Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes: Philosophie der Macht; Macht; potentia - potestas; Nietzsche;

Kurzinhalt: ... one may call Hobbes's whole philosophy the first philosophy of power ...Power, as distinguished from the end for which power is used or ought to be used, becomes the central theme of political reflections ...

Textausschnitt: 194a There is a term that expresses in the most condensed form the result of the change which Hobbes has effected. That term is "power." It is in Hobbes's political doctrine that power becomes for the first time eo nomine a central theme. Considering the fact that, according to Hobbes, science as such exists for the sake of power, one may call Hobbes's whole philosophy the first philosophy of power. "Power" is an ambiguous term. It stands for potentia, on the one hand, and for potestas (or jus or dominium), on the other.1 It means both "physical" power and "legal" power. The ambiguity is essential: only if potentia and potestas essentially belong together, can there be a guaranty of the actualization of the right social order. The state, as such, is both the greatest human force and the highest human authority. Legal power is irresistible force.2 The necessary coincidence of the greatest human force and the highest human authority corresponds strictly to the necessary coincidence of the most powerful passion (fear of violent death) and the most sacred right (the right of self-preservation). Potentia and potestas have this in common, that they are both intelligible only in contradistinction, and in relation, to the actus: the potentia of a man is what a man can do, and the potestas or, more generally expressed, the right of a man, is what a man may do. The predominance of the concern with "power" is therefore only the reverse of a relative indifference to the actus, and this means to the purposes for which man's "physical" as well as his "legal" power is or ought to be used. This indifference can be traced directly to Hobbes's concern with an exact or scientific political teaching. The sound use of "physical" power as well as the sound exercise of rights depends on prudentia, and whatever falls within the province of prudentia is not susceptible of exactness. There are two kinds of exactness : mathematical and legal. From the point of view of mathematical exactness, the study of the actus and therewith of the ends is replaced by the study of potentia. "Physical" power as distinguished from the purposes for which it is used is morally neutral and therefore more amenable to mathematical strictness than is its use: power can be measured. This explains why Nietzsche, who went much beyond Hobbes and declared the will to power to be the essence of reality, conceived of power in terms of "quanta of power." From the point of view of legal exactness, the study of the ends is replaced by the study of potestas. The rights of the sovereign, as distinguished from the exercise of these rights, permit of an exact definition without any regard to any unforeseeable circumstances, and this kind of exactness is again inseparable from moral neutrality: right declares what is permitted, as distinguished from what is honorable.3 Power, as distinguished from the end for which power is used or ought to be used, becomes the central theme of political reflections by virtue of that limitation of horizon which is needed if there is to be a guaranty of the actualization of the right social order. (Fs)