Interpretation

A JOURNAL
Fall 2000 3
Heidi D. Studer

OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Volume 28
Number 1

"Cross Your Heart

Die?"

and on

Hope To

Francis Bacon

Making

and

Breaking

Promises

17

Gordon Hull

Marx's Anomalous

Reading

of

Spinoza 33 Wiebke Meier Corrections to Leo Strauss, "German

Nihilism"

Discussion

35
45 51

Richard F.

Hassing

Reply

to Arnhart

Edward J. Erler
J.

Reply

to

Lowenthal
and

Harvey

Lomax

Carl Schmitt, Heinrich Meier, the End of Philosophy

American Law
and

79

Harrison J. Sheppard

the
of

Past,
the

Present,

and

Future

American Regime
Book Review

07

Travis Curtright

Ravelstein, by Saul Bellow

Interpretation
Editor-in-Chief Hilail Gildin, Dept. Leonard
of

Philosophy, Queens College

Executive Editor
General Editors

Grey

Charles E. Butterworth Seth G. Benardete Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Hilail Gildin Howard B. White (d. 1974)

Consulting

Editors

Ernest L. Fortin Joseph Cropsey Christopher Bruell John Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. Jaffa Muhsin Mahdi David Lowenthal Harvey C. Mansfield Michael Oakeshott Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987)
Ellis Sandoz (d. 1990) Kenneth W. Thompson

Leo Strauss (d.

1973)

International Editors Editors

Terence E. Marshall Wayne Ambler

Heinrich Meier

Maurice Auerbach Fred Baumann Amy Bonnette Patrick Coby Elizabeth C de Baca Eastman Thomas S. Engeman Maureen Feder-Marcus Edward J. Erler Ken Masugi Will Morrisey Pamela K. Jensen Susan Orr Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin Susan Meld Shell Bradford P. Wilson Martin D. Yaffe Michael P. Zuckert Catherine H. Zuckert Lucia B. Prochnow Subscription rates per volume (3 issues): individuals $29 libraries and all other institutions $48 students (four-year limit) $18

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interpretation

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interpretation

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Interpretation
A JOURNAL
Fall 2000

JL

OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Number 1

Volume 28

Heidi D. Studer

"Cross Your Heart Francis Bacon Promises

on

and

Hope To
and

Die?"

Making

Breaking
Spinoza 17 33

Gordon Hull Wiebke Meier

Marx's Anomalous

Reading

of

Corrections to Leo Strauss, "German

Nihilism"

Discussion Richard F.

Hassing

Reply

to Arnhart to Lowenthal
and

35
45
the End

Edward J. Erler J.

Reply
of

Harvey

Lomax

Carl Schmitt, Heinrich Meier,

51

Philosophy
and the

Harrison J. Sheppard

American Law

Past, Present,

and

79

Future

of the

American Regime

Book Review

Travis Curtright

Ravelstein, by Saul Bellow

107

Copyright 2000

interpretation

ISSN 0020-9635

Interpretation
Editor-in-Chief Hilail Gildin, Dept. Leonard
of

Philosophy, Queens College

Executive Editor General Editors

Grey

Charles E. Butterworth Seth G. Benardete Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Hilail Gildin Howard B. White (d. 1974)
Christopher Bruell

Consulting

Editors

Joseph

Cropsey

Ernest L. Fortin

John Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. Jaffa Muhsin Mahdi David Lowenthal Harvey C. Mansfield Michael Oakeshott Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) Leo Strauss (d. 1973) Ellis Sandoz (d. 1990)
Kenneth W. Thompson International Editors Terence E. Marshall

Heinrich Meier

Editors

Fred Baumann Maurice Auerbach Wayne Ambler Amy Bonnette Patrick Coby Thomas S. Engeman Elizabeth C de Baca Eastman Maureen Feder-Marcus Edward J. Erler Ken Masugi Will Morrisey Pamela K. Jensen Susan Orr Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin Bradford P. Wilson Martin D. Yaffe Susan Meld Shell Michael P. Zuckert Catherine H. Zuckert
Lucia B. Prochnow Subscription
rates per volume (3 issues): individuals $29 libraries and all other institutions $48 students (four-year limit) $18

Manuscript Editor

Subscriptions

Single

copies available.
outside

U.S.: Canada $4.50 extra; $5.40 extra by surface mail (8 or longer) or $1 1.00 by air. Payments: in U.S. dollars and payable by Postage
elsewhere

weeks

financial institution located (or the U.S. Postal Service).

a

within

the U.S.A.

The Journal Welcomes Manuscripts

in

in

Political

philosophy as

Well

as

Those

Theology,

literature, and Jurisprudence.

follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 13th ed. or manuals based on it; double-space their manuscripts, including notes; place references in the text, in endnotes or follow current journal style in printing references. Words from
contributors should

languages not rooted in Latin should be transliterated to English. To ensure impartial judgment of their manuscripts, contributors should omit mention of their
other with

postal/zip

work; put, on the title page only, their name, any affiliation desired, address code in full, E-Mail and telephone. Please send four clear copies,

which will not

be

returned.

Composition by Eastern Composition A Division of Bytheway Publishing Services Binghamton, N.Y. 13901 U.S.A.

Inquiries:

(Ms.) Joan Walsh, Assistant to the Editor interpretation Queens College, Flushing, N.Y. 11367-1597, U.S.A. (718)997-5542 Fax (718) 997-5565
,

E Mail:

interpretation

journal@qc.edu

"Cross Your Heart

Francis Bacon
on

and

Hope To

Die?"

Making

and

Breaking

Promises

Heidi D. Studer

University

of Alberta

making and breaking treaties permeates the core of political justice. Our interaction with other human beings depends upon our ability to
about

Concern

understand,

and

to rely upon, their statements of their wills

and agreements of all

and

intentions. Mak

ing

promises, contracts,
and

sorts, is

at

the heart of political

interaction,
of

keeping

those promises and agreements is central to any under

justice, even if it is quickly clear that it cannot be the whole of standing justice (Plato; Republic, 327a-31d). Honouring one's commitments, and binding
one's

future

actions

by

one's reason and will, are essential

and

for

political coexis

tence

between individuals
indicate "after

between fire

nations

surrender to

you won't
you,"

your

from waving a white flag of weapons in return for not being fired
a

upon, to
slam

a polite

when

holding

door,

which

implies

you won't

it

against the nose of

the

the essence of contracts, and

of

going through. Honouring agreements is Hobbes was not the first to point out how much
person

the chief

political

virtue of

justice lies in "the

performance

of covenants

made"

(Leviathan,
covenant go

chap.

15)

and

keeping
and

one's word.

Socrates

refers

to prom

ises in Plato's Republic (443a), God

made with

early in Genesis, the Bible describes the Noah when he and his crew were set on dry land to

an

multiply in unfathomable development

and

forth

communities.1

Indeed, language itself

of them

would

have been

without the premise of and

honesty.
word.

But human beings

can

lie,

many

do. People break their

For

various reasons, agreements and treaties are

broken,

and not even a written

record of receipts and promises

is

sufficient to guarantee compliance

(although

that might explain

have

are

why for the first millennium of human writing receipts), for receipts have been known to be forged
schoolyard
attempt

almost all we or erased.

common

to

secure

contracts

acknowledges

this

fact:

"crossed

erasures."

and stamped and no

As

result, it does not take

humans

long

to insist upon oaths, to demand more than words, to ask for a special their words: "Do
promise?"

ratification of

you

"Swear to

God."

And for many

reasons,

it is god, the

most powerful or omniscient

being,

that is sworn upon.

First, (and,
of

those who swear to uphold an agreement will consider themselves

god

bound to it if they have faith in the

course,
as
members

by

whom

they

swear.

Faithful Christians
gods

of

other

religions

with

providential

even

Athenians,

documented

by Thucydides)

believe that

they

should

keep

their

interpretation, Fall

2000, Vol. 28, No. 1

Interpretation
is
witness.2

promises when god

In addition, Bibles

are sworn upon

in courts,
include "I

marriage vows are solemnized

in churches,

and often-used phrases

All illustrate the sentiment that if an oath "Cross my is sworn, especially with God as a witness, it should not be broken. But those without faith may not have the same scruples. Treaties are often
swear to
God" heart."

and

broken,

even

if

sworn

upon,

and political realism requires that we recognize

this

fact. Those

who

do

not

political actions.

They

believe in god are missing may ultimately be wrong, but that

all that can
as well as

that constraint upon their

matters

only in the

afterlife,

not

in

politics.3

The

appearance of

piety is
are not

be observed,
those

and those who appear

to be pious but

actually

who appear

to be impious but

actually

are pious

are not what

they

appear.

In politics,

appearance

is

often

in

tension with reality, and the tension between the two necessarily favours the
unscrupulous.4

As Bacon

puts

it "far

more than should of political

be the case, treaties

are

lacking

in

firmness."

Bacon's treatment

to how this equation may be evened out

for us,

as

necessity will point the way far as is realistically possible.

BACON'S METHOD

The

problem of promises and

treaties is an

ancient one.

Bacon

couches

his

examination

in terms

of ancient are not

myths,

thoughts as though
seems and

they

thereby he can his original invention. His

and

present

rhetorical

shocking device in them,

will

to be to

pretend

that the ancient

fables have hidden

old and

meanings

that he is only revealing

appear

something impious, for the teachings come from

long

forgotten. Neither

he

pre-Christian

times. On the surface

endorse

Bacon's teaching does not seem to be new. He seems to made famous by the Athenian delegation in Book I of
ponesian

the notion

Thucydides'

The

Pelop-

War (I.

72-78)

that

not

only

matters of

life
is."

and

death, but

even

honour

and

money truly

count as necessities

treaties. He seems to be

simply

"telling

in politics, it like it

sufficient to

justify breaking
politics

But Bacon is rarely explicit about politics. When he discusses learning," famous "divisions of he says,

in his

Concerning Government,
these
respects are

it is

a part of

knowledge

secret and

retired, in both

in

which things are

deemed secret; for because they

some things are secret

because

they
Bacon

hard to

know,

and some

are not

fit to

utter.5

endorses several methods of

esoteric, or acroamatic writing. His writings

"initiative,"

include

lengthy

discussions

"magistral,"

"exoteric,"

of
"assertive,"

"acroa

matic,"

"aphoristic,"

"methodical,"

"questioning,"

"similitude,"

etc., in addition, he says, to the diversities of methods that have "hitherto been pointed out by (Advancement, Bk. II, chaps. 16-19; De Augmentis Sciothers"

"Cross Your Heart

entiarum, Bk.

and

Hope To
in

Die?"

of the

II, chap. 2). Parabolic writing, Ancients, has special advantages, for,
it
serves

such as

is

used

Of the Wisdom

(as I said) for

an

infoldment; for
be
seen as
and

such

things, I mean, the

are

dignity
or

whereof requires that

they

should

it

were

through a veil; that is when the

secrets and mysteries of religion,

parables.

policy

(De Augmentis

Scientiarum, Bk II,
his treatments

philosophy chap. 13).

involved in fables

He explicitly Ancients
so will

affirms that

of the

fables in
appear

actually

contain more than

they
at

Wisdom of the to contain, and in doing

Of the

he

challenges the reader not

to take them

face

value:

"they

will

be held to
not

be

vulgar

by

the vulgar; the

aground as

but

rather

deeper intellect, however, will perhaps (so I hope) will be led Bacon encourages
along." can.6

be left

us

to delve

deeply

into the hidden meaning of the fables as we A close look at the details Bacon invites us to consider understanding for breaking treaties from the
then will the difference
of the question of political

will

help

us to refine

our

necessity,

and

to distinguish com

mon pretexts

"realism"

role of

Only

between Bacon
with a

Thucydides'

and

in making treaties. Athenians be

account of

come clear. problem of

But Bacon begins

fairly

"realist"

conventional

the

treaties and promises.

which the upper

The story is common, and interposed in many fables, about that single oath by Gods used to oblige themselves when they in no way wished to
room

leave themselves
enly majesty
court of
mula of

for

repentance.

That

oath calls upon and testifies to no near the

and

heav

divine attribute; but to Styx, the river Dis, which it girdles with many meanderings
or
and no other one

lower world, the

twistings.
was

Indeed,

that

for
in

the sacrament alone,

besides it,

held to be firm
one not

and

violable: even

assuredly
gods

the

penalty for perjury upon them, themselves with fear: that those who fail could

inflicting
for

that impresses

be

admitted to the

banquets

years.7

of the gods

a certain span of

Bacon's cessity
meant

analysis of the

fragility

of treaties and

his teaching

on political ne

are presented

in

a complicated elaboration of an ancient mythical con

stant: there was

only

one oath

that the gods of Greece used when

they really

to

keep

their word, and that was to swear

by Styx,

the river of the under

world.8

powerful

taken seriously.
suspicious of oath of of

"lighter"

penalty must attend violating an oath, if it is going to be promises and were Even the ancient gods broke many oaths. The penalty among the immortals for breaking the
"lighter"

Styx

was

to be banned from the banquets of the

put

gods. and

Immortal gods,
therefore

course, cannot be

to death for

breaking

promise,

Bacon

cannot use mate

the threat of

threat"

death, which does often seem to be the perceived "ulti men. Yet, could not something more stringent serve as a among
for immortal gods, than "no banquets"? What the banquets
stand

penalty, even

6
for

Interpretation
we

don't hear

until the

last line
cut

of the

chapter; that

they have
is
into

considerably

more significance

than

"being

from the invitation

gods'

list,"

not revealed now.

perspective.

Bacon

waits until the not

final

sentence to put the

"banquets"

Bacon is

quires that we see the

primarily interested in issue in human terms.

promises, however. Realism re

The fable
which

seems

to be fashioned
more

about

treaties,
should are

and

the

pacts of princes:

in

it is the case, far

than it

truly

be,

that however fortified with the

solemnity

and religion of an

oath, treaties

lacking
fame

in firmness;
and

so much so that

they
and

are almost summoned more

for

esteem and

ceremony, than for faith

security

and effect.

("Styx")
piety,
and

However fortified

with solemn oaths and religion and with expressions of

treaties don't work.

(3)

ceremony than for

They (1) faith, (2)

seem to

be

made more and

for (1) esteem, (2) fame,

security,

(3)

effect.

We certainly have seen our share of this in the order to get praise for being someone "who
coverage,
or

past century:

treaties

made

in

cares,"

or

for the

sake of media

to have the ceremony of the

big handshake,
for these
reasons

signing, or kiss. The

appearance of

having

made a

treaty

yields such great acclaim that those who

love

such

honours may

well sign treaties

instead

of either

for

a real ensure

effect, or to

ensure

the

people's

security,

or out of a sincere

desire to

fidelity

to the terms.

RANKING EXCUSES

Some broken treaties

not all are seen as

and promises are more

equally legitimate. "I

more excusable

appendectomy"

is

easily excused than others, and in the ER undergoing an emergency fishing." than "I wanted to go So within a
was

single moral
excuse

community the tendency is to exaggerate the importance of the The difference talked about in Thucydides in order to justify
oneself.9

between the
well noted

"reason"

and

the "reason

given"

(or the

aitia and

the prophasis) is

by

those who wish to present their transgressions

died"

in

better light:
"I
was out

"My drinking
in the is

grandma

is

better

excuse

for

late term

paper than

last

night."

absence

these rankings work within a moral community, of a single powerful umpire the assessment of grounds
while

But

differing

variable

between

such groups.

Yet,

even

transnationally,

while there obvi

ously are some cultural variations among the rankings, excuses are still ranked. flight" or "could not get a Whether one "wanted to go makes consider
skiing"

able

difference

as

an

excuse

around

the world. Some excuses are

for missing a head of state's funeral half-way deemed more justified. Matters of life and "I didn't feel like
it,"

death, for
so

example, rank higher than

most

and

presumably do

in

all

but the

fatalistic

of societies or cultures.

"Cross Your Heart

and

Hope To
But
even

Die?"

1
not

Many

treaties

are entered

into for

show or reputation. might go even

that is

the worst of it. As

Bacon

points

out, some

further than

Morgen-

thau's third

realism:10

principle of political

Even if the bonds

of

affinity
and

come

into it like the Sacraments domination. ("Styx")

of

Nature,

and

if

there is mutual merit, nevertheless it will be found that, for most, these are all lower
than ambition
and

utility

license

of

Even if they
susceptible to

are strengthened

by

"bonds

affinity,"

of

nature's

links, they

are and gets

being

broken for the

honour too
even

often even

the real motives

Not only are fame behind treaties, but, Bacon suggests, it

sake of ambition. of

worse,

lower. Even if bonds is honourable

affinity

are

there,

and good accrues

to both parties under the terms of the treaty, these rely too much on honourable
people

people who will

recognizing be
For most,

what

and what

is due to honour. There

at

are

motivated

by

even

less than fame (which

even

least
a

still sub

jects

one to outside

judgment
even

and

observation,

if it is merely

democratic

standard). as

brotherhood
and

and mutual

desert

will not weigh as much

(1)

ambition,

(2)

utility,

(3) license

of

domination. The inchoate desire

to be the real
motives of most

to use power, love of money, and ambition

people.

come

Only

the few will respect the higher reasons

pp.

for

keeping

treaty (see

also

Orwin, Humanity,
umpire,

61-63). Without

and single

a problem arises with

universally recognized, powerful, assessing different grounds for break

ing treaties.
ties,
with specious

Those

who

as compulsions
humans'

successfully present their own ambitions as real necessi in human nature, set the terms for others. And combined
to

abilities

dissemble,

the true motives are often disguised

by

pretexts."

This,
princes

of

course,

puts

Christian

princes at a

decided disadvantage. And those

more

Christian

or need

non-Christian

who

are

bound

by

honour than

gain,12

tempted

by

to be educated to see that treaties in

politics are

only

as

strong

as

their basest link. It will only be the honourable who will be bound

by

honour. In addition, dishonour accruing from breaking one's word only matters in a world where what is truly dishonourable is dishonoured. Bacon has no
unrealistic expectations

in this

regard.

Therefore he too

can

many
men

enveloped

in

silence

in their

souls,"

for Christian

princes and

"speak openly what honourable

urgently

need

to be reminded of these facts of human nature. There

has to

be something stronger than honour to bind men to the terms of their treaties. Fear of god only works for those who believe (cf. Orwin, Humanity, p. 69), and

honour only counts for the honourable. What What binds others? Necessity.

can those who want

fidelity

do?

Only
general

necessity is binding, Bacon says. He cites approvingly an Athenian from the Peloponnesian War who says that the only way he will believe

the Spartans is

if they

concede so much to the

Athenians that they

would not

8
be

Interpretation
capable of

harming

them even if

they

wanted to.

Necessity

means

that the
act

very capability
otherwise.

of action

is removed; necessity

means

it is impossible to

Accordingly
and that

there is

assumed one

thing for

the true

and proper

firmity

of

faith,
and

is

not

any

heavenly
a

Divinity: it is

danger to the state,

represented

and communication of utility.

Necessity Necessity
which

(Lord to Great powers),

by Styx,
who

river fatal,

and

from

is moreover, elegantly there is no return. And it was this

since

lord
one

whom

Iphicrates the Athenian

called upon

for the treaties, who,

he is the

discovered

is

not amiss

to refer

openly spoke what many enveloped in silence in their souls, it to his own words. He, having thought out and considered the firmaments
and

various cautions and sanctions and

bonds

of the treaties which the

one

Lacedaimonians

thing (he said)

you

thinking Lacedaimonians, rationally

were out and
you concede most wished

propounding, interrupted them: The

able

to tie and secure

us with so

you,

is

if

plainly demonstrate that

even
13

to us and put

into

our

hands

much,

that,

if you

to,

your

very capacity for

harming

us would

be

lacking.

REALISM AND NECESSITY

Bacon, like Thucydides

who renege on

and

Machiavelli, does
for their
of

not

simply

condemn princes

their

pacts and

treaties. He understands them. The

case that realism requires

Athenians,
extending

after

all,

marshalled arguments

"necessity"

beyond the

single

kind

certainly does of the state is

recognize

not attack those who a concern.

necessity admitted by Iphicrates. Bacon break pacts when fear for the very existence
goes so

Even more, however, he

far

as

apparently to

for breaking treaties which shock our sensibilities, breaking them for money. These are highly reminiscent of the reasons given by the Athenians in their speeches in the first book of The Peloponnesian War to justify the Athenian Empire (I. 72-78). Bacon's use of
several reasons such as
Thucydides'

Iphicrates the Athenian, speaking to the Lacedaimonians, explicitly reminds us of the Peloponnesian War. His inclusion of "destruction, or the diminution of the
state,
or

its

revenue"

requires us to consider the

Athenians'

claim

in book

I.'4

Recall that the Athenians say that they were compelled to dominate their allies imperially, first because of their fear of the Persians, then because of

honour,

and

then because of profit.

They

stress

fear, but
actions.

also

include honour
speaking,

and profit as we consider

compelling fear an extenuating circumstance, but

that

considerations

in human

Generally

not ambition and profit. mere

The

Athenians
stances;
pp.

argue

they

are

they

are compulsions admits

only in human nature (cf.

not

more

than

extenuating
will

circum

Strauss, The City

and

Man;

170-92). Bacon
these three are

realistically that
And he teaches

not everyone us

keep

an oath

when

at stake.

to recognize that it is realistic

to expect them to break their promises for these reasons, and, it turns out, even worse ones. This realism is of the antiteleological, "it's only human

for

nature"

"Cross Your Heart

and

Hope To

Die?"

variety, quite unlike the position that distinguishes the "least common denomi
nator"

view of nature

from

one

that

requires

striving to

achieve

expressed

by

that prototeleologist of the film The African

what we
part of

fulfillment, as Queen, who points

above."

out,

"Nature, Mister Allnut, is

driven

were put

here to
vulgar."

rise

Most

people are

by

the

lowest

the soul. And in politics, or, as Machia

velli put

it, "in
a

the world, there

oath

is

no one

but the

way to have it
even

binding

is to base it

on necessity.

That they
and

Therefore the only could not break

successfully, how

if they

wanted to. oaths are

It is easy to explain why ever. Bacon continues:

broken frequently,

So

much more so

sions and

less than

sincere

because it is easy for princes to support and to veil their pas faith with their various and specious pretexts (there be
account must

ing

no arbitrator of

things to whom an

be

given).

("Styx")

Treaties
things.
pp.

are

God doesn't

broken easily because there is no higher judge to arbitrate these make himself visible (see Mansfield, Machiavelli's Virtue,
some of

295-314, for

the implications of this), there is

and nature

no real

United Na
justice
as

tions empire with

sharp teeth,
to

doesn't

reveal standards of

obviously so "easy for actually the

and

as she reveals standards

veil"

for

good

health. Furthermore, because it is may animating their leaders than is

the varieties of the
people of a nation

princes

their real

intentions,

be duped into

believing
15

that

nobler motives are

case.

Therefore it is

essential to recognize

duplicity

secrecy

about the
a

true motives of actions, if one is going to be in

a position

many pretexts to lie, no oath to any warrant complete faith in it. Only neces be enough to strong heavenly future belief in punishments because god is is Bacon binding, says; clearly, sity a witness is not a strong enough belief among men to serve as a sure guarantee.
to guarantee
god can

treaty. Because princes have

But

when are we

in

a position

to demand absolute or strict

necessity?

Can

one

capacity for harm"? This option is not always possi realistically ble, and that is why Bacon suggests a more expansive solution. Iphicrates had said only one thing could guarantee it, but Bacon now outlines the other three
take away "all
ways

(in

addition

to necessity), to confirm treaties that

are

being

made:

Accordingly,

unless

treaty
nue

assails a
not until

danger

of

capacity for harming is lifted, or if from the destruction or of a diminution of the state,
possible

rupture of

the

or of reve

then is it

to

assess

that the

treaty is

ratified and

sanctified,

and confirmed as

though

by

the oath of Styx.

("Styx")

NECESSITY VERSUS CONTINGENCY

These three
revenue

are

obviously
to

not all

necessities.

The threat

of

diminution
harm."

of

is

not

equivalent

"removing

the

capacity for

doing

Much

10

Interpretation
is
available

more choice

to one who is threatened

with

losing

some

money than

with

losing
be
a

all wherewithal

for

action.

could
tic"

"legitimate"

perfectly

excuse

It may well be granted that true necessity to break an oath. But the three "realis
elaborates

excuses are not true necessities.

Bacon

these three

guarantees of

treaties in terms that are

familiar
taken

to students of Thucydides and Machiavelli.

of nature such as

Necessity
very
and means of

as with physical

laws

gravity

means

that the

acting

are

away.

Then

one can

be

fairly

sure of compliance.

This, strictly

speaking, is

all that

Bacon

can extract

from

Iphicrates'

quotation,

it is clearly how we force some people to keep their word. We make it impossible for them to break it even if they want to. Castration of sexual offend ers ("you say you won't ever rape again well, now I believe you."), capital
punishment,
which we
and

impounding

of

enemy

armaments

are

some

of

the ways in

have

used

this "pledge of

faith."

We

use

them precisely when we

on

have

no

faith in
be

pledges.17

But
the

we cannot always

rely

this in politics; not

having

absolute power over able

forces

of

nature, we cannot ensure that someone

will not

to break the treaty.

on

Oaths based
Athenians

necessity

might not

be practicable,

which

may be why the

were able to convince others that there are more

not

necessities, and why

Bacon,
admits

though apparently

ready to

concede

that all three are necessities, the

"treatymaking"

they

merit

being

considered: on the other side

side of the

instead

of as

the justification for that many

"treaty

breaking."

The initial terms

treaty

must acknowledge
necessities.

people

will

believe that these

contingencies are

makers"

'Treaty
what

must recognize

that people will erroneously interpret

at this point that

necessity Now the Christian

beyond

as

is

inherently
or a

contingent.

It is

the tables turn. the tempta

princes

those higher types who have

resisted

tion to break treaties

have

choice and what

decided advantage, for they know what is truly is not. Other people think and act as though there are

many
action

more necessities.

in the

same way.

But they are not truly necessities; they do not compel Bacon invites us to look at them further: the threat of
revenue.
"compulsion"

destruction,
The first
state.
of a

and

the possibility of a diminished empire, and less

less-than-necessary
a

Bacon brings up is danger to the

state, threatens the very
will remain existence

If breaking

treaty

threatens to

destroy

state,

one should

be reasonably
an extreme

sure the

treaty
a

contracts and

agreements, the threat that

you would

in force. In many die if you kept your word

of

exonerates you.

It is

circumstance,

"matter its

life

death,"

and

and

is

a respected

extenuating
mean of one of all

circumstance.

That death is

considered

the ultimate

threat

the summum malum

is

witnessed to
us

by

being invoked

in

oaths

when we
die."

"really
pain

it": "Till death do "On my the drives that

part."

"On

death."

grave."

mother's
move

"Cross my heart and hope to "I stake my life." Self-

preservation

is

men, but it is not all-powerful (as it

isn't

animals).18

even

among

One

can choose to

die,

so such choices and

actions

do

not operate under

choice"

the same kind of necessity as gravity, but it is not

of coercion that some people would

exactly the "free

or

lack

like

to see

"Cross Your Heart

operate are

and

Hope To

Die?"

11
fear
of

in treaties. Yet

as

Hobbes

points

out, contracts

entered

into

out of

binding. Those
a

who understand this

have It

an

advantage, for the threat

death is only
to

contingency,

not a necessity.

can

be

phrased

live,

then you must do

excuse

X."

For

most people the threat of

death

thus, "//you want seems legiti

there still

mately to

them from obligations. Fear is "often

individuals"

a respectable extenuation

even of crimes

choice, and

among the heroes

(Orwin, Humanity, 46), but

do it the
unusual way.
make

is

of the world

And however

much

realists might want moral

to argue that although humans may

this decision as

individuals,

political

leaders

cannot make

it politically, it has been done,

a

approbation.19

and sometimes with

Sometimes dismiss

leader

cannot act out of the

highest

principles or

be

allowed to

some of

his

own people's

lower be to

motivations.

But

even

go

to war and risk

in politics, of course, the death and destruction.

choice must sometimes

We

also must not

forget

that

for

some of

us, death is

not the ultimate threat

certainly be dead than

"have

not our own

X"

death. Most

people can

fill

out

the sentence "I'd rather

(whether it be
mother,"

"Red,"

or more often

"kill innocent

children,"

or "slice up my father"). Some people even rank how finish the sentence. Self-preservation isn't a neces by they law like the physical of gravity. Given the contingency of even the alterna sity tive of death, then, it seems that we must try to figure out which contingencies
sex with

my

their colleagues

excuse and which

do

not.

Another

difficulty

with the threat of

destruction is that

might question whether

the threat is

real.

party to the treaty In 1991 Saddam Hussein, it seemed,

one a

did

not

think the United Nations coalition would actually attack. The security

of this

"pledge

faith"

of

relies on each

party to

treaty believing

the reprisal

will occur and will

destroy

the state.
often claimed

The ians

next

contingency that is
to as

to be a compulsion is what Athen

empire.

referred

honour,

or

the threat of the diminution of their

Bacon
even

points out several problems with

more open

honour,

as noted above.

And honour is
"veils."

to

being

subverted on

by

"specious

pretexts"

and
and

Successful

use of

honour depends
and

the ruler recognizing

using

the people's under

standing of honour liver them honour.

The

convincing them

about which course of action will

de

next supposed

compulsion, according to the Athenian realists, is profit.

But those

who

have

resisted

it,

and think through

the

nuances of

how it

attracts

and seduces

the souls of men, will also

prevent

have

an advantage shocked

in

making treaties.
someone's safeguard

They

can

therefore

themselves from

being

by

temp
them

tation to break a
selves

treaty for these reasons, before the fact. This "pledge of

and more

importantly,

faith,"

therefore, is the

carrot

(compared
an

to the first's stick). If the common interest is

of revenue and

benefited,
relying

or there

is

increase
will

wealth, one might be reasonably confident that the

on

treaty

be kept. There

are several serious problems with

this carrot, however.

First,

there are multiple possible contenders

for

interpreting

how the

common

12

Interpretation
will

interest
increase
and

be benefited, and, both

of

course,

they do

not all

necessarily

imply
A

an

of

empire and revenue come at the price of

too many have discovered

that wealth
second

security may difficulty is that such benefits

of

independence

and reputation. under

must accrue

to each party only

the terms
accessi

the

treaty; if they
another or one

can

be

seen to

be

accessible otherwise, or no need

become

ble in
place,

relationship, then there is either

for

treaty in
Bacon be

the

first

party

might well see an advantage to cheating.

With

such a realistic appraisal of

treaty breaking,
fable

what can

suggest

ing

as a solution?

When Bacon

closes the

with an explanation of what the

gods considered

what

in their treaty making, he the banquets really mean.

the

gives us a glimpse of what

is required,

under which name

ancients signified

the

rights and prerogatives of com

mand and affluence and

happiness.

("Styx")
of the
gods"

To include in the meaning

"happiness,"

of

"the banquets
the rights

such

overarching

ends as and

as well as all of
refer

and prerogatives of command ultimate goals of gods

affluence, seems to

to the most important or

as

and of

men, the summum

bonum,

it

were.

The

ultimate

goals, the most

important things that

men cherish or that motivate motors of

them are the keys to treaties.

psyche

A thorough insight into the

one wants

the human

is

what

is

required

if

to be sure of a

promise.

Those, for
"rational

example, who believe that

choice"

profit

is the

ultimate motive

for

everyone's make with comes

will not

have

an advan

tage in the contracts

they

those of us who don't. In fact

not

they

will

have the disadvantage that

stand

from

recognizing that the high

can under

the low but the low cannot understand the high. Those who believe that

fear

of

death

or threat of a

loss

of a

job is

sufficient to guarantee compliance

with all of

their demands will

not

have the

power over us that

they believe they

motivations

will, for they, in effect, reveal

than

more about

their own psychological

understanding The trick is to find out

show

of ours. what

is

most

important to the

other

party to

treaty,
will

and to make that the terms of the treaty:

most

look

at

the contingency that matters

to them (which

is

whatever part of the psyche as

dominates them). That

as

be

what

they

are

inclined to treat laws

being

compulsory,
the "true

being

as

necessities."

gravity
are

and other physical

of nature

necessary as Even if these

actually contingencies,

you must realize

that men will think those contingen

cies are a matter of necessity. not necessities.

Then

you can use

them, for

you

know they

are

Bacon
ized"

entertains

little

naive optimism that the world will

become "christian

so that such a view of

necessity

will no

longer

need

to be taught.

Instead,

quite the reverse.

He

would

outnumber the

Greeks."

probably agree that "the barbarians will always He does not argue that men will eventually all honour
must recognize

higher bonds; instead, the higher types

these

facts

of

human

"Cross Your Heart

nature and

and

Hope To

Die?"

13

fashion treaties in light

compulsions"

of

their recognition of whatever supposed

"necessities To

or

they

perceive

in

others.20

don't go too quickly to our graves with only the satisfac lived honourably, but for a short time, Bacon has to caution the good, the honourable among us, for example, the Christian princes, that honour
ensure that we

tion of

having

only
even even

counts

among the honourable, that the judicious

use of

carrots, sticks,

and

necessity may help to elevate the moral level if it does not elevate the motivations.
presentation of these

of the activities around

us,

Bacon's

issues in this fable

provides no grounds

for

belief in divine
get

providence or cosmic support

end"

for treaties. The belief that "they'll

"their"

their comeuppance in the

will

such a
velli's man

belief

will

do is

ensure our

probably failure in the

not alter

behaviour. All Machia

halfcan

present.

But,

whereas

teaching is the counsel to descend to and half-beast, and then to two beasts,

the

beastly

standards

first

the lion and the fox

Bacon

high road, counseling us to act just like the gods. He points us towards a methodological realism in making pacts, without endorsing the realist excuses for breaking them. And this may involve deliberately putting tempta
seem to take the

tions and other

antee

"feasts"

"banquets"

or

within the sights of our partners to guar

their respect for the terms of the treaty.

NOTES

1. Genesis 9:9. I he
commanded

might even point out

the earlier implicit

contract

God

made with

Adam

when

him only

not

to eat a particular tree's

fruit, Genesis 2:17. Obviously,

this

reliance on

contracts

is

not

myths, for example, there is a compact

and

feature the Western tradition. At the very beginning of the Cree creation made between Wisakedjak (or Nanbozho of the Chippewa)

the muskrat, so that the latter would be willing to dive far beneath the water to bring up earth. Ella Elizabeth Clark, Indian Legends of Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1960), pp. 1-9. This type of occurrence is frequent in the legends, as is often shown in Barry Lopez,

Giving

Birth to Thunder,

Sleeping

with

His Daughter. Coyote Builds North America (New York:

Avon Books, 1981). 2. See Orwin, The

Humanity of Thucydides (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Peter J. Ahrensdorf, Realistic Critique of Polity 30, no. 2 (1997): 231-65; and Robert C. Bartlett, "An Introduction to the of a talk prepared for deliv
"Thucydides'

Realism,"

'Realism'

Thucydides,"

ery to the Society for Greek Political Thought Science Association, August 31, 1996. Although I
shall not pretend

at

the Annual

Meeting

of

the American Political

religions, this seems to be necessarily true of the may have trickster gods to whom people can swear when they do not mean to uphold their word, but I am not aware of it as a practice (beyond the schoolyard loophole of crossing the fingers of your left hand behind your back to let the devil take

to speak about

all

strictly

monotheistic ones.

Polytheistic

religions

your words and absolve you

from

a promise).

3. As The 4. In

noted

by Leo Strauss,

the issue

gods."

City

and

Man (Chicago: Rand

to presume more

is "not indeed the gods, but the human McNally and Company, 1964), p. 209.
motives of actual

concern with the

order not

insight into the

historical

characters

than

is

warranted, I
some

might recall a

fictional

example

that reveals this tension: to see (chap.

degree

of

faith,

or of

superstition,

was relieved

Huckleberry Finn, who had 26) that he was only being asked

14

Interpretation
a

to swear upon

dictionary; he
for him.

could

safely

maintain

his lie.

Swearing

upon a

Bible

would

have

been

more problematic

5.

Of the Advancement
and

volumes,

collected and edited

of Learning, Bk. II, chap. 23.47, in The Works of Francis Bacon in 15 by James Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath

(Boston: Brown 6. Of I hope is

placed not

Taggard, 1861).

one open to the charge of reading too much into Bacon, which charge justified in my case, but I would use Bacon's own defense that the work is not badly (Preface to Of in either case: "either we shall be illuminating [Bacon] or things course

this leaves

themselves"

the

Wisdom of the Ancients). 1. Translations of "Styx,

Treaties"

or with a new

are

mine,

from

book in progress,

a critical edition of

Ancients, translation, interpretation, and several indices. 8. See, for example, Homer, Iliad, xv. 37-42: See also ii.755 and xiv.271. According {Metamorphoses, 11.40-110; III.287-315), and apparently supported by Bacon in

Of the Wisdom of the

to Ovid
al

"Dionysus,"

most

Styx,

every time a god swore by Styx he soon regretted it. For a different account of the oath of see Aristotle's Metaphysics (983b28-84a3). There the gods swear by Styx because the most

ancient

is the

most revered.

9. Political

realism
and

has

consequences
of

for domestic

politics as well as

international
the

relations.

For

more on

this

the

implications

"political

realism"

for "life

city,"

within

see

Orwin,

Humanity,
idea

p.55.

10. Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959), p. 8. "The of interest is indeed the essence of politics and is unaffected by the circumstances of time and 11.

place."

This,
See

of

course, has

long

been recognized;

see

Thucydides

on

the difference between

Machiavelli,"

aitia

and prophasis and

Princes."

also

Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 18, "In What Mode Faith Should Be Kept by Steven Forde, "Varieties of Realism: Thucydides and Journal of
chapter

Politics, 54 (1992). 12. Machiavelli in

all

18
all

says of the prince,

"to

see

him

and

hear him, he
more

should appear appear

mercy, all

faith,

all

honesty,

humanity,

all religion.

And nothing is

necessary to

to have than this last

quality."

319-21,
Mount.

Cf. Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1948), pp. who discusses acting with honour when faced with the dilemma of the Sermon on the
13. Clifford Orwin
points out

that an

understanding

of oaths

implying

that gods are subject to

necessity,
tradiction

and

implying
are

that among men necessity overrules even promises to god,

piety.

involves

a con

in traditional

Orwin

argues

"by

suggesting that the gods are subject to necessity it

implies that they of War:

233-39.

less than

gods"

(p. 237). Clifford

Thucydides'

Delian

Debate,"

American Political Science

Orwin, "Piety, Justice, and the Necessities Review, 83, no. 1 (March, 1989):
follows
this chapter on necessity and
strict

This
oaths.

also

helps to

explain
. .

why Bacon's fable

on nature

As Orwin says, ".

the

discovery

of the notion of political

necessity in the

sense, that

is,

of natural

discovery
Bacon
what

necessity as opposed to the radical contingency that is the basis of all real political philosophy or
of says

of a world ruled

by

gods also

science"

(pp. 237-38). See

[is] a Harvey
gist of

Mansfield, Machiavelli's Virtue (Chicago: University

Iphicrates
spoke.

could not

locate the
and

Chicago Press, 1996), p. 150. quotation. It sounds similar to the

uses this

the Athenians say in

Thucydides, 1.75-76;
Apothegms Old
vol.
p.
and

V. 103-5. Bacon

Iphicrates

quotation

in

at

least three
upon a

other works:

Made War

with

Libel, in Letters and Life, Spain, vol. 7, pp. 469-505, at

gave

1,

pp.

