Meier, Heinrich. Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem.

Merrill, Thomas W.

MEIER, Heinrich. Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xxi + 183 pp. Cloth, $60.00--The dramatic tension of Leo Strauss's thought lies in the apparently unresolved problem of reason and revelation. No other political philosopher of the 20th century asserted so intransigently that philosophy and religion were profoundly opposed to one another, that no serious person could avoid confronting this problem, and that no attempt to split the difference, however necessary in practice, could be satisfying in principle. Yet while he asserted loudly the need for a genuine solution to the problem, Strauss left the question at an apparently inconclusive impasse: revelation has never refuted philosophy, but is under no obligation to do so; philosophy must refute revelation to justify its own activity, but has not done so. Yet all readers of Strauss recognize that Strauss's final allegiance was to philosophy, and so we face a quite serious problem: Strauss both demands a genuine, non-question-begging refutation of revelation, and yet fails to provide anything that even remotely looks like it could fit the bill.

In his new book, Heinrich Meier, the editor of Strauss's collected works in German and the author of books on Carl Schmitt and Strauss, suggests that Strauss's skeptical impasse is in the service of his readers' philosophical education. By sharpening the question to an almost unbearable degree and simultaneously refusing to reveal his own final thoughts on the matter, Strauss does all that he can to compel his readers to inquire for themselves into the truth of these questions. His readers might have just grounds for complaint if philosophy were simply a matter of getting the right answers which could then be repeated with no loss of clarity. But if philosophy is a way of life that requires us to question every authority, his readers can hardly complain. They might even have to be grateful for the profound challenge which revelation--and Strauss's rendition thereof--poses to any unreflective sense of security in the life of reason. Meier, following Strauss, argues that would-be philosophers must confront the challenge of revelation, not merely for political or prudential reasons, but because philosophy cannot rationally justify itself without doing so. Otherwise the life of philosophy becomes that most absurd thing, the pretense to honesty combined with a dogmatic faith in reason. Be that as it may, many readers, including not a few sympathetic to Strauss, will be dissatisfied with this pedagogical esotericism. After all, it is hard to be sympathetic to a teaching that we don't even understand.

The great virtue of Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem is that it takes this discontent seriously, which all Strauss's readers must feel at one time or other, and shows that the skeptical impasse is not Strauss's last word on the topic. Meier is both an accomplished scholar, as his labors on Strauss's collected works show, and a penetrating, rigorous reader of works that communicate through their implications and silences as well as their explicit arguments. Both virtues are on display in this volume. The fruits of Meier's scholarly labors are visible in two hitherto unpublished Strauss lectures from the 1940s, included here in an appendix. Meier's readerly virtues are on display throughout the book, but especially in its first chapter, the core of which is a close commentary on one of those lectures, which Meier calls "Reason and Revelation" and says is "more outspoken" about the theologico-political problem than any other text in Strauss's corpus. Here Meier aims to expose for critical reflection Strauss's reflections on the requirements of an adequate answer to revelation and how Strauss proceeded in fulfilling those requirements. I leave the details of Strauss's argument and Meier's elaboration thereof for the interested reader; but suffice it to say that the lecture and Meier's commentary are well worth the price of admission and constitute a major contribution to the Strauss literature.

The other three essays in this book approach the central issue from somewhat different directions: the difficulty of disentangling a philosopher's true intention from his historically most influential doctrines, the mutually illuminating differences between political theology and political philosophy, and Socrates' turn to political philosophy as paradigmatic for Strauss's own enterprise. Of particular interest in my view is Meier's demonstration in Chapter 2 that Strauss's historical narrative of political philosophy--for example, in Natural Right and History--knowingly tends to distort the properly philosophic character of some modern thinkers--Rousseau is Meier's example. Contrary to Strauss's apparently moralistic rejection of the moderns, at least some modern thinkers prove to be concerned with "fundamental problems," and so Meier points to the appropriateness and even necessity of reading Strauss's interpretations against the grain, precisely from a point of view sympathetic to him. Needless to say, this recovery of philosophy from distortion is only possible on the basis of an honest confrontation of philosophy's most challenging rivals. For this exacting treatment of Strauss's wrestling with these most difficult questions, both friends and critics of Strauss have reason to be grateful.--Thomas W. Merrill, Annapolis, MD.