Interpretation, Vol 35-2

Volume 35
Issue 2
A JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Spring 2008
105 123 153 183
William H. F. Altman Steven Berg Nathan E. Busch How to Interpret Circeros Dialogue on Divination An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII International Duties and Natural Law: A Comparison of the Writings of Grotius and Plato
Fabrice Paradis Bland An Update of Strausss Notes and References in the First Part of the Chapter The Crisis of Modern Natural Right in Natural Right and History Will Morrisey Book Review: Aristotle and Modern Politics: The Persistence of Political Philosophy edited by Aristide Tessitore
195
www.interpretationjournal.com Editor-in-Chief Hilail Gildin, Dept. of Philosophy, Queens College Associate Editor Stephen Eide General Editors Charles E. Butterworth Hilail Gildin Leonard Grey General Editors (Late) Howard B. White (d. 1974) Robert Horwitz (d. 1978) Seth G. Benardete (d. 2001) Consulting Editors Christopher Bruell Joseph Cropsey Harry V. Jaffa David Lowenthal Harvey C. Mansfield Ellis Sandoz Kenneth W. Thompson Consulting Editors (Late) Leo Strauss (d. 1973) Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) John Hallowell (d. 1992) Ernest L. Fortin (d. 2002) Muhsin Mahdi (d. 2007) International Editors Terence E. Marshall Heinrich Meier Editors Wayne Ambler Maurice Auerbach Robert Bartlett Fred Baumann Eric Buzzetti Susan Collins Patrick Coby Elizabeth Cde Baca Eastman Erik Dempsey Thomas S. Engeman Edward J. Erler Maureen Feder-Marcus Pamela K. Jensen Ken Masugi Carol L. McNamara Will Morrisey Amy Nendza Susan Orr Michael Palmer Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin Susan Meld Shell Devin Stauffer Bradford P. Wilson Cameron Wybrow Martin D. Yaffe Michael P. Zuckert Catherine H. Zuckert Copy Editor Thomas Schneider Designer Wendy Coy Subscriptions Subscription rates per volume (3 issues): Individuals $29 Libraries and all other institutions $48 Students (four-year limit) $18 Single copies available. Payments: in U.S. dollars and payable by a financial institution located within the U.S.A. (or the U. S. Postal Service). Inquiries Mrs. Mary Contos, Assistant to the Editor Interpretation, Queens College, Flushing, NY 11367-1597, U.S.A. (718) 997-5542 Fax: (718) 997-5565 email interp@nyc.rr.com Printed by Sheridan Press, Hanover, PA, U.S.A.
Volume 35 Issue 2
Spring 2008
105 123 153 183
William H. F. Altman Steven Berg Nathan E. Busch How to Interpret Circeros Dialogue on Divination An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII International Duties and Natural Law: A Comparison of the Writings of Grotius and Plato
Fabrice Paradis Bland An Update of Strausss Notes and References in the First Part of the Chapter The Crisis of Modern Natural Right in Natural Right and History Will Morrisey Book Review: Aristotle and Modern Politics: The Persistence of Political Philosophy edited by Aristide Tessitore
195
2008 Interpretation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the contents may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher. ISSN 0020-9635
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How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination
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W I L L I A M H . F. A LT M A N UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA (BRAZIL) whfaltman@gmail.com
Despite the fact that De Divinatione is by no means the most familiar of Ciceros philosophical works, the second of its two books begins with a passage that is customarily cited whenever those works receive critical attention: a catalogue of his philosophical writings to date (2.1-4). There is a good deal that might be written about this catalogue and its importance for interpreting Ciceros philosophical writings: (1) he arranges them in accordance with reading order (the introductory Hortensius stands first) rather than order of composition, (2) some of his earlier worksthe Laws is a good exampleare omitted, and (3) the catalogues last division is devoted to rhetoric. It is the purpose of this article to show that it is not only the catalogue with which Book II begins that sheds valuable light on how Ciceros philosophical writings are to be interpreted: De Divinatione as a whole illuminates Ciceros skill as a writer of dialogues and indicates that this frequently underestimated classical writer may well deserve Quintillians remarkable compliment in De Institutione Oratoria (10.123; translation mine): He stands out as the rival of Plato. Cicero draws attention to the fact that De Divinatione consists of two books in two ways, one of them remarkably subtle: in the catalogue with which he begins its second book, it is treated as if it contained only one. A striking feature of the catalogue is that Cicero enumerates his writings by means of the books each discrete work contains; it is thanks to the fact that he divides the early dialogue De Oratore into its three books, for example, that the set of rhetorical works contains five books, not three. The number five, as it turns out, dominates not only the last but also the first three sets: having grouped the lost Hortensius with what were once the four books of the Academica, Cicero calls attention to the fact that both De Finibus and the Tusculan Disputations (which directly follow) are likewise composed of five books apiece. And this pattern continues, or rather appears to continue, in the fourth set, the one that contains De Divinatione itself.