New, vol 13, p. 358, no. 144; Certain Observations 146-208, at p. 167; Considerations Touching a
one

477. Almost

hundred

years

before Bacon, Francesco

Guicciardini
number

very similar advice in his Maxims and Reflections. In the final version, aphorism 27, he said: "If you have doubts about someone, your true and best security consists in

having

the will and discretion of others

men."

nia

security founded on is worthless, seeing how little goodness and faith is to be found in Francesco Guicciardini, Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi), trans. Mario Domandi, Pennsylva Paperback edition, reprinted (Philadelphia: Harper & Row Publishers, 1972), p. 48.

things so arranged that he cannot hurt you even if he wants to. For any

"Cross Your Heart

14. Machiavelli too,
state; the
points

and

Hope To

Die?"

15
his

pointed

this out,

as

in

chapter

18, "so let

be

a prince win and maintain

means will great

always

be judged honourable

and will

praised

by

everyone."

As Orwin

out, "The to be

issue

of

the speech is the status of these alleged

chapter

compulsions."

p.46.

15. Machiavelli in The

nature and

Prince,

18,

says

"it is necessary to know

well

how to

color

this

a great pretender and

dissembler."

16. In Some
of

addition to

Machiavelli, The Prince,

V.84-116.
profit

chap.

18,

see

Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War,

1.70-72; 111.36-50;
life,
then you
are

and

people claim

that

is

true necessity,

"in

effect"

taking away life,

life"

too. This

arguing that if you take away the wherewithal claim is at the core of some arguments
income."

for extending the "right to to the "right to a guaranteed annual 17. A more elegant version of this formulation was enunciated by Professor Clifford Orwin in
a class on

Thucydides in 1978-79.
seems that

18. It
even at

many mothers,

at

least from among the

warm

blooded, defend
males pack

their young

the risk of their own lives. And

strong

healthy young

males

who could

benefit

themselves at the expense of others

again at

often stand at

the perimeter of the

to defend others,

the risk of death.

need not

19. We

think only that are

of extreme cases such as

Masada, but
in

we

may look
and

at reasons

why

some states enter wars

not

"their

own."

This is

noted

in Ahrensdorf s

Orwin's

examina

tions (cited above) of the

Greeks'

views of

justice

Thucydides'

portrayed

The Peloponnesian

War.
care."

puts it, "the state has no right to say so in the name of those who are in its Politics Among Nations, p.9. This is the basis of the opposition accusation of President Alexander Lukashenko's attempt to merge Belarus with Russia: "he is going to surrender
leaders'

As Morgenthau

Belarus'

independence, in hopes of acquiring supreme power in the united Press story cited in The Edmonton Journal, December 27, 1998. 20. Parents, of course (and everyone else who is successful at having others do
our country's

state."

Associated

their

bidding),
wishes.

have

always

known this to be the

of no

most effective

way to

get their children

to

abide

by

their

For some, it is the threat

required.

dessert,

or no allowance,

for others, something

else

entirely is

Marx's Anomalous
Gordon Hull
Vanderbilt

Reading

of

Spinoza

University
powerful

Karl Marx, the

science

investigator

who applied the method of

Spinoza to

social

Hyppolite

Lissagaray1

Spinoza
associated

and with

Marx

were

thinkers who attained sufficient notoriety to become

certain,
and

rather

fixed, doctrinal
never

positions.

For this reason, the

an encounter with

study of Spinozism

Spinoza
and

Marx is

fully

dissociable from

bly

perilous.

Marxism. A study of Marx's reception of Spinoza, then, is dou Nonetheless, the doctrinal association of both thinkers with "mate
both its possibility and its importance. Two general points in which Marx worked, in particular the early Marx, may

rialism"

suggests about the context

serve as guidelines

from

which to

begin. First, this

one thinks

context was overdetermined of the outcome of

by

Hegel

and

Hegelianism. Whatever

Marx's

encounter with

Hegel, it

remains that

this encounter was a decisive element in

his development. Second, ophy into the larger

was

one aspect of

Hegel's reading
of

of

the

history

of philos

the production of a certain

narrative structure of

Spinozism,

the integration of Spinoza

what

Hegel's history. In

follows, I

wish

to

develop
Hegel

the thought that one constitutive element in Marx's efforts to overcome

of

be found precisely in his reading Hegel's Spinozism.

can

Spinoza,

against and outside of

Hence,
seminal

with the title of

this

paper and

its

obvious gesture

to Antonio Negri's

On the one hand, Marx reads work, I intend two thoughts at that his which is to Spinoza anomalously, reading of Spinoza is opposed to say that provided by the Hegelian environment in which he produced his early work.
On the
other

once.2

hand, Marx
or

reads

Spinoza
as

as an

anomaly, which is to
what might

Marx

reads

the

"materialist"

"mainstream"

"bourgeois"

contesting developments of the late

comes

Spinoza

say that be taken as

Ini

seventeenth century. after

tial

evidence me
. .

for both thoughts

the idea
and

from Capital, where,

thought,"

asserting that

"with

human mind,

is nothing else than translated into forms of

the material world reflected

by

the

Marx

famously

writes:

The mystifying side of Hegelian dialectic I time when it was still the fashion. But just
"Das
Kapital,"

criticized as

nearly thirty
at

years ago, at a

was

working

the first volume of

it

was the good pleasure of the peevish, arrogant, mediocre epigonoi

interpretation,

Fall 2000, Vol. 28, No. 1

18

Interpretation
who now

talk large in

cultured

Germany,

to treat Hegel in

[the]

same

way

as

the

brave Moses Mendelssohn in Lessing's time treated Spinoza, i.e.

therefore openly avowed myself the
pupil of

as a

"dead

dog."

that mighty thinker.

Marx dom

adds

"mystified,"

that, although in Hegel dialectic was "standing on its in its "rational form it is a scandal and abomination to
and

head"

and bourgeois-

and

its doctrinaire

professors"

"is in its

essence critical and revolution

ary"

(ibid.). The juxtaposition

of the receptions of
"received"

Hegel

and

Spinoza

suggests

that, for Marx, both thinkers have

a

"rational"

and a

form,

the former

fashionable apology for mediocrity, but the latter critical of exactly such medi ocrity. Retrieval of the rational form against the received involves "awakening
the text to
life,"

and

searching for
a

elements

which

contradict

or exceed

the

canonical reading.

In

word, such

a retrieval

is

demystification

or a profana

tion of textual

canonicity.

From
the

a comment

in his 1845

Holy Family,
Spinoza
are

it is

clear

that Marx understands

difficulty

in the

reception of

as a question of

two competing strate

gies

for the reading

of

tensions which
against

already

present

in Spinoza's texts
writes

themselves.

Reading
Hegel,
As

Hegel
since

the Hegelian Bruno

Bauer, Marx
of

that,
of

according to
same

"deism

and materialism are two parts

one and the

principle, Spinoza had two schools which struggled over the

always

meaning

his

system."

for Marx,

participation

in

a struggle

is

above all a ques

tion of

strategy and tactics, which suggests that Marx's reading of Spinoza is a strategic one, both in the sense that it pursues a definite purpose, and in the
sense

that Marx recognizes that reading is always such a strategic

exercise.

How

one presents an

historical

event says as much about the presenter as the

event;

an

official

reading is
be

always

limited. In

other

words, questions of historical

transmission and canon

formation,

understood as political and of

ideological

pro

cesses,
will

cannot
read

excised

from the reading

and

historical texts. Hence,

will

capitalism

be

against

its apologists,

Spinoza
(but
not

be

read

against

doxic

Spinozism. Spinoza himself,

perhaps, will reread the

with similar
against

identical)

strategic

Bible

its

most pious adherents.

thoughts, For both think

The reading of Marx's

ers, demystification will be

a process of

will pursue

here is

part of a

reading against the larger investigation of the

grain.

"materialism"

early thought,

and of

the extent that, although Marx's texts can be said to be

envision the cessation of politics,

"eschatological,"

in that they

they

simultane

ously involve radically rethinking what such eschatology might mean. One marker of this materialism will be Marx's recovery of the occluded materialist
Spinoza.4

aspects of

noza

The preceding suggestions might seem premature: after all, references to Spi in Marx's work are extremely scarce. Even Marx's occasional remarks
an

indicate

early

familiarity

with

Spinoza, however. Further, in 1841, he kept

Treatise
and

notebook of passages

transcribed from the Theologico-Political

(TTP)

and a number of

Spinoza's letters. It is these TTP notebooks,

the appearance

Marx's Anomalous
of

Reading

of Spinoza

19

Spinozian

elements

in Marx's early work,

which are the topic of this paper.

(For

a more complete a

discussion
de

Rubel, "Marx

la

rencontre

listing Spinoza.") As
and

of

Spinoza

references

in Marx,

see

an

initial

orientation to this

topic,

and as an orientation

to the question of reading,

allow me

to propose the follow

there were
chap.

ing

passage about

biblical interpretation from

than
we now

the

in fact

more readings

find

marked

Treatise; "I say that in the (TTP,

codices"

9,

p.

129). Marx
comment.

copies the sentence

as

into his

notebook verbatim and without

official

further
biblical
of the

Insofar

the codices represent an

interpretation

of

narratives and

events, the analogue with Hegel's

suggests
political

official

interpretation

history

philosophy readily terpretation has material and

tions of adherence to

of

itself. Again, the question of aspects. Marx had struggled form

and content
"exit"

official

in

with ques

"philosophical"

tion, long before embarking on his Feuerbach," the eleventh "Thesis on

the space

much-discussed
and

in writing his disserta from philosophy in

to open

before his

explicit purpose was

for

thoroughgoing

critique of political economy.

For his part, Spi

equally have been referring, in addition to the reduction of texts into codices, to the late medieval practice of hiding Averroist and other counterhegenoza could monic manuscripts

inside officially sanctioned Marx had been concerned from the beginning
Two
passages should serve to

codices.5

with

questioning
point.

official

inter

pretations.

illustrate the

First, in his 1841

doctoral dissertation, Marx had not only attempted to separate the philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus, but had done so as part of a larger (uncompleted)
project

of

decanonizing
the
post-

Aristotle

as

the high point of Greek

philosophy.

"It

seems to

me,"

he writes, "if the

earlier

[Aristotelian]

system

is taken for the

content,

and

stoic and skeptical

Aristotelian system, preferably the cycle of the Epicurean, schools, for the subjective form, the character of Greek phi
interesting"

losophy

is

more clear and

(MEW I Supp., 268).

Second, in
rendition,

the

Holy
the

Family, Marx dedicated a Proudhon, and contrasted

"mass"

section to

criticizing

a neo-Hegelian

translation of
with

the

"critical,"

i.e., Hegelian,

one evident

in Proudhon 's

original text. a silent

Proudhon 's text suffers, Marx

says, "a double

attack of

Herr Edgar,

silencing in his characterizing

notes"

translation, The

an expressed

silencing in his
as

critical marginal

(HF,

p.

24)

question of marginal notes returns our attention to the question of and

biblical

codices,

indicates that for Marx is its

for Spinoza, the

question of the material

ity
the

of the text's production

essential: elements of

the text's production and of

"meaning."

ideology

of

producers

are

indissociable from its

and

It is this
it is this histo

position which marks

both Spinoza
their

Marx
or

"materialists,"

as

and

"profaning"

"demystification"

position which enables

ries.

of sacred

Allow

me

to clarify.

That

one

effect of

Spinoza's

work

was

the profanation of sacred

history
move

seems not should

to

require much

further

elaboration.

The

outlines of

Spinoza's

be sufficiently familiar: the Bible is not the work of one author; it con tains various histories later assembled by one or more compilers without regard

20

Interpretation
with one another; miracles and prophecies and

to the concordance of those histories

occurred

in

such a

way

as

to impress the vulgar;

the superiority of the

ancient
all

Jews

over others confined

itself to their form

God. God
spoke

of government, which was

that was revealed to them

by

to the

prophets

in

way

designed to impress them,

which

in turn

means that the

Bible

cannot

be taken

literally,

either as a report of miracles or of science.

faculty"

Prophecy
theses,

was a gift of a

"lively
We

imaginative Spinoza

(TTP,

chap. p.

15),

and not of

intellect.
presented

should pause to underscore the

published

notoriety these
own

in the

one work

during

his

lifetime, immediately developed,

because this notoriety has nothing to do with the usual current reception of Spinoza and little to do with a reading of the Ethics. As Paolo Rossi put it, "if
all of this was
people and

true, then

all of

distinctions between the

the heathen
peoples

sacred

history
and

of the chosen

the
of

history

collapsed

the idea of an

incarnation
Hebrew

the meaning of universal

destroyed."

history

in the

particular

history

of

the

people was a

Spinoza's text had

appeared

in 1670. In 1668,

Hobbes had issued

which

Latin Opera,

including

a reprint of was

had

said not

only that

scriptural

interpretation

his 1651 De Cive, to be governed by the

temporal sovereign, but also that "as there is a good deal of

"Politics, History, they

inter
be
a canon

Morals,

and

Physics to be

read

in

scripture

those passages, although

still cannot

contain true

teaching,

and are a canon of such

teaching,

of the mysteries of the

Christian

religion."

Further,

since scripture requires

pretation, "the
an

word

English text

of

is the Word of In 1668, Hobbes had declared that philosophy began in Ethiopia

of the interpreter of the scriptures

God."

and

Egypt, managing to avoid altogether reference to the ancient Hebrews. In 1655, between the first and second editions of Hobbes, Isaac de La Peyrere had
before Adam,
Adam.6

suggested that people existed

not

and that therefore original sin meant

that people and sin did not exist before

"imputed"

been

to

people

before

Adam, but only that sin had not Hence, for the pious, Spinoza's text
in both implicit
radical condemnations and references was to remain

represented

the culmination of an all-out assault on the sacredness of Scripture.

As such, "the Theologico-Political Treatise

cautious

adherence, through both

than a

explicit or

for

more

century

at

the center of all

discussion

of mankind's earliest

history"

(Rossi, p. 212). Hegel, on the other hand,

that part of

presents an

entirely different Spinoza. The disso

"atheistic"

nance

between the Hegelian Spinoza

and the

one grounds the possi

bility

why Marx

read

Spinoza

that the Spinoza presented to

him

by

orthodox
of

understood,

and that a

better reading
other

precisely because he suspected Hegelianism was not adequately Spinoza would be useful to his own
was

work against

Hegel. In

words,

perhaps

Spinoza

was excessive to

Hegelian
to the

Spinozism.
Descartes."

According

to

Hegel, "the Spinozist philosophy is

related

Cartesian only as a consequence of filling out and carrying out the principles of Although such sentiment was certainly part of the seventeenth-cen

tury

reaction to

Spinoza, particularly among

those who rejected all "new

sci-

Marx's Anomalous
ence"

Reading

of Spinoza

21

reaction was clearly not reducible to the sentiment that Cartesian. Hegel, emphasizing the Ethics and with his own priori Spinoza. Hegel continues that the Theologico-Politties, has clearly

at a

stroke, this

Spinoza

was a

"translated"

ical Treatise

shows that

treatment of the Mosaic

tance, because
As Spinoza

with

"the Mosaic law is limited only to the Jews a critical books (VGP, p. 103). This passage is of central impor it, Hegel creates a version of the "Jewish which
Question"

was to entangle

many

never

young Hegelians, including tires of reminding his readers, his purpose is

of

the

Marx.7

not

to limit

the Mosaic law to the

Jewish

people generally.

Rather,

the

point

is that the
and only When the

Mosaic law Hebrews

does
not not

was given to

Moses

as secular ruler of the as

Jewish people,
as

applied to those people as chose to

long

they

retained that political state.

ended.

can tell, Marx copy any of Spinoza's explicit statements in this regard, but he could have failed to encounter them. In one of his most explicit passages on the
a

have

king,

their

theocracy

As far

subject, Spinoza says:

With the destruction force

the
of

of the

Hebrew state, their

revealed religion ceased to

have the
right

law. We
of

cannot

doubt that,

as soon as the

Hebrews transferred their

divine law
came

to

king

Babylon,
all that

the

kingdom

of

God

and the

to an

abrupt

end; for in so

doing they
God
p.

completely
should

annulled the covenant

whereby they had

prom

ised to obey

speak, which had been the basis of God's kingdom.

(TTP,

chap.

19,

221)
"Jew"

Hegel, in
tion.
of

other

words, reads

as an

ahistorical, conceptual determina

"Jew"

His reading therefore blinds itself to the possibility that as the bearer Mosaic law could be a concept with limited historical applicability. The dif
one

ference is important. On the

grounds
tion."

hand,
a

as

will

indicate,

the

distinction is

what

Marx's

subsequent critique of

Hegelian

responses

to the "Jewish

Ques

On the

other

hand, drawing

distinction between

a conceptual

determina

tion which is always and essentially true and a conceptual determination which

is true only at a certain time is precisely Marx's critique where, for example, Marx accuses both the capitalists and
tion of their

of reification.

Else

socialists of reifica

first

principles.

Proudhon "borrows from the

economists the neces of

sity

of eternal

relations;

[and]
is in

borrows from the Socialists the illusion The two borrowings

are aspects of

seeing

in poverty nothing but

poverty."8

the same

failure,

and

the

problem

failing

to see that context is important to reading.

When Spinoza analogously remarks that, be drawn from miracles, God's

event can also
chap.

"granting

that

any

conclusion could since

existence"

was not a valid

inference,

"an

be the

result of several

6,

p.

77), Marx
legal

copies the passage

(TTP, simultaneously occurring in its entirety IV/1, 235. 3ff).

(MEGA2

causes"

When
the
result

order reifies and

itself

and

declares itself necessary, Marx

names

"despotism,"

who suffer.

indicates that it is precisely real, individual people That is, the "only thought of despotism is the contempt of the hu-

22

Interpretation
MEGA2

man, the human split from itself (Marx to

Ruge, May 1843;

is in the majority,
there"

1/2, 477).
in the

He

adds:

"where the

monarchical principle

people are

minority, and it is not to be

concern with

doubted,

that there are no people

(ibid.). The
to the

despotism is

common

to

Spinoza,
supreme

who writes

in the

preface

Theologico-Political Treatise that "the

and

mystery

of

despotism, its prop

He
adds that

stay, is to

keep

men

in

a state of

deception,
must

and with

the specious title of

religion

to cloak the fear

by

which

they

be held in

check."

"no

more

wealth"

(TTP,
civil

disastrous policy can p. 7). One possible

war.

be devised

or

attempted

in

free

common

consequence

is

political

instability,
without

or even

outright

Such

possibility
to the

was

of course

not

interest for
and

Marx; here I
in how
a

wish to point

interest,

common

to both Spinoza

Marx,

despotism operates,

and the manner

in

which

despotism is

sustained

by

an apparatus which aspect of

One

simultaneously plants the seeds for its violent collapse. this apparatus is the use of religion and religious language to behavior
on the part of the multitude.
position on

induce
ern"

quiescent

As the

emblematic

"mod

political

theorist, Hobbes's
one

and this ambivalence generates a

context.

difficulty

this point is strangely ambivalent, in reading Spinoza in a Hobbesian

more

On the

hand, both De Cive theocracy

and,

significantly,

Leviathan,
religious

contain
matters.

lengthy
other

polemics against

and nonsecular

authority in
allied with

On these points, Spinoza

was often read as

being
of

Hobbes.

On the
model

hand, Hobbes
own

seems

deliberately
God
used

to invoke traces of the theocratic

God"

in his be

"geometric"

one:
monster which

the "mortal

Leviathan
and

was named

after the seems to

biblical

to humble
promote

Job,

the sovereign

encouraged

to use religion to

the end of obedience. On

these points Spinoza seems rather opposed to

Hobbes.9

For his part, in the

Holy
of
we

Family, Marx declares

people

that it is in Hobbes that materialism becomes "hostile to

[menschenfeindlich]"

(HF,

p.

136); he

also copies the

following
be
our
chap.

line

Spinoza into his

MEGA2

notebooks verbatim:

"Happy
all

indeed

would

age, if

were to see religion

freed

again

from

superstition"

(TTP,

11,

p.

148;
and

IV/1, 244).
this
might

As

all of

suggest,

one mark of

despotism,

noted

by

both Marx

Spinoza, is the draconian

Hobbesian terms),
humans
writes,
who since
not

effort

to stifle expression

("seditious"

language, in

such

expression

have

been (in

fully

indicates precisely or integrated into the despotic principle. Spinoza from

which

"individuals"

and

Marx

copies

a chapter

he

copies almost

"Tyranny

is

most violent where

individual beliefs,

which are an

nothing else), inalienable right

[uniuscujusque juris],
the anger of the mob
MEGA2

are regarded as criminal.

Indeed, in
all"

such circumstances

is usually the

greatest tyrant of one

(TTP,

chap.

18,

pp.

215-16;
another

IV/1, 238-39). At

level,
in

of

course, it is important to

note

that Marx spent much of his early career

constant

battle

with the censors.

At

level, however,
This
right

one should note not

that the question

is

one of expression

and right.

however is

to be understood as

a matter of

law. In

Marx's Anomalous
Spinozian terms, this ual is its expression,
endeavors to persist means

Reading

of Spinoza

23

it is

a question of conatus:

the right of any individ

as

which

is to

say:

in its

own

being"

"Each thing, in so far (E3 P6) and "the conatus is nothing but the
which
are

it is in itself,

with which each

thing endeavors to persist in its the thing itself (E3

P7).10

own

being

actual essence of

The
when
being."

parallel term

in Marx is

"activity,"

indicates

what

individuals do
as a

free from despotism, when they The constellation "species being

properly

conceived and

"species
serve

[Gattungswesen]"

"activity"

in Marx's 1844 Manuscripts to indicate the socio-historically given character of human life, and the extent to which human activity produces human life: "pro ductive life is however the
expression species

life. It is

life-producing

life."

Activity
copies

and of

in this

sense serve as critical principles against the atomic

interpellation

qualitatively identical,
the
nations"

individuals

"subjects."

or

When Marx

from

Theologico-Political Treatise that only "laws and divide "individu als into (TTP, chap. 17, p. 207), his thought is clearly moving with Spinoza's in that he is pointing to an organicity of With the caveat that
customs"

life."

Marx's thought is radically historical, the following comment in his 1844 Manu scripts carries distinctly Spinozian echoes: "In the type of life activity lies the whole character of a species, its species character, and free conscious activity is
the species character of
sion" man"

(MEGA2

1/2, 369). The

affirmations of

"expres
on

"activity"

and

criticize

despotic

conceptual apparatuses

for

infringing

the essence of
affirmations.
mens.

individuals in their being; in this sense, both are revolutionary (The reference here is obviously to Negri. "Potentia, conatus,

It is

passion."

is continually perfectible by means of imagination and Savage Anomaly, p. 147). In both cases, "the versatility of the meta
a whole that

physical

being

is

transformed

into the

exuberance

of

the

being"

ethical

(ibid.,

p.

151). Also in both cases, the

matter

is

one of expression as

the activity
revolu

which counters a metaphysical

system;

such expression

is thus in itself
order
are"

tionary. Marx

famously

concludes a

letter to Ruge: "in

to have its sins

(MEGA2

forgiven, humanity
489).

needs

only to

explain them

for

what

they
a

1/2,

Marx's
of

comment

is

at the close of

his letter calling for

"ruthless

critique

existing."

everything Marx indicates that, from

In

place

of

detailed

exegesis of this passage,

let

me

suggest that the emphasis on expression as a matter of right

and
although

in both Spinoza does

so on the

both

"critique,"

offer

neither

enlightenment

rities

origin of

critique consisted in eliminating impu order to establish the purity of the in they appear, those phenomena. In the context of Marx's early work, an "enlighten

model, according to which

phenomena as

perhaps most obviously carried out by Proudhon, who declares intro is the fundamental principle of society, that abolished in be order to should duces inequalities, and that therefore In Spinoza's case, an obvious target is Descartes; resolve the
ment"

critique

is

that

"equality"

"property"

"property"

contradiction

24

Interpretation
result of what sounds

conceding the
of soul and

like

Cartesian deduction
that "when

about

the union

body, Spinoza
way
and not

nonetheless warns

things are conceived

are at once confused or enlighten
a

in this

abstract

through their true essence,

they

by

the

imagination"

(TdlE. 238h). In

other words, the

Cartesian

ment critique
part of

fails

on

immanent grounds, because imagination is

knowing. The

parallel with

Marx is

quite close:

for Marx, The

all thought
point

necessary is

"ideological,"

and reification or abstraction

is the

problem.

in both I is

cases

is that thinking is necessarily

considerations allow us

embodied.

These

to approach again the Jewish Question. As the Theologico-Political

have indicated, in it, Spinoza

"critical"

when

Hegel

reads

Treatise, he
and

says

that

shows that the

Mosaic law is limited to the Jews,

can also note that
purpose

that this

treatment of the

Mosaic law. We

Hegel does

not

mention what

Spinoza had

said was

his "main

namely, the

differentia Spinoza's

tion of philosophy from

own

theology"

(TTP,

chap.

22,

p.

35).

Reading

discussion

of the prophets and

their imaginative (rather than rational) facul

ties against Hegel's Spinozism generates the same point of emphasis as

reading

Marx

against

Hegel: "The fundament

of the

irreligious

critique

is:

man makes

religion, religion does not make

man."

Marx adds,

perhaps

following

Spinoza:

But

sitting outside of the world. Man is the world of This this men, state, state, society produce religion, an inverted world con because are an inverted world. It is the fantastic realization of sciousness, they
man

is

no abstract essence

society.

...

human nature, because human is thus mediately the religion. ("Zur Kritik der
religion

nature possesses no

true reality.

The

struggle against

struggle against
schen

every

world whose spiritual aroma

Einleitung," MEGA2

is

Hegel'

Rechts

philosophie:

1/2,

170,

emphasis

original.)

He follows that "the

earth, the
critique

critique of

heaven is transformed into the

critique

critique of

the

of

religion

into the

of

law,

the critique of

theology

into the One

politics"

critique

of

(ibid., 171,
Hegelian
of

emphasis original).

such critique

is

of the

appropriation of the
"critical"

Jewish Question.

According
essential

to

Hegel's reading
"Jews"

Spinoza,

treatment of the Mosaic

law discloses that

necessarily determination. Bruno Bauer

to which

come with adopted

the Mosaic law attached, as an

position

this

in his book The Jew

presents

ish

Question,

Marx

published

his
a

answer

in 1843. As Marx

it, Bauer
specific

provides

"the Jewish

question

universal

meaning independent

of

German

relations,"

which

is "the

question of the relation of religion to

the state, of the contradiction of religious imprisonment and political emancipa

tion"

("Zur

Judenfrage,"

MEGA2

1/2, 143 [JF],

emphasis original).

This stating

of the question

leads Bauer to the

following

position:

Bauer

thus

demands

on the one

hand,
be

that the Jew give

man give

up religion, in

order to

emancipated as a state-citizen.

up Judaism, and in general On the other

Marx 's Anomalous

hand he consequently
religion simply. considers

Reading

of Spinoza

25

the

political sublation of religion as

the sublation of

(JF,

p.

144,

emphasis original).

Marx

will thus accuse

Bauer the Hegelian

The
of the

of

cipation with one

human

emancipation.13

response

having confused political eman is deeply Spinozian. First, if

follows Hegel's reading

is

necessary not, on Hegelian grounds,

collapsed
abstract

one: emancipation

from

Theologico-Political Treatise, the confusion i.e., from the Mosaic law, is

"Judaism,"

a political question.

Rather,
of

the political question is

into

a question of the abstract

identity

the Jew. The question of

identity, however, is in "In Germany, where no political

essence not

political; it is instead theological: exists, the Jewish Ques

religious opposi

state,

no state as state

tion is a purely theological question. The Jew finds himself in

tion to the state, which takes

Christianity

as

its fundamental
words,

condition"

(JF,

p.

145,

emphasis original).

Hegelianism, in

other
and

confuses

the Christian

German

state with the rational,

human state, in

in

so

doing,

confuses religious

and political questions.

Marx

continues

that at least

part of

the "North American free states

real

the Jewish Question loses its theological meaning and becomes a

question,"

which means that one can consider the relation of religion to

worldly human
the

emancipation.

Marx

adds

that in such places, where all

religion,"

commentators notice

"living,
religion

powerful existence of

one

finds

proof

that the existence of

does

not contradict

the

fully

developed

political state.

Rather,

the

pres

ence of religion

is

an

indication of,

not a reason

for,

these limitations are overcome, the

overcome.

"imprisonment"

worldly limitations. When of religion will itself be

Hence, "we do

We transform theological
that the contradiction

worldly questions into theological ones. Marx's conclusion is into worldly determined religion is the state and abstract between the
not

transform

ones."

questions

"contradiction between the

state and

that the "contradiction of the state

of the state with

determined worldly with religion in

general

elements."

This

means

general"

is the "contradiction
The

its

assumptions

in

(JF,

p.

146,
to be

emphasis original). supplemented establish

is obviously schematic and would need detailed textual work. It seems, however, sufficient to

foregoing

by

more

that for Marx

the Hegelian Jewish question involves conflating the spheres of politics, that
modern

theology

and

is,
the

of the theological nature of the modern state:

conflicts with
resolution

for Marx,

such a

state, in essence,
political

worldly life.

Ensuring demystifying
za's

of political questions, which

of so-called theological questions,

Theologico-Political
shows

Treatise,

and

is to say the is precisely the point of Spino in Marx's treatment of the Jewish Ques

tion, he

the sections of

his sensitivity to Spinoza's point. Indeed, if one considers only the Treatise which Marx copies, the matter becomes even clearer.

Marx drops
tions of

the passages

from Spinoza

which

involve biblical

exegesis or ques

"true"

religion, which suggests that for

Marx,
vu

religion

is

always a politi
ten-

cal question.

(CF Matheron, "Le T.T-P dans le

du jeune Marx."). The

26

Interpretation
to
mistreatment of

dency
what
noza.

this question as

theological one betrays the abstract,

and

theological basis of the modem state

form,

he takes to be the

residual elements of

this theological

Marx drops precisely (it seems) procedure in Spi

In

order

to

develop

this last suggestion, I

would

like to

examine a passage

from

one of

Marx's letters to Ruge, the

critique of

same

letter in

which

Marx

announces

the need

for the "ruthless

existing."

everything

Marx

writes:

Therefore the
the

social truth

is

allowed

to

develop

everywhere out of

this

conflict of

political state with

itself. As

religion

is the index
The

of the theoretical struggles of political state thus expresses

needs and

humanity,
inside
of
(MEGA2

so

is the

political state of

its

practical.

its form

sub specie rei publicae all social

struggles,

truths.

1/2, 488).
be obvious,
one

The Spinoza Marx's

reference

should

and

it discloses the depth developed form,

state expresses

of

engagement with

Spinoza. On the is to be

hand,
in its

the reference suggests that

most

for Marx the

in its

political state

considered

and

conceptual which

determination. In this form the

political

its

existence: struggles.

is to say that it has conatus; this is why it

expresses social

On the
publicae

other

hand,
writes:

that the political state can be considered sub specie

political state

rei

discloses that for Marx the

is

itself a

theological determi
an eternal mode
. . .

nation.

Spinoza

"our mind, in

so

far

as

it understands, is

of

thinking

which

is determined
all

by

another eternal mode of

thinking

with

the result that

God"

they

together constitute the eternal and infinite intellect of

(E5 P40S). If between

our mind understands the political state sub specie rei publi

cae, then this understanding presupposes a theological proposition about the

relation
a our

understanding

and

God,

which

is to say that it

presupposes

theological proposition about the ahistorical nature of our understanding.

of thought can

This

line

be directed

against

both the
.

modern state

form

and against

Spinoza's invocation The

might
complaint
put as

of sub specie aeternitatis

against

the state

form

and

its theological

presuppositions

be

follows: the

modern state

form

requires a conceptualization of

the social as

state accounts static such.

something exterior or prior to it ("state of nature"). Insofar as the for the social, however, it will only do so qua concept, i.e., as a
refer to

entity which does not Even the conception of

are understood to

the
or

individual
"citizens"

elements of the socius as

will

"subjects"

be abstract, insofar

as

they

be qualitatively identical
abstraction

participants

in

"social

con
and

tract."

On Spinozian grounds, this its

does

not produce

knowledge,

indicates that the because it only

singular essence of the modem state members as

form is

as an abstraction

considers

abstractions,

or as governed

by

a pro

cess of abstraction.

ity

to a

geometric

This is why Hobbes, for example, is able to give such prior basis for his "civil and to speak of the meaninglessscience"

Marx's Anomalous
ness of

Reading

of Spinoza

27

the multitude, and is

of the

part

of

historicity

Mosaic theocracy in
against

why Spinoza's understanding the Theologico-Political Treatise

this reading does
own

of the

seems

anti-Hobbesian.14

Whatever its force

tension in
of what could

Hobbes, however,
about

not erase a

Spinoza's text: What

be

Spinoza's

invocation, in Ethics V,
the ahis

construed as the same

theological

proposition about

torical nature of our understanding? We are thus returned to the tension

"atheistic"
"deistic"

between reading

and of this

elements of
as an aspect of

Spinoza,

and to

Marx's

strategic

tension

overcoming Hegelianism. Marx had

"enthusiasm
of

complained

in his dissertation
humanae"

notebooks about the

of the consideration sub specie aeterni, of the

(MEGA2

love

Spinoza, when he speaks of God, or of the libertas

a

mentis

IV/1, 104,
read

cited

by

M. Rubel, "Marx
without the

la

rencontre

de

Spinoza,"

p.

242). As Marx has

read

the

Treatise

biblical

refer

ences, so too here he seems to

with

Spinoza

against

himself: Marx's
appropriation,
against

engagement
reappropri-

Spinoza

can thus

best be described

as a critical

ation which reads the materialist elements of

will
noza

Spinoza

the ones which

of

be

received

into

Hegelianism.15

In particular, the Hegelian reading

Spi

understanding and God, at the ulti knowledge is properly of individual things, but that knowledge is itself in some sense universal. For Marx, knowl
attached union of the mate expense of conatus and expression: edge

had

itself to the

is

always

historically determined,
all

and universals are

thus the

product of

human imagination. In this sense, Marx's

critique radicalizes the one presented of

by

Spinoza in the Treatise:

declarations

eternality

are symptomatic of

religious

thinking

and

thereby

occlude consideration of

the political. In so

doing,
quiet-

Marx is

able to resolve what might strike the

reader, especially the reader who,

like Marx, had been trained in the Hegelian istic dilemma

with which

appropriation of

Spinoza,

as a

Spinoza

concludes the

Ethics.

The ignorant man, besides

possessing true

being

driven hither
as

and

thither

by

external

causes, never

contentment of

spirit, lives

if he

were unconscious of

himself,
to be at

God,
all.

and

things,
other

and as soon as

he

ceases to

be passive, he

at once ceases

On the

hand,

the

wise

man, in so far as he is

considered as

such, suffers

scarcely any disturbance

necessity, of true spiritual
dung,"

of spirit,

but

being

conscious,

by

virtue of a certain eternal

himself,

of

God

and of

things,
cf.

never ceases

to

be, but

always possesses

contentment.

(E5P42S.

Seidel,

"Spinoza

and

Marx iiber

Entfrem-

pp.

236-37.)
to a "universal

Marx had begun the letter to Ruge

reformers"

with

reference

anarchy

(MEGA2

among less
both

the

1/2, 486). In working

of whether

toward a method of "ruth

critique,"

Marx

works toward the

wise and active.

Regardless

possibility of being, in Spinozian terms, Spinoza himself ever achieves such

a position,
could

its

achievement

would constitute

only

operate

from

"moment

of sober

overcoming Hegelianism, which Insofar as Spinoza's

reflection.

28

Interpretation

texts exhibit a tension between activity and texts

knowledge,
provides

and

insofar
and

as

those

contain possibilities which are not realized critical moves

in Hegelianism
one

in Hegelian
of

Spinozism, Marx's
Marx's thought
sis on as

rereading

of

Spinoza

way

tracing
various

it

toward the famous

expression of

the eleventh 'The

world

Feuerbach": "the
point

philosophers
it"

have only interpreted the

in

ways; the

is to

change

(MEW

3, 7,

emphasis original).

Do

not misread:

I do

not want

to be taken as
was a

thoughts as
not a

Spinoza,

or that

Spinoza

saying that Marx had the same Marxist avant la lettre. Spinoza was
if
one

Hegelian dialectical thinker,

elements

and even

finds

a prodigious number of
prolific reader and

Spinozian

in Marx, it
Even

remains

that Marx was both a

prepared

an original thinker.

at the time

he

his

notebooks on

Spinoza, he

was also engaged

in both his immediate

such

socio-political context and with other whose presence

historical thinkers. (One both Spinoza

and

historical thinker
another

Marx is Machiavelli;

is Epicurus.)

is clearly felt in Such caveats aside,

I do

wish

to suggest that the affinities between Marx and Spinoza deserve to be

taken seriously, because

one might

they

suggest

in both

cases a

thinker who resisted what

loosely

call

the bourgeois development

as a representative

of thought. Adorno and Horkwould

heimer
suggest

quote

Spinoza

Enlightenment thinker. In this, I

they

are wrong.

practice

depends

on

But they are the intransigence

right

to suggest that "true revolutionary the face of the

one

of

theory in

insensibility
may
call the

with which

texts of

In this sense, society allows thought to both Spinoza and Marx revolutionary. Marx clearly Spinoza
against the reception of

ossify."16

appropriates and as well

reworks certain aspects of as against what

Spinozism,

Marx

reads as other aspects of

Spinoza's

own texts.

Thus for Spinoza's

the

questions of

influence

and the reduction of

Spinoza into Spinozism. But thus

neither

also a nor

warning against the reduction of Marx into Marxism. In Marx's case does one face a "dead
dog."

NOTES

Lissagaray
de

was a

French

refugee who

knew

Marx;

quoted

in Maximilien Rubel, "Marx

la

Etudes de Marxologie (Jan-Feb. 1978), p. 258. My translation. 2. Antonio Negri, The Savage Anomaly: The Power of Spinoza 's Metaphysics and Politics, trans. Michael Hardt (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991). While I disagree with
rencontre

Spinoza,"

many
on

of

Negri's conclusions, in
be
obvious.

particular

work should

One

should note

his reading of Ethics V, my indebtedness here to his Negri's indications of his own revisions to his thoughts

Ethics V, in his "Spinoza's

n.

Anti-Modernity,"

Graduate

Faculty Philosophy

Journal 18,

no.

(September 1995): 14
number of
Power,"

22

and

his

other writings can

summary of Negri's thought which includes a be found in Jason Read, 'The Antagonistic Ground of Constitutive
n.

15

32. A

useful

Rethinking
(p. 15)? I

question of communism
power"

Marxism 11, no. 2 (Summer, 1999): 1-17. Read suggests that, for Negri, the is the question "what are the possibilities of a sociality of constitutive
to retain this suggestion insofar as
a

wish

"activity"

use of

[Tiltigkeit],

term which

indicate Marx's thinking

and maintained
...

against

it might be applied to the early Marx's functions analogously to Negri's potentia, in order (a) to the Hobbesian seventeenth century, where "order has been thought
disorder"

as the absolute other of

(Read,

p.

