kind

well?

Those

people

survived

and

sometimes

lived

happily

any

science.

of a certain

of

While it becomes necessary to trace science to the needs organism, it is impossible to do so. For to the extent to be
shown

which science could

to have a necessary function for the life of man,

one would

in fact
are

pass a rational value

judgment

on

science,

and rational value

judgments

declared to be impossible

by

this same school of thought.

By

this remark we touch on the second decisive respect

in

which

positivism

deviates from Hume. Hume

are

was still a political philosopher.

present-day He still
rules

taught that there

universally

valid rules of

justice,

and

that those

may

136

Interpretation

properly be called natural law. This means from the point of view of his present day followers that his thought antedated the discovery of the significance of
cultural

diversity

or of

historical

change.

As

everyone

knows,

the most popular

valid value present

for proving the impossibility of rational or universally judgments is taken from the fact of such diversity and change. All
argument

thought is

separated

from Hume

by

what

is

sometimes called change

the

day discovery of
proposition:

history. The
man

vulgar expression of

this decisive

is the trite

does

not think

in

a vacuum.

All thought is

said

to be essentially

dependent

on

the specific historical

of

the content

be

understood

situation in which it occurs. This applies not only to thought, but to its character as well. Human science itself must as a historical phenomenon. It is essential not to man but to a

certain
not

historical type
supplied

of man.

Therefore the full understanding

analysis of

of science can

be
of

by
or

the logical

science,

or

by

psychology.

The

prem

ises

science,

the essential

character of

science,
or

as

it is laid down

by

the

logical
since

analysis of

science, owe their evidence,

meaningfulness, to
of of

history,

everything which can possibly become the object dependent on the structure of thought, or, if you wish,

thought is as such

logical

constructs.

The fundamental
science cannot must

science will

be

historical is in

psychology.

But this fundamental

have its locus

outside of

history. It is itself historical.

History
it is
not

be

conceived as a process which unpredictable.

principle unfinishable and whose

course

is

The historical

process

is

not completed and

which

rational.

Science in

general and

hence the fundamental science,

is histor

ical psychology in particular, is located within the process. It depends on prem ises which are not evident to man as man but which are imposed on specific
men,
on specific

historical types, drew this

by

history.

The first

man who

conclusion

from the

discovery

of

history

was

Nietzsche. He
mental

was

therefore confronted with this basic difficulty. The

claims as science

funda
It is
us

science, historical psychology,

to be objective, but
subjective.

owing to its radically historical easy to say that Nietzsche never

saw an abyss where
with unrivaled more

character solved

it

cannot

help being

this problem. It is most important

for

to note that he was distinguished from all his contemporaries the

others saw

by

the

fact that he
He
saw

only

a reason

for

self-complacency.

clarity the

problem of

the twentieth century, because he had

diagnosed

the crisis of

modernity.

clearly than anyone else, prior to the World Wars at any rate, At the same time he realized that the necessary, al
to the origins.

though not the sufficient reason

human

future,

was a return

movement

toward a goal, or

for the overcoming of this crisis, or for a Nietzsche regarded modernity as a the project of a goal, which might very well be

reached, but only at the price of the most extreme

degradation

of man.

He

described that

goal most

forcefully
has

in Zarathustra's

speech on the

Last Man.
all

The Last Man is

a man who

achieved

happiness. His life is free from

suffering, misery, insoluble riddles, conflicts, and inequality, and therefore free from all great tasks, from all heroism, and from all dedication. The characteris-

The Origins of Political Science

tic proximate condition
of

137

this

call psychoanalysis and tranquilizers.

life is the availability of what we are entitled to Nietzsche believed that this life was the
anarchism, socialism,
and

intended
nism. of

or unintended goal of and

communism,

and

that

democracy
conflict,

liberalism

were

only
and

half-way

houses

on

the road to commu the perpetuity

Man's

possible

humanity
evils

greatness, he

held,

requires

of

suffering;

demption from these

The in

modern project

therefore reject the very desire for the re in this life, to say nothing of a next. stands or falls by science, by the belief that science can
one must

principle solve all riddles and

loosen

all

fetters. Science
appears as

being

the activity

of3

reason par

excellence, the

modern

project14

the final form of ration

and

alism,

of

the belief in the

unlimited power of reason

in the essentially
was origi noth

beneficent

character of reason.

Rationalism is

optimism.

Optimism be

nally the doctrine that the

actual world

is the best

possible world

because

ing

exists of whose existence a sufficient reason cannot

given.

Optimism

became eventually the doctrine that the actual world can and will be trans formed by man into the best imaginable world, the realm of freedom, freedom
from oppressions, scarcity, ignorance, and egoism, heaven on earth. The re action to it calls itself pessimism, that is to say, the doctrine that the world is necessarily evil, that the essence of life is blind will, and that salvation consists in negating world or life. Politically speaking this meant that the reply to the
atheism of atheism

the

left,

communism,

was

an atheism of

the right, an unpolitical

with

political

implications,

the pessimism of

Schopenhauer, Nietz

sche's teacher.

Schopenhauer's he

pessimism

did

not

Schopenhauer
and

was compelled called

by his

premises to understand

satisfy Nietzsche because the negating of life

world,

or what

saintliness,

as a work or product of

life

and world.

World and life cannot be legitimately if they are the cause of saintli ness and salvation. Schopenhauer's pessimism did not satisfy Nietzsche for the further reason that the approaching crisis of the twentieth century seemed to
negated

call

for

counter

position

which

was

no

less militant,
give

no

less

prepared
was.

to

sacrifice
passive

everything for
pessimism of

a glorious

future,

than communism in

its way
reason,
most

The

Schopenhauer had to

way to Nietzsche's active

attack on

pessimism.

It

was

in Nietzsche's thought that the

of which

the flight from

reason

is only

pale

reflex,

reached

its

intransigent

form.
Nietzsche first presented his thought in a book called The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music. This book is based on the premise that Greek culture is the highest of all cultures, and that Greek tragedy, the tragedy of Aeschylus
and

Sophocles, is

the

peak of

that

peak.

The

decay

of

tragedy begins

with

Euripides. Here

we are confronted with a strange self contradiction

in the tradi

tional admiration for classical Greek antiquity. The tradition combines the high
est admiration

for Sophocles

with the of

highest

admiration

tradition believed

in the

harmony

the

true, the good,

and

for Socrates, for the the beautiful. Yet

Delphic Oracle is

according to the

clearest pieces of

evidence, among

which a

138
not

Interpretation

the least

important, Socrates belongs

a

together not with

Sophocles, but tragedy

with

Euripides. There is

gulf,

an unbridgeable

gulf, between

classical

at

its

height

and

Socrates. Socrates did

not understand classical tragedy.

others

Socrates

through his influence on Euripides and

order

destroyed

classical

tragedy. In
a

to achieve this

supreme act of

destruction, Socrates

must

have had

truly

demonic power, he must have been a demi-god. Not his knowledge, but his instinct compelled him to regard knowledge and not instinct as the highest, to
prefer

the

lucidity

of

knowledge
to

the

precision of

dialectics,
Socrates'

insight, the awakeness of criticism, instinct, divining, and creativity. As a genius,

and

and and

even the

incarnation

of critical

par excellence.

praise of of

thought, he is the non-mystic, and the non-artist knowledge means that the whole is intelli
whole

gible and that

knowledge

the

knowledge

and that the

virtue which

is the remedy for all evils, that virtue is is knowledge is happiness. This optimism
proto-type and

is the death

of tragedy.

Socrates is the for

whom

first

ancestor of not a

the

theoretical man, of the man

or a profession

science, the quest for truth, is

which enables

job

but

way
not

of

life,

that

him to live

and

to die.

Socrates is therefore but "the

In
one

only the

most problematic phenomenon of

antiquity
origina

turning

point and vortex

in the

history

mankind"

of

shrill and youthful accents of

Nietzsche

proclaims

Socrates to be the be less

an

tor of rationalism, or

the belief in reason, and to see in rationalism the most

of mankind.

fateful

strand

in the

history

We
we

shall make

repelled

by

Nietzsche's partly indefensible statement if Nietzsche fails to make and to which he does
tes made, the
assumption

assumption
which

which

not even

refer, but
of

Socra

that the thesis of the

intelligibility

the

whole means

the following. To understand something means to understand it in the light of

purpose. of

Rationalism is indeed optimism, if

or

rationalism

implies the

assumption

the initial

rationalism

final supremacy of the good. Rationalism is indeed optimism if demands a teleological understanding of the whole. There is good
assertion

evidence

for the

that Socrates originated philosophic teleology.

,

According
who

to the tradition it was not Hippodamus from Miletus

political philosophy.

but Socrates have fre

concerned

founded

In the

words

of

Cicero,

which

quently been quoted, "Whereas philosophy

Socrates
cities,
was

prior to

Socrates

was

with numbers and motions and with whence all

things came and where

they

go,

the

and even
about

philosophy down from heaven and to to introduce it into the household, and to compel
call
and manners and about good and make
bad."

first to

place

it in
to

philosophy

inquire

life

In

other

words, Soc

rates was

the first to
purposeful

the central theme of

and

philosophy human action, that

as a

is to say,
whole.

activity,

hence to understand purpose

key

to the

I have tried to

show

of political science.

study the problem Socrates is ultimately the

why it has become necessary for us to study the origin This means, as appears now, that it is necessary for us to of Socrates. A few words in conclusion. The problem of
question of

the worth of the

Socratic

position.

But it

The Origins of Political Science

is primarily
a more

1 39

never wrote a

technical question, a merely historical question. Socrates line. We know Socrates only from four men who were more or less contemporary with him. Aristophanes 's comedy the Clouds, Xenophon's Socratic writings, the Platonic dialogues, and a number of remarks by Aristotle
are

the chief and most

important
first four

sources.

Of these four

sources

Xenophon's

Socratic
phon

writings appear at
of

glance the most

is the only

these

men who was a

important ones, because Xeno contemporary of Socrates and at

was able and
Thucydides'

the same time the

write

man

who15

has

shown

in deed that he

history,
follow
I

for Xenophon

wrote

the

famous

continuation of

willing to His

tory. But I shall not in my

shall

discussion begin

with an analysis of

Xenophon, but I
Socrates

the chronological order,

because the

oldest statement on

which we possess which will

in

completeness

is Aristophanes 's comedy, the Clouds, to

devote the

next meeting.

(OCTOBER

29, 1958)
chief sources on which we

Of the four
thought
of

depend if

we wish

to understand the

Socrates,

Aristophanes 's Clouds is the first in time. The first impres

may receive of Socrates from the Clouds was expressed Nietzsche in terms like these. Socrates belongs to the outstanding seducers
sion which anyone

by
of

the

people who are responsible

for the loss

of

the old Marathonian virtue of

body and decay of

soul,

or

for the dubious

enlightenment which

is

accompanied and

by

the

virtue of

body

and soul.

Socrates is in fact the first

foremost

sophist, the

mirror and embodiment of all sophistic

tendencies. This presenta

fits perfectly into the whole work of Aristophanes, the great reactionary who opposed with all means at his disposal all new-fangled things, be it the democracy, the Euripidean tragedy or the pursuit of Socrates. The
tion of Socrates
point of view

from

which

Aristophanes looks
novel

at

justice,
not

old-fashioned

justice. Hence that

contemporary life is that of phenomenon Socrates appears Aristophanes 's Socrates is

to him as a teacher of

injustice

and even of atheism.

but extremely foolish as well and hence utterly ridicu only extremely lous. He meets his deserved fate: a former disciple whose son had been com
evil

pletely

corrupted

by

lucky

and

ridiculous

Socrates burns down Socrates 's thinktank, and it is only a accident if Socrates and his disciples do not perish on that
to
perish.

occasion;

they deserve
far

The Clouds

are

then an attack on Socrates.

The Platonic Socrates,

almost goes so

when

defending

himself

against

his

official

accusation,

as to call the

tes, the first accusation which and final accusation. But even this

Aristophanean comedy an accusation of Socra became the model and the source of the second
expression

Especially
of

if the comedy is

viewed

in the light

of

may well appear to be too mild. its apparent consequences and

its wholly unfounded character, one must describe Aristophanes 's action as a Ariscalumny. As Plato says in his Apology, he did none of the things which

140

Interpretation
appears as a sophist and a

tophanes attributed to him. In the Clouds Socrates

natural was
of

philosopher,
course

whereas sworn

Socrates knew nothing

of sophistry.

of natural

the

enemy

And, finally,

philosophy and Aristophanes 's

utmost

comic

treatment of

Socrates,

a treatment characterized

by

the

levity,

must appear

to be shocking to the highest degree if one looks forward to Socra

tes 's tragic

end.

To

speak

first

of the

striking

dissimilarity

between
we

Aristophanes'

Socrates
and

and the

true

Socrates, i.e.,

the Socrates

whom

know through Plato

Xenophon,

there is Platonic and Xenophontic evidence to the effect that Socra

tes was not always the Socrates whom these disciples have celebrated. Plato's

Socrates tells
ophy in does not
an

on

the

day

of

his death that he do

was concerned with natural philos

amazing way give any dates, hence

and

to an amazing
we not

degree

when

he

was young.

He

know for how

long

this preoccupation

with natural which

whether it did not last till close to the time at philosophy lasted the Clouds were conceived. As for Xenophon's Socrates, he was no

longer young
air"

or as a man

question of
seems phy.

he was already notorious as a man who was "measuring the resembling Aristophanes 's Socrates, and had not yet raised the what a perfect gentleman is, i.e., the kind of question to which he
when after

to have dedicated himself entirely

not altogether

his break

with natural philoso

It follows that it is Socrates

as

the fault of Aristophanes if

he did

not

present

the same kind

always

of philosopher as or

did Plato

and

Xenophon.

Besides, if Socrates had

selection stand:

been the Platonic his

Xenophontic Socrates his become hard to

as under

by

Aristophanes for
would

one of

comedies would

Socrates

And

while

a comic

have been politically in the same camp poet is perhaps compelled to caricature have have begun to
there

Aristophanes.

even

his fellow

partisans, the
caricatured.

caricature must we

some correspondence with

wonder whether

the man to be

After

there was not perhaps a

little bit
whether

of

fire

where

was so much

smoke,

we go on and

begin to

wonder

Aristophanes

was after all an

which

accuser,

only The dialogue is

one

Platonic dialogue in
presented as

an enemy of Socrates. There is Aristophanes participates, the Banquet.

having

taken place about seven years after the

performance of the

Clouds. The

occasion was a

banquet
them

at

the end

of which

only three men were Socrates. The three

agreement about a

still sober and men

awake, two

of

being

Aristophanes

and

were engaged

in

friendly
was

conversation

subject

than

which

none

more

ending in important to Aris

of

tophanes,

the subject of comedy. The agreement was an agreement

a

Aris is the

tophanes to

thesis propounded

by

Socrates. In

accordance with this

given

Platonic Socrates 's

the condition
strand. of

complicated and strange

analysis,

the soul at comedies. In that analysis we

in the Philebus, of discern the following

the pleasure about

The

condition of the soul at comedies

is

a mixture of

the misfortunes of one's

wisdom with

friends

or about

their

innocuous
The

overestimation of their

the pain of envy.

of one's

Envy

of what?

most natural explanation wisdom

would seem

to be envy

friend's16

wisdom.

The friend's

may

The Origins of Political Science

not

141

he believes and therefore he may be somewhat ridiculous, but be substantial enough to afford cause for envy. This analysis may of comedy is monstrously inadequate as an analysis of comedy in general, but it makes sense as Socrates's explanation of one particular comedy, the comedy
as great as

be

his

wisdom

par

excellence, the Clouds. In

brief,

on

the basis

of

the Platonic evidence it is

no more plausible

to say that the Clouds are an accusation of Socrates than to

say that they

are a

friendly

warning

addressed to
of

by
is

a mixture of admiration and

compatible with the

not

envy possibility that the primary object of Aristophanes 's envy Socrates's wisdom but Socrates's complete independence of that popular

Socrates a warning informed Socrates. This interpretation is perfectly

necessarily depends, or Socrates's perfect freedom. As in all cases of this kind, the differences of interpretation ultimately proceed less from the consideration or the neglect of this or that particular fact
applause on which the comic poet

primary and fundamental disagreement. In our case the fundamental disagreement concerns tragedy. According to the view which is
or a
now

passage, than from

predominant,
since

highest,
fate

appears

tends to see

tragedy at its highest is truer and deeper than comedy at its life is essentially tragic. In the light of this assumption Socrates's to be simply tragic. On the basis of this assumption scholarship much more clearly the connection of the Platonic dialogues with
into the
question question
with

tragedy
whether as

than their connection with comedy. We need not go

this assumption is sound; we can be content

raising the

Plato was familiar with the assump is not peculiar to modem times. No one tragedy was more aware than Plato of the fact that tragedy is the most deeply moving art. But from this, he held, it does not follow that tragedy is the deepest, or the highest art. He silently opposes the popular preference for tragedy. He suggests
to
whether

it

was

Plato's

assumption.

tion; the

prejudice

in favor

of

that the same

man must

be tragic

and comic poet.

When his Adeimantus had

simply
matic

equated correct

trusively

dramatic poetry with tragedy he makes his Socrates unob Adeimantus by imputing to Adeimantus the assertion that dra

poetry embraces comedy as well. If we do not disregard the fact that the difference between tragedy and comedy corresponds somehow to the difference between weeping and laughing, we can bring out the issue involved in this
way.

One

of

the deepest students of Plato's Republic in

says

modem

times, Sir
. .

Thomas
prove

to in his Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation: ". More, that this life is no laughing time, but rather the time of weeping, we find
saviour

that our

himself I

wept

twice or thrice, but never

find
at

we

that he laughed

so much as once.
us no example of

will not swear on

that he

never

it. But

the other side

did, but he left us an

one can

the leastwise he left

weeping

example of opposite.

Of the Platonic

and

Xenophontic Socrates
never

say exactly the

an

Socrates laughed once, but

us no
example

find
on

we

that he wept so

much as once.

He left

of

weeping, but

the other side he left us

example of

laughing. He left

His

irony

is

us many examples of his joking, and none of his indignation. byword. He is not a tragic figure, but it is easy to see how he can

142

Interpretation
a comic

become
the

figure. The

philosopher who

falls into

ditch

while

observing

ordinary who, having find his way in it, is of course ridiculous, as Plato's Socrates himself points out. Viewed in the perspective of the non-phi

heavenly
returns

things or the

philosopher

left the

cave of

life,

to it and

cannot

losophers,
tive
of

the philosopher is necessarily

ridiculous,
are

and viewed

in the

perspec

the philosopher the

non-philosophers

necessarily

ridiculous;

the

meeting It is, as

of philosophers and non-philosophers

we shall

is

the natural theme

of comedy.

see, the theme

of

the Clouds. It is then not altogether an

accident that our oldest and

a comedy.

hence

most venerable source

regarding Socrates is

These

remarks

prejudices.

are merely made for the purpose of counteracting certain The decision of the question under discussion can be expected only of

from the interpretation

the Clouds itself. Such an

a consideration of

interpretation

will

be facili

tated,

to say the

least, by

the Aristophanean comedy in

general.

In glancing
struck
and

at modem

interpretations

of

the Aristophanean comedies, one is

with

by

the preoccupation of modem scholars

the

political

background When

the

political

to

forget,

or

meaning had already forgotten, that they

cross a picket

of

the comedies. It is as
are

if these

scholars were about

dealing

with comedies.

about to enter a place at which we are meant

we must

to laugh and to enjoy ourselves,

exuding deadly and No doubt they unwittingly contribute to the effect of the deadening comedies. Still, it is simpler to remember what Hegel has said about the Aris tophanean comedies: "If one has not read Aristophanes one can hardly know
of

first

line

black

coated ushers

seriousness.

how robustly
be."

and

inordinately

gay,

of what

beastlike contentment,

man can

Hegel's
when

statement reminds us of

the obstacles which one

has to

overcome

desire to understand, to and to love the Aristophanean comedy, it is appreciate, necessary that we should first be repelled by it. The means which Aristophanes employs in order
to make us laugh include gossip
or

reading the Aristophanean comedies. For if we

slander, obscenity, parody

mist we see

and

blasphemy.
rustics

Through this

ill-looking
their best

and

ill-smelling

free

and as

sturdy

in

their cups, good-natured, sizing up women,

and

free
the

or

slave,

they

size

up

cows

horses, in

and gayest moments

fools

of no
at17

one, be he

god or

wife or glorious

captain, and yet less angry than amused often,

having

been fooled

by
the

them

ever so

loving

the

country

and

its

old and a

tested ways,

despising
and

new-fangled

and rootless

which

shoots

up for

day
so

in the city
that

its

boastful boosters; amazingly familiar every

allusion

with the

beautiful

they

can
and

enjoy

to any of the many tragedies of

Aeschylus, Sophocles

amazingly experienced in the beautiful so that they will not stand for any parody which is not in its way as perfect as the original. Men of such birth and build are the audience of Aristophanes or (which is the same for any noncontemptible poet) the best or authoritative part of his audience. The audience

Eurip

ides;

and

The Origins of Political Science

to which

143
as

Aristophanes

appeals or which

he

conjured

is the best

democracy

Aristotle has described it: the

tion.

democracy

whose

backbone is the its freest

and

rural popula

Aristophanes

makes us see

this audience at

gayest, from its

we

crude and vulgar

periphery to its

center of sublime

delicacy;

do

not see

it

it strongly, in its bonds and bounds. We see equally well, only half of it, apparently its lower half, in fact its higher. We see only one half of humanity, apparently its lower half, in fact its higher. The other half is the
although we sense preserve of

tragedy.

Comedy

and

tragedy

together show us the whole of man,

but in

a way that the comedy must be sensed in the tragedy and the in the comedy. Comedy which begins at the lowest low, [ascends to the tragedy highest height,]18 whereas tragedy dwells at the center. Aristophanes has com
such

pared

the comic Muse or rather the Pegasus of the comic poet to a

a small and contemptible which seems

beast

which

is

attracted

dung-beetle, by everything ill-smelling,

from Aphrodite
and

to combine conceit with utter remoteness

the

Graces

which,

however,
eagle of

when

it

can

be induced to

arise

from the earth,

soars

higher than the

Zeus: it

enables

the comic poet to enter the

world of

the gods, to see with his own eyes the truth about the gods and to communicate this truth to his fellow mortals.

higher than any other art. It transcends every other art; it transcends in particular tragedy. Since it tran scends tragedy, it presupposes tragedy. The fact that it presupposes and tran

Comedy

rises

scends

tragedy finds its

expression

in the

parodies of

tragedies

which are

so

characteristic of

the Aristophanean comedy.

Comedy

rises higher than tragedy.

Only

the comedy can present wise men as wise men, like Euripides and Socra

tes, men who as such transcend tragedy. This is not to deny that the Aristophanean comedy abounds with what is ridiculous19 ridiculous on the lowest level. But that comedy never presents as
what

what

only is by

perverse men could nature

find ridiculous. It keeps

occur spankings

within

the bounds

of

ridiculous. There

but

no

torturings and kill

ings. The genuinely

Therefore there
noble.

fear-inspiring fear-inspiring, death, i.e., dying

must

must

as

be absent, and hence that which is most distinguished from being dead in Hades.

is causing compassion. Also the truly Whereas in Aristophanes 's Frogs Aeschylus and Euripides are presented be
absent also what

as engaged

in

violent

name-calling, Sophocles

remains silent

throughout. The

Aristophanean comedy while abounding with what is by nature ridiculous on the lowest level, always transcends this kind of the ridiculous; it never remains
mere

buffoonery. That
to sight
worth within

which

is

by

nature

not

ridiculous is

not

omitted; it

comes

the

comedy.

and

its

to the presence

The Aristophanean comedy owes its depth within it of the solemn and the serious. We must

try

to find the

proper expression

for that regarding

arises.

which

Aristophanes is

se

rious. The

proper

expression,
a

i.e.,

the authentic expression, Aristophanes 's

own expression.

Here

difficulty

In

drama,
of

the author never speaks in

his

own

name.

The dramatic
play.

poet can express avails

what

he is

driving

at

by

the

outcome of

his

Aristophanes

himself

this simple possibility: he

144
makes

Interpretation
those human beings or those causes victorious
given which

in his

view ought
unpleas-

to be victorious,

the premises of the plot. For the triumph of the

ing

and

the defeat of the

effect of

the comedy. However this may

pleasing is incompatible with the required gratifying be, a drama is a play; certain human
be
other

beings,
way in

the actors, pretend to

which

those other

human beings

human beings, they speak and act in the would act. The dramatic effect requires

that this play or pretending be consistently maintained. If this effect is disturbed

because the

actors cease

to act their parts and become recognizable as actors in

characters

contradistinction

to the

they

are meant except

to represent,

or

because the

poet ceases to

be invisible

or

inaudible

through his characters, this is

of

annoying or ridiculous. Hence, whereas the destruction is fatal to the tragic effect it may heighten the comic
then able in his comedies to speak to the audience
characters possible

the dramatic illusion

effect.

Aristophanes is
chorus or

directly; his

his

may

address not

only

one another

but the

audience as well.

It is

even

that the hero of a comedy, e.g., Dicaiopolis in the

comic poet

Acharnians,

reveals

himself to be the
chorus or

himself. At any

rate

Aristophanes

can use

his

for stating to the audience and hence also to his readers his intention. Thus he tells us that it is his intention to make us laugh but not
his
characters

through buffoonery. He claims that he is a comic poet who to its perfection. But much as he is concerned
concerned with the
with

has

raised

the

ridiculous, he is
on

comedy no less
of

serious,

with

making

men

better

by fighting
what

behalf

the

is good for the city or corruptors, by teaching is simply the best, and by saying what is just. Through his work, being and justice have become allies. He also makes a distinction between the
city
against enemies and what
well-

its

wise element of

his

comedies and their

ridiculous

element:

the

former

should

appeal to the wise,

the latter to the laughers. These ipsissima

verba poetae

compel us to wonder

regarding the relation of

problem
a matter

justice

and wisdom:

are

they
that

identical he

or

different? The
just things

made the

is clearly expressed in the poet's for comedy. However much the

the ridiculous
on on

claim

poet

may
the

succeed

in reconciling the
the other, or
of

claims of

the one hand and the

serious on

the

ridiculous

the one hand and

a

justice

on

other,

fundamental tension it
consists on

must remain.

In

word, justice as Aristophanes

understands

quality
of

of a

comedy

in preserving or restoring the ancestral or the old. The the other hand depends very much on the inventiveness

the poet, on his conceits

being

novel.
as

qualified

reactionary in

political

things;

Aristophanes may have been an un a comic poet he was compelled to be

and

a revolutionary.