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These things having been published, three books On the Nature of the Gods have been completed [perfecti sunt] in which every inquiry of this type is contained. And in order that these might be plainly and copiously completed [quae ut plane esset cumulateque perfecta], we have begun to write On Divination for these books [his libris], to whichas is my plan [in animo]when we have added On Fate, enough in abundance [abunde satis] will have been done for this whole inquiry. And to these books are to be added six On the Republic (2.3; translation mine)
It is remarkable that De Divinatione is the only multi-book work in the Book II catalogue that is not explicitly identified as such. Nor, as the quoted passage indicates, is this the only notice Cicero gives us that De Divinatione must be read with considerable care. Since Ciceros catalogue emphasizes the comprehensive nature of the completed De Natura Deorum, the careful readers attention is piqued when he claims that De Divinatione will render its three books even more complete. This in turn becomes comical when he tells us that he plans to add yet another book De Fato that will render this already completed and then copiously completed task abundantly sufficient (see Schofield 1986, 48; he calls abunde satis a palpable oxymoron). Most importantly, while not making it explicit that De Divinatione is written in two books, he nevertheless draws attention to precisely that second book not only by beginning it with a catalogue that reveals in what order his philosophical writings as a whole are to be read but one that simultaneously appears to concealand therefore may be said, at least in the case of the careful reader, to revealthe way that De Divinatione itself must be read: carefully and with particularly careful attention to the fact that it consists of two books, not one. The structure of De Divinatione seems straightforward enough: after an introduction presented in his own voice (1.1-8), and then a dialogue between Cicero and his brother Quintus (1.8-11), Quintus, without interruption, defends divination beginning with divination by art (1.11-37) and then proceeding to natural divination, first by prophetic frenzy (1.37-38), then by dreams (1.39-69; the subject is revisited at 1.110-16), and finally to the theory behind both (1.70-131). Only at the very end of Book I (1.132) does Marcus (i.e. Cicero qua interlocutor; see Addendum 1) speak: he notes simply that Quintus has come well prepared. After the catalogue with which Book II begins (2.1-4), an introduction in Ciceros own voice continues until 2.8, and then Marcus proceeds to dismantle his brothers arguments one by one. After completing his arguments against divination by art (2.8-99), Cicero pauses before proceeding to natural divination: this allows Quintus to distance himself from the form of divination Cicero has been attacking (2.100). Marcus
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thereupon makes a fresh start (2.101) and, after dealing with some of the theoretical arguments repeated by his brother (2.101-9), turns to prophetic frenzy (2.110-18) and finally to dreams (2.119-47). Some concluding remarks on the superstition of the masses as opposed to Ciceros own skeptical approach (2.148-50) bring the dialogue to a close. Although questions have recently been raised about Ciceros intentions (Schofield 1986, followed by Krostenko 2000), the traditional view is that Cicero himself endorses the skeptical position of Marcus in Book II, i.e. that at least as far as Ciceros own views are concerned, De Divinatione consists of a single significant book: the second (Pease 1963, 1213; Rawson 1975, 243-44; and Momigliano 1979, 209). In Book II, Cicero makes no effort to conceal his skeptical attitude towards a Roman state religion based on divination: those traditions are to be upheld for strictly political reasons. In fact, Cicero goes out of his way to suggest that his approach to the potentially subversive subject is open and honest:
In discussing separately the various methods of divination, I shall begin with soothsaying, which, according to my deliberate judgement, should be cultivated from reasons of political expediency and in order that we may have a state religion. But we are alone [sed soli sumus] and for that reason we may, without causing ill-will, make an earnest inquiry into the truth of soothsaying [licet verum exquirere sine invidia], certainly I can do so, since in most things my philosophy is that of doubt [mihi praesertim de plerisque dubitanti]. (2.28)
Although Cicero is going to be open about things that would normally be concealed for political reasons, it is impossible to miss the fact that he is nevertheless writing between the lines in De Divinatione: after all, Marcus and Quintus are scarcely alone but in fact only exist as Ciceronian constructions in a published text. It would, moreover, be profoundly selfdefeating to draw attention in public to the distinction between ones public positionthat which one adopts to avoid invidiaand ones private views unless one were fully aware of the irony involved (Goar 1968 and Rawson 1973 are to be consulted for the disparity between De Divinatione and De Legibus, where divination is defended). Nor is this the only deliberate self-contradiction in the passage: Ciceros skeptical inclination to doubt (mihidubitanti) suggests the opposite of his expressed intent to seek out the truth (verum exquirere). If there is any doubt about this, consider the following passage:
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I must now reply to what you said [Marcus is addressing Quintus], but I must do so with great diffidence and many misgivings, and in such a way as to affirm nothing and question everything. For if I should assume anything that I said to be certain [si enim aliquid certi haberem quod dicerem] I should myself be playing the diviner [ego ipse divinarem] while saying that no such thing as divination exists [qui esse divinationem nego]! (2.8)
In order to refute divination with certainty, Cicero would need to be a diviner; he who negates the existence of divination would himself be practicing it. Since Marcus will refer to the paradox of the Cretan liar at 2.11between the two passages quoted aboveit is clear to the careful reader that Cicero is not simply rejecting divination in De Divinatione. As Malcolm Schofield (1986, 63) aptly puts it: Div. is no simple tract but a multilayered work of surprising obliqueness and complexity. What Schofield doesnt remark is how close his own description of Ciceros writing is to Ciceros description of Socrates: [whose] many-sided method of discussion [multiplex ratio disputandi] and the varied nature [varietas] of his subjects and the greatness of his geniushas been immortalized in Platos masterpieces (Tusculan Disputations 5.11; translation Rackham). Nor is this the only indication of Ciceros debt to Plato:
Of course Im also aware that I often seem to be saying original things when Im saying very ancient ones (albeit having been unheard by most) and I confess myself to stand out as an oratorif thats what I am, or in any case, whatever else it is that I am [aut etiam quicumque sim]not from the ministrations of the rhetoricians but from the open spaces of the Academy. For such is the curricula of many-leveled and conflicting dialogues [multiplicium variorumque sermonum] in which the tracks of Plato have been principally impressed. (Orator 12; translation mine)
Schofield points out that Cicero uses two techniques to cast doubt on what Cicero himself must have realized was merely the apparent meaning of his dialogue: in Book II, Marcus not only devotes considerable attention to refuting views that Quintus hasnt bothered to defend in Book I, but also leaves unrefuted other views that his brother has defended with considerable skill (Schofield 1986, 62). An important example of this second techniquenot noticed by Schofieldinvolves Plato; since it well illustrates Ciceros own multiplex ratio disputandi, and since Cicero derives the latter from Plato, it is worthy of careful attention. The subject is divination by dreams, a branch of what Quintus called natural as opposed to artificial divination. It will be noted
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from the earlier summary that Quintus devotes far less attention to artificial than natural divination while Marcus does the opposite: he spends far more time refuting artificial divination than its natural counterpart. These disparities may be said to subsume both of the techniques identified by Schofield, although it is conceivable that Marcus could have dispensed briefly with views Quintus had developed in considerable detail. But Marcus never discusses the passage from Platos Republic (IX 571c3-572b1) that Quintus quotes at length nor ever refutes the theoretical possibility of divination by dreams that Socrates endorses there (Veglris 1982). The key passage is found at 572a1-3, where Socrates describes the rational part of the healthy and temperate soul whose appetitive and high-spirited elements, having been lulled to sleep,
leave that best part alone pure and by itself, to consider and to long for the perception of something it doesnt know, either something that has been, or is, or is going to be (Bloom 1968)
It is, to begin with, completely disingenuous to say that Quintus offers the reader a careful translation of an extended passage in Plato: it is, of course, Cicero himself who has done so. With that said, the fiction can be conveniently preserved by pointing out that, beginning at 1.60, Quintus translates and quotes the passage in Platonis Politia (in Platos Republic) from 571c3 to 571e2 with considerable literalness (see Pease 1963 and Wardle 2006 ad loc.) but then begins to deviate from the text, first with a gloss, then more dramatically:
for, as a rule, the edge of thought is dulled whether nature is starved or overfedand, when such a man, in addition, has the third part of the soul, in which the power of anger burns, quieted and subduedthus having the two irrational parts under complete controlthen will the thinking portion of his soul shine forth and show itself keen and strong for dreaming and then will his dreams be peaceful and worthy of trust [tranquilla atque veracia]. (1.61)
