Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes: Verwerfung der Tradtion und Abhängigkeit von ihr; der Mensch als a-politisches Wesen; Gründer des politischen Hedonismus; Kombination: politischer Idealismus mit materialistischer Naturphilosophie

Kurzinhalt: Hobbes rejects the idealistic tradition on the basis of a fundamental agreement with it ... He traces the failure of the idealistic tradition to one fundamental mistake:

Textausschnitt: 166a Thomas Hobbes regarded himself as the founder of political philosophy or political science. He knew, of course, that the great honor which he claimed for himself was awarded, by almost universal consent, to Socrates. Nor was he allowed to forget the notorious fact that the tradition which Socrates had originated was still powerful in his own age. But he was certain that traditional political philosophy "was rather a dream than science."1 (Fs)

166b Present-day scholars are not impressed by Hobbes's claim. They note that he was deeply indebted to the tradition which he scorned. Some of them come close to suggesting that he was one of the last Schoolmen. Lest we overlook the wood for the trees, we shall reduce for a while the significant results of present-day polymathy into the compass of one sentence. Hobbes was indebted to tradition for a single, but momentous, idea: he accepted on trust the view that political philosophy or political science is possible or necessary. (Fs)

167a To understand Hobbes's astonishing claim means to pay proportionate attention to his emphatic rejection of the tradition, on the one hand, and to his almost silent agreement with it, on the other. For this purpose one must first identify the tradition. More precisely, one must first see the tradition as Hobbes saw it and forget for a moment how it presents itself to the present-day historian. Hobbes mentions the following representatives of the tradition by name: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus, and Plutarch.2 He then tacitly identifies the tradition of political philosophy with a particular tradition. He identifies it with that tradition whose basic premises may be stated as follows: the noble and the just are fundamentally distinguished from the pleasant and are by nature preferable to it; or, there is a natural right that is wholly independent of any human compact or convention; or, there is a best political order which is best because it is according to nature. He identifies traditional political philosophy with the quest for the best regime or for the simply just social order, and therefore with a pursuit that is political not merely because it deals with political matters but, above all, because it is animated by a political spirit. He identifies traditional political philosophy with that particular tradition that was public spirited or--to employ a term which is loose indeed but at present still easily intelligible--that was "idealistic." (Fs)

167b When speaking of earlier political philosophers, Hobbes does not mention that tradition whose most famous representatives might be thought to be "the sophists," Epicurus and Carneades. The anti-idealistic tradition simply did not exist for him--as a tradition of political philosophy. For it was ignorant of the very idea of political philosophy as Hobbes understood it. It was indeed concerned with the nature of political things and especially of justice. It was also concerned with the question of the right life of the individual and therefore with the question of whether or how the individual could use civil society for his private, nonpolitical purposes: for his ease or for his glory. But it was not political. It was not public spirited. It did not preserve the orientation of statesmen while enlarging their views. It was not dedicated to the concern with the right order of society as with something that is choiceworthy for its own sake. (Fs)

168a By tacitly identifying traditional political philosophy with the idealistic tradition, Hobbes expresses, then, his tacit agreement with the idealistic view of the function or the scope of political philosophy. Like Cicero before him, he sides with Cato against Carneades. He presents his novel doctrine as the first truly scientific or philosophic treatment of natural law; he agrees with the Socratic tradition in holding the view that political philosophy is concerned with natural right. He intends to show "what is law, as Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and divers others have done"; he does not refer to Protagoras, Epicurus, or Carneades. He fears that his Leviathan might remind his readers of Plato's Republic; no one could dream of comparing the Leviathan to Lucretius' De rerum natura. 1 (Fs)

168b Hobbes rejects the idealistic tradition on the basis of a fundamental agreement with it. He means to do adequately what the Socratic tradition did in a wholly inadequate manner. He means to succeed where the Socratic tradition had failed. He traces the failure of the idealistic tradition to one fundamental mistake: traditional political philosophy assumed that man is by nature a political or social animal. By rejecting this assumption, Hobbes joins the Epicurean tradition. He accepts its view that man is by nature or originally an a-political and even an a-social animal, as well as its premise that the good is fundamentally identical with the pleasant.1 But he uses that a-political view for a political purpose. He gives that a-political view a political meaning. He tries to instil the spirit of political idealism into the hedonistic tradition. He thus became the creator of political hedonism, a doctrine which has revolutionized human life everywhere on a scale never yet approached by any other teaching. (Fs) (notabene)

169a The epoch-making change which we are forced to trace to Hobbes was well understood by Edmund Burke: "Boldness formerly was not the character of atheists as such. They were even of a character nearly the reverse; they were formerly like the old Epicureans, rather an unenterprising race. But of late they are grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious."1 Political atheism is a distinctly modern phenomenon. No pre-modern atheist doubted that social life required belief in, and worship of, God or gods. If we do not permit ourselves to be deceived by ephemeral phenomena, we realize that political atheism and political hedonism belong together. They arose together in the same moment and in the same mind. (Fs)

169b For in trying to understand Hobbes's political philosophy we must not lose sight of his natural philosophy. His natural philosophy is of the type classically represented by Democritean-Epicurean physics. Yet he regarded, not Epicurus or Democritus, but Plato, as "the best of the ancient philosophers." What he learned from Plato's natural philosophy was not that the universe cannot be understood if it is not ruled by divine intelligence. Whatever may have been Hobbes's private thoughts, his natural philosophy is as atheistic as Epicurean physics. What he learned from Plato's natural philosophy was that mathematics is "the mother of all natural science."2 By being both mathematical and materialistic-mechanistic, Hobbes's natural philosophy is a combination of Platonic physics and Epicurean physics. From his point of view, pre-modern philosophy or science as a whole was "rather a dream than science" precisely because it did not think of that combination. His philosophy as a whole may be said to be the classic example of the typically modern combination of political idealism with a materialistic and atheistic view of the whole. (Fs)

170a Positions that are originally incompatible with one another can be combined in two ways. The first way is the eclectic compromise which remains on the same plane as the original positions. The other way is the synthesis which becomes possible through the transition of thought from the plane of the original positions to an entirely different plane. The combination effected by Hobbes is a synthesis. He may or may not have been aware that he was, in fact, combining two opposed traditions. He was fully aware that his thought presupposed a radical break with all traditional thought, or the abandonment of the plane on which "Platonism" and "Epicureanism" had carried on their secular struggle. (Fs)

170b Hobbes, as well as his most illustrious contemporaries, was overwhelmed or elated by a sense of the complete failure of traditional philosophy. A glance at present and past controversies sufficed to convince them that philosophy, or the quest for wisdom, had not succeeded in transforming itself into wisdom. This overdue transformation was now to be effected. To succeed where tradition had failed, one has to start with reflections on the conditions which have to be fulfilled if wisdom is to become actual: one has to start with reflections on the right method. The purpose of these reflections was to guarantee the actualization of wisdom. (Fs)

171a The failure of traditional philosophy showed itself most clearly in the fact that dogmatic philosophy had always been accompanied, as by its shadow, by skeptical philosophy. Dogmatism had never yet succeeded in overcoming skepticism once and for all. To guarantee the actualization of wisdom means to eradicate skepticism by doing justice to the truth' embodied in skepticism. For this purpose, one must first give free rein to extreme skepticism: what survives the onslaught of extreme skepticism is the absolutely safe basis of wisdom. The actualization of wisdom is identical with the erection of an absolutely dependable dogmatic edifice on the foundation of extreme skepticism.3 (Fs)