While the tension between the ridiculous Aristophanean comedy, the

the serious that

is

essential to the

being

consists in its in the fact that in that comedy the comical is all pervasive: the serious itself appears only in the guise of the ridiculous. This must be intelligently understood. Just as literally speaking there can be no com peculiar greatness of

comedy

the total

comedy

or

plete

falsehood,

given the

primacy

of

truth, there

cannot

be

a ridiculous speech

The Origins of Political Science

of some

145
of

length

which

does

not contain serious

passages,

given

the primacy

the serious. Within these

in

integrating

the serious
or even

inevitable limitations Aristophanes succeeds perfectly or the just into the ridiculous. The comical delusion is

never

impaired. How does he achieve this feat? It is easy to see how the castigation of the unjust can be achieved by ridi cule. For the sycophants, the demagogues, the over-zealous ju showing up rymen, the would-be heroic generals, the corrupting poets and sophists, it is
obviously useful to make a judicious use of gossip or slander about the ridicu lous looks and the ridiculous demeanor of the individuals in question. Further
more, one can hold up a mirror to the prevailing bad habits by exaggerating them ridiculously, by presenting their unexpected and yet, if one may say so,

destroyed

logical

consequences:
run

for

instance, by presenting
is
characterized

an

entirely

new-fangled

Athens,
women

by

women,

which

by

communism of

property,

and children as complete

the

final form

of extreme

democracy;

one can show

how the

equality of the communist order conflicts with the natural between the young and beautiful and the old and ugly; how this inequality natural inequality is corrected by a legal or conventional equality in accordance
with which no youth can of

enjoy his

girl

before he has fulfilled the

onerous

duty

scene

satisfying is too

a most repulsive obvious and

hag;

the serious conclusion

from this ridiculous

to be pointed out. The very fact that the injustice of the

demagogues little
clever

the other types mentioned is publicly revealed shows how

those fellows are; it reveals their injustice as stupid and hence

ridiculous. The ridicule is heightened

are

by

the fact that the ridiculed individuals

probably

present

in the

audience.

For the

folly

ridiculed

by

Aristophanes is
of

contemporary folly. The contemporary

good old

vices are seen as vices

in the light

the

times,

of

the ancestral polity

in the
of

perspective of
who prefer

the simple,

brave,

rural and pious victors of pides.

Marathon,
with

those

Aeschylus to Euri

Contemporary
Greek

injustice

might arouse

indignation

and not

laughter if it
means: as

were not presented as

defeated

ease,

as

defeated

by

ridiculous

the

war-like

manhood

is defeated

wives'

by

their
with

abstinence

from inter

course and the super-demagogue still

Cleon is defeated

his

own means

by

the

baser

sausage

seller who

is boosted

by

the upper class people, Cleon's

mortal enemies. means without

Yet how

can one present the

defeat

of

the unjust

by

ridiculous
words,

making ridiculous the

the just man
solves

victorious

justice? Or, in

other

how

can

one present

without

destroying
as of

the effect of the total

of

comedy?

Aristophanes

this

difficulty
toward the

follows. The victory

the just

or

the

movement

from the ridiculousness

ancient soundness

is

a movement

contemporary folly to ridiculous of a different kind. The

political

just

busybody, the his farm, he Living man who natural pleasures: food, drink and, last but by no means least, enjoys the simple love. He enjoys these pleasures frankly. He gives his enjoyment a frank, a
man

is

a man who minds

his

own

business,
life.

the opposite of a
at

loves the retired, quiet,

private

home,

on

wholly

unrestrained expression.

He

calls a spade a spade.

If he does this

as a

146

Interpretation
stage, he
says

character on the propriety: and this

in

public what cannot

be

said

in

public with

he

publishes that private which cannot with

propriety be published;
presented as a

is

ridiculous.

Hence the victory

private: of

of

justice is comically

movement

from the ridiculousness

the

of public

folly

to the ridiculous of the pub

utterance of things which

lication

of

essentially
enjoys

the

improper

everyone

because they are by nature enjoyable. privately A major theme, the first theme of the Aristophanean comedy, is then the tension between the city, the political community, and the family or the house
of

hold. The bond

and

the

family

wife, legal

eros.

is love, and in the first place the love of husband The love of the parents for the children appears most

characteristically in the case of the mother who suffers most when her sons are sent into wars by the city. No such natural feelings bind mothers to the city. Thus
one might think that the

family

should

be the
the

model

for the

city.

In his
this

Assembly
thought;

of Women Aristophanes has

shown

fantastic

character of

there he presents the city as transformed into a

private

household,

therefore

lacking

ertheless

property of the members and therefore ruled by women. Nev the importance which Aristophanes assigns to the tension between city leads
one

family
polity.

and

to surmise that his critique is directed not only against

the decayed city of his time but extends also to the

healthy

city

or

the ancestral

The hero

the

poet

of the Acharnians, Dicaiopolis, who is clearly identified with himself, privately makes peace with the enemy of the city while every

one else
war

is

at war.

He is

persecuted

for this

act of

high treason

old spirit of the

with

party but precisely by his rustic neighbors who are Marathon fighters. Dicaiopolis makes his head
on the executioner's
Euripides;9

only by the wholly imbued with the a speech in his defense

not

using devices which he had in splitting his persecutors into two parties and therewith in stopping the persecution; as a consequence he enjoys the pleasures of peace, the pleasures of farm life, while everyone else remains
and while

block

borrowed from

he thus

succeeds

It is only another way Aristophanes that it was not,

at war.

of as

expressing the same thought, if one says with Aeschylus and Euripides agree in the Frogs,
par

the

ancient

Aeschylus,

the political tragic poet

excellence, but the

says

modem

Euripides

who gave

her due to Aphrodite, for,

as

Socrates

in Plato's Ban

quet, Aphrodite is
nean

a goddess to whom together with Dionysus the Aristopha comedy is wholly devoted. Incidentally, this agreement between Aristophanes and Euripides and this disagreement between Aristophanes and

Aeschylus essentially of at least

confirms our previous contention that

novel or some of

Aristophanes

was aware of

the

revolutionary character of his whole enterprise. The action his comedies expresses this characteristic of Aristophanes 's
Peace,20

thought. In the
and
by21

Knights, the Wasps, the the Assembly of Women, the restoration

ridiculous
means

the

Birds,

Thesmophoriazusae,
politics

of soundness

in

is

achieved

by

radically

novel

means,

by

means which are

incom
politi-

patible with the end: the ancestral

not

polity

and

its

spirit.

Aristophanes did, then,

his

have any delusions

about the

politically

problematic character of

The Origins of Political Science

cal message. of which

147

But to return to the argument at hand, the phenomenon in the light Aristophanes looks critically at the city as such is the family or the household. His comedies may be said to be one commentary on the sentence in
the Nicomachean Ethics which reads: "Man is
than a political one,
and

by

nature a

pairing

animal rather

for the

the

than

begetting living in
poles

and

family bearing of children

which the

is

earlier and more

necessary than the city,

to all animals (sc.

is

more common

herds)."

The two

between

Aristophanean comedy
on

moves

have hith
the other

erto appeared

to be

the retired and easy life of the

of

contemporary folly household as a life

public

the one

hand,
is

and on

of enjoyment of

the pleasures

the body. The transition

from the

one pole or

to the other

effected

in the

by wholly In the Peace the hero, Trygaeus, who is the comic poet himself in disguise, succeeds in stopping the horrors of an insane, fratricidal war
comedies means which are

ridiculous

unprecedented or extreme.
a

thin
as

by

cending to heaven on the back of a dung-beetle. He believes that Zeus is re

sponsible

for the

war and

he

wants

to rebuke him for this unfriendly conduct.

Having
not

arrived war

for the

in heaven, he finds out from Hermes that Zeus is responsible, itself, but for the continuation of the war: Zeus has put savage

War in charge, War has interred Peace in a deep pit, and Zeus has made it a capital crime to disinter her. The hero bribes Hermes with threats and promises, the chief promise being that Hermes will become the highest god, into assisting Peace. Trygaeus, acting against the express command of the highest god, succeeds in disinterring Peace and thus brings peace to all of Hellas. He does nothing, of course, to perform his promise to Hermes. Hermes him in

disinterring

is

superseded

completely

by Peace,

who

alone

is

worshipped.

By

rebelling
the

against

Zeus

and

the other gods, Trygaeus becomes the saviour. The just and

pleasant
gods.

life

of ease and quiet cannot

be brought

about except

by dethroning

The

same

theme

is treated from

a somewhat

different

point of view

in the

Wasps. In that comedy a zealous old juryman is prevented by his sensible son, first through force and then through persuasion, from attending the sessions of
the law
at
of court and and

home

thus

not

from acting there unjustly. The son wishes his father to stay to hurt his fellow men, to feast and to enjoy the pleasures
The
son succeeds partly.

refined,

modem society.

The father is

prevailed not

upon to refined

stay away from the court and to go to a party. But he is enjoyments: he merely gets drunk, becomes entangled with
acts of assault and cannot

fit for
girl

flute

and enjoys
can

himself in committing be directed into different channels but it

battery. His be
subdued.

savage nature

The father is

not a typical

juryman,
on

the typical juryman

being

a poor

fellow

who

depends for is
ex

his livelihood

the pay which the jurymen received in Athens. He

tremely

eager

to attend the court because

he loves

to condemn people.

He

traces his inhuman

desire to

an a

injunction

of

the Delphic Oracle. When his son

afraid of

deceives him into acquitting

against

defendant, he is
him
savage

having
of

committed a sin

the gods. What makes

is then his fear

the savagery of the

148
gods.

Interpretation

It is surprising that the gods should be more punitive than men, for, as Trygaeus finds out when he had ascended to heaven, men appear to be less evil
than

they

are when notion make

underlying Wasps. To
gods.

from above, from the seat of the gods. The of the savagery of the gods is nowhere contradicted in the men somewhat more humane one must free them from the

they

are viewed

As Plato's Aristophanes
god.

puts are

thropic

The

other

gods

it in the Banquet, Eros is the not characterized by love of how Euripides is

persecuted

most philan

men.

In the

Thesmophoriazusae the
nian women

poet shows

by

the Athe

because he had
of what

maligned women so much. said about

There is

no question as

to the truth

Euripides had

the

expresses the same view

throughout his plays. But the women are a

female sex; Aristophanes force to be

to be an atheist, com

reckoned with.

To

save

himself, Euripides,
It is
not

who

is

said

mits an enormous act of sacrilege.

followed

only

concession which

he is

compelled

to make

by any punishment. The is that he must promise the

them. In contradistinction

longer say nasty things to the Clouds, the Thesmophoriazusae has a where the philosopher fails.
women

that he will no

about

happy

ending;

a poet succeeds

In the Birds
sick of soft

we see
which

two Athenians who have left their city because

they
a

are

lawsuits

they do
they

not wish

to pay,
not

and are

in
a

search

for

quiet,

and

happy

city

where

a man

does

have to be

busybody.

Having
one of a

arrived at

the place where

expect

to get the necessary

information,
all will make

the Athenians hits upon the thought of

founding

city comprising

birds
the

democratic

world state.

That city, he

explains

to the

birds,
the

birds

the rulers of all men and all gods, for all traffic between men and gods (the

sacrifices) has to
posal
new

pass

through the region

gods are starved

in

which

birds dwell. The

pro

is adopted; the

gods;

they

take the place of the gods.

must make concessions

into submission; the birds become the The ruler of the birds is our clever
to the universal

Athenian. But he
birds. The birds
wisest of all
men.

democracy

of

the

praise

themselves as the tme gods:

are

they

are the oldest and

beings; they

all-seeing, all-ruling
what

and altogether

friendly
among
not

to

Their life is

altogether

pleasant;

is "base

by

convention"

men

is

noble

among the birds:

of one's

desertion,

abolition of

slavery, and last but

least his

the

beating

father

wishes

father. However, when a to join the city of the birds in

man who order

is be
are

given able

to
to

beating

to

indulge his

inclination

with

impunity

for the laws

of

the

birds

said to permit the

father he is told by the Athenian founder of the city of the birds that according to those laws the sons may not only not beat their fathers but must feed them when they are old. This is to say, it is possible to establish

beating

of one's

a universal

democracy

and

hence

universal

happiness

provided one preserves the prohibition against one preserves the

by dethroning the gods, beating one's father, provided

of

family. Eros,

which

inspires the generating

men, requires

in the

case of men

the sacredness of the family. The

family

rather than the

city

The Origins of Political Science

is
natural.

149

While the city

of

the birds

is in the

process of

Athenian founder is
soothsayer,
spanked,
wishes to

visited

by

five

men:

by

a poet who receives or

being founded, the gift, by a

a22

a supervisor and a seller of

decrees

laws

who are

thrown

out and
who

and

in the

central
air"

place

by

the Athenian astronomer

admires

Meton,
Thales

"measure the
warns

The founder
the

Meton

as another

and

loves him; but he in fact beaten up

tion and

him

of

fact that the

of

by

the citizens

beat him, and he is the birds. The founder's admira course,

citizens will

love

cannot protect the astronomer against the popular

dislike. Even in

the perfectly

happy

city, in the city

one cannot

which seems

to be in every respect the city

according to nature, Both obscenities

cannot

and

be openly a student of nature. blasphemies consist in publicly saying things

which

be

said

publicly

with propriety.

They

are

ridiculous

and

hence pleasing

propriety is sensed as a burden, as something imposed, its dignity to imposition, to convention, to nomos. In the something owing background of the Aristophanean comedy we discern the distinction between
to the extent to which
as
nomos and physis.

Hitherto

we

have

recognized step. as

the locus

of nature

in the fam

ily. But Aristophanes takes

non-indignant references to

further

adultery
uses

That step is indicated by the frequent well as by facts like these: the hero of
son who corrects

the Birds is
some extent

pederast,

and

the sensible

his foolish father to

in the Wasps
not

force

against

his

aged

tophanes does

stop

at

the sacredness or naturalness

father. In brief, Aris of the family. One is

tempted to say that his comedies celebrate the victory of nature, as it reveals

itself in the pleasant, over convention or law, which is the locus of the noble and the just. Lest this be grossly misunderstood, one must add immediately two
points.

In the first place, if

nomos

is

viewed

in the light

of

nature, the Aris

tophanean comedy is based on knowledge of nature and therefore on conscious

ness of the sublime pleasures

Aristophanes has
of nomos.

no

doubt

as

accompanying knowledge of nature. Above all, to the fact that nature, human nature, is in need
not reject nomos

Aristophanes does

but he

attempts

to

bring

to light

its

problematic

and precarious

body

and

the needs of

status, its status in between the needs of the the mind, for if one does not understand the precarious
unreasonable expectations modem

status of

nomos, one

is bound to have

from

nomos.

The

profoundest student of

Aristophanes in

times was Hegel. His

section of

interpretation "The

of

the Aristophanean comedy occurs in the

the Phe

nomenology of the

Mind (the

which

is

"Religion"

entitled

in the

subsection entitled

Art-Religion"

religion

Art-Religion Hegel it

means

expressing itself completely by art). By the the Greek religion, which he regarded as the highest

religion outside of revealed religion.

The Art-Religion finds its

end and cul

mination, or

full self-consciousness, in the Aristophanean comedy. Hegel says, "The individual consciousness having become cer In that comedy, Everything objective the tain of itself presents itself as the absolute
achieves
power."

gods, the city, the

family, justice

have become dissolved into the

self-con-

150

Interpretation
taken back into it. The comedy presents
of alien and celebrates

sciousness or plete

the com

everything everything transcending the individual. The comedy cele brates the triumph of "the subjectivity in its infinite Man has made freedom from fear himself the
of
security."

insubstantiality

to the self-consciousness, the complete

everything which he formerly regarded as the substantial content of his knowledge or action. This victory of subjectivity is one of the most important symptoms of the corruption of Greece. For our pres
complete master of ent purpose aesthetics

it is

not

necessary to dwell
not

on

the fact that in his lectures on this

view.

Hegel does

consistently

maintain

But

we must note

that
nean

what

Hegel

calls

the triumph of subjectivity is achieved in the Aristopha

virtue of us

comedy only comedy

by

the knowledge of nature,

i.e.,

the opposite of

self-consciousness.

Let

then turn to Plato's interpretation of the Aristopha

speech

nean

which we

find in the

he

puts

into the

mouth of

Aris

tophanes at the banquet.

Only

few

points can

be

mentioned

here.
of

Aristophanes Pausanias had

was

supposed

to make

his

speech

in honor

Eros

after not

made a pause.

But Aristophanes

got a

hiccough
and

he did

possess perfect control of

his

body,
place.

or perfect self-control

the physician

Eryximachus had to take his do

Aristophanes in have

proves

to

be interchangeable
the

with a physician who was a student of nature with

general.

Aristophanes begins
power of

the remark that

men

not seem to

experienced

Eros,

for if they had, they would build for him the greatest of temples and altars and bring him the greatest sacrifices, since Eros is the most philanthropic of all
gods.

He then tells the

what

following
now.
four23

story.

In the

olden

times human nature

was

different from

it is

Each human
ears,
etc.

being

consisted of two

human be
exceeding
to attack
since

ings; it had four hands,

strength and pride so that

In this

state men were of

they

undertook what

to ascend to

heaven in
could not

order

the gods. The gods did not

know

to

do, for they

of

kill man,

by doing
covered

so

they

would out:

deprive themselves

honors

and sacrifices.

Zeus dis

this way
as

to weaken men

by
a

became This

they

are now.

After this

incision,
for

cutting them into two so that they each half is longing for the other.
wholeness,
is24

longing for
from

the original unity,

eros.

The

original

whole was either androgynous or male or

who stem of original androgynes seek

female. Those

present
an

human beings

the opposite sex;

them are the adulterers. Those present human

beings
are the
are

who

outstanding part stem from an

who stem

original

female

are

female homosexuals. Those

are

present

human beings

from

an original male are male

homosexuals; they
most

and youths statesmen.

because they

the

manly;

they

best among the boys bom to become tme

This is the story to

which

the Platonic Aristophanes appends an

explanation of perfect propriety. virtue of eros

condition

But taken

by

itself the

myth

teaches that

by

man, and especially the best

part of

the male sex, will approach a

gods.

in

which

they
of

become25

a serious

danger to the in

We

record

here in

the fact that the hero

the

Birds,

who succeeds

dethroning

the gods and

The Origins of Political Science

-151

becoming

the

ruler

of

the

universe

through

the

birds, is

the

pederast

Peisthetaerus.26

(OCTOBER 31, 1958)

tes. The oldest

[we must] go back to the origins of rationalism, and therefore to Socra document regarding Socrates is Aristophanes 's comedy, the Clouds. For an adequate understanding of the Clouds it is necessary to consider
. . .

the Aristophanean comedy

repeat a

few

points

made

in general, or to understand the spirit of his comedy. last time. Aristophanean comedy has a two-fold
laugh
and

function, the function to be ridiculous, and

tice,
or

to

make us

to teach us

justice. The function is

Hence
only injus
such a

to be serious. Yet at the same time the Aristophanean

comical

comedy is the total comedy; the contemporary

public

is

all pervasive.

not

folly, but justice itself is

presented

in

way

opportunity The just life, as he sees it, is the retired life, life pleasures of farm life, enjoyment of the pleasures love. These
The
pleasures are given

as to afford

to

laugh. How does Aristophanes

on the of

achieve this

feat?

the

farm, enjoying the body, especially of

characters use

in the comedy a frank, unrestrained expression. the language of what, as I have learned through my frequent

readings

in the American Journal of Sociology, is called in this country the language of the stag party. The movement from the ridiculous of public folly to
the praise of public soundness is therefore a movement
public

from the ridiculous

of

folly
this

to the ridiculous of

impropriety,

not

to say obscenity. If one an

alyzes
a

state of

things one recognizes as the basis of Aristophanes 's thought

of

polarity, the polarity

the polis, the city, and the

polis.

family,

and

in this

context

the

family

appears
whole

to be more natural than the

to be one

appeal

from the

polis

The comedy may be said to the more natural family. In other

this fundamental distinction he ques

words, Aristophanes
and

presupposes

the fundamental distinction between nature

of

law

or convention.

On the basis
not

tions the

family itself,

only the city. For

point of view of

father,

the crime

from the

the

instance, the beating of one's family, is presented as not

absolutely wrong in one of the comedies, in the Wasps. Hence the more proper description of the fundamental polarity would be this: the conflict between the pleasant on the one hand and the just and noble on the other. Now this life of
gaiety, peace,
and

enjoyment,

the natural

life,

requires, according to Aris-

tophanes's presentation, the successful revolt against the gods,

punitive and

for the

gods are

harsh. This

Here is I

a place

clearly in the Birds and in the Peace. blasphemies in Aristophanes.27 for the famous
comes out most

my general interpretation of the Aristophanean comedy by con it with the interpretation given by the greatest mind who has devoted trasting himself in modem times to Aristophanes, and that is Hegel. Hegel sees in the
concluded

152

Interpretation
of

Aristophanean comedy the triumph

and

subjectivity
morality,

over and

everything
gods.

objective

substantial,

over

the city, the

family,

the

The subject,

the autonomous subject, recognizes itself as the origin of everything objective,

and

takes the objective back into

except to one or

itself. This does justice

of

to almost everything
of

in Aristophanes
this

thing

indeed decisive importance. The basis

of this

it, subjectivism, is in Aristophanes not the self-consciousness of the subject, but knowledge of nature, and the very opposite of self-consciousness. Aristophanes has brought this out most clearly
taking back,
we call

however

in

a scene

in the Birds in
a student of

which

the founder of a natural city is confronted

and

by

an

astronomer,
admires and

nature,

the founder of this city according to nature

cannot protect case

loves that

student of

nature, but he

him

against

the

enmity
of

of the citizen

body,
or

or the populace.

In this

the populace consists

birds, but

the

application

to human

beings does

not require a

effort of the

intelligence

the imagination. The basis of

very Aristophanean

great

com

edy is knowledge of nature, and that means for the philosophy is a problem, philosophy does not have
tence. Here is
where

ancients philosophy.

But

a political or civic exis

the problem of the Clouds comes

which

in,

to which I turn now.

meeting.

repeat a of

few things
the Clouds

said at

the end of the last

At the

beginning
sleep.

man who causes

it is dark. Strepsiades, the hero of the comedy, the Socrates's downfall, is lying on his couch and cannot find

He longs for the

day, for light in

owes

the literal sense. We may take this as a

a man who seeks

clue to the comedy. most

Socrates

his downfall to

light in the

literal sense, to a kind of Sancho Panza, to a rustic who has lost his bearings or has gone astray. It will do no great harm if this comparison sug
gests siades crook. a

similarity between Aristophanes 's Socrates and Don Quixote. Strep is not an embodiment of stem, old-fashioned justice, he is rather a

He is

a simple rustic, a man of the common people who

has

married a

patrician

lady. The offspring of the marriage, their son Pheidippides, has inher ited the expensive tastes of his mother's line. He is a passionate horseman. He
run

has

his father into

exorbitant

debt. In

order

to get

rid

of

his debts,

Strep

siades

had decided to

send

his

spendthrift son to

Socrates,

the owner and man

ager of a at

thinktank, so that he might learn how to talk himself out of his debts lawcourts. Strepsiades knows this much of Socrates, that Socrates talks about

the

heavens, and besides, teaches people for money how they can win every lawsuit, by fair means or foul. But although he lives next door, Strepsiades
does
not
matter

know Socrates's name, whereas his sophisticated son knows it as a of course. His son refuses to become Socrates's pupil. The elegant

young horseman has nothing but contempt for Socrates and his companions, "those pale-faced and ill-dressed boasters and beggars", hence Strepsiades him self is compelled to become Socrates's pupil. Let us reflect for a moment about
this situation,
common people

do know

of

it comes to sight right at the beginning of the Clouds. The know nothing of Socrates, not even his name. The patricians Socrates, but they despise him as a ridiculous sort of beggar.
as

The Origins of Political Science

153

Socrates does
ety. gotten

any danger from the two most powerful sections of soci If Strepsiades had remained within his station, Socrates would never have
not run

into trouble. Socrates does

man,
who

get

into trouble through

a certain

inbetween

type

of

is

not

distinguished

by honesty.
who

Here

we remind ourselves of

the fact that the old juryman of the

Wasps,

is

such a savage condemner

because he believes that the

gods look askance at acquittals, is also socially an inbetween type. Needless to say that the demagogues too belong to the inbe tween type. Strepsiades then sends his son to Socrates so that he might leam

dishonest

practices

corruption of

his son,

for him. Strepsiades is ultimately responsible for a possible and yet this will not prevent him from making Socrates
or school.

alone responsible.

word about says

Socrates's thinktank

Misled

by

what

the Platonic

Socrates

ing

all

in his apology addressed to the Athenian people about his spend his time in the market place, some people think that the school house of
a pure or

Socrates is

impure invention

of

Aristophanes. Yet there is Xenophon

with

tic evidence to the effect that Socrates used to sit together

his friends

and

to study

with

them the books of the wise men of old, and that he never ceased

considering with them what each of the beings is. Given the fact that Socrates was the leader in these gatherings, and that the activities mentioned cannot well in28 be engaged in the market-place, Xenophon tells us then in effect that Socra
tes was a teacher, if a
perfect

teacher. And a teacher

has pupils,

and the com

munity Strepsiades is
received

of teachers and
enters

pupils, rather than the

building, is

a school.

then Socrates's thinktank in order to become his pupil. He

by

a pupil of

Socrates. It takes easy

considerable

time before

he

meets

Socrates. Socrates is

not as

of access as

Euripides in

a comparable scene

in the Acharnians. The

pupil

tells Strepsiades that what

is going
But
pupil

on

in the
s

thinktank may not be divulged to anyone except to

mere all

Strepsiades'

pupils.

declaration that he intends to become

secrets

a pupil

induces the

to blurt out

he knows. Socrates's security arrangements are most inept. We leam through the pupil that Socrates and his pupils study mathematics and
the
natural science.

can

jump.

For example, they investigate how many feet of its own They need not leave the tank in order to catch the flea. Then
aware of

flea

Strep
air,

siades
and

becomes

Socrates aloft,

suspended

in

basket, walking

on

looking

over

the sun, or
and

looking

down

on

it. At Strepsiades's request,

out

Socrates descends
of ment's thought to
siades

leams

of

Strepsiades's desire to leam to talk himself

his debts. Socrates initiates him

the

immediately

without

having

given a mo

question of pay.

has knocked

at

In fact, nowhere in the play, after Strep Socrates's door, do we find any reference to Socrates

taking any pay for his teaching.

some sort of gift which

Only

once

is there

very

casual reference

to

Strepsiades

offers

to Socrates out of gratitude. Socrates

no

is

not

sophist

in Aristophanes. Socrates is his

companions

fellow,
his

who makes

too needy and yet

money maker, but a needy is insensitive to his and

to Strepsiades had

neediness.