Although a comparison with the original will show other variations, by far the most importantespecially given the fact that the subject is divination by dreamsis the deletion of the Socratic account of the healthy souls acquisition of knowledge about the past, present, and future while dreaming. The reader already familiar with the passage from Plato is therefore fully aware that Cicero (through Quintus) is intentionally inaccurate when he adds: I have reproduced Platos very words (see Poncelet 1957, 253). But Quintus is not finished: despite a defense of the honesty of Epicurus by Carneades (1.62), the position of Epicuruswho rejects
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divination entirelyfalls before the authority of Plato or Socrates (who though they gave no reason, would yet prevail over these petty philosophers by the mere weight of their name; compare Tusculan Disputations 1.39) and Pythagoras, whose ban on beans is humorously discussed. Only then does Quintus add:
When, therefore, the soul has been withdrawn by sleep from contact with sensual ties, then does it recall the past, comprehend the future, and foresee the future. For though the sleeping body then lies as if it were dead, yet the soul is alive and strong, and will be much more so after death when it is wholly free of the body. (1.63)
It will be noted that this passage not only restores the deleted portion (see Wardle 2006, 265) but does so in a way that no longer refers to the three parts of the soul; it also draws heavily on the notionfound in the Phaedothat philosophy is a preparation for death (Phaedo 64a4-6 and 66e2-4). Made conspicuous by its absence at first, the Socratic account of veridical dreaming from Republic IX now reappears in the context of an enhanced and thoroughly dualistic Platonism that emerges from the mouth of Ciceros apparently Stoic brother (see Addendum 2). From this point on, Quintus refers repeatedly to the separation of the soul from the body (1.70, 1.110, 1.113, and 1.114). The closest that Marcus comes to refuting the Socratic or Platonic account of veridical dreaming is to conflate it with the Pythagorean anodyne for flatulence; this, in turn, supplies the context for one of Ciceros most famous remarks:
Then Pythagoras and Plato, who are most respectable authorities, bid us, if we would have trustworthy dreams [in somnis certiora videamus], to prepare for sleep by following a prescribed course in conduct and in eating. The Pythagoreans make a point of prohibiting the use of beans, as if thereby the soul and not the belly was filled with wind! Although I dont know why, nothing so absurd can be said that is not said by one of the philosophers. (2.119; last sentence my translation)
Here Cicero uses enlightened ridicule against revelation, a method that betrays its own weakness (see Strauss 1968, 254; compare Denyer 1985, 9-10). But the structure of Book II proves that dreams are serious business for Cicero: it is with dreams that Marcus ends his attack on divination. And between proving that absolutely no reliance can be placed in dreams, and the final exhortation, then let dreams, as a means of divination, be rejected along with the rest (2.147-48), Cicero addresses Plato, or rather fails to address him, for the last time:
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This becomes especially evident [sc. that no reliance can be placed in dreams] when we consider that those who have the dreams deduce no prophecies from them [illi ipsi qui ea vident nihil divinent]; that those who interpret them depend on conjecture [ei qui interpretantur coniecturam adhibeant] and not upon nature; that in the course of almost countless ages, chance has worked more miracles through all other agencies than through the agency of dreams; and finally, that nothing is more uncertain than conjecture [coniectura], which may be led not only into varying, but sometimes into contradictory conclusions [in contrarias]. (2.147)
What Marcus ignores throughout is that the Socratic account applies only to healthy and temperate souls (cf. 2.120) who stand in need of no interpreters to explicate the meaning of their dreams (2.122, 2.142-45). Neither of the two sources of prophetic dreams refuted by Marcusthe gods who send them or the interpreters who explain them (2.124)is therefore germane to the Republic. And it is not only the interpretum coniecturae (the conjectures of the interpreters of dreams; 2.144) that lead us in contrarias: Marcus, whose own veridical dream becomes a topic in the dialogue, contradicts himself on precisely this point. Quintus brings up the subject of Ciceros own prophetic dream at 1.59 (see Harris 2003); it is described just before the extended quotation from Republic IX (1.60-61). He also records his brothers reaction to the subsequent events that confirmed his dream:
it was reported to me that as soon as you heard that it was in Marius temple that the glorious decree of the Senate for your recall had been enacted on the motion of the consul, a most worthy and most eminent man, and that the decree had been greeted by unprecedented shouts of approval in a densely crowded theater, you said that no stronger proof could be given of a divinely inspired dream than this [nihil illo Atinati somnio fieri posse divinius]. (1.59)
His brothers familiarity with this dreamQuintus calls it, from the place where Marcus dreamt it, that Atinate dreammay well be a sufficient reason for Ciceros decision to make him the interlocutor in De Divinatione. But when Marcus discusses his dream in Book II, he offers a naturalistic explanation: in the time of my banishment Marius was often in my mind (2.140). The remarkable fact, however, is that the Senates vote of recall was taken in the temple Marius had dedicated; Marcus passes over this point. He also claims that he can remember no other dream besides the one about Marius (2.142); this is all the more unlikely because he has recently embraced the custom of taking afternoon naps (2.142; see Addendum 3). But even if that Atinate
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dream had been his only one, it is enough to contradict what he says next:
Yet despite all this time spent in sleep I have not received a single prophecy in a dream, certainly not one about the great events now going on. Indeed, I never seem to be dreaming more than when I see the magistrates in the forum and the Senate in its chamber. (2.142)
In the topsy-turvy world of post-Civil War Rome, with its impotent Senate, life has now become a dream. But nothing can change the fact that Marius once came to the exiled and despondent Cicero in Atina, and led him to his temple saying that there you should find safety (1.59); a prophecy that came true more than a decade before De Divinatione was written, when the real Senate of the true republicnot the post-Civil War dream state of todaybrought Cicero, the Arpinate heir of Marius, back from political death. This dream required no interpreter. I have been trying to prove that the same cannot be said of the text in which this dream is described. There is a noteworthy passage in Book I where Cicero invents a second storyat least there is no trace of it or its antecedent in any surviving Greek source (see Addendum 4)about the divine sign of Socrates: the setting is the retreat from Delium. Socrates, Laches, and some others stand at the intersection of three roads, what the Roman called a trivium (2.123). The majority decides to follow one path; Socrateshe said that he was deterred by god [deterri se a deo dixit] (1.123) refuses to follow their lead; these others meet a predictably bad end. Although this little story raises a number of questions in its own right (see Addendum 5), not least of all why Marcus never discusses the sign of Socrates in Book II, it stands here as a metaphor for the three choices open to the interpreter of De Divinatione. One of these is to follow a political path: there is more than enough data to suggest that Ciceros purpose in De Divinatione is to comment on the political condition of Rome in the wake of Caesar (see Addendum 6). Among many other texts, the followingQuintus is the speakeris crucial for this path:
However, there is a certain class of men, though small in number, who withdraw themselves from carnal influences [a corpore]and are possessed by an ardent concern for the contemplation of things divine [ad divinarum rerum cognitionem]. The auguries [auguria] of these men are not of divine impetus but of human reason. For example, by means of natural law, they foretell certain events, such as a flood, or the future destruction of heaven and earth by fire. Others, who are engaged in public life [in re publica exercitati], like
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Solon of Athens, as history describes him, discover the rise of tyranny [orientem tyrannidem] long in advance [multo ante prospiciunt]. Such men we may call foresighted [prudentes]that is, able to foresee the future [providentes] (1.111)
Ciceros decision to teach us the etymological origin of prudence in the context of political foresight cannot be accidental. And there is no question that Cicero himself, the Roman archetype of the human being in re publica exercitatus (see Pangle 1998, 239-40) was a diviner in this eminently political sense: his alltoo-human auguria were accurate, if unheeded by his countrymen. In other words, quite apart from the dream that comforted him in Atina, his banishment itself clearly indicated the orientem tyrannidem. Cicero divined what was to come; he was prudens because he was providens. The second path is also to be seen in the passage just quoted. The foregoing analysis has been sufficient to leave the careful reader inclined to believe that, despite his skeptical pose (2.150; compare Beard 1986), Cicero himself underwrites the Platonic dualism of body and soul defended by Quintus (see Addendum 7): it is of crucial importance for interpreting De Divinatione to grasp that neither the views of Plato nor the testimony of Socrates are ever refuted by Marcus. In other words, there is some reason to think that Ciceros insight is not simply political or natural foresight but is rather derived from a spiritual segregation a corpore that opens his soul ad divinarum rerum cognitionem. Whether in his afternoon naps or simply from the power of his mindnor is it clear that the two are really differentCicero gives us some reason to think he has seen Babylon and looked Homer in the face.