15);

and

(b)

to

indicate the limits

of

Marx's Anomalous
a reductive

Reading

of Spinoza
"Hegelianism,"

29
etc.

reading

of the

Both

of these points will

early Marx as advancing "Feuerbachian be developed over the course of this paper.

humanism,"

cow:

3. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, trans. Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling (Mos Progress, 1954), vol. 1, p. 29. Other Marx references are to the best available German edition,

either

the Marx-Engels Werke (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1970-) [MEW] or the second Marx-Engels Gesamtausga.be (Berlin: Institute fur Marxismus-Leninismus, 1976-) [MEGA2]. All translations are
own.

my

4.

Holy

seien, so

Family: "Deismus und Materialismus zwei Parteien eines und desselben hatte Spinoza zwei Schulen, die sich iiber den Sinn seines Systems

Grundprinzip
(MEW

stritten"

2,

p.

139 [HF]; emphasis in original). The tension between what Marx calls the deistic and materialistic Spinoza is discussed by Negri as the "two foundations" in Spinoza's thought. See The Savage

Anomaly,
For

passim.

"reading

against the

grain,"

cf.

Louis Althusser,
man

Reading Capital,
the first man

trans. Ben

Brewster (Lon

don: Verso, 1979) both

a

suggests:

"The first

ever

to have posed the problem of reading,

consequence, of writing, was

Spinoza,

and

he

was also

theory

time ever,

a man

This
of

explains

and a philosophy of the opacity of the linked together in this way the essence of reading and the essence to us why Marx could not possibly have become Marx except by

of

history

and in in the world to have proposed immediate. With him, for the first

of

history.
a

founding

theory
why in
read-

history

and a

philosophy
also:

of the

historical distinction between Spinoza

ideology
of

and

science,

and

the last analysis this

ing"

foundation
"we

was consummation
can regard

in the dissipation
as

the religious myth of

(PP- 16-17). See

standpoint"

sophical
"rupture"

(p. 102). For

pre-

reasons which will

Marx's only direct ancestor, from the philo become apparent, I do not endorse Althusser's
grain"

between the

and post-1845

Marx. The "against the

no

line is Walter free

Benjamin's;
is
not

here I
at

wish to emphasize the sentences

before it: "there is

document

of civilization which
not

the same time a

document

of

barbarism. And just

as such a

document is

of

barbarism,

barbarism taints
on the

also the manner

History,"

Philosophy
p.

of should

1968),

256). One

in which it was transmitted from one owner to ('Theses in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken Books, recall that it is Hegelian historicism which Marx is contesting.
another"

Etienne Balibar, reading Spinoza and Marx together against Rousseau, suggests that "in materialism of Marx there is also, very manifestly, an element of the deconstruction of
.
. . subject;"

the the

representation of the

"Le politique,
sense)

is essentially Rousseauian. See Balibar, "revolutionary la Politique: De Rousseau a Marx, de Marx a Studia Spinozana 9 (1993):
the
Spinoza,"

subject"

203-15: 212. For

element
Immanence,"

different
see

comparative

reading, which emphasizes the Utopian (in the traditional

in Marx,

Yirmiyahu Yovel, "Marx's

Ontology

and

Spinoza's

Philosophy

of

vant sections

Studia Spinozana 9 (1993); 217-27, of his Adventures of Immanence.

notes on

which contains a programmatic

summary

of rele

MEGA"

5. "I say that there were in fact IV/1, 233-76. For dating and Paulus Opera
and

MEGA2

more readings":

IV/1, 243;

the notebooks comprise

the manuscript, see

MEGA2

IV/1, 773ff. Marx

read

the Latin

the current translation of trans. Samuel

commentary on his excerpts. I will generally follow the Gebhardt edition found in Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise,
almost no

included

Shirley

(Indianapolis: Hackett,
reads

1991) [TTP, by
notebooks

chapter and page].

rearrange

In

very important

commentary, Alexander Matheron

Marx's

(which

coherent text and compares that text with

Spinoza's. One

result of

Spinoza's order) as a Matheron's study is that Marx's

text
of

systematically excises scriptural references and grounding from Spinoza: Marx's TTP has none Spinoza's religious language. Here, however, I wish to express reservations about Matheron's Marx "is
le jeune
not

argument that

interested
exegetic

...

in the

exegetic method of

the

TTP."

It

seems rather that

Marx T.T-P

radicalizes

Spinoza's

method, and applies that method to all canonical texts. "Le

Marx,"

vu par

Cahiers Spinoza 1 (1977): 159-212; 169.

The
study.

above comments are

deliberately

allusive

and

meant

to suggest a possibility

for further

The early Marx's reading of medieval texts would certainly bear further investigation. For Marx's dissertation difficulties, see especially Bruno Bauer's cautionary letter of 12 April 1841 HI/1, 358). For subaltern Judeo-lslamicate elements in Spinoza, see Idit Dobbs-Weinstein,
(MEGA2

"Maimonidean Aspects

of

(1994): 153-74;

and

her "Gersonides's

Meeting

of the Minds: The

Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 17, nos. 1-2 in Radically Modern Understanding of the Agent Relations between Medieval and Classical Modern European Philosophy, Spinoza's
Intellect,"

Thought,"

30
ed.

Interpretation

embedStephen F. Brown (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1998), pp. 191-213. For Spinoza's Other Heretics. dedness in the subaltern Marrano community, see Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and

1, The Marrano of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). 6. Paolo Rossi, The Dark Abyss of Time, trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1984), p. 212.
vol.

of

1998),

De Cive, trans. On the Citizen, trans. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, vol. 17, pp. 16-17. This edition is a translation of the Latin text, rather than a reproduction

1651 English edition. I cite De Cive rather than Leviathan because, since it was in De Cive was more available on the continent. (It was De Cive of which Spinoza Latin, originally had a copy.) The 1668 Opera also included a translation of Leviathan, although the Latin text is
of the unauthorized

substantially different from the English. "Egypt was then as it were an university to all the world, and thither as Pythagoras, Plato, Thales, and others, to fetch philosophy into

went the curious

Greeks,
vol.

Greece,"

Decameron

Physiolog-

icum, in The English Works of Thomas Hobbes,

p.

ed.

Molesworth (London: J. Bohn, 1839),

7,

74. Isaac de La
peyrere:

See the English translation

of a year

later: Men Before Adam. Or A Dis

course on

the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth Verses of the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle of the

Apostle Paul to the Romans.

By

which are

proved,

That the first Men

were created

before Adam

(London, 1656).
7. Hegel:
"Die Spinozistische Philosophie
verhalt sich zur

Cartesischen

nur

als

eine

konsequente Ausfiihren, Durchfuhrung des Prinzips des ichte der Philosophie, Teil 4: Philosophie des Mittelalters
and

Cartesius,"

Vorlesungen iiber die Gesch

und

der

neueren vol.

Zeit,

ed.

Pierre Garniron

Walter Jaeschke. Ausgewdhlte Nachschriften

p.

und

Manuskripte,

9 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner,

1986),

102 [VGP].
Spinoza,"

of Marx's reading of Spinoza as it relates to the Jewish Question, see pp. 24 Iff. For thoughts on the Jewish Question in context, Rubel, "Marx a la recontre de see Willi Goetschel, "Models of Difference and in The German Jewish Dilemma: From the Enlightenment to the Shoah, ed. Edward Timms and Andrea Hammel (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1999), pp. 25-38. 8. The Poverty of Philosophy (New York: International Publishers, 1946), p. 126.

For further discussion

Alterity,"

9. Full treatment
Spinoza is

of these topics

is obviously

outside the scope of

this

paper.

The

opinion

that

"anti-Hobbesian"

is

stated with particular

assembles much

Negri, The Savage Anomaly. Rossi

noza

force in Balibar, Spinoza of the historical evidence

and

Politics,

and

in

of

Hobbes

and

Spi

being read as allied in The Dark Abyss of Time. The relation between tyranny and revolution in the Theologico-Political Treatise is discussed at length in Balibar, Spinoza and Politics, pp.
25-49. The
question of revolution seems clear that

the ending of

in Marx is particularly difficult; as will be evident, it at least in Marx's early writings, there is a strong correlation between demystification and despotic polilical orders.
references are

Ethics, Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect and Selected Hackett, 1992) [E; TdlE, etc.]. For thorough analysis of expression in Spinoza, see Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. Martin Joughin (New York: Zone Books, 1992). As a survey of his footnotes indicates, Negri relies heavily
to

10. Ethics
trans.

Letters,

Samuel

Shirley

(Indianapolis:

on

Deleuze in understanding the 11. "Productive life": "Das

Leben" (MEGA2

potentia/potestas produktive

distinction.
aber

Leben ist

das Gattungsleben. Es ist das Leben

erzeugende

Manuscripts. For
man, "The

other readings which emphasize the

Ontology of Graduate Faculty Philosophy

de 1844
et

is a heterodox reading of the 1844 centrality of production, see David R. Lachter Production in Marx: The Paradox of Labor and the Enigma of
am aware that this

1/2, 369). I

Praxis''

Journal 19, de la

no.

1 (1996),

3-23;

and

Gerard Granel. "L'ontologie

marxiste pp.

la

"coupure,"'

question

in Traditionis traditio (Paris: Gallimard, 1972),

179-230.

of course post-Kantian, and is itself a historical category in Marx. In this sense, Marx breaks sharply with Spinoza. For further discussion in this direction, see Helmut Seidel, "Spi noza und Marx liber Studia Spinozana 9 (1993): 229-43. For the suggestion that
Entfremdung,"

Marx is

"nature"

Marx

and

Spinoza

can

be

applied against the

Rousseauian subject,
notes

see

Politique."

Balibar, "Le Politique, la

speak of a Spino-

M. Rubel

suggests of

Marx's dissertation

that "one

is tempted to

Marx's Anomalous
zist

Reading
p.

of Spinoza

31

reading

of

Epicurus by

Marx"

("Marx
that

la

recontre

de

Spinoza,"

244)-a

suggestion which

seems

particularly insightful

given

Marx's dissertation

uses

Epicurus to

critique

Democritean

atomism.

12. See Kurt

(Berlin: Walter de
and

Rottgers, Kritik und Praxis: Zur Geschichte des Kritikbegriffs Gruyter, 1975), from which I borrow the discussion of
ed. and

von

Kant bis Marx

critique

"enlightenment"

its

reversal

in Marx.
trans. Donald R.

See P. J. Proudhon, What Is Property,

(Cambridge: Cambridge 13. Two
confusion of

Kelley

and

Bonnie G. Smith

University Press,
confirms

1993).
that he disclosed "his

years

later, Marx
with

'political'

'human

emancipation'

[Sein Grundirrtum, die

[Bauer's] fundamental error, the Verwechselung der 'poli(HF,

p.

tischen

mil

der 'menschlichen
writes:

Emanzipation,'

aufgedeckt]"

wurde
.

112,

emphasis original). are

14. Hence. Negri

woven

"In Spinoza
moments

civil

society

and the political

State

completely
civil
an

together,

as

inseparable

of association and antagonism produced

in

constitution.

The State is society

illusion"

not conceivable without

the simultaneity of the social, and neither,

inversely, is

conceivable

without

the State.
p.

The bourgeois

ideology

of civil

society, then, is only

(The Savage
might

Anomaly,

200).
critical appropriation of

15. One
dation"

say that Marx's

and praxis).

Spinoza

accomplishes what

Negri

says

Spinoza himself

does,

viz. the replacement of the

"first

foundation"

(religion) by
attempts
a

the "second foun

(expression

It is

curious the extent to which

Negri

to

downplay Ethics

"regression."

as somehow a

See The Savage Anomaly,

at

passim.

In

the discomfiture of

Hegelianism precisely
'atemporal'

Spinoza's

usage

of sub
not

later writing, Negri locates specie aeternitatis: "if the

succeed

transcendental wishes to absorb the energy of the singular,

it does

however

in

doing

it

justice. The

"acosmic,'

Spinoza

expresses a concept of

time as

presence and as singular

ity

that the great dialectical machine wishes to expropriate, but

p.

cannot"

("Spinoza's Anti-Moder

nity,"

5).

16. Theodor Adorno

(New York:

and

Continuum, 1993),

Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John p. 41.

Cumming

Corrections to Leo Strauss, "German Nihilism":

Published in
pp.

Interpretation,

vol.

26

no. 3

(Spring 1999),

353-78.

The transcription
the typescript

of

Leo Strauss's handwritten insertions in

Nihilism"

and additions

to

"German

was checked against the original

by

Wiebke fol

Meier, Munich. The

lows:

text published

in Interpretation

should

be

corrected as

Page 355, line 2 from bottom: National

cialism

socialism should read

National So

Page 356, line 4:

[The
word

motive

led to

nihilism, should read motive

led

to nihilism.

led is

underlined

twice.]
militarism

Page 356, line 5: young atheist should read young atheists Page 356, line 23: German nihilism is related should read German

is

related

Page 356, line 5 from bottom: the break in the tradition

with the tradition

should read

the

break

Page 356, line 4 from bottom: from the

rejection of

rejection of modern civilisation

to the

the

principle of civilisation as such should read

from the

rejection of

the

principles of modern civilisation

to the rejection of the principles of civilisa

tion as such

Page 359, line 17: it

element

was not a sound

demand

should read

it has

not a sound

Page 360, line 3 from bottom: argument,

ment,
more

or more

precisely

should read argu

precisely Page 360, line 2 from bottom: about the probable future the future [probable crossed out by Leo Strauss]

should read about

Page 360, line 1 from bottom:

should read of

of the past,

and above

all, of the

present.

the past and, above all, of the

emphasized

present. should read emphasized

Page 361, line 2:

that

before that

the

fact

Page 362, line 6: the Page 362, line 12:

attention

it

should read

the attention which it

author of

should read

Baumler [Alfred Baeumler,

Nietzsche,

der Philosoph

und

Politiker, Leipzig 1931]

Page 364, line 14: a servant or slave should read a servant and slave Page 364, line 15: distinction which should read distinction, which
Page 364, line 28:
which are more
which

easily

should read which are most

easily

Page 373, lines 10-11: in

the

question of who

is to

exercise

military

interpretation, Fall

2000, Vol. 28, No. 1

34
rule

Interpretation
became the
order of the

day

should read

in

which the question of who

is

to exercise planetary rule became the order of the day.

Page 373,
wrote:

note

4:

few illegible handwritten

words

should

read

Strauss

Cabaret des Westens, Ullstein

note page

Page 375,
correction

11: Illegible

word should read

Strauss

wrote:

Baumler [see

to

362, line 12].

Discussion

Reply
Catholic

to

Arnhart

Richard F. Hassing

University

of America

Larry
Right
Arnhart:

Arnhart

responds to

with a restatement and

my review and criticisms helpful elaborations of his

of

Darwinian Natural

position.

(1) begins

with

Strauss

on the problem of modern natural

Specifically, science; (2)

the
supplements

elaborates the opposition

between

reductionism and

emergence,
and

defending

truth of the latter as

the argument of
a

a requirement of natural

kinds

ends;

(3)

Darwinian Natural Right

by

recourse

to the work of Leon

Kass,

contemporary thinker on whose value incest

aversion as

example of

both agree; (4) concludes with the illustrative of Darwinian natural right. I regard
we

these as the salient points, although

brief

mention

is

also made

by

Arnhart

of

E. O. Wilson

and

Allan

Bloom.'

My

argument

in "Darwinian Natural
(pp.

Right?"

is based

on a

list

of six philosophical problems

133-34)

and an appendix

of eleven quotations

from Strauss

on science

(pp. 151-56). I

refer

back to these

in the following. I
would

like to

make as clear as possible our points of

disagreement, but
of

this

intention is hampered
"Darwin"

by

unavoidable ambiguities

"Darwinism."

and
and the vast

What is the

relation

in the meaning between Darwin's

the terms

own thought a

body

proponent of

philosophy Darwinism? Is Darwin? Are notions

or

of science and

now called

Darwinism? Is Kass
ends of natural

of

the

living

kinds to be found in Darwin himself

natural ends with

beyond
or

universal are a

in later Darwinism, or not? If not, are reproductive fitness compatible with Darwin or
on

Darwinism,

they,

the contrary, incompatible with

Darwin

or

Darwinism? We have

Darwin specialists, as in this contradiction both affirming only a difference in degree not in
did
not adequately appreciate the distinction. Thus, on this crucial

confusing set of alternatives. Clarification is a task for Arnhart makes clear when he states that "Darwin is caught
and
kind"

denying that the human difference is (p. 265). According to Arnhart, Darwin
for the degree-kind
human
specific whether there exists a

significance of emergence
point

difference

Darwin himself

was of two minds.

We can, however,
principles of random

consider a variation and

very

useful question. selection

Consider the two

great

and natural

for

reproductive

fitness,

hallmarks

of

both Darwin
be

Darwinism. Are these

principles understood

given thinker to
'comprehensive'

comprehensive of

the biological realm, or only

such as the

by a partial? By
the noble

mean that no other principles

Good,

INTERPRETATION,

Fall 2000, Vol. 28, No. 1

36
or

Interpretation

beautiful,
beings

the

Intellect,

the divine

are

ing

including
principles

ourselves.

By

'partial'

liv ultimately needed to account for Darwinian prin I mean that the two
because the

ciples are not

false, but

must share the stage with other principles, cover a part or an aspect of the

Darwinian

If some living only one, like Hans Jonas, or Leon Kass, or the Pope, or (descending) myself, under stands the two Darwinian principles as partial, then there is plenty of room in
realm. principles

their thought for accounts that are compatible with those

speak

and that

approvingly

of

Darwin(ism)
Darwinian

while

going beyond it. But if

as

someone else

understands the

two

principles

comprehensive, then, of course

will militate against any approvingly use of Hans Jonas on the beyond it. This was the point of going my elevation of common means into specific ends, "one of the paradoxes of

they, too,
talk of

will speak

of

Darwin(ism), but

life"

("Darwinian Natural
are

Right?"

p.

141). We do

not answer

this crucial question

the

Darwinian

principles comprehensive or partial?

by

affirming the truth

of

evolutionary

emergence over against reductionism.

The

refutation of reduc

tionism

by

emergence

condition of the of

is salutary, but it is only a necessary, not a sufficient possibility of a Socratic (Platonic, Aristotelian) understanding
and

the human natural kind

mysterious"

its

problematic situation

in

a whole that

is "elu (thus

sive

(Strauss,
can

quotation

6). This is because

an emergentist

antireductionist)

theory

be

either species-neutral or species-specific.

Let

me

explain

how I

understand

the distinctions between reductionism,

no significant

emergentism,

and species-neutrality.

There is

difference between
It is

Arnhart issue.
A

and me on the

the second

first distinction, distinction, emergentism in

reductionism versus emergentism. relation

to species-neutrality, that is at

system admits reductionist explanation

if its behavior
parts when

can

be derived from,
parts are

or reduced

to, the be

properties possessed

by

its

the

isolated

from

one another.

This is

always a

what could

more convenient than

tempting taking a thing

approach to complex wholes,

for in

apart, studying its

parts each parts

by itself,
order to

and

then

trying

to sum up or aggregate the properties of the

deduce the

properties of

the whole? The essential assumption here is

that the parts of the whole are not modified in any

fundamental way by

their
parts

coming together
are prior

or

being

together in the constitution of the whole. So the

to the whole, both

ontologically
opposite

Politics 1253a20-24, for the

to the parts.)

knowledge. (See Aristotle, possibility, namely, that the whole is prior

and
our

in

Classical

mechanics

is the

preeminent example

of reductionist

science, in
rule

which the essential

assumption

is

embedded

in the

parallelogram

for

composition of

forces, Corollaries I
we

and

II

of

Newton's Principia. But

that cannot
exam

what

if, in

spite of the success of reductionism

for many important systems,

are other systems

e.g., machines, the solar system,

find that there

be adequately

or

fully

explained

in terms

of simpler parts?

Suppose, for
it

ple, that the things we call

"alive"

possess survival

instinct,

a principle of activ

ity

residing in the

whole organism as

such,

and suppose that

remains impossi-

Reply
ble to derive
survival

to

Arnhart

37
a

instinct

by summing up
grant

(in however

sophisticated

fashion)
we survival

the properties of the isolated parts, say, molecules, in spite of all that
about molecules.
emerged

know

We then

instinct,

during

the origin of life in the

a

that, somehow, this holistic property, remote past. We have

of the whole that cannot

an emergent property,

meaning

property

be

ade

quately

explained

in terms

of simpler antecedent parts.

The idea

of emergent

properties

has become
the
past

increasingly

accepted within the new sciences of com

plexity

over

few decades,

not

to mention the older tradition of emergent

evolution that

Imagine

now a research program

Arnhart nicely describes. But there is more to the story. in biology in which we seek to understand
the many kinds of organisms as expressions of

all the specific characteristics of

that one common principle, survival

instinct, according

to different local envi

and compe

ronments, under conditions of random

heritable variation, predation,

tition
of

for food. On this account, the differences that presently specify the kinds organisms began as, and remain, means to one common end: survival in the
struggle

universal unique

for

existence.

For example, the human

species

evolved

brain,
we

unlike

that of any other species.

and

According
our

to our

research pro

gram,

originally acquired,

presently possess,

distinctive brains for

the sake of surviving and reproducing in our local environment, just as a garden

slug has its distinctive equipment for the sake of surviving and reproducing in its local environment. This is a species-neutral, emergentist (nonreductionist)
theory. The alternative, emergentist and species-specific account, which
outside

falls

the imagined research program, would be Aristotelian: we survive and

reproduce

using our distinctive brains well in thought, speech, and action (Nicomachean Ethics 1139al9, 1139b5-6, As I understand it, Darwin(ism) is species-neutral in the sense just described. for the
sake of
1178a5-8).2

Therefore, if
it
with
and
means.

one regards

Darwin(ism)
about

as comprehensive, one cannot combine

Aristotle.

They
the

disagree

the end or telos

with this

in

relation

to origins

As to why

we cannot and

dispense

dichotomy (Darwinism,
Aristotle,
without comprehen
reflec prob

comprehensive of

living

species-neutral, versus

sive of the

living

and

species-specific)
Right?"

by

simply saying,
tool
and

deeper

tion, that the human brain-mind is both the lem 5 of "Darwinian Natural
As far
as

survival

truth seeker, see

value of

truth for life (pp. 144-45).

on the crucial question

can

see, Arnhart does

not

declare himself
of

Rather, he says, partiality and cosmic approvingly, that "Darwinian theory does away with any right requires a cosmic teleol says, disapprovingly, that Hassing "thinks natural
of the comprehensiveness or

Darwinian

science.

teleology,"

ogy
and

so that the order of the whole universe supports

human

goodne

(pp. 268

269). But

either

way

rejection with

tainty
This
it

of comprehensive

teleology

certainty or mystery (and aporiai)

understand

demonstration
would

with cer

be dispelled.

indicates to me that Arnhart does not yet

the difference between

not possessed.

wisdom possessed and

love

of a wisdom that

is

needed

but

And has

so

seems

that he

does

not yet

understand, or in his

pursuit

of science

38

Interpretation

perhaps

forgotten,
and

Aristotle,
status

the meaning of philosophy, so crucial for Socrates, Plato, the Strauss. This is problem 4 of "Darwinian Natural
Right?"

(and meaning)

cluding paragraph of the fundamental issues Strauss impinges. Let

natural science

philosophy (pp. 142-45), and the subject the present reply. We are thus brought to the
of
Arnhart'

of

the con
of

doorstep

on which

s account of

Aristotle, Darwin,

and

us

look

once again at

Strauss

on the problem of modern

in

right.3

relation

to classical natural

According to Arnhart, there are two fundamental premises of classical natural (1) "the uniqueness of human beings as set apart from the rest of animal (p. 263). nature"; (2) "the cosmic teleology that sustains human Taking his bearings by the Introduction to Natural Right and History, Arnhart
right:

purposefulness"

then says that "Strauss thought Aristotle had the

clearest view of

this

depen

dence

teleology"

of natural right on natural

physics of

(p. 263),

such that the refutation of

Aristotle's teleological his teleology

the heavens

by

classical mechanics

infected
this is
a

of the other parts of

the

cosmos. a

Unfortunately, I believe

misreading himself. The intended

as

of

Strauss's

real

position, but
appended

eleven quotations

misreading facilitated to "Darwinian Natural

one

by

Strauss
are

Right?"

a corrective

to the

impression

gets

by looking
natural

solely

at

the

Introduction to Natural Right

and

History. In light

of those

statements, I believe
science

that Strauss's understanding of the problem of modem

is

not

based

on

the status of

premise

2 (Aristotle's

cosmic

teleology), but

rather on

species-neutrality

as the predominant characteristic of modern natural science.

Species neutrality denies premise 1, which is indeed the key premise of classical natural This in turn poses our disputed question: is Darwin(ism) species
right*

neutral

or not?

I believe it is,

as explained

above.

Arnhart believes that the

refutation of universal reductionism

by

the far more plausible accounts of emer

gence

in

several classes of natural phenomena suffices to solve the problem

by

securing the human specific difference, while avoiding the extreme dualism (from Hobbes through Kant) that separates man from nature altogether, thereby
making
ence'

of man

and

society

understand

Hassing's

claim that

radically malleable Darwinian theory

artifact.
must

Arnhart does "not 'species differ

deny

and affirm

'species

neutrality'"

(p. 265). In the first place, it is Strauss's

claim: see quotation

7. It

I have tried to

explain the

and species-neutrality.

should thus

distinctions between reductionism, emergentism, be clear that Darwinian theory is not spe different
species

cies-neutral with respect to means; equipment

genes.

have

acquired

very different
the problem:

look
that

at the

human brain

with which to survive and project their

But

(the last

six words of the

preceding sentence) is

for Darwinian theory, tionist, is perfectly

plained

the one, universal, common, thus species-neutral end

is

survival and/or reproductive

fitness. Emergent naturalism,

although
of this

antireduc-

compatible with the

species-neutrality
incest

end,

as ex mo

above,

and as

Arnhart's

own account of

aversion

(discussed

mentarily)

shows.

Reply
Am I
mistaken

to

Arnhart

39

here? Do Darwin

or

Darwinism
fitness

offer grounds

for qualifying
random

this conception of the end of

variation and selection

living

things,

grounds
are

for saying that

This is its two

for

reproductive

the adequate principles of

end? problem

origin,

but

not of ends, or at
Right?"

least

not of the

human

of

"Darwinian Natural
and end product ples must share

on the causal relation

between

generative process
great princi

(pp. 138-42). Can

Darwin(ism) happily

grant that

the stage with other principles, that it is partial and not compre
am

hensive? If so, then I

grand

wrong, and

so, for

we

would

then have

synthesis,

and a more natural which there

science,
room

of the

biologically

rooted, but dis

problem

tinctively human, in

is

for conjectural, provisional,

which

atic, but unavoidable attempts to unstable, potentially tyrannical

of

make sense of a mysterious whole and of our

place

in it,

is accordingly
the

always

in

need

moderating

awareness to

keep

us

from

unlimited willful self-assertion

(and
prob

this is problem 2 of

"Darwinian Natural

Right?"

Baconian-Cartesian

lem [pp. 145-51];

Arnhart'

see

s account of

Politics 1324a25-25a5 for incest is not encouraging.

"the

the ancient

version).5

But

In

keeping
.

with the polemical

(and worthy) intention that in

part motivates

his work, Arnhart

opposes

claim of

Hobbesian

philosophers

[Freud
a

was a

Hobbesian]
learned

that the abhorrence of

incest is

not natural at

all, but

purely

based only on (p. 271). Against a radical ethical con ventionalism that denies to morality any natural support, Arnhart presents the valuable contributions of Edward Westermarck and of recent sociobiology (pp.
custom"

response

271-75). The
confirms the
right."

result

is "a

good

Darwinian

explanation of

incest

avoidance

that

Socratic insight into the incest taboo

as an expression of natural

For "Plato [had

left]

it

unclear

why this
we

sacred taboo arises

in the
spe

first

place"

(p. 270). In the Darwinian approach, (not the final

cies-neutral origins

forms)

of

look to the common, things. Now obviously,

inbreeding
animal

tends to produce physical

and mental

deficiencies in the offspring [of

all

species] that lower their fitness in the Darwinian

struggle

[universal,
. . .

not

human]

for

existence.

[And therefore]

as a result

natural

specifically selection has fa

vored the mental

whom one sion to
and

disposition to feel

an aversion to sexual

mating
.

with those with

.

has been

incest has

this natural aver intimately associated from early childhood. inclined [most] human beings to feel moral disapproval for incest,

this moral emotion has been expressed culturally [thus in human societies] as

an

incest taboo. (P.

272)
deposit

Incest

aversion

is

a neuropsychological and chemical

placed within us

by

the hand of

natural selection. against go

This is

not a

trivial discovery. It is well worth

relativ

knowing, especially
ism. But it doesn't
and are trained

the all-too-familiar background of radical

far

enough.

Why? Because

we

humans have condoms,

in their

use. says

As Arnhart resoundingly

on

page

266

of

Darwinian Natural Right,

40

Interpretation
unlike

"[h]uman beings, know why they

live."

believe they any other animals, cannot live unless they Thus we, unlike any other animals, have myths, religious

beliefs,
the

philosophy, and science.

Do

we now

know,

through Darwinian science,

sufficient reason

common opinion about

the why we live with the incest taboo? In Plato's Laws, incest is reported to be that it is "hateful to the gods,
things"

and the most shameful of shameful

(838bl0-cl;

quoted

by Arnhart,

p.

270). But, according to the Darwinian scientific account, the real cause of incest aversion has nothing to do with the gods or the shameful, the noble or the base. It has to do only with the production of biological offspring unfit for further common to all organ reproduction "in the Darwinian struggle for
existence"

isms. If this is the just

prevent

real problem,

and the

sole problem, with

the conception or birth of any offspring resulting

a condom.

incest, why not from incestuous

interfere
with

intercourse? Use

Get

an

abortion.

Won't this
to

solve the problem?

Don't we,

unlike

any

other animals,

have the

power

override or

the hand of natural selection? (Some even claim that we can now, through ge
netic

science, begin the

process pp.

of unnatural

selection, or self-evolution; see

this

"Darwinian Natural
show

Right?,"

145-47.) Doesn't

fact

alone

suffice

to

that,

whether we

like it

"in-between"

or not, we are

beings,

set apart

from

the rest of animal nature? The biological

rootedness of our

humanity
in the
of

and our

kinship
that

with the other animals must

indeed be

recognized and

researched, but it
same

must not

be forgotten that

we are not members of our species

way

they

are members of theirs.

Let

us conclude the
and

discussion leaves

incest

with a

look

at where

the Darwinian account, of

by itself,

us.
case

Although the incest taboo is human beings

will not

a cultural

universal, it is the

that "a few

develop

the aversion to incest that is normal

for

most

people."

als will

Now precisely because the taboo is universal, "these deviant individu (p. 273). But, as long as they use provoke a deep disgust from
others"

contraception or of

abortion, is there really anything wrong with their

enjoyment

the sort of sex to

they happen to
them, to

prefer?

As

long

as

they

assume the responsibil

ity

practice evolution-safe

incest

and

don't

produce

offspring, is there any

against

reason

to condemn

display

our

disgust publicly, to discriminate

them? The incest taboo should be reformed.

simply a for the Darwinian reasons indicated. Similarly, attraction majority preference, to incest is a minority preference. Each is but a part of one's sexual orientation,
and subject

Aversion to incest is

now

to determination according to free

(unconstrained)
incest

choice

by

indi
a

viduals.

As

long
no

as

we

make

sure

to have our

without

babies, it's

lifestyle

choice.

Thus,

although

it's

not

for me, because my

old aversion

lingers

on, I have

right

to condemn it in others. Isn't this where the

Darwinian

account, of and

by itself,

leaves

us?

Therefore, I
they

agree with

Leon Kass that, away

our

"we
say,

are suspicious of

those who think that

can rationalize

horror,

by trying
of

to explain the enormity of incest with arguments only about the

inbreeding."6

genetic risks of

Arnhart,

course, did

not

intend to

rationalize

away

our

horror; he

thought

Reply
he
was

to

Arnhart

41

grounding it normatively in nature. But rationalizing away is Darwinian scientific account does by virtue of the peculiar and

what the modern

typically

(post-seventeenth-century)
pacities and operations.

type

of

For

since the

causality Darwinian

that it places behind the human ca

account

is species-neutral, it

that the real (as opposed to merely apparent) causes of my desires and aversions are common to other animal species, and not specifically human.
must conclude

What is
appear

distinctively depravity
I do
not

human is my incest

conscious apprehension of the objects that

and my choices, e.g., the per se dysgenic consequences. But those

to me to be the causes of my emotions

of

shameful

regardless of

objects are revealed

causes

by

Darwinian

science to

be

projections or side effects of

that

reproductive

consciously apprehend and fitness that is a goal common to

that aim per se

all

simply

at the

organisms,

an end

which,

unlike the noble and the relation

base,

elicits neither praise nor

to human virtue and vice

1177al414

blame, and has little (Nicomachean Ethics, 1103al0, 11 15bl2,

see that the apparent

1151M9,
of

17). Thus enlightened, I

the problem of

depravity

incest is only the "Darwinian Natural

(too

per accidens cause of

Right?"

my aversion. This is problem 3 of hidden-hand causation, even in the

things closest to us, our own passions and purposes (pp. 135-36).
ment

Next I

com

briefly)

on the work of

Leon Kass,
Kass
a

and then conclude on

the question

of cosmic

teleology.

It

seems to me

wrong to

call

Darwinian,

since

I do

not

believe he
sees

would agree

that the Darwinian

principles are comprehensive.

Kass

both

the common biological and the specifically human, and gives each its due (see especially The Ethics of Human Cloning, pp. 24-31). In viewing the biological roots of our humanity in light of the distinctively human, he corrects Darwin
and goes

beyond him. In his

conclusion of

The

Hungry Soul,
and

Kass

speaks of

our orientation to

"the beautiful, the good, the true,

excellent philosophical

the

holy"

(The

Hungry
The

Soul,

p.

231). In Kass's

writings, references to mystery

science as part of the truth.

are not uncommon. crucial question

Kass
could

can accept

Darwinian

is,

Darwinian

science accept

Kass?

conclude

by

returning to the

subject of cosmic or comprehensive

teleology,

or more sion that

correctly,

ultimate principles.

I have

conveyed

to Arnhart the impres

so that the order of was not

I think "natural

right requires a cosmic

teleology
met

the whole

universe supports

human

goodness"

(p. 269). This be

tion. Consider: could such a

requirement ever

by

human
this

reason?

my inten (See To

Strauss,
answer

quotation

5.)

Did Aristotle think that he had

read

met

requirement?

this question, we must

passages

the most beautiful

in the Aristotelian
kinds
of

Parts of Animals, 644b22-645a27, among corpus. There we learn that differ

ent classes of phenomena or certainty. about

being

are

known

with

different degrees

of

Specifically,
things.
of

we can have greater certainty about the biological than

the astronomical, although the astronomical beings are greater in rank

than the

living dignity

There is

tradeoff between the certainty of knowledge and

we

its

object.

It is true today that

live among

plants and animals

42

Interpretation

and are connatural to the whereas the stars

latter,

and thus can

know them

with

high certainty,
origin of

(on

whose spectacular processes we now

not

know the
mention

life depended) are too big to get into a laboratory, universe itself. Cosmology, whether philosophical or physical, is always conjec tural and uncertain, and I believe Aristotle understood his own to be so as well.
to

the whole

(See

also

Topics, 104bl

18,

on

the certainty of

arguments

the universe.)

My

point

in "Darwinian Natural

Right?"

for the eternity of was twofold: (1) The

questions about

the ultimate principles of the universe

what might

they be?
open-ended

and

their

possible relations
now

to conceptions of the human good

must

is

domination,
study.

through genetic science, our work?

of the

be kept

open

for

(2) Plato's Idea

Good,

the

noble or

beautiful, Artistotle's Intellect

exemplify necessary ence on praxis defensible

other.

attempts

to make theoretical life and its

against the claims of

moderating influ domination in one form or an is

a post-sec

(Regarding

natural

teleology,

remember

that the Republic

requires

ond-sailing
whole

work.)

This

premodern

intention

an

account

of
not

the the

unavoidably highest being.

conjectural and

less than

certain

in

which man

is

In his response, Arnhart (p.

quotes the passage

from "Darwinian Natural

of

Right?"

147) in

which

cite the

following

line from "The Profession

good man orders

Faith

of

the

Savoyard

Vicar"

in Rousseau's Emile: "the

himself in

relation

to the whole, and the wicked one orders the whole point, again,

in

relation to

himself."

My

is

much

is simply that a premodern understanding of this general type (there latitude) is part of defending the notion that we have ends prior to

whereby to limit our transcendent powers of domination (see also The Hungry Soul, p. 78). Tellingly, Arnhart ignores my concern about domination
choice

my reference to Descartes on the infinity of human will, and wonders in stead if I am perhaps employing esoteric writing by using Rousseau, a very modern thinker. No no esotericism is needed or intended here; I picked Rous
and seau's

formulation because it is
I have
a problem

concise and

beautiful.
account.

Finally,
is

in my

own

trans-Darwinian

If the

whole

mysterious

(Strauss,
in

quotation

6),

or even

incomplete,

how exactly

are we

to

order ourselves

relation to the whole?

conclude with another quotation

from Strauss,

who quotes

Thomas Aqui

nas, who paraphrases

Parts of Animals, 644b32-645al:

Philosophy
uine

is essentially not possession of the truth, but knowledge of a fundamental question, thorough

quest

for the
of

truth.

Gen

than blindness to
nied

it,

or
of

indifference to it, be that indifference

quod potest

understanding or blindness

it, is better
accompa

by

knowledge

the answers to a vast number of peripheral or ephemeral ques

tions

or not.

Minimum

haberi de

cognitione rerum

altissimarum, desid-

erabilius est quam certissima cognitio quae

habetur de

minimis rebus.

(Thomas

Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I,

q.

1,

5)7

a.

Reply
NOTES

to

Arnhart

43

1.

Larry Arnhart, "Defending

response

Darwinian Natural

Right,"

Interpretation, 27,
Right?"

no.

(Spring 2000):

263-77, in

Richard F Hassing, "Darwinian Natural Interpretation, 27, no. 2 (Winter 1999-2000): 129-60. For my comments on E. O. Wilson's Consilience (New York: Alfred
to

A. Knopf, 1998), 2. The

ed., Final

see

Academic Questions, 12,

no.

1 (Winter 1998-99): 6-8.

material

Causality
pp.

in the preceding two paragraphs is discussed in detail in Richard F. Hassing, in Nature and Human Affairs (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America
and

Press, 1997),

211-56.

3. Note that in Natural Right

right teachings (pp. 146 ff.); I 4. I discuss Strauss
Human Affairs,
pp.

History
over

Strauss distinguishes three types

differences in
order to simplify.

of classic natural

am

glossing

on natural science

in my Introduction to Final

Causality

in Nature

and

10-22.

Arnhart continues to focus solely on Strauss's Introduction (see also Natural Right, p. 166), concluding to the dualism that, in Arnhart's words, "rejects the comprehensive naturalism of the (p. 263). But Strauss premodern exponents of natural right such as Aristotle and Thomas
Aquinas"

spent

far

more

time with Plato and Socrates than with

Aristotle,

and

"Socrates

was so

far from
.
.

being
light

committed

to

specific

cosmology that his knowledge

truth,
of the whole.
whole"

was

knowledge

of

ignorance

knowledge

of the elusive character of the

Socrates, then,
6). The

viewed man

in the

of the mysterious character of

the

(Strauss,

quotation

account of

the Idea of

the Good in Plato's Republic is perfectly

compatible

with

Strauss's

statement.

