Pedro Arroja sobre Strauss

Saúda-se a estreia (algo rothbardiana - tirar as devidas conclusões entre as ideias e as acções concretas, entretanto vou procurar o seu ensaio sobre Strauss) sobre Leo Strauss no Blasfémias.

"Para os straussianos, a tarefa prioritária da governação - na realidade, o objectivo central da política - é criar os mitos que mantêm uma sociedade coesa e forte, como a religião e a moral tradicional, o patriotismo e o nacionalismo, mas também os heróis, os fantasmas, os inimigos reais e imaginários.Como os straussianos não acreditam nos princípios da moralidade - excepto para as massas - eles não se sentem restringidos por quaisquer considerações éticas. A decepção e a mentira ganham assim o estatuto de instrumentos aceitáveis, senão mesmo indispensáveis, da acção política. Porém, numa sociedade racionalista, os mitos são como os castelos-de-cartas, desmoronam-se facilmente. Por isso, para realizarem o seu programa político, os straussianos têm de criar "mentiras esplêndidas e fraudes espectaculares" (Drury, 1994)."

David Gordon, que virá à Gulbenkian também escreveu uma nota sobre Strauss: What did Leo Strauss Believe About Politics?

Algumas curiosas passagens:

For all this, Strauss had no use: he viewed Scholasticism as not only false but dangerous. Much more to his liking was Averroism, which taught that philosophy and religion were competing truths.2"In contrast to the Islamic-Jewish world, Strauss claims, the melding of revelation and philosophy in medieval Christendom destroyed the meanings of both revelation and philosophy.3In a very important sense, Strauss seems to locate the invention of the possibility of an atheistic, secular society with Thomas Aquinas. . .Strauss's contention is that because Christian scholasticism made philosophy the handmaiden of theology in its understanding of natural law, the Enlightenment, following Machiavelli's instrumentalization of philosophy, was eventually able to make theology the handmaiden of philosophy. Strauss maintains that in contrast to the medieval Christian scholastics, the profundity of the Jewish and Islamic medieval philosophers lies in their recognition that revelation and philosophy can neither be synthesized. . .nor can they refute one another. Revelation and philosophy are therefore incommensurable."(B, p.122) [Judaismo-Islamismo versus Cristianismo?...]

(...)

Meier takes Strauss's genealogy very seriously; he does not appreciate that as it stands it is a mere unsupported hypothesis. His book has some valuable discussions, e.g., his account of Strauss's claim that Heidegger worshipped death and his comparison of Strauss's political philosophy with the political theology of Carl Schmitt. Schmitt's thought reverses Strauss. Strauss reduced theology to philosophy, but for Schmitt the concepts of political philosophy are secularized theological concepts. But no more than Batnitzky does Meier have any idea of the nature of philosophical argument. He writes portentously and devotes great pains to teasing out the nuances of Strauss's language. But for him too, the mere statement of a striking hypothesis suffices.

I do not mean to suggest that Strauss himself has no arguments on offer. Quite the contrary, he sometimes presents very good ones, e.g., his argument in Natural Right and History from ordinary language against the fact-value distinction.(His discussion anticipates a famous article by Philippa Foot. Mises, anticipating in his turn R.M. Hare's response to Foot, criticizes Strauss in Theory and History. ) But if we are to get anywhere in evaluating his thought, his followers must set out in detail his claims and offer defenses of them. And what of the political implications of Strauss's thought? These I hope to address on another occasion."