We even shape things which we have never seenas the sites of towns and the faces of men. Then, by your theory, when I think of the walls of Babylon or of the face of Homer, some phantom of what I have in mind strikes upon my brain! Hence it is possible for us to know everything we wish to know, since there is nothing of which we cannot think. (2.139)
Although rejecting his brothers theory, Marcus does not explain the source of his own implicit insights. To be sure, even these examples are still human, but they point to a road that leads away from politics towards the divine. And we cannot be sure that Cicero, much in the spirit of Platos Ionechoes of which may be heard at 1.80, 1.86, 1.113-14, and 2.12isnt leaving open the possibility of divination through prophetic madness, just as he refuses to rule out the possibility that those who can transcend the body can gain knowledge of the past, present, and future in their dreams.
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Fascinating as the possibilities opened up by these two interpretive paths undoubtedly are, it is the third path that I consider crucial and will therefore follow to the end. Just as we can learn a great deal about hermeneutics from Ion the hermneus (interpreter at Liddell and Scott; compare Ion 534e4-535a9 and 530c3-4), so also can we learn a great deal about interpretation itselfof divining an authors hidden purpose, whether that purpose be political, divine, or bothby reading Ciceros De Divinatione, an obscure and ambiguous text that demands an interpreter no less than a dream does:
The same is true of dreams, prophecies, and oracles: since many of them were obscure and doubtful [multa obscura, multa ambigua], resort was had to the skill of professional interpreters [explanationes interpretum]. (1.116)
Consider also the following passage from Book II where Marcus attacks divination through dreams:
Of what kind, then, is the mind of the gods if neither the things they signify to us in dreams can we ourselves by our own efforts understand nor even things for which we possess interpreters [interpretes]? If the gods send us these unintelligible and inexplicable dream-messages they are acting as Carthaginians and Spaniards would if they were to address our Senate in their own vernacular without the aid of an interpreter [sine interprete]. (2.131; the translation of the first sentence is mine)
The question posed by this discussion is: how are we to interpret Ciceros De Divinatione? I suggest that the first step to answering this question is to recognize that by repeatedly and therefore deliberately leading us in contrarias and thereby forcing us to raise this question as a question, Cicero deftly requires his readers to become interpretes and to propose for themselves, when confronted by his text, the coniecturae interpretum. In other words, the reader must become a diviner in the face of Ciceros consciously obscure form of writing: Ciceros text becomes the literary equivalent of an enigmatic dream. In the case of dreams, their obscure character proves to Marcus that the gods havent sent them.
In truth, now: to what end do these obscurities and enigmas [obscuritates et aenigmata] of dreams pertain? For surely the gods were obligated to wish to be understood by us in those matters which they warn us for our sake? (2.132; translation mine)
If, as seems likely, Cicero is writing for our sake, does he not likewise owe it to us to make his meaning plain? And yet his text, like a dream, is clearly filled
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with obscuritates et aenigmata. Nor is he unique among writers, as he admits by raising an internal objection to what he has just said:
What? Is there nobody [nemo] obscure qua poet, nobody [nemo] qua physicist? This Euphorion is surely too obscure as well, but not Homer. Which therefore is better? Heraclitus is very obscure, Democritus least of all. Surely therefore they cant be compared? For my sake you alert me [me mones] to what I wont understand. Why alert me at all? (2.132-33, translation mine; see Addendum 8)
Not only does Cicero conceal his meaning throughout De Divinatione, he is particularly enigmatic there while writing about obscure writers. Is Cicero saying here that, unlike Euphorion, Homer is never obscure? Is he claiming that Heraclitus (see De Finibus 2.15) and Democritus (see 2.139) are never to be compared (compare 2.30 with Juvenal 10.28-35)? And how would he answer his own question, the question he puts to the gods? Surely it is not impossible that a loving author who would warn us of our perilous condition and even offer us salvation would nevertheless see fit to make us, motivated by our own peril, seek out that salvation deeply buried between his lines. Chrysippus defined the interpretation of dreams as the power to understand the visions sent by the gods to men in sleep (2.130). It would seem that Cicero usurps the place of the gods. If so, as he then points out, no ordinary man will be able to understand him:
Then, if that be true, will just ordinary shrewdness meet these requirements, or rather is there not need of surpassing intelligence and absolutely perfect learning [eruditione perfecta]? We, however, have known nobody of this kind [talem autem cognovimus neminem]. (2.130; the second sentence is my translation)
This is the first time that nobody appears in the text; he will reappear shortly for the third and fourth time in the nemonemo of 2.132 quoted above. The second time follows immediately after the first:
Look, then: not even if I will have conceded to you that divination existswhich never will I dowould we be able to find this nobody [neminem] howsoever divine. (2.131; translation mine)
Here then is the first possibility: Cicero, qua enigmatic god, offers the reader an unintelligible text that nobody will be intelligent and educated enough to understand. It is precisely because no god would do such a thing, argues Marcus, that divination by enigmatic dream doesnt exist (2.134): My conclusion is that obscure messages by means of dreams are utterly inconsistent with the dignity of the gods. On this reading, then, there is no such thing as
