La persecución y el arte de escribir

by Leo Strauss

The essays collected in Persecution and the Art of Writing all deal with one problem—the relation between philosophy and politics. Here, Strauss sets forth the thesis that many philosophers, especially political philosophers, have reacted to the threat of persecution by disguising their most controversial and heterodox ideas.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Writing, History, Nonfiction, Essays, Theory

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Leo Strauss was a 20th century German-American scholar of political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. He spent much of his career as a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, where he taught several generations of students and published fifteen books.
Trained in the neo-Kantian tradition with Ernst Cassirer and immersed in the work of the phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger, Strauss authored books on Baruch Spinoza and Thomas Hobbes, and articles on Maimonides and Al-Farabi. In the late 1930s, his research focused on the texts of Plato and Aristotle, retracing their interpretation through medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy, and encouraging the application of those ideas to contemporary political theory.

Reviews

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Across most of history people have been constrained by politics from expressing the full totality of their views and beliefs. For the overwhelming majority of people this posed no problem: their views were either in line with prevailing sentiment, or at minimum they felt no pressing need to contradict it. For a small number of thinkers however there was a serious problem. They felt prevailing beliefs to be in some sense incorrect, perhaps even founded on total falsehood, but also knew that it was politically impossible to express this openly. Rather than drinking hemlock as Socrates was forced to for refusing to disown his beliefs, they wrote the truth as they saw it in a form of code. Overtly, their writing reaffirmed the prevailing order. But those who could read between the lines were able to understand the true meaning of their words. These were often literally unspeakable critiques of orthodoxy, secretly published for those who in all times genuinely seek truth.

Strauss was a scholar of medieval Jewish and Islamic scholars. This study leans heavily upon analysis of al-Farabi and Maimonides. He takes what you could call an elitist view of intellectual history: Most people cannot understand any subversive truth. If they heard one, they'd probably be livid and dire consequences would ensue. At the same time there are always a small number of people who are able to comprehend things and who carry the torch of knowledge forward even under oppression. It is to those people whom these writers, and others like Spinoza, wrote their works, or at least part of them. The truth of reality as they saw it was woven into critiques, or expressed through subtle contradictions. In other words they wrote both esoterically and exoterically. The exoteric meanings paid obeisance to the politics of their time. The esoteric meanings spoke to the elite, who, if they read exactingly enough, could unseal the locks concealing the true meanings of texts. The messages were different but as Strauss describes they tended to convey either a message of what we would call rationalism or spirituality, depending on the context.

Strauss's analysis really brought home to me the great similarities between Judaic and Islamic exegesis, both being jurisprudential religions. I imagine that the similarities struck him too, even down to the shared terminology like fiqh and kalam. Someone versed in understanding of the Torah would be more able to comprehend the idea of layered meanings of the Quran than a modern secularist and potentially even a Christian whose holy text is (as far as I know) written largely exoterically. We take it for granted that people in the past generally believed one thing, or at least believed what they seemed to say that they believed. The reality is indeed quite different and some of them tried to tell us about it.

Reading this book can be a salve for people who feel the press of truths that run against the fashions of the time that they live in. While it can feel crazy, many people in history have in fact confronted this dilemma. Strauss himself was an interesting writer about whom I am interested in learning more, particularly in light of his popularity among some contemporary Americans.

[David M · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's easy to understand the influence of Hayek or Milton Friedman, but Leo Strauss is an entirely more perplexing case. What is it about this Spinoza expert and painstaking scholar of medieval philosophy that makes him an intellectual godfather to the modern GOP?

Let's try asking Peter Thiel (one of my all-time least favorite bay area tech billionaires, but still a fairly articulate man, I'll grant).

http://www.the-american-interest.com/...

(see last question)

I’ve been interested in Strauss for a long time. I think Strauss was a very important and profound thinker. His essay “Persecution and the Art of Writing” shows how in all societies certain ideas are not allowed to be discussed. Properly understood, political correctness is our greatest political problem. We always have this question of how to build a society in which important problems can be thought through and tackled. It’s a mistake to simply fixate on the problem of political correctness in its narrow incarnation of campus speech codes; it’s a much more pervasive problem. For instance, part of what fuels the education bubble is that we’re not allowed to articulate certain truths about the inequality of abilities. Many of our destructive bubbles are linked to political correctness, and that’s why Strauss is so important today.

