Autor: Strauss, Leo

Buch: Natural Right and History

Titel: Natural Right and History

Stichwort: Hobbes; Naturrecht - Notwendigkeit: Leviathan, Wealth of Nations; Unintelligibilität der Natur

Kurzinhalt: But the very fact that the universe is unintelligible permits reason to rest satisfied with its free constructs, ... Reason is impotent against passion, but it can become omnipotent if it co-operates with the strongest passion

Textausschnitt: 200a Opposing the "utopianism" of the classics, Hobbes was concerned with a social order whose actualization is probable and even certain. The guaranty of its actualization might seem to be supplied by the fact that the sound social order is based on the most powerful passion and therewith on the most powerful force in man. But if the fear of violent death is truly the strongest force in man, one should expect the desired social order always, or almost always, to be in existence, because it will be produced by natural necessity, by the natural order. Hobbes overcomes this difficulty by assuming that men in their stupidity interfere with the natural order. The right social order does not normally come about by natural necessity on account of man's ignorance of that order. The "invisible hand" remains ineffectual if it is not supported by the Leviathan or, if you wish, by the Wealth of Nations. (Fs) (notabene)

201a There is a remarkable parallelism and an even more remarkable discrepancy between Hobbes's theoretical philosophy and his practical philosophy. In both parts of his philosophy, he teaches that reason is impotent and that it is omnipotent, or that reason is omnipotent because it is impotent. Reason is impotent because reason or humanity have no cosmic support: the universe is unintelligible, and nature "dissociates" men. But the very fact that the universe is unintelligible permits reason to rest satisfied with its free constructs, to establish through its constructs an Archimedean basis of operations, and to anticipate an unlimited progress in its conquest of nature. Reason is impotent against passion, but it can become omnipotent if it co-operates with the strongest passion or if it puts itself into the service of the strongest passion. Hobbes's rationalism, then, rests ultimately on the conviction that, thanks to nature's kindness, the strongest passion is the only passion which can be "the origin of large and lasting societies" or that the strongest passion is the most rational passion. In the case of human things, the foundation is not a free construct but the most powerful natural force in man. In the case of human things, we understand not merely what we make but also what makes our making and our makings. Whereas the philosophy or science of nature remains fundamentally hypothetical, political philosophy rests on a nonhypothetical knowledge of the nature of man.1 As long as Hobbes's approach prevails, "the philosophy concerned with the human things" will remain the last refuge of nature. For at some point nature succeeds in getting a hearing. The modern contention that man can "change the world" or "push back nature" is not unreasonable. One can even safely go much beyond it and say that man can expel nature with a hayfork. One ceases to be reasonable only if one forgets what the philosophic poet adds, tamen usque recurret. (Fs) (notabene)