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divination. But by coming close to doing in his text what he says no god will actually do, Cicero opens up a second possibility: that he himself possesses learning and intelligence enough to create a literary worldone that replicates the actual world both in its abysmal mysteries and its hidden solutions (see Addendum 9)that nobody could interpret for himself unless equipped with outstanding genius and complete erudition (2.130; translation mine). From the start, Cicero leaves the reader in no doubt that he is a poet: Quintus repeatedly quotes from his brothers poetry in Book I (1.13-15 from Aratus, 1.17-22 from Ciceros own De Consulatu, now lost, and 1.106 from Ciceros lost Marius). And twice does Quintus make an analogy between the grammarians who interpret poets and those adept at divination (1.34 and 1.116). But the most impressive example of Ciceros poetic gift is a verse translation from the Iliad quoted by Marcus at 2.63-64. In light of the evident skill, doubtless the result of considerable effort, with which Cicero both preserves Homers sense and creates for Virgils subsequent use (see Duff 1960, 271-72) his own distinctly Latin poetry (Ewbank 1933, 226-31), it is striking that Marcus says that the passage comes from a speech of Agamemnon (2.63). As is the case with other denigrated authors, Xenophon for example (see Addendum 10), Ciceros misattribution of the speechit is actually spoken by Odysseus is traditionally ascribed to carelessness and haste (see Ewbank 1933, 227, and Pease 1963). But just as the careful reader was alerted to Ciceros interest in the Platonic account of veridical dreaming by its conspicuous absence from the passage quoted at 1.60-61 Platos own words, Quintus called it at 1.61so also is that same reader alerted to the absent Odysseus at 2.63. In the first case, the true Platonic account appeared only a moment later at 1.63; in the second, Cicero forces the reader, having now been trained, to wait until 2.130-32 for the reappearance of Odysseus, now disguised as nobody (compare De Oratore 3.65 and Brutus 322). This reappearance occurs when Cicero, no longer analogous to the unintelligible god who proves that divination doesnt exist, stands revealed as a new Odysseusa Socratic spinner of even more westerly Phaeacian taleswho finds in the reader his equal at last: another nobody who recognizes that divination exists not only because it would require a diviner to be certain that it doesnt, but also because she has learned how to interpret Ciceros De Divinatione, at once the product of Ciceros and the fulfillment of Platos Socratic dreams.
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ADDENDUM 1 Gotoff 2002, 223-34 introduces the use of Cicero (in this case, the orators persona in the Caesarian speeches) as distinct from the man himself. Some such distinction is equally necessary for catching sight of Cicero the philosopher, as this article is intended to prove. It is an ironyan irony rooted in Ciceros own considerable capacity for ironythat Cicero the politician is generally dismissed as a conceited and over-inflated windbag while Cicero the philosopher is taken, by contrast, to be an unassuming skeptic (see, for example, Grler 1995) or even a slavish epitomizer of his predecessors. The rediscovery of Cicero depends on realizing that the skeptical Cicero of his philosophica (e.g. the Marcus of De Divinatione) must be distinguished from Cicero himself, just as the ironically self-deprecating Socrates of the Platonic dialogues (see Academica 2.15) must be distinguished from Plato. Cicero grounds his own skepticism in a conception of Socratic ignorance (Academica 2.74) that Cicero knows is not only unhistorical (note Varros necessary fere at Academica 1.16; compare also Apology 21d4-6) but also selfcontradictory (Academica 1.45). To put it another way: it is an awareness of the deliberate self-contradictions of Cicero the skeptic that guide the reader to Cicero the Platonist. ADDENDUM 2 It is a defense of divination based on Stoic monisma position intermittently embraced by Quintusthat Marcus consistently refutes in De Divinatione (e.g. 2.29). Given the anticipation of Spinozas deus sive natura by the Stoics (compare De Natura Deorum 2.77 and 2.85), there is something to be said for comparing Descartes to the Epicureans, Cicero to Kant (consider Academica 2.73 and 2.127-28), and Caesars imperial apologists to Hegel. ADDENDUM 3 Think then how many nights in my long life I have spent in vain [frustra]! Moreover, at the present time, owing to the interruption of my public labours, I have ceased my nocturnal studies [lucubrationes], and (contrary to my former practice) I have added afternoon naps [meridiationes]. It is as difficult to believe that his former lucubrationes were in vain as that his present meridiationes are dreamless. ADDENDUM 4 In the first story, Socrates had tried to prevent Crito from taking a walk in the country where he injured his eye (2.123). In this story,
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Socrates replaces the sign with himself: you didnt obey me calling you back [mihi revocanti] (translation mine). Marcus has already been somewhat misleading, doubtless in order to test the readers knowledge of Plato, about the true nature of the signit always only prevented Socrates from doing something he was intending to do (see Apology 31c7-d4 and Theages 128d2-5)at 2.122: it never urges me on, but often [saepe] holds me back [revocanti]. If this means that it often holds me back but sometimes does something else, it is false. Only if it means that the sign frequently occurs but always holds me back from doing something I myself intended to do when it does so, is it true. ADDENDUM 5 Upon his refusal to take the road that the others had chosen he was asked the reason and replied: The god prevents me. Those who fled by the other road [alia via] fell in with the enemys cavalry (2.123: the translation in the text is mine). Wardle 2006, 405, may or may not indicate a problem when he writes the alternate routes (emphasis mine). If Cicero is making up the storyhe indicates that it is not among the the mass of remarkable premonitions collected by Antipater at 1.123, but Wardle 2006, 403, is certain its source is Posidoniusthen the fact that it is a trivium must be significant. Note that the three-fold division (compare 1.64) made by Posidonius that is introduced by Quintus soon after at 1.125: Wherefore, it seems to me that we must do as Posidonius does and trace the vital principle of divination in its entirety to three sources: first to God [a deo], whose connection with the subject has been sufficiently discussed; second to Fate; and lastly, to Nature. Since Socrates follows the guidance of god, which of the two remaining roads leads to disaster? This question is answered in De Fato. ADDENDUM 6 Among the texts relevant to a political reading of De Divinatione are 1.11, 1.17-22, 1.24, 1.26-27, 1.29, 1.33, 1.47 (Callanus the Indian may be analogous to Cato of Utica), 1.56, 1.58-59, 1.67 (both Catiline and Clodius are frequently linked with or even likened to torches), 1.68, 1.90, 1.92, 1.95 (if judged significant, the absence of remark about the present at 1.97-100 may be important), 1.106, 1.111 (discussed in the text), 1.119, 2.7, 2.22-23, 2.37-41, 2.52-53 (an important contrast), 2.70, 2.78-79, 2.99, 2.114, 2.118, and 2.149. The interested reader should consult Lindersky 1982, Schublin 1986, and Krageland 2001.