I believe that the

of

Idea

of the

philosophic

Good is conjectural, uncertain, problematic, but necessary for the self-consistency life. See the concluding paragraph of this reply.
poses

5. Leon Kass

the problem with greater equanimity in The

p.

Hungry

Soul (Chicago: The

openness

University
(in the

of

Chicago Press, 1999),

of

78: "Can

we

successfully

guide our

indeterminate

realm

action)
also

awareness)?"

See

by some of the discoveries of our receptive openness (in the realm of Hungry Soul, p. 196. The awful fact of Nazism (see Arnhart on Heidegger,
have
a problem that no other species

p.

277)

shows that we

has.

6. Leon R. Kass

and

James Q. Wilson, The Ethics of Human

Cloning (Washington,
p.

DC: The

American Enterprise Institute

Press, 1998), pp. 18-19. 7. What is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1959),

11.

Reply

to

Lowenthal

Edward J. Erler
California State University, San Bernardino

Resistance to tyrants is

obedience to

God. Thomas Jefferson

[Jefferson]

supposed there was a question of

God's

eternal

justice

wrapped

up in

the enslaving of any race of men, or any man, and that those who did so braved the arm of Jehovah that when a nation thus dared the friend of that

Almighty

every

nation

had

cause to

dread His

wrath.

Abraham Lincoln

Professor Lowenthal fails to

state

understand that the separation of church and

is

not

the same as the separation of religion and politics. This is a point

that is made

by
a

Tocqueville in the

and one

that was

thoroughly
must

understood

by

the

Founders. In first

famous passage, Tocqueville

part

wrote that

"[r]eligion in America be
regarded as

takes no direct

government of

society, but it

the

of their political

institutions."

The

principal

task of the

Founders,

of

course,
rule

was to create constitutional government and secure the conditions of

for the

law.

They

believed that this

Founders' Test"

could not

be done

without a separation of church was that there should

Trust."

and state.

And the

be

no

"religious

as a

understanding of separation "Qualification to any Office

life. Constitutional
of

or public

The

Framers knew ian disputes minority

nize

that no constitutional government was possible as

long

as sectar

animated political

government requires

that the

acquiesce

in the decisions
of

the majority in the sense that

they recog
is in

the

legitimacy
rule on

majority

majority rule. But no religious minority sectarian issues. The recognition of the rights for

will ever accept

of conscience

thus a precondition of constitutional government because it establishes the basis

for
the

the political

his "A Bill for

friendship that is necessary Establishing Religious

Constitution,

citizenship.

Jefferson

argued

Freedom,"

penned some

ten years before

drafting

of the

that our civil rights have no dependence

our opinions

on our religious

opinions, any

more

than
as un

in

physics or

geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen

worthy fices of trust

opinion, is

the

public confidence

by laying
he
of

upon

him

an

incapacity

of

being

called

to of

and emolument, unless

profess or renounce

this or that

religious

depriving

him

injuriously

those

privileges and advantages

to which, in
to corrupt

common with

his fellow citizens, he has

a natural

right; that it tends

also

INTERPRETATION, Fall

2000, Vol. 28, No. 1

46

Interpretation
the
principles of

the very religion it is meant to encourage,

by bribing,
externally

with a mo
profess and

nopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those conform to it. (emphasis original)

who will

This

statement was ones

fully

accepted

by

the Christian ministers

or at

least the

"Lockeanized"

who

believed that the

separation of church and state was was a

no

less

dictate

of

New Testament theology than it

dictate

of reason and

natural right.

Professor Lowenthal
"Enlightenment

argues that the principles of of the

the

Founding, notably
for relying

the

rationalism"

Declaration,

undermined

the basis for moral

on

ity

that republican government requires. Lowenthal chides me

ministers

Christian

"writing

at about the time of

the

Declaration"

who saw no

ration and

necessary contradiction, as Lowenthal does, between the morality of the Decla biblical morality; rather, I should have cited similar arguments from
the Founders. Protestant ministers had been

basing

their sermons on "the

great

Mr.

Lock"

for

more

than

half century,

and

the public was suffused with the

notion of the engaged

in

compatibility of true religion and right reason. The Founders were regime debate. For them to have opened the theological-political

question when
unwise.

it had already been

of

solved on the political

level

would

have been

Agitation

this question could have threatened moral consensus that

and

supported

both the Revolution

the

Constitution. It
already

was

unnecessary for the

public opinion was

Founders to

convince those who were

convinced:

virtually rality derived from

contradiction

unanimous on the question of political morality.

religion
were

Religion

and the mo

the job of the preachers, and

they fulfilled

their task admirably, never

between

indicating that they believed there was any inherent Christianity and republican government based on the
In
some philosophic

principles of natural right.

sense, the doctrines

of

the Decla
reached

ration and those of revelation

that

it surely "Lockeanized

level,

as

could

may be not. But

incompatible, but
on the

the debate never

level

of

morality, the

agreement of

Christianity"

and the

doctrine

of natural rights could not

have

been

more complete.

verse.

Here, Lowenthal, however,

and

reason and revelation occupied

the same moral uni

claims that

this agreement was insufficient and that

neither side saw

the potentially corrosive effects of the

Declaration's

reliance

on

"reason
the

philosophy."

Lowenthal thus

refuses to understand the

Ameri

cans of

founding

generation as

they

understood

themselves.

Professor Lowenthal is
cepted
ity"

correct when of

he

argues that the was a

Christianity
of

that ac

"a

rational

philosophy

human

rights"

"Lockeanized Christian 1776

could

and

that without this transformation "the

Americans
of

[not]
a

have

accepted a

document like the Declaration

whether

Independence."

It may be

question

in Lowenthal's "mind
mankind,"

unity

of

Christianity teaches the equality and but it certainly was not a question in the minds of the colo

nial ministers.

One outstanding example should suffice: In 1780 the Reverend Samuel Cooper remarked in a widely circulated sermon, that

Reply
We
want

to
us

Lowenthal

47

not,

indeed,
...

a special revelation

from heaven to teach

that men are born

equal and of

free.

It is, however,
...

a satisfaction

to observe such everlasting maxims

equity

confirmed

in the

sacred

oracles; one internal mark of their divine origi

made of one

nal, and that

upon

they

come

from him "who hath

whose
part of

blood

all nations to

dwell

the face of the

of

earth,"

instead

oppressing any
the oppressor.

authority his family,

sanctifies

only those

governments that
and restrain

vindicate the

oppressed,

and punish

This

is,

of

course, the

theology
fall
of

of

Protestant Christianity. As Lowenthal Christ and in no way depends on But the Declaration does mention a
.

notes, the

Declaration "makes
("all

no mention of

the advent of sin and the

"Creator,"

man."

a creation

men are created equal

God"

.")

and

"Divine
of

Providence."

The

reference

to "Nature's

was

way

of

speaking

God that

would and

appeal to all religions

certainly

all monotheistic religions.

The Declaration

the Bible share the same assumptions about

God,

man and the universe.

The
not

Declaration

appeals to an eternal order and an

economy

of nature that

is, if

identical,
ministers,

then certainly compatible with monotheistic religion. Whatever minds

of a more sophisticated structure and

may conclude, this is the way the colonial I believe the Founders, understood the issue. Madison, Hamilton,
and

Jefferson, Wilson
tired of the
closer

Washington, among
rights."

host

of colonial

ministers,

never

phrase

"sacred

I believe that John

Quincy

Adams

came

to the heart of the matter than Lowenthal when, in his Jubilee of the
elaborated

Constitution (1839), he

the principles of the Declaration in the

fol

lowing

terms: "All this, is

by

the laws of nature and of nature's

God,

and of

course presupposes

the

existence of a

God,

the moral ruler of the universe, and

a rule of right and

wrong, of just and unjust,

and of

binding

upon

men, preceding all

institutions

of

human society

government."

Moreover, in his introduction

Adams explicitly
argued that of

to the Memoirs of Reverend Elijah

the Declaration was the

Lovejoy (1838)

logical

conclusion of

the "progressive

advancement

the "Christian system of

morals"

which

included the idea that "life,

rights of all

liberty

and

mankind

the

pursuit of

happiness

were

inextinguishable

(emphasis

original).

The Declaration
wise

provided a

foundation for
one

obligations

that

might

have

other

been

lacking
of

in Christianity. No

in the

founding

generation

thought

that rights were incompatible with

stood cal.

moral

obligations; rights were always under

in terms

the laws of

nature where rights and obligations were recipro

This reciprocity is certainly the basis of the social contract, and the idea that the protection of individual rights was in tension with the existence of the common good was never expressed by the Founders. None of the Founders
viewed rights as

idiosyncratic

preferences

divorced from

duty

or moral obliga

tion.

challenge

Professor Lowenthal to find

one statement to this effect.

public

State

ments to the contrary,

however,

are

legion, both in

documents

and private

letters. The idiosyncratic

view of rights was the product of

the Progressive "re-

48

Interpretation
that Lowenthal

founding"

justly decries,
saw as

but it is

not

any

part of

the "rational

liberty"

which the

Founders

the

product of social contract.

(See Madi

son's

Essay

"On

Sovereignty,"

the people both

in their

moral

capacity ("one people"). fact that they are "the good

1835.) The Declaration, for example, speaks of capacity ("the good People") and their political Indeed, Americans are "one by virtue of the
people"

People."

Lowenthal
equality
must

seems

to

endorse

the idea that a regime based on natural

a

human
egali-

inevitably

degenerate into

headlong

slide

into

permissive

tarianism. That all regimes face

dangers,

the Founders readily admitted, and

they

recognized

that republics

faced

unique

dangers that

required peculiar vigi

lance. But
"organic

vigilance"

while

"manly
not

was required to guard against was

dangers to the

law,"

I do

believe the Founders thought there

equality rightly understood which made It almost goes without saying that the founders in any way historicists.
principle of or
"fated."

anything in the its degredation inevitable

were not

Lowenthal
the

praises what

he describes

as

"Tocqueville's

attempt

...

to conceal

Declaration"

because it
a

was a "document of the philosophical

Enlighten

ment."

This is

somewhat

ingenious
the

argument

but fails

on

Tocquevillian
right,

grounds.

In Tocqueville's

view

Declaration,

as a statement of natural

was superfluous.

Equality

was not a principle of natural right

but

fated fact.

The decision for equality

most

and

democracy

had been decided

permanent

by

history: "it is the

that is to be

uniform, the most ancient and the most

history."

tendency
and

found in do

It is the

result of a

"providential

march"

with natural right or with

"the

principles of

human

nature."

has nothing to Regime questions had been

were

irrelevant for Tocqueville because the triumph

the

of

democracy

decided

by deliberately
queville

impersonal

albeit providential

forces

of

history. Rather than

concealing the Declaration because of its destructive influence, Toc found it irrelevant and undoubtedly must have been surprised by the
those who insisted that it was the principled foundation of
social
politics.

ahistorical sense of

American

After all, Tocqueville taught that

forces

produced poli

tics,

and politics was always subordinate to the mores of the people.

Tocqueville

in understanding the American Founders as they understood themselves because his principal audience was the French aristocracy, not
was uninterested

Americans. When

viewed as a sociological

fact

rather

than

a principle of natural rights

right, equality is opposed to liberty. But the Founders viewed equality of

as a regime principle product of

a statement of natural right

not a

fated fact

or the mere

history. It is the

modern

followers into
a

of

Tocqueville

who see

equality
and

of rights

as

necessarily demanded

degenerating
by

demand for equality

the

of results.

Equality

as a regime principle

is defensible

on the grounds of

Founders,
no

this defense is

original-intent

jurisprudence. There is
To
accept

defense
analysis

of regime principles on

Tocquevillian

grounds.

Tocqueville's
aspects of

is surely to abandon original-intent jurisprudence. Tocqueville demonstrated great foresight about

many

American

Reply
politics,
even predicted civil war.

to

Lowenthal

49

particularly the centralizing tendencies of the administrative state. He But he thought it would take the form of slave rebel lions against masters. Tocqueville could not have predicted that in America a
civil war would

be fought among the

master class over the

morality

of

slavery,

that

is,

whether the

Declaration

was to remain the

"sheet

anchor"

of

American

republicanism.

Clearly,
at

without the

been possible,
about

least

not

Declaration the Civil War would not have in the form it took. The Civil War is more revealing
anything
a ground

America's

soul than

chronicled
a

by

Tocqueville.
religion"

Did Lincoln
tion and

add a religious element

provide

"political

to the Declara

thereby
of

Lincoln,
our

course, regarded

for morality that was otherwise missing? Jefferson as "the most distinguished politician of

history."

Are

we

to understand

Lincoln literally? Did Lincoln

Or did he
understand

understand
as the work

Jefferson's Declaration
"politician"

as mere rationalism?

it

of a

in the
that

widest sense of the term?

call

I believe

an argument could and

easily be
rhetoric

made

Lincoln's

for

"political

religion"

his

powerful
on

in the Second Inaugural

were anticipated

by

Jefferson in the Notes

source of

State of Virginia. Lincoln certainly recognized that the rhetoric of redemption came directly from Jefferson:
the

his

own

And

can the

liberties

of a nation

be thought

secure when we

have

removed

their

only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I trem
ble for my country
ever: that wheel of

when

reflect

that

God is just:

that

his justice
only,

cannot

sleep for
the

considering numbers,

nature and natural means

a revolution of

fortune,

an exchange of supernatural

situation, is among possible

events:

that it may be

come probable

by

interference! The

Almighty has

no attribute which

can take side with us

in

such a contest.

Who

can

fail to hear

the echoes of this powerful statement in Lincoln's Second

Inaugural? It may be true that Lincoln had greater need of such rhetoric but it would be difficult to deny that his direct source was Jefferson. Lincoln's "politi
religion"

cal

was

fully

anticipated

by

Jefferson.

I believe Lowenthal fails to

the

appreciate one

fact

of

American

politics:

That

decline in the belief in the

hand in hand
with the

principles of

the Declaration of Independence has that a restoration of the princi

of religion
religions

gone

decline

of religion

ples of

the Declaration

both

public and private

is necessary for a restoration of the role life. Both the Declaration and mainstream
forces
of

in

have

suffered under the onslaught of the

historicism

and positivism.

These

forces

of

as supports

modernity have succeeded in undermining both reason and for moral and political life. The kind of value relativism
eroded

revelation
promoted

by

the Holmes-Brandeis school of jurisprudence has

no

the

principles of

the

Declaration

less than "liberation These

religions no

theology"

has

weakened

America's

main

stream religions.

longer

exhibit the

manly

spiritedness

that

50

Interpretation
forth in
support of the

the colonial ministers summoned

Declaration

of

Indepen

dence.

Leo Strauss

once wrote that

"wisdom

requires

constitutionalism"

constitution and even to the cause of

and

unhesitating loyalty to a decent (Liberalism: Ancient

Modern,

p.

24). The defense

spirit of

of constitutional government must always contention

be

undertaken
political right.
and

in the

Aristotle's

that

natural right

is

a part of

right, that

is, in full

recognition of

the

comprehensiveness of political

This is certainly the spirit that animated the statesmanship of Jefferson Lincoln. Mere intellectuals, on the other hand, subordinate political right to
right, thus exhibiting what Strauss called an

natural

"unmanly

contempt

for

politics."

Lowenthal certainly does not make that mistake, but I continue to believe that the Founders understood the theological-political problem more pro
than he is willing to admit.

foundly

Carl

Schmitt, Heinrich Meier,

End
of

and the

Philosophy

J. Harvey Lomax

University

of Memphis

To be
true

sure

am not

disposed to
for

see

nothing

as

true, but

rather to

say that

all

things

are

joined to false things

can

and that

these so resemble each other that no mark of

identification
going
not

be

certain

purposes of

judgment

and agreement.

From the fore

although
rule

this conclusion,

too,

results: much

is

credible or probable

that,

it is

perceived, nevertheless is held in distinct and clear view and can

in the life

of the wise.

Cicero De

natura

deorum 1.12

The

main current of modern political

thought might be very

altogether

misleadingly described,
a movement

with a view to

roughly but not its relationship to religious

concealed,
unsympathetic

faith,

as

follows:

from the

more-or-less

skepticism

(combined

with profound respect

for the

enormous potential political

utility of religion) of Niccolo Machiavelli, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and Baruch Spinoza to the open animosity of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche,

evidently wished to destroy the infamy root and branch. If we should leave aside for the moment the various exceptions one could take to this sweeping
who characterization of gaard

modernity

spring

to mind

we might observe that

among others, John Milton and Soren Kierke in the eyes of the person of faith,
proved not so

the emergence and development of modern thought represent a dreadful decline

and cataclysmic

loss. But the

infamy

easy to

eliminate on the one

side,

and on the other the so-called end of

philosophy

marked

the transition

from modernity to its upstart successor, ground for antagonism toward religion,
spective of
a more

postmodernity.

Lacking

postmodern

thought,

seen

any principled from a per

faith,

replaces

Nietzschean

and

Marxist best

programmatic

hostility

with

tolerant

incredulity
lurk in

at worst and at

with openness and receptivity.

If one trusted in Providence

and chose

to de-emphasize the dangers of irrational

ism that

sometimes

postmodern

quarters,

one might even view

key

ele-

Visiting

Research

and research grants

this

project.

Warm

Professorship in the Philosophy Department of the University of Heidelberg Bradley Foundation and the University of Memphis generously aided thanks are due to those institutions and particularly to Professors Hans-Georg
from the
and

Gadamer, Hillel Fradkin,

gratitude

Paul R. Hagner. Karen C. Armour

remarks on a previous

and

Marcus Brainard

earned sincere

for their thoughtful

draft.

interpretation,

Fall 2000, Vol. 28, No.

52

Interpretation
history's ironic
cure

ments of postmodernism as non

for that

scandalous phenome

decried

by

the

poets

in Plato's Laws,

the atheism of

philosophers

(967c-d).

Carl Schmitt,
significant and

increasingly

recognized around

the world as one of the most

influential

political

theorists of the twentieth century, did portray

the unfolding of modem thought as a dreadful decline and cataclysmic loss.

Intellectual historians

owe

to Heinrich Meier's
authoritative

two- volume

interpretation insight

of

Schmitt,
and

now

largely

regarded as

in Europe,

the

and the

conclusive proof

that throughout his life Schmitt's political

theory

remained

first

foremost

a political

declares: "To be sure, I have

Schmitt theology, based in faith in divine not changed. My freedom regarding ideas is unlim
contact with

revelati

ited because I
a

remain

in

historical

event:

the incarnation of

but center, which is not an my the Son of God. For me Christianity is not
. .

'idea'

primarily a doctrine or After the 1991

a morals or even publication of

event."2

(forgive me) a religion; it is a historical Schmitt's Glossarium, it became virtually

impossible Quite
which

intelligently
from the

to resist a

scholarly thesis buttressed

by

such manifest,

original, irrefragable
apart

verification.3

controversial

is the

sequel and
und

lengthier
"Der

companion volume

German jurist, The Lesson of Carl Schmitt, to the pathbreaking Carl

"

Schmitt, Leo Strauss

date.4

Begriff des Politischen,

merits sustained atten

tion, both for the principal issues and for their treatment, as Meier's main work The subtitle reads, "Four Chapters on the Distinction between Political to

Theology
tion,
or

and

Political

Philosophy."

The

chapter or

titles follow: "I.

Morality,

or

One's Own Question

Figure,"

as a

"II. Politics,
Me,"

What is
"IV.

Truth?,"

"III. Revela Christian

Who Is Not
in the

with

Me Is Against

and

History,

or the

Epimetheus."

As the

chapter titles

already hint,
more

the

"distinction"

so
a

delicately

spoken of

subtitle of

turns out to be

precisely

contest, nay, an epochal

if

not eternal

battle

the giants, political

recalls

theology

and political philosophy. subtitled

The

subtitle
on

inevitably
Doctrine

Schmitt's Political Theology,

Four

Chapters

the

treatise Schmitt unriddles

[Lehre] of Sovereignty. In the third chapter of that the paradox of the full title, namely why a jurispruden
require

tial topic like sovereignty should

rubric of political

investigation

under the

disconcerting
He de

theology. "All

pregnant concepts of modern political science are secularized

and

jurisprudence

[Staatslehre]
in terms
who

concept

theological

fends this

generalization not

only

on the

basis

of the

historical development

of

these concepts but also

of

their systematic structure (Politische Theosovereignty?

logie,

p.

51). For example,

to suspend

holds

We

recognize as sovereign

whoever makes the ultimate

has the

power

decisions in the life-and-death crisis, the actor who the laws in time of dire emergency (p. 13). Schmitt

looks back to the ostensibly naive age when Rene Descartes could write Mersennes that God established the laws of nature and, through his chosen king, the
royal

laws

state.6

of

God alone, the

ultimate sovereign of the

universe, has the

capacity miraculously to suspend the laws of nature. God alone, the ultimate

Schmitt, Meier,
sovereign of

and

the

End of Philosophy

53

the human race, provides the divine right of kings to legislate or

legitimately
and

to act lawlessly. Without

God, in

other words

notwithstanding
on

all

superficial rhetoric of progressives about

the popular will or the general will,

contrary to

Georg

W. F. Hegel's in the

mendacious end

teaching

the modern state

at

as the embodiment of reason

human beings find themselves

the

mercy, and subject

to the naked will, of tyrants (Politische

Theologie,

pp. 60-

66). Autoritas
p.

non Veritas facit pp.

legem (Authority,
the

66. Lesson,

112, 124). Between

no

truth, makes the law. Ibid., lines Schmitt implies that these earthly
not

tyrants resemble

fitting tormenters for those who seek paradise in the realm of the flesh. Despite the insobriety of his extremism (not to speak of dark shadows on his character and his actions during the Third Reich), Schmitt's
devils,
sovereignty entails a radical challenge to modern politics that has to be taken seriously. If Meier appears reluctant to raise
analysis of and

doubt

thought

a cudgel

in

defense
cal of

of

modernity, he nevertheless accepts Schmitt's

rule of

implicit,

still more radi

challenge, namely to the

human

reason

itself. With the Four Chapters

Political
of

Theology

so

ination

Schmitt

never

conspicuously included in the landscape, Meier's exam loses sight of the question of tyranny and its alternative. 2
makes

Nor,

as the subtitle of chapter

clear, does Meier forget the

central

query final
(p.

that Schmitt could raise against real and potential tyrants, what is truth?

Before adverting to each chapter in turn, let us cast a glance sentence of the book. Inter auctoritatem et philosophiam nihil est

at the

medium

173;

cf. p.

146

and

CFLS,

pp.

50

and more

generally 49-57). There is

no middle

ground

between authority

and philosophy.

This concluding
on the

assertion echoes

the

spirit of

Kierkegaard,

who

in Either-Or insisted
right and wrong.

inevitability
Hegel,

of a

funda

mental, guiding

choice

between

Of

course

Kierkegaard's inten
whose

tion becomes intelligible only in the light of, inter alia,

project

Herculean
one

to fuse the truths of

religion and

the truths of philosophy

Schmitt.7

into

body

of absolute

knowledge

so offended

Carl

Like Kierkegaard, Schmitt

misleading theological language, Hegel's system amounts to rank atheism; for Hegel puts humanity, even if humanity's God. (Politische Theo only representative be Hegel himself, into the place of synthesis of reason and reve putative 14-15). No pp. logie, pp. 64-65; Lesson,
grasped that underneath the sometimes

lation

can occur except at

the

expense of one or

the other. As Martin Heidegger

notion
. .

expresses a

it, "there is
'wooden

no such

thing

as a

Christian philosophy; that

is

iron.'

simply Kierkgaard's Either-Or

But there is derives in

also no phenomenological

theology

reputation

no small part

from his

recognition

of

this

and of
a

his

endorsement of a

simultaneously

self-aware and self-forget

ting leap
preserves

faith beyond

reason.9

Schmitt readily

concurs.

healthy

distance (for instance CSLS, Schmitt

pp.

Meier, by 81-96, Lesson,

contrast,
pp.

66-

121). He

confronts

ogy

and political

articulating Schmitt that philosophy,

and

by

distinction, between
to ask whether our

political

theol

obliterate

would

Yet Meier's study

does, like

Schmitt

Kierkegaard, force

us

moral-political

54

Interpretation
the

predicament necessitates

forsaking

or

transcending

of mere

faith in reason,
other

and

invites

us to ponder

our central concern

in this essay

how anything

than faith can lie at the bottom of philosophy

or political philosophy.

MORALITY

Behold,

the enemy that lives within

you strives

to kill Christ.
to

Hieronymus, Fourteenth Letter

The enemy is
our own question as a

Heliodorus, 2.

figure. Theodor Daubler/Heinrich Meier, Lesson,

p.

Moral outrage, Schmitt's

shows, in

sometimes

unadorned

but his

more

often

cloaked,
and

animates

principal endeavors throughout

years.

It bubbles

boils, Meier
the age
self-

all

Schmitt's

major writings. age

What in

arouses

Schmitt's indignation?

With

revulsion

he describes the very

which

he

and we

live,

characterized as

the capitalistic, mechanistic,

or organization.

relativistic

age,

as

the

age of

transport,

of

technology,
as

Indeed,

"business"

does

seem to

be its trademark, business

universal such

the

superbly
of

functioning
feel his

means

to some pathetic or senseless end, the

the

means over

the end, business that annihilates the

. . .

individual

that

priority he does

not even arose

nullification.

The

achievement of

vast, material wealth, which

strange.

from the

general preoccupation with means and

calculation, was

Men
in

have become
terested

poor

devils, "they know everything

and
.

and

believe

nothing."

They
.

are

in everything

enthusiastic about nothing.

They

understand
. .

thing; their

scholars register

in

history, in

nature, in

men's own souls

every Wherever

something does not go completely smoothly, an astute and deft analysis or a purpos ive organization is able to remedy the incommodity. Even the poor of this age, the
wretched multitude
.
.

prove

themselves to be children of this spirit, which

reduces

everything to a berance

formula

of

its

consciousness and admits of no mysteries and no exu

of the soul.

They

wanted

heaven

on

earth, heaven as the

result of

trade and

industry, a heaven that is really supposed to be here on earth, in Berlin, Paris, or New York, a heaven with swimming facilities, automobiles, and club chairs, a
heaven in love
not

which the

holy

book

would

be the timetable.

They

did

not want a

God

of

astonishing; why they things earthly heaven? After all, the most important had already been secularized. Right had become might; loyalty, calculability; truth,
should
. .

and

grace;

they had

"made"

so much that was

"make"

the tower of an

generally

acknowledged

correctness;

beauty,

good

ganization.

general substitution and

forgery

of values
. .

taste; Christianity, a pacifist dominated their souls.

good and evil.

or
.

[Usefulness
was

and

harmfulness took the

place of

horrific."

The confounding

The

modem world
magic.

mystery, and

lacks greatness, fulfillment, meaning, miracles, emotion, Above all, contemporary life is characterized by its god-

Schmitt, Meier,
lessness. The Providence between
sive

and

the End of

Philosophy

55

willful

planning

of

hubristic human beings

aims to replace

divine
choice

with a

secure, earthly paradise, in

which the

fundamental

good and evil will no

"New Man
God"

who

longer have any role (p. 4). Modernity's progres produces himself is an insurrectionist, a Promethean
attempts to

"New

who

arrogantly

dethrone the

Almighty

God

of

the Bible

(P-

5).12

Mikhail Bakunin, the human

against

embodiment

of

faithlessness

and
and

rebellion

God,

the

whether

human

or

revolutionary divine, functions

opposed as
13

to all order,

hierarchy,
source of

authority
con

cept of political

in the

war

theology (pp. 7-9). between "two irreconcilable armies,

God"

surprising Bakunin crafted

the

Schmitt's

the term as an armament

one under the

banner

of

Satan,

the other under the sign of

wields

(p. 8). Schmitt

steals the weapon and

it

ogy"

in the

cal, and

camp of its maker. He uses the expression Bakunin's war to suggest that the eventual moral, politi intellectual battleground is ineluctably one of One creed always
against the context of
faith.14

adroitly "political theol

clashes with another

arrogation, the other

life-and-death struggle, one faith grounded in selfin the reality of God. Considering that the battle between
a

in

good and evil translates

into the

cosmic struggle

between God

and

ever, Schmitt understandably does not regard his overt rival,

most

Satan, how Bakunin, as his

dangerous

enemy.

For the Devil

poses

his

worst

threat in
of

dastardly

dis

guises, for instance

as the promoter of peace and

security,

bourgeois life.

Seduced

by

the promise of security,

"security for
his
private

life

and

limb, security from

increase
and

divine
turbed

and

human
and

encroachment upon

existence, security for undis

with the

doings

dealings, security from any interference

enjoyment of

his

possessions,"

the bourgeois closes his heart to divine revelation

(pp.

9-10).'5

Schmitt, too, has

ent one

deep-seated

need

for security,

albeit a

dramatically

differ human

from the bourgeois.

ruin"

security

goes

to

can

"Only a certainty fulfill Schmitt's longing,

to

with respect to which all

"only

the certainty of a

power that

radically

surpasses

every human capacity for

arbitrariness:

control can guarantee

the moral emphasis which

who
own resolution

puts an end

the certainty of the God

accordance with

demands obedience,
law"

rules absolutely,

and

judges in
decision"

his

(p. 11). Schmitt's indignation derives from this

to defend the
seriousness of

single

origin, "his

the moral

(ibid.). Of course, if

defending
becomes

the seriousness of moral choice

is itself

a moral

duty, indignation
defends
and pre

no

longer just

an emotion

but

a sacrosanct obligation and a signature

of good character.

And the

polemic against

Satanic

unbelief

serves the

heart

of

reality (ibid.).

moral

Moral man, in his need for absolute validity, longs for a world in which the Either-Or is everlastingly inscribed, for a reality in which the conflict of ulti
is

mate opposites grasps

irrevocably
and

anchored

for

man.

His

need aims at a a

him completely

that

he is

unable

to comprehend,

reality that reality that he, filled

56

Interpretation
with emotion, can approach and that can

fill him

with

holy

reverence.

Moral

man

longs for tragedy,

and

he

conceives of the world of

in its image

as

fate

and

dispensa
meaning,

tion,
nied

as the

indissoluble interconnection
. .

guilt,

judgment,
the
all that

and concealed

of sin,

punishment, and salvation.

agents.

Unraveling
however,

mysteriousness

is

as a rule

de

to the

For the
(Pp.

moral

need,

matters

is the

sublime

source score

from

which the tragic

reality descends; the

mysteries

it

poses can

only

under

its

sublimity.

11-12)

In
as

order to examine

Schmitt's
on

political

possible, Meier focuses

its

pristine core.

theology as fairly and penetratingly Remarkably, he can thus treat

genuine

the political theologian as the quintessential moral human

sume that everyone

passionately interested in

morality

being. But why as fervently longs

for

revelation

(p.

II)?16

Schmitt's fight deprived

against the entombment of

God

remains

inseparable from his

struggle to preserve
of

Christian

morality.

He

shares

Nietzsche's insight that if

order,"

their metaphysical framework Christian morals would eventually

the political, "all social
sin

collapse.17

Moreover, for Schmitt

doctrine
man's

depends,

aston

ishingly,
consists

upon the

of original

(pp. 12-13, 81). The

original sin

in

ment rather

impudent desire to live according to his own reason and judg than to obey God (pp. 14, 84-88; Proverbs 3 :4-6). The romantic,
sublime enjoyment of art and the

in limitless subjectivism; the aestheticist, in

beautiful;

and

original sin

especially the philosopher, in contemplation; all forget or deny and try to evade the Either-Or of the grave moral decision between
(pp. 14- 15).

good and evil

obedience

can

For contemplating is not obeying, and only through human beings find their salvation. To the political theologian
(pp. 16-17). The
to an optimal
that demand

18

obedience acts as the mother and guardian of all the virtues

moral virtues

do

not

offer,

as

in Plato

and

Aristotle, fitting

means

human condition, but impose instead

meek obedience

absolute

commandments

(p. 16).

Certainly
forces
of

the Christian

must summon courage

to wage

perilous wars against

the

of evil and a

fortiori

to avoid paralysis

in the

face

of the

coming
or

Day

Judgment. Yet in

contrast to the courage of

Nietzsche,
and

Heidegger,

the courage of the political theologian stands

and

Plato, between,
into

links

inextricably

with, faith

hope (pp. 17-18). So

as not to turn

hubris,
will

courage needs a

swell, and the human

grace of virtue

from the

or perhaps even the, cardinal Martin Luther, who calls humility "the supreme (p. Luther goes on to disclose a potentially unsettling paradox that inheres in humility: "man never knows less about humility/ than when he is properly humble Proper humility never knows that it is humble/ for whenever it were to know it/ so would it become arrogant by viewing the 21 same beautiful virtue Can a that excludes self-knowledge be truly virtuous? Whatever the answer, humility holds the crucial position in Schmitt's

God

heavy being will (p. 18). Humility

19

admixture of

humility. Without humility, pride forget that all good things derive solely is thus a,
cites

Christian

(Matthew 18:4).
19).20

Meier

virtue"

"virtue"

Schmitt, Meier,
attitude

and the

End of Philosophy

57

toward history. The

expressed

Christian has
what

duty humbly
natural

to comply with God's

will

as

in history. But

God

wills through

history

eludes

all

reason and all

human foresight (pp. 19-20). No

law

can

inform

us about

the counsel of divine Providence (p. 21). The commandment to act in

history

binds

only obey with courage, hope, and above all humility, for ultimately we make our historical choices blindly in struggling to answer each individual's unique call (pp. 20-21).
us

unconditionally, and we

can

Schmitt's
speak of
name of

moral-political wish

stance

is explicitly

antihumanitarian.

Those

who

"mankind"

to deceive us.

They

engage

in

an

imperialism in the

humanity,

call

their enemies the enemies of the human race, and conse

quently take their warfare to inhuman extremes. Here Schmitt aims his animos ity not only at Marxism and the French Revolution but at all political actors
who

try

to subvert God's rule

more

by absolutizing

mankind

in

a new

faith (pp.
true the

22-23). The
religion,

the

new

pseudoreligion of

humanitarianism

resembles and

i.e. the

more

this false religion appeals to Christian

more

"values,"

more moral

its convictions, the

the gravest threat

dangerous it becomes (p. 23). This Satanic

cloaked
political

force

poses

in disguise, The

in amity

or even

brotherly
making

love,

as the conqueror of all enmity.

theologian therefore has a

moral obligation to unmask and

destroy

the

pretender.

But how?
expose

By

this Antichrist his enemy, the

what

political

theologian can

the Satanic for

could

it is, the true foe his

rule

of

both God

and man

(pp. 24-25). "The Antichrist

establish

lastingly

promise of peace and

only if he succeeded in convincing men that the security has become reality, that war and politics defini

tively belong

to the past, that men no longer need to distinguish between

friend

and enemy, and therefore no

longer between Christ his

own

Antichrist"

and

(p. 25). In

this way Schmitt

"discovers"

duty

(ibid.): to defend the Thus the fire

political

historical calling and his sacred, moral with all his strength, with tooth and nail (see
assurgit

Jeremiah 14:13-16, Luke 12:51-52). Sic flamma

urbem.

totam

furibunda

per

raged through

the whole city.

POLITICS

You
ous.

would

first have to
of the world

conquer
.

the

world.

Then,

to be sure, enmity

will

be

seri

The Lord

will

try

to

exterminate you.

Carl Schmitt, Glossarium,

p.

218

The first

and

best

of all victories

is the victory

of oneself over oneself.

Plato Laws 626e

Meier's defies the

treatment of politics and of political philosophy, taken at traditional norms and satisfies

face value,

few

of the conventional

disciplinary

expectations.

Concentrating

his

attention on

Carl Schmitt's

theological politics

58
and

Interpretation in
particular

on

the difference between friend and enemy, Meier seems the

willfully to ignore
rule?

most of

long-acknowledged,

vital questions.

Who

should

What is

the best regime? What is justice? What powers and prerogatives

can

the

governors

legitimately

exercise, and what rights and

liberties

should

remain

in the hands

of the people?

with the great thinkers of

Duly noting Meier's demonstrated intimacy the ages, we have to wonder why he knowingly breaks
Does Meier
of still wish

away from

the

beaten

path.

to shift our
priority?

attention

away from
subtitle of
put

the standard issues to an

inquiry

higher

Perhaps the

the chapter on politics identifies that query as the one

Pontius Pilate

to

Jesus

of Nazareth shortly before the Crucifixion: What is truth? (John 18:38). Yet this question of truth could appear extremely abstract and unpolitical. Martin Lu

ther's brief elucidation of Pilate's quizzical retort to Jesus reads, "Ironia est.
lost."22

If

you want

to speak of truth, you are

Politics

concerns

money, arms,

and

power, who gets what, when, where, and how. It revolves around not truth

but

"effectual
affairs

truths."

Now to this seemingly

informed, worldly

view

of political

plains the political as of a

offers a salutary corrective. For Schmitt ex "in a behavior determined by the real possibility consisting war, in the clear knowledge of one's situation that is determined in this

Schmitt's

political

theology

way,
on p.

and

in the task

of

rightly

distinguishing

between friend

enemy"

and

(cited

26). As Meier

points

out, the specified behavior presumes knowledge of

enmity, and the task spoken of requires self-definition and thus self-knowledge.

"The
edge

political seems not

but in

a precise sense

only to be based to be

on

knowledge

and

to

promote

knowl
a

knowledge"

(p. 27).

Notwithstanding

dash

of

irony, Meier indicates in

all seriousness that

Schmitt's

most profound contri

bution may lie in his (ibid.). Mindful Schmitt's

that title.
of

conception of the political as

essentially

self-knowledge

the

foregoing, Meier painstakingly

edition of

traces the metamorphoses of

concept of the political

through the three editions of the book with

proffers

In the first

Concept, Schmitt

the

distinction between
domain

friend
just

and

enemy

as a simple criterion

to delineate and preserve the independent

domain between

of politics.

The

friend-enemy

distinction defines the

and

political

as the

distinction between beautiful

evil, the moral

good and

ugly defines the aesthetic domain; domain; and between profitable and unprofit
comprises
a

able, the economic

domain. The enemy

a potential

group

of

human beings
The enemy
edition,
politi

that,

as

unit, presents
concept allows

threat in battle to another such totality.

Schmitt's

for

public enemies

only,

not private ones.

poses an objective

threat of physical killing. Thus the concept protects the politi

cal as

having

its

own autonomous

domain (pp. 27-29). In the

second

though, Schmitt
cal occupies

drastically

alters the original concept.