Socrates's first

words addressed

154

Interpretation
one?"

been, "Why do
money.

you

call

me,

you ephemeral

Socrates

shows

himself

throughout as the despiser of everything ephemeral, and hence in

particular of

He is induced to
a

converse with
which

Strepsiades
either

not

by

greed or

vanity, but

rather

by

desire to talk,

is

prompted29

by

the desire to reduce the

volume of

stupidity in the world, or else Socrates teaches two things, natural

corresponds

by

sheer enthusiasm

for his The

pursuit.

science

and rhetoric.

duality

of

natural science and rhetoric

to a

duality

of principles.

The first
cosmic
and

principle

is aether,
and

which

is the

original

whirl or

chaos, the highest

principle,
power of

the other principle

and

is the clouds,
choruses.

which give

understanding

speech,

inspire the

The

clouds correspond

to rhetoric,

they can take any shape they like, or since they can imitate everything, or since they can reveal the nature of all things, and since at the same time they conceal the sky, they conceal the aether, or heaven, or the highest reality, for
since
rhetoric

is essentially both revealing

and concealing.

The

clouds are

the only

gods recognized and worshipped gods

by

Socrates.

They

are worshipped

by

him

as

because they are the origin of the greatest benefit to men, whereas the highest cosmic principle, aether, is responsible for both good and evil. The
clouds cises.

love

lazy

or

inactive
not

people and

demand

abstinence

from

bodily

exer

Socrates does
clouds.

hesitate to

make clear what not

only the
that

I quote, "Zeus does

recognize

exist."

he means by worshipping He demands from Strepsiades

he

no

longer

the gods worshipped

by

the city, and

Strepsiades,
thing

mind

you,

complies with

this request without any hesitation. The strange

is that Socrates blurts

out these

shocking things before

he has tested Strepsiades

regarding his worthiness to hear of them and his ability to understand them. The Aristophanean Socrates is characterized by an amazing lack of phronesis, of practical wisdom or prudence. Still, since Strepsiades has no interest beyond cheating his creditors, Socrates limits himself to teaching him speech, gram mar, et cetera. He does not even attempt to teach him natural science. But Strepsiades
proves

to be too stupid even for the

compelled

lower

or easier

branch

of

knowledge. He is therefore
pupil.

to

force his

son to

become Socrates's

He is particularly anxious that Socrates should teach Pheidippides the Unjust Speech, the Unjust Argument Just and Unjust Argument are personi

fied in the Clouds

speeches, the Just Speech and the

absent while

Socrates merely replies that Pheidippides will hear both Unjust Speech. Socrates himself will be

the two speeches have their exchange.

exposes

Socrates does

not

teach
and

injustice, he merely
injustice. He
own cannot

his

pupils

to the arguments

between justice
cannot

be held

responsible

for the fact that justice

hold her

by

argument against

injustice.
existence of

The Unjust Speech denies the

not

right

on

the grounds that

justice is

"with the

gods."

Zeus did

not perish

for

having

done

violence to this

father,

but

rather was rewarded

for it. The Just Speech is

that30

unable

to reply to this point.

The Just Speech

points out

the Unjust

the city feeds the Unjust Speech. It

praises old-fashioned

Speech does harm to the city, while temperance. The Un-

The Origins of Political Science

just Speech
replies

155
to the

in the

spirit of the

Aristophanean
than the

comedy.

It

refers

necessities of

nature, to

which are stronger make use of

demands

of temperance. regard

It
as

encourages people

nature, that is to say, to

base, for

one cannot

help being

defeated

by
a

eros and

by

women.

nothing The proof is

again supplied

by

the

conduct of

Zeus. In

word, the

ancestral

morality, the

standard of the external

on which

Aristophanes, is contradicted by the ancestral theology it is based. At the end of the exchange the Just Speech admits its
son's accomplish

defeat,

and deserts to the camp of the Unjust Speech. Pheidippides leams the art of speaking. Trusting in his

ments, Strepsiades refuses to pay his debts, and, in addition, insults his credi tors. He heaps ridicule on his former oaths regarding his debts and on the very
gods.

Then

controversy

arises

between father

and son.

The

son

despises Aes

chylus and

the father admires him. The

son prefers a

Euripides,

who, he says,

is

the wisest poet, and

he

quotes

from Euripides

description
The

of

incest between far

as

brother his

and sister.

Strepsiades is
proves

deeply

shocked.

son goes so

to

beat

father,

but he

that he acts that he

can

justly

his father's satisfaction, through the Just Speech, in beating his father. But then, when Pheidippides declares
to

also prove

by

the Unjust Speech that he is

entitled

to beat his

mother, Strepsiades's

patience snaps. against

Cursing
and

himself

and

his dishonesty, he

repents, rums passionately

tence of Zeus and the

Socrates
and

other

gods,

his school, recognizes the exis bums down Socrates's thinktank. He

justifies this

action as
was

the

punishment

for the

impiety

of

Socrates. But let

us not

forget

that it

not

teaching
stand

that a

son

lessons, but Socrates's alleged impiety may beat his own mother, which aroused Strepsiades's
Socrates's
or

unquenchable

ire,

and

brought

about

Socrates's downfall. If

we wish

to

under

Aristophanes 's
to
this31

case against of

Socrates,
and raise

we must overcome our natural re

vulsion

kind

subject,
to

the

question

as to the particular

significance of

the

permission

beat

one's mother as

distinguished from beat

was already incest between

ing

one's

father. An indication is he heard

We

given

by

the

fact that Strepsiades

Euripides'

about to rebel when

of

s presentation of

brother
that the
and

and sister.

shall express

the underlying thought

the city, yet the the
city.

as

follows. Granted
cannot

family

is
the

more natural than

family
The

be

secure
against

flourish

except

incest
city.

compels

by becoming family to transcend itself,

incest is
the
against

a part of

prohibition expand

and, as it were, to

into the

The

prohibition against

a quasi-natural

bridge between the

of

family

teaching By rebelling Strepsiades merely acts in the spirit of his love for his son, which has inspired his escapades into dishonesty. Given the delicate and complicated character of and city, and ultimately between nature and con the relation between
and the city.
alleged outrageous

Socrates,

family

vention, the gulf

consecrated

between the two

poles can

by

reference

to the gods.
without

For the

only be bridged if convention is reason I indicated, the gods can

since

not

fulfill their function

and

harshness. Yet

the

gods are not which

they32

human
subject

beings

therefore cannot be bound

by

the laws to

156
men must

Interpretation
Hera is both Zeus's do
what wife and sister a great
not33

difficulty

remains.

Men

the gods tell them to

do, but

what

the gods do. This is not

altogether
gods.

satisfactory for those

who

long

with all

their heart to imitate the

It is necessary to consider the conduct of Socrates's goddesses, the Clouds. The Clouds do not express Socrates's sentiment regarding the non-existence of the other gods very far from it. They present themselves as being on the

friendliest terms
nial of

with

the other gods. But

they listen silently

are

to Socrates's de

the existence of the other gods.

They

highly

pleased with on

Socrates's
great

worshipping the Clouds.

wisdom and promise

They

congratulate

Strepsiades
provided

his desire for

a good

him

perfect

happiness,

he has

memory,

indefatigable dedication to study, and extreme continence. And last but not least, if he honors the Clouds. They promise him in particular that he will
surpass all public

Greeks in the

art of public

speaking,

and

over to send

speaking which he needs in order to get rid of Socrates. When Strepsiades proves to be too dumb, they advise him to his son to Socrates in his stead. While Strepsiades fetches Pheidippides

certainly in that kind of his debts. They hand him

they
rates

remind

Socrates

of their great

to take the
says.

fullest
A

advantage of

generosity toward Socrates and advise him Strepsiades's willingness to do everything Soc

change makes

itself felt

during

the exchange between the

Just

Speech

and

the Unjust Speech. When the Just Speech praises the ancient sys

tem of education, the Marathonian system,

they

applaud.

They

never applaud

the Unjust Speech. When Strepsiades scoffs at his creditors and

insults them in

every way, the Clouds

ture

express

the direst warnings regarding Strepsiades's fu

expect and

fate,

and

cated son.

especially as to what he may have to After Strepsiades has come to his senses,

from his

sophisti

repented, the Clouds

tell him that he got only what was coming to him because he had turned to

dishonesty. Strepsiades replies, with some justice, that the Clouds had encour aged him. But the goddesses reply that it is their constant practice to guide men into misfortune, so that they may leam to fear the gods. Need less to say, the Clouds do not raise a finger, if Clouds can raise a finger, in defense of Socrates and his thinktank. I suggest this explanation. The
on evils
Clouds'

intent

only

worshipper

in Athens up to
claim

now

is Socrates. Hence they favor him for the

the city more than all other gods, al

time being. though

They
are

that

they help
Either34

they

the only gods

which are not worshipped

in Athens. There is
as35

this alternative before them.

Socrates,

whom

they favor

their sole

worshipper, becomes a or Socrates fails city

success

the Clouds will be worshipped

by

the

whole

they
will

will

be instrumental, if only

by

permission, in his

destruction. The
use a

Clouds36

be

worshipped again are

by

the whole city. If

I may

expression, they very After Socrates has introduced the

vulgar

when

they

see

how

unpopular

sitting divinities into the city they desert him he is bound to become. They change their posi
new

pretty.

tion as soon as

they

see

how the Strepsiades case, the test case, is developing.

The Origins of Political Science

Their
conduct proves their

157

divinity.

They

are wiser

than Socrates. The Clouds

virtue and

are wise vice.

because they
virtue

act with prudent regard to

both Socrates's

his

His

consists
not

which enables

him

in his daring, his intrepidity, his non-conformity, to worship the divinities worshipped by the city, and to
worshipped

worship

new

divinities
wisdom,

by

no one

but himself. His

vice

is his lack

of practical

or

prudence.
unjust.

For it

tophanes's Socrates that he is

be wrong to say of Arisis indifferent to justice. The fact that He

would

he does

not rebuke

Strepsiades for his

dishonesty

you enter use

who cheat of

the life

of

business

and action you

may very well mean that once have already made a decision to
the creditors
and expensive chariots

dishonest
sold

means.

Besides, it is by
expensive
place. on

no means clear whether

Pheidippides the it is

horses
not

did

not

him in the first

as

And it is

Socrates's fault if the

common view open plea

justice, based

mythology, is

intellectually

inferior to the

for injustice. If

all men

dedicated themselves to the

pursuit

to which the Aris

would

tophanean Socrates is
slightest

dedicated,

the study of nature, no one

have the

incentive for

hurting

anyone else.

Yet,

and

this

seems37

to be the be

ginning to Socrates's error, not all men are capable to lead a life of contempla tion. As a consequence of this grave oversight the Aristophanean Socrates is wholly
unaware of

the

devastating

effect38

which

his indifference to

practical

matters must

have

on

the city, if

non-

theoretical men should

unaware of

become influenced from

by

Socrates's

sentiments.

Socrates is

the setting within which his

of prudence proceeds

thinktank exists. He lacks

self-knowledge.

His lack

his lack
so

of self-knowledge.
unpolitical.

It is because

of

his lack

of self-knowledge

that he

is

radically dies are dedicated to the

eros, one
observes

If

one remembers

the fact that the Aristophanean come

and

praises of

Aphrodite

Dionysus,

or

to the praise
complete

of

immediately,

with great

surprise, Socrates's

im

munity to wine and to love. The Aristophanean Socrates is altogether unerotic. It is for this reason that he is thoroughly amusic. However closely he may be
with Euripides, there is a gulf between him and Euripides precisely because Socrates has nothing in common with the poetic Muse. As a necessary consequence of this, when Euripides is persecuted in the Thesmophoriazusae,

linked

he is

capable

to save

himself,
not

whereas

when

Socrates is

persecuted

in the

Clouds, he has
nature and of

no means of

rhetoric, is

defense. Socrates's pursuit, the precise study of a public power, whereas poetry is a public power. Socrates is the
most

Aristophanes 's
of

comical presentation of

important

statement of

the case

for poetry in that

speaks at

secular contest of

which

Plato

the

beginning
said

between poetry and philosophy the tenth book of the Republic.

par excellence on

Plato's Republic may be

to be the reply

to Aristophanes.

The

political proposals

of

the Republic are based

the conceits underlying

communism

Aristophanes 's

Assembly of Women. The

complete39

communism,

not only regarding property, but regarding women and children as well, is introduced in Plato's Republic with arguments literally taken from Aris

tophanes 's

Assembly

of Women. There is this

most

important difference

be-

158

Interpretation
best city
of

tween the

the

Assembly

of Women

and that of
its40

the Republic. Plato

contends that complete communism requires as

capstone or

its foundation

the rule of philosophy, about

difference
tion

corresponds

to a

Aristophanes is completely silent. This difference indicated in Plato's Banquet. According

which

to Aristophanes the direction of eros is horizontal.

of eros

According
important

to Plato the
use of

direc

is

vertical.

While the Republic

much

makes

the Assem

bly

of

Women, it is

at

least equally
represents

directed against,

and

indebted to, the

Clouds. Thrasymachus
place of the

Just Speech. And the

Speech, and Socrates takes the Just Speech is in Plato, of course, victorious.
the Unjust
are

The

chief

interlocutors in the Republic

the erotic Glaucon and the musical

Adeimantus. As for music, Socrates demands in the name of justice that the poet as free poet be expelled from the city. As for eros, the tyrant, injustice

incarnate, is
his

revealed

to be

eros

incarnate. The Socrates

of

the Republic reveals

kinship

with

the unerotic and the amusic Socrates of the Clouds.

we

What, then, do
science?

Aristophanes

leam from Aristophanes regarding the origin of political presents Socrates in about the same light in which Aris

totle

presents

fails to

understand

Hippodamus from Miletus, as a student of nature as a whole who the political things. The concern of philosophy leads beyond
or

the city in spite,

rhetoric. mon

because,
is
unable

of

the fact that philosophy is

concerned

with

Philosophy
and

to persuade the non-philosophers,

not a political power.

or

the

com

people,

hence philosophy is
poetry,

Philosophy, in
it

contradistinction to

cannot charm

the multitude. Because philosophy

transcends the human and ephemeral, it is radically unpolitical, and therefore

is

amusic

and unerotic.

It

cannot

teach the just

supplemented

things,

whereas

Philosophy

is then in

need of

being

by

a pursuit which

poetry can. is political

because it is

music and

erotic, if philosophy is to become just.

self-knowledge. problem
man

Poetry

is

self-knowledge.

Plato did

not

Philosophy lacks deny that there is a

to a political
cheap."

here. In the Laws his Athenian Stranger

gives occasion race

to say to

him, "Stranger,

you

hold

our

human

very

To

which

the

Stranger,

the philosopher, replies, "Marvel not, but forgive me;

for
with

having
this, I is
not of of

looked away toward the god and having made the experience going said what I just said. But if you prefer, be it granted that our

race

despicable but worthy of the fact that the human

political

seriousness."

some race

The

recognition

by

is worthy

of some seriousness

philosophy is the origin

philosophy

or political science.

If this

however,
of who was

this must mean that the political

is to be philosophic, the merely human things, are things,

recognition

decisive importance for understanding nature as a whole. The philosopher the first to realize this was Socrates, the Socrates who emerged out of

the Socrates of the Clouds. Of this Socrates we know through

Xenophon

and

Plato. I

shall speak glance

first

of the

Xenophontic Socrates.
writings appear

At first
source

Xenophon's Socratic
character of

to be the most reliable

for establishing the

the Socratic teaching.

Among

the four

authors of

the chief sources regarding

Socrates, Xenophon

alone combined

the

The Origins of Political Science

two
most

159
he

important

qualifications.

He

was an acquaintance of

Socrates,

and

has

was able and willing to be a historian. In by this, Xenophon's testimony does not enjoy in our time the respect it so patently deserves. The reason for this anomaly can be stated as follows. Xenophon is not very intelligent, not to say that he is a fool. He has the mind of a retired

shown

deed that he

spite of

colonel rather than of a philosopher.

horses, battles,
of the most

and recollections of

outstanding scholars extreme form and therefore in a particularly enlightening form. Bumet con tended that Xenophon did not know Socrates well, seeing that Xenophon him
self

He was much more attracted by dogs, battles, than by the truth. John Bumet, one in this field, has stated this view in the most

practically says that he was a youth in 401, that is to say, when he had already left Athens for good and was with Cyrus in Asia Minor. Bumet sug
gests that

Xenophon

was attracted

by Socrates,

not on account of

Socrates's

intelligence, but on account of Socrates's military reputation. The most obvious difficulty for this theory is the fact that we owe all our specific information about Socrates's military exploits to Plato, and even in the case of
wisdom or

Plato the

most

detailed

report

is

given

by

an

intoxicated

man.

Xenophon he does

barely

alludes to these things.

mention

In his two lists

of

Socrates's

virtues

not even

occasional reference and

Socrates's military virtue, his courage, or manliness. He leaves it at an to Socrates's having shown his justice, both in civil life

in

campaigns.

Besides,

the term youth

or

young man,

which

is

applied

to

Xenophon
clever

by

an

man."

young Xenophon had The but

emissary of the Persian king, means in the context, "you The term is used in order to counteract a remark which

made.

It

cannot

be

used

for

fixing

Xenophon's date
study
of

of

birth.

prejudice against
on

Xenophon is

based,

not on a sober
of

his writings,
the specific

the fact that the prevailing notions

the greatness of a man and the

recognition of

greatness of an author greatness of

do

not

leave

room

for the

Romanticism, in all its forms, has rendered impossible the tme understanding of Xenophon. As for Bumet in particular, his dissatisfaction with Xenophon had a special reason. He was un
commonly sensitive to the presence in Socrates's thought of natural science, and Xenophon flatly denies that Socrates had anything to do with natural sci ence. While the modem criticism of Xenophon is of no value, its sheer power

the man and the author Xenophon.

may incline
phon was a

us

to reconsider our first impression. Despite the fact that

Xeno

work, the

historian, Hellenica, but his

itself
as a
as a

this was an exaggeration. Xenophon wrote one historical

which presents

been regarded,
was

most extensive book, the Education of Cyrus, historical book, is rightly regarded, and has always work of fiction. Xenophon's achievement as a historian

only

a part of

his his

literary

activity.

In

order to

describe his
which

literary

as a whole

it is

wise

to make use of a description

writings.

is

sometimes

activity found in

the

manuscripts of

There he is

sometimes called

the Orator Xeno

phon.

As for the
to
refer

suffices

relationship between oratory and history in antiquity, it to Cicero's rhetorical writings. The expression, the Orator Xeclose

160

Interpretation
means

nophon,
who

less that Xenophon

was a public speaker

but

that

he

was a man

fully

possessed

the art of public speaking, or that

means

one can

leam that

art

by
or

studying his writings. The expression Demosthenes than the art of Isocrates.
shall
that41

here less the

the

art of

Pericles

Anticipating
Socratic

result of

this

lecture, I
an

say The art

Xenophon's

rhetoric was

rhetoric. art of

of public

speaking

writing.

Tradition tells

sense of shame.

phon's art of

of strong us This description certainly fits the writer Xenophon, or Xeno writing. A man who possesses a strong sense of shame will re

in Xenophon's writing is that Xenophon was a bashful man, a man

exhibited

frain
evil,

as much as possible and

the bad. To quote his own words, "It

from hearing, seeing, and speaking of the ugly, the is noble and just and pious and
ones."

more pleasant

to remember the good things rather than the bad

would prefer

For

instance, Xenophon
than that it
was

to say of a given town that it was

big,

rather

big, deserted,

and poor.

But

of a

town in a good condition

he
He

would without

say of he was a brave

as much of

would

any hesitation say that it was big, a given individual that he was brave
and shrewd crook.

inhabited,

and well-off.

and shrewd rather

than that

He

expects

the reader of his praises to think

those virtues about which

the virtues which he

of their absence.

mentions as of

he is

silent
nable

because

Lest

we

traitor was

highly

rewarded

by

the

treason, Xenophon
throughout a
not to shock our

would suggest

that

shocked by the fact that an abomi king who was benefited by the act of that king had the traitor tortured to death

be

whole year

for his
that

treason.

But

since

Xenophon desires
will add

not

only

feelings, but
certain

also

to indicate the truth, he

the remark
treason
a

that he cannot be

such a

fitting

retribution

for the
place.

act of

actually further in the

said to

took place. He says this act

same
as

is

said to
would

have taken say

Going

direction, Xenophon
for his
mother

of a man

that his father

step is

be X, but

there is agreement that she was Y. One of

why he entitled his so-called Expedition of Cyrus, Anabasis, Cyrus's Ascent, is that the only part of the story which was happy as far as Cyrus was concerned was the ascent, the way up from the coast to the interior,
the
reasons as

distinguished from the battle

which took place after

the completion of the

was most unhappy for Cyrus. These examples must here for showing that Xenophon's maxim regarding the preferability of re membering the good things rather than the bad ones circumscribes what is now ascent and which

suffice

generally known as irony. The ironical is a kind of the ridiculous. In one of Xenophon's Socratic writings Socrates describes the general ion is
about

opin

present

himself in terms reminding in Xenophon's work. One

and

Xenophon's Socrates
and

way Aristophanes of the most striking differences between42 Aristophanes 's Socrates is that the former is urbane
some

of the

Clouds. In

patient,

whereas

the Aristophanean Socrates shows a complete

and also of patience.
most

lack

of ur

banity
phon's occurs

and even

politeness,
ever

Socrates

addresses

impolitely

The only man whom Xeno is Xenophon himself. This

and

in the only

conversation

between Xenophon

Socrates

which

is

re-

The Origins of Political Science

corded

'161

in Xenophon's Socratic

writings.

Xenophon's Socrates

calls

Xenophon,

"You
phon,
treats

fool!", "You and only Xenophon,

Strepsiades. In

wretch!"

That is to say, Xenophon's Socrates treats Xeno in the same way in which Aristophanes 's Socrates

the Clouds Pheidippides says in a dream to a

when you of

friend,

"Take the horse home he has

him

have

given

him

roll."

a good slave

In Xenophon's

Oeconomicus the interlocutor

when given

Socrates says, The

"My

takes the horse home

of

roll."

a good

same meter.

Could the interlocutor

phon's substitute

Socrates in the Oeconomicus, the perfect gentleman Ischomachus, be Xeno for Aristophanes 's Pheidippides? Pheidippides comes to sight in the Clouds
as

Socrates's

pupil as

tes's teacher in
which of

justice, just
was

in injustice. Ischomachus, however, is Socra in Xenophon's work Xenophon the place

takes43

in the Clouds
things

throughout occupied
shown and

by

Strepsiades. Through the

use

ridiculous

Socrates is
city,

by

Xenophon to be in

harmony

with

respectability
might

and with the

to contribute through his activities to civic

order.

or political excellence of

the highest

Xenophon's Socratic writings,

s

one

dare to say,

constitute a

reply to

Aristophanes'

Clouds

on

the level of

the
use

Clouds,

and with a most subtle use of

the means of Aristophanes. We could

this observation as a clue to Xenophon's Socratic writings if we were not

averse

wholly

to

paradoxes.

Let

us rather

turn to the

most

obvious, to the

surface, and cling to it as

much as we can.

Fifteen

writings

have

come

down to

us as writings of

Xenophon. Four

of

them are the Socratic writings, then there is the Expedition of

cation

Cyrus,

the Edu

ings.

of Cyrus, the Greek History, The titles of some of these

or rather
writings

Hellenica,
are

and the

Minor Writ
of

strange.

The title

the

Expedition of Cyrus, the Ascent of Cyrus, fits only the first part of the work. The bulk of the work deals not with the ascent of Cyrus but with the descent of

Xenophon,

the44

descent

originated and organized on

by

Xenophon
of

of

the Greek

mercenaries who

had followed Cyrus

his

ascent.

The title

the Education

not of Cyrus fits only the first book of the work. The bulk of the work deals but with the exploits of Cyrus after his education had with Cyrus's education, been completed. The title of the largest of the Socratic writings, Memorabilia

in the Latin translation, Recollections, is

ness was recognized

also somewhat strange.

This

strange

translators, who called the book by Recollections of Socrates, for the book is entirely de Memorabilia Socratis, voted to what Xenophon remembered of Socrates. By calling the book Recol
some editors as well as

lections simply, Xenophon indicated that his recollections simply, or his recollections par excellence, are not his recollections of his deeds in Asia

Minor,

which are recorded name

Socrates. The

of

in the Expedition of Cyrus, but his recollections of Socrates occurs only in the title of one of his four
of the

Socratic writings, in the title Socrates

occurs

only in the title

writings

Socrates. The Socratic

work.

of Socrates, just as the name of Plato's works, again, the Apology of constitute, as it were, one pole of Xenophon's

Apology

of one of

The

other pole

is

constituted

by

the Education of Cyrus. A reference

by

162

Interpretation
shows that

Xenophon's Socrates to Cyrus Socratic

the
writings.

Cyrus is

not absent

from Xenophon's

It

could not
and

be

otherwise.

Cyrus is

presented

by

Xenophon

as

model of a

mler,

especially

of a captain.

But Xenophon's Socrates

Plato's Socrates the

possesses perfect command of

the art of the captain, as Xenophon shows. And

since

according to

a principle of

both Xenophon's

and

necessary

and sufficient condition

for

being

a perfect captain

is

one's possess

captain, Xenophon's Socrates too is a ing perfect captain. On the other hand, Socrates is present in the three most exten sive Xenophontic writings which are not devoted to Socrates, the Hellenica, the
perfect command of the art of the

Expedition of
there
teristic

Cyrus,
of

and

the Education of Cyrus. In

explicit or

each of

these

writings

occurs a single

reference,

allusive, to Socrates. The

charac

feature

Xenophon's

work as a whole can

be

said to

be the

presence

in

it

of

the two poles, Cyrus and Socrates.

a radical

There is
that both

difference between Cyrus

captains,
a

and

Socrates in

spite of the

fact

are excellent

difference

which on reflection proves

to be to

an opposition. mention

Xenophon indicates this difference

or

most

simply

by failing

courage,

military virtue, among the virtues of Socrates. Cyrus exer

not

cises,
eager

and

Socrates does

exercise, the

royal or political wish

art,

since

Cyrus is

it. Since there is, an opposition between Cyrus and Socrates, there is needed a link between then, Cyrus and Socrates. This link is Xenophon himself. Xenophon can be a link
to exercise it and Socrates does not
to exercise

between Cyrus
sophists.

and

Socrates because he is
was

a pupil of

Socrates

and not of

the

Xenophon

great empire

induced to accompany Cyrus, the namesake of the builder Cyrus, by his friend Proxenus, who had been a pupil of
rhetoric.

