Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes: Unmöglichkeit einer kosmischen Teleologie; Intelligibilität: Bedürfnis der Menschen -> Primat der politischen Wissenschaft; Machiavelli

Kurzinhalt: But if the human good becomes the highest principle, political science or social science becomes the most important kind of knowledge, as Aristotle had predicted.

Textausschnitt: 176a To return to Hobbes, his notion of philosophy or science has its root in the conviction that a teleological cosmology is impossible and in the feeling that a mechanistic cosmology fails to satisfy the requirement of intelligibility. His solution is that the end or the ends without which no phenomenon can be understood need not be inherent in the phenomena; the end inherent in the concern with knowledge suffices. Knowledge as the end supplies the indispensable teleological principle. Not the new mechanistic cosmology but what later on came to be called "epistemology" becomes the substitute for teleological cosmology. But knowledge cannot remain the end if the whole is simply unintelligible: Scientia propter potentiam.1 All intelligibility or all meaning has its ultimate root in human needs. The end, or the most compelling end posited by human desire, is the highest principle, the organizing principle. But if the human good becomes the highest principle, political science or social science becomes the most important kind of knowledge, as Aristotle had predicted. In the words of Hobbes, Dignissima certe scientiarum haec ipsa est, quae ad Principes pertinet, hominesque in regendo genere humano occupatos.2 One cannot leave it, then, at saying that Hobbes agrees with the idealistic tradition in regard to the function and scope of political philosophy. His expectation from political philosophy is incomparably greater than the expectation of the classics. No Scipionic dream illumined by a true vision of the whole reminds his readers of the ultimate futility of all that men can do. Of political philosophy thus understood, Hobbes is indeed the founder. (Fs) (notabene)

177a It was Machiavelli, that greater Columbus, who had discovered the continent on which Hobbes could erect his structure. When trying to understand the thought of Machiavelli, one does well to remember the saying that Marlowe was inspired to ascribe to him: "I [...] hold there is no sin but ignorance." This is almost a definition of the philosopher. Besides, no one of consequence ever doubted that Machiavelli's study of political matters was public spirited. Being a public spirited philosopher, he continued the tradition of political idealism. But he combined the idealistic view of the intrinsic nobility of statesmanship with an anti-idealistic view, if not of the whole, at any rate of the origins of mankind or of civil society. (Fs)
178a Machiavelli's admiration for the political practice of classical antiquity and especially of republican Rome is only the reverse side of his rejection of classical political philosophy. He rejected classical political philosophy, and therewith the whole tradition of political philosophy in the full sense of the term, as useless: Classical political philosophy had taken its bearings by how man ought to live; the correct way of answering the question of the right order of society consists in taking one's bearings by how men actually do live. Machiavelli's "realistic" revolt against tradition led to the substitution of patriotism or merely political virtue for human excellence or, more particularly, for moral virtue and the contemplative life. It entailed a deliberate lowering of the ultimate goal. The goal was lowered in order to increase the probability of its attainment. Just as Hobbes later on abandoned the original meaning of wisdom in order to guarantee the actualization of wisdom, Machiavelli abandoned the original meaning of the good society or of the good life. What would happen to those natural inclinations of man or of the human soul whose demands simply transcend the lowered goal was of no concern to Machiavelli. He disregarded those inclinations. He limited his horizon in order to get results. And as for the power of chance, Fortuna appeared to him in the shape of a woman who can be forced by the right kind of men: chance can be conquered. (Fs)

178b Machiavelli justified his demand for a "realistic" political philosophy by reflections on the foundations of civil society, and this means ultimately by reflections on the whole within which man lives. There is no superhuman, no natural, support for justice. All human things fluctuate too much to permit their subjection to stable principles of justice. Necessity rather than moral purpose determines what is in each case the sensible course of action. Therefore, civil society cannot even aspire to be simply just. All legitimacy has its root in illegitimacy; all social or moral orders have been established with the help of morally questionable means; civil society has its root not in justice but in injustice. The founder of the most renowned of all commonwealths was a fratricide. Justice in any sense is possible only after a social order has been established; justice in any sense is possible only within a man-made order. Yet the founding of civil society, the supreme case in politics, is imitated, within civil society, in all extreme cases. Machiavelli takes his bearings not so much by how men live as by the extreme case. He believes that the extreme case is more revealing of the roots of civil society and therefore of its true character than is the normal case.1 The root or the efficient cause takes the place of the end or of the purpose. (Fs)