He denies that the

only one, autonomous domain. Now one can reach the

essence of of a

political

from any domain. The

treme degree of
with a relativism of a

the political has

separation"

now

become "the

most ex

intensity

bond

or

"liberal philosophy

culture"

of

(p. 29). Far from according with its separate domains,

Schmitt, Meier,
the political can encompass all regions of tive. And
national

and the

End of Philosophy
political

59

human life. The

is

authorita

only the alliances and enmities of nations in inter relations, the political now includes civil as well as foreign wars. One
political not

far from

involving

finds the

only between potentially hostile peoples but wherever two individuals join forces against an enemy (pp. 29-34). In particular, religious
groups
cutions

qualify as political actors, and holy wars, crusades, and religious perse have every claim to the designation (p. 33). Schmitt's new
"political"

focus

on

the degree of

intensity

of an

association

or

dissociation

severs the

connection

of the political

to the community

and allows

the concept to float

freely. "But thereby the decisive step is taken to reveal that the political is the total for an interpretation, as Schmitt has it in mind and
'ontological-existential'

as of

his

requires.23

political

theology
It

Released from

all natural

standards, kept free

and

every to be

substantial classification, the political

present everywhere.
anywhere"

is

able to penetrate

emerges as political

a power

that can break into

whole man

everything life because it

evil,

anytime and

(p. 34). The

"grasps the

faces him

with

his

most

important decision,
the most
extreme

confronts

him

with the greatest

and compels as

him to

identification"

make

(p. 32). The decision

decision"

to who my friends and enemies shall be

constitutes

"the

absolute

my own life (p. 35). Continuing along this line in the third and final to edition, Schmitt holds every grouping "determined by the dire authoritative for association be political. The dire emergency makes the political
about

emergency"

the individual (pp. 35-36). "Politics is

destiny,"

harnessing
wholly.

Napoleon's horse to

very

un-Napoleonic carriage.

Schmitt exclaims, rhetorically "It grasps men

good touchstone of the political character of a

practice of

lies in the

the oath, the true sense of which

community therefore consists in man's commit

changes

ting himself
tude differs

wholly"

(quoted

at

ibid.;

cf.

p.

113). The

in the

second

and third editions of

Concept
agonal.

culminate

in the disclosure that the

political atti

from the

The

soldier who sees war as a mere contest par

takes of the agonal attitude,

objective threat of physical

not of

the

political.

So the life-and-death battle, the

killing, does
away.

not suffice

for the

political

after all

(pp. 37-38). The

sion of

agonal actor and

wholeheartedly

affirms war as

the natural expres theolo to the

coming to be

passing
war as

The

political actor or political

gian, in contrast,

regards

divine trial,

as a

necessary

means

higher

ends of

dominion,

order,

and peace

(pp. 39-49). To the

political

thinker,

the agonal fighter mindlessly traps and loses himself in

brutal,

meaningless

hos

tilities, tales
warrior's

of sound and a

fury

destined to

end

in self-ruin,

whereas the political

self-understand

dedication to

higher

cause can result

in the deepest

ing and personal fulfillment. By crystallizing the superiority

articulates

of the political to the agonal,

Meier
the

at once

the basis of

Schmitt's

political

theology
The

and prepares

ground

for

a signal redefinition of political

inferiority
of

of the agonal to
political role.

the

political stems

from the

agonal actor's

ignorance

his acutely

For

the dispute over the meaning of war

is

part and parcel of

the struggle

for

60

Interpretation
order,
and peace.

dominion,
ment over

the meaning of
out of a

Like many other political altercations, the disagree war is a quarrel over what is right. So the agonal lack
of self-knowledge

position

collapses

(p. 40). Now this

must

pivotal

question of what swer.

is

right applies

to

each

human being. Each

find

an an

But

one

typically

encounters

mandments, of God and of men.

ready answers in the form of clashing com In this awkward situation one must somehow
real

find
tle."

one's

way, "oriented toward the

possibility

of the

life-and-death bat

One urgently requires both self-knowledge and the capacity to distinguish rightly between friend and enemy (p. 41). "The sphere of the political thereby becomes the place of man's knowledge of himself, of the insight into what he
is
and what

he

ought

to

be,

of the

decision
can

about what

he

wants to

be

and what

he does

not want

to

be,

what

he

become

and what remains

denied to him
and

to become. Therein lies the rank of the

political

political"

(ibid.). Political theology

"unpolitical" "natural"

Socrates
aclitus.

philosophy and Schmitt

agree

in opposing

all

putatively from
"natural"

metaphysics.

alike reject the

"unpolitical,"

The Socratic turn involves

a shift

political

inquiries

about virtue and right.

philosophy of Her moralphilosophy to Unlike the Pre-Socratics, the Socratic

philosopher

directly

addresses the claims of political

peak of philosophy.

ical philosophy to the

cal

theology and elevates polit For both political theology and politi
right

philosophy, the supreme human question is the

way to live. But their

another,
political

answers to this question remain

unalterably

opposed to one

theology appealing
natural

to divine revelation, political philosophy relying on man's

capacities.

In the

context of

this conflict the political

as

philosopher can

treat the question "how should

live?"

deeply

ble. Political philosophy

tion. the

makes

the

philosophic

comprehensively as possi way of life itself the prime ques

and

challenging the philosophic life, only by becoming political, can philosopher hope to achieve a truly philosophic justification for the philo
In
one stroke political

Only by

sophic enterprise. cal

philosophy

must

supply both the

politi

defense

and the rational

foundation

of the philosopher's mode of existence. political

Success hand

will establish a great

divide between
and political

philosophy

on the one

unpolit philosophy theology blind to the necessity for philosophy to justify itself, and political theology rules out the very possibility. Both rest in faith. The former trusts in the reliability of unaided human reason, while the latter trusts

and unpolitical

on the other.

For

ical philosophy

remains

in the

power of

God Almighty. Measured

by

self-knowledge,

political

theology

comes to sight as

vastly outstripping unpolitical philosophy, for political theol ogy knows itself to be grounded in faith and wants precisely this grounding. Convinced of the truth of his specific faith, the political theologian regards all
competitors,
prophets

including

unpolitical

and

political

philosophers

alike,

as

false

to be defeated (pp. 41-43).

They exemplify

"false

or

dangerous,

misled

faith (p. 43). The Socratic denies this charge, of course, and maintains that political philosophy issues in the victory of knowledge over faith. Yet this
or claim would seem vain and

proud"

empty

unless the

Socratic

can

demonstrate

the

un-

Schmitt, Meier,
source of revelation or refute the

and

the End of

Philosophy

61

truth of political theology. But how on earth could one disprove the divine

sublime, insistent human longings that engen

could not the political

der receptivity to

it?25

On the contrary,
the
of one's

theologian

plausi

bly contend that answering lowing the highest impulses

needs of political

irrefutable

call of

God, understanding
and

and

fol

meeting society all form a salutary unity? Who, the political philosopher or the theologian, really consummates the mandate of the Delphic oracle,

introspected heart,

the

deepest

"know yourself?

When meditating on self-knowledge in Ex Capitivitate Salus: Erfahrungen der Zeit 1945/47, Schmitt does notice, and take pains to address, a mote in his own eye, i.e. the I perplexing problem of self-deception. Left to myself
alone,
can never overcome objective

this

danger, for
my
myself

self-deception

inheres in

solitude.

Yet the

enemy

who grasps

from

self-deception.

I know

identity by knowing
Schmitt

and cannot

be deceived

can save me

enemy I define

myself.

At this

point

no

my enemy, for in longer means

defining my by
"enemy"

merely whoever threatens to kill me, but rather the one who, in mutual tion, forces me into a confrontation that grasps me "wholly and
(pp. 43-45). Who
power of

recogni

existentially"

can

qualify, under this conception,

as

having

the objective

my brother can place me in question, and only brother be can enemy. Adam and Eve had two sons: Cain and my my (quoted on p. 46). Schmitt adds that Cain's slaying of Abel sets the history of
the enemy?

"[0]nly

Abel"

mankind

into

motion and that this

history

still continues.

In

other

words,

Scrip

tural revelation and

self-deception.
stood remains achieves

history

make the

enemy

the objective power that conquers

The

political character of the collision with

the enemy so under

crucial, reflecting Schmitt's

through action

wholehearted conviction that as

"man

his

destiny

alone,"

opposed, for example, to skeptical

inquiry
be
over

and philosophic contemplation.

The

call and commandment of

God

must

answered and

obeyed, the historical task must be

most urgent and goods

fulfilled,

without

quibbling
and

distinctions between the

the most important or between

must

the

intrinsically

good and utilitarian

"that

be defended here
would

now"

(pp. 46-48). Needless to say, these distinctions

have the

utmost

significance
alone.

in the

quest

for

self-knowledge

on

the level of human wisdom

Schmitt's faith in the guiding hand in the

the
exalted status of

of

God in

the

intensely

political

history gives him confidence life. Intensity of commitment in

enemy is automatically both most urgent and most important. Certainty in divine Providence elevates my own historical task to a high metaphysical rank. Meier complains that this account leaves both one's

face

of the objective

individual already Schmitt's

good
sional

nature and at

human

nature

unexplored, but through faith Schmitt has

arrived

certitude

about

"one's

own"

that cannot

be

shaken.

own"

reluctance
us"

to subject the meaning of

for

to
of

rigorous

investigation

results

in

"truly one's a disappointingly

and

"truly

one-dimen

notion

friendship

(pp. 48-51). The friend is "whoever

affirms and

62

Interpretation
me"

confirms

(quoted

on p.

51).

Why

not assert

instead that the

real

friend

gently
me

exposes endure

my dearest

prejudices as

untenable, unself-righteously compels

and

to

the pain of perceiving

my ignorance
me

my

other vices as

defects,
rate

and, for my own good, challenges

mightily?2

to

reform

At any

the

enemy
self,

appears to retain the

key

position

and

thus my own

identity, by

for Schmitt. The enemy reveals him attacking, while the friend has no significant
the enemy, my negater, in order to be what

function (pp. 51-52). I I

am.

must negate

On the

subject of

negation, Cain's ruthless murder of Abel bears witness

to the

power of evil

that launches history. Yet

exactly that ugly

or civil

beginning

be

queaths to

us, via the struggle with the evil enemy, our most vital, uplifting

task. The case of

Cain

and

Abel,

of

fratricide
limits

war, further shows that

Schmitt's

concept of

enmity

respects no

of

law

or of

justice. This illustra

tion also underlines the momentous role of hubristic rebellion against tined to animate the human
ment

God, des
enemy"

story from the

hence
most

(pp. 53-57). The best

and

clue of all to the

killing of Abel until the Last Judg identity of the "absolute

3:15,

in the intensest possible, God

punishes

political, enmity is Genesis

where

the serpent for corrupting the heart of Eve. This vignette puts us

onto the

trail of the ultimate source of evil, the fallen god

Lucifer,

the prime

enemy

of

God

and mankind alike.

In

more concrete political

achieves the peak of

"great

politics"

in the

religious war against as

terms, false faith. In

a

the believer

the end Schmitt treats the political

community

essentially

faith. The ings

members of

the truest political community share

community of deeply in the bless

reason

of a truth that

transcends everything

human, including human

possibility
of
participate

(pp.

58-65). "For
and

political

decisions

even the mere

understanding,

and therefore

the entitlement to
on existential
political

rightly knowing in discussion and

"
.

to make

judgments, is based only

on p.

sharing

and

(quoted

61). The Schmittian

community

will

participating tolerate no havens

for

alien thinkers who might cool

the flames of fanaticism with the salubrious

with the

waters of a

orating

psychic

detached sobriety or freshen a stultifying atmosphere breezes that emanate from the love of

invig

wisdom.28

REVELATION
It is

of course no explanation of the

. .

was created out of nothing.

coming into "Creation out of

being

of the world to

say that it

nothing"

has

no other

meaning than
p.

to make the origin of the world

incomprehensible.
Carl Schmitt, Glossarium,
212

He

"God"

who says

wishes to

deceive. For

of

God there is nothing to he

said.
p.

Glossarium,
"The
mysteries,"

176

says

Gottfried

von

Leibniz

on

behalf

of religious

faith in
them."

his Theodicy, "allow

of explanation

to the extent

necessary

to believe

Schmitt, Meier,
To be sure, he
ceive

and

the

End of Philosophy

63

qualifies this

reassuring

remark

by

adding, "but

one cannot con

them and cannot render comprehensible how

happen."29

they

Speaking

in

similarly cautious vein, Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus concedes that "we fash ion god without having either seen him or adequately perceived him in

thought"

(246c-d)
yet

and admits

that "as

for the
as

place above

the heavens no poet

has

sung

or ever will

sing
not

of

it

it

deserves"

(247c). Daunted further

by

Machi

avelli's maxim

to remain silent about things that "subsist

by

superior causes to

which the mind

does
and

reach,"

one might prefer

to leave these topics to the

"presumptuous
worse

foolhardy"

(Prince XI). Bacon,

finally,

warns us that

it is
all

to have an

unworthy

opinion of

God than

not

to believe at

all.30

Yet

four

great

thinkers did summon the fortitude to deal with this difficult subject

matter, and Meier's extensive, labyrinthine exploration of revelation

in

political

theology virtually forces us to emulate their worthy model. To support the case for religion in the modern world, the advocate
theology
can

of political

plausibly

add to

his

arsenal
at

by taking

advantage of certain existen

"insights'

tialist theses or
sake of the polemic).
core

(albeit
put

the price of some scholarly precision

eyes of the existentialist,

for the
at

To

it mildly, in the

life

its

defies

rational

description

or comprehension.

Only

poetry

and religion can

begin to

capture the

beauty

and

horror,

the self-immolation and self-renewal, of

and of all other cosmic

becoming. Becoming, the

essence of

life

things, is

per

verse, restive, elusive, contrary,

self-contradictory.

Reason inclines to

view con

tradiction as the definitive mark of

not

invalidation,

yet multifarious

contradictions,
of experience.

least but

not

only in the
might

psyche, are woven

into the fabric

An

existentialist

modern apply this criticism of incorrigible reason to ancient.

philosophy
philosophy

no can

less than to be
said

Apart from the

natural

sciences, modern

largely

to

amount

crowded graveyard. universe

When Hegel

made

to whistling along the edge of reason's his heroic effort to subsume the whole
objected

under philosophic

logic, Kierkegaard sardonically

existence.

that the
anti-

great thinker empirical

in Berlin had forgotten faith

The

philosopher's

naive,

faith in the

power of reason

may

give wings

to grand speculations,
reality.

but that

same

also

causes

philosophy to take flight from

philosopher's

Or

as

Nietzsche

expressed reason

it less politely, the scarcely disguises

the remarks of
view

will to render the world

intelligible to
to

a will a

to

master

the world, and the will

would

construct a philosophic system

betrays

lack

of

integrity. Here Schmitt

endorse

from the heart

hopeless lack
well as

Kierkegaard and,

so circumscribed, even

the foe Nietzsche.

In Schmitt's
to the

the honest

philosopher would

have to

con of

fess to

of access to

Being

or the philosophic
prospect of

unintelligibility

the whole, as the self,

and

grimness of

the

death,

the isolation of

the dominant

place of

understandably concludes, with other than to become totally receptive to the truth

economy. Schmitt suffering in the human Kierkegaard, that humanity has no viable option

of

God's

word as revealed

in

both Scripture

and experience.

"Faith in

revelation promises effective protection

nihilism"

against the danger of

(p. 88), but

without

accepting

revelation

human

64

Interpretation
can never gain a sound orientation of

beings

for their individual

and common

lives.

The blessings

faith

are

wonderful, many, varied,

and splendid.

To

political

theology, belief in God

political

offers cosmic order and

meaning, support

for morality,
to a reli
one can

directedness,

self-knowledge,

a sense of

transcendence,

access

gious

community, redemption from sin,

and eternal

life. With faith

live

in

awareness of

the highest truths and have

hope,
faith

through God's grace, of

potential.

above

petty

selfishness and

attaining
the

one's

highest

Only by

through

rising faith

can one encounter afterlife.

the

holy, only

through

can one anticipate

bliss in the
the omnipo

Faith

alone offers

security

of a universe governed

tent God of boundless love and concern

for

each of

us,

a universe

in

which
and

God's love is the wellspring of the commandments and of the moral law the bedrock-solid guarantee that righteousness will ultimately prevail. How
the unbeliever mount a remotely credible assault against this mighty
cannot

can

fortress? If
what can

philosophy reasonably

disprove the

existence of

God

or

life

after

death,

sustain a philosophic refusal to accept the truths of religion?

philosopher will

Perhaps

the skeptical

base intransigent

unbelief not

dence in the

autonomous moral

intelligibility

of, and

merely on confi possibility of happiness in,

challenging queries that the faithful cannot answer to the skeptic's satisfaction. In another age, merely naming all these questions could have incriminated one of blasphemy, a capital crime; at
the secular world but also on a series of
all

events, the
which and

somewhat reticent or which

Meier does

not spell them out: of

How

can we

know 14:13

revelation,

interpretation
and

revelation, is true (Jeremiah

can

cosmic

23:15, Matthew 24:5, 11, order and meaning for me if,

God
and

24)? How

belief in God

yield

conception of the mind of

lowly mortal, I have no entry to or his plan? How can faith support morality if
as a

God has the

ple,

unlimited

including

to

preserve

capacity at every moment to overrule every moral princi the innocent life of a child (Genesis 22:1-10)? How

can religion provide a clear moral-political

allows

horrendous injustices
his I

and cruelties

direction if, despite his power, God to occur without interference and re
(Jeremiah 12:1;
cf.

mains ever silent about

political preferences

Isaiah 46:
to take

7)? How
pride

can

gain self-knowledge

through faith if faith forbids

me

in my virtues? How, without indulging in escapist flights of fancy, can I benefit from the transcendence of a God whose being is so fundamentally differ

ent

from

mine that a

it

reduces to an

impenetrable

mystery?31

How

can

I distin

me entirely at his heavenly unfathomable will mercy and whose only principle (Exodus 33:19, Matthew 20:15-16, Romans 9:15-18)? (More tendentiously and with Schmitt specifically in mind, how can I distinguish a religious community guish

from

tyrant an

almighty God who holds in the end is to do his own

that

insists

on universal participation

in beliefs that have

an

no

direct

empirical

Less tendentiously, and recalling St. Augustine's pleas for Christian tolerance just as Jesus tolerated Judas Iscariot, if I do not have to sacrifice any of my intellectual
camp?

warrant or rigorous rational

basis, from

intolerant, ideological

freedom to

gain the

bounties

of the

synagogue, church,

or

mosque, I can

hardly

Schmitt, Meier,
speak of

and

the

End of Philosophy
even with the

65

faith

as

the precondition for those

benefits.) How,

help

of

divine grace,

can

if my very

nature

I hope for self-respect, much less for redemption from sin, dooms me to fall back into sinfulness time and time again?
of

Why
to

would a

God

love

create an eternal

hell

of

ghastly, excruciating torments

years or so

punish

human beings forever for

nature?

living

seventy

according to their

God-given

Finally, leaving 22:32), if

of

aside the question whether emphasis on an

unknown afterlife at nihilism

the expense of the empirical world

not even

(cf. Matthew

the

best human

inherently partakes of being merits eternal

bliss, if indeed because

(for "no
one

their sinful

nature all earn

is

without guilt

before

God,"

purgatory or damnation Exodus 34:7, Luke 18:19), if even

honest faith

and

heartfelt

repentance

consequently I depend entirely on how much consolation or other net

the afterlife?

God'

only precede new episodes of sin, and if s inscrutable will for my fate after death, from my dreadful does
awareness of

gain obtains

Upon encountering this

truths

battery

of skeptical

questions, mature be
meet vital needs

lievers, knowing through long and embodies lofty, ineffable

unshaken

experience that religion

irrespective

of the cleverest rationalistic

objections, will perhaps generally remain, as political

theology

would

have it,
censor

in their

faith.32

Still,

quite a

few may wish,

as

Schmitt does, to

or retaliate against and

the Socratic who engenders such potentially unsettling doubts to the faithful misguided, unedifying,

threatens to corrupt the youth with

sophistical ruminations: not

the

beginning

of wisdom

inquiry, fear of the Lord is (I Kings 3:7-12; Proverbs 9:10, 8:7, and 10:31; Psalms
wonder, not dialectical

53:1-6; I Corinthians 1:19-20).

The
political

theologian and the political philosopher may well agree that

eventually the
winner
and an

speculative

controversy

over revelation concludes with a clear each

unambiguous

loser,

with

party,

claiming the laurels of victory. Lest Schmitt and Meier constantly remind

we take

this grave

however, triumphantly contest at all lightly,

battle. To

us of the political nature of the

say nothing
cal

of one's own existence and

identity,

the hearts and minds of the

and politi

youth, the future of

humanity, hang
from the

in the balance. Political theology

behold the

philosophy

cannot rest content to stand upon the shore and see ships
window of a castle and

tossed

on the sea or to peer

spectacle of
must

armies.33

clashing horns with the "existential

mortal against
combat.
it"

With the truth

of revelation at

issue,

the believer

lock

enemy,"

the unbeliever and rebel against

God, in

For "whoever does

Matthew

not

decide for the truth

religious

of

faith decides

(p.

73,

12:30, Luke 11:23). This

defined
as

fight to the death

of

embodies the

peak of politics

"the

most extreme
dissociation"

degree

intensity
68).

of a

bond

or separation,

of an association or

(quoted

on p.

More precisely, for Schmitt this fight represents the political peak prior to the occurs in simultaneous fulfillment of faith and perfection of great politics that 66-68). (pp. Antichrist the when Christ confronts and defeats the
parousia,

Meier

makes clear

that Schmitt's global

declaration, "the
whose will

political

is the

total,"

implies the

existence of a personal

deity

imposes demands

upon all

66

Interpretation
persons

other, lesser

and who

intervenes in the
choice

affairs

of the
and

world.

In "the
and

only

case that

matters,"

namely the
political

between God

Satan, Christ

Antichrist,
Schmitt

the

and

the theological coincide,

with

both intellectual

promise and

deadly

risk

for philosophy (pp. 69-77). ubiquity

of the political versus the unqualified
can make

speaks of the potential

ubiquity of the theological. The political demands on a human being, but "the
revelation, always does

far-reaching

life-and-death

theological,"

require absolute obedience

i.e. the almighty God of down to the smallest detail.

not primar

Thus

when

Schmitt insists

on man's natural

wickedness, he does so
nature

ily

as an anthropologist

trying

to explain human

but

as a political and

theolo

gian who of

promoting resist it. Denial

recognition of of original

God's
sin,

sovereign example

authority

opposing those
modem

for

by

endorsing

theories

evolution, undermines social

order.

Schmitt faces

us with a stark choice

be

tween

faith

and

disorder (pp. 77-84). Who, then, his

most personifies original sin villain

and presents the worst threat to the social order? who

This

is the philosopher,
natural reason and

"liven[s] his life based

judgment
alone"

on

own

resources,

following
puts

his

own

(p. 85). As Rudolf Bultmann

God"

it, "faith

can

judge

the choice of the philosophic existence only as an act of the

dom

of the man who

denies his

subordination to

self-founding free (quoted on ibid.). Schmitt

follows Tertullian in sharply dividing between philosophers and Christians. To both political theologians, the Socratics of antiquity are but "patriarchs of the
heretics"

(pp. 94-95). Yet Schmitt

"atheism,"

reserves

his

strongest words

for the

"ego-

armoring,"

"nihilism"

and

of medieval and

(a

fortiori)

modern phi

losophers, because
vealed

truth of

living they deviate from the re Christ (pp. 96-97). In particular, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is
though
era

in the Christian

Schmitt's

philosophic

enemy

par excellence when

he

pits

the natural goodness

of man against

essentially become self-sufficient, man's "realization of his being himself in In moral language, Rousseau's natural goodness entails
whole."

ubiquity interprets this Rousseauan natural

the

of the

theological,

the

Fall,

and original sin.

Meier

goodness as

the natural

capacity to
one's

a self-centered

pursuing

benefit

with as

little damage to
Jesus'

others as

possible,

an egocentric

reversal, and

impious repudiation, of s commandment in the Sermon on the Mount (pp. 97-99). Notwithstanding these and other acute divergences between political

theology
elitist

and political

philosophy,

however,

we should not overlook a

common,
will

thread with profound

chosen, and

implications: many may feel called, but few the truth can make one free. only

be

HISTORY

God
is
.

cannot
.

be

made

into
of

an object of our

behavior.

the

impossibility
out

really understanding the

moment as

The unknowability of God God's call; because

his

call

is drowned

by

the voice of one's own willing and wishing,

by

Sin.

Schmitt, Meier,

and

the End of Philosophy

...

67

Within my human possibilities I cannot find God at all. There can be talk of God only on the basis of revelation, and the revelation can be heard only in faith. Rudolf Bultmann, Theologische Encyclopadie, Sections 8-9
The prophecy will not be clear until it has been fulfilled; onto in faith and dimly sensed in hope.

until

then it

can

only
p.

be held

Romano Guardini, Der Herr,

468

Religion,
tory. "Faith

we

in

revelation

learn from Friedrich Schleiermacher, begins and ends with his is oriented towards a particular event over which
.

no power of the world has any control: in the case of Christianity it is oriented Christ" (p. centrally and decisively towards the incarnation of God in Jesus, the 88). In its religious manifestations, history places the sternest demands upon us

and

understood

simultaneously beckons with the bears no resemblance to the

have

most extravagant promises.

History

so

cyclical views of world events espoused or

by

ancient philosophers such as perspectives

Empedocles
atheistic

by

moderns such as

Nietzsche,

because those
great

implications (pp. 159-60). Nor do the

much

tragedians of antiquity,

not even

Aeschylus, have
presupposes

in

common with

theological

history, for

the

Fates have

more power and

foresight than Zeus him

self.34

Absolutized religiously,

history

the almighty, omniscient,

biblical God. It
or science of nism of

stands at a great

distance from historiology, the scholarly study

a pedant would complain about the anachro

history. Perhaps only

and

basing
on

the modern notion of

history

in

a scriptural

source

that lacks
against

both the term Schmitt

political

the

precise concept.

Meier,

who refrains

from caviling

the point, readily grasps the

relies:

multiple meanings of

history

on which

theology

(1)

unique,

miraculous

event, such as the

provenance

of

God in man, that

the

(2)

span

times; time, continuing revelation of that event, or of those events, over a distinct of time, e.g. from the Virgin Birth to the Second Coming; (3) Providence,
occurs at one or a series of miracles at specific

God's direction
an

of the course of all things throughout all

grand

eschatological

finale;

and

(4)

the swirl of

time, culminating in contemporary events in

human being, devoid of God's overall wisdom and lacking clairvoy ance into God's special plans for a particular age, must choose a personal des tiny. Political theology conceives morality, politics, and revelation as united in history. To the political theologian, everything essential is essentially historical.
which each

According
torically
ments.

to

Schmitt,

each

human being's actions,

represent

always performed
anticipations

in

his

unique

situation,

at

best blind

of command

Always tailored to the

even

respective

historical milieu, these

commandments

require our compliance creatures

though at the time of decision we Epimethean

have to

guess about

their

content and ramifications.

Only long

after

the fact (if at all), with the

wisdom of

hindsight,

can mere mortals weigh

human

doings

circumspectly (pp. 122-23). judiciously Schmitt's peculiar historicism implications of Some

and

emerge

in Meier's

expli-

68

Interpretation
1938 book
on the Leviathan and of
criticizes

cation of the

Schmitt's Hobbes's

political activities

during
tics as

the

Schmitt predictably destined to collapse for lack of

Nazi

era.35

authoritarian poli support

"metaphysical,"

i.e. divine,

(p.

104). He

Hobbes
ence as
history"

deplores, the seventeenth-century movement led by from Christian theology toward systematic natural sci away "the strongest and most consequential of all spiritual turns in European describes,
and and others

indeed, he
100).

(p. 105). Yet Schmitt atypically honors Hobbes as a genuine teacher; embraces the rationalist of Malmesbury as his brother and friend (p.
should

Why

the philosophers? In

Schmitt pay such tribute to Hobbes, Schmitt's eyes, Hobbes's greatest While thus nurturing the

and

to him alone, among

endowment as a political

theorist is his advocacy of the restoration of the soc

and civil

isted in

ancient times.

misL. pression that

unity that ex he himself

favors Hobbesian supremacy of political over religious authorities, at bottom Schmitt uses Hobbes to point quietly to Schmitt's real desideratum, which is
the
reverse

type of autocratic unity, namely

theocracy (pp. 102-20

the most important
of

and

174).

Schmitt
sentence

even

takes the

liberty

of

declaring
to (pp.

"Hobbesian"

to be "Jesus is the

Christ,"

a confession

faith that,
a man

while

dear to

Schmitt, Hobbes does

tacitly identifies
answers the call
pate.

not subscribe

121, 118
rises

and nn. as

151, 152). Schmitt

of unrecognized

with

his Christianized

"Hobbes"

piety who, though surrounded

by

enemies,

to the challenge of his age and

for

obedience to commandments that

he

can

only

blindly

antici

Hobbes's

incapacity

to see the repercussions of his

even such

terribly

wayward errors that some

teachings, including believers could despise him as a for

proto-Antichrist, does not him as a model Christian,

"call"

weaken

but

rather reinforces the case

looking

to

provided of course

that he has

faith. Concretely, the

avoid the wars.

of

barbaric

history to Hobbes is humanity's need, and his desire, to bloodletting of religious wars, above all of confessional civil

His

the inarticulate commandment is his advocacy of the modern, political Leviathan in order to guarantee peace and security (pp. 123principal anticipation of

24). Schmitt

assimilates the

Hobbesian

state

into his Christian

God"

view of

history

by
i.e.

referring to the State as a "vehicle of

secularization."

Regrettably,

the cessa

tion of
of

feuding

means

"the

end of the old peace of

and the end of

crusades,

forcible Christianization

of other

lands

and peoples

(pp. 124-25). Still,

Hobbes's

specific political response

to his

"call"

partakes of

historical truth in

that the Hobbesian state that guarantees

without

peace protects

the truth of

Christianity
a right

itself

becoming truly
religion

Christian. Meier its

alerts us when

Schmitt turns

deaf
the

ear

to Hobbes's

inconvenient

claim that the sovereign

public

has the

to ban

Christian

and mandate

denunciation. At any rate, for

in preparing the ground forces of the

Schmitt the

major

defect in Hobbes's
not to accelerate

politics consists

for bourgeois life (pp. 125-27). Hobbes

wishes to restrain the

Antichrist, however,
in
a spirit of

them.

Excused only

by his

good

intentions
a hasread-

ignorant, humble

obedience, Hobbes

inadvertently

becomes
his

tener of evil and a servant of the

Antichrist (p. 128). Schmitt

stretches

Schmitt, Meier,
ers'

and the

End of Philosophy

69
deci

imaginations,
in favor

and strains

their credulity,

by characterizing Hobbes's
Protestant
put an end

sion

of secularization as the completion of the

as

reform of the

Church, inasmuch
seems to

the Leviathan

systematically
papacy. and

to the monopolis

tic ecclesiastical claims of the

Roman

have been
gives

definitively

historicized
of

With that tour de force, "Hobbes Christianized" (p. 129). Faith

ascertain

in

history

Schmitt

confidence

"call"

the question of how

even with

without really delving into himself. In particular, Schmitt does not bother to investigate what Hobbes considered his altogether crucial dispute ancient philosophy (pp. 131-32).

and to

judge the suitability

in his ability to his

Hobbes's historical

"answer"

Hobbes

understands

A
than

radical

historicism

that

fancies it
will

always understands past

thinkers better

they

understood

themselves

to excuse collaboration with

easily summon the retrospective ingenuity the National Socialists. True, shortly after World
authentic."

War II Schmitt does describe his behavior in general, not just from 1933 to 1945, as "bad, unworthy, and yet Aside from that brief comment, however, he never expresses public repentance. The words "and

authentic,"

By calling Christian Epimetheus, Schmitt reveals that he views his membership in the Nazi Party, participation in building the Third Reich, and anti-Jewish diatribes as harmonious with his political theology (pp. 133-34). He can his actions in part as arguably necessary to undermine bour
himself
an authentic
"justify"

moreover,

reveal

how little

repentance even this remark contains.

geois

liberalism

and

thereby delay

the reign of the

Antichrist,

and

in

part as un

inevitably

uninformed

by

the superhuman perspicacity requisite

for making

impeachable

moral choices.

For how

can anyone

consistently

respond

admirably

to inarticulate commandments that become lucid only

choices

have been

made?

Thus Schmitt has

long after the relevant handy, almost infinitely adaptable

exonerating any kind of misbehavior. Yet what protects him against the obvious danger of self-deception? The problem is not only that all-purpose excuses quickly tend to lose their credibility. Far graver is the impossibility of
means of ever can

discerning,
he live

except perhaps

in hindsight,

what the right outset of

decision is. For how

a good

life? Also, he knows from the

ultimate, favorable

that his actions cannot

in any way

alter the

outcome

history, namely Christ's

compel

victory over the Antichrist; so does not Schmitt's faith himself about the utter insignificance of all his decisions

him to deceive

throughout his life (pp.

122, 134-170, CSLS,

cal perplexities

pp.

88-92)? But let

us not

dwell too

long

on psychologi

further
If

exacerbated

by

personality traits of Carl Schmitt.

and

His

idiosyncrasies

could all

too easily distract us from the larger theme of the issue from the other side

history

and authenticity.

we approach

try

to abstract

entirely from every divine call, nearly all of human existence can still reveal itself as inauthentic: our beliefs and customs, our modes of thought, speech, and

behavior, typically
with our

occur at a superficial of

level that keeps

us

far

out of

touch

humanity. Most

the time we

enslave ourselves

to the opinions others

have

of us and the

world,

opinions changeable

from

era

to era and shaped and

70

Interpretation

driven

by

irrational forces

as

mighty

as the tragic

Fates,

and we

fail to

ask what

and who we are.

with
mers

Sometimes, though, individuals suddenly become dissatisfied themselves and their lives. Introspection and reflection can then bring glim
into the

fragility
the

"thrownness"

and

of

their

existence and

their

being

and of

Being.

beings
ticity.36

escape

tyranny

and

Only banality

while

in touch

with such

the mystery of insights do human

of conventional

life

and achieve authen

Even the

most authentic person must continue to

live mainly in

inauthen-

ticity, however, and not only because the crops must be tended and the children be fed. For Heideggerian authenticity alone cannot provide any basis for morality. In Heidegger's understanding, standards of right and wrong derive
must

from the

ebb and

flow

of

historic dispensations

and allow of no ultimate rational philoso ultimate

justification. The variety of moralities finds a parallel in the variety of phies (cf. Aristotle Metaphysics 1009b33-1010al). All thought has its
source

in irrepressible flux

rather than a

in

reason or eternal truth.

If

one accepts
self-

the soundness of the

foregoing

far from

self-evident

assumption

knowledge involves
the

or amounts to awareness of radical

precisely

one's rootedness

in

largely

irrational. Atheistic

historicism
cousin.

casts moral obligation

into

the same darkness as

ment can

does its theological

which

Every
that

type of political engage

none can.

be defended,

in the

end means

Meier

presses

Heidegger for a justification of his way of life and hears only silence. From Meier's perspective, Heidegger's philosophizing, like that of the Pre-Socratics, naively and fatally rests on faith (p. 85 n. 48, DB, pp. 12-13, 31). Moreover, Heidegger
misconstrues

the

history

of

the pre-Kantian predominance of esotericism

over two millennia.

philosophy because he fails to appreciate in philosophic writings for well

more visible teachings

Had he distinguished between the

that

historical

tions that
what

palpably far transcend the limitations of the day, he

circumstances always

affect and the

might

partly hidden inten have rediscovered

lies mostly
radical

concealed under all the visible metamorphoses of philosophic

thought: the essential constancy of philosophy

(DB,

pp.

33-34, 42-43).
or could the

Does

history hover in
which

the

background
or

of postmodern deconstruction-

ism,

too?

If so,

history, Heidegger's
CSLS
a

Schmitt's,

two be

brought to

converge?

Meier includes in the

second section of

his Epilogue to

the expanded edition of

tion of Schmitt in tics of

friendship.37

of Jacques Derrida's interpreta Politiques de I'amitie, Derrida's substantial book on the poli As Meier recognizes, Derrida's willingness to expand on

brief treatment

themes like politics and

and suggests a certain attractive

friendship sharply distinguishes him from Heidegger kinship to the Platonic Socrates. On the other
which

hand,

the very term

"deconstruction,"

Derrida

uses to
and

describe his inter

pretive

approach, derives from

Heidegger

and

Husserl

to overcome all forms of Western metaphysics and

all

implies the necessity especially Platonism. At

events, Derrida speaks of "the process

of

interpretation"

deconstructive (i.e. affirmative)

(S,

p.

37). Deconstruction is affirmation.

Taking

him

at

his word,

Meier inquires

what

it is that deconstruction

affirms.

Derrida predictably does

Schmitt, Meier,
not

and

the

End of Philosophy
style to protect
truth"

71
his

answer

directly

but

employs a somewhat

inscrutable

meaning, preserve "the

remote

proximity

that gives way to

(S,

pp.

39,

51, italics
"the

added),
a

(Truth is like

gleefully to drive traditionalists to distraction. woman, but woman has no essence and is unfathomable. Thus
and of course

philosophical ruin.

discourse, blinded, founders

no such

on these shoals and

is hurled

down to its
of
'truth.'

There is

thing

as the

truth of woman, but it is because

that abysmal detour of the truth

[ecart

abyssal

Woman is but

one name

for that

truth"

untruth of

de la verite] that untruth is [S, p. 51]. Cf. Aristotle

Metaphysics 1009bl 1-12.) Undistracted, Meier attempts to re- and de-construct Derrida's understanding of himself. He pursues this aim by asking whether in
the end

Derrida's
p.

politics of

friendship

has

theological or a philosophical bent

(CSLS,

171). In

contradistinction to all previous politics of

friendship,

which

limited the

circle of

friends, Derrida

advocates a new

democratic

politics of

friendship

that overcomes past restrictions,

including
end

those of nationality. The

heterogeneity"

future, deconstructive democracy

clude no one separate convention moral

will sport an

"infinite

and ex must seek

from its fraternity. Toward that from nature,

deconstruction
task

to

an uncompletable

(ibid.,

pp.

172-73). The
which

duty

to strive for this unachievable

democracy
(ibid.,
p.

derives from justice,

and

entails the

infinite
ibid.).

obligation to the other

174). Thus the deconstruction

that strives for the

(quoted

on

democracy The history

of the of

future is just,
and politics

indeed "is

justice"

law

has

always moved

in this

direction. "The singularity

of the

historical

moment allows

Derrida to know the

moving principle of history, [namely] most important respect, Athens and Jerusalem
towards

deconstruction"

(ibid.). In the evidently

to

contribute

history

as progress

justice,
truth

towards a universalization of friendship.

Justice

takes priority
alone cannot

even over

(ibid.). Meier
hospitality"

objects

that the

movement of

history
(ibid.,

establish

any duty. To
of

provide

a ground

for the duty, Derrida

other"

speaks
p.

of the

"absolute law

and the

"holiness
and

of the

176). Yet

"absoluteness"

what can warrant this ness and

this

"holiness"

other

than the absolute

not require

holiness

of

God

almighty?

Does Derrida's decontructionism

character of

revelation

to insure the that includes

progressive

history
for

towards a universal

friendship

above all

God's

friendship

man?

Meier does
most

not rest

content with these reflections.

He

notes that

Derrida identifies his

or the connection of

impor
and

philosophy"

tant concern as "the question of

friendship

philosophy (ibid., be above all the handmaiden

p.

178). Meier

wonders whether

deconstruction

might perhaps

of philosophy.