Emphasis added. This makes me wonder if it's just a case of elites finding the right books to read to flatter themselves. Do billionaires feel oppressed by social norms that keep them from just coming out and saying they really are that much better than everyone else?

I actually think Strauss probably deserves better than this. His erudition and intellect are formidable. He may have developed an elitist hermeneutics, but unlike his odious pupil Alan Bloom (subject of Saul Bellow's horrendous last novel) he wasn't interested in merely handing out intellectual baubles to snobs.

*
It's all too easy to read Nietzsche and come away with the discovery that you in fact are one of the ubermenschen. But then maybe this is just the exoteric reading. It's also possible that, read esoterically, Nietzsche teaches an egalitarianism that is far too radical for most intellectuals to fathom.

*
Leo Strauss versus Paul Ricoeur...

While acknowledging that there may be gradations, Strauss's whole hermeneutics depends on dividing humanity between the vulgar masses on the one hand and a small band of philosophical wise men on the other. In interpreting a great author, then, the primary task is to distinguish the part written in the language of the vulgar (the 'exoteric') from the subtext written for a small elite (the 'esoteric').

The dominant trope here is the parable or code. The surface language of the text can be decoded, or translated in a determinate way, into a secret, true meaning which only the wise posses.

By contrast, with Ricoeur the dominant trope is the symbol. The symbol gives rise to thought... What this means is that its solicitations are always irreducibly multiple and ambiguous. Though he would not deny differences in learning and ability between individuals, nonetheless his hermeneutics can be called egalitarian in that he is describing a universal condition. The wise philosopher no more possesses the secret meaning of the symbol than does the plebeian. For them both interpretation is an infinite and never-finished task.

*

For the Christian, the sacred doctrine is revealed theology; for the Jew and the Muslim, the sacred doctrine is, at least primarily, the legal interpretation of the Divine Law (talmud or fiqh). The sacred doctrine in the latter sense has, to say the least, much less in common with philosophy than the sacred doctrine in the former sense. It is ultimately for this reason that the status of philosophy was, as a matter of principle, much more precarious in Judaism and in Islam than in Christianity - pp 19

This seems to suggest that it was not merely a coincidence that modern, empirical science emerged in the Christian west and nowhere else. In its emphasis on revelation, over and above the law, Christianity incubated a deep concern with the world as it actually exists.

This also may account for much of the bitterness in the break between science and religion in the Christian world. As science grew and became more autonomous, it no longer needed the soil of religion in which it was originally planted. Religion, however, could not accept that it had been demoted. Christianity had traditionally thought of itself as much more than just a moral teaching; it was a total cosmogony. This conflict continues to this day.

[Alice Nilsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title essay sets the thesis for the following readings/encounters with Maimonides, the Kuzari + Spinoza. The encounters with texts are far more interesting than the title essay.

[Del Herman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned quite quickly from engaging great texts that there was more to them than just plot and surface symbolism. My Literature teacher in high school inculcated in us this means of analyzing, of digging deeper into text and reading in between the lines. When I began doing that, the things I could see in a given text were remarkable. The first work I read under this lens was the assigned work at the beginning of Senior year Literature: Macbeth. The things we found in Macbeth were incredible. Of course, these interpretations could not be found on Sparknotes and they could not be found on the play's Wikipedia page. Most of those interpretations were superficial: that Shakespeare meant exactly what he wrote or better yet, they came from a certain philosophical outlook on how to read: they were deconstructive and attempted to defile any traditional interpretation of the text or they were by-products of historicism, the view that there are no eternal questions and each thinker is merely a representative of the prejudices of his own day.

When Leo Strauss left his Neo-Kantian and phenomenological training in favor of studying Jewish and Islamic philosophy in the Medieval period, these types of reading (albeit deconstructionism was not on the scene yet) were the most common. The Hegelian idea that there are no permanent truths or questions but only truths or questions reacting to the dialectic of history had corrupted how philosophers read the Ancient and Medieval thinkers. These thinkers were to be understood historically and not philosophically. They were answering to a prejudice of their times, not an eternal question.