Gorgias,
wealth

the famous teacher of

was able

Proxenus left the

school of

Gorgias in

the belief that he

to acquire a great name, great power, and great

by just

and noble means alone. and was

But he had the defect that he

make

could rale

only gentlemen, he believed that

men.

incapable to

himself feared

by

the soldiers, for

governance of

praise and

withholding

praise sufficed

for the
or of

He did

not

appreciate the power of

punishment,

harshness. But
those

Xenophon,
and

the

pupil of

Socrates,
He

was able to rule

both

gentlemen and

who were not gentlemen.

was as excellent at

beating them, as he was at praising the good have become the sole commander of the Greek army if he had desired it. Hence
he
could phon shows

castigating the bad and base, and the noble. Hence he could

seriously desire to become the founder of a city in Asia Minor. Xeno by his deeds the radical difference between Socrates and the other his
age.

wise men of

Socrates

was

the

political educator par excellence.

Socra

tes was the opposite of a mere speculator about the things in heaven and be
neath

the earth.

Socrates,

and

not

Gorgias, for

example,

was

the political

educator par excellence

which

because he had

recognized the power of that

in

man

is

recalcitrant to reason and which must

therefore cannot be persuaded into

understands the nature of polit

submission, but

be beaten into it. Socrates simply

rational.

ical things,

which are not

Therefore,

the student of politics can

The Origins of Political Science

163

leam something important by observing the training of dogs and of horses. Therefore there exists a relation between Xenophon's Socratic writings and
those
of

his

minor writings

which

deal

with

dogs

and

horses. It is perfectly
or rather on

fitting, for with dogs,

ophers.

more

than one reason, that his writing on

dogs,

hunting

almost ends with a

blame

of

the sophists, and a praise of the philos

must

now

turn to a more detailed analysis of the

we

political

teaching

of

Xenophon's

Socrates, but
giving
some

few

remarks

have the time for that. Therefore, I make a conclusion to this lecture. There are four Socratic do
not

writings, the

Memorabilia,
will

the

Oeconomicus,

the

Banquet,

and the

Apology
to be

of
a

Socrates. Next time I

presentation of

try to show that the Memorabilia are meant Socrates's justice, that the three other Socratic writings

present

Socrates simply, without a limited regard to his justice. The Oeconomicus pre sents Socrates as a speaker, the Banquet presents Socrates as a doer, and the

Apology of Socrates literary principle of

indicate the
considers these

presents

Socrates

as a silent

deliberator,
not

or

thinker. The

the

Memorabilia,

the largest of these four to set

books, is

to

character of

Socrates's true activity, but

it forth. If

one

indications carefully, one comes to see that the Xenophontic Socrates did not limit himself to the study of the human things, but was con
as

cerned,

every
are

other

philosopher,

with

the whole, only

he

thought that the

as well as

human things

the clue to the

whole.

For Xenophon's Socrates,

for the Platonic Socrates, the key for the understanding of the whole is the fact that the whole is characterized by what I shall call noetic heterogeneity. To
state

it

more

simply,

by

the
not

fact that the

become

whole consists of classes or clear

kinds the It is

character of which

does
For

fully

through sense

perception.

for this

reason

that Socrates could become the founder of political philosophy,

political

or political science.

philosophy, or political science, is based on

the

premise

that

political

things are in a class

political

by themselves,

that there is an

essential

difference between

things,

and things which are not political.

Or

more

specifically, that there the private or

claim of

is

an essential

difference between the is in fact

the

common

good and

sectional good.

Socrates is the first

which

philosopher who raised

did
the
of

justice to the

the political, the claim

by

polis, the political society.

that
claim.

This

means

that

he

also realized ways of

limitations

Hence he distinguished between two

the political life and

life,

the political

life,

and one which transcends

which

is the highest. Now

while

according to Xenophon

and

his Socrates the transpolitical life is higher in

dig

nity than the political for the in

claims of

life, they did everything in

to be the
characteristic

their power to instill respect

the city and of political life and

it. Moderation
as
other

proves

respects,

recognition of

of everything connected with quality of Socrates. Here as well the essential difference between the political

and the
essential

non-political, or,

more

differences,

or of

fundamentally, recognition of the existence of noetic heterogeneity, appears as moderation as op

philosophers

posed

to the

madness

of the

preceding Socrates. But Socratic

164

Interpretation
also,
and

moderation means

in

a sense even

primarily, the

recognition of opin

ions
did deed

which are not not separate not

tme but salutary to political life.

Socrates,

from

each other wisdom and moderation.

The

Xenophon says, political is in

the

highest, but it is

the

first, because it is

the most urgent. It

is

philosophy as continence is related to virtue proper. It is the founda the indispensable condition. From here we can understand why Socrates tion, could be presented in a popular presentation as having limited himself, his
related to

study, entirely to the human

are

and political things.

The human

or political

things

indeed the

clue

to all

or

bond between the

the human

things, to the whole of nature, since they are the link highest and the lowest, or since man is a microcosm, or
things and their correlatives are the form in
of
which

since

or political
. .

the highest

principle

[end

tape]

(NOVEMBER

3, 1958)
presentation of

Plato's

and

Xenophon's
replies

Socrates

understood,
tophanes's

as

to

Aristophanes 's

be understood, can be Arispresentation of Socrates.

can

presentation

is

not a piece of

buffoonery, but it
fact
that

goes

to the root of

the matter, not in spite, but because of the

read and

it is

a comedy.

The Clouds
the Birds

in

conjunction with

the other plays of

are one of

Aristophanes, especially
documents
are

Thesmophoriazusae ,

the

greatest

of the contest

be

tween philosophy and poetry for

of

supremacy.

They

the

greatest

documents

The Aristophanean comedy is based on the fundamental distinction between nature and convention. It is therefore
the case

for the supremacy

of poetry.

based
Greek

on philosophy. sense of the

Philosophy,

or

the science of nature, or

word,

as represented

by

Socrates is

allied with rhetoric.

physiology in the It

recognizes

two

principles

the one hand and

corresponding to the difference of natural science on rhetoric on the other. These principles are Aether and the
this alliance
with

Clouds. Now in
tion of

spite of

rhetoric, philosophy, the investiga

what is in heaven and beneath the earth, is radically unpolitical. It simply transcends the political. It is oblivious of man, or rather of human life, yet human life is its basis. Hence it does not understand itself. It lacks self-

knowledge,
into

therefore it lacks practical

unerotic and amusic.

wisdom.

Because it is
must

unconcerned with

human life it is

a whole which

is

ruled

Philosophy poetry. Poetry is by

therefore

be integrated
and

both the foundation

the

capstone of wisdom within which

philosophy is

protected and at

philosophy finds its place, or through which the same time perfected. The Xenophontic, and

especially the Platonic, thesis asserts exactly the opposite. deed the physiology of the Aristophanean Socrates, but a Platonic psychology let
wisdom within which us

Philosophy,
certain

not

in

psychology,

say, is both the foundation

place or

and

the capstone of

poetry finds its

through

which

poetry becomes
self-knowl-

good.

Socrates

was

eminently

political.

He

was the philosopher of

The Origins of Political Science

edge,
and

165

therefore
general

of practical wisdom. of

He

was

the erotician

par excellence. remains

This is the
a question

reply whether Socrates

who

Plato

and

Xenophon to Aristophanes. Yet it

was as music as contest

the greatest poets. Perhaps it was

and

only Plato

decided the

between poetry
great

philosophy in favor Xenophon may be

of

philosophy I shall speak first

through the Platonic

of

dialogue,

the greatest

of all works of art.

Xenophon. The

theme

of

said

to be this. Socrates was the citizen, the statesman, the captain. Socrates was
political as no philosopher ever

tes is only

one pole

founder
panied

of

was, nay as no statesman ever was. Yet Socra in Xenophon's thought. The other pole is Cyms, be it the the Persian Empire or the younger Cyms whom Xenophon accom
ascent while

in his

to Asia Minor. The difference between Socrates and Cyms

indicates that
I
stated

Socrates is profoundly political he was also something else. last time what I believe to be characteristic of Xenophon's way of
put

writing.

To

it very colloquially
to that of Jane
about

and

provisionally

one can compare

Xeno

phon's manner

Austen,

not

to speak about the sad and terrible

things to
of

not

exactly

remember

the good

but at any rate match-making in Xenophon's case things rather than the bad ones. It is preferable to speak
term. Good may mean to be what

the good things rather than the bad ones, as Xenophon explicitly says. Now

good

is, however, here

an ambiguous

good,
of

or good may mean what is generally thought to be good. Socrates especially by Xenophon, Xenophon is very anxious to show that Socrates was good according to the general notion of goodness, and that is

is truly In the defense

perhaps not the

deepest in Socrates

as we shall see.

Now Xenophon's Socratic

the

writings consist of
and

Oeconomicus,
which

the

orabilia, the largest part, in

of

Banquet, Apology these books, it consists of

the
refutes
which

four pieces, the Memorabilia, of Socrates. As for the Mem

two main parts, a short first

Xenophon
part, in

the indictment of

Socrates,
as

and a much more

extensive second

Xenophon

shows

that Socrates greatly bene

fited

everyone who came

into

contact with refrains was

Socrates, Xenophon explicitly

plete
unjust act

literalness. The indictment

Apology of from quoting the indictment with com to the effect that "Socrates commits an
which45

him. Just

Plato in his

by

not

recognizing the gods

which are new.

the city recognizes, but intro

duces

other

divinities

He

also commits an unjust act shows

by

corrupt

young."

ing

the

By

refuting the indictment, Xenophon

the commission of

that Socrates did

was

not commit these unjust acts of

which

he

accused,

nor

any justice. In the bulk

benefited
men

other unjust act.

He

proves that

Socrates

acted

justly

in the

sense of

legal

of

the Memorabilia Xenophon proves that Socrates greatly

everyone who came

into

contact with

him. But to benefit

one's

fellow

Xenophon, identical with being just, although perhaps not is, with being merely legally just. Hence the purpose of the Memorabilia as a whole is to prove Socrates's justice, both legal and translegal.
according to The three simply
other

Socratic

writings can

then be expected to deal

with

with

Socrates
Now the

without special regard

to his

justice,

his activity

simply.

166

Interpretation
of man or

activity

thinking
these
with

consists, according to deliberating. In accordance

smaller

Xenophon,
with as

of

speaking,

doing,

and

divided his three

writings.

Socratic writings,

this tri-partition, Xenophon has can be seen from the openings of

The Oeconomicus deals

and

with

Socrates's speaking, the Banquet

his deeds,
not

the

special remarks are

Apology of Socrates with his silent deliberation. Two indispensable at this point. The Banquet deals with the
of a number of other gentlemen as well.

deeds

only over, it deals

of

Socrates, but
deeds
We
are

More

with

not performed

in

earnest or with

seriousness, but

performed playfully.

therefore

entitled

to look somewhere for Xeno

phon's presentation of clined

deeds
we

which gentlemen performed presentation

in

earnest.

am

in

to believe that

have this

in his Greek history, the

Hellenica. In
occur

accordance with

this he treats his narratives of

tyrants,

which

in the Greek history,

as parts not

and

only the

narratives of

that is to say,

properly Socratic

belonging

tyrants, as excursuses, to the work, for the tyrant is, of

the Memorabilia on the one the other, fulfill the

course, the opposite of a gentleman.

Secondly,

hand,
three
and

and

the three

other

writings on

fundamentally

different functions. The Memorabilia

others

established

deal

with

Socrates

simply.

Now the

Socrates, the Apology of Socrates, the last

of

justice

shortest, is to a considerable extent a repetition of the last chapter of the

are46

Memorabilia. There

a number of minor

divergences

of which some editors

have tried to based

get

rid

by

assimilating the text of the

Apology

of Socrates to the
since

text of the last chapter of the

on

Memorabilia,

dangerous undertaking

it is

the complete disregard of the possibility that subtle stylistic differ

of

ences, to say nothing

of the

the fact that certain may sections of the Hellenica are used by Xenophon in his writing Agesilaus, with many minor stylistic changes. The differences between the Agesilaus and the two
writings.

others, may be To illustrate this

required one

by

the two different purposes

adduce

corresponding
college

sections of

the Hellenica must be viewed in the light of the fact

and

that the Hellenica

is

history

the Agesilaus is a eulogy. And as every the style required for

editors also

boy knows,
required

or should eulogy.

know,

history

differs from

the style

for

And the

in this

case correct the text of

the Agesilaus because this simple idea did not occur to some of them.

and

The Memorabilia, to repeat, are devoted to the subject of Socrates's justice, their first part Socrates's legal justice. The accuser had charged Socra
to47

tes with corrupting the young. He had specified this somewhat vague charge

by

contending, among

other

things,

that

Socrates induced his

to them that

companions to

look

down

on the established

laws, by saying
lot. No

it is foolish
pilot,
a

to elect the
a flutecom

magistrates of player

the city
and yet

by

one would choose a

builder,

by lot,

these kinds of people can not do any serious

rulers of

harm

pared with accuser

the harm which the

the city can do. to look

By

such

speeches, the
them men of

said, Socrates induced his

companions

down

with contempt on

the established regime, that is to say, on the

violence.

democracy,
show

and made

Xenophon

goes out of

his way to

that a man like

Socrates

was

The Origins of Political Science

bound to be
opposed to the use of

167
to

violence, but he does

not even attempt

deny
on
not

the charge that Socrates made

regime and

his

companions

look down

with contempt

the established

deny

this charge

because he

its accompaniment, the established laws. He does cannot deny it. Socrates was an outspoken

critic of the

Athenian democracy. If legal justice includes full

loyalty

to the

established political order,

utmost

Socrates's legal justice

was

deficient in

a point of

importance. He

was not

The

accuser also referred

unqualifiedly just then. to Socrates's relation with two

of

the most out

standing
after

political criminals of the

phon shows that

Socrates

was

age, Critias the tyrant and Alcibiades. Xeno in no way responsible for what these men did

they had left Socrates, whom they had left precisely because Socrates disapproved of their ways. In order to show the wickedness of Alcibiades in
particular, Xenophon
tion
which

records once

Alcibiades is
a

many other things and among them the conversa had with his guardian, Pericles. Alcibiades asked

Pericles,

what

law? Pericles
Law is
not48

fittingly

defines law in

such a

way

as to
as

fit
to

democratic law
what should

as such.
or

an enactment of

the assembled multitude

be done
of

be done. Alcibiades forces Pericles to

grant that are

the enactments

the ruling few in an oligarchy or of a tyrant in a the other hand that the law merely

tyranny

equally law,
the ruled,

and on

imposed

by

the rulers on

and

therefore in particular a law merely imposed

by

the democratic

majority
origin

on

the minority is an act of violence rather than a law. A law owes its
not

lawfulness,
never raises raised

to its democratic origin, but to its goodness. The democratic

no

in itself is

better than the tyrannical

origin.

Xenophon's Socrates
law. This
question

the grave and

dangerous question,
and rash

what

is

is

only Alcibiades
not yet

by

Xenophon's young

who raises

this question

Alcibiades. Yet the young and rash in the style characteristic of Socrates had

left Socrates, but

was still a companion of

Socrates

at

the time

he

raised

this Socratic question. The accuser also charged Socrates

with

frequently

quot

ing ing

the verses from the Iliad in which Odysseus is described as using

when

different

language
to

speaking to outstanding
the
common people on charge.

men on

the one

hand,

and when speak

men of

the other. Xenophon does not even at

tempt to

deny

this

Yet the first

and most

important

part of

the charge against Socrates concerns

his

alleged

impiety. As Xenophon
the charge of

makes or of

clear, the charge

of

graver than
Athenians"

injustice,

corrupting the
the young,

young.

impiety was Only "some

"the Athe

believed that Socrates

corrupted

whereas

nians"

believed that Socrates

more than

was not sound as regards

much space

the gods. Yet Xenophon

devotes
corrupt

three times as

to proving that Socrates did not

was pious.

the young as to proving that

was pious

Socrates

In

order

to prove that

Socrates

Xenophon
was

mentions

the fact that Socrates was sacrificing

on

frequently

and

that he

relying

on

divination, especially

his "demonic in
private

thing". Lest there be any suspicion that Socrates acted

differently

than in public, he adds the remark that Socrates was always in the open, in

168

Interpretation
where

places49

he

could meet the

largest

number of people. private thoughts.

Still,

have

no

privacy

of

any kind,

and yet

have

a man may Xenophon adds,

therefore, that Socrates

yet no one ever

was always

in the

open and talked almost constantly,

heard him say anything impious. Immediately afterwards, how he admits that Socrates's thought would not necessarily become known ever, through what he said in the market place. There is one, and only one, univer sally known fact which according to Xenophon proves Socrates's piety. This is Socrates's conduct at the trial of the generals after the battle of the Arginusae,
where
clear prove

Socrates
that

alone upheld

his

sworn

duty

not

to permit an illegal vote. It

not

is

while

this action proves Socrates's

of sincere

justice, it does

necessarily
the gods

Socrates's piety in the sense worshipped by the city of Athens. At the

end of

belief in the

existence of

Xenophon's

refutation of

the indictment of
and

Socrates,

we

have

his legal piety could not be or that Socrates was not unqualifiedly just. This, however, is perfectly proven, compatible with the fact that he possessed translegal justice, which consists in
come to realize that

Socrates's legal justice

benefiting one's fellow degree by leading them

degree
ence

men.

Socrates benefited his fellow individual in

men

to the highest

to excellence or to virtue, that

question

of virtue of which the

men

is to say, to that kind or was capable. For the differ

crucially important to Socrates as he indi cated by frequently quoting the Homeric verses in which Odysseus is presented as having conducted himself in an entirely different way when confronted with among
respect was

in this

entirely different kinds of people. The bulk of the Memorabilia is meant to show how beneficent Socrates was. The fourth book of the Memorabilia is the only
part of

the

work which can

be

said to present

Socrates

as a

teacher rather

than as

an advisor or exhorter. who spent

The fourth book

their time with

opens with the remark that

not

Socrates helped those

him

only

by being

serious

but
He

by joking
was

as

well,

and

that he did not approach all men in the same

manner.

naturally

attracted

by

the good natures, that is to say,

by

the

most

gifted,

who revealed

themselves as such through the quickness

with which

they

learned,

through their memory, and through their

desire for

all worth-while enumerates

subjects of some other

learning. Not

all men possess good natures.

Xenophon

human types. The

gifts, but
engaged

greatest part of

the

fourth book is devoted

to

Socrates's
was,
not

conversations with
natural

the handsome

Euthydemus,
refrains

whose characteristic

conceit.

Xenophon

teacher Socrates as
not

in

conversation with who

from presenting the first-rate men. Hence we do

kinds

leam from Xenophon how Socrates, of people, talked to first-rate men.

word50

talked

differently

to

different

Socrates taught only by conversation. His art consisted in the art, or the for the skill of conversation is dialec skill, of conversation. The Greek
tics.

As for Socrates's dialectics

someone contradicted

we

leam from Xenophon that it

was

two-fold.

Socrates, Socrates brought back the subject matter to its basic presupposition, that is to say, he raised the question "what
When
is?"

The Origins of Political Science

regarding the
of

169

subject under

discussion,

and

he

answered with the participation

came

the contradictor. Thus the

we

contradictor

himself

to see the truth clearly.

This

may say is the higher form of dialectics. But, Xenophon goes on, Socrates discussed something on his own initiative, that is to say, when he talked to people who merely listened, he did not raise the question "what
when
is"

but

proceeded

through generally accepted opinions,

and

thus

he

produced

agreement

dialectics,
important
seus.

which

among the listeners to an extraordinary degree. This latter kind of leads to agreement as distinguished from truth, is the most
It is the
art which

part of the political art.

Homer
when

ascribes

to Odys
contra

Socrates

applied the scientific

kind

of

dialectics

he talked to

dictors,
Socrates

that is to say, to

men capable

to contradict

intelligently,

to people who

are capable to go
applied

beyond the

accepted

opinions,

or who possess good natures. conversations with

the political or

rhetorical

dialectics in his

the majority of people. Xenophon gives us

hardly

any

specimen of

Socrates's be

exhibiting the higher kind of dialectics. For it goes without saying that the mere
use of

the

formula,

"what If

is", does
we want

not yet guarantee that the question will

handled

appropriately.

to find the serious thought of Socrates as

Xenophon

understood

it

we must translate

Socrates's

statements ad

hominem

into the form they

would

take if

they

were addressed

to contradictors, or to men

possessing good natures. Xenophon is very sparing in his explicit praise of Socrates. And when he praises Socrates, he shrinks from using superlatives. The strongest expression
which

he

ever uses

in this

connection

is his

statement

that when he heard

blessed."

Socrates
ment
of

make a certain

statement, "he seemed to me to be to the effect that

while

The

state

Socrates
or
I51

was

others good

derived

pleasure

from
with

horses, dogs,

birds, he derived

pleasure

from

friends,

"together

scan the treasures of the wise men of old which they have left my friends behind in writing and if we see something good, we pick it out, and we regard

it

as a great gain when we

with

become

another."

useful

to one

Of Socrates's study

ing

his friends the

works of

the wise men of old and of their selecting the

best from them, Xenophon does not give us a single example. He draws our attention to what he regarded as Socrates's most praiseworthy activity, but he demands from
a certain

kind

of

his

readers

that

they

transform the intimation

speaks of

into
his

clear
good

knowledge. In the

passage quoted

Socrates

his friends,
"friends"

or

friends. We may say that Xenophon never records conversations be is an tween Socrates and his friends in the strict sense. Of course,
ambiguous term. mere

It may be applied to friends strictly speaking, as well as to acquaintances, and hence also to the intermediate forms of relationship.
chapters of

Seven

the Memorabilia are devoted to the subject, Socrates and

records
conversations

friendship. Xenophon

between Socrates instructive

and

acquain

tances, interlocutors, Socrates and a friend

between Socrates

and comrades of of

Socrates, but
most

no conversation

between

Socrates. The

case

is

a conversation

and

Crito. The wealthy Crito

complains to

Socrates

about

170

Interpretation
blackmailed
a

being
that

by

informers. Socrates draws Crito's

attention

to the fact

Crito,

In the

same

landed gentleman, uses dogs to keep wolves away from his sheep. way, he says, he should use the informers to keep other informers
property.

away from his

worth-while to the

Crito would, of course, have to make the arrangement protecting informer. Crito acts on Socrates's advice. They
who

find

certain

Archedemus

is

excellent and was

Archedemus
Crito."

was one of

Crito's friends

for this purpose; "Henceforth honored by the other friends of

between saying that Crito did not belong to Socrates's friends, and saying that Socrates honored a useful informer. I sug gest that we choose the former alternative. We have here
a choice

The third book

who

of

the Memorabilia shows how Socrates dealt with those

long

and strive

for the fair

or noble.

It

ascends

from

conversations

of

Socrates

with anonymous
with52

a conversation

individuals, Glaucon, the hero

via conversations with of

acquaintances, to
son of son of

to

whom

Socrates

was

benevolent for the

sake of

Plato's Republic, the Charmides the

Ariston,
Glaucon

and

for the for the

sake of

Plato.

Immediately
Socrates took

after the conversation with

Glaucon,
one of

Xenophon
men

records a conversation with sake of whom next

Charmides, Charmides being

an and

the

interest in Glaucon. We thus

the other
man

expect

to

be treated

to a

conversation

between Socrates

for the

sake of whom

Socrates took

an

tion between Socrates and Plato. Instead we

interest in Glaucon, this is to say, a conversa get a conversation between Socra

tes and another philosopher, Aristippus. Thereafter the

descent begins,

which

leads

us via

anonymous people.

beauty, outstanding craftsmen, sickly youth, again to That is to say, Xenophon builds up the argument in such a
a venal and a

way very

as

to point toward a peak, to suggest a peak

anonymous people

close people and then again

down to

anonymous people.
of

gests a peak of

the third

book,

or, for that matter,

and

the whole

up to Xenophon sug work. He points

to that peak, a

conversation

between Socrates
can not

Plato, but he does

to
visible or

it. The

peak

is

missing.

This formula

be

applied

not supply Xenophon's Socratic

writings as a whole.

The highest does

become

audible, but it

can

be divined. The
means

unsaid

is

more

important than

what

is

said.

For the

reader

this

that he must be
all

Among
chief

the passages in which

extremely attentive, or extremely Xenophon subtly important

one

careful.

alludes to

Socrates's
that

preoccupation, the most

is that in
the

which
is."

he
It

says

Socra
things

tes "never ceased considering

context that

what each of

beings

appears

from the

this Socratic consideration is connected with

distinguishing

according to their

kinds

or classes.

few

examples of this constant

could

say the least, Xenophon gives very preoccupation of Socrates. It is also hard to see
to

But,

how Socrates
same

constantly consider what each of the beings is, and, at the time, constantly be in public places and almost constantly talk about subjects other than what each of the beings is. At any rate Socrates's constant
"what is",
with

preoccupation was the concern with

the essence of all things. It

en-

is tme, the

same

Xenophon tells

us also that

Socrates limited his interest

The Origins of Political Science

'171

tirely
the that

to the human things, but

makes

one must consider

the context within which

Xenophon

the latter

assertion.

He

asserts

that Socrates did not discuss

nature of all no one

things, or what the sophists call the cosmos, in order to prove had ever heard Socrates say something impious or irreligious, for
suspect as the presumptuous attempt to pry into the But I have already indicated what one has to think about Xenophon's Socrates. When asserting that Socrates limited
makes

the study

of nature was

secrets of the gods.

the legal piety

of

his study
called

to

human things, Xenophon

his Socrates

wonder whether

the

students of

nature, that is to say, the

not realize

philosophers

preceding Socrates,

now re

the pre-Socratics, did

that

man cannot

discover the truth

garding nature, for the various philosophers, says Socrates, contradict each other and behave like madmen. Some of them believe that being is one, but

infinitely many beings. Some say that all things change, but others, that nothing changes. Some say that everything comes into being and perishes, but others say that nothing comes into being or perishes. The
others that there are characterization of these contentions as mad permits us to see contentions about the whole

clearly

which

Socrates

regards as sound and

sober, namely, that

there is a finite number of

changeable
and perish.

beings,

that there are some unchangeable and some

which

things,

and

that there are some things

remark about

do

not come

into

being

Xenophon's

Socrates's

chief preoccupation permits us

to render this implication more precise. While there are

infinitely

many things,

there is only

finite

number of

kinds

or classes of

beings

which we

intend

when we raise

things, that is to say, of the the question "what is". Those kinds or
are unchangeable and

classes,

as

not come

distinguished from the individual things, into being or perish.

do

Socrates is distinguished from

is

all philosophers who preceded

noetic

him

by

the fact

that he sees the core of the whole, or of nature, in

whole not

heterogeneity. The

is

not sensible

example,

nor homogeneous, but heterogeneous. Yet the heterogeneity heterogeneity, like the heterogeneity of the four elements, for but noetic heterogeneity, essential heterogeneity. It is for this reason

one,

that Socrates

could

become the [originator

can

of]53

political science.