He

also considers the separation of

nature

from

convention as make visible

possibly

part of a massive philosophic experiment

intended to

the nature and limits of

friendship
as

(p. 179). Though

gives

friendship"

noticing that

in his

version of

"philosophic

Derrida

justice

and

Meier even goes so far philosophic delights of conversation with Socrates the in sharing aspects of friendship vis-a-vis politics and the philo friends. The two and his sophic life correspond to the political community founded in Plato's Republic

duty

priority

over pleasure,

to imagine the deconstruc-

tionist actively

72

Interpretation
dialogical community that accomplishes the founding of that city in other words, in his unforgettable closing image Meier intimates with
and not without a

and the
speech.

In

flourish,

smile, that the truest deconstructionism might be

not progressive

history but political philosophy. What, finally, of history in the oldest and most
recall
main purpose of

narrative, inquiry, historiography? Suffice it to that "the

ordinary sense, history as Leibniz's sober judgment

wisdom and virtue

arouse might well

repugnance"

history, just as of poetry, should consist of teaching and further, to depict vice in such a way as to by (Theodicy II, 148). A wag, and perhaps not only a wag,
examples,
as

describe Meier's two-volume tome

goal could

The Lamentable
the

History
of

and

Tragedy
of

of Carl Schmitt. Its

be

regarded as

fulfillment

Leibniz's

aspirations on a

variety of levels, all well worth pursuing in a much longer study Meier. But, to conclude a first dip into deep waters, what should we now
as the

heed

lesson

of

Carl Schmitt
the
conflict

and

Heinrich Meier? The

reason and

cardinal

political-

philosophical
philosophic

theme

between

revelation

requires

priority, even though that conflict

remains the question of

does

not exhaust philosophy's question of

proper

concern, which

Being. The

Being
means of

encompasses, among
to be

human

and

things, pre-eminently the inquiry into what it therewith into the political-philosophical justification
other

the

life.38

philosophic

So the

question of

Being

does

retain

its

status as the compre

hensive
larger

question of philosophy.

But philosophy
the

can achieve

clarity
as

about

that

question and

itself,

and guard against self-destruction

a groundless

faith, only by taking its bearings from

Socratic insurrection.

emphatically

political

issue

of the

NOTES

und "Der Begriff des Politischen. Zu einem Dialog unter AbwesVerlag J. B. Metzler, 1988; 2d, enlarged ed., 1998) and Die Lehre Carl Schmitts. Vier Kapitel zur Unterscheidung Politischer Theologie und Politischer Philosophie (Stuttgart and Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1994), skillfully and reliably translated by Marcus Brainard as The
.

Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss

"

enden

(Stuttgart:

Lesson of Carl Schmitt: Four Chapters on the Distinction between Political Theology and Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). Hereafter The Lesson of Carl Schmitt
be cited without mention of the title and within parentheses in the text of this essay. Citations Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss und "Der Begriff des refer to the second edition and will begin with the initials CSLS followed by page numbers. See note 4 below. 2. Carl Schmitt, Glossarium. Aufzeichnungen der Jahre 1947-1951, ed. Eberhard Freiherr von
will of
Politischen'

Medem (Berlin: Verlag Duncker und Humblot, 1991), p. 283; also p. 165. Meier, "Was ist Politische Theologie? Einfuhrende Bemerkungen zu einem umstrittenen Begriff in Jan Assmann, Politische Theologie zwischen Agypten und Israel (Munich: Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung 1992) p 13 n. 14.
translated by Marcus Brainard as "The Philosopher as Enemy: On in Pierre Adler, Marcus Brainard, and Dirk Effertz, eds., In Memoriam David Rapport Lachterman, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal (special issue) 17 (1994): 32532. Schmitt expert Ernst-Wolfgang Bockenforde, a law professor at the and University of
pp.

3. See CSLS,

141-52,

Carl Schmitt's

Glossarium"

Freiburg

Schmitt, Meier,
a

and

the

End of Philosophy

73

former justice
and

of the

opinion

in

view of

German Supreme Court privy to Schmitt's most candid remarks, says,"in my there are good reasons for many private conversations with Carl Schmitt
interpretation"

adopting Heinrich Meier's kussion: Politische Theologie

("Auf den
seines

Weg

zum

Klassiker. Carl Schmitt in der

no.

Dis-

als

Fluchtpunkt

Werks,"

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,

July

11, 1997,

p.

35). John McCormick's essay in Political

Theory 26,

reviewing among other things the English translation of ignores the message writ large in the Glossarium and takes

6 (December 1998): 830-54, the first edition of Meier's Carl Schmitt,

no notice whatever of

Die Lehre Carl

Schmitts,

where

Meier demonstrates that Schmitt's book

and
no.

on

Hobbes is

a work of political
article

theology

(The Lesson of Carl Schmitt, pp. 100-121, 123-32, in New York Review of Books 44, of
Liberalism,"

174). Cf. Mark Lilla's 8

"The

(May 15,
the rest

1997): 38-44. Lilla

Enemy initially
Note
new

approached

Meier's

exegesis

mistrustfully, but found the

evidence

in its favor
...

overwhelming.

particularly the comment on page 43, study. Die Lehre Carl Schmitts, which

"Standing far
covers all of

above

is Heinrich Meier's

It

shows

Meier to be

'musical'

theologically

Schmitt's writings, including his Glossarium. reader of Schmitt (Walter Benjamin was another)
surface of

who

hears the

deep

religious chords

sounding beneath the

at

his

seductive prose.

Meier's

work

has forced

everyone

to take a second look

the assumptions underlying Schmitt's betterignored."

known

writings and reconsider some edition of

that have been

4. The first

CSLS

appeared

in English
'

as

Carl Schmitt
of

and

Leo Strauss. The Hidden

Dialogue,

trans. J.

other published

Chicago Press, 1995). Heinrich Meier's Harvey University writings include Discours sur I inegalile/Diskurs iiber die Ungleichheit. Kritische
mit

Lomax (Chicago:
deutscher

Edition des integralen Textes

Obersetzung,
von

einem

Essay

iiber

die Rhetorik
Ferdinand

und

die

Intention des Werkes

sowie einem ausfuhrlichen

Kommentar (Paderborn

Verlag

Schon-

ingh, 1984; 4th

und

ed.,

1997); Die Denkbewegung

Leo Strauss. Die Geschichte der Philosophie

die Intention des Philosophen (Stuttgart:

of

Die

Herausforderung

Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1996); and essays in his editions der Evolutionsbiologie (Munich: Piper Verlag, 1988; 3d ed., 1992), of Zur

Diagnose der Moderne (Munich: Piper Verlag, 1990), and of Leo Strauss, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 1, Die Religionskritik Spinozas und zugehorige Schriften (Stuttgart: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1996)
and vol.

2, Philosophie

und

Geselz
ed.

Friihe Schriften (1997).

(Berlin:

5. Politische Theologie, 4th lian Apologetikum 47.

6. Ibid.,
cal p.

Verlag

Duncker

und

Humblot, 1985),
Discourse
on

p.

51. Cf.

Tertul-

Chicago Press, 1977), pp. 274-90, Philosophy and Gerhard Kriiger's introduction to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's Hauptwerke (Stuttgart: Alfred Kroner Verlag, 1958), pp. viii-xvi. Note especially the following in Kriiger's Einleitung: "The
of
'new'

61. See, however, Joseph Cropsey, "On and the Issues of Politics (Chicago: University

Descartes'

Method"

in Politi

thought

[of Descartes] is
'own'

a conquest of the given world that serves as material

for the

creative

erection of one's

world-view. placed.

The

'old'

thought

received

its tasks

and

yardsticks via the

limits in
tasks

which
and

it found itself

The

'new'

thought establishes

its

own new and

immeasurable

itself,

it knows its only

the

yardstick

to be

its own,

being"

sovereign

bodiment

and privatization of

thinking
to
voice

self would not

be

possible

(p. xii); "[The] disem unless at the same time its

philosophers of

character as one of

God's

creatures were put

into

question.

The

'radical'

the six

teenth century

were not permitted

that questioning entirely openly and on this point

behavior"

Des

(ibid.); "The exceeding of human limits cartes, especially, is famous for his diplomatic in toto is borne by the exertion of a new self-reliance that can only be understood as a counter (p. xiii); "Descartes has a theological grounding for his to Christian reliance on the mercy of
...

God"

itself: he thinks of God as so inconceivable, so inscrutable in his intentions, and so abys human being cannot take his bearings by God, but mally imperious in his decrees that the thinking (p. xiv). One would also have to consider own his thrown upon and is pushed away establish a Cartesian, confidence to Mersennes that the purpose of his Meditations is to arguments "on behalf of belief certain advances Meditations mathematical physics. Moreover, the
atheism
resources"

Descartes'

in the divine that

appears

ancient

writers

had

employed

with a

wholly contrary

aim.

What in Descartes

to

reinforce

the theologians might well turn out to have the opposite implication. (For that

matter,

even

wonder about the

the wisest

in assessing the theologies of the aforementioned Milton and Kierkegaard, one could implications of the Englishman's description in Christian Doctrine of Socrates as human being and in the Seventh Prolusion of Plato's life of philosophizing with his

74

Interpretation

friends as most happy and delightful, and about the full meaning of the Dane's stress in the Conclud ing Unscientific Postscript on the radical subjectivity of religion and religious categories.)
7. G. W. F. Hegel, PhUnomenologie des Geistes (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1952), 473-564. 8. "Phanomenologie
Theologie,"

pp.

und

in Wegmarken, 2d

ed.

(Frankfurt

am

Main:

Verlag

Vitto-

rio Klostermann, 1978), p. 66. 9. An elegant summary can be found in Karl Lowith, "Kierkegaards Sprung in den in Scimtliche Schriften 3, Wissen, Glaube und Skepsis (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1985), pp. 239-55. "In the desperate leap into faith the human being as instead of standing before the nothing (boredom, fear, and desperation), to
before God
be
as an

Glauben"

individual comes,
'before
God,'

stand

the Creator of

being
(p.

out of nothing.

Only

before God

can man's
also

isolated

existence

annihilated

in

way"

a positive mere

245;

cf. p.

255). Lowith's discussion

pp.

takes note of

Kierke

gaard's effort
guishes offers

to transcend

individualism (cf. Lesson,

and

48-A9)

and

thoughtfully distin
will of

respects

in

which

Kierkegaard's teaching is

is

not political.

The Danish theologian

two versions of "the one

thing

needful": government and eternity.

Submission to the

God

seems to offer the

best

access

to both (pp. 248-54).

10.

CSLS,

pp.

84-92. See Leo Strauss, What is Political

"

Philosophy and Other Studies

und

(Glencoe
Aktuali-

IL: Free Press, 1959), p. 13. 1 1 Theodor Diiublers "Nordlicht.

.

Drei Studien iiber die Elemente, den Geist

die

tat

des Werkes (Munich, 1916), pp. 63-65. Quoted in Lesson, p. 3. 12. Meier refers to Schmitt's Donoso Cortes in gesamleuropaischer Interpretation. Vier

Aufi

siitze

(Cologne, 1950) and Politische Theologie II. Die Legende von der Erledigung jeder Politischer Theologie (Berlin, 1970). In note 10 Meier identifies the model Schmitt follows in his hexameter
Prometheans (Eripuit fulmen
caelo nova

verse against the

spatia

fulmina

mittit/Eripuit caelum

deo,

nova

Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, "who in his Anti-Lucretius sive de Deo et Natura (Paris, 1747) attacks the unfaith of the philosophers from Epicurus to Gassendi, Hobbes, and Spi (p. 5).
struit) as
noza"

politique

this valuable discovery in CSLS, p. 84. He cites Bakunin's La Theologie VInternationale (St. Imier, 1871). 14. CSLS, pp. 84-87 and Lesson, pp. 43, 73, 171-72. In Politische Theologie, p. 84, Schmitt calls Bakunin "the theologian of the (italics added). See Lesson, p. 8 n. 19. 15. Meier cites Politische Theologie; Rbmischer Katholizismus and politische Form (Hellerau,
reported
et

13. Meier first

de Mazzini

anti-theological"

1923); Die Geistesgeschichtliche Luge des heutigen Parlamentarismus 2d ed. (Munich and Leipzig, 1926); Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin, 1932, and Hamburg, 1933); and "Recht und in Tymbos fiir Wilhelm Ahlmann (Berlin, 1951).
.

Raum"

16. Here Meier

directly

quotes

Leo Strauss
and

without

citing him. See

one of

the most

daring

and pp.

provocative passages of

Persecution

the Art of

Writing (Glencoe,

IL: Free Press, 1952),

140-41.

as moral.

Meier surely knows about religious infidels who with considerable warrant regard themselves We can only conjecture that he might in some sense endorse Schmitt's judgment that their
a coherent

morality lacks divine rule or

p.

foundation
to consider

or

Strauss's that "there

and

cannot

be true justice if there is

of

no

Providence"

(Natural Right

History [Chicago: University

where

Chicago Press, 1953],

that the
choice-

150

n.

24). It may

help

Plato's Republic,

Adeimantus
injustice

contends

worthiness of justice

hinges

on the existence of gods who punish

and reward
and

justice (365d).

Given that in the

morality
the myth of Er.

world of

ordinary
require

experience the rain

falls

on the good an

the wicked alike,

would even seem

to

the support of divine

judgment in

afterlife, as indicated in

True, in

the bulk of the

Republic

and

pointedly in the

ninth

book, Socrates

argues

that apart from divine rewards and punishments, the soul of the unjust man is disordered and there fore unhappy. Yet by that reasoning the choiceworthiness of justice consists in the gratification of
the selfish desire of the

individual for happiness. Is

the moral person who remains moral as a means

See Xenophon Oeconomicus xx, 25-29. Or would it be fair to say that Plato's Socrates tries to save morality by transforming it through greater self-understanding? "It becomes a question whether what Aristotle calls moral virtue is not, in fact, merely political or vulgar (Natural Right and History, p. 151). In any event, so long as one's devotion to
to selfish
ends

truly

moral?

virtue"

Schmitt, Meier,
morality
wards remains

and the

End of Philosophy

75

consciously

public

spirited, one's underlying assumption may well be

one of re

to the morally good, rewards hard to guarantee without potent, divine dispensation.

Or does

the question remain whether noble self-respect the immediate pleasure the

(Nietzsche, Beyond Good

and

Evil 265

and

288)

and

truly moral man repeatedly enjoys from doing what is right (Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1120a26-27) require any divine underpinning? (Fittingly, the word appears only once in Lesson, and then only in the negative as something not found in Schmitt. never occurs in the book. Likewise, is never used, although
"noble" "Beautiful"

"phronesis"

"Besonnenheit,"

moderation,

does

appear

once, in the

negative. and

At

all events,

Schmitt

might

plausibly

protest without

that

in their

self-reverence

both Aristotelian
that
atheistic

Nietzschean

nobles

divinize themselves

any

cosmological

justification,

nobility is baseless
of
revelation can

and

self-contradictory.) Recall that Aris

totle glaringly omits piety

principle an appeal

from his

catalogue

virtues, conceivably because he knows that in

to prophecy or divine

nullify the
the

most rational reflections about

human

virtue and

the

human

good:

We

must

follow

not

rule of reason

but,

wherever

it may

lead,

the

commandment of

God (Genesis 22: 1-10).

account for Meier's sometimes taciturn, sometimes oblique approach, see Strauss, The Man (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964), p. 51, and Persecution, p. 36. City Meier understandably does not address Adam Smith. Nonetheless, the opening passage in The

To

help

and

Theory

of Moral Sentiments
without

at

I. i. 1

might

deserve brief attention, for Smith

seeks

to

explain

morality man be

supposed,"

recurring to either a categorical imperative or revelation. "How selfish so ever Smith reflects, "there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest
of

him in the fortunes from it

except

others,

and render
it."

their happiness necessary to

him,

though he derives nothing

Jean- Jacques

the

pleasure of

seeing
p.

In reply Meier
n. cf.

would

probably join

Rousseau

in raising doubts Rousseau's Discours

Nihilism"

about

the adequacy of sympathy alone to sustain morality. See Meier's edition of

sur

I'inegalite,

57

65. Cf. ibid.,

pp.

146-48.
and

17. Nietzsche, The

4-5.

Gay

Science 343,

344, 347,

and

352

The Will to Power 1

should

and

"I.

falseness,
versus sits

18. Cf. Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner, "Epilogue": "What alone that deceitfulness of instinct that refuses to experience these
as Wagner, for example, Christian morality] as opposites between two chairs, he says Yes and No in the same
breath."

be

resisted

is

that

opposites
. . .

refused.

[noble morality [M]odern man

.

19.
"virtue"

According
"vice"

to Ralph Lemer in

Themen,
von

vol.

63,

Maimonides'

Vorbilder

menschlkher Voll-

kommenheit (Munich: Carl Friedrich

or
occurs

Siemens Stiftung, 1994),

p.

9,

no

Hebrew

equivalent of

in the Old Testament. Nevertheless, one might wonder whether humility has a somewhat analogous function in the Jewish faith (e.g. Psalms 119:71, Micah 6:8, Jeremiah 9: 23-24). Rudolf Bultmann sums up the heart of the Christian faith as follows: "It is primarily obedi (Theologische Encyclopcidie, ed. Eberhard Jiingel and Klaus W. Muller [Tubingen: J. C. B.
ence"

Mohr, 1984],
Judaic
and

p.

131). Cf.

Lesson,

p.

67,

n.

2. Would

this observation not apply

just

as well to the

Muslim

religions?

Thomas Aquinas,

to St. 20. See, however, I Corinthians 13:1-13, Romans 13:8, and John 15:12. According and indeed whoever has love (agape) necessarily possesses all the other virtues, Cardinal Virtues, Article 2, love connects the simply perfect virtues (Disputed Question on the trans. Ralph Mclnerny [South "Whether the virtues are connected such that he who has one has mentions that the source of love in Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 1999], pp. 118-19). Aquinas 5:5). Romans and 118 (p. Spirit the man is divine infusion
all,"

by

Holy

21. Das Magnificat

verdeutschet und

ausgelegt, ed.

Clemen, ii, 148, 150. Cited in Lesson,

occurs uncle

p.

19,

n.

54. A light, British

nephew,

version of

Luther's
to

heavy

German text his

in C. S. Lewis's Screwtape
accomplish

Letters. Satan's
corruption of

beginning
more

despair,

writes

that he may never

the the

the soul of his intended victim, for the man

has

a pure

heart

and exemplifies all exercise

Christian
cakewalk.

virtues.

The

Devil,
him
a

experienced

with

such challenges, regards this

as a

Just

remind

few times

of

his truly

good qualities, recommends

Satan,

and the man

is

ours'

Following

this line of thought,

would self-aware

Christians have to deceive themselves in

order

to

remain virtuous?

Cf. Nietzsche, Beyond Good

and

Evil 46. An Aristotelian

might suggest

that

well-founded

self-regard, rather than

humility,

occupies

the moral center of the human

commit

being
on a

consider of good character who would not even

stooping to

base

actions.

Consider,

76

Interpretation
aus verlorener

lower level, Friedrich Schiller, Der Verbrecher

Ehre ("The Man Who Became

Criminal Because He Lost His Honor").

22. Luther, Biblia. Das ist die
gantze

Heilige Schrift. Deudsch

aufs new

zugericht, ed. Hans

Volz (Wittenberg, 1545; Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1974), vol. 3, p. 2179. Cf. Nietz 2 and Human, All-too-Human II, "Mixed Opinions and sche, Will to Power 1 "Toward an
Outline,"

Maxims,"

and

20.
sheds

23. In CSLS Meier debates

light

on

Schmitt's

ground

for obscuring his

religious motives.

Aware

that his readership encompasses the

about

faithless

and the

misguided, Schmitt wishes to avoid

fruitless

the truth of the Christian revelation. For that revelation consists in absolute truth that
all

far transcends
unassisted

human

human discourse, reason (p. 75).

to his Die

and allows of neither refutation nor apodictic

demonstration

by

24. In the

preface

Denkbewegung

von

Leo Strauss (cited below The term

Meier'

as

DB),
and

pp.

9-13,

Meier

spells out the

"fourfold

meaning"

of political philosophy.

refers

to the political

object, the mode of philosophical action, the task of justifying the philosophic
ment of self-knowledge on

life,

the

achieve

the

part of

the

philosopher

(pp. 9-10).

s contribution

in Lesson

principally 25. At
seems,

consists

in

a new accentuation of

the third and fourth aspects and

in his

specific elabora

tion of them with a

a

view

to the challenge of political theology.

on revelation stands

minimum, the necessity of the chapter

beyond doubt. Meier, it

must

carry

heavy

burden there.

By

the standard of reason, a demonstration of untruth

presumably
experience.

means proof of either

internal,
trust

conceptual contradictions or

factual just

contradictions of

Does ical

not

the

political philosopher

in

the reliability of

human

reason

as

does the

unpolit

philosopher?

Meier
of

replies

in the negative, for the

political

philosopher

radically

calls

into

question the
nent

way

life based

on skeptical objections

inquiry

and

dialectical
Reason

reflection and considers all perti

demands,

arguments,

and

(p. 42). Yet

philosopher's self-justification?

Indicted

by Revelation,
as

gain a

vindicatory ruling from itself, Reason,

the circularity of the political defendant employs reasoning to judge. From the outset of the trial, though, Revela
what about as

tion asks to appeal to a tribunal superior to

court.

Reason, only

to have

Reason block

access

to this higher
course of our

Or does Meier

propose

that we as it were visit this

higher

judiciary

in the

investigations?
To take
ment and

another

approach,

what

if

we went so

far

as

to suppose

contrary to the human experience of experience (see, for instance, Friedrich Gogarten

revelation as

strictly for the sake of argu interpreted by those who have the

on Luther in Der Mensch zwischen Gott und Welt [Stuttgart: Friedrich Vorwerk Verlag, 1956], p. 218; also Strauss, "How to Begin to Study Medieval Philosophy" Political in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism: An Introduction to the

Thought of Leo Strauss [Chicago:

University

of

107)
with

that rejection of revelation allows of a cogent

Chicago Press, 1989], p. 215, and Persecution, p. justification. Would no serious nonreligious
to knowledge

critique of

the philosophic life remain viable? Would the philosopher not still have to come to grips
perhaps

mortality, perplexing,

insuperable

obstacles

of

the whole or of

Being,
cast a

and even shadow come

confounding limits

on the

knowability

of one's own self?

Would these limitations

could the political

of nihilism upon the philosopher's whole enterprise?

Or

philosopher and

to regard nihilism as a

byproduct
of

of certain modes of religious

thought

and

imagery,

to

see the original

decision in favor

the philosophic life as that choice

totally

well

boundaries

and

handicaps, because

sacrifice one's

autonomy, to bow to authority

and

including
and

to understand one's capacities

is the only way develop one's independent faculties to the fullest, incapacities? Does the animated self-affirmation of the
to

founded notwithstanding its given that the alternative is to

blanket affirmation of all the unavoidable frustrations human existence, an affirmation of the whole that has cosmic implications? See David Bolotin, Plato's Dialogue on Friendship: An Interpretation of the Lysis with a New Transla tion (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979), p. 159, p. 43. Lesson, p. 85, and
political philosopher comprehend

conscious,

limitations

of

DB,

On truth
Antichrist 54 26. See

and

the will to

independence
on

consult

Tertullian Apologeticum 46-47

and

and

Nietzsche,

and context

(48-62).
the

Meier, "The Discourse

Rousseau'

Origin

the

On the Intention

of

Most Philosophical

Work,"

Foundations of Inequality Among Men:

trans. J.

Harvey Lomax, 'interpretation:

A Journal of Political

Philosophy 16,

No. 2, (1988-89): 216-27.

Schmitt, Meier,
enemies."

and the

End of Philosophy

11

alia

27. Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1 172al 1-12, Plato Lysis 210e, 213c, 214d. Cf. Plutarch Mor"How to profit by one's See also Lesson, p. 51, n. 70.

28. See Lesson, p. 61 n. 100. Would Socrates have any place in the just city 29. Theodicy, "Introductory Essay on the Agreement of Faith with
concludes:

of

Plato's Republic!

Reason"

5. The
a moral

paragraph

"Vis-a-vis

proofs of

the truth of religion, proofs that can yield only

certainty,

the scales would be

balanced

could yield an absolute maintains

indeed, they would be tipped by [philosophic] certainty if they were really persuasive and entirely
faith depends
in
order on

objections that

compelling."

Leibniz
a

that the validity of

on

the successful
would

defense

of

faith

against attacks upon

it. The unbeliever,

crushing

the other

hand, evidently

have to

leap

higher hurdle

by mounting

offense aginst religion

to vindicate rejection of faith.

30. Essays, "Of On

pp.

Superstition."

86-88

notice

is taken

Simonides'

of
God?"

memorable

hesitation to

expatiate on the cites at

question

Hiero

puts

to

him,

"what is
the

Cicero De

natura

deorum i 60. Meier

sermon on

vexing length

the commentary on
considered

Simonides in

Cruciger

edition of

Martin Luther's

John 17: 1-3,

his best and, next to the Bible, favorite book. Regarding knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, Luther urges us to be on guard against reason and human thought, which amount to temptations of the Devil. We must close our eyes and, without thinking or speculating, hold fast
to the

by Luther

Bible;

we must

tell ourselves, "What Christ says, that shall

and

and must

be true

whether

or

any other human being can understand Otherwise we shall fall into confusion

and
and

(quoted on p. 87). grasp or know how it could be sin. "It is not possible to grasp the slightest article of
earth

true"

faith
able

by

human
a

reason or

the

senses,"

to have

right thought
construes

[or]

a certain

consequently "no human being on knowledge of God without God's

has

ever

been

Word"

(quoted

on pp. ques

87-88). Luther

Simonides'

procrastination and confessed aporia no access

regarding Hiero's

tion as confirmation that human reason has

so that reason

to "God's essence, work, will, and

decision,"

eventually reaches the errant conclusion that God is nothing, and believes in nothing. Cf. Romano Guardini, Der Herr. Betrachtungen iiber die Person und das Leben Jesu Christi
p.

(Wiirzburg: Werkbund Verlag, 1951),

466: "What is the Eucharist, then? Christ in his

eternal reality.
. . . . . .

sacrifice.

The suffering

and

death

of

the Lord in his

We
it.

are

to leave it at that

[formulation].
if the he wants,

Every
is"

attempt

to interpret it

intellectually
what

has to

destroy

It is

presumption and unbelief

human

being

wants

to determine
supplied).

is

possible

here. God

says what

he wants;

and what

(trans,

and

italics

31. Exodus 3:14; Leo Strauss, "Progress

nalism,
pp.

Return"

or

in The Rebirth of Classical Political Ratio

256-57;

of Religion, xi. 32. Augustine in his Confessions admonishes, "See to it that no one captures you by means of philosophy and inane deceptions, which are based on human traditions and on the elements of this
world and not on

255, 261, 259, 263-65, 267. Cf. David Hume, The Natural History Compare further St. Thomas Aquinas Summa theologica i. 12. 1, 7, and 11.
see also pp.

Christ, in

whom alone the whole plenitude of

men"

divinity
173).

lives

incarnate"

(iii, 4, 8).

"Get away, away, you profane Consider also Strauss, Rebirth, merely of. How indeed
divine things?
proves to

(Vergil Aeneid 196: "He

...

vi.

258;

cf. vi.

p.

is in

him that he He

cannot

say

or express to

no way Socrates

perplexed.

His

self-contradiction
an awareness

what

he thinks he has

can one express suffers as

[religious]
little
reaction

experiences

to someone who has never tasted the

himself."

...

change

during

the conversation as Socrates

Eckermann "Through faith

and

reports

Goethe's

to a painting of Jesus and Peter walking on the waves:

most

and courage man will

with

triumph in the

difficult

endeavors.

See Mark 9:23

Conversations

tions, "Religion

Christianity,"

and

Goethe, February 12, 1831. Cf. Lesson, p 120; Goethe, Maxims and Reflec sixth aphorism (on piety); and Persecution, p. 107 n. 35.
Truth."
rest,"

When he speaks here of an unnamed poet "who beauti 33. Francis Bacon, Essays, "Of Bacon of course means Lucretius, best of the fied the sect that was otherwise inferior to the

Epicureans. The
passage

unidentified

textual

reference pass

in Lucretius, Bacon hastens "to

business."

from theological,

is De Rerum Natura ii. 1-10. After alluding to this and philosophical truth, to the truth

of civil

proval

Meaning

34. For instance Aeschylus Prometheus in Chains 515-22. Schmitt, who voices his hearty ap in of Karl Lowith's study of "the theological implications of the philosophy of in History, shares Lowith's conviction "that paganism is not capable of historical thought
history"
cyclically"

because it thinks

(quoted

at

159-60). Cf.

p.

159

n.

99.

78

Interpretation
35. Der Leviathan in der Staatslehre des Thomas Hobbes. Sinn
und

Fehlschlag

eines politischen

Symbols (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1982). Meier does

8).
not exaggerate

1938;

reprinted

Cologne: Hohenheim
exceeds

Verlag,
powers

to free oneself from all

p.

in classifying Schmitt as a historicist: "It atmospheric influences in reflecting on living

exhibits

human

(Donoso
to
risk

Cortes,

Esoterically, Schmitt

in these two

works a

breathtaking

readiness

the extremest

tyranny
36.
mann,
cism

under a ruler or rulers

believed,

though of

undemonstrated prudence,

to enjoy

heavenly

sanction.

Radical historicism

and

totalitarianism

1977),

Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, pp. 152-74, 221-39, 244-61, 332-411. I do

and

cozy bedfellows. Gesamtausgabe 2 (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Vittorio Klosteroften make not consider

Hegel's

or

Dilthey's histori

here because I take Heidegger's

Hans-Georg

Gadamer's

critiques of them as

definitive.

Heidegger, Hegel's Phiinomenologie des Geistes. Gesamtausgabe 32 (1980) and Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode. Grundziige einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, Gesammelte Werke 1 (Tub ingen: Verlag J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1986), pp. 222-46. 37. Politiques de I'amitie suivi de L'oreille de Heidegger (Paris: Galilee, 1994). I shall cite his Spurs. Nietzsche's Styles/Eperons. Les Styles de Nietzsche (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) simply as S. Derrida's worldwide reputation as a master of irony could be said to inspire
See

Meier,
matter
much and

piipstlicher als

in the Epilogue (subtitled "A Theological

the same spirit. To quote
of an enormous
laughter"

der Papst [a better Pope than the Pope himself), to approach his subject or a Philosophical Politics of Friendship?") in
...

to the thunder Derrida, "there is evidence here to expose one of (S, p. 135). 38. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, p. 16, and Beitrcige zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) Gesamtaus gabe 65 (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Vittorio Klostermann, 1989), p. 224; cf. ibid., pp. 368-70.

lightning

clap

American Law

and the

Past, Present,

and

Future

of

the

American Regime
Harrison J. Sheppard

George Anastaplo, Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 359 pp., $35.00.

Biography (Lanham,

Most American
does
not

studies begin, and properly so, with the Constitution. The Constitution define the regime, but it is the most public and visible expression of it.

Harry Jaffa,

Conditions of Freedom (1973)

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional Biography,

by

George Anastaplo, is
the

uniquely important book. It

uted

should

interest

all serious students of

political

principles and aspirations that

have formed the American

regime and contrib

to its

long

endurance.

It could,

by itself,

provide

the basis
soul.

for

a complete

course on the essence of our readers the character of civic

great republican

constitution, that

is, its
to

It

also suggests to

leadership
which

needed

perpetuate

the success of the

"experiment"

is the United States

of

America

and

the

changes
it.'

in

prevalent

Anastaplo

makes

twentieth-century legal thinking that may now endanger these contributions through his analysis of the major influ
political

ences upon

Abraham Lincoln's

thought and the significance of there are

other

Lin
now

coln's own words and actions.

I doubt

in

print which more

luminously

any interweave the historic, philosophic,

whether

books
and

legal

origins of the

American

character

or, in the compass of one relatively small

volume,

as

with which earnest students of as we

clearly indicate, from an elevated perspective, the essential issues American democracy should concern themselves
century.2

begin the twenty-first

demands
upon

While his text is lucid The book's

and

engaging, the

author makes

his

readers.

voluminous

footnotes (with

labyrinthian
taining, but
logue,"

cross

references)

are a treasure of

require more

than usual

insights, both profound and enter intellectual diligence, in the spirit of "dia

for

readers

fully

to appreciate their content and the author's intentions.

INTERPRETATION, Fall

2000, Vol. 28, No. 1

80

Interpretation
I. THE REVIEWER'S BIAS

The
sures

claims made

in this essay for the book

reader's

under review require some evaluation of them.

disclo
past

by

the reviewer to assist the

For the

thirty-three years, the example and writings of George Anastaplo have made
possible

it

for

me

to

continue

the legal

profession or

practicing law without becoming a dyspeptic cynic

losing
about

faith in the nobility of its place in the Ameri

can regime.

I have

elsewhere referred

to Professor Anastaplo as "a magnificent

American."3

The reader may, there is willing to be an fore, properly infer that I regard Anastaplo as an American hero, a luminous bearer of this country's heritage. The reasons for this high regard, and its influ
example of a person who ence on

the character and

objectivity

of this review, are

highly
book,

relevant,
also

not

only

to consideration of my critical judgments about the

but

to an

appreciation of the genesis of the

book itself.

In my view, to be
preciation

"willing"

to be an American means,

first, having

an

ap

of what this country's essential political

principles and aspirations even at some personal

are, and, second,

risk or cost ens to at

being

willing to life.

stand

up for them

least

when attack upon them

directly

affects, or seriously threat

affect,

one's own

The first
are

criterion presupposes that this country's principles and aspirations presupposition

discoverable. This

is based
and

upon consideration of

the unique

political genius of

this country's Founders

of

coln, and the

intelligibility

the

heir, Abraham Lin Declaration of Independence, the United States

documents
examined

their faithful

Constitution,
coln:

and other seminal political

in Abraham Lin

A Constitutional Biography. The

the
political

preciation of

principles and aspirations

from an ap determination necessary from the first to secure the of the American Revolution. Some fashionable histor
second criterion proceeds
risked

ical

revisionism

notwithstanding, our revolutionary Founders

their sacred
honor"

their

"lives,

their

fortunes,
of

and

pendence, the first document publicly

by subscribing declaring this country

equal,"

to the Declaration of Inde to be 'The United

was

States

America,"

and

stating

the principles upon which

it

founded. One

of those

principles, "that all men are created

as

was regarded

by

Abraham

Lincoln

"the

leading

principle, the sheet anchor of American

republicanism"

(Lincoln-Douglas Debates, October 16, 1854). The

significance of that principle

is,
is

of

course, subject to interpretation. In the

view expressed

here, however,
and

one

"willing"

to be an American who is prepared, even

at personal cost or

risk,

to defend the principle on a reasonable

interpretation
were also

of

it. Rosa Parks

to be

Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., for example,

"willing"

Americans,

by

risking the

consequences

of

disobeying

laws that

violated the egalitarian

principle.

What the Founders

equal was not the

called the

"self-evident"

truth that all men are created

only fundamental political principle articulated in the Declara tion. Indeed, in terms of how its signers put themselves at risk, it was not the

American Law
most critical one.

and

the

American Regime

81

The

riskiest principle was the right of revolution

"inalienable"

itself. Asser
the pursuit

tion
of

in the Declaration

of our

rights

to

"life, liberty,
claim:

and

happiness"

was the antecedent

for

a more

decisive

That to
just

secure these

rights,

governments are

instituted among men,

right of

deriving

their

powers

from the

consent of

the governed; that whenever any form of govern

ment

becomes destructive

of these ends,

it is the
.

the

people

to alter or to

abolish

it,

and

to institute

new government.

Lincoln, reaffirming
said

the

importance

of the right of revolution,

repeatedly that the right

of revolution, the

"right of any
and

people"

to "throw off,

to revolutionize, their existing

stead as

form
"a

of

government,
a

to establish such other

in its
be

choose"

they may
to liberate the

was

sacred right

right, which we may hope

and

lieve, is
"the
of

world."

The Declaration
and

of

Independence, he insisted
the American

often,

was the great

world

"charter

freedom"

of
. .

in the

example of

Revolution

has found

the germ
chapter

to

grow and expand

into the

universal
p.

mankind."

(McPherson,

1, "The Second American

Revolution,"

liberty 24)

George Anastaplo may first have demonstrated his liberty of mankind when he was a very young man,
Air Corps to fight the threats to freedom
posed

willingness

to defend the

by

by

enlisting in the Army the Nazi regime and by

serving
strated

with

distinction. But,

while still a

young adult, he conspicuously demon

of

his

willingness

to be an American even more directly. When Anastaplo

graduated

(first in his class) from the

paranoia was at
Oath"

University
a

Chicago Law School in

was the

1951, Cold War

time when the

its

most

intense. This

McCarthy
a public

era, a

"Loyalty

had become

widely

accepted part of

both fed

eral and state public administration, and the mere suggestion

in

forum

that

a person

Anastaplo

refused to

had revolutionary Communist ties or leanings could ruin a career. be intimidated by this atmosphere. While generally es
undogmatic political

chewing such classifications himself, Anastaplo's may, if anything, be characterized as "classically

servative."4

stance

liberal,"

or perhaps even

"con

He

nevertheless

declined to become

a member of

the Illinois State

Bar

when

his

admission was conditioned upon

right of revolution as articulated

qualifying his acceptance of the in the Declaration of Independence. To do so

examiners

would, in his opinion, have been to join the Illinois Bar

in

a conspir

acy to violate the the United States Constitution.

right of

free

speech guaranteed

by

the

First Amendment to

For this
country's

principled

adherence

by

Anastaplo to the letter

and spirit of

this

founding documents,

the bar examiners refused to admit him to

prac

tice law

in Illinois. Anastaplo

appealed

this decision himself all the way to the

case

United States Supreme Court. He lost his

in

5-4 Supreme Court decision,

revers-

In Re Anastaplo, 366 U.S. 82 (1961). Subsequent authority, effectively

82

Interpretation
the

Court's ruling in Anastaplo, has vindicated his position and makes it of admission unlikely that any political test may now be imposed as a condition

ing

law in any state of the United States: see Baird v. State Bar of U.S. 1 (1971), a 5-4 decision with the majority opinion by Mr. 401 Arizona, Justice Black, holding that "The First Amendment's protection of association
to
practice prohibits a

State from excluding

beliefs"

a person

from

a profession or

solely because he is he holds certain

a member of a particular political organization or

punishing him because

(401 U.S. i,
v.

6, citing United States

of

v.

Robel, 389 U.S.

258, 266 [1967]

and

Keyishian
author

Board

Justice Hugo Black,

of the

Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 607 [1967]). majority opinion in Baird, was one of

the dissenters in the Anastaplo case.

His

dissenting

opinion concludes with

the

following
This

words

(Black's footnotes

omitted):

case

illustrates to

me

the serious

consequences

to the Bar itself of

applicants

not afford

ing
this

the full

protection of

the

First Amendment to its

for

admission.

For

record shows

that Anastaplo
not

American Bar. It shows,

and patriotic course

has many of the qualities that are needed in the only that Anastaplo has followed a high moral, ethical,
his

in

all of the activities of

life, but
have

also

that he combines to stand

these

more common virtues with

the uncommon

virtue of courage most

by

his

principles at

any

cost.
.

It is
. .

such men as these who

profession will

profession of

the law.

The legal

greatly honored the lose much of its glory if it is not

constantly
of

a group individuals is to humiliate thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing and degrade it.
replenished with

lawyers like

these.