However, Strauss rejected this. He rejected the Hegelian understanding of history and gave the Ancients their footing. What he discovered in the Ancients was nothing short of a revolution. He re-discovered the art of esoteric writing.

What esoteric writing is, is exactly what my Literature teacher made us find in Shakespeare, the message in between the lines. The exoteric message was instead the lines themselves and their literal meaning.

Of course, many folks take issue with this. Why would Ancient thinkers do this? How do we know we're not reading our own prejudices into the text? The answer to the first question is because philosophers of the pre-modern era understood something which was lost in the Enlightenment optimistic understanding of man: that there should always be a dichotomy between philosophy and society. The two should intertwine, for sure, but they should never become one organism.

The reasoning behind that for the Ancients was simple: philosophy concerns itself with the permanent questions and contemplates them always with a reserve, a methodological skepticism. However, no society that wishes to function, can run on pure skepticism alone. Every society must have agreement about common sense beliefs, what the good generally is, and what it means to be human. It has no time for permanent questions, because society (unlike philosophy) needs its answers and cannot question forever. Therefore, the political mindset of society and the skeptical mindset of the philosopher should always be separate, for the good of society and for the safety of the philosopher living in a society dominated by a somewhat necessary dogmatism.

To prove his theory, Strauss analyzes three texts of Jewish philosophy: Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, Judah Halevi's Kuzari, and Baruch Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, each of which he finds esoteric writing in. The justifications and methodology differ by author: Maimonides' esotericism was birthed from Rabbinic teaching that the true teaching of the Torah should not be written haphazardly, for it could be misunderstood and misappropriated by the vulgar and so the best way to write candidly about The Torah was to create a message that could be understood and used appropriately by the vulgar (the surface thinker) and could be dissected by the wise (read esoterically). Maimonides seems to imply many things, when read esoterically, that question the status quo of Judaism in the 13th Century. Halevi, on the other hand, seems to claim many things about the relation between theology and philosophy that would have been uncomfortable for the Medieval man. Similarly, Spinoza writes the deeper messages of his naturalism into what may seem pious writing, but which underneath imply an even deeper materialism than his pantheism understood proper.

When the Great Books are understood this way, as layered, as possessing writing between the lines, as being testing grounds for the minds of their readers, they inevitably become more important for us. In a time when Great Books are often devalued as being the senseless by-products of history or the pious renderings of a dogmatic age or as being irrelevant in the eyes of modern science, Strauss's understanding of how to read properly can be of great insight for maturating thinkers and a great source of the debates of the Western tradition. The old phrase that "God is in the details" certainly comes true when it comes down to serious intellectual inquiry.

[olimpia · Rating 4 out of 5]

all'inizio volevo suicidarmi, in realtà è un libro interessantissimo. non so se sono d'accordo con tutto quello che dice (specialmente su spinoza, mentre la parte su maimonide è davvero bella), però pone delle domande fondamentali rispetto all'interpretazione dei testi di questi filosofi

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My understanding of this book goes something like this: philosophy questions and it is therefore a threat to any established order; therefore, philosophers are incentivized to clothe their philosophy in status quo language while expressing, between the lines, their true ideas. Our job as readers is to read between the lines when reading philosophy--and perhaps more broadly.

This actually makes reading still more fun as it's difficult to not almost immediately begin reading against every text's explicit meaning. In fact, this is what I immediately began to do when reading Symposium at a book club last month. I suspect the easiest way to see this idea in action is to visit any X Did Nothing Wrong subreddit.

The danger of this philosophy is that also encourages readers to disregard any explicitly stated message and instead interpret a contrary message hidden "between the lines."

Though not a danger, I'll admit that I began to worry that I was missing the Straussian message in this work. Because I have almost no familiarity with the Medieval texts Strauss discusses in many of these essays, it seems safe to conclude my worries were correct. Who knows.

Update 2021-Tweet storm overview of Strauss's ideas: https://twitter.com/ZoharAtkins/statu...