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ADDENDUM 7 While we sleep and the body lies as if dead, the soul is at its best, because it is then freed from the influence of the physical senses and from the worldly cares that weigh it down. And since the soul has lived from all eternity and has had conference with numberless other souls, it sees everything that exists in nature, provided that moderation and restraint have been used in eating and drinking, so that the soul is in a condition to watch while the body sleeps. Such is the explanation of divination by dreams (1.115). So original is the synthesis described by Quintus at 1.115 that Glucker 1999, 36-37, is at considerable pains to identify the lost source from which Cicero must have copied it: Some intermediate source, between Plato and Cicero, has connected the two statements in Meno and in Republic 10, into one compound explanation for the omniscience of the soul (under certain conditions). ADDENDUM 8 See Pease 1963, 559, for retention of the doubled nemo which is not found in Falconer 1923 but is the reading of the manuscripts. ADDENDUM 9 And, further, what is the need of a method which, instead of being direct, is so circuitous and roundabout that we have to employ men to interpret our dreams? (2.127). Compare De Natura Deorum 1.10 (Rackham): Those however who seek to learn my personal opinion on the various questions show an unreasonable degree of curiosity. In discussion it is not so much weight of authority as force of argument that should be demanded. Indeed the authority of those who profess to teach is often a positive hindrance to those who desire to learn; they cease to employ their judgement, and take what they perceive to be the verdict of their chosen master as settling the question. A D D E N D U M 10 That disciple of Socrates, Xenophonand what a man he was! [Xenophon Socraticus (qui vir et quantus!)] (1.52). For the underestimation of Cicero, even by an unusually sympathetic and careful scholar, see Schofield 1986, 62: I leave aside the embarrassing circumstance that Book II [sc. of De Divinatione] attacks a definition of divination (II. 13-19) which Book I had already emended (I.9: presumably to draw the teeth from the attack). This is a local carelessness of composition no doubt due to inadequate work on his sources by Cicero in his well-known haste.
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REFERENCES Unless otherwise indicated, translations from De Divinatione will be those of W.A. Falconer in the Loeb edition of Cicero (vol. 20)i.e. Falconer 1923and citations will be by book and section number to this text. Translations from other works by Cicero (and other Roman authors) will, except where noted, be found in the Loeb editions. I would like to acknowledge the help of Hilail Gildin, Thomas Schneider, and an anonymous reviewer for their criticism and support. Beard, Mary. 1986. Cicero and Divination: The Formation of a Latin Discourse. Journal of Roman Studies 76, 33-46. Bloom, Allan, trans. 1968. The Republic of Plato. New York: Basic Books. Denyer, Nicholas. 1985. The Case against Divination: An Examination of Ciceros De Divinatione. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 211, 1-10. Duff, J. Wight (edited by A.M. Duff). 1960. A Literary History of Rome: From the Origins to the Close of the Golden Age. New York: Barnes & Noble. Ewbank, W.W. 1933. The Poems of Cicero. London: University of London Press. Falconer, William Armistead, trans. 1923. De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Grler, Woldemar. 1995. Silencing the Troublemaker: De Legibus I.39 and the Continuity of Ciceros Scepticism. In J.G.F. Powell, ed., Cicero the Philosopher. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Glucker, John. 1999. A Platonic Cento in Cicero. Phronesis 44, 30-44. Goar, Robert J. 1968. The Purpose of De Divinatione. Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 99, 241-48. Gotoff, Harold C. 2002. Ciceros Caesarian Orations. In James M. May, ed., Brills Companion to Cicero: Oratory and Rhetoric. Leiden: Brill. Harris, W.V. 2003. Roman Opinions about the Truthfulness of Dreams. Journal of Roman Studies 93, 18-33. Kragelund, P. 2001. Dreams, Religion and Politics in Republican Rome. Historia 50, 53-95.
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Krostenko, B. 2000. Beyond (Dis)belief: Rhetorical Form and Religious Symbol in Ciceros De Divinatione. Transactions of the American Philological Association 130, 353-91. Lindersky, Jerzy. 1982. Cicero and Roman Divination. La Parola del Passato 37, 12-38. Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1984. The Theological Efforts of the Roman Upper Classes in the First Century. Classical Philology 79, 199-211. Pangle, Thomas L. 1998. Socratic Cosmopolitanism: Ciceros Critique and Transformation of the Stoic Ideal. Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique 31, 235-62. Pease, Arthur Stanley. 1963. M. Tulli Ciceronis De Divinatione. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. [Reprint of the 1920-23 University of IllinoisUrbana original]. Poncelet, R. 1957. Cicron traducteur de Platon. Paris: E. de Boccard. Rawson, Elizabeth. 1973. The Interpretation of Ciceros De Legibus. In Aufstieg und Niedergang der Rmischen Welt 1.4, 334-56. . 1975. Cicero: A Portrait. London: Allen Lane. Schublin, Christoph. 1986. Ementita auspicia. Wiener Studien 99, 165-81. Schofield, Malcolm. 1986. Cicero for and against Divination. Journal of Roman Studies 76, 47-65. Strauss, Leo. 1968. Liberalism Ancient and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Veglris, E. 1982. Platon et le rve de la nuit. Ktema 7, 53-65. Wardle, David, trans. 2006. Cicero on Divination: De Divinatione Book I (with introduction and historical commentary). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII
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STEVEN BERG BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY sberg@bellarmine.edu
Though admiration for Dantes powers as a poet is nearly universal, an appreciation of the magnitude of the accomplishment those powers made possible is less common. Dante single-handedly revived the tradition of epic poetry that had lain dormant for more than a thousand years and did so by an appeal to and incorporation of precisely that which seemed to render such a revival out of the question: Holy Scripture or revelation. As Dante himself describes it, poetry conveys its truth through the fabrication of beautiful lies (Convivio, II.1). Chief among these beautiful lies are the gods of the poets or, in the words of Dantes Virgil, the false and lying gods (Inferno, I. 72; the translations from the Comedy offered here are those of the Singleton edition). By contrast, Holy Scripture claims to represent the truth through the truth and that this truth derives from and is embodied in the god of Christian revelation. Thus the writings of the Christian religion appear to exclude the writings of the epic poets both essentiallyinsofar as they anathematize the gods of the poets and deny that beautiful lies are the proper vehicle for the conveyance of truthand strategicallyinsofar as they stigmatize the poets works in an attempt to fend off the possibility that they themselves be taken as no more than a subspecies, if an extremely impoverished one, of epic poetry (Lessing 1984, 74; also Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, section 121). Dante proved capable of reviving the tradition of epic poetry not by confronting this conflict with scripture directly and offering a defense of poetry before the bar of revelation, but simply by pretending that no such opposition exists. As a consequence of this remarkable strategy we find within the Comedy, on the one hand, the false and lying gods (Pluto, Proserpina, Mercury, Hercules, Fortuna, Apollo, etc.) co-existing alongside the one true godor even, at the most extreme, the former simply identified with the latter (e.g., Inf., XIV. 52,