To force the bar to become

is the present trend, not only in the legal profession but in almost every life. Too many men are being driven to become government-fearing and time-serving because the Government is being permitted to strike out at those who

But

that

walk of

are

fearless

enough

to think

as

they

please and

be halted if

we are to

keep

faith

with the

say Founders

what

they

think.

This trend

must

of our

Nation

and pass on to

fu

ture generations of Americans the great heritage of freedom which

so much

they

sacrificed
great

to leave to
of

us.

The

choice

is

clear to me.

If

we are

to pass on that

heritage We

freedom,
be

we must return

to the original language of the Bill of Rights.

emphases

must not

afraid

to

be free. (366 U.S. 82, 1 15,

added)

The
preme

reader

is invited to irony. Such

consider the

fact that, in 1961,

"nobility"

United States Su
of

Court Justice
without

could speak of the

"glory"

and

the legal

pro

fession is

characterizations are
change

explained

in detail below, this

related

in

public regard

unlikely to be used today. As for the legal profession

directly

to the practical abandonment, in prevalent American legal

practice,

of the moral and political principles

illuminated in Abraham Lincoln: his for

A Constitutional Biography. Justice Black's dissent in the Anastaplo

the
of
case and

subsequent opinion

majority in the Baird case demonstrate that, from time to time, a majority the justices of the United States Supreme Court have chosen not to follow

American Law
the clear

and

the

American Regime
and

83

letter

and spirit of our

Declaration

of

Independence

federal Consti

tution,

judicially politically reme died. Consider in this connection, for further examples, v. Plessy Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), reversed by Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483
reversed or

and

their decisions have had to be

(1954);

and

Korematsu

v.

United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), partially

case

remedied

by

an act of congressional reparation.

I first learned

of the

Anastaplo
course.

my Constitutional Law
nearly
as

in 1966, when I was a law student, in Reading Justice Black's dissent from the per

spective of one who aspired

to be an American

lawyer

was thrilling.

It

was

inspiring

as

my first reading,
Socrates'

as a student of philosophy, of

Plato's

Apology, dramatizing
him for his
meet

speech to the

Athenians

who were

prosecuting
to

philosophical

inquiries. I therefore felt it to be

years

a great privilege

Professor Anastaplo himself ten

the

nial celebration of pated.

Declaration

of

later, at Ohio University's bicenten Independence, in which we both partici

I
approach review of

We have been friends

and

ever since.
with which

The ideas

the skepticism

this book

are, therefore, very much

influenced

by

what

I have learned from Professor in

Anastaplo

during

the

past quarter

century

about the philosophic enterprise

political

general and

the particular origins and character of American

institu

unlike him, who has chosen not to be admitted to the bar, been a practicing lawyer for over thirty My approach to this book is, therefore, perhaps most influenced by my experiences as a lawyer in both

tions.

I have, however,

years.5

public and private practice and

by

the conclusions I have reached about our

legal

and governmental

institutions

as a result of those experiences.

view

With

respect

to the character of its author,

who

however, I

this book

as

the work of a man

has demonstrated in his life

choices a profound

understanding, and heroic

championship,
of

of political principles and aspirations which

most

I hold

as expressive

the American character at its best. In matters

author

George Anastaplo, the

profoundly American, of Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional Biography,

walked

has, in

this

reviewer's

judgment, truly

the

walk.

II. THE CHOICE OF LINCOLN AS SUBJECT OF THE BOOK

Now he belongs to the Ages.

Edwin M. Stanton,

at

Lincoln's deathbed

When Anastaplo

subtitles

his book

"Constitutional

Biography,"

he is

not

referring

derstanding
tion of the

only to how Abraham Lincoln's political life was based upon his un of the written United States Constitution. He uses the term in an
sense as

Aristotelian

well, to indicate that Lincoln's statesmanship

was a reflec

unique character of

the American polity, as that character may be

discerned in

principles embodied

in legislative

and other

documents

composed

84

Interpretation
and after

both before

the

Constitution, including,

most

importantly,
chapters

the Declara

tion of Independence. The titles of the book's threads Anastaplo sees as

principal

indicate the
cloth

forming

the

fabric

of our

American constitution,
shape

ing

Lincoln's

political

thought,

and

taking

renewed

in Lincoln's

own

words and

deeds:

1. The Declaration

of of

Independence: An Introduction Independence; On Rights

and

2. The Declaration

Duties

3. The Northwest Ordinance 4.

Slavery

and the

Federal Convention
and

of

1787

5. The Common Law

7. John C. Calhoun

the Organization of Government

6. Alexis de Tocqueville
and s of

Democracy Slavery
on

in America

8. Southern
9. The

Illinois'

Abraham Lincoln

Poetry

Abraham Lincoln

10. The "House

Divided"

Speech

11. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates 12. The First Inaugural Address 13. The Fourth
of

July

Message to Congress

14. The Emancipation Proclamation

15. The

Gettysburg

Address

16. The Second Inaugural Address 17. Abraham Lincoln's Legacies

these elements of Lincoln's "Constitu

Anastaplo's
tional

analyses and synthesis of

Biography"

shape

them into

a coherent whole.

He shows, in particular,
the

how they helped to form Lincoln's they illuminate the precedence Lincoln
prudence with which

views on
gave

slavery in the United States, how

to
preservation of

Union,

the

he

moved

toward abolition, and what we may yet have to

preservation
freedom"

learn from Lincoln's statesmanship about what is most essential to of our constitution. As other writers have also noted, the "new birth

of

for

which

Lincoln

called

in his

Gettysburg

particularly in
created

the popular mind, the

Address significantly re-established, meaning of the principle that "all men are American
constitution.6

equal"

as a cornerstone of the

Along
phy"

the way,

in

addition to explication of

those elements of the "Biogra

we would most expect to see

(i.e.,

chapters

1, 2, 11, 14-16), Anastaplo

Northwest Ordinance
shaped
.

offers a series of unusual

insights. His
how the
of

analysis of the

of

1787, for
ery"

example, shows

ordinance

decisively

this country as
. .

an authoritative

indication

"the

original constitutional stance expressed

toward slav

(p. 40),

moral

how it may have judgment of the American

and

community"

"the enduring (p. 278).

good sense and

Anastaplo's
reflections

chapter on

Tocqueville likewise limitations

of

provides original and

edifying

on

the possible

Tocqueville's analyses, particularly

American Law
insofar
tion.
as

and the

American Regime
of

85

they

proceed

from

a shallow

His

chapters on

Calhoun
It
would

and

understanding Lincoln's poetry

read

philosophy
chapter on

and educa

provide additional unex

pected

contributions.

be difficult to
most

his

Calhoun
thus

whom

Anastaplo

calls

"perhaps the
political

ominous

counterpart
without

far to

Abraham Lincoln in American

that the rebel

thought"

(p.

264)

concluding
made

but

were

only betrayed the disingenuous (if not hypocritical) in both the

leadership

not

Founders'

American principles,

arguments

they

for

secession and the

analysis of

language they used in forming the southern confederacy. The Lincoln's poetry in chapter 9 is deeply moving. In addition to the it demonstrates for Lincoln the man, it
their
of provides novel

sensitive regard

insights
po

into Lincoln's
litical

personal sensibilities and

possible effect on

his deepest

aspirations.

Anastaplo's treatment

this subject may be a unique contri the factors that influenced themes are the moral
and

bution to the Lincoln literature. Although Abraham Lincoln's

are political

life,

and

it,

the formal subjects of the

book, its underlying

statesmanship

and

political principles

that animated his

the

nature of

the pru

vitality in America's future constitution. While assigning "to Lincoln a very high place in the pan theon of American constitutional (p. 344), Anastaplo declares that he
needed

dence

to apply those

principles

to secure continued

heroes"

"would

prefer

to see more made of the American regime, and less of Abraham

specific response

Lincoln"

(pp. 155-56). (This in

to the contrary views of Pro

fessor

Harry Jaffa,

as quoted at p.

198.)

III. THE AUTHOR'S TREATMENT OF HIS SUBJECT

Anastaplo terms this

work a

"book-length

dialogue"

(p. 8),

and announces

his

attempt to

follow in Lincoln's tracks to this

somewhat

extent: all of

the discussions col

prepared

lected here (adapted

specific occasions

to this dialogic context) were

and

by

me

for

between 1961

1998. In them I
law to

address

issues in American his

returned again and

tory,

political

philosophy, and
are

constitutional

which

I have

again.

These issues
.
.

illuminated

by,

and

in turn illuminate, in

observations about

current affairs.

[0]ne

can proceed, as reader,

whatever order one prefers

recom
which

through this
mended.

my more or less chronological order is Considerable overlapping is to be found in the extensive notes,

Collection,
together.

although

tie

the
on

chapters

[T]his Collection
pp.

could well

be

subtitled

A Dialogue

Prudence. (Prologue,

1, 9,

emphasis

original)

Three
are

points essential announced

to an

appreciation of

the book's treatment of

its

subject

here in

by

Professor Anastaplo.

First, in
gage

the true Socratic

with the

tradition, Anastaplo invites text, to

reflect

readers

actively to

en

"dialogue"

carefully

upon the

many

questions

86

Interpretation
as well as their philosophical and political

he explicitly poses,
encourages
raises.

implications. He

readers

to reach their own conclusions on the critical issues

he

own opinions may be inferred from fundamental matters. But his views are not offered dog in the most particularly matically. This gift to readers is not tendered out of intellectual timidity but follows from Anastaplo's profound reverence for the process by which intelli

Anastaplo's

the work as a whole,

gent

human beings

pursue philosophy:

the love of wisdom earned

and

by

delibera

tive

inquiry

enriched

by

one's own personal experiences

method

insights. Anas

taplo's use of the Socratic

method used

is in sharp

contrast

to the so-called Socratic

in

some

law

school

instruction, in
the student
and

which a

law

school professor sophistical

browbeats

a student with questions to

demonstrate the

professor's

resourcefulness and

to "toughen

up"

school
method

training in
is
a vicious

effect

advocates

for the adversary role such law promotes. The celebrated law school for truth. As
explained

travesty

of the search profession

further below,

it follows

a model of the

legal

inconsistent

with

Lincoln's (and Anas

taplo's)
to

view of what

the profession should be and threatens foreseeable

injury

perpetuation of

the political institutions to which Lincoln devoted his states

manship.7

Second, Anastaplo informs the reader that the book interweaves American history, political philosophy (broadly understood), and American constitutional The law, partly with the end in view of helping to illuminate "current
affairs."

substance of

this

rare

kind

of synthesis

may be the

most

important thing

about

the book.

Third, in
concluding
to

the excerpts

from the Prologue

quoted

above, the author

advises

the reader of the political virtue he holds in the highest regard: prudence. The
notes

to his chapter on Lincoln's

Gettysburg

Address

go so

far

as

(p. say that "A good constitution is, in a sense, prudence 344). This is the virtue Anastaplo obviously admires most in Lincoln, whom he calls "a model of prudential judgment, or at least as fine a practitioner of it
as we

institutionalized"

have

perhaps

had in

government

in this

Country"

(p. 203). Anastaplo's

understanding of prudence (and his observations about its presence or absence in the conduct of contemporary political affairs), is central to appreciation of
this

book

and

his

political writings

in

general.

It has

given

him

an almost oracu

lar foresight in the diagnosis

and prognosis of controversial political matters as

they
and

arise. (See especially Anastaplo, The American Moralist: On Law, Ethics Government [Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992].) His analysis of Lin

coln's approach

to the

most sensitive

issues

of

his administration, in

particular

the abolition of slavery,

coln's prudent essence of

is

almost a mathematical

demonstration
political

of

how Lin
the

advancement of this country's

greatness.

highest

goals was

his

There is
taplo does

another point about the

not announce at

book's treatment

of

its

subject which

Anas

its beginning. He declares in footnote 473

on page

331:

American Law

and

the

American Regime

87

Rhetoric means, in practice, no footnotes: that is, qualifications, sustained tion, and documented evidence are neither necessary or useful; a "first
(and that
often on the

substantia

reading"

run) suffices for

most people.

The text

of

Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional

and a pleasure affect some readers

Biography

is both intellectu Lin

ally engaging
that may

to read. It rises at times to an almost poetic pitch

deeply

(for example, in its

examination of

coln's own poetry). of reason and

But Anastaplo is
strain

most of all concerned with

the

"rhetoric"

declines to

for typical

rhetorical effects.

A full

understand

ing

of the author's

readers

(perhaps

at

substantiation,

and

book's content, may therefore require its a second reading) to consider Anastaplo's "qualifications documented in 533 footnotes. thought,
and the
. . .
evidence"

IV.

REVOLUTION, REASON, AND REVERENCE FOR THE LAW

Every
and

community of some kind, every community is established with a view to He who is unable to live in society, or who has no
a

State is

some good
need

because he is

sufficient

for himself,

must

be

either a

beast

or a god

The determination

of what

is just is the

principle of order

in

political society. and

Excerpts from Aristotle, Politics, Bk I, Chaps. 1

If Anastaplo's dominant
is the

concern

moral and political principles of the secure achievement of what

in this book is an understanding of the American constitution, his ultimate concern

considers the

(and personal) good: (pp. 257-62), a reflection

he evidently freedom. This is suggested

on the nature of

highest

political

by

the content of the

Epilogue

slavery

and

human liberty. As Isaiah

Berlin's famous essay Two Concepts of Liberty indicates, one may distinguish and with the former ("Negative Lib between the terms
"liberty" "freedom,"

erty")

being

more

closely

associated with release more

from

external

restraints, and

the latter ("Positive

Liberty")

greatest possible self-realization. aspects of

nearly identified with achievement of the Anastaplo is, of course, concerned with both Ameri
ad and constitutional

liberty

in his

consideration of the character and objects of the

historic, philosophic, dresses "are illuminated by, and in turn

can regime and

how the

issues he

illuminate"

observations about these

dimensions

affairs.8

of current
most

Perhaps the
the individual

basic

and

enduring

question of political

philosophy, drama

tized 2400 years ago in

Sophocles'

and the community.

Antigone, is the just relationship between This question most commonly arises in dem
of

ocratic times and places

in the

course

between

liberty

and

equality

when conflicts

assessing the balance to be struck between them arise in specific polit

a public television
chan-

ical,

social, and

economic contexts.

On June 23, 2000,

88
nel

Interpretation
broadcast
an edition

of a

View,"

indicates its

purpose.

continuing program This particular program

whose

title, "Independent interview

with two
Revolutionary."

was an of

producers of a

documentary

film titled "Out: The

Making

The film tells the story of a woman who was imprisoned for fourteen years for planting a bomb in the United States Capitol, in protest of United States military
policies

in Grenada
of

and

Lebanon. The
a

"protester"

was presented as a possible whose

"role

model"

dissent,

"revolutionary"

former

penal status was char

acterized as that of a

"political

prisoner."

In the

course of

the

interview,
subject at a

there

was not the slightest suggestion

by

the show's host

except, possibly, for his their

twice

asking

the

producers

whether

they
if

considered
not

"role

model"

that the woman's actions were,

sistent with a conscientious regard

simply criminal, for individual human rights

"nonjudgmental"

least incon

and a

form

of

dissent far

outside responsible political avenues available

to her in this country,

"value-free"

including, for
attitude of political

example,

civil

disobedience. The
the show's

or
and

the

broadcaster,
of

host,

the film producers, and the

notions

the

documentary
"heroism"

subject

believed in the
sent an

martyred

of

herself (who evidently sincerely her acts) unfortunately no longer repre

vignette.

contemporary American In 1990, the National Institute for Dispute Resolution

isolated,

or even a rare,

sponsored a six-month

study
part

of conflict

in the United States

and

issued

a report which concluded

in

that

Conflicts
more

will remain a

kind

of growth

industry

in the 1990's.

The U.S.

will

be

fragmented along lines of race, culture, nationality of origin, wealth, age and interests so that the "melting concept will be replaced by one of the "mosaic
pot" society,"

and

increasing

polarization

may

occur

between

various groups.

Turbu
Intellec

lence

and rapid change

is

likely

to characterize the 1990's decade.

Madeleine
on

Crohn, Address Before

tual

Property

and

the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee Judicial Administration (May 19,

1992).9

The NIDR
church

conclusions

foreshadowed the
of abortion

activities of private militia groups,

and other

bombings, burnings

clinics,

kinds

of civic terrorism

arising from different social, political, religious, racial, ethnic, points during the decade of the nineties.
Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional

and cultural view

Biography is

an

important book in

part

because it

illuminates, directly

and

by implication,
regime that

the bases

for the kinds

of

misunderstandings of our

American

lead to

such episodes.
written:

Referring

to Anastaplo's thought on this matter,

John

Murley

has

Politics

and

morality

cannot

cratic republic, more than

publican

be separated in any political community. But a demo Re any other, depends on the character of its citizens.
.

government,

even under a well crafted

Constitution

cannot

be

expected to

American Law
prosper when a people's character and

and

the

American Regime
sound.

89

habits

are no

longer

the government to promote such soundness. The American people,

It is the duty of [Anastaplo] main

what

tains,

are

truly self-governing

and

truly free "only

when

they know
in the

they

are

doing"

which

includes possessing

a self-awareness grounded

recognition

that

competence, moderation, self-restraint and civility are

necessary to decent and sus

added)

tained self-government.

(Murley,

pp.

172-73,

emphasis

The

critical

implications

of these propositions

for contemporary

affairs are

indicated

by

Anastaplo's

observation that

"An

emphasis upon

the enduring prin

wrong shared by Americans is not fashionable today among (pp. 76-77). legal scholars, especially those known as 'legal Anastaplo's tracing of Lincoln's political career demonstrates Lincoln's ac
ciples of right and
realists'"

ceptance of

the paramount

importance

of prudent moral reasoning, not

was no

dogma

tism,

as a guide to political and

life. For Lincoln, there

practical

deep

division between
career"

morality

politics, "however

he

could

be in his

political

(p.

132). Lincoln, despite his own very strongly held personal antislavery views, consistently exercised political restraint in order to advance the principles of our

rootedness of

sacrificing the Union. The in his understanding of human nature (which largely follows the Enlightenment understanding of the Founders) is in sharp and postmodern notions of legal contrast to more "politically
American
constitution and achieve abolition without

Lincoln's

politics

correct"

"realism,"

nominalism, and the

are no

now

dogmatic

convention

that, in law

and

politics, "there

absolutes."

Anastaplo discusses throughout the book,

ble Classical
and the

and

and particularly in his notes, possi Enlightenment influences in the political thought of Lincoln extended

Founders. His

discussion in
to have

note

492,

page

348,

points

out,

for example, that "Lincoln

the

seems

been, in decisive
not

respects, a child of

Enlightenment, dedicated

to the

hope, if

the expectation, of continuous

published

progress."

and unlimited

Referring

to the text of a handbill

of religious

by

Lincoln
suggests

in 1846 to

rebut allegations of statement

his lack

faith,

Anastaplo

that Lincoln's

in the handbill implies

that

if

a set of opinions

should

be harmful to the

morals of would

the community,

they

should not scoffed at. are no

be immune from The

most serious

criticism.

Some doctrines, it

seem,

should

be

threat

enduring both the right and the ability

cuts at the root of

standards of good and

may be posed bad. Such

by
a

any doctrine that insists there

which can

doctrine,

deny

also

of the government to
vitality.

identify

and promote

morality,

community

(P.

246)

One may
of

agree or

disagree

with

Anastaplo

about ways

in

which

it is the

role

morality."

the

government

"to

identify

and promote

dispute his
of

account of

the

political principles

that

gave

One may not as easily birth to the United States

argument

America

and

animated

Lincoln's

statesmanship.

Or his

that the

90

Interpretation
examined

documents

in Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional

institutions
were understood

Biography demon
and the

strate that our political

by

Lincoln

Founders

depend for their vitality upon the necessity for "reason and nature [to] be justice" and thereby determine the proper balance be looked to in establishing Lincolntween liberty and equality in particular matters. In his discussion of the
to

Douglas debates

of

1858 (p. 171), Anastaplo identifies the underlying

philo

sophical question that

may divide those

who understand the enlightened charac

ter of the American regime as conceived

stood

by

its Founders (and

one can

as

Lincoln

under

them),

and

those who do not:

"Indeed,

say, the question of the

status of natural right at

least in this

Country"

is today the key issue in legal (p. 171).

views

education and

jurisprudence,
as a

Anastaplo understandably

Lincoln's "conservative

legacy

...

bar

rier against that massive assault

by

positivism, value-free social science, legal

realism, existentialism, and relativism to which intellectuals have been routinely

subjected cism of

in the twentieth

century"

(p. 255). It is

legal realism, positivism,

and moral

noting that, in his criti relativism, Anastaplo appears to

worth

credit most

ordinary Americans

with more practical

wisdom, and a more

perva

sive moral

sense, than the more sophisticated, as when he says: "An emphasis

upon the enduring principles of right and wrong shared by Americans is not fashionable today among legal Responsibility for abandonment by American lawyers, in the twentieth cen
scholars."

tury,

of

Anastaplo partly

faith in the vitality of the principles which guided Lincoln is at the door of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. In
opinion, Holmes rejected as a

placed

by

famous

dissenting
judges

"fallacy

illusion"

and

the idea that

might

be

able

to

discern,
law:

through reason, enduring

principles

forming

the

substance of the common

"If there

were such a

transcendental

body

of

law

outside of

obligatory States might be

there
cab

within

it

unless and until changed

by

statute, the

any particular State but Courts of the United

right

is

no such

in using their independent judgment as to what it was. But law." Black & White Taxicab Co. v. Brown & Yellow Taxibody of See
also

Co., 276 U.S. 518, 533-34 (1928),

added. also cited

(Emphasis

Erie Railroad Co.

which

[1938],

by Anastaplo,
law.)

in note 154, page 283. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 73f. proclaimed, in effect, that all law, written or
as quoted and cited v.

unwritten, is positive

Analyzing
that

the philosophical

implications

of these

views, Anastaplo

argues

ing
ley,

contemporary jurisprudence has looked to law "not as the product of reason with a view to justice, but rather as merely the exercise of sovereign power,
States
168). law implied in Holmes's
common
could

and the
p.

be looked

at as sufficient repositories of such

power"

(Mur

In

contrast to the view of

dissent, Anastaplo

regards

the Court's role in

expounding the

law

as

American Law
a question about

and

the

American Regime by

91

the very nature of law and how justice is to be arrived at

. .

courts

It is a question about the working way that reason and nature may be looked to in establishing justice, something that common-law courts have always been thought of as most adept in The common law is a way of applying, doing case-by-case, the enduring standards of the community, and in such a way as to
on their own.

bring
size

the community along, even as reforms are being here that common-law judges discover the law;
nature

made.

It is salutary to
not

empha

they do
pp.

simply

make

it.

Reason looks to

(instead

of will

looking

to

desire) in declaring

the rule that

is to be followed. Anastaplo, The Constitution of 1787,

128-33. (Murley, p

168)

Holmes's dogmatic dissent is

related to the modern

dogma

"nominalism,"

of

enabling

Chief Justice

of the

United States Supreme Court to

write that

Nothing
lutes,

is

more certain
a

in

modern

society than the

principle that there are no abso

phrase, a standard has meaning only when associated with the considerations which gave birth to the nomenclature. Dennis v. United States, 341

that a name,

U.S. 494, 508 (1951). (P. 19)

Prefacing

this quoted statement, Anastaplo observes that

It is curiously indicative
ments of

of our own equivocal attitude

toward the

founding

senti

this republic that the

deservedly

celebrated

1954 United States Supreme

Court decision striking down

mention

public school

desegregation in this

Country

failed to

assuming

that such segregation represents a denial of the principle that the

all men are created equal

Declaration

of

Independence, relying instead

findings

on the

much more questionable and

far less

elevated

of social science research.

(Pp. 18-19).

Anastaplo is then

so

bold

as

to urge upon his

readers

the proposition that

The "principle
selves

absolutes"

that there are no

or

is

not one

to which men can pledge them

in

forming

indeed the
our

nature of

It is as a reminder of absolutes, and reforming "a free human beings, that the Declaration of Independence remains

People."

founding

instrument. (P. 19)

done

Considering the implications for the American polity of the potential by legal realism and nominalism, Anastaplo goes on to suggest that
well

harm

It may

be

that Americans

have

greater need

to be explicitly reminded to

day

of this principle

[of the
it

right of revolution as stated

in the Declaration

of

Inde
em

pendence], and
phasis

all that

implies,

than

at

any

other

time

in their history. (P.

19,

added)

92

Interpretation

And, he quickly

adds:

The right

of revolution

implies

an

insistence

upon the

supremacy

of reason

in hu

man affairs.

(P.

20)

There are, evidently,

citizens and
sible and

an

increasing

number of alienated

politically irresponsible forms

one

motivated groups who

but politically active fail to distinguish between respon

to express their grievances. With

of political action

some

charity,

may

consider these the victims of their own

ignorance

or

lack

of education.
not

But

such apologies cannot as who

reasonably be

made

perhaps should

be

made

for those

have taken

upon themselves the

duty

of

enacting,

enforcing, administering, adjudicating, or practicing American law. To whom

else

are

the

people

of this

whether our

form

of government

country reasonably, and likely, to look, to decide deserves their continued consent; whether the

exercise of governmental powers remains our government

just;

or whether

the administration of
which

is

becoming
was

destructive

of the ends

for

it

was estab

lished: to

secure our rights to

life, liberty,

and the pursuit of

happiness?

Abraham Lincoln

keenly

aware of the

in the

administration of our

law to

keep

our

necessity for justified public faith liberties secure when he said:

We find

ourselves under

the government of a system of political

of civil and religious
. . .

institutions,
.

conduc

ing more essentially to the ends history of former times tells us.
cal religion

liberty,
the

than any of which the

.

Let

reverence

for

laws

become
and

the

politi

of the nation;

and

let the

old and

the young, the rich

the poor, the

grave and

the gay, of
upon

all sexes and

tongues,

and colors and

conditions, sacrifice un

ceasingly

its

altars.

While

ever a state of

feeling,

such as

this,

shall univer

sally, or even, very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every ef fort, and fruitless every attempt, to subvert our national freedom. ("The Perpetuation
of

Our Political

Institutions,"

Address Before the

emphasis

Young

Men's Lyceum

of

Spring

field, Illinois, January 27, 1838,

added)

Among

a number of other references

to this speech in his text, Anastaplo refers

years"

to it as "Lincoln's great speech of

(p. 128) and relates it to Lincoln's guiding political objectives: "The perpetuation of our political institu Anastaplo writes, "was the task to which Abraham Lincoln, a devoted
tions,"

his Vandalia

grandson of the
of

Revolution,

can

be

said

to have

dedicated himself from the days

when

his

youth

in

Springfield he was not yet Lyceum until the

thirty
of

he

spoke on

this subject

to the

Young

Men's

hour

his

assassination on

Good Fri

day, in
our
of

the year

1865"

(p.

230,

note omitted).

As the

following

American

explains, it is potentially the most tragic consequence for constitution that the shift from an Enlightenment
realism,"

the

law,

to "legal

"nominalism,"

and

like

postmodern

understanding intellectual

American Law
fashions
of

and

the

American Regime

93

mentioned by Anastaplo, operating in conjunction with the economics contemporary legal practice, has made it increasingly difficult for citizens who come into contact with our legal system to maintain that "reverence for the
laws"

of which

Lincoln
free

spoke as the

foundation for

perpetuation of the political

institutions

of a

people.

V. THE PRESENT STATE OF OUR AMERICAN CONSTITUTION

In his
Majority"

analysis of

factors contributing

to

"Mitigations
in

of the

Tyranny

of

the

in

volume

1,

chapter

16,

of

Democracy

America, Alexis de Tocque

ville wrote:

Lawyers
and

belong to the people by birth and interest, and to the aristocracy by habit taste; they may be looked upon as the connecting link between the two great classes of society. The profession of the law is the only aristocratic element that can
be
amalgamated without violence with the natural elements of

democracy

and

be

ad

vantageously and permanently combined with them. I am not ignorant of the defects inherent in the character of this body of men; but without this admixture of lawyer like sobriety
tions could
subsist with

the democratic principle, I question whether democratic institu

and

long

be maintained;
of

cannot public

believe that

a republic could not

hope to

if the influence

lawyers in
.

business did

increase in

proportion

to the power of the

sion or carried

people.

When the American

of their

people are

intoxicated

by

pas

by

the

almost

impetuosity away by invisible influence of their legal

the

ideas, they

are checked and stopped

counselors.

Tocqueville identifies

additional

factors in American

political and social

life

which, in his opinion, may

also operate to perpetuate

majority"

democratic liberties

by

checking
racy.

the

"tyranny

of the

and other potential excesses of

democ

These include: trial

by jury,
of

maintenance of the

"spirit

religion"

free press, voluntary private associations, and But the among the American
as surveyed and explicated

people.1

deepest laid

pillars of our

American constitution,

in

Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional Biography,

principles embodied

relate

to the moral and political

in

our
.

fundamental laws;

principles which made

. .

"The

new

nation on this continent most all

the wonder of the world

ripen
power

(p. 232). Ours is the in

enduring democratic republic ever to known history. Its peaceful transfers of

into

a major world power

one political

from

faction to

another

for

more

than two centuries

are

is

a political achievement without prece

dent. When it

was

less than half its

present

age, Lincoln himself wondered at

our constitution's endurance:

I have

never

had

feeling
of

ied in the Declaration

politically that did not spring from the sentiments embod Independence. I have often inquired of myself, what
...

94

Interpretation
great principle or

idea it

was that

the

mere matter of

the separation of the

kept this confederacy so colonies from the

long

together.

It

was not some

mother

land; but

thing in the Declaration giving liberty, not alone to the hope to the world for all future time. It was that which
time the weights
should

people of

this country, but

that in due that
all should

gave promise

be lifted from the

shoulders of all

men,

and

have

an equal chance.

This is the

sentiment embodied

in that Declaration
his

of

Inde

pendence.

Speech for Washington's

Pennsylvania, February 22, 1861.

(Quoted

Birthday by

at

Independence
as

Hall, Philadelphia,
epigraph

Anastaplo

to chapter

1.)
Anastaplo follows Lincoln's
the
view

that our written Constitution

is, in

essence,

further

embodiment of

this

principle

into

our government's organic

law.

Continued justified belief

commitment
general

by

the people of this country in our

Constitutional
promote

"to
.

establish
. .

Justice, insure domestic Tranquility

the blessings of

the

Welfare
it."

and secure

Liberty

to ourselves and our

Posterity"

remains

think of

Indeed,

"constitution"

presently may see such belief as the essence of the American in its broader sense. As Dr. James H. Rutherford has observed:
one

the

key

to endurance of the America

regime as we

The future

of

American

government still rests on public opinion.

It

rests on our un

derstanding
our

and support

for the

moral

foundations

of constitutional

democracy
.

and

ability to communicate and preserve such an understanding effectively. [T]he enjoyment of individual freedom and progress of human liberty are not inevi
.

table.

They
to

are

contingent, to

large degree,

on our willingness and

agents

place our

free

will within ethical constraints.

ability as moral It is indeed the self-imposed

ethical or moral

foundations

of government that change mere obedience to the coer

cive powers of government

into

a sense of consensual
rights.

responsibility for

a moral

duty,

just order, the

common

good, or human

(Rutherford, The Moral Foun

dations of United States Constitutional

Democracy

[Pittsburgh: Torrance

Publishing

Co., 1992],

p.

7)
another and

Ronald Dworkin,

thoughtful analyst of our American constitution,

has fortified Anastaplo's

Rutherford's

views with

his

assertion

that

The American ideal

the
most

of government not

only

under

law but

under principle as well

is

important

contribution our

Freedom's Law: The Moral

MA: Harvard

history Reading of the

p.

has

given to political theory.

American Constitution

(Dworkin, [Cambridge,

University Press, 1996],

relates

6)
summarized

Dworkin

directly

the moral

imperatives

by

Rutherford to

judicial interpretation

of our written

Constitution:

There is nothing revolutionary about the moral reading [of the Constitution] in prac tice. So far as American lawyers and judges follow any coherent strategy of interpre Lawyers and ting the Constitution at all, they already use the moral reading.
. . .

American Law
judges, in
moral

and the

American Regime
as

95
ab

their

day-to-day
As I

work,

instinctively
only be
. .

treat the

Constitution

stract oral requirements that can

applied to concrete cases through

no real option

expressing fresh
so.

judgments

argue.

they have

but to do

(Pp

2-3)
In the
ment

day-to-day

affairs of the people of this

of our

country,

we meet our govern

in the administration
contact with public more contact

us

in

is that "the
upon

critically in situations that bring administrators, lawyers, and judges. The present reality people have with lawyers, the less favorably they look
most

laws,

the legal

profession."12

Given the

contrast

between the
as

nature of our

Amer

Lincoln followed it, and as most Americans sense it, this is to be expected. The model of legal wholly practice promoted in American law schools, and generally followed in the prac tices of most American lawyers, judges, and public executives today, makes it
conceived

ican

constitution as the

Founders

it,

more

difficult for Americans to

maintain that

"reverence for the

laws"

Lincoln
demo

evidently thought was practically indispensable to preservation

cratic

of our

liberties. For the fact is, that the

current prevalent model of

legal

practice

constitutes an essential abandonment of the moral and political principles which

have formed
tional

our constitution as explicated

in Abraham Lincoln: A Constitu

Biography}1

My

experiences as a

lawyer

during

the past thirty-three years

have

persuaded me

that it is a model which is not only inappropriate to condi

one

tions of

twenty-first-century American democracy, but

of our

which

now

may

threaten to tear apart the fabric

part of

American

constitution.

I have
a

summarized
published

the

basis for this troubling

conclusion as

follows, in

widely

opinion editorial:

When I way

went

to law school, I believed that

being

lawyer

was not

only

a good

to earn a

living,

but

a good

the main

purpose of

being

way lawyer is to

to live. It seemed to me then

as now

that

help

advance once

justice,

peace, and

human study

freedom. But law

was

school was a shock to me.

Not

in my three

years of

there ever a discussion of how a practicing lawyer can

school taught me

help

advance these great

no quarter

ideals. Instead, law

given or

how to

argue

aggressively, with

taken,
skill. most

and

how to fight

an

opposing

point of view with

uncompromising

technical

Like

law

schools

then
no

and

now,

mine

didn't

require

that students learn how

to negotiate.

Even today,
schools
a

law

school aims

to

help

students

develop
an

practical wis view.

dom, human insight

American law
you wanted not schools

or the

ability to deal empathetically with are exactly the kinds of institutions

of civil war

opposing
Law

you would create

if

to promote

kind

instead

of civil peace.

schools are

profitable conflict.

for resolving conflict harmoniously; they are schools to help promote It's no wonder that American lawyers have become, in the eyes bad jokes.
counselor, conciliator, problem-solver and
planner used replaced

of most people,

The lawyer

as

to be the the gun

model of the profession

in this
warrior.

country.

This
no

model

has been

by
our

for hire, the mercenary

This is

longer merely irritating; in

highly

in-

96

Interpretation dividualistic, increasingly fragmented

The American legal
themselves to be
can

society, it has become downright dangerous.

profession and

its

most accomplished members and progressive

have

proven

among
all

the
at

lawyers, going back

a

civilizing least to Thomas Jefferson, have helped to

To

most

forces in history. Ameri

provide

hope

for
ture

better life to be
as

the
as

world.

help

increase the

chances that our

American fu

will

bright

its promise,

we need to
as a

do

what we can

to

encourage resto

peacema

ration of

the model of the American lawyer

Abraham Lincoln
ville placed

was

among the best

of the

kind

of

lawyer in

whom

Tocque
and

his hopes for

preservation of a

healthy

balance between
of

liberty

equality in the American democracy. But he is not the kind most Americans have access today. The kind of lawyer of
was

lawyer to

whom

whom

Tocqueville

writing has, traditionally, been

"lawyer-statesman"

considered

the professional ideal. He is

termed a

by Anthony Kronman,

Dean

of

Yale

University

Law School, in his thoughtful book, The Lost Lawyer: Legal Profession (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

Failing

University

Ideals of the Press, 1993). In this

the lawyer-

book, Kronman describes

statesman

and

laments the

progressive extinction of

in today's legal "market":

The decline

of the

lawyer-statesman ideal has

[thrown]
It

the

professional

identity

of

lawyers into doubt. (P.

354)
an

The lawyer-statesman ideal is

adopts

ideal

of character.

calls upon

the

lawyer

who

it

not

just to

acquire a set of engages

intellectual skills, but to

develop

certain charac

ter traits

as well.

It

his

affects

feel

as well as think
whole

in

certain ways.

along with his intellect and forces him to The lawyer-statesman ideal poses a challenge

to the

person,

and

this helps to explain

view

why it is

capable of

offering

such a

deep
But

personal

meaning to those who ideal

of the

their professional responsibilities in its

light. (P.
...

363)
in
our schools and

the older

forces

firms

lawyer-statesman is today so besieged by hostile and courts that its restoration now seems nearly
its

hopeless. (P

368)
profession as a whole will awaken to the emptiness of
great resurgence of

[T]he likelihood that the

condition and

that there will be a

support,

at an

institutional
low. (P.

level, for

the vanishing

ideal

of the

lawyer-statesman

seems to me quite

380)
Ever
since the

United States Supreme Court

struck

down

state

bar

prohibi

tions against lawyer

advertising in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350 despite prophetic warnings of four dissenting Justices, the practice of (1977), law has moved increasingly from a professional to a business Long
before this
constitution came

model.15

about, its

happening

was

seen

as

potential

threat to our

by

American lawyer-statesmen:

Henry

who served

L. Stimson, the twentieth century doyen of the modern corporate attorney, in high government positions under six presidents, wrote

passionately

of

American Law

and

the

American Regime
and

97

the necessity of the American lawyer to be a defender of the laws

Constitution.

"I

felt,"

he

wrote

in

.On

Active Service in War

and

Peace, "that if

the time

should ever come when this tradition

come

faded

out and the members of the

Bar had be

deed."

merely servants of business the future of our liberties would be gloomy in (Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith, No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and The

Perversion of Justice in America [New York: Random

House, 1996],

p.

xvii)

Accelerating

growth

in

size of

law firms

since the

1950's has concomitantly

to increase
attorneys'

increased law firm

clients'

overhead and operated

need

to subordinate efficient resolution of

member and associate

problems

to the

for

each

firm

his

and

her "billable

hours."

Particularly
lawyers'

where

third-party

payment of

fees is involved,

almost all the

economic

incentives

are on

the side of
that

protracted procedural wrangling.

In

contrast

to the customs of legal ago, it is

now

practice

to generally recently thirty relatively find lawyers representing opposing parties who are willing to engage in candid, good faith discussions about the merits of the claims and defenses involved
obtained as as years
rare without

first undertaking
client

and

completing

protracted

formal

procedures.

Instead

of addressing efficiently, in the light of economical reason and common sense, to determine quickly what the real issues in the matter are or might be, lawyers now generally rely upon costly legal techniques to "ad
vance"

"situations"

their cases, in

ostensible preparation

for trial. ("Real

situations."

people

don't find

they find themselves in situations. Lawyers don't encounter Sol M. Linowitz, The they encounter them in Betrayed Profession: Lawyering at the End of the Twentieth Century [New The lack of intrinsic necessity York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994], p. 128. for such legal practice, in terms of the interests, is indicated by the
themselves in cases; their clients in cases;
)16
parties'

statistics

for disposition

of

litigated

cases.