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

another must-read. eye-opening account of how authors write a book for a second, hidden audience. did you ever find yourself reading an author that is normally very meticulous and find yourself confused by what appears to be an egregious error? this "stepping out of character" may be a hidden signpost for the hidden audience.

[Jeffra Hays · Rating 5 out of 5]

One does not read this while attending to anything else. I read it twice, and a third reading would do me good. Using several famous texts as examples, Strauss explains why each writer presented his material as he did, and how to understand that some writing is not intended for immediate consumption. What is apparent on the page is not the writer's message. Difficult, yes, and fascinating.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am nowhere near done with this book yet, but I have now read all of it, and the library wanted it back again. I probably should own a copy, but meanwhile the extensive note taking has, I think, improved my understanding of the dense material: one star off for the complexity and difficulty that may arise in part from the style of the author, the translator, or both.

This was recommended to me during the course of a conversation with T Polyphilus about a (to me) obscure point in one of the O.T.O. initiations, and once I tuigged to the reasoning it completely changed my approach to The Mysteries, and to my analysis of esoteric texts generally. Highly worth the effort required for anyone engaging a similar Path.

[fart · Rating 2 out of 5]

THIS ONE IS GOOD BC HE'S DEF GAYYY

[Joe Olipo · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The religious and theological context for Rabelais's seemingly scandalous preoccupation with scatology has been well documented in the scholarly literature on the subject. What has not been examined is the notion of purgation as it is defined in the treatises that constituted the medical knowledge of Rabelais's day. It is evident that if constipation and indigestion were analogous to theological error, purgation was akin to religious purification."
— David LaGuardia, Fecal Matters (2004)

On Constipation

Is history constipated? Perhaps I should rephrase. How constipated is the history of writing? That's not quite it either. Rather, I'm wondering why literary criticism took its sweet time getting its butt to move. Literature was with it in the catacombs. Did criticism take a wrong turn back there? Is that possible? (Sedgwick asks "Is the rectum straight?") Literature was already in its modernist era when, as late as 1908, Rilke could recommend: "Read as little as possible of literary criticism — such things are either partisan opinions, which have become petrified and meaningless, hardened and empty of life, or else they are just clever word-games, in which one view wins today, and tomorrow the opposite view" (Letters to a Young Poet, 1902-1908). Literary criticism, it seems, was cached somewhere in history, before Empson, before Auerbach, before Greenblatt and Spivak. Henry James was trying to bring this circumstance to light:

I sit here, after long weeks, at any rate, in front of my arrears, with an inward accumulation of material of which I feel the wealth, and as to which I can only invoke my familiar demon of patience, who always comes, doesn’t he?, when I call. [. . .] everything abides and fertilizes and renews its golden promise, making me think with closed eyes of deep and grateful longing when, in the full summer days I shall be able to [plunge] my hand, my arm, in, deep and far, up to the shoulder—into the heavy bag of remembrance—of suggestion—of imagination—of art—and fish out every little fact and fancy that can be to my purpose. These things are all packed away, now, thicker than I can penetrate, deeper than I can fathom, and there let them rest for the present, in their sacred cool darkness, till I shall let in upon them the mild still light in which they will begin to gleam and glitter and take form like the gold and jewels of a mine."
— Henry James, Notebooks (1905)

Henry James, writing at the same time as Rilke, recommends a disimpaction. Something "gleaming" was being kept from the light of day -- something special. At least, this is the thesis of Strauss's text, Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), which wants to explain why everything was stopped up. In brief the great authors were writing in an esoteric mode: "[Some]seem to have thought it necessary to help the falāsifa in concealing their teaching, because they feared the harm which its publication would cause to those of their fellow-believers whose faith was weak. What Fārābī indicates in regard to the procedure of the true philosophers, is confirmed by a number of remarks about the philosophic distinction between the exoteric and the esoteric teaching which occur in the writings of his successors. Fārābī’s Plato informs us about the most obvious and the crudest reason why this antiquated or forgotten distinction was needed. Philosophy and the philosophers were in grave danger. Consequently, for Strauss, the group of ostensibly exoteric manuscripts, among which we will find the most important texts of antiquity actually, "contain two teachings: a popular teaching of an edifying character, which is in the foreground; and a philosophic teaching concerning the most important subject, which is indicated only between the lines. " Strauss's thesis is intriguing in that it would explain centuries of inferior literary criticism which seem to persist long after literature has started its regular movements: the digging was done in secret; reserved for the taste of initiates.