Only

if there
political

is

essential and

heterogeneity
things

there be an
not

essential

difference between

things,
geneity
sion

which

are

political.

The
are,

discovery
and common.

of noetic

hetero

permits one

to let things be what

they

takes away the compul

to

reduce essential

differences to something
the
vindication

The

discovery

of

noetic sense.

heterogeneity
Socrates

means

of what

one could call common

or

called

it

a return

from

madness

to sanity

sobriety, or, to

use

the Greek

term,
or

sophrosyne, which I would translate

by

moderation.

Socrates
most54

discovered the
obvious

paradoxical

fact that, in

way, the

most

important

truth

is the

truth,
of

the truth of the

sense of

surface.

Furthermore,
classes,
means

the fact that there

that there cannot

is
be

a a

variety
single

being, in the

kinds

or

total

experience of

being,

whether

that experience is understood mysti

assertion

cally

or romantically,

the specifically romantic

being

that

feeling,

or

172

Interpretation
or a certain

sentiment,

kind

of

sentiment, is this total

of

experience.

There is
h-

indeed
many

mental mental

vision,

or

perception,
mental

this or that kind or pattern, but the

must

patterns, many

perceptions,

be

connected

by

gismos,

by reasoning, by putting two and two together. recognizing the fact that the political is irreducible to the non-political, that the political is sui generis, Socrates does justice to the claim raised on By
of

behalf
nity,

the political, or
polis.

by

the political

itself,

namely
mean

by
far

the political commu

above

by

the

The

polis presents

itself

as exalted

the

household

and the

individual. Yet
the
polis

this

does

not

necessarily

that Socrates recognized

the

claim of

to be the highest simply, or, which amounts to the same

thing, to be the authoritative interpreter of the highest simply, or to be beyond the peak. The judgment on the status of the political will depend on the result
of

the analysis of the

start

political.

Socrates's

analysis of the political appear to

may be

said

to

from the

phenomenon of

law, for laws

is this. The

political phenomenon.
minion of

The

reason

political appears

be the specifically to be the do

and who

the most resplendent activity of adult

freemen
law

is

more

resplendent than adult

freemen?

and

that

which gives adult

freemen

as such means

their character, or that which limits

them, is law,
to do and

and

alone.

Law

primarily the utterance of the assembled citizens

which

tells everyone,
not

includ

ing

the

full citizens,

what

they

ought

what

they may

do,

not until

further notice, or for a given time, but forever. The well-being of the city, nay, its being, depends on law, on law-abidingness, or justice. Justice in this sense
is the is
political virtue par excellence.

Justice

as

law-abidingness

comes to sight
and

as a virtue

by

the consideration of the alternatives, which are to law that the distinction between

force in

law. It

with a view

legitimacy

and and

illegitimacy

is

primarily
with

made.

"Kingship

is

mle over

willing human beings

accordance

the city, whereas the rale over unwilling human beings and This remark seems to apply only according to the will of the ruler is to monarchs, but Socrates goes on to say, "The regime in which the magis tracies are filled from among those who complete the laws or the customs is
of
tyranny."

the laws

aristocracy.

The

regime

in

which

the magistracies are

filled

on

the basis of

property filled from

can

qualification all

is

plutocracy.

The

regime

in

which

the magistracies are

is

democracy."

be

either royal or

This may be thought to mean that republics too tyrannical, the decisive point being whether the mlers are Yet there is this
obvious

limited

by
be

law

or not.

difficulty,

that the mlers who

ought to
and

subject

to the law are themselves the cause or the origin of the

of

law,
the
act

the cause or origin

problem
of

the law cannot as such be subject to the

modem

law

famous

sovereignty in
to

times.

Still lawgivers
we

cannot

arbitrarily. a

They

are supposed

enact good

laws. Hence
and

distinction

other than that

make a

between legitimate
good

may have to make illegitimate regimes. One

may have to

distinction between
and

regimes, as regimes most

likely
good

to produce good

laws,

bad regimes,
men

as regimes most

likely

to produce bad

laws. If the quality enabling

to make good

laws is wisdom, the

The Origins of Political Science

regime will

173

be the
not

rale of

the wise. In other words, the only sound title to rale

nor

is

knowledge,
of

inheritance,
is

election,

nor

force,

nor

fraud, but only

The
man of

knowledge
highest

how to

rale can make a man a

superior

king
not

or a ruler.

the

only because he alone can be the origin of excellent laws, but likewise because he has a flexibility which laws however wise necessarily lack. The man of the highest political wisdom is
political wisdom

to any

law,

seeing law,
guided

whereas

every law

proper

is blind to

some extent.
or

The justice

of

the tme

ruler cannot consist

then in

lawabidingness
the habit of

in legal justice. He

must

be
He

by

translegal

justice, by
as good as

helping
to be
a

them to

become
is

possible,

and

benefiting human beings, of to live as happily as possible.

foolish law declares
Xenophontic example, if

must assign

to everyone not necessarily what a possibly

good or

fitting big boy owns a small coat and a small boy owns a big coat, we must take away the big coat from the small boy and give it to the big boy, and vice versa. That is to say, by questioning the ultimacy of law, we question also the
what use a
ulti-

his, but

for him. To

macy At the

of

legal

property.
of

beginning
view

Xenophon's Oeconomicus Socrates leads the

argument via or

from the

that the property of a man is the

man

totality
of

of

his possessions,
possessions,

the view that the property of a

possessions useful

is the totality

his

useful

property
could

which

not

to him, to the view that only that can be regarded as a man's he knows how to use, that is to say, how to use well. So heroin possibly be the property of a juvenile delinquent. We are thus
against

brought up

any property except under the strictest supervision of the wise. There is a simple formula expressing the view that the political art at its highest transcends law as
such, namely, the thesis
with

the question as to whether unwise

men

can possess

of

Socrates that the

political or royal art

is identical
the

the

economic

art, that

is to say, the

art

by

means of which

father,
eo

husband,
rates nor
nomine.

master rules

his children, wife, and Xenophon himself ever speaks of

that is to say, of laws

slaves.
natural

Neither Xenophon's Soc

law,

or natural

right,

But his Socrates

once speaks of unwritten

which are without

law. One

example of un

written

law,

gression

damages the transgressor

against

self-enforcing since their trans any human intervention, is the

children.
refer

prohibition

incest between

parents

and

As little

as

Plato's

Socrates in the Republic does Xenophon's Socrates

in this

crucial context

to the prohibition against incest between brothers and sisters.

Summarizing

the analysis of the political given

may say that there is fundamental agreement analysis given in the Platonic dialogues, especially the Republic

Xenophon's Socrates, we between that analysis and the

by

and

the States

man, only Xenophon is much more laconic, reserved, or bashful than Plato. Now we have followed Xenophon's Socrates up to the point where the absolute
rale of the wise appeared

to be the only

wise solution
man

to the political problem.

which

The
use,

wise would assign and

to every unwise

the

thing

he is best fitted to

the

work which

he is best fitted to do. He

would exercise

his

rule

by

174

Interpretation
his wisdom,

virtue of would

i.e.,

of

the recognition of his

wisdom will

by

the

unwise.

He
to

sway the

unwise

by

persuasion alone.

But

the

unwise

be

able

recognize the wisdom of the wise?

Is there

no

limit to the

persuasive power of

the wise?

Socrates,

who

relation to the

his

a more homely way by his relation to his wife Xanthippe. In Xenophon's Banquet, Socrates is asked by a companion why he did not educate Xanthippe, but had a wife who, of all the women present, past,

goodness.

city of He illustrates it in

he thought, illustrates this difficulty by his Athens. Socrates failed to persuade the city of Athens of lived
what

and

future, is probably
become
for if he

the most difficult. Socrates replied that just as a man

good at

who wants to spirited

handling

horses

will

leam to handle the be

able

most

horse, horse, in the same way he, Socrates, desiring to live with quired Xanthippe, well knowing that if he could control her, he
can
such a will

handle

horse he

handle any human beings ac

to
could

along

with all other

human beings. The

in

utmost one could

succeeded somehow

living

with

Xanthippe;9

easily get is that Socrates say he certainly did not succeed in

educating her, angry with his

of

or

mother

in ruling her by persuasion. When his son Lamprocles was because of the abominable things she had said to him out
talked to Lamprocles and silenced him. He did not

her

wild

temper, Socrates
wise can rule

even

try

to silence, to say nothing of appease, Xanthippe. If it is then impossi the unwise

ble that the

by

persuasion,

and since

it is equally
very

impossible, considering
the
wise should rale

the

numerical relation of

the wise and the unwise, that

satisfied with a

the unwise

by force,

one

has to be

indirect

rale of the wise.

This indirect

rale of the wise consists

in the

rale of

laws,

on

the making of which the wise have had some influence. In other
unlimited rale of undiluted wisdom must

words, the
wisdom

be

replaced

by

the

rule of

diluted

by

consent.

Yet laws

cannot

be the

mlers

strictly speaking, The best

solu

they

must

be applied,

interpreted,

administered,

and executed.

tion of the political problem is then the rale of men who can best complete the

laws,

supplement equity.

the essential

deficiency
the

of

the law. The completion

of

the

laws is

The best

solution of

political problem

is then the

regime

in

which power rests with the

Greek

at

the same

equitable, in Greek, the epieikeis, which means in time the better people, and this means for all practical pur

poses the

landed

gentry.

Xenophon has
of

given a sketch of what

he

regarded as

his Education of Cyrus, his political work par excellence. Xenophon tacitly claims that he has found the best regime in Persia, prior to the emergence of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire. The best regime is a greatly improved Sparta. Every free man is a citizen and has
access to all

the best regime in the first book

offices,

with

the exception of

hereditary kingship,
public
a

under the condi

tion that he has successfully attended the

schools,

public schools

in the

American

sense.

The

regime seems then

to be

democracy. But, unfortunately,

and

the poor need their young sons on their small

of the well-to-do are office.

farms,

therefore only the

sons

in

a position

to acquire the right to the

holding

of public

The best

regime

is then

an

aristocracy disguised

as

democracy. The

The Origins of Political Science

principle

175

destroy it,

animating this best regime comes to sight when Cyras is about to or to transform it into an absolute monarchy. Cyras urges the gentle
no

men, the ruling class, to think virtue, but to say,

of above all of

longer merely
principle of

of

decency,

excellence,

or

the things
wealth.

which one can acquire

through virtue, that is

increasing

their

The

the best regime

is

then the

cultivation of

human excellence, as opposed to the increase of wealth. As Xenophon indicates by presenting his utopia in a work of fiction, the
not

Education of Cyrus, he does

ever was

believe that the best

regime as

he

understood

it

actual,

and

thence that it is
as

likely

ever

to become actual, in spite of its

will

being
or

possible.

Political life

it

always

was, and as it always

be, is

more

less imperfect. For

all practical purposes political greatness a

is

generous and

effective

leadership

in

tolerably
is that

good republic.

The

greatest example which

Xenophon himself
cessor called

exhibits

of

the Spartan general,

Dercylidas,

the prede

in Asia Minor

of the somewhat pompous

with a view

martinet, Agesilaus. People

Dercylidas Sisyphus

was once punished

by

his outstanding resourcefulness. He the Spartan authorities for what they regarded as lack of
to

discipline,
sibility

and

he

always

other compromise
of the

solutions regime. of

loved to be away from home. Xenophon indicates which are important given the practical impos
no question

best

There is

for him that the life his Socrates has

a gentleman

is that

is to say,

one's

administering inherited landed estate. But

emphasis, he

one's wealth rather than after

fitting increasing it, that

most set

forth this

view with all possible

reports

the divergent practice of an Athe

nian whose son was

that

gentleman55

son

particularly well known as a gentleman. In the opinion of the father was an enthusiastic lover of farming. He could
without

not see a run

down farm
the son,

buying

it

and

making it flourish. When told

money?"

this story

by

he cultivated, or replied, "He sold,

restraint

Socrates asks, "Did your father keep all the farms which did he sell them, when he could get much The son

by

Zeus!"

The

compromise

farming
extreme

regarding money, on the one hand, and and trade, is trading in farms. It is not necessary to discuss here the concession to human frailty, which Xenophon considered, namely,

between the gentlemanly selfgreed on the other, or between

beneficent tyranny.
principle of pelled or

Generally
as

speaking,

by

saying

little

as possible about

acting consistently on his literary the highest, Xenophon was com

pave

enabled,

more than

any

other

classic, to

the way for Machia

velli, who,

incidentally, generously
a principle of

acknowledged

this

debt.

Only

what

in

Xenophon had been

thinking.

writing became in Machiavelli

analysis of

a principle of

The
sents

crucial result of

Socrates's

the political, as Xenophon pre

essence of

it, is

that the political

is essentially imperfect, the

the political

being
peak,

the dilution of
of wisdom

wisdom

by

consent

on

the part of the unwise, or the to be beyond the

dilution
or

by

folly. Hence the

claim of the political

to

lence

or virtue exists

be simply the highest, proves to be unfounded. Man's true excel beyond the political, or is transpolitical. Xenophon's Soc-

176
rates

Interpretation
is the
representative of man's transpolitical excellence, whereas

his Cyrus

is the Cyrus
polis.

representative of that

life

which

is highest if the

principle characteristic of

the political is adhered to and thought through. The polarity of Socrates and
corresponds

Xenophon has

political and

fundamental tension between philosophy and the between the two ways of life, the the transpolitical most clearly in the Oeconomicus, which is his
to the
presented the tension
a conversation

Socratic

speech par excellence.

The Oeconomicus is
obulus,
a

between Socrates
well.

and

Crito's

son

Crit

young

man who

did

not

do too
of

Socrates

encourages

Critobulus

to dedicate himself to the management

the

household,
general.

of which

farming

is

distinguished, if

subordinate,

part.

Socrates

acts as a teacher of the art of

farm

ing

or of

the art of managing the household

when

in

This

contrasts with what

he does
general.

he is

confronted with a appears

young

man eager

to

leam the

art of a

Xenophon's Socrates

to possess the art of the general, but

he

declines to teach it, whereas he is perfectly willing to teach the peaceful art of farming. Socrates had acquired his command of the art of farming, not by

farming, but by having had,

gentleman
which

once

in his life,
temple in

an extended conversation with a art

farmer

called

Ischomachus. He had learned that

in

one

sitting,

took place in the

of

cloister of a

Athens,

rather

far away from any

in transmitting to a young man a teaching which he had acquired in one day, in one sitting, just by listen ing. Yet, as has been indicated, what Socrates teaches is not merely the art of farm. His teaching
the art of

farming

consisted

farming, but
which

the whole economic art, or the art of managing the

above

household,

includes
an

wife,

art which

everything else the art of educating and managing one's Socrates had also learned at that single session with Is
what

chomachus.

More than this,

art,

Socrates teaches young Critobulus is the way

of

life

of

the perfect gentleman, or perfect gentlemanship, a subject which

and which was

com

prises the economic

the primary and comprehensive theme

regarding

which

Socrates

consulted

the gentleman

farmer, Ischomachus,
Socrates did
not

on

the

occasion of

that single session once upon a time.

learn

perfect

gentlemanship
transmits this

by thinking

or

by dialectics,

but merely
man who

by listening, just

as

he

gentlemanship to a young is not a science, nor is it based gentlemanship

art of

on a

merely listens. Perfect science, but it is guided by

opinions

alone,

by

things which you understand

effort

fully by

listening. In
of

other

words,

no

intellectual

is

required

morality.

Ordinary

morality

consists

for grasping the principles not in knowing, but in doing,

ordinary

whereas as

highest morality, the transpolitical morality, virtue is knowledge. The first part of the teaching which Socrates transmits to Critobulus con cerns, as I said, the education and management of one's wife. Ischomachus is
regards the

very
time

proud of at which

the way in

which

he has

educated

his. He

could not

know

at

that

he his

gave wife

had
with

educated

Socrates his glowing report about the way in which he that in later years this woman would have a love affair

their son-in-law

Callias,

the son of

Hipponicus, less

than

year after

The Origins of Political Science

Callias had
as married

111

their

daughter,

and

that

as a consequence of

this Callias

had Ischomachus's Pluto

or

Ischomachus's daughter together in his house, just Hades had Demeter and her daughter Persephone together in his
wife and

house. He was, therefore, called Hades in Athens, and Plato's Protagoras is based in its setting on this story, the Protagoras taking place in the house of Callias, and there are quite a few allusions to the fact that we are there in Hades. But this only in passing. Now this is not merely a joke, but indicates
the great problem
of

the

relation

between theory

and

practice,

or

between

knowledge
do is
a

and virtue.
story.

Ischomachus teaches his

confrontation of the

wife

theory. What she will

different

occupied

by

direct

However this may be, the center of the Oeconomicus is life of the perfect gentleman, Is
of

chomachus,

and the

life

Socrates. The two

ways

of

life

are presented as

incompatible. One
one must order to

most obvious
as

difference between the two

puts

ways of

life is that

be

well

off, or,

Aristotle

be

a perfect

gentleman,

whereas

be properly equipped, in Socrates was rather poor. Since these

it,

one must

remarks occur

in

a work on of

economics, one

must raise

the question regarding

the economic basis

conveyed

through the

work

Socrates's life, Socrates's means of support. The answer is that Socrates did not have to worry since he had
in
which

friends. There is this

nice passage

the question comes up that from all money, and the answer given

the preceding things it follows that friends

are

is,

"By Zeus, they

Yet
while

are."

according to Xenophon
than the political
claims of

and

his Socrates the transpolitical life is

higher in instill

dignity

respect

for the

the

life, they did everything in their power to city, and of political life, and of everything
be the
characteristic recognition of the essential

connected with
of

it. Here

again moderation proves to

Socrates. We have

shown

before that

quality difference

between the

political and

the non-political or, more generally, recognition of

the existence of essential

moderation

differences,

or of noetic

heterogeneity,

appeared as

in

opposition

to the madness of the philosophers preceding Socra

tes. But Socratic moderation means also, and in a sense primarily, the recogni

tme, but salutary to political life. Socrates, Xenophon says, did not separate from each other wisdom and moderation. The political is indeed not the highest, but it is first because it is the most urgent. It
tion of opinions which are not

is

related to

dation,
could

the

philosophy as continence is related to virtue proper, it is the foun indispensable condition. From here we can understand why Socrates

be

presented as

having
they
a

limited his study entirely to human link

or

or political

things. The human or political things are indeed the clue to all
whole of

nature, since

are the

bond between the

things, to the highest and the things,

lowest,
and

or since man

is

microcosm, or since the human or political

which

their

corollaries are

the form in
of

the highest principles first come to

sight, or,
error.

since

the false estimate

Philosophy is

primarily

political

ascent

from the obvious, the

most

a fundamental and primary philosophy because philosophy is the massive, the most urgent, to what is highest

human things is

178

Interpretation

in dignity.

Philosophy

is primarily

political

philosophy because

political philos

ophy is required for protecting the inner sanctum of philosophy. This lecture has been a bit longer than I would have wished,
plan

and also

has

gone

wrong for

some other

reasons,
and the

so

will

devote the

next

my lecture to

the main thread of Plato's

Republic,

last

one on

Friday

to the subject,

Plato

and

the Poets. I think you have seen

by

now

that this is an absolutely

crucial subject phy.

for Plato, the

not other

relative relation or status of

poetry

and philoso

One

could venture to

say that the alternative to philosophy, to Platonic

philosophy, be it that
and

philosophy, is

any

of

the

pre-Socratics or of

Aristotle,
issue

or

what-not, but poetry,

question of

therefore we

really deal

with

the crucial

by

raising the

how Plato

conceives of

the relation

between

philosophy

and poetry.

(NOVEMBER 5, 1958)
those who approach Plato in order to become enlightened

Among
about

by

him

Socrates, it has become customary to pay the greatest attention to certain dialogues called the early dialogues, and especially to the Apology of Socrates. The Apology of Socrates may be said to be Socrates's own account, given on
the most solemn occasion, of his way of to be increased
given

life;

and

its solemnity may be thought

a public

by

the

fact that that

the

account

is

account,

an account

in

public of

to the
which

public par

excellence, whereas Socrates's own account of

his way
eration,
presses

life

he

gave on

day

of

his death in the Phaedo lacks the

own writing.

solemnity

of

the public, and, in addition,

consideration of

is Plato's
suffers

This

consid ex

or

any

this

kind,

from the defect that it

to be in conformity

a plausible thought which cannot we

lay

claim

with

Plato's thought. For

Apology of Socrates is as The Apology of Socrates

with

know the Platonic Socrates only through Plato. The much a Platonic writing as any other Platonic writing. is
even a

Platonic Platonic

dialogue,
work of

the dialogue of Socrates

not a report.

the people

of

Athens. It is

art, and

We

must pass through

Plato's thought in

order

to understand the thought of the

Platonic Socrates. And Plato has

art and not

presented

in treatises. What

must one understand

his thought exclusively in works of by a work of art? We remind he

painted grapes
man

ourselves of so

the story told in praise of the Greek painter that

perfectly that

birds flew to

peck

at

them. The

who

told this story

of

characterized and the

the work of art

creates

by

two

features. It is

an

imitation

something,

imitation if it
of

the delusion that it is the

thing imitated. The imitation

consists

is

perfect

makes

one

forget the delusion. The delusion

the abstraction

in the

disregard

from something essential. Painted grapes cannot be eaten, to say nothing of the fact that they are not three-dimensional. But grapes are not painted for the sake of birds. The ab
something essential,
straction

from something

essential which characterizes

the work of art serves

The Origins of Political Science

the purpose of

179

bringing
In

out

more essential.

works

something more essential, of heightening something like the Platonic dialogues abstraction is made in the

first

place

speaking,

see them.

happening
visible and

We merely hear people talk. We do not, strictly And secondly abstraction is made from chance. Everything in the work is meaningful or necessary. The abstraction from the
visibility.

from

the fortuitous serves the

purpose of

making

us concentrate on

the

audible and

the necessary, on the necessity of the speech, and in the speech.

The

problem of

the Platonic dialogue the meaning

is, in

way, insoluble. There

exists no

Platonic

utterance about

of

the Platonic dialogues.

Still, Plato's

Socrates

gives us a most

of all writings.

A writing,
to

important hint, when he speaks of the essential defect as distinguished from a wise speech, says the same

things to all men. The essential defect of writings is inflexibility. Since

Plato,

in

contradistinction

Socrates, did

produce

writings,

one

is

entitled

to assume

that the Platonic dialogues are meant to be writings which are free from the
essential

defect

of writings.

themselves to possess the

They are writings which, if properly read, reveal flexibility of speech, and they are properly read if the
becomes
detail
clear.

necessity
and

of

every

part of them

The Platonic dialogues do say,

men.

they

are

meant

to say, different things to different

great
without

which can one

be developed in

too great

This thought, difficulty, has only

defect. At any rate, as it was stated it is based on the premise that Plato's Socrates is Plato's spokesman. Yet what entitles us to accept that premise? Socrates is
not always

Plato's
the

spokesman.

He is

not

Plato's
the

spokesman

in the
the

Timaeus,

the

Critias,

Sophist,

the

Statesman,

Parmenides,

and

Laws. What does Plato signify by making Socrates a silent listener to other men's speeches? As long as we do not know this we cannot have clarity regard

ing
tes

Socrates's

alleged spokesmanship.

Certainly
of

Plato

never said

that his Socra

is his

spokesman.

When

speaking
a word

dramas

as

distinguished from

narratives

his Socrates

says

that in a drama the author conceals

himself,

that is

to say, the author does

dialogue is
would

sort of

say drama. In the

not

in his

own name.

And the Platonic

who

case of

Shakespeare, for instance,

full

of sound and

dare to say that according to Shakespeare life is a tale told by an idiot, fury, signifying nothing? Everyone would say that these are
not of

the words,
can

Shakespeare, but
view

of

Macbeth,
these

and no conclusion whatever

be drawn from the fact that Shakespeare

wrote

these words as to Shake

speare's prove

holding
and

the

expressed

by

words.

Perhaps

one can

even

that Shakespeare did not hold the view the

situation of

by

considering the character of

uttered

the speaker

the speaker when he

utterances.

them. Perhaps the

poet re

action of the veals

play his thought exclusively by the play as speech, that is to say, the speeches of his

refutes

Macbeth's

Perhaps the dramatic

a whole,

by

the action, and not

much can we

by
say

characters.

This
and

safely, that the distinction between the deeds

of works are more

speeches and

deeds,
are

the implication that

trustworthy

than the speeches, is basic for the understanding the clue to the meaning of

like the Platonic dialogues. The deeds

180

Interpretation
which

the speeches. More precisely, perhaps, the unthematic, that

center of attention of

is

not

in the

the

speakers as

speakers, is the

clue

to the thematic, to

that which is in the center of attention of the speakers as

speakers.

No doubt it

is

paradoxical
of

to say that an utterance of the Platonic Socrates

is

no

more of

revealing
thought
us

Plato's thought

than the quoted utterance of Macbeth

us

is

the

of

Shakespeare. Let
as

then retract this

spokesman.

paradoxical suggestion, and

let

take Plato's Socrates

Plato's

But this

will

be

of no

Plato's Socrates is famous for his irony. To have for his

a spokesman who

help, for is famous

irony

is tantamount to

having

no spokesman at all.

Irony

means primar

ily
is

dissimulation. It

comes to mean noble

dissimulation. The

superior man who

many,"

his superiority is "ironical in his relations to the says Aris totle. That is to say, he does not let his inferiors feel their inferiority, or his superiority. He conceals his superiority. But if his superiority consists in wis
aware of

dom, his

noble

dissimulation

must consist

say, in presenting himself as less wise knows. And given the fact that there is

in concealing his wisdom, that is to than he is, or in not saying what he

to

a great

his

irony
kinds

will consist

in speaking

comes ent

to mean to answer general questions

of

differently differently
answering, but
of

variety of types of unwisdom, different kinds of people. Irony

when

speaking to differ
raising,
questions.
wonder.

people,

as well as never

always

The
Wonder

beginning
means

of

understanding

the

Platonic dialogues

is

here

not

merely

admiration of

beauty, but

also and above all

perplexity,

recognition of

the sphinx-like character of the Platonic dialogues. than the outward appearance which one
one

To begin
must

with we

have

no other clue
with

try

to describe. To begin

the Platonic dialogue is

big

question

mark,

and

nothing

else.

But, fortunately,

there are many Platonic dialogues.