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68-70; XXXI. 44-45; Purg., VI. 188-220)and, on the other hand, Dantes portrayal of himself as both a poet who is the intimate and associate of Virgil and Homer and a prophet on a par with Paul and John (Inf., II. passim; IV. 82-102; Purg., VIII. 58-66; XXVI. 127-29; XXIX. 100-105). The reader of the Comedy is thereby thrust upon the horns of a dilemma such that he must take Dante either as a prophet and accept the result that through the agency of the one true god it was revealed to Dante that the false and lying gods of the poets are in fact true, or as a poet and accept the consequence that Dante wishes to place the one true god on a plane of existential equality with the false and lying gods of the poets. Dante must either indicate that Homer and Virgil were themselves prophets or that Paul and John were certainly no more, and perhaps a good deal less, than poets. To accept either alternative is obviously compromising to the claims of scripture to represent the truth through the truth. Yet Dante presents these alternatives as exclusive. As the full character of Dantes achievement is rarely acknowledged, so the difficulties that he presents to his reader in pursuing the strategy that made this achievement possible are generally ignored. It is the purpose of the present essay to confront these difficulties as they first come into view in Dantes introduction to the Comedy: Cantos I-VII of the Inferno (Boccaccio, Life of Dante, chap. 14). Through a reading of these cantos we will articulate an understanding of the meaning and intention of Dantes work that departs significantly from the starting points and conclusions of the most generally accepted interpretations of the Comedy. Dante will appear here not as the poet shaped by and celebrative of medieval Christianity and its theology, but as a thinker out of place in the context and out of sympathy with the dominant opinions of his time (Par., XVII. 116-20). That it is possible to arrive at contradictory interpretations of Dantes thought, particularly in regard to his assessment of the status of Christianity, is in part explained by the fact that Dante often conceals his heterodox views by clothing them in the garments of orthodoxy. He thereby obscures the extent of the distance separating him from his contemporaries. Such obfuscation is part and parcel to the practice of the art of poetry as Dante understands it. We have already noted that Dante describes the vocation of the poet as not only compatible with, but dependent upon the ability to lie. According to Dante, the falsehoods of the poet exhibit a complex structure. In the writings of the poet, the deceptive surface that works to convey a deeper, hidden truth to men of understanding, also acts to pacify the affections of the unreasonable. Dante suggests that Ovid transmitted this very truth to those
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readers of wakeful mind, by means of his beautiful lie regarding the capacity of Orpheus to tame through his music wild beasts and [to make] trees and rocks move toward him: for the wise man with the instrument of his voice makes cruel beasts grow tender and humble and moves to his will those who do not devote their lives to knowledge and art; and those who have no rational life are almost like stones (Conv., II.1). Dante recognizes a fundamental distinction in mankind between those of a rational and those of a sub-rational nature. It is in the light of this same recognition, he argues, that the poets have devised an art of writing that allows rational men to commune across barriers both temporal and geographical, while preserving themselves and their works from destruction at the hands of those who live perpetually like beasts (Conv., IV.15). Dante ranks as one of the greatest practitioners of this art. The implications of this fact are not often drawn with sufficient rigor: Dante not only belongs, as he himself insists, in the company of the poets of antiquity, but stands as well in the camp of those modern authors whose most famous representative is Averroes (Averroes 2001, 23-29; Maimonides 1963, 6-20, 371-72; Fortin 2002, 48-50, 67-72; Cantor 1996, 145-47). The interpretation of Dantes poem offered in the following essay is developed on the basis of an attempt to keep this fact and its implications constantly in mind. I. OBSTACLES Dantes poem begins with the narrator of the work recalling an event that occurred midway through our lifes journey. He has wandered from the straight way through insufficient wakefulness and become lost in an obscure wood. In his bewilderment, he has nearly forfeited his life: he has just emerged from a pass that has never left anyone alive. All this has pierced him to the heart with fear (Inf., I. 1-27; all references to canto and line numbers will be to the Inferno unless otherwise noted). The precise character of the danger that the poet faces is unclear. We may begin to clarify it by means of the following considerations. Since the narrator who is recounting his difficulties is identical with the poet who is the author of the poem we have begun to read and this poem itself proves to be an account of how that poem allegedly came to be written, had Dante met his end in the deadly pass this poem would never have existed and Dantes life as a character within his own poem would have been precluded. The pass is then representative of that which would stand in the way of the composition of Dantes work. The poet compares the pass to dangerous waters and later Virgil reports that Lucia aroused Beatrices solicitude towards her friend by making literal this simile: she asks whether
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she does not see the death that assails [him] on the flood over which the ocean has no vaunt (II. 107-8). Robert Hollander has provided a service to the reader of Dante by pointing to the parallel between the opening of Dantes poem and the opening of Virgils Aeneid. As the poet is nearly lost upon the flood at the opening of his Comedy, so Aeneas nearly founders in a tempest at sea at the opening of Virgils work (Hollander 1969, 83-85). What Hollander does not observe is that if Aeneas difficulty at sea has as its ultimate cause the wrath of the chief of feminine gods, so the poets trials must find their origin in a similar source. The deepest of the wounds suffered by Juno and eliciting her hottest anger against the Trojan hero appears to be the judgment of Paris. Injured vanity has transformed the goddess into a tireless engine of vengeance. The danger Dante faces would seem to have its origin in a similarly jealous god, a divinity enraged by an actual or potential slight to a feminine sense of vanity: the wish to be admired as the supreme object of erotic desire. That the poets difficulties do indeed derive from a similarly jealous and wrathful god is confirmed by the renewed appearance of danger in the form of three beasts a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf (I. 31-60). The beasts are taken directly from Jeremiah where they are visited upon the people of Israel in recompense for their having forsaken the god of their fathers and turned to the love of foreign gods (Jer. 1:16; 2:10-11, 25; 5:6; see Addendum 1). Dante encounters these beasts in his effort to ascend the hill, which Virgil later calls the delectable mountain (I. 77), at whose crest the rising sun is poised. This seems to be the first appearance of the good that Dante says he found amid the bitterness of the harsh wood (I. 8-9). Dantes ascent to the good then is blocked by the three beasts or rather primarily by the latter two, for he seems to entertain good hope in regard to the beast with the gay skin. As we learn in the sequel, Dante attempted to use the knotted and coiled cord around his waist to capture the leopard and put him in his service (XVI. 106-8). He apparently thought to make use of the leopard in his ascent to the good. He has no such hope in relation to the lion and his fear before it devolves into despair when the she-wolf makes her appearance. To what precisely these beasts as figures refer has long been a subject of inquiry and controversy. That Virgil, when he appears, makes a prophecy concerning a fourth beastthe Greyhoundwho will drive the shewolf from all the cities of Italy both indicates that the she-wolf is a contemporary political power of some kind and brings the sum of the bestiary to four (I. 100-108). This latter fact permits us to connect this passage not only