For Strauss, esoteric knowledge cannot be sold on the open market. It has to be smuggled in. His models are retentive. They hold onto their treasure, frustrating the desire of the reader. In Strauss's paradigm, Spinoza doesn't want to give up the deep teachings of his Theologico-Political Treatise (1670). He contradicts himself on purpose. Frankly, he's a pain in the ass. But he has prize for those who are deep readers.

"The sound rule for reading the Treatise is, that in case of a contradiction, the statement most opposed to what Spinoza considered the vulgar view has to be regarded as expressing his serious view; [. . .] Only by following this rule of reading can we understand Spinoza's thought exactly as he himself understood it and avoid the danger of becoming or remaining the dupes of his accommodations" (119).

(Consider a juxtaposition with the anal retentive psychoanalytic model, who has undergone a difficult toilet training: "He witheld to the extreme; he could neither come nor go [. . .] We can also read his symptoms on the basis of elimination. . Lacan says we can situate the 'fundamental relationship of the subject as desire with the most disagreeable object,' with the turd [. . .] Was he not, as his father said, a 'pain in the ass?' The big turd that his parents wanted and looked for in the toilet , the big turd, which he was afraid would hurt him as it had in the past, was himself" (Yael Baldwin, Let's Keep Talking, 2016))

Strauss differs from most modern critics in his insistence on authorial intent. In Strauss's reading, the internal contradictions of a text are intentional. Furthermore, these contradictions are meant to be resolved in favor of one position or the other (rather than understanding them, for instance, as a tool to bring both sides into question). It's the minor party, the less "vulgar" side, in whose favor we are to decide the "serious view." To be frank, we persist in this essay's (childish) metaphor precisely because no other model seems to access the Strauss's theorization of privileged esoteric knowledge. We are talking about a blind bag containing secret treasures, which the author has hidden away himself, among (waste) material of no particular value, where (almost) no one would think to look. Recalling the treatises of Rabelais's day, in which "constipation and indigestion were analogous to theological error and purgation was akin to religious purification," Strauss's frustrated reader models himself after Judge Schreber, who is not able to produce the right kind of material. "The question 'Why do you then not shit?' is followed by the capital answer, 'Because I am somehow stupid.' The pen almost resists writing down the fantastic nonsense that God in His blindness and lack of knowledge of human nature in fact goes so far that He assumes a human being could exist who cannot shit for sheer stupidity" (Daniel Paul Schreber, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, 1903)

Strauss's approach seems to be part of a movement which has long since been flushed. The big readers, those (colloquial) movers and shakers haven't needed him. Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930) makes productive use of the ambiguity in a text, which Strass wants to eliminate. Spivak's Can the Subaltern Speak (1988) has placed the intent of even quite self-conscious authors under the question mark. Perhaps most pertinent, Greenblatt's Invisible Bullets (1988), harbinger of the so-called "New Historicism" has placed the Strauss's entire methodology into question, in which texts spanning multiple centuries and continents are subjected to the same strategy of critique. (In fact, Strauss has some choice words for so-called "Historicists", and prophesying that, "The self-destruction of historicism is not altogether an unforeseen result" (102) of the "[unsound] conviction that true understanding of human thought is understanding of every teaching in terms of its particular time" (102). Per Strauss, the historicist, "presupposes then from the outset that Spinoza’s whole position as Spinoza himself presented and understood it, is untenable because it is manifestly not “historical.” He lacks then the strongest incentive for attempting to understand Spinoza’s teaching as Spinoza himself understood it, that incentive being the suspicion that Spinoza’s teaching is the true teaching. Without that incentive no reasonable man would devote all his energy to the understanding of Spinoza, and without such devotion Spinoza’s books will never disclose their full meaning" (98). This is more to be said on Strauss's notion of "historicism" and "devotion", but we are getting ahead of ourselves.)

