Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Naturrecht: Ursprung; Philosophie; Unterschied: Natur - Konvention, physis - nomos; Verborgenheit der Natur - Authorität - Gesetz; ens reale - ens fictum

Kurzinhalt: These presuppositions follow from the fundamental premise that no being emerges without a cause or that it is impossible that "at first Chaos came to be," i.e. ... The distinction between nature and convention implies that nature is essentially hidden ...

Textausschnitt: 89b The philosophic quest for the first things presupposes not merely that there are first things but that the first things are always and that things which are always or are imperishable are more truly beings than the things which are not always. These presuppositions follow from the fundamental premise that no being emerges without a cause or that it is impossible that "at first Chaos came to be," i.e., that the first things jumped into being out of nothing and through nothing. In other words, the manifest changes would be impossible if there did not exist something permanent or eternal, or the manifest contingent beings require the existence of something necessary and therefore eternal. Beings that are always are of higher dignity than beings that are not always, because only the former can be the ultimate cause of the latter, of the being of the latter, or because what is not always finds its place within the order constituted by what is always. Beings that are not always, are less truly beings than beings that are always, because to be perishable means to be in between being and not-being. One may express the same fundamental premise also by saying that "omnipotence" means power limited by knowledge of "natures,"1 that is to say, of unchangeable and knowable necessity; all freedom and indeterminacy presuppose a more fundamental necessity. (Fs)

90a Once nature is discovered, it becomes impossible to understand equally as customs or ways the characteristic or normal behavior of natural groups and of the different human tribes; the "customs" of natural beings are recognized as their natures, and the "customs" of the different human tribes are recognized as their conventions. The primeval notion of "custom" or "way" is split up into the notions of "nature," on the one hand, and "convention," on the other. The distinction between nature and convention, between physis and nomos, is therefore coeval with the discovery of nature and hence with philosophy.2 (Fs)

90b Nature would not have to be discovered if it were not hidden. Hence "nature" is necessarily understood in contradistinction to something else, namely, to that which hides nature in so far as it hides nature. There are scholars who refuse to take "nature" as a term of distinction, because they believe that everything which is, is natural. But they tacitly assume that man knows by nature that there is such a thing as nature or that "nature" is as unproblematic or as obvious as, say, "red." Besides, they are forced to distinguish between natural or existent things and illusory things or things which pretend to exist without existing; but they leave unarticulated the manner of being of the most important things which pretend to exist without existing. The distinction between nature and convention implies that nature is essentially hidden by authoritative decisions. Man cannot live without having thoughts about the first things, and, it was presumed, he cannot live well without being united with his fellows by identical thoughts about the first things, i.e., without being subject to authoritative decisions concerning the first things: it is the law that claims to make manifest the first things or "what is." The law, in its turn, appeared to be a rule that derives its binding force from the agreement or the convention of the members of the group. The law or the convention has the tendency, or the function, to hide nature; it succeeds to such an extent that nature is, to begin with, experienced or "given" only as "custom." Hence the philosophic quest for the first things is guided by that understanding of "being" or "to be" according to which the most fundamental distinction of manners of being is that between "to be in truth" and "to be by virtue of law or convention"--a distinction that survived in a barely recognizable form in the scholastic distinction between ens reale and ens fictum.1 (Fs) (notabene)