The

great

settled without a trial, commonly on the basis of

majority of all lawsuits factors ascertainable at

are

an

early stage "American

of the procedures
Principles,"

involved (see the

nn.

statistics collected

in Sheppard,

pp.

240-41,

and of

7). These unnecessarily litigious

"discovery"

practices and abuse of the

formal techniques

are
prudent

directly
advice

to Abraham Lincoln's own stated views on the

a

way to

practice

contrary law. In
the

letter

written on

July 1, 1850,

to a young lawyer seeking

about

conduct of

his practice, Lincoln

wrote:

Discourage litigation. Persuade

your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.

Point

out

to them how the

nominal winner

is

often a real

loser

in fees, expense,

and waste of

time. As a peacemaker, the lawyer has a superior opportunity of

being

a good man.

There

will still

be business

enough.

Lincoln's
rent

prudent view of

legal

practice can

help directly
legal
system

to illuminate our cur

legal

affairs.

As

critics

of our present

have accurately

ob

served:

98

Interpretation
It is
no secret that the

legal

system

...

is in disarray. Indeed,
(Nader

courts and government

agencies are

increasingly

seen

by

the public, commentators,

cultural and

observers, and
p.

lawyers

alike as

dysfunctional

and

in

need of reform.

Smith,

16)

admission

Lawyers in every state of the United States are required to take an oath to the bar to uphold the United States Constitution (and their
ability."

upon
state
pre

constitution), commonly to "the best of their knowledge and

scribed

The

form of oath for California attorneys, for example, is: "I solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California, and that I will faithfully discharge the
duties Act
and of an
ability"

attorney and counselor at law to the best of my knowledge and (California, State Bar Act, art. 4, sec. 6067). The California State Bar it the first
of the

makes

"Duties
and of

Attorney"

of

"To

support

the Constitution

laws

of the

United States

this

State"

(Sec. 6068).
to the bar are still to
education and

If the

constitutional oaths

lawyers take

upon admission

be taken seriously, then the

practice

present condition of

American legal

may be seen as no less than a disaster to the letter and spirit of our Constitution as explicated in Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional Biography. The
general character of attorneys with the

American legal

education

today fails

to provide

fledgling

knowledge necessary to carry out their oaths. The generally accepted character of American legal practice today fatally impairs the ability of practicing lawyers to do so. The consequence is that, in our society of increasing

diversity,

members of

the professional class who should, through the model of

their practices, serve as the secular ministers of American

democracy

(promot

ing

that "reverence
secure

for the

laws"

as

our

"political

religion"

Lincoln thought

would

our civil

exacerbate, rather than

them

instead, habituated to help foment and reconcile and harmonize, conflicts brought to reasonably

liberties)

are,

for

resolution. visible.

The

consequences of

for the

character of our civic

life

are

painfully
too

In terms

foreseeable consequences, is it, perhaps,

not

going

far to

conclude that this

threatens internal subversion of our constitution in

menace

a more

rity of In 1857, Lincoln

the

immediate way than the dangers of the Communist our Republic as perceived during the Cold War?
stated

to the secu

his

view of

the meaning

and objects of

the implicit

constitutional principle

that "all men are created

equal"

expressly

articulated

in

Declaration

of

Independence:

The

authors of that notable

instrument did

not mean

to assert the obvious untruth,

that all were then

enjoying
.

that equality, nor yet, that

they

were about to confer

it

immediately
forcement
set

upon them.

They
as

meant

simply

to

declare the right,

so that the en

of

it

might

follow

fast

as circumstances should permit.

. .

They

meant to

Its authors meant it to be, thank God, up it is now proving itself, a stumbling block to all those who in after times might seek to turn a free people back into the hateful paths of despotism. They knew the pronea standard maxim

for free

society.

American Law
ness of

and

the

American Regime

99
in

prosperity to breed tyrants,

nut

and

they
of

meant when such should re-appear

this fair land and commence their vocation

one

they

should

find left for them

at p.

at

least

hard

to

crack.

Springfield Speech

June 26, 1857. (Quoted

18)
it. In

'Tyranny"

is the

exercise of power without

reason,

or

in disregard

of

free society,
ment of

no one

is

supposed to

be

above the

law

or

beneath its

notice.

This

is to say that its

members expect the guided

law to

serve as a

generally

reliable

instru Justice

justice,

by

the light of reason,

for

the common good.

not promulgated edict

Holmes's dictum notwithstanding,

common

an unreasonable

law,

for the

good, is

likely,

over

time, to be

seen as a

tyrannical

serving the unduly

interests

of the powerful,
elite.

whether a powerful popular

majority

or an

influential
content

To the

extent

that members of the American legal profession

themselves with exercise of their power to enact, enforce, administer, advocate, or apply the

interpret,
common of a

law,
of

not

in the light

of

reason, and toward the

more aware

good,

they

adopt the stance of tyrants.

And the

the

people

democratic
at

republic

becomes

the exercise of self-interested

will

tyranny (ulti
and seek

mately
right

their expense), the

more

likely

be incentives to recall,

to enforce, the rights upon which our Constitution is

founded, including

the

to revolution. A powerful government, responding unjustly to legitimate

at

grievances, may always increase domestic security

erty. ence

the expense of civil

lib

(This is,

no

doubt, why Lincoln thought that

would secure our civil
proposition

continued widespread a government

"rever

for

the

laws"

liberties.) But
as

dedicated,
promote

is, of justice,
as ours

to the
and

that all men are created equal, to the establishment

to the security of our

liberty

well, is bound also to

measures that will avoid

the reasons

foreseeable dangers to the security of its objects. For just discussed, the prevalent model of legal education, and prevalent
American

practices of

lawyers, may

now

be

seen to pose such

dangers.

VI. ANASTAPLO'S PRUDENCE IN THE PREMISES: A CRITIQUE

My

given to

reading of our American constitution is, in all major respects, the reading it by Anastaplo in Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional Biography. Nor
views

do I differ from his

of prudence to

concerning the its

objectives.

central

importance

of the exercise

help

ensure perpetuation of our constitution and

best

promote

progressive achievement of

If, however,

prudence can

be

understood

to mean the

practical

application of

intelligent

principles

properly in the

light

of observant common sense and the particular circumstances

we

litical action, then I believe

may, in

at

least

one

requiring po important respect, differ

about what prudence requires at present

constitution.

to

help

secure the

future vitality

of our

There is, in my opinion,

no person

writing today

who can

speak, both from

100

Interpretation
study,
with greater

experience and

authority than George Anastaplo

the measures that
publication of

about

the

significance of our

American

constitution and

taken from time to time to defend it. Anastaplo's

seems to

may have to be his knowledge

however, to be too much tempered by passion for the philosophic dialogic method; that is, too great a reluctance to state explicitly and unequivo
me,

cally the

starker conclusions that

follow from his insights

as to the present state

of our constitution and the

dangers to its

continued vitality.

My
of our

own experiences as a

lawyer

persuade me

that Anastaplo's constitutional

analysis

discloses,

almost

definitively,

the root reasons

for the

present

legal

system.

Yet

even well-motivated readers

may find it

disarray daunting to

discover his
quences. rinthian readers

essential conclusions or understand their most momentous conse

The book's very first footnote (p.

263)

presents

the reader with a laby-

labor of cross-references likely to discourage even generally reflective from wanting to go further along a path which is, in fact, richly reward ing. While mentioning, for example, (in footnote 154) the fact that "scholars are
not apt

to appreciate these

days the "profound

implications"

of the

difference

between Chief Justice John Marshall's understanding Justice Holmes's, it is uncertain whether intelligent
scholars are given appropriate access to
affect

of

the common law and

readers

lay

who

are not

how these

profound

implications may

them.
even more

An

important illustration

in Anastaplo's

references

unnecessary obscurity may be found to the education of lawyers, to which he refers both
of
on

obliquely and directly from time to time. Commenting the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Anastaplo remarks:
One
cannot

the high quality of

help

but wonder,

upon

anything begin to restore both

of our constitutional

can

be done

amongst us

encountering such political discourse, what if (in an age of supposed great communication) to

our public speakers and their audiences to a

level both worthy

heritage

and

necessary for

our political

health. (P.

158)

And again, he

points out:

The judgment Lincoln displayed

the
use of rhetoric

with respect to

both the formulation

that

of

policy is

and

depended

upon a sound
. .

understanding
other

is,

upon a proper ed which

ucation sumed

for

political purposes.

proper political education

(under
is

sub

legal education) presupposes, among

things, that there

are

(as

we

have

seen), enduring standards

cal."

by

which one

may be

guided even as one

being

"practi

(Pp.

170-71)
legal
It is
education
a political

The

character of

"academic"

question.
critical

in America today is no longer simply an question of the highest order, now raising

issues concerning the future security of our Constitution and healthy endurance of the American regime. With knowledge of what really takes place
in
our

law schools, the inference from the

statement

just

quoted

is

clear: Ameri-

American Law
can

and the

American Regime

101

law

schools

do

not

executives

to exercise sound

presently prepare our future lawyers, judges, and public judgment in what they do as lawyers, judges, and
a matter as

public executives.

important as this, one pregnant with conse for Anastaplo's deepest concerns, why leave it to inference? The fact is, that unless American lawyers become well educated in the significance of
quences our

But in

Constitution,

their

ignorant,

narrow

self-interests, fortified
are

by

other

"hostile

forces"

Dean Kronman describes in his book, in practices that tend to subvert it.

likely

to lead them to engage

As I have suggested, Anastaplo's obliquity may proceed from his belief in deliberative inquiry as the means for attaining what may be the highest human excellence and also in his faith in our nobler human intuitions. ("[P]erhaps we
need

to be

reminded,"

Anastaplo

suggests

in

another
p.

context, "that there may

be in

mankind an

innate

openness to the

of our

Constitution

with which we are

understood, is rightly perceived to

100.) But if it is the future Constitution, properly be in significant jeopardy, does not prudence
concerned,
and

sublime;"

that

dictate

some

form

of

salutary

political action

by

informed

citizens as most need

ful,
and

rather

than sustained detachment?

given so

Anastaplo has

much,

and continues

to

give so

much, to exposition

American constitution, and, in his youth, sacrificed so much in its defense, that it may seem (or be) churlish of me to fault him for failing to
of our compromise what

defense

Socrates in

preference

may be his highest good by seeming to follow the model of to Lincoln. Anastaplo's Socratic method, un
"dialogic"

like its typical law

philosophic spirits.

school

corruption, is

authentic and

The

permissible conduct of such philosophic enterprise

potentially stimulating to has

Anastaplo's
analyses

been
show,

a guaranteed

liberty

of our constitutional

system.

however,
principles

that that system is jeopardized

basic

in the thought

and actions of

those

by abandonment of its most directly responsible for main

Socrates
abandoned poli

taining them,
make

our

lawyers, judges,
remain

and public officials.

tics when he concluded that the character of the Athenian

democracy

did

not

it

safe

for him to

politically

active.

Anastaplo,
well

on the other
people.

hand,
More

states

his

continued

faith in the
above, he

sound character of the

asserts that

American be
. . .

over,

as pointed out greater need to

"It may
today"

that Americans

have

stated

be explicitly reminded in the Declaration of Independence "and

of the right of revolution as

all that

it implies, than
own ultimate

other time

in their

history"

(p. 19). Does

not

Anastaplo's

at any interest

in human freedom
advocate, tion
rather

therefore require

him to

write more

politically

than merely

intimate,

the critical need

for

reform

and candidly in the educa

and practice of

American lawyers? As Anastaplo

shows

us, Lincoln had an

almost

unerring

sense of

timing in the

prudent pursuit of measures

designed to
constitution.

secure and advance the principles and aspirations of our

American

Isn't

now

the critical and opportune time

actively to promote, as persuasively

education and practice

as possible, reformation of of preservation of our

American legal

in the interest

liberties?

102

Interpretation
much

At least this
ness

is

clear:

Prevention
through

of the escalation of

domestic

fractious-

into

increasing
far
more

violence

appropriate changes more

in the

model of

legal

education and practice would

be far

faithful to the

spirit of our constitu

tion,
our

and

Posterity,"

likely to secure "the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and than having to depend upon the government to respond to such
to "ensure domestic
Tranquility."

violence with police measures calculated

Se

curity homa

measures

already

adopted

in

major

federal facilities
employed

following
major

the Okla

City bombing
We
no

are now similar

to those

in

United States
their govern took

airports, risking further

ment.

alienation

between American
access of

citizens and

for
to

granted

longer enjoy the easy and must, in the interest

to

government offices we once permit ourselves

security,

to be subjected

electronic searches office

federal

before entering federal offices. While recently entering a building myself, I overheard the security officer say to a man
caused a off:

security alarm to go better than to dress that way if you were coming
whose metal

belt

"You

should

have known
a

here."

This is in itself

trivial

incident, but does it

mentality subordinating individual liberties to the need for security that is likely to increase in scope and significance with increases in domestic violence?
not suggest a

VII. CONCLUSION: THE LIKELY FUTURE OF OUR AMERICAN REGIME

We Americans
law,"

can

be

feisty

people.

The

phrases

"There

ought

to be a

and

"I'll

see you

in

court,"

may be peculiarly American in temperament:

chosen to

American lawyers

work

in

society that has

century
ago

thoroughly legalize itself.

Thus the

De Tocqueville

Americans'

noticed over a

temperamental inclination to

turn political, economic, and social problems into lawsuits.

diversity

and

complexity of the lawyer's work simply reflects American law as a political institu tion [b]ecause of the kind of society twentieth-century Americans have con structed for themselves. (William T. Braithwaite, "On Legal Practice and Education
. . .

at

the

Present

Time,"

in Mortimer J. Adler ed., The Great Ideas

Today [Chicago:
Lie,"

Encyclopedia Britannica, 1989], p. 54. See also Braithwaite, "Why Lawyers Mortimer J. Adler ed., The Great Ideas Today [1994], p. 231)

in

prudent restraint upon

Until relatively recently, members of the legal profession generally exercised American litigiousness. As Elihu Root, another twentiethput

century lawyer-statesman
consists of

it, "About half

the practice of

any decent lawyer

stop"

(as

quoted

telling in Linowitz,

would-be clients that

p.

they're damned

fools,

and should

4). Serious
of the

consideration must now

be

given to the

implications for the future

taken place, as professional
model.

American

regime of the change that

yielded

has

now

legal

practice

has

progressively

to

business

American Law
Is it
not unreasonable to suppose

and

the

American Regime

103

that the success of our American experiment

to date has
endurance

been

a mere accident of

history? Is it

not

far

more

of this

democratic

republic

is

attributable

to a

likely that the deep and accurate

understanding by its Founders of human nature, in contemplation of the need both to advance our nation's enduring aspirations and also to guard adequately
against

its

weaknesses and vices?

As

our

Founders knew, the security

of the people of our
great

of our

American

constitution

is

ulti

mately in the hands

democratic republic, in

whom we are

Anas

taplo generally places

to take to protect our rights

faith, as do I. But are not the measures to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of

likely
bound

happiness"

to be critically influenced
under our system of
rights?

by

what we see

in those to

whom we must

look,
those

laws, for the

secure our
us?

enforcement and secure preservation of

In

our

diverse society,
to

are not members of the

legal

profession

in the

best

position

help

liberties

by

prudently

helping

to harmonize

increasing
will
with

conflict

among

Justice Black lose

pointed out

in his Anastaplo dissent that 'The legal

and
Anastaplo]."

profession

its nobility lawyers like [George

much of

its glory if it is not constantly replenished In the judgment of most Americans,

and

members of the

American legal
narrow

profession

their inglorious and

self-seeking
do
what

have already lost their nobility by their tyranny of technique. Even

noble

though many students continue to enter law school with

aspirations,

American law
as

schools

in

effect

they

can to

discourage

such aspirations

"unprofessional,"

merely

naive and

disdaining

to

encourage replenishment of

the profession with lawyers like Anastaplo.

"aristocracy,"

If lawyers

as a class are still

in any

respects considered an

it is probably

as a powerful elite regarded

with general opprobrium, even

if they

are also perceived as

to protect or advance individual self-interests as legal

elites are not, over ples awakened

advocates.

necessary and useful Reprobated

peo

time, usually treated kindly by democratically inclined to the injuries such elites are causing to the common good.

Reading
written

Abraham Lincoln: A Constitutional

same could

Biography

(and

other

books

spirit) help inform those among us who are willing to Americans now have for lawyers has at its most disdain that the be Americans

in the

root

their

prevalent

incapacity
what

to

understand and abide as

by

their oaths to support

the Constitution in
mulgation of such

they do

lawyers

and public officers.

The

wider pro

knowledge could, in turn, better enable,

to

perhaps even

compel,
not

future lawyers
the model of

and public officials

do their

constitutional

duty. But is it

Lincoln,

rather

than

Socrates,

that might better suggest how to

bring leadership
we

that about? The chances are that if we do not to influence the

we
character of our adopted a new

find

such

Lincolnesque

legal institutions before it is too late,

of

may find that may be unable to

have

kind

constitution, one of which we

and

say:

"vain

will

be every effort,

fruitless every attempt, to

freedom."

subvert our national

104

Interpretation

NOTES

1. Anastaplo's
ties,"

epigraph

to chapter

2, "The Declaration
words

of

Independence: On Rights

and

Du

includes

quotation of the

following

(April

30, 1789):

"The

preservation of

from George Washington's First Inaugural Address the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the Republican

model of

government, are

justly

considered as

deeply,

and perhaps as

finally,

staked on the experi on

ment entrusted

to the hands of the American

said that the

people."

In his First Inaugural Address

was

March 4,

1801, Thomas Jefferson likewise

whether

United States

then "in the full tide of successful

was

experiment."

Abraham Lincoln, in the

or

"this nation,

any

nation conceived

Gettysburg Address, affirmed that the Civil War in liberty and dedicated to the

testing
that all

proposit

endure."

men are created

equal, could

"long

2. See, e.g., Garry Wills's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America (New York: Touchstone, Simon & Schuster, 1992); and James M. McPherson, Abraham Lincoln
and

the

Second American Revolution (Oxford: Oxford

of

University Press,
but covering
a

1991),

similar

in their

"interweavings"

history, law,

and political philosophy,

much smaller portion of

the terrain explored

by

Anastaplo.
Portraits,"

3. Harrison Sheppard, "Positive Negatives: People Behind the June 21, 1990 (Brisbane, CA), describing an exhibit of photographs Americans
personal cussed

of

The Hellenic Journal, Russians, Ukrainians, and

(including body
of

risk. Its

motto was the

Professor Anastaplo) who championed human rights or world peace at some last sentence of Justice Black's dissent in the Anastaplo case (dis
this
review):

in the

"We

must not

be

afraid

to be

free."

The exhibit,

produced

in

the U.S.S.R.

in 1991, received national attention there. 4. See the description of Anastaplo as a "liberal
variety
of specific political and

Straussian,"

with a
and

summary

of

his

positions

Strauss, (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), chap. 1 1, "In re George by John A. Murley, pp. 159-61. 5. Taking his leave of legal practice following the Court's decision in In Re Anastaplo, Anas
on a

issues in Kenneth L. Deutsch

John A.

Murley

eds., Leo

the

Straussians,

the American Regime

Anastaplo,"

taplo wrote, in the the profession

final

paragraph of

his Petition for Rehearing: "Petitioner leaves in the hands

the career he might have had.
of another exile

of

lawyers, law
turned

teachers and judges alike

He trusts
xv,
at

he

will

be forgiven if he

retains

for himself only the immortal lines

(Inferno,

121-124), 'Then he
Verona through the

open

back, and seemed like one of those who run for the fields; and of them seemed he who triumphs, not he who
146-47: "The

green cloth

loses.'"

Quoted

in Murley, p. 179. 6. See, e.g., Wills,

pression of perhaps even more

at pp.

Gettysburg

Address has become

an authoritative ex

the American spirit

as authoritative as the since

Declaration [of
we read the

Independence] itself,

and

influential,

it determines how
told us

Declaration. For
of

most people

now, the Declaration

means what
. .

Lincoln
.

it means,

as a

way

itself

without

people

overthrowing it. dedicated to a proposition,

of

By
we

accepting the have been

Gettysburg Address,
Lincoln's
men are created

correcting the Constitution its concept of a single

changed."

conversion

in his
to a

Gettysburg
Indiana

Address

the Declaration's

"self-evident"

truth that "all

of

equal,"

"proposition"

is

considered

by

Anastaplo in

light, inter

alia,

the assertion

by John Pettit,
"What
would

a prominent

senator of
lie"

Lincoln's time, that the "created

p.

equal"

language in the Declaration

commented: would

was

"a

self-evident

(Anastaplo,
said

18). As to this heresy, Lincoln

have happened if he

had

it in

old

Independence Hall? The door-keeper

have taken him

street"

by

the throat and

n.

stopped

his rascally breath awhile, and then have hurled him into the (Anastaplo, 344). Lincoln's use of the term may also be expressive of what he considered to be the
democracy: "He liked to talk
of the

492,

p.

"axioms"

of

theorems and axioms

of

democracy, comparing

them to

Euclid's'propositions'"

(Wills,

p.

174).
to this conclusion
Practice,"

7. I have
Principles
and

most

the

fully stated my own views leading Evolving Ethos of American Legal

Loyola

University

in Sheppard, "American Chicago Law

Journal 28 (Winter 1996): 237, and "Legal Education and the Future of the Republic," speech to the San Francisco Yale Club, March 3, 1998, published in Vital Speeches of the Day, April 15, 1998.

American Law
8. For
a comparable

and the
of

American Regime
political

105
of

treatment
chap.

of

the

relationship

Lincoln's

thought to the idea

freedom,

3, "Lincoln and pp. 43-64. 9. Cited and quoted in Sheppard, "American p. 252, n. 37. The text of this note includes a list of items in the July 16, 1996, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, selected by happenstance on the day the note was drafted, reporting incidents of violent expression of differ
see
Principles,"

McPherson,

Liberty,"

ences

among diverse American groups. 10. See Tocqueville, Democracy in America volume 1, e.g., chapter 16 as to trial by jury, chapter 11 as to a free press; chapter 12 as to private voluntary associations, and the Author's Introduction as to the spirit of religion ("[LJiberty cannot be established without morality, nor moral ity without faith"). See also, as to religion, volume 2, chapter 15.
11. The
quoted phrases are

follows: "We the People

and secure

of the

from the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, whose entire text is as United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish
provide

Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,

the

for the

common our

Blessings

of

Liberty
of

to ourselves
America."

and

defence, promote the general Welfare, Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution
as a coherent of

Constitution for the United States

whole whose parts throw

Anastaplo,

who treats the

the Pream ble. "The Preamble has usually been regarded as a rhetorical flourish that adds nothing to the enumerated powers found in the Constitution. Anastaplo reads the Constitution by the light of
on each
. . .

light

other, attaches signal importance to the words

found in the Preamble. For Anastaplo, the Preamble explains why 'We the 'ordained and the Constitution (Murley, p. 165, citing Anastaplo, The Amendments to the Constitution, pp. 125-34). See Anastaplo's fuller treatment of the Preamble in
the comprehensive ends
People'
established'

2,

The Constitution of 1787: A n. 13-25.

"Preamble,"

Commentary

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1989),

chap.

12. William Carson, "Lawyers Have More Than Image August 28, 1993, August 27, 1993.
13. See the
addition
p.

Problem,"

San Francisco Chronicle,

poll released on

A2, reporting

results of a

1993 American Bar Association

Principles,"

sources cited

to the Kronman and Linowitz books

the past
on

the

decline, during
14.

in Sheppard, "American p. 246, n. 19, identifying, in quoted in this review, recent authoritative writings on thirty years or so, in professional standards of American legal practice.
The Washington Post, June 5, 1996 (republished in the
and

"Cashing

in

Conflict,"

following
United

national

weekly States). The written

edition of

The Washington Post

to

in many

newspapers

throughout the

responses

"Cashing in

Conflict,"

on

by

readers,

including

many

lawyers,

judges, and law students throughout the United States (and a Justice of the United States Supreme Court), unanimously expressed agreement with the characterization of legal education and practice
it
summarized.

Court's

15. Justices Powell, Stewart, Rehnquist, and Chief Justice Burger dissented in part from the ruling. Justice Rehnquist's dissent was based partly on the ground that the First Amendment Court had
given to
lawyers'

protection the

commercial

advertising
regarded

was misplaced:

"I

continue

to

believe that the First Amendment

speech provision, or

long

by

this Court as a

sanctuary
to
protect

for

expressions of public

importance

advertisements of goods and services.

intellectual interest, is demeaned I would hold quite simply that the

by invocation

appellant

advertisement,

however truthful
adopted to

or reasonable

protect"

it may be, is not the sort of expression that the Amendment was (433 U.S. 350, 406). Chief Justice Burger criticized the majority opinion as
'solution'
solve"

[to problems created by restraints on lawyer advertising] which opting "for a Draconian (433 U.S. 350, 389). Justice I believe will only breed more problems than it can conceivably Powell's dissent, in which Justice Stewart joined, declared that "Although the Court appears to note
some reservations
changes
...

it is

clear

that within undefined limits today's decision will

effect profound power

in the

practice of

law,

viewed

for

centuries as a

learned
courts,

profession.

The supervisory

of

the courts

over members of

the

bar,

as officers of the

and

the authority of the respective

States to
become

oversee

the regulation of the profession have been

weakened"

(433 U.S. 350, 390).

prescience

Since these concerns were expressed nearly a quarter of a

century ago, their

has

increasingly

evident.

Consider, for
(in its

Reynolds Holding, legal

columnist

opening paragraphs of an article written by for the the San Francisco Chronicle, published in the Chronicle's
"Sunday"

example the

Sunday, May 21, 2000,

edition

section,

p.

3),

and

headlined: "State Bar Should

106

Interpretation
on

Crack Down

California Lawyers": "I'm

sure,"

not would

Reynolds began, "what it takes for do the trick,

or perhaps

lawyer
on

to be disbarred in California. I suppose murder the head with a very

bonking

judge

heavy

law book. It's amazing,

though,"

he continued, "how many

to

of the most

blatant transgressions

never result

in

a voided

bar

card.

Lying
of

judges, filing frivolous

appeals.

none endangering children, getting arrested for burglary moves have been enough to propel [a named lawyer] out

of these or other

absurdly irresponsible the legal fraternity in California. His

suggests that the system of
column

case, just decided

by by

the

State Bar Court's

not

review

department,
as

disciplin

ing

California lawyers is
the

unethical actions
what

merely weak, it's the lawyer just summarized,

referred

dangerous."

The

then recounted

in detail the
evidence of suspension

found

by

the state bar judges.

resulted

This

judges themselves
practice of

to as "moral

turpitude"

in the lawyer's

from the

law in California for two

served as

years.
and was

16. Mr. Linowitz

Chairman

of

Xerox Corporation
of

formerly
coined

U.S. Ambassador
the term "lawyer

to the Organization of American States.

Speaking
on

the approach lawyers should take, at least

initially,
for the

to

serve

the best interests of their clients, Louis D.

at

Brandeis (who

situation"

his

confirmation

hearings

his

nomination

to the U.S. Supreme

Court)

said:

"Rather than acting as a hired gun for the client, the lawyer should occupy a more judicious (and judicial) role, and become the 'lawyer for the situation'"; as quoted by David Luban, "The Noblesse Oblige Tradition in the Practice of 41 Vanderbilt Law Review (1998): 717, 721.
Law,"

Book Review

Saul Bellow, Ravelstein (New York:

Viking Penguin, 2000),

vi +

233 pp.,

$24.95.
Travis Curtright

University
After

of Dallas

eighteen

novels,

an

Bellow turns his

and

artistic energies to

illustrious teaching career, and a Nobel prize, Saul fictionalize and elegize his deceased friend

colleague, Allan Bloom. Power

from

the memory of

Bloom's friendship,

support

from his wife,

owes more

a promise made enable

to

write

Bloom's

biography

all

of

these,

maintains

Bellow,
of

him to

write
great

Ravelstein
subject

at the age of

eighty-

four. He

to Bloom than a

for his novel, though: In

might also

Bellow's depiction

most perspicuous criticism of

Bloom criticizing him, Bellow Ravelstein.

he ostensibly

find the first,

Saul Bellow is too introverted to

assessment of the author whom

understand politics; that

asks to write

is Allan Bloom's

his biography. Ironi

cally, it is this

assessment which shows

cessful as a memoir of

why Bellow's newest novel is unsuc Bloom. Bloom's persona, Abe Ravelstein, elaborates
to be in touch with
politics

why Bellow

badly
in

needs

"not local
or

or machine understood

politics, nor even national politics, but

nature."

politics as

Aristotle

Plato

the term, rooted

of

our

Bloom

was a psychologist

in the

classical sense

the word; he thought Bellow

needed a sharpened

insight into his fellow men, his friend, he

might

and

he hoped that if Bellow "He thought I

Bellow
writes.

wrote a character sketch of

be

cured.

nity,"

in privacy and should be restored to commu The subject of Bloom's life might cure Bellow of selfwas stuck
might provide a

absorption, and,
most

besides, Bellow
and

lasting

tribute to one of the

influential

insightful thinkers

of our times.

But Bellow

can't get

the politics right, or, more to the point, he misses what

was great about

Bloom

his ideas. To be sure, Bellow

have

misses a

delicious

oppor

tunity. As Erasmus
and of a

pushed and portrayed

Thomas More,
could

or

Boswell bothered himself the

depicted Dr. Johnson, so, too, Bellow devoted friend

who records the

allowed

duty
fame

personality

and

ideas

of a man whose won't

looms

over a generation of conservative scholars.

Bellow

limit himself to

recording the thoughts, dinner-table conversations, tantrums, and ruminations of Bloom though; he must write a novel, explain his own art, detail his own failed
marriage and

his presently

successful

love life, and, in short,

miss

the

obviously
biogra-

important thing about the man for whom he writes his book. In an important moment of self-consciousness about his approach to

interpretation, Fall

2000, Vol. 28, No.

108

Interpretation
writes

phy, Bellow
rather than

that he

prefers

Boswell's

own approach

Macaulay's essay on Boswell's Johnson to describing Johnson. "Macaulay exhila

with

rated me with

his

version of the

Life,

the

'anfractuosity'

of

Johnson's

mind.

I have
I have

since read
never

many
cured

sober criticisms of
never wanted

Macaulay's Victorian
cured of

excesses.

But

been

to be

lay. Thanks to him I

on we

still see poor convulsive

the street and eating spoiled meat and

my Johnson touching every lamppost rancid Thanks to Bellow,

puddings."

weakness

for Macau

may

see

Bloom in his idiosyncratic eating habits,

parts. are

overall

decadence,

and

raw sexual appetite.

Ravelstein is divided into three

accompanies

Ravelstein to Paris.

They

In the first, Bellow's persona Chick celebrating the wild international and

financial success of Ravelstein's book, in real life, Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. In the second, Bellow becomes controversial by revealing Bloom's contraction of AIDS, his slow deterioration, and eventual death. The
part is probably meant as a tribute to the special friendship Bellow and Bloom shared, inasmuch as Bellow portrays his own bout with death, hospitals, and human love in overly dramatic parallelism. Bellow concludes with a much-

third

lauded description

of

Bloom

dressing himself in
give

his favorite

eccentricities

before

delivering
death."

an

epitaph, "You don't easily

emphasizes or our

Throughout, Bellow
"loss
of
longing."

up Bloom's

a creature

like Ravelstein to
and obsession

"magnanimity"

eros,"

with modernity's

transformation into

what

Bloom

called

"souls

without

The

difficulty

never relates appears more

most

Bloom's magnanimity and eros, however, is that Bellow it to anything of intellectual substance. The result is that Bloom
with

like

Nietzschean

rather

than

follower

of

Strauss. I
view

suspect that

readers, unfamiliar with Bloom's scholarly works, will

as

the

decadent, incontinent,
Where Bloom
Mark

obsessive-compulsive

him simply homosexual Bellow gives

Shake

his

readers.

considers the great soul of such characters as

and

speare's
penchant

Antony
most

in Love beautiful

Friendship, Bellow

writes about clothes.

Bloom's

for the

and expensive

European

"What does

this Lanvin jacket have that your

Chick

wants

to ask

Bellow's persona twenty others Ravelstein, but does not. Chick knows "perfectly well that
were all

haven't,"

in Abe's head there

and
man."

kinds

of

distinctions
The

having

to do with prodigality

illiberality, magnanimity
Chick
confesses:

and meanness. want to get

attributes of the great-souled

started."

"I didn't

him

One

wishes

he had

gotten
never

Ravelstein

started.

If he had, then Chick

might

have learned that Aristotle

included the

qualities of our modern stereotype of

homosexual

dressing
and on the

habits in his

consideration of the magnanimous man:

Flamboyant, primping
be found
used of

parading dress, bought by men to attract the "sexy streets of Paris, is not the kind of example Bloom

mischief to
would

have

Aristotle, but Bellow

confused

gives such an example on

in his depiction

in teaching Bloom. This

fusion

of

Bloom's ideas

magnanimity

and eros with

Bloom's foi
of

bles

and moral aberrations constitutes the most

disappointing

flaw

Bellow's

Book Review
book. Either the
of reader should

109

believe that Bloom's

personal

life is

a statement

his ideas

or

that Bellow never grasped the message of Bloom's

writings even

after all

his

years of

teaching
his

with

him; both

are

too

gross a contradiction

for

coherent story.

Bellow

continues

cartoonish

depiction
the

of

Aristotle's

great-souled man of the great soul

concerned with eros.

In

distinguishing

high-mindedness

from the petty minded, Bellow takes up Bloom's eating habits. "Faculty wives knew that when Ravelstein came to dinner would face a they big cleaning job
afterward

the spilling, splashing, crumbling, the nastiness of the napkin after

he had

used

it,

the pieces of cooked meat scattered under the

sprayed out when

pawed

he laughed
. . .

at a

wisecrack;

courses rejected after one

table, the wine bite and

a confession

to the floor.

Objecting

to Abe's table manners would be

caricature continues

pettiness"

of

(pp. 37-38). Bellow's

personal

until

he

exhausts unpro

Bloom's gossiping,

grudges,

excessive

drinking

and

smoking,

fessional
serts

his students, sexual ragings. Although Bellow as throughout that Bloom's focus is magnanimity and eros in an ancient philo
relationships with

sophical

sense, the reader wonders what is

great souled and

loving

about

any

of

Bloom's behavior.
Bellow
ested
them."

writes that

he is

not

interested in Bloom's ideas. "But I

am not

inter

in presenting his ideas. More than anything else, just now, I want to avoid In the snippets of Bloom's thought which Bellow does document, Bloom

is

shown as more of a romantic than a

Straussian, less

of a

Socrates

and more

of an

Alcibiades. Bellow
young, spirited

records

Bloom's fascination

"eros"

with

and "spirited-

ness"

men who are

erotically

charged mean an

incarnate,

and

defiant,

statement of conservative refuse

philosophy for Bloom. These youths, like

Bloom himself, Bellow's

to give in to the

bourgeois, flat

personalities of moder

nity, which for the most

summaries of
reminded of

part center on

their own fears of death. In reading

preoccupations,"

Bloom's "most important

could not

help being
ship.

There he

suggests

Bloom's essay on Romeo and Juliet in Love and Friend two human solutions for death: transcendent experiences
and

of eros through sex within stows

over

philosophy

sex, or the
eros

mitigation of
new

human

eros

through

marriage,

transmitting

through the

life

which marriage

be

in

children.

As in the essay, Bellow's Bloom

seems to

favor

the

ecstasy

the ordinary.

artistic

The redeeming part of the novel is not Bellow's depiction of Bloom, but the style of Bellow's writing. It is Bellow's eye for detail, his ability to

place the reader

ruminations on

in Bloom's apartment,
prove

which

delights the is

reader.

Bellow's

own

death

far

more poignant

than anything he gives Ravelstein

able to capture

to muse on.
what

Occasionally, too, Bellow

meant critique

the artist

something

of

Bloom's ideas
read

have

Bloom's

better than anything Bloom himself had written. I of modem music in The Closing of the American
and

Mind,
ody

studied

Aristotle's distinction between Phrygian

effects on

Mixed Lydian

mel
treat-

and

their corresponding

the soul, and even perused Plato's

110-

Interpretation
in
the education of
portrait

ment of music effect of

his guardians, but

none of

it has the

poetic a

Bellow's

of what music means to the soul of

writes that

Bloom. In

vision of

Bloom from beyond the grave, Bellow

out the

The

cast and orchestra are

pouring

Italian Maiden in Algiers. This is dress

a

ing
able

music, accessory

or mood music,

but Ravelstein takes

Nietzschean view, favor

and
. .

to comedy and bandstands. Better

volume of so

Bizet

and

Carmen than Wagner

to the
maximum.

the
per

Ring. He likes the haps he

relishes
. .

his

powerful set turned

And

attendance.

having many instruments serenading him, He loses himself in sublime music, a music in
232-33)
into
a snow-covered

so

which

many ideas

musicians are

in

dis

solved, reflecting these ideas in the form of feeling. He

street with

carries

them down into the

him. (Pp.

As Ravelstein

walks

street, Bellow
are

adds

the perfect senti

mental symbol:

the shrubs

surrounding Ravelstein

full

of parrots

brightly
Bel
our

colored,

low's

laughing birds, who escaped captivity to imagery brilliantly conveys that somehow
and

nest where

they

would.

Bloom is too bright for

his death; that Bloom is somewhere, carried world, in the his music once provided him. away, bathing ecstasy Bellow's art will probably captivate followers of Bloom into reading his
that

he

escapes

it

with

book

even as

he frustrates them

by deconstructing

and

embarrassing

a man

they

once admired.

Unfortunately,

the anecdotes, the

scintillating

conversations and

trenchant observations
ple

the ideas of Bloom given over an espresso

for

exam

are now tucked

away, like Bloom

himself, into

enigmatic mystery.

Was ist Politische Philosophie ?

Heinrich Meier

Warum Politische Philosophie?

Ausgehend von der politischen

Kritik, die Aristophanes in den

Wolken

am vorsokratischen

Sokrates ubt, gibt Heinrich Meiers Miinchner Antrittsvorlesung

eine

Antwort

auf

die

Frage,

weshalb

die Philosophie

die Wendung zur Politischen Philosophie vollziehen mul5.

Warum
^ VERLAG^

Politische

J.B. METZLER

Philosophie? handeltvon
einer philosophischen

Politik der

der Freundschaft

und von

Notwendigkeit der AuseinHeinrich Meier

Warum

andersetzung mit deranspruchsvollsten Alternative der Philosophie. Sowenig der Autor die Philosophie als
eine

Politische Philosophie?
2000. 40

Provinz im Reich der Kultur,

sondern als eine

Seiten,
brosch.
10-

engl.

Lebensweise begreift, sowenig versteht er die Politische Philosophie als ein Feld im Garten der Philosophie.

DM

10-/0S 73,-/sFr

Sie ist vielmehr,

eine

so

lautet

seine

These,

eine

besondere

ISBN 3-476-01802-4

Wendung, Anderung der Btick- und Fragerichtung, die fiir die Philosophie einen Unterschied im Ganzen

begrundet, da die Philosophie einzig in der Politischen Philosophie zur Vollendung ihrer Reflexivitat zu
gelangen vermag.

^^

VERLAG

^^

J. B. METZLER
Postfach
10 32 41

D-70028 Stuttgart

www.metzlerverlag.de

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