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so to speak, meaning that, frankly it's worth putting up with loose methodology so to spice an interesting reading. I would wish to present Strauss's reading of Spinoza, evidently the result of "devotion" to his "true teaching", as something particularly unique. After an extensive prolegomena on Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise (1670), Strauss demonstrates the revelation that Baruch de Spinoza was dubious of Christianity:

"The contradictions regarding Christianity, or the New Testament, require a somewhat more extensive treatment.Spinoza asserts first that no one except Jesus has reached the superhuman excellence sufficient for receiving, without the aid of the imagination, revelations of supra-rational content; or that he alone—in contradistinction to the Old Testament prophets in particular—truly and adequately understood what was revealed to him. He is therefore prepared to say that the wisdom of God has taken on human nature in Christ, and that Christ is the way of salvation.40 These statements must be understood, i.e., corrected, in the light of Spinoza’s denial of supra-natural phenomena. Since the laws of nature in general, and of human nature in particular, are always and everywhere the same, or since there is never anything radically “new,” the mind of Jesus, who had a human body, cannot have been superhuman. In other words, since man has no higher faculty than reason, or since there cannot be supra-rational truths, Jesus cannot possibly have been more than the greatest philosopher who ever lived" (111).

Frankly, our concerns with methodology aside, this juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze. One might say the biggest hole in the text of Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952) is that it never really gets moving. This seems a consequence of Strauss's method. Having conceived (in advance) that the "true teaching" of a text is merely the opposition to the "vulgar view", Strauss's reading seem blocked up by his understanding of what a "vulgar view" could mean. That is, if Leo Strauss isn't holding out of on us.

The temptation of esoteric texts, which Strauss appears unable to resist, is to become self-reflexive. A text which proposes every other text has a minor reading cached in its internal contradictions, is probably hiding something (read: retaining). In brief, I would propose Strauss has something cached. (Again, an esotericism reminiscent of the bowel movement)

So things, which must not be expressed,
When plumped into the reeking chest,
Send up an excremental smell
To taint the parts from whence they fell.
The petticoats and gown perfume,
Which waft a stink round every room.
Thus finishing his grand survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits
— Jonathan Swift, The Lady's Dressing Room (1732)

I won't put off the movement any longer. For all its vituperations against historicism, Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952) is surreptitiously an historicist text. (We are resolving the contradictions the way Leo Strauss does, which is to never call the dichotomy into question.) Of course, the selected texts it scrutinizes have cached their "hidden meaning" in part because of real-historical persecution. Using an historicist understanding of his situation, Strauss, in his esoteric mode, could mobilize persecution out of the particular context in which he comes to evaluate it. His sense of persecution doesn't have to end with Church censor. It might be evacuated even into the present day. What this requires is an inversion in the present state of things: We, who are not constipated, would have to go back to holding our little treasures inside ourselves for inquiring minds to find, and Strauss, whose secret is at present cached in his rectum, could evacuate for the world to see, becoming in this way a real-life Judge Schreber: Trying to trace the origin of this idea one must assume some understanding of the symbolic meaning of the act of defecation, namely that he who entered into a special relationship to divine rays as I have is to a certain extent entitled to shit on all the world" (Joseph Paul Schreber, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness, 1905)

[Jeremiah John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read Strauss' essay "Persecution and the Art of Writing." The other essays were about Islamic historians and were not of interest to me, so I skimmed or skipped.

I really enjoyed the essay I did read. His essential premise is that authors under persecution write "between the lines" to the deep student, burying hidden gems of their actual thought among dense and specifically misleading ideas. They do this to hide their thoughts from the persecution of censors but to leave behind a legacy.

It makes you question the way we as modern people read history: most of us haven't experienced persecution, and we tend to take a person at their word, not considering the pressure to keep one's neck from the gallows.

I feel this work adds a dimension that is normally lacking from a reading of historical texts, and the short essay in this book is well worth the read.

[Will Spohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of the essays were great, and were helpful in clarifying the approach one has to take with esoteric texts. I found the Spinoza essay probably the most difficult. Also, it is funny that Strauss makes the Introduction the first part, so that there are five parts and thus a central essay. Clever.