The very

manyness and

logue,

and

hence

sheds some

variety is an articulation of the theme, Platonic dia light. The student of the Platonic dialogues is in

the position of a zoologist confronted

of animals. with

by

an unknown

species,

or rather

genus,

His first task is to classify in accordance with the most obvious, the visible appearance. I mention three classifications which are evidently In the first
as

necessary.

place

the distinction between Socratic and non-Socratic

dialogues,

the distinction between

and

dialogues in

which

Socrates

conducts the
conducts

conversation,
conversation.

dialogues in
the

which someone other

than Socrates

the

Secondly,

distinction between

performed and narrated

dia

logues,

the performed

dialogues
no

looking
a

like dramas. In the

case of the per

formed dialogues there is

the reader.
account reader.
of

bridge between the dialogues

characters of the

dialogue
gives

and
an

In the

narrated

participant

in the dialogue

the conversation to a non-participant, and hence also to us, the

In

a narrated

tell us the reason why he said what

observations

dialogue the narrator, who may be Socrates himself, can he said to a participant, as well as his
not with

regarding the participants which he could to the participants. For instance, if the Republic were
we could not

propriety

make

not a narrated was red

dialogue,

know that

at a given moment

Thrasymachus

in his face

The Origins of Political Science

not

-181

because he

was

ashamed, but because he

can make us

was

hot from the day. In

a nar

rated

dialogue Socrates

into

people who are

in the know together

with

him,

or even

his

accomplices.

Thirdly,

there is a distinction between vol

which which

untary

compulsory dialogues, voluntary dialogues being dialogues Socrates spontaneously seeks, while compulsory dialogues are dialogues Socrates cannot with propriety avoid.
and

If
this

we

look

at

Plato's

Apology

dialogue between Socrates

nor

and

of Socrates from this point of view we see that the Athenian people, or his accusers, is a

performed and

conversation,
observations

compulsory dialogue. Socrates did not spontaneously seek this does he tell us the reason why he says what he said, or his

to the
order

participants'

regarding the participants, which he could not with propriety make face. We would have to turn to the Gorgias, for instance, in
an answer

to find

to the question regarding this

background
that in his

of

the Apol

ogy

of Socrates,

where we

find that Socrates

not give them
with

explains

position as an

accused

he

was

in the

position of a physician accused

by

the cook before a

tribunal

of children that

he did

the nice candies which

of

they

would

like to have, which he could not Apology of Socrates. Accordingly

propriety say

the Athenians in the

we note

that the way in which the Platonic

Socrates

presents

himself in his

performed and

compulsory
as

conversation with

the Athenian

people

assembled, differs from the way in

which

the Platonic

Socrates is Socrates
tions
in56

presented

by

Plato in the dialogues

to find

a whole.

The

Apology

of

makes us expect

Socrates

presented as engaged

in

conversa

the market-place with anybody who just happened to be there. But the Platonic Socrates in deed, as distinguished from his compulsory self-presenta tion in public, is extremely selective. He talks with youths who are promising,

sophists, rhetoricians, rhapsodes, or soothsayers, extremely rarely

generals or

with retired

politicians,

and still more

rarely

with

ordinary

citizens as such.

He

is famous, or ridiculed, for using the examples of shoemakers and other crafts men, but in contradistinction to Xenophon's Socrates, the Platonic Socrates
never

has

discussion

with a craftsman.

He

always speaks about

we

shoemakers,

but

never with shoemakers.

On the is

other

hand

find him

never engaged

in

conversation with a man who

when

Timaeus

explains

clearly his inferior. He is silently present the cosmos, and he silently observes the Eleatic
not

Stranger training Theaetetus we find Socrates engaged in

or the

a conversation with

young Socrates. It is tme, in the Parmenides Parmenides, but there Parmen

ides is clearly the superior, Socrates still being very young. To summarize, the Platonic Socrates, outside of the Platonic Socrates's self-presentation in his sole
public one

speech,

converses

only
to

with people who are not common

people,

who

in

way

or other

belong

an

elite,

although never

to the elite in the highest

refutes

sense,
tes's

with

inbetween

people.

The Platonic dialogue

the Platonic Socra

public self-presentation. observation

This

induces

us

to pay the greatest attention, to begin with, to

narrated

the Republic. The Republic is the only dialogue

by

Socrates

which

is

182

Interpretation
Socrates is compelled, not indeed by the Athenian demos, but by young companion, to stay in the Piraeus, and this compulsory stay sup the occasion for an extensive conversation on justice, in the course of Socrates founds

compulsory.
some plies

a perfectly just city, not in deed, but in speech. Before Platonic dialogue, one must consider the fact that there are considering any many Platonic dialogues, or that Plato's work consists of many dialogues be which

cause

imitation is
chapter
of

it imitates the manyness, the variety, the heterogeneity of being. The not a simple reproduction. The individual Platonic dialogue is not a

philosophy,

from the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences or from a system nor is it the product of an occasion, or the relic of a stage of
characterized

Plato's development. The individual dialogue is

matter than

less

by its

subject

by

the

manner

in

which

it treats the

subject matter.

Each^dialogue hence in
while
a

treats its
specific

subject

matter

by

means of a

specific

abstraction,
with

and

distortion. For

instance,

the Euthyphro deals

piety

being

silent about

the soul, or in abstraction from the phenomenon of the soul.

To

understand a

dialogue means, therefore, to

recognize

the principle guid

question.

ing

the

specific abstraction which characterizes

the

dialogue in

This
char

principle

is

revealed

acters,

action.

primarily by The discussion taking

the setting of the

place

dialogue, time,

place,

with a view which chosen

to the character, not of

dialogue is necessary primarily the subject matter, but of the setting in in

a

the dialogue takes place. It is reasonable to expect that the setting was

by

Plato

as most appropriate with a view

to the subject matter, but

matter comes

on

the other hand what Plato thought about the subject

to our sight

first

through the medium of the setting. takes place

conversation
Athens'

As for the setting of the Republic, the in the Piraeus, the harbor of Athens, the seat of
power, in the house
of a

naval and commercial

day

in

which a new and strange religious procession

took place

wealthy metic, on a for the first

bespeak

time.

The

surroundings

are

then at the opposite pole of old and patrician

spirit of the ancestral.

Athens,
what

which

lives in the
of

The

surroundings

in the light

the tradition

would appear as political

decay. Yet Piraeus

had

also another connotation.

tioned

by

name.

in the Republic ten companions, men Ten in the Piraeus. This is a reminder of the rale of the Thirty
are

There

Tyrants, during
thus
reminded of

which of

there were ten men in control of the Piraeus. We are

himself somehow con down the democracy and restoring an oligarchic or aristo nected, putting cratic regime. Yet the characters of the Republic have nothing in common with the oligarchic reaction. The family of Cephalus, in whose house the conversa
tion takes place, as
as the chief and
well as

the attempt, with which Plato was

Niceratus,

were victims of

the

Thirty

Tyrants. Just

interlocutors in Plato's dialogue

on courage are

the chief

interlocutors in his dialogue

the
made

on moderation

defeated generals, are future tyrants, at

any

rate some of

of a rebellion performs

individuals in his dialogue on justice are innocent victims in the name of justice. The restoration which Socrates
not

in the Republic is then

likely

to be a political restoration, it rather

The Origins of Political Science

will

183

be

a restoration on a

different

plane. and

The

spirit of this

Socratic

restoration

is indicated

by

the fact that Socrates

the other participants, from uptown

Athens,
race
race or

are

kept in the Piraeus

of a goddess.

by

the promise of a

dinner,

as well as of a

torch

in honor

But

we

the dinner. Torch race and

hear nothing further dinner are replaced

about either

the torch

justice. The

feeding

of

the

body

is

replaced

by

the

by a conversation on feeding of the soul. The very

a

extended conversation on

justice

constitutes

in itself

training in
or

self-control

regarding the
of asceticism. much

pleasures and even

the needs of the

wrote,57

body,

it
of

constitutes an act

When Thomas More

in the imitation

the

Republic, his
perfect com

less

ascetic

monwealth

Utopia, he arranged that the description be given after luncheon.

clear of

of

his

The

antagonist of

As becomes
and a

from

Socrates in the Republic is Thrasymachus, the rhetorician. a brief exchange between a follower of Thrasymachus
which

follower

Socrates, by

the

discussion between Thrasymachus

and

Socrates is interrupted, Thrasymachus starts from the quite unparadoxical view that the just is identical with the legal. Since what is legal or not depends in
each case on the

decision

of

the lawgiver or the government, the just is then

which

identical
behaves
and

with

the will of the stronger. The manner in

Thrasymachus
answers,

he forbids to say certain things, or forbids to he demands a fine from Socrates for payment, for
as

give certain
which

Plato's brother

vouches, just

Plato himself
on

vouches

for

a payment of another

kind demanded
which

from Socrates
symachus

the

day

of
us

his
of

accusation

the

manner

in

Thra

behaves

reminds

the behavior of the city of Athens towards that the just is the

Socrates. The thesis

the actual polis,

of

Thrasymachus,
does He
plays

legal, is

the thesis of
a sense
polis

which

not permit an appeal

beyond its laws. In

able

Thrasymachus is the because he

possesses

polis.

the

polis.

He is

to play the

easily in crashing Thrasymachus continues to play a role in and in silencing Thrasymachus, but he58 has been silenced. At the beginning of the fifth book the Republic after
the art
of rhetoric.

Socrates

succeeds

there

occurs a scene which reminds us of

the scene

with which

the Republic
an or

opens. of

In both
action

scenes we

have

the

of the city. not

deliberation ending in a decision, But whereas in the first deliberation,

a

imitation

decision,

Thrasymachus does

take part, he does take part in the

second.

By

the

beginning
The into the

of the

fifth book Thrasymachus has become

the city in
speech

a member of of

the city.

restoration of city.

includes the integration

on

Thrasymachus
the

The

restoration of

justice

the

new plane requires

help

of

Thrasymachus's art, the art of rhetoric. In Aristophanes 's Clouds, we may recall, Socrates had been
the
revelation of was

responsible

for

the weakness of the Just Speech. The Just Speech was weak
on mythology, on

because it
gods.

based principally
show

the
were

stories

told about the

unjust.

The gods, the

alleged guardians of

Socrates is to

the

strength of

the

justice, Just Speech,

manifestly

If

primary function in the Republic, he

must

is naturally his therefore wholly divorce justice from

and this

184

Interpretation
all ancient

mythology, from

hearsay

or

tradition. The Platonic Socrates shows,

shows

then, in deed

the strength of the Just

Speech, but he

the

strength of an

entirely new, novel, unheard of, Just Speech. The Platonic Socrates transcends
the generally accepted and impure
consists
notion of

in giving to

everyone

what

determined
positive

by

custom,

law,

positive

justice, according to which justice is his due, for what is a man's due is law, and there is no necessity that the
law declares to be just is
as such

law itself be just. What the

positive

just merely by virtue of positing, of convention, therefore one must seek for what is just intrinsically, by nature. We must seek a social order which as such is intrinsically just, the polis which is in accordance with nature. Of such a city
It is wholly novel. It the Republic it is founded in speech.
there is
no example. must

be founded in

order

to be. In

Yet

what guidance

do

we possess after we

have been

compelled to question

the view that justice consists in giving everyone his due?

According

to the

generally accepted view, justice is not merely the habit of giving everyone what is due to him, it is also meant to be beneficial. We shall then say that justice is
the habit of giving to everyone
what

is

good

for him.

According to

Aristotle the

first impression he
the

received

from the Republic is the

If justice is the habit

philanthropic character of

giving to everyone what for him, justice is the preserve of the wise. For just as the physician alone knows what is truly good for the body of a man, only the wise man, the physician of the soul, knows what is truly good for the whole man. Further
scheme presented therein. of

is

good

more,

as

selfless.
whole.

giving to everyone what is good for him, justice is utterly It is selfless devotion to others, pure serving others, or serving the Since in a just city everyone is supposed to be just in the sense that he
of

the habit

be dedicated to the

service of
own.

others,

no one will

think of

himself,

of

his

own

happiness,
women,

of

his

Total communism,

communism

and

children, is merely the institutional

expression of

regarding property, justice. But is

the well-being of the whole not identical

bers? In
The is

other

answer

with the well-being of all its mem is everyone to dedicate himself entirely to the polisl words, why is this. The good city is the necessary and sufficient condition for

the highest
a

excellence or virtue of each according to his capacity. The just city in which being a good citizen is simply the same as being a good man. city Everyone is to dedicate himself, not to the pursuit which is most pleasant or

attractive to

him, but
some

to that which makes him as good a man as possible. Yet

justice implies city in

which

reciprocity of giving and taking. The just city is then the everyone does that which he is by nature fitted to do, and in
that which is
a

which everyone receives

by

nature

good,

not attractive or pleas

ant, for him. The just city is

noble, nothing even is sacred

perfectly

rational society.

Nothing

is fair

or

or

holy,

except what

is

useful

for that city, that is

to say, in the last resort, for the greatest possible perfection or virtue of each member. To mention only the most shocking and the
and

the sacred prohibitions against incest

striking example, family between brothers and sisters must

The Origins of Political Science

give

185
every

way to the demands

obedience on

of eugenics.

The

whole scheme presupposes on

point the absolute rale of

the

wise or of

the philosophers. But

how

are

the wise

to

find
the

the part of the

unwise?

You

see this

is the be

same problem

which we

found in Xenophon. The loyal

obedience would not

wise need can

out

use of

force. Therefore the few

auxiliaries.

the support of a

number of

But how

the

wise

auxiliaries, sion, and

who as such are not wise?

The

wise rale

forthcoming with fairly large secure the loyalty of the the auxiliaries by persua

by hampered by
rational out a

persuasion alone.

For in the

the laws. Persuasion

is

not

city the auxiliaries will not be demonstration. The unwise, and espe
good

cially the auxiliaries, fundamental

are persuaded

by

means of a noble and

deception. Even the

not possible with

society, the society according to truth

untruth.

nature, is

That fundamental
replacement of

untruth consists of two parts.

Its first

part consists

in the

the earth as the common mother of all men, and therewith of the

fraternity
tory,
or

of all

men,

by
of

a part of

the earth, the

land,

the

fatherland,
part of

the terri

the

fraternity

only the fellow

citizens.

The first

the funda

mental untruth consists

then in assigning the

natural status of

the human species

to a part of the human species, the citizens of a given city. The second part of the fundamental untruth consists in ascribing divine origin to the existing social
hierarchy59

hierarchy,
not

or more

with the natural

generally stated, in identifying the existing social hierarchy; that is to say, even the polis according to
rational

nature

is

simply natural, or even the most

crucial

society is is

not

simply
how

rational.

Hence the
recurs

importance for it form

when

of

the art of persuasion. This

raised as to

difficulty
one can would

in

an even sharper

the question
polis.

transform an actual polis

into the best

This transformation

be

wholly impossible if the citizens of an actual polis, that is to say, men who have not undergone the specific education prescribed in the Republic for the
citizens of

the best city

this transformation would be wholly impossible if

the

citizens of an actual polis could not

be

persuaded would

to bow to the

rale of

the

philosophers.

The

problem of

the best city to

be

altogether

insoluble if the
It is in the
.

multitude context of
. .

were not amenable

persuasion

by

the

philosophers.

the assertion that the

. . .

multitude

is

persuadable

by

the philosophers,

(unclear)

that Socrates declares that he and Thrasymachus just have

must

be integrated into the best city because the best city is not possible without the art of Thrasymachus. To the best of my knowledge the only student of the Republic who has understood this crucial fact become friends. Thrasymachus
was

Farabi,
is

an

Islamic

philosopher who

flourished

around

900

and who was

the

founder
which

of medieval
appropriate

Aristotelianism.

According
which

to Farabi the way of

Socrates,
be
philoso

only for the

of

philosopher's62

dealing
is

with

the elite, must

combined with
pher's62

the way
with

Thrasymachus,

appropriate

for the

dealing
one

the

multitude.

The first

reason

why the

noble

delusion is society human be-

required

is the tension between the

hand
universal

impossibility

of a universal political all

on

the

is

meant

here literally, embracing

186
ings
other.

Interpretation
and the essential

defect

of

the particular

or closed political

society
natural

on

the

The particular or closed political society conflicts with the nity of all men. Political society in one way or another draws an arbitrary line between man and man. Political society is essentially exclusive or harsh. The discussion of justice in the first book of the Republic may be said to culminate

frater

in the

suggestion that of

the just

man

does

not

do any harm to

anyone.

Pursuing
benefi

this line
cence.

thought we arrive at the conclusion that justice is

whole

universal

But this

line

of

thought is

in Socrates's strong speech are compared to dogs who

on

dropped silently, yet not unnoticeably, behalf of justice. The guardians of the just city
acquaintances,
makes or

are gentle to their

friends,

and

harsh to enemies,
same view which

or strangers.

In this way Plato

his Socrates

express the

Xenophon

tes, into

was as good at obedience.

guiding Both the Xenophontic

limitation63

by indicating gentlemen by praise as

expresses and

that

he,

the pupil of

Socra base

he

was at

beating
and

the

the Platonic Socrates have under

stood the essential

of reason and of speech

generally,

therewith

the nature of

political

things.

As I have indicated, the action of the Republic consists in Socrates's first bringing64 into the open his latent conflict with Thrasymachus, then in his si

lencing Thrasymachus,
him
an

and

finally

in reconciling Thrasymachus

by

assigning to
somewhat

important, if subordinate, place in the best city. To express it differently, the action of the Republic turns around the strength and
ness of rhetoric.

the

weak

We

noticed

that in the course of the conversation the expecta

tion

from

rhetoric who

the people

in its

ways will

is greatly increased. To begin with it is only expected that have already grown up in the best city and have been educated believe in the noble lie. Later on it is expected that the people
can

of an actual

city
on

be

persuaded of of

the need to submit to the rule of philoso

phers.

Only

will not cease

philosophers

say that evils from the city if the philosophers do not become kings. That the can become kings depends on their ability to persuade the multi be kings. But
at

the basis

this expectation does it make sense to

tude of their ability to

which

the

end of

this part of the

Republic,
reformu

is its

central

part, the condition of political bliss is

will

drastically

lated. Political bliss

when older than of

follow,

not

if the

philosophers

become kings, but

rusticated everyone whatever

the philosophers have become kings and if

they have

ten,

and
on

if they be

bring

up the

children without

any influence

the parents

the children.

Socrates does

not even

try

to show that the

with

multitude can ever

persuaded to submit to the rale of

the philosophers

the understanding that the philosophers will expel the multitude

and

from

keep

only the

children

in the

city.

The majority
regard as

of men cannot

city be brought

the

by

persuasion alone

to undergo what

they

rest of

their days so that all

future

generations will

the greatest misery for the be blessed. There are abso

lute limits to persuasion, and therefore the best city as sketched in the Republic is not possible. The best city would be possible if a complete clean could

sweep

be made,

yet

there is always

a powerful

heritage

which cannot

be

swept

away

The Origins of Political Science

187

and whose power can only be broken by sustained effort of every individual by himself. The best city would be possible if all men could become philosophers, that is to say, if human nature were miraculously transformed.

Now the best city

speech,65

was

founded in
would seem
speech65

speech

in

order

to prove the strength of

the Just Speech. Hence it

to

follow that

but the

novel

just

as well

only the traditional just is weak, or that Aristophanes was

not

right.

The Platonic Socrates

of

provides against

this conclusion

by

conceiving

of

the justice

the city

and vice versa.

doing
In
which of

one's

job

individual, being strictly Accordingly he defines justice as doing one's job, or rather as well. A being is just if all its significant parts do their job well.
as parallel

to the justice of the

order

to be

he

would

his

soul

not necessary that a man should do well the job have to fulfill in the perfectly just city. It suffices if the parts do their jobs well, if his reason is in control and his sub-rational

truly just it is

powers who

obey his reason. But this is strictly possible only in the case of a man has cultivated his reason properly, that it is to say, of the philosopher.
and

only the philosopher, can be simply just, regardless of the quality of the city in which he lives, and vice versa, the non-philosopher will not be simply just regardless of the quality of the city in which he lives. Socrates
which

Hence the philosopher,

speaks

less

of

doing

one's

job

well

than simply of

doing

one's

job,

has

a common

busy-body, or life, the retired life

manifest written
said secret small of

meaning of minding one's own business, not to be a to lead a retired life. To lead the just life means to lead a retired
par

excellence, the life

of of

the philosopher. This is the the individual is said to

the Republic. The justice the

be is

in

letters, but

justice

of

the city is in large letters. Justice

that

to consist in minding one's

business,

Obviously

the best city does not serve

and

other

is to say, in not serving others. cities. It is self-sufficient. Justice is

understood

self-sufficiency,

hence

philosophy.

Justice thus

is

possible re

gardless of whether

the best city

is

possible or not.

Justice thus

understood

has

the further advantage that the question as to

own sake cannot arise.

whether

Whereas justice in the

vulgar

it is choiceworthy for its sense can well be a bur

den,

the philosopher's minding his own

business,

that is to say,

his

philoso

phizing, is intrinsically pleasant. To exaggerate somewhat for the sake of clarity, in the best city the whole is happy, and no individual is happy, since
the philosophers are burdened with the duties of administration. Outside of the

happy. At this point we may begin to distinction between compulsory and voluntary dialogues means, and why the Republic is the only dialogue narrated by Socrates which is compulsory. But all this does not mean more than that the individual is capable

city the

philosophers as philosophers are

understand what the

of a perfection of which the

city is

not capable.
which

Political life derives its

life. This
ent ways.

essential

dignity from something limitation of the political can be

or

transcends political

understood

in three differ

According

to Socrates the transpolitical to which the political owes

its

dignity

is philosophy,

theoria, which, however, is

accessible

only to

what

188
he

Interpretation
natures, to human beings
to the
who possess a certain natural

calls good

equip but

ment.

According
faith,

teaching
not

of revelation

the transpolitical is

accessible

through
on

which

does

depend
election.

on specific natural presuppositions,

divine

grace or

God's free

According

to liberalism the transpoliti

cal consists other

in something which every human being possesses as well as any human being. The classic expression of liberal thought is the view that

political

society

exists above all

for the

sake of

rights
as of

which

every human

being

possesses regardless of of

protecting the rights of man, the his natural gifts as well

grace.

his achievements, to say nothing

the

divine

To

return

to the argu

ment of

Republic, by realizing
in the language imaginative
not of

the essential

limitations have to be
with

of

the political, one

is indeed liberated from the

the

charms of what we now would call political

ideal how

ism, idols,

or what

Socrates

might

called

the charm of

the

presentation of

justice,
but

the understanding,

ever, that it is better

to be bom than never to have

felt that

charm.

(But the

liberation from that

ical

charm will not weaken

strengthen stands

the concern for polit

or

life,

or political responsibility.

Philosophy
work, the
present of

falls is

by

the city.)
political possible

Hence Plato devoted his

work of

most extensive

Laws,

which

the66

Plato,

to politics. And the Laws

the

best city

which

is

for beings

who are not gods nor sons not of

gods,

whereas

the Republic

is his

presentation,

the

best city, but, in the

guise of such a

presentation, his

exposition of the ratio rerum civilium, of the essential character of political

Cicero has wisely said. This being so it is remarkable that the Pla tonic character who is the chief interlocutor in the Laws is not Socrates. In light

things,
of

as

cal

everything that has been said before, this fact forces us to raise the paradoxi question, is then not Aristophanes 's presentation of Socrates in a decisive

respect confirmed

by Plato? This question can be answered without any para doxes. The Platonic Socrates, as distinguished from the Aristophanean Socra tes, is characterized by phronesis, by practical wisdom. He is so far from being
political

blind to
acts

things that he has

realized

their

essential

character,

and

that he

consistently in

accordance with

this realization. things to be below that perfection of the

It

is, then,

of

the

essence of political capable.

which the
which

individual is

If the

perfection of

individual is the ceiling

the city never reaches,

what

is the

fall

without

becoming

inhuman

or

which the city cannot flooring degraded? The Platonic Socrates begins his when

beneath

discussion city
which

of

these minimum requirements

calls

Glaucon

the city

of

pigs, but

which

he describes the first city, that Socrates calls the true city,

the city which is nothing but city. This is a city which does nothing but satisfy the primary wants, the wants of the body, food, clothing, and and in

shelter,

nothing emerged. It is

which

good or evil a state of

that goes beyond these

elementary things has

yet

lost,
or

a state of

innocence, which, because it is innocent, is so easily dormancy, a state characterized, not by virtue, but by simplicity
and

good-naturedness,
the human

by
is

the absence of the need

for

government.

In the

moment

faculty

developed,

the need for government arises,

for,

to

The Origins of Political Science

1 89

say the least, there is no necessity whatever that the faculties should develop in the right direction. The need for government is identical with the need for
restraint and the need of

for

virtue.

Virtue thus beneath

understood

is

required

for the

sake

living together,

the

flooring

coming degraded. It is
popular or political

serious concern

the city cannot fall without be for this kind of virtue, called by Plato
which

virtue.67

We may

call

it

utilitarian virtue.

Its rationale,

or

root, is the need

of

the city.

Yet there is
virtue.

another root of virtue and

hence

another

kind

of

virtue,

genuine

The Socratic formula for it

genuine virtue

is,

virtue

is knowledge. This is

another manifest secret of the

Platonic in the
the

as well as of

the Xenophontic Socrates.

The formula
edge or course
virtue and

means what

says.

Virtue in the

understanding,
or

and vice

strict sense

knowledge
in the

ignorance
both

of

akra

is nothing but knowl is nothing but ignorance, of physeos, of the peaks of being. This
strict sense

strict sense

presupposes and produces

courage, moderation,

justice,
moral

the other virtues. If we may use the Aristotelian

term,
The

virtue,

we can state

the

view of

the Platonic
ends

term, not Platonic Socrates as follows.

sake of which

moral virtues

have two different

roots.

The

for the

they

exist are the

city

on

the one hand and the life of the

mind on

the other. To the

extent to which the moral virtues are rooted

are

only in the

needs of

only
such

popular or political virtues and

they

are acquired

only

by

society they habituation.