Having reread this, I enjoyed it even more the second time through. I don’t know if I understood anymore, but I found the Spinoza essay much more rewarding and interesting than I think I did last time.

[Jeremy]

The emphasis on esoteric writing (for defensive purposes) sounds like Melzer's Philosophy Between the Lines.

[Eran · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are four essays in this book, 3 of which are examples of the idea set forth in the first essay that writers throughout history have been forced by religious and moral traditions of their times to hide what they are saying in plain sight. How do writers transmit their true thoughts through censorship? Strauss suggests that we read between the lines. He advocates slow reading, really digging into a text, looking for patterns, phrases which stick out, inaccuracies, mistakes, and contradictions. It reads like a map to hidden treasure. If you know what the clues are, you'll be in on the spoils.

[Benjamin Garner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This text is centered upon the relationship between philosophy and politics. Thus in a series of essays, Strauss argues that ancient philosophers have hidden the true meaning of their works in order to avoid persecution. This esoteric way of writing is only accessible to the careful reader, and therefore these works must be studied rigorously, in order to arrive at their true object. A lovely work that deserves a second reading.

[Bolin]

esoteric/exoteric writing

[Benjamin Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Been reading and re-reading this for a decade. Absolute classic.

[Abdulrahman Baj · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read half of it

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Persecution and the Art of Writing" is a book by German-American philosopher Leo Strauss, first published in 1952. The book is a critical analysis of the relationship between politics and philosophy, and argues that the history of philosophy is marked by a tension between the pursuit of truth and the need to navigate political constraints.

Strauss suggests that philosophers have often had to conceal their true beliefs and ideas in order to avoid persecution or censorship by political authorities. He argues that this has led to the development of an "art of writing," in which philosophers use irony, allegory, and other rhetorical devices to convey their ideas in a way that is palatable to the ruling powers.

Strauss also critiques the idea of moral relativism, suggesting that it is based on a flawed understanding of human nature and the nature of reality. He argues that the pursuit of truth and the good is a fundamental human impulse, and that the role of philosophy is to provide a framework for this pursuit.

Overall, "Persecution and the Art of Writing" is an important contribution to the study of philosophy and its relationship to politics. The book has been widely read by scholars of political theory and intellectual history, and has contributed to ongoing debates about the nature of philosophy and its role in shaping human experience.

GPT

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not Strauss' most controversial work, this is probably his most misunderstood and dismissed work. In Persecution and the Art of Writing, Strauss states his belief that great philosophers have offered both an "exoteric" or salutary teaching and an "esoteric" or true teaching, which has been concealed from the general reader. For maintaining this distinction, Strauss is often accused of having written esoterically himself, which strikes me as incorrect if no other reason than that Strauss did not consider himself a philosopher.

[P Malcolmson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It would be difficult to understand the Western tradition of political philosophy without reading this book. Particularly interesting is Strauss's account of the two caves: the natural cave and the artificial cave we have constructed - the pit beneath the cave, so to speak. This makes access to the natural cave increasingly difficult. (see the essay on Spinoza). The phenomenon Strauss is talking about seems much like Heidegger's argument that we are no longer able to think, meaning to reflect as opposed to calculate. (Memorial Address and What is Called Thinking)

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like Leo Strauss' s thinking especially when he channels what he knows of classics. This book I don't feel demonstrates this. I was hoping he justified esotericism deeper and was let down by the essay In particular. Strauss is a serious thinker on classics and I recomended the Leo Strauss Center which has some of his courses recorded and free to listen. You really see Strauss' s intellect and understanding there.

[Christian Lindke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philosophy,Politics

[Edward O'Neill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certain books contain a secret book, hidden within what overtly seem like contradictions. An interesting recovery of hermeneutics for the goals of conservative political philosophy.

[Saverio Mariani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alla lunga annoia.

[Abu Dhabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cannot say whether the thesis is actually true, for want of having read all the books he reviews, and being good at literary interpretation, but it's a plausible hypothesis.

[Abraham Bravo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read half