As

they have

no solidity.

his former life

as a good citizen chooses

by

philosophy

has lived in a well-ordered city in participating in virtue by habituation and not the greatest tyranny for his next life, as Plato states
man who

towards the

end of

the Republic. Popular or political virtue is acquired

by

habituation in
which

accordance with a

reasoning

or

calculation, the starting

point of

is the

need

is inclined to
Bergson has
the other
root

virtue and

for society or the needs of the body, whereas the does not need a calculation for that. In
the two roots of morality, one of them

philosopher
our

century

spoken of

being

the city,

being

the open or universal society. What Bergson said about the first
agreement with

is in fundamental

the Socratic teaching. All the

more strik

ing is the disagreement regarding the second root. The place occupied in Socra tes's thought by philosophy is occupied in Bergson's thought by the open and
society inspired by a kind of mysticism. Yet if morality has two radically different roots, how morality, how can there be a unity of man, and how is it
universal requirements of of can

there be a unity of

possible that the moral

society
the

on

the one hand and the moral requirements of the life

the mind

on

other agree

completely,

extent? which which

whole

The unity is open to the whole,

seen

of man consists or

or at any rate to a in the fact that he is that part

considerable
of

the whole the

whole

in Platonic language, that

concern with of

part of

has

the ideas of all things. Man's

mind.

his

openness

to the to

is

the life of the

The dualism

being

part,

and
man.

being
both

open

the whole, and therefore in a society,

and

sense

being

the whole

itself, is

Furthermore,
wholes68

the whole simply, have this

in common, that they

are

190

Interpretation
the

transcending

individual,

inducing69

the individual to rise

above and

above and

beyond
such

himself. All nobility

consists

in

such

rising

beyond oneself, in

dedicating

oneself to

something

greater than oneself.

that the question of the unity

of man

tentatively say is discussed in the Republic in the form of

shall

We

the question of the unity of the human soul. This implies the Republic abstracts

from the body.

tion tion

Every dialogue,
of

I suggest, is
to the

characterized

by

a specific abstrac abstrac

from something
characteristic

most relevant

subject matter

discussed. The

the Republic

is the

abstraction

from the body. The

characteristic political proposal of the

Republic is

complete communism. and man cannot

But

the

body

constitutes the absolute

share

limit to communism,

strictly

speaking
observed
where

his

body
with

with

thoughts and desires

anybody else, whereas he can well share his others. The same abstraction from the body can be
of

in the discussion

the equality of men and women in the

men and women

Republic,
same and

the difference between

is treated

as

if it had the

status and significance as the

men who are not of

difference between
same

men who are

revealed

baldheaded

baldheaded. The

intention is

by

the provisions
children and

the Republic regarding

children.

The blood
rendered

relation

between

parents, this

bodily

relation, is to be

invisible. Also,
on

and above

all,

the argument of the Republic as a whole

is based

the

parallelism of

man, the

individual,
replaced

and

the polis, but this parallelism between

parallelism

man and

the

polis

is

soon

by

the

between the individual's

soul and

the

polis.

The

body is silently dropped. With the same connection belongs Plato's failure to provide for the dinner promised at the beginning of the conversation. Further
more,
we understand

from here the fact that Socrates

almost

forgets to

mention

among the

studies of

to be pursued

by

future
not

philosophers

the

field
the

of solid geom

etry, geometry

bodies. Last but

least,

we mentioned

exaggeration of

the rhetorical power of the philosophers, which is only the reverse side of the
abstraction phers.

from the

bodily

power of the philosophers to

force the

non-philoso

At any rate, the question of the unity of man is discussed in the Republic in the form of the question of the unity of the soul. The question arises because
of

the

evident

necessity to

admit the essential

difference between intelligence

or

reason on

the one hand and the sub-rational powers of the soul on the the unity of man thus

other.

The

question of

becomes the
soul.

question of

the bond be

tween the highest and the

lowest in the human

In the Republic Plato

spiritedness, est,
or and

suggests a partition of

the soul into three parts, reason,

desire. Of the two

To

sub-rational parts spiritedness

obedient

is the high

noblest, because it is essentially

use

to reason, whereas desire

revolts against reason.

a

Aristotle in his Politics in kindred context, reason rales spiritedness politically or royally, by persua sion, whereas it rules desire despotically, by mere command. It appears, then,

the terms employed

by

that spiritedness is the bond between the

which gives man unity.

highest

and

the

lowest in man,

or

that

We

shall venture

to say that the

characteristically hu
is translated broader meaning,

man, the

human-all-too-human, is
or

spiritedness.

The

word which a much

by

spiritedness, thymos

thymoeides, has originally

The Origins of Political Science

and this

191

meaning occurs also in the Platonic dialogues. We may say that spir itedness is a Greek equivalent of the biblical Especially in the Republic
"heart."

Plato

prefers of

the narrow meaning

by

desire,
as

course, belongs

as much

opposing spiritedness and desire, whereas to thymos in the original sense, to the heart,

Plato's preference, especially in the Repub from the fact that desire includes eros, erotic desire in the highest lic, and lowest sense. Spiritedness in the sense of the Republic is radically distin is70 guished from eros. It anerotic or anti-erotic.
spiritedness.
understand we start

does

To

By
eros.

assigning to
second

spiritedness a

higher

status

than to desire Plato depreciates

This depreciation

appears most
needs

in the he in the

book the
and

clearly in two facts. When Plato indicates for the satisfaction of which men live in society,
silent about procreation.

mentions

food

drink but is

When he describes

absolutely under the sway of eros, as eros incarnate. The tyrant, however, is injustice incarnate, or the incar nation of that which is destructive of the city. Spiritedness, we should then say,
ninth
presents

book the tyrant he

him

as

as opposed

to eros, is meant to be the political

presents

passion.

It is for this
rulers,
as a

reason

that

Xenophon

unerotic man.

Yet how
shows
the71

his Cyrus, the can this be itself

as a

most successful of all understood?

thoroughly
polit
and

Unerotic spiritedness, the

ical passion, glory. But is

desire for victory, superiority, rule,

also,
and even

honor,

political passion not

primarily,

attachment

to

the polis, to the

or

fatherland,

and

hence love? Is

not the model of

the guardian,

the citizen, the

dog
The

who

loves his

acquaintances or citizen must

this model shows that the guardian or

citizen or stranger.
political

friends? But precisely also be harsh on the non-

then, cannot be understood merely as attachment. The harsh, exclusive element is equally essential to patriotism. This harshness is not essential to eros because two human beings can love one
passion,
another without

but is
shows

supplied

being harsh to by spiritedness.

others.

This harshness is

not essential

to eros,

There

remains a greater

difficulty. Spiritedness

itself

not also a

desire for victory, superiority, rule, honor and glory. Is it then kind of desire? With what right can it be distinguished from desire,
as

or even opposed

to it? The

answer

is implied in the traditional distinction be

a

tween the concupiscible and the

of

irascible,

distinction

which

is the

outgrowth

the Platonic distinction between desire

not

and spiritedness.

But the Platonic

distinction is
two-fold
of

identical

with

the traditional distinction. I have spoken of the

of

root of

morality, the needs the

needs of of

society,

the

body,

and

the

mind.

which are ultimately the needs To these two kinds of needs there

desires. Desire is directed toward its good, the good simply, but spiritedness, of which anger is the most obvious form, is directed towards a goal as difficult to obtain. Spiritedness arises out of the desire proper
correspond

two kinds

being
to the

resisted or thwarted.
satisfaction eros

Spiritedness is

needed

of

the desire.

Hence

spiritedness

for overcoming the resistance is a desire for victory.

is primarily the desire to generate human beings, spiritedness is the derivative willingness to kill and to be killed, to destroy human beings. spiritedness is in the service of secondary in comparison with desire,
Whereas

Being

192

Interpretation

desire. It is essentially obedient while looking more masterful than anything else. But as such it does not know what it should obey, the higher or the lower. It bows to it knows
ence.72

It divines something higher, it is aidos, rever Yet qua essentially deferential it is of higher dignity than the bodily desires, which lack that deference. The spirited man is, as it were, always on
not what.

the

look-out,
He is

or on

the search, for something for

which

he

can sacrifice

him

self.

prepared to sacrifice

himself

and

as anxious

for

honoring

as

he is for

being
is

everything else for anything. He is honored. While being most passion

time
and

ately
most

concerned with
self-

self-assertion, he is
spiritedness

at the same

in the

same act

forgetting. Since

undetermined as

to the

the goods of the

body
. .

or
.

the good of the mind, it is in a way

primary end, independent of

word

them,

or oblivious

(tape
not

being

changed)

thymos, the I in

for As

spiritedness, thymos

does

have this

outward pointedness which

which mention

desire has.

But this is purely

of

etymological
neutral

speculation,

passing.

such, spiritedness is

to the difference between the two kinds

of objects

desire,

the goods of the

body,

and

the good of the mind. It is therefore

radically ambiguous, and therefore it can be the root of the most radical confu sion. Spiritedness thus understood is that which makes human beings interest

ing. It is therefore the theme

his theme in the Iliad is the
return of

of tragedy.

Homer is the father

and

of

tragedy because
the
thwarted1*

wrath of

Achilles,
together,

in the

Odyssey

Odysseus. Spiritedness is the

region of

ambiguity,

a region

in

which

the lower and the higher are bound

where

the lower is transfigured

into the higher,

and vice

versa, without a possibility of a clear distinction be

tween the two. It is the locus of morality in the ordinary sense of the term.

Philosophy
book
ness. of the

is

not spirited.

When

joining issue

with

the atheists in the tenth

Laws,

the philosopher addresses them explicitly without spirited

must

Spiritedness

be

subservient

to philosophy, whereas

desire,

eros, in
agree

its highest form is

ment

philosophy.

Here

we

touch on the point of the deepest

between Plato

and

becomes in the

case of

Aristophanes. As desire for superiority, spiritedness sensible men the desire for recognition by free men. It is
to political

therefore essentially

related

liberty, hence

to

law,

and

hence to

justice. Similarly, as essentially deferential, it is a sense of shame, which as such bows primarily to the ancestral, the primary manifestation of the good.
it is essentially related to justice. Spiritedness in its normal for justice, or moral indignation. This is the reason why spirited ness is presented as the bond through which man is in Plato's dialogue on one, justice, the Republic. And the action of the Republic can be said to consist in
reasons

For both

form is

a zeal

first arousing spiritedness or the virtue belonging dedicated to non-understood justice, that is, what

to

it,

that is to say, zeal

mean

idealism,
tiveness

and

then in purging it.

the fundamental ambiguity

or punitiveness.

by political By understanding spiritedness we understand of moral indignation, which easily turns into
vindic-

we now

The ambiguity

of spiritedness

is

not

exhausted, how

ever,

by

the

ambiguity

of moral

indignation.75

It

shows

itself

most

strikingly in

The Origins of Political Science

the shift

193
stated

from justified indignation to

unjustified

indignation. No
soliloquy.

one

has

this more
seven

directly

than Shakespeare in Hamlet's

Hamlet

enumerates

things which make life almost impossible to bear. Almost

all of

them are

objects of moral
center

indignation,

the oppressor's wrong, and so on, but in the

he

mentions

the pangs of despised love. The justified indignation about

injustice
This is

shifts

insensibly

into the

unjustified

indignation

about unrequited

love.

perhaps

the deepest secret of spiritedness and therefore at least one of

the deepest secrets of Plato's Republic.

The Republic
tion
ness

could not show

the

purification of

spiritedness, that

purifica

which consists

in its

submission

to philosophy, without making spirited

world of

the center, the

center of man.

The In

the Republic is a the Republic

akin

world of abstracts

spiritedness, unpurified and purified.

other
which

words

from charis,
The

grace

in the

classic sense

in

it is essentially

to eros.

world of spiritedness

is

not

the

world of charis or eros.

How these two

worlds are related

in Plato's view,

whether

they

are not related as charis and

anangke, as grace and compulsion, this question coincides with the question of

the

relation and

between the Republic

the
most

and

the

Banquet, between

the

most com

pulsory
cannot

question voluntary for that matter, in any lectures be conveniently discussed today, nor,

of

the Platonic dialogues. But this

devoted to

political science.

(NOVEMBER 7, 1958)

from the contemporary to consider the whole issue of

. .

collapse of rationalism.

This

collapse

induces

us

extent

to

which

it is

an

rationalism. The first step in this inquiry, to the empirical inquiry, is the question of the origin of ratio

nalism.

For

a number of reasons or

this

question can

be identified

with

the prob

lem
no

of

Socrates,
of

the

problem of classical political

philosophy in

general.

It is

doubt
the

the

utmost

importance to
to it

contrast

classical

political

philosophy

with

philosophic alternatives

which are presented one must

by

modem political classical

philosophy.

But before

one can

do that

have

understood

political

philosophy

by

itself. I limit

myself

to the

question

concerning the

character and claim of classical political philosophy, to

the

question

the

problem which

it tried to solve, concerning the

that
obstacle appeared
unpolitical

obstacle

concerning it tried to over

come.

That

problem and

sentation of

Socrates. Socrates is

clearly in Aristophanes 's pre because he lacks self-knowledge.

philosophy
exists.

He does

not understand

the political

context within which

He

difference between philosophy and the polis. He is unaware of the does not understand the political in its specific character. The reason for this is give one unerotic and amusic. To this accusation Xenophon and Plato his
essential

being

and the same reply.

Socrates is

political and erotic.

He

understands

the political

in its

non-rational character.

He

realizes

the

critical

importance

of

thymos,

of

194

Interpretation
as

spiritedness,

the bond between the philosophers

and

the

multitude.

He

un

derstood the
For he
whole
was

political

in its

specific character.

In

fact,

no one

before him did.

the fact that the

the first to

grasp the

significance of the

idea,

of

is

characterized

by

articulation

into

classes or

kinds,

whose character can

be

understood of

only
not

by

thought,

and not

by

sense perception.

Whatever

we

think
quate.

the adequacy of this reply, in one point the reply is manifestly

may inade

It does

reply to the
wide-spread

charge that

Socrates

was amusic.
or

According
political

to a

view, the opposite,

the

opponent of classical

sophists.

philosophy is sophistry, the teaching and the practice of the Greek This view deserves the reputation which it enjoys. A single superficial

reading of the first book of the Republic, of the Gorgias, or of the Protagoras, is sufficient for producing it. In the nineteenth century this view came to be understood as follows. Classical political philosophy is related to the sophists
as

tion,

German idealism, especially Hegel, is to the theorists of the French revolu and in particular to the French philosophes. Both the adherents and ene
the principles of 1789 have adhered, and still adhere, to this view.
are

mies of

Liberals favor

inclined to favor the

does

sophists and conservatives are

inclined to

classical political philosophy. no

The

most

up to date and hence most sim merely

of proportional

plistic version of this view

longer
that

assert a

equality,

but

a simple equality.

For the

view

classical political

to the sophists as German idealism

is to the theorists is only

philosophy is related the French revolution

thought and
modem

implied that there is

all modem

fundamental difference between

therefore that there
an

all classical

thought,
and

and

analogy between
we are

liberalism
sophists

the sophistic doctrines.

were

Now, however,

told that the

simply

liberals

or

theorists of democracy. It is necessary to know

powerful

this opinion and to examine it carefully, for it embodies the most

obstacle to an
sophists.

understanding of either classical political philosophy But this is not the proper place for such an examination.
myself to

or of

the

Here I limit

the

following
teaching

remarks.

Plato's

criticism of

the soph

ists is directed less

specific

against

the

peculiar to the sophists than against a

way
us name

of

life. He had in
the name of the

mind a phenomenon similar

to that

which

is

known to For the

by

intellectuals,
sake,
and

a most ambiguous phenomenon. who

intellectual

conceals the
own

decisive difference between those

cultivate their

intellect for its

In

those who do it for the sake of

a

gain, power,
scription,
a

or prestige.

other

words, intellectual is

merely

external

de

description

good enough perhaps

for

certain

bureaucratic purposes,

say tax declarations. Intellectuals

reading,
yet

living by writing and writing and reading tax declarations, for example, but something ill-defined. Intellectuals form a profession, but in all other profes
not

are men who earn

their

by

sions there are standards

physicians and sion of

allowing the fake physicians. There

profession to

exists no such

distinguish between, say, possibility in the profes

intellectuals. One

could perhaps

say that the

profession of

intellectuals

is distinguished from

all other professions

by

the vagueness, as well as the

The Origins of Political Science

enormity,
and

195

of

its

claims.

Its ambiguity, bom

of

confusion, increases

confusion

therefore it is a
return

menace not

to morality, but to clarity.

To

to the sophists, in the very Republic Plato

defends the
young.

sophists

against the common charge that

are

they

are corruptors of

the many charge, by many themselves who make that charge, or by the polis as it actually is and always will be. The sophists are mere imitators of the polis and of the politi
not as
cians.

corrupted, Plato says,

The young the sophists, but by the

the

Gorgias

and

Polus in the Gorgias

and

Thrasymachus in the Republic

are

not sophists another

oric,
was

or

philosophy is opposed not to political philosophy, but to rhetoric, that is to say, to autonomous rhet to the view that the highest art, the political art, is rhetoric. This view
rhetoricians.
political on a

but

Classical

indeed based

philosophy, but

on a

philosophy

which excluded

the

possibility ophy in the tenth book

mental phenomena are arrived at

of political philosophy. of

Plato has

given a clear sketch of

this philos

the Laws. It started from the premise that the

funda

the conclusion that

bodies, whereas soul and mind are merely derivative. It justice, or right, is in no way natural or in accor

dance is

with

nature, but is only

by

virtue of convention or of opinion. or as

Hence in

principle

system, they say today, any any convention, any opinion, any other. There is no nature, no truth, in this kind of thing, and therefore there cannot be a science of these things. The true art or science
value as good as

dealing
interest,

with such matters

is the

art of

influencing

opinions with a view

to one's

that is to say, the art of rhetoric. But in the Republic at any rate Plato

speaks much

less emphatically

of

the enmity between philosophy and rhetoric

poetry.

than of the enmity between philosophy and

This enmity is

so grave

because the
as

poets and not the rhetoricians or

master"

the

sophists abuse the philosophers

"bitches

barking

at their

The

great alternative

to classical political

philosophy is poetry. Let us state at the outset how in philosophy

to
provide and poetry.

our opinion

Plato

settles the quarrel

between

He

emphasizes

the need for the noble

as

delusion, he

therewith emphasizes the need for poetry.

these noble

philosophy is unable Philosophy delusions. Philosophy as philosophy is unable to per

suade the non-philosophers or the multitude and to charm them.

Philosophy
convince

poetry This implies Plato

needs then

as

its

supplement.

Philosophy
is

requires a ministerial poetry.

quarrels

only

with autonomous poetry.

If he is to

in poetry is lost if poetry is us he must show that nothing understood as ministerial. In the Republic Plato discusses poetry twice. The first discussion, in the second and third books, precedes the discussion of phi
which

admirable

losophy. The discussion is in

more than one respect prephilosophic.

The

second

discussion, in the tenth book, follows the discussion of philosophy. The first discussion takes place between Socrates and Adeimantus, whose characteristic
is
moderation or

sobriety, not to say austerity, rather than courage and erotic

shown a profound second

desire,

and who

has

dissatisfaction

with what

the poets teach

and

regarding justice. The

discussion takes

place

between Socrates

196

Interpretation
whose characteristic

Glaucon,

is

courage and erotic

of

desire
to

rather

than sobriety
more

or austerity.

The

second

discussion

daring
of

than the

first. The

poetry prephilosophic discussion

promises

be

infinitely

the discussion of the education of that discussion is myth,

of or

of poetry is identical with the non-philosophic soldiers. The first theme

untrue

speeches

to

be told to

children.

The
with

makers

the myth are the poets. The poets are entirely

unconcerned

fit to be told to children, that is to say, to immature human beings regardless of their age. The distinction between fit and unfit
whether their stories are

stories

has therefore to be

made

by

people other than the of

poets,

by

the political

authorities, in the best case by the wise founders authorities must be concerned with whether the
goodness of men and citizens. poetic qualities.

the best city. The political

are conducive

stories

to the their

They

are not

concerned, it seems,

with

As
In

regards

the poetic qualities the poets are

likely

to be

better

judges than the

censor such a

political authorities. particular

can

The

political authorities must supervise and

the

poets.

they
be

must compel
models of

the poets to present the gods in

and civic excellence. on

way that the gods

suffices

human

The

presentation must

be left to the
to think
of

poets.

The task imposed

the poets

is formi
not

dable. It say
of a

Aphrodite
of

as a model of civic

excellence,

to

housewife. The founders

The

the city can

calls

general principles of what

such principles. of evil.

Adeimantus

lay down the outline, or the theology. Socrates mentions two

the cause only of good and not
and as never

gods must

be

presented as

And the

gods must

be

presented as

simple,

deceiving.

Adeimantus has later in the

no

somewhat perplexed on

difficulty whatever to accept the first proposition, but he is by the second proposition. The reason for this appears
context.

same

For it

appears that the

of ruling. men

only

noble motive

for
can

deceiving
they
striking

is that implied in the function

the necessity of

If the
man's

gods rule men

how

avoid

deceiving

for

benefit? But the

most

rale

laid down

by

Socrates is the

prohibition against

presenting the
when

terrors of death and the suffering from the loss of a man's dearest. The poets
are not permitted

to state in public what

made

they

alone can state

adequately
or sorrow.

everyone else
must
write

is

speechless through

suffering, grief,

They

poetry on the principle that a good man, by virtue of his selfsufficiency, is not made miserable by the loss of his children, his brothers, or his friends. The poets may present the lamentations of inferior women and still
more

inferior men,

so that

the best part of the young generation will leam to

despise lamentation. Autonomous poetry

gives expression

to the passions

by poetically imitating

the passions, it consecrates the passions. The ministerial poetry on the other hand helps man in learning to control the passions. It is necessary to consider this contention also as
a

poets are wise men who weakens

with

reply to Aristophanes. According to Aristophanes the as such teach justice. Plato denies that claim.

Poetry
right

the respect for right in the very act of

and

teaching right. The

poets present

sympathy

force the

powers

in

man which make man act against

The Origins of Political Science

and against propriety.
mands

197

Appealing

to the claim raised

by

Aristophanes Plato de

that the poets be teachers of justice pure and simple, that

they do

not

give
must

their audience any relief, so to speak, from this salutary teaching. Poets

be nothing but the

of

severe and austere servants of

all

justice. Plato turns the

tables on

Aristophanes; he draws
critique of

the conclusions from Aristophanes 's in

dictment

Euripides in the Frogs

against

Aristophanes.
as such

Especially
name of

convinc

ing,

or

amusing, is the

comedy

in the

the polis, a

critique which occupies of men who whether

the

center of

the respective discussions. The imitation

ridicule

one another and use

foul language
permitted

against one

another,

they

are sober or

drank, is
convey.

not

to be

in the just

city.

The

levity

fostered

by

comedy is bound
and

to counteract

the comedy may otherwise

any lessons of justice which All the devices of comedy, slander, ob explicitly
or

scenity,

blasphemy,

parody,
of all

are

implicitly

rejected

by

Plato.

In

spite of or

because

this no doubt is left as to the necessity of

poetry.

Yet there is likewise

permitted
excluded

no doubt left, and in fact it is explicitly stated, that the is rather austere and therefore less delightful than the best poetry poetry. We are expected to abandon something of great worth for the we shall miss
which

sake of

justice. What
verse

the Homeric

in

clearly stated in the discussion of Achilles expresses his contempt for his chief, the

is

most

king

Agamemnon.
to

Hearing
in
no

such

insults

of mlers

by

subjects, Socrates says, "is

yields some other

not conducive

obedience at

pleasure, this
appears

would

any way be

rate".

And he adds, "if it Now

surprising"

what that other pleasure

is

from

brief

consideration of

the verse in question, which reads, "You

and

drunkard,
we

who possess

the eyes of a

dog

the heart of a deer". The

pleasure

derive from
insult

hearing

this verse is

two-fold. In the

first

place

it is

a most

perfect of a

which can

be hurled

against a

king

or a captain.

He has the heart

animal;9

deer, he thinks only of flight. But a deer is a noble, graceful therefore he is compared to a dog, to the eyes of a dog, an ignoble, slavish, back;9 therefore he is com crawling expression. But a dog can attack and fight pared to a deer, which can only run away, and so on. It is a perfect circle.

by a noble subject against an unworthy king. It expresses a noble feeling, the feeling of indignation, about the rule of unworthy rulers. Socrates men, about the oppression of bom rulers by merely factual
Secondly
it is
an

insult hurled

understandably76

deplores that
all,
all

we

should

have to

miss

such gems.

We

shall

have to
city

miss above

tragedy

and

comedy,

for,

says

each man must

must

imitate

and

dedicate himself entirely to one job, hence, in a sense, be many different kinds

Socrates, in the best and the dramatic poet

of people.

In

particular no one must and can

be both

a comic and a
when

tragic

poet. not

This latter
to the puri

point

is

suggested

by

the same Socrates who,

he speaks,
versa.

tan

Adeimantus, but
good comic poet

to

a comic and a also a good

tragic poet, compels them to admit that

the

is

tragic poet, and vice

It is

suggested

that in the just city one kind of man, the by this same Socrates, who demands highest kind according to him, must have two jobs, that of the philosopher and

198

Interpretation
other men

that of the administrator, and who demands of all

single

that

they

perform a

their

job, business, but

of

or mind

their own to be

business, but
We
another

poets77

urges

the

comic

"not to

mind

serious."

are therefore not surprised

to see that

Socrates leaves
discussion

an

opening for

discussion, for
obey

completely different
argument until

poetry

someone persuades
such a

by us by

saying, "We

must

our present

another,

more

beautiful,

argument."

The necessity for

that

re-opening

of

the discussion appears from the simple

consideration

one cannot

teach control of the passions if one does not know the passions, and

one cannot convince other people of one's able

knowing

the passions unless one

is

to present, to

imitate,

or

to express, the
even

passions.

In

accordance with

this

Plato himself imitates the passions;

the78

the meanest capacities can see this in

anger

case of

Plato's

presentation of

Thrasymachus's

in the first book

contradicts

of

the Republic. Plato's deed

speech of

contradicts

his speech,

or

rather, it

the

his Socrates, or to be still more precise, it contradicts the speech of Plato's Adeimantus. We are, then, in need of another argument, a more beauti ful argument, regarding poetry. The first step in that argument is dictated by
the most obvious flaw of the
contest
what

first argument,
poets.

of

the first

round as

it were, in the

between Plato

and

the

In the first
what

argument we were not told

poetry is. The

crucial

question,

is,

was not even raised

regarding

poetry.

Poetry

came

to sight as the making of myths, or untrue tales about

and the things

gods,
to

demons, heroes,
must

political

control, to pruning in the name of

in Hades. As such, poetry was subjected justice or morality. Henceforth

course

poetry
of

tell edifying stories rather than charming stories. But in the

whether

the argument it became unclear

gods and

the canons with which poetry must

comply in presenting the

at

the things in Hades consist of untrue or of

true opinions about the gods and the things in Hades.

One cannot leave it, then, considering poetry from the point of view of the city, or of morality. The ultimate judgment on morality will depend on how poetry is related to truth. The first discussion of poetry takes place at the earliest possible moment in
the

founding

of

the best

city.

The second,

and

in

a sense

final, discussion

of

poetry takes

place after

the completion of the political part of the Republic. For

the political part of the Republic is not concluded, as some people seem to

think,

somewhere

in the fifth book

of

fore. The discussion

argument.

Philosophy

the subject of philosophy comes to the in the Republic is a part of the political philosophy is introduced in the Republic as a mere means for estab
when

lishing
mary
the

the good city. Hence

Aristotle,

the most competent

interpreter Republic

of

Plato
sum

that ever was, does not even refer to the rale of the philosophers in
and criticism of

his

the Republic. The political part of the

ends at

end of

the ninth book.

At that

place

best city as described before is not only vant. It makes no difference, Socrates justice
presented

it has become perfectly clear that the impossible, but in a sense, even irrele
says

there,

whether the

in speech, exists,

or will

exist,

on earth or

in

best city, or heaven, for it is

certain that

it

can exist within

the soul of the

individual.

The Origins of Political Science

The
great question which must still and punishments
of

199

be

settled concerns either

the possible rewards

or after

for justice

for

injustice,

during
of of

life

death. The

final discussion
and

poetry introduces the discussion the punishment for injustice. At the beginning

the rewards for justice the final discussion of

poetry Socrates says that the necessity of rejecting especially dramatic poetry has in the meantime become so much clearer, for in the meantime the differ ence between the various kinds or forms of the soul has been brought out. By
this he does not merely mean the exposition regarding the tripartite division of the soul

and above

into the reasoning, the spirited, and the desiring part. He means also, all, the various forms of badness of the soul, the timocratic, oligar
and

chic,
and

democratic,
ninth of

tyrannical
after

forms

which

had been discussed in the

eighth

books.

Only
is79

the philosophic analysis of both goodness and

badness
place.

the soul has been completed can the

final discussion

of

poetry take

much as

For poetry concerned with the goodness and badness of the soul as is philosophy. Only now, in the second and final discussion of poetry,
raise

does Socrates

the question, what

we

regarding imitation. Imitation, which look like the original but is

not a

is, regarding poetry, or leam, is the production

more of

precisely,

appearances a painted

are not the original.

For example,

bed

bed in

which one can

even of

the bed made

by

sleep, like the bed made by the carpenter. Yet the carpenter is not the tme bed. The true bed is the idea
which

the

bed,
is

the model with a view to

the carpenter the true

makes visible and

tangible beds. There are, then, three

which

beds,

bed,

the bed in nature,

painted

made

by

god; the visible bed made

by

the carpenter; and the

bed
the

made

by

the

painter.

The

painter

does

not reproduce

the true proportions of

visible

bed; he reproduces the bed as it appears perspectively. He imitates not the bed, but the phantasm of the bed. Imitation is then the reproduction of
which

something

is

at the

third remove from nature or truth. It is the imitation

which

of a phantasm of

something

in its

turn

is

modeled after

the

truth,

or

in

imitation

of

the truth. Now in order to imitate the phantasm, the

not

mere appear

ance, one does

for example, who ship. He does not

presents a general

have to know the original, the thing itself, truth. The poet, does not know the general in his general
the
art of

possess

the

general.

Up
rates

to this point the

poet

is

compared poet

by

Socrates to

other makers or pro

ducers. Hence the

replaces
user of

relation of

the

to the philosopher remains obscure. Soc

therefore the triad of makers, god, carpenter, painter,

by

the

triad,

the

that the only

who can who

one

contends, generalizing from this, bed, carpenter, painter, who possesses genuine knowledge, that is to say, the only one
and
point of view of goodness

judge things from the

is

user, the man

poetry is at the third from the truth, but from philosophy as well. The common remove, not only craftsmen are superior in wisdom and understanding to the poets, or to quote

does

not make or produce at all.

Hence

we conclude

by

from the Phaedrus, "Even the lovers of bodily toil or of gymnastic training are far superior to the poets, for they are not concerned with mere phantasms at

200

Interpretation
things."80

any rate, that is to say with merely imagined and absurd description and denigration of poetry
absurd, for the questions,
men who were as

What does this

extreme

signify?

It

cannot

be simply

listen to Socrates, or answer his somewhat leading intelligent as I or most of you, and not one of them protests.
concerned with said to

Philosophy, it
or the

appears, is

nature, that is to say,

with

the

forms,
are

ideas. Poetry, however, is

consists of artifacts.

imitate

artifacts.

Even the ideas

world of

here
the

presented as artifacts.

ideas,

The very summit and cause of the poetry, For the poets do not possess knowledge of the

only opinions. They imitate opinions especially imitate phantasms of virtue, and therefore also opin regarding virtue, they ions about and phantasms of the divine. They imitate the human things as they
nature of things.
or appear

They imitate

in the light

of

opinion,

of authoritative opinion.

Or,

to use a Platonic

image, poetry lives in the

cave, to the
or
city.

world of

Poetry

praises

artificiality because it entirely belongs to the and blames what the city, what society, praises

blames. The city praises and blames what it has been taught to praise and blame by its legislator or founder. The legislator laid down the moral order of
the city

by looking
with

at

the idea

of

justice, just

as a carpenter makes a

bed

by
the

looking

his

mind's eye at

the model of a bed. The poet

remains within

boundaries drawn Nietzsche has Plato

conveys. or a

by

the legislator. He therefore imitates the

legislator,

who

in

his turn imitates in

some

way

or another

the idea
a

of

justice.

morality defects

interpretation of what unwittingly The artists, Nietzsche says, have at all times been the valets of a religion. But, as Nietzsche knew, for a valet there is no hero. If
perhaps given perfect
of a

the poets are the valets

which

morality,

they

are

in the best

position

to

know the

their

master conceals

in

public and

to say, the decent ones among them, come

in daytime. The poets, that is indeed to sight as valets of the

morality to
critics of

which

they

are

subject.
or

In truth,

however, they
imitators

are

the severest
criti

cizes

any in the tenth book

established

of

morality any the Republic the

constituted

established order.
poets as as

When Plato
of

imitators, he
them in

criticizes the poets as

he had

them,

he himself had

made

his first

critique of

poetry in the
completed

second and

third

book

of

the Republic. For

nature of

there he had
poetry.

subjected

the poets to the city and its order against the

After he has

the

political part of

the

Republic, he
us

takes away
nature of

the last remaining

poetry.

part of

the

scaffolding
of

by letting

divine the

This interpretation firmed

sion of

of

the

teaching
book
of

the Republic

by

the

teaching

conveyed through

regarding poetry is con Plato's Laws. In the thematic discus poetry is

are

poetry in the

second

the Republic it is made clear that

necessarily

subject to political or moral control.

The legislator

must persuade or

compel the poets to present

only

good

men, to teach that only the good

happy,
wine

and

only the bad are miserable. But in the

and an old

Laws
of

where an old

Athenian
not

tries to convince an old Spartan

Cretan

the

desirable

character of

drinking

it is

made clearer

than in the

Republic that morality is

the

The Origins of Political Science

only
criterion with which

201

excellence which must also

poetry must comply. There are standards of poetic be considered. Grace or pleasure in their way are as

as morality, and of this element the poets themselves are the best judges. That is to say, Plato did not favor ill written pious tracts. The relation between legislator and poet is entirely reversed, however, in a later discussion

important

in the Laws, in the fourth book,

and narrow sense comes

where

the problem of legislation in the strict

to the fore. The first question here

state

is, how

should the

legislator

state

his laws? Should he

them simply as mere commands, rely

entirely on compulsion and force, or should he state the law doubly, that is to say, both as mere commands and justifying them by a prooemium or a

ing

prelude which persuades men of

the wisdom of the laws? The

double

statement

is

much

to be preferred. Yet this doubleness or to be persuaded is not

duplicity

is

not

sufficient, for

the

audience

homogeneous
and81

or uniform.

Very
the

roughly,
prelude

every
to the
on

audience consists of an

intelligent

an unintelligent part. must persuade

The

law

must

therefore fulfill a dual

function. It

intelligent

the one hand and the unintelligent on the other. Yet intelligent people are

sometimes persuaded

by

different

arguments

than unintelligent people, and the

a contradiction.

difference may very

a prelude must
man who

well go so

far

as to

become

The

author of

then be a man of great versatility and flexibility. He must be a

speak

has learned to
competence

shows

his

in this

respect

differently to different kinds of people by his ability to make different

be the legislator
as

and who

kinds

of

people speak province of

differently. This

man cannot

legislator, for

the

the legislator is

simple and unambiguous

speech, saying the

same

thing

to all.
man who can write

Who then is the discussion

the

proper prelude?

Plato introduces the legislator "on be

which

of preludes

half he

poets."

of

the

making his spokesman He refers first to the ancient

by

address the
myth

according to
what

the

poets speak through goes on to

inspiration

and

hence do

not

know

they

say.

But then

say that the irrationality of the poet consists, not in ignorance of what he says, but in self-contradiction. Since the poet imitates human beings, he creates characters of contradictory moods who contradict one another, and in
this way

in this way

82he

contradicts

himself does

without

knowing
contradict

which of

the to

contradictory statements is tme and identify himself with the poet. The
speaks

which

is false. The
not

philosopher goes on

poet

truly

himself. He

ambiguously by impersonating contradictory characters, so that one can not know which, if any, of the characters through which he speaks comes closest to what he thinks. The legislator on the other hand must speak unam
easy matter. The legislator wishes, for but what is a moderate funeral depends example, that funerals be moderate, people to be buried, whether they are rich or very much on the means of the dignity. No one appre poor or of moderate means. Each station has its peculiar

biguously

and simply.

But this is

no

ciates

that peculiar

dignity

better than the poet,

who

can

praise

with

equal

felicity

the tomb of

excessive

grandeur, the simple tomb, and the modestly

202

Interpretation
because the
on

adorned tomb

poet

knows best
people.

and

interprets best the

wishes

moods of

the

rich,
late

the poor, and the

inbetween

If the legislator

then to legis
and

intelligently

human things he

must understand

the human things,

he

is helped in acquiring that understanding by sitting at the feet of the poets, for the poets, we may add, understand the human things not only as they appear in
the light
of

the

law,

or established

morality, but as
men's

they

are

in

themselves.
poet

The
who

poet rather than the

legislator knows

souls.

Since it is the

teaches the
a

legislator,

the poet is so far from

being

the valet of a

theology

or of

morality that he is rather the creator of them. According to Herodotus, Homer and Hesiod created what we would call Greek religion. Plato has expressed this
thought
as

clearly

as

he

could

in his

simile of

the cave. The cave-dwellers, that

is to say,
of

we

humans,

see

nothing, that

is to say, nothing

higher,

than shadows

artifacts, especially

of reproductions of men and other not see

living

beings moving carry these delusion, he

around on
artifacts.

high. We do
as

the human beings

who make and

But

is

shown

clearly

by

Plato's demand for the

noble

himself is far from

the poets

disapproving

altogether of

the poet's activity. In principle

do exactly the same thing as Plato himself. The discussion of poetry in the Laws leads us to
poets possess genuine

realize and

that according to therefore that po

Plato the
etry is

knowledge

of the

soul,
of

psychohgia

kai psychagogia, understanding

the soul and guiding of

as Platonic philosophy is psychology in the Platonic sense. The neces itself, every philosophy sary although not sufficient condition for philosophy being psychology in the

the soul, just as philosophy

itself,

more

precisely, just

for

not

Platonic

sense

is that the

soul

is

not regarded as

derivative from

body

or as

secondary in relation to the body. A materialistic philosophy is indeed radically different from poetry. It would need poetry, understanding of the life of the
soul as we

know it

as

human

supplement.

We

see this

beings, only in the form of a dubious sentimental clearly today when poetry appears as the only refuge

from

psychology and a sociology which are unable to articulate human life in its fullness and depth because they are constitutionally ignorant of the differ
a

ence

between the

noble and

the

base, for

that

psychology

and that

are83

sociology
which regards

of materialistic origin.

Platonic philosophy This

cannot

on the other

hand,

the soul as the primary phenomenon and the

subject matter as poetry.

be

body as derivative, has the same literally tme of course, for philosophy
and not

is

concerned with the whole, with all

things,

soul of man.

soul,

with

Philosophy is necessarily also concerned with that body and number and the relation of the soul to these
entrusts

everything is soul, the which is not

other things.

But Plato characteristically

stranger

the treatment

of

that other

thing
as a

to the

Timaeus,

who presents

cosmology,

a mathematical

physics,

likely

tale. The core, or the arche, the the doctrine of the soul,
poetry. an
and

initiating

principle of

this core,

or arche,

Platonic philosophy is is identical with the theme of

Yet is it

not obvious manner

that even Platonic

poetry?84

entirely different

than does

philosophy treats its subject in The poet sets forth his vision of

The Origins of Political Science

the soul, he does
organ
not

203

try

to prove that vision or to refute alternative visions. His

is

a vision with

poetry

expresses

expresses

logismos. Therefore itself in poems, epic, dramatic, or lyric, whereas philosophy itself in treatises. In the treatise proper names do not occur except Treatises
"impersonal."

the mind's eye, nous, not reasoning,

accidentally.

them,

lifeless, but what lives in dies in them, what undergoes various kinds of fate in treatises is not human beings but logoi, assertions with their accompanying reasoning. Plato refers frequently to this life and fate of the logoi most clearly perhaps in
are

They

are not

or what

the

Phaedo,

where

Socrates
that

assertions,
tes himself.
presses

might

die,

theme of the Phaedo is not

expresses the fear that his logoi, let us say his is to say, prove to be refutable. Yet the primary the death of Socrates's logoi but the death of Socra

More generally stated, it is not true that Platonic philosophy ex itself in the form of treatises. Platonic philosophy is incompatible with

the form of the treatise. It expresses itself in the form of the

of of of

dialogue,

of a

kind

imitation. Not only is the subject matter of poetry the same as that drama, the fundamental part of Platonic philosophy, likewise the treatment is funda
of

mentally

the same character in both cases. Neither the Platonic dialogue nor
men

the poetic work is autonomous, both are ministerial, both serve to lead the understanding of the human soul.

to

But is this

not a preposterous assertion?

Did

we not admit

that the poet sets

forth his
refuting
present

vision of
alternative

the

human85

soul without

visions,

whereas

supporting reasoning and without Plato does nothing, so to speak, except to

to refute alternative visions? Homer's vi
poets'

his supporting reasoning

and

it seems, from Dante's, and both visions strikingly differ again from Shakespeare's. The very question as to which vision is the most adequate cannot be raised, let alone answered, in the
sion of the soul

strikingly differs,

so

element of poetry.

However,

the reasoning is in Plato's dialogues integrated

into the human drama. The reasoning is frequently, not to say always, faulty, deliberately faulty, as it should be within an imitation of human life. And on
the other

hand

with what

right

can one

say that Shakespeare, Dante,

and

Homer

were not able not set

to support their visions of the human soul

surely.

by

reasoning?

They did

forth that reasoning,

Nor did Plato. Plato indicates that Homer's

poems contain
reasoning.

hidden, unexpressed thoughts. These thoughts include Homer's Furthermore, we must say that every human phenomenon has its
non-poetic side.

two sides, a poetic and a

For example, love has its

poetic and

its

medical side.
of

Philosophy

alone will consider

true. Think

the way in

which

Goethe

presented

both. But this is obviously not in the Faust the two sides of

contrasting Faust's and Mephistopheles's remarks on Faust's love for Gretchen. Poetry does justice to the two sides of life by splitting itself, as it

love

by

were, into

tragedy
not

and

comedy, and precisely Plato

says said

that the tme poet

is

both

a tragic and a comic poet.

Finally, philosophy is
whereas

to appeal only to our

understanding,
passion.86

to our

passion,86

poetry

works a

This

would

be true if philosophy

were

entirely

primarily science like

on

our

mathe-

204

Interpretation
the solu therefore

But philosophy in the Platonic sense is a solution and in fact tion to the human problem, the problem of happiness. Philosophy is
matics.

merely phy is meant to

our power are
best."

not

teaching, but
affect and

way in fact

of

life. Therefore the

presentation

of philoso

affects our whole

being, just
ourselves

as

perhaps more than poetry.

In the
of

words of

Plato, "We
is

poetry and to the best of

the authors

the

tragedy

which

at once

the fairest and the

Is there then
etry,
or rather

no

difference

whatever

between the Platonic dialogue

between Platonic philosophy and po and other poetry? Other poetry, or

what we

ordinarily mean by poetry simply, does not imitate, Plato says in the tenth book of the Republic, the sensible and quiet or reposed character, but it
prefers

the

multicolored and complicated characters which as

such are more

interesting
not the

and therefore the natural themes of poetry.

good man or

The theme

of

poetry is

simply

the good life. But is there a simply good man? Will

the good man not feel grief at the loss of his son, for instance? Will torn between

he

not

be

his

grief and

his

duty
if

and

hence be two-fold
will

and not simple?

Socrates says, "When left

which

alone

I believe he

he

would

be

ashamed of

another would

many things hear them, and he will do

utter

dare to

many
which

things which

he

would not consent to

have

another see

him

doing."

That

the good man cannot

the major theme of poetry.

what

help feeling, Poetry expresses

but

which
with

he

conceals

from others, is
propriety Poetry legit
alone gives
we

adequacy
to

and with

the non-poet cannot express adequately and

with propriety.

imately

brings to light
from
our

what

the law forbids to

as

bring

light.
our

Poetry

us relief

deepest suffering just

it deepens

happiness. Yet

must understand

the expression, the good man, not only in the common sense

but
man

also and above all

in the Platonic is the

sense.

Virtue is knowledge. The It

goes without

good

in the Platonic
is
not an

sense

philosopher. myself or

saying that the

philosopher

individual like

like

other professors of political

philosophy or of philosophy tout court or tout long. Plato means then by saying that poetry does not
the
good of

present

the good man and

life
yet

life that poetry does not present the philosopher, the thinker and the thought. I quote from the Phaedrus, "The superheavenly place has not
praised and will never
here,"

be properly praised by any of the poets that is to say, by any of the poets in the ordinary and narrow sense. But is not the poet too a thinker? And does not poetry present also the poet as poet, for example Hesiod in his Works and Days, Dante, and Shakespeare in his Tem
pest, to say nothing
of

been

Aristophanes. And
while

Still, it is
of

not essential

to poetry that it
order

should present the poet.

Plato

presents the

life

of

thought in

to

instill his

readers with

love

of the

life

sophic life, poetry does not present become themselves poets. But be this

thought, or to call them to the philo poetry in order to induce its hearers to
as of

inferior to the

philosopher

and ways

it may, poetry as poetry presents men life inferior to the philosophic life.

Poetry

presents ways of

life

characterized

by

fundamental

choice which

ex-

The Origins of Political Science

eludes87

205

philosophy
piness.

as

the solution to the human problem, the

as

problem of

hap
by

For according to Plato as well human problem cannot be solved by

philosophy,

to

Aristotle,
way
of

to the extent to which the

political means

it

can

be

solved

only

by

and

through the

philosophic

life. Plato too

presents men

who are not good or who are more

then

bad, but he does

this only to present all the

clearly the character

presents

of

the good men, and this is his chief theme.

Poetry,

however,
either

a possibility.

only such human beings for whom the philosophic life is not From Plato's point of view the life which is not philosophic is
problem or else

obviously incapable of solving the human the human problem in a wholly inadequate or in
case

it does

solve

an absurd manner.

In the first

it is the theme
we

of

tragedy. In the second case it is a theme of comedy.

From here

may

understand ministerial

why it is according to

nature that

philosophy

delegate to poetry a cannot fulfill. Poetry life

as autonomous.

function,

presents

human life

as

philosophy itself human life appears if it is not seen

which

function

to be directed toward philosophy. Autonomous poetry presents non-philosophic

Yet

by

articulating the

cardinal problem of

human life for the

as

it

comes sophic
which

to sight

within

the non-philosophic

life, poetry

prepares

philo

legitimate only as ministerial to the Platonic dialogue in its turn is ministerial to the life of understanding. Autonomous poetry

life.

Poetry is

is blind in the decisive

passion,
of passionate

respect.

It lives in the
of passion

element of

imagination

and of which

images,

expressing itself in images

arouse passion and yet sion.

But

autonomous

purification of

modify passion. It ennobles passion and poetry does not know the end for the sake passion is required.

purifies pas of which

the

NOTES

1.
2. 3.

"are"

substituted
"observations"

by

editors

for "that this

editors

is"

of the ms.
reasons"

substituted
"warm"

by

for "of the

of the ms.

substituted
"thought"

4. 5. 6.

substituted
"not"

by by

editors

for "well

worn"

of the ms.

See Aristotle, Politics 1267b26.

editors

for

"though"

of

the ms.

inserted

by

hand

above

the line.

"thoughts"

substituted

by

editors

for
to

"thought"

of

the

ms.
of"

7. The

words

"science

which

is

said

have

rendered possible

this control

have been

added

by

hand
8.

at the

bottom

of the page, with an asterisk above

the line

indicating

their proper place

in

the text.
"ever"

substituted

by

editors

for

"every"

of

the ms. the ms.

9. Semicolon 10. "in 11. 12.

"an"

substituted

general"

inserted

by by

editors

for

comma of

hand

above

the line.

inserted

by

hand

above

the line.
above

"reflection"

inserted

by
by

hand

the line.
removed
"product"

13. The

"the"

word

after
substituted

"of has been

editors

by

the editors.

14.
15.
16. 17.

"project"

for

of the ms.

"who"

added
"friend's"

by

editors.

substituted
"at"

by

editors

for

"friends"

of the ms.

substituted

by

editors

for

"as"

of the ms.

206

Interpretation
words

18. The
apparent

"ascends to the highest

"ridiculous"

height,"

have been

added

by

the editors to remedy an

missing.

lacuna in the ms., though there is no visible sign of anything being 19. The word after has been removed by the editors. 20. substituted by editors for of the ms.
"but"

"Peace"

"Bees"

21. "is
22.

not"

substituted by editors for "the chief of the ms. of the ms. by editors for 23. inserted by hand to fill a lacuna in the ms. 24. The word after has been removed by the editors. 25. substituted by editors for of the ms. 26. "the pederast inserted by hand at the end of the paragraph. 27. This sentence has been inserted by hand at the end of the paragraph. 28. of the ms. substituted by editors for 29. The word after has been removed by the editors. 30. substituted by editors for of the ms. 31. of the ms. substituted by editors for 32. of the ms. substituted by editors for 33. This word has been crossed out by hand in the ms. and the words "themselves do have been inserted by hand after the following words "what the 34. The word after has been removed by the editors. 35. substituted by editors for of the ms. 36. inserted by hand above the line to replace which has been crossed out. 37. substituted by editors for of the ms. after 38. The word has been removed by the editors. 39. substituted by editors for of the ms. 40. substituted by editors for of the ms. 41. of the ms. substituted by editors for 42. substituted by editors for of the ms. 43. substituted by editors for of the ms. 44. "Xenophon, substituted by editors for "Xenophon. of the ms. 45. inserted by hand above the line. 46. substituted by editors for of the ms. 47. substituted by editors for of the ms. 48. The word after has been removed by the editors. of the ms. 49. substituted by editors for 50. substituted by editors for of the ms. of the ms. 51. substituted by editors for 52. substituted by editors for "of of the ms. 53. The words "originator of have been added by the editors to fill a lacuna in the ms., which

achieved

by"

"a"

substituted

"the"

"four"

"this"

"is"

"become"

"became"

Peisthetaerus"

"in"

"on"

"by"

"prompted"

"that"

"the"

"this"

"his"

"they"

"the"

"not"

gods"

"the"

"Either"

"as"

"is"

"Clouds"

"gods"

"seems"

"seem"

"to"

"effect"

"complete"

"compete"

"its"

"it"

"that"

"hat"

"between"

"in"

"takes"

"take"

the"

The"

"which"

"are"

"is"

"to"

"with"

"to"

"not"

"places"

"place"

"word"

"words"

"I"

"I'll"

"with"

has

room

for

some words that are

impossible to
the

read.

54.

"most"

inserted

by

hand

above

line. for
of
"gentleman's"

55. 56. 57. 58.

been

"gentleman"

substituted
"in"

by

editors

of

the ms.

by Comma added by editors. substituted by editors

substituted editors
"he"

for
for

"on"

the ms.

"has"

of

the ms.

59. The
added

words

"or
at

more

by

hand

generally stated, in identifying the existing social hierarchy" have the bottom of the page, with an asterisk above the line their

proper place

in the text.
substituted

indicating

60. Dash 61. 62.

"

by

editors

for

comma of

the

ms.

(unclear)

is

what appears

here in the for

"imitation"

ms. of
of

"philosopher's"

substituted
"limitation"

by

editors

"philosophers"

the ms.

63.
64.

substituted
"bringing"

substituted
"speech"

by editors for by editors for

above the

the ms.

"bring"

of

the ms.
previous word was

65.

inserted

by

"justice", but

the final

"ice"

line. Also, the has been crossed out by hand.

hand

originally

written as

The Origins of Political Science

66. The
"the"

201

word

has been be
a

underlined
at

by

the editors.

67. There
sign of

seems to

lacuna

the end of this sentence in the ms., though there is no visible

"whole"

anything

being

missing.

68. 69. 71. 72.

73.

"wholes"

substituted
"inducing"

substituted
"an"

by editors for by editors for

has been for
"a"

of the ms.

"in

using"

of the ms.

70. The

"is"

word

after

removed of

by

the editors.

"the"

substituted
"reverence"

by

editors

the ms.
"reverent"

substituted
"

by

editors

for is

of the ms.
what appears

(tape

being

"

changed)
of

here in the

ms.

In the

omitted

section,
or

Professor Strauss
thymos.

was

probably speaking

desire,

or epithymia as contrasted with

spiritedness,

74. The 75. The

"thwarted"

word words

has been

underlined

by

the editors.

"which easily turns into

vindictiveness or punitiveness.

itedness is
hand
text.
at

not

exhausted,

however, by

the

indignation."

ambiguity

of moral

The ambiguity of spir have been added by

the bottom of the page,

"understandably"

with an asterisk above

the line

indicating

their proper place in the

76. 77. 78.

substituted
"poets"

by

editors

for

"understandingly"

of the ms.

substituted
"the"

by

editors

for

"poet,"

of

the

ms.

added
word word

by

editors.
"is"

79. The

"as"

after
"things"

has been

removed

by

the editors.

80. The
81.

(followed

by

a period and a quotation

mark) has been

added

by

hand

at

the end of the line.

"and"

82. Dashes 83. 84.

85. 87.
"are"

of the ms. by editors for editors for commas of the ms. by substituted by editors for of the ms. Question mark substituted by editors for period of the inserted by hand above the line. substituted
substituted
"is"

"or"

ms.

"human"

86. The

manuscript

has

"passions,"

with

the final

"s"

crossed out of the ms.

by

hand.

"excludes"

substituted

by

editors

for

"excluded"