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to Jeremiah but the Book of Daniel. In Daniels dream of the four beasts he is informed by a manwho appears to him in much the same fashion as Virgil to Dantethat the four beasts represent four succeeding kingdoms or empires (Dan. 7:1-28). Exegetical tradition in the time of Dante interpreted these kingdoms as those of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome (Archer 1958, 72-76; Jerome, Comment. In Jeremiam Proph., lib. I, cap. 5). The penultimate beast of Daniels dream corresponds to the first of the beasts of the Inferno: the leopard. But if Dantes leopard, like Daniels, represents Ancient Greece, then the lion ought to represent Ancient Rome and the difficulty would be to determine the identity of the she-wolf. Yet the last is clearly emblematic of Rome and it is not at all evident how the antique kingdoms of Greece and Rome might stand as contemporary obstructions to the poets further progress. Both difficulties are solved in a single stroke when we understand the she-wolf as a contemporary political power to represent not the old, but the new Rome (Armour 1989, 79-80) and the antique empires of Greece (leopard) and Rome (lion) to be present insofar as they are retained as remnants within the new Rome. Indeed, both Dante and Virgil finally collapse the three beasts into one (I.88, II.119). Greece is present in the New Rome as philosophy subordinated to theology and Ancient Rome in the office of the Holy Roman Emperor as subordinate to Christianity in general and the pope in particular. The danger that blocks the path to the coming into being of Dantes Comedy and the poets ascent to the good, then, is the jealous wrath of the one true god or the spiritual and temporal powers of the Christian Church. It was the remnants of Ancient Greece within the new Rome that Dante hoped to use as means in an ascent to the good. This strategy, it seems, nevertheless proved to be inadequate, at least in the immediate circumstances. Indeed it is an Ancient Romanalbeit one of a Grecophile dispositionwho must come to Dantes aid and make possible his further progress, that is, both the composition of his poem and his appropriation of the good. It is Virgil who shows him that a direct ascent up the delectable mountain is not the proper route to the good: an indirect path involving a prior descent is required, since it is only on this longer route that one may circumvent the three beasts, though such circumvention will prove to require confronting them once more in different shapes. Through his search through Virgils volume, a search in which long study andgreat love were combined (I. 82-84), Dante has come to understand that the way to the good in the circumstances of modernity requires a thorough-going examination of the New Rome and its claims to spiritual and political universality. As Virgils analysis of the character of Ancient Rome undermined its claim to have translated humanitas into Romanitas or to have
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comprehended and completed human life (see Addendum 2), so Dantes analysis of the New Rome will reveal the emptiness of its claim to have resolved all fundamental human problems in a final manner and thereby make possible a renewal of Greek philosophy or an ascent to the heavenly Athens (Conv., III.14). This return to Greece through Rome, however, will require not simply an inquiry, but a military campaign. Virgil seems to display his credentials to the poet in this regard when he claims that, even before the fact of the establishment of the empire of the Emperor who reigns above he was rebellious to his law (I. 125-28): by means of his volume Virgil has been conducting a war of piety for over a thousand years and is thus supremely competent to offer himself as a comrade in arms in Dantes similar fight (II. 4-5). II. R O M A N S
AND
GREEKS
Despite Dantes doubts brought on by a sudden failure of nerve, Virgil seems to insist that he take as his models in the conduct of this war both Aeneas and Paul (II. 1-48). Is Dante through this combat to become the founder of a new kingdom and a new faith (cf. Hollander 1969, 222)? Or should we rather assume that as Aeneas was the founder of the old Rome and Paul of the new, so Dante is to become, with Virgils aid, the founder of a new New Rome? According to Dante himself, however, though it was fitting that both the Trojan captain and the apostle of god went there (II. 28)that is, the immortal worldit would seem to be madness (folle) for Dante to undertake the deep passage (lalto passo) (II. 12, 35). In anticipating the words of his own Ulysses (XXVI. 125, 132), the poet declares his true predecessor to be neither the founder of the old Rome, nor the prophet of the new, but the most prudent of the Greeks at Troy, the man responsible for the victory of the Greeks over the Trojans through the stratagem of the horse (XXVI. 59). The most obvious distinction between Aeneas and Paul, on the one hand, and Ulysses, on the other, is that while the former undertook their journeys to the immortal world as chosen by god, Ulysses did not. Indeed, the fear that Dante feels in anticipation of this journey seems well warranted when we remember (or anticipate) the fate of Dantes Ulysses who not only made his way through Hades, but, unlike either Aeneas or Paul and like the poet himself, arrived at the foot of Mount Purgatory: here Ulysses succumbed to the wrath of god in the form of a tempest the description of which Dante borrows from the same passage at the opening of Virgils Aeneid on which the beginning of the Comedy is modeled (XXVI. 136-42). Dante is not the founder of a new New Rome, but is rather a new Greek who is as far from home and standing in as
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precarious a position in relation to the one true god as the old Greek was in his following the sun in pursuit of virtue and knowledge (XXVI. 117, 120; cf. Borges 1999, 280-83; also Barolini 1992, 57-58). Dante portrays Ulysses as having come to ruin by gods cutting short his journey in quest of experience of the world and of human vice and worth (XXVI. 98-99). Independent inquiry into the nature of the human good as the means to becoming fully human runs head-on into Christianitys claim that only through Gods power and grace and mans obedience to his commands and faith in his righteousness is the good for man and a fully human life available. It is this claim then that Dante faces as the core of the opposition to his further progress. This progress is, nonetheless, made possible, as Virgil declares, by the fact that three ladies from among the blessed have taken up his cause as their own (II. 49-126). The names of the latter two are familiar to Dante Lucia and Beatrice. The name of the lady who persuades Lucia to persuade Beatrice to command Virgil to put his ornate and honest speech at Dantes disposal in order to insure his salvation is not to be found in Dantes work. Modern commentators assume that this third lady is the Virgin Mary (Hollander 2000, 41). One searches in vain for a single line in the Comedy that might support this view. Indeed, the only other lady (apart from Rachel who sits at Beatrices side) that Virgil ever names as residing among the blessed is Dame Fortune (VII. 73-96), and, given his permanent exile from gods city, the only possible source for his knowledge of Fortuna as dwelling with the blessed is Beatrice. Whether Beatrice called her, as does Virgil, a goddess, we cannot know, but, according to Virgils account, Dante has been chosen not by the one true god, but a goddess who is one among several gods (VII. 87; the lines of Canto II devoted to the nameless lady are 94-96, and the lines in Canto VII describing Fortuna as among the blessed are also 94-96). Lucia and Beatrice are, therefore, merely agents of Fortuna. But, insofar as Fortuna presides over the necessary transfer of empire from one people to another (VII. 73-84), one may say that Virgil attempts to instill courage into Dante in his war of piety by informing him that it is his good chance to confront the empire of the new Rome at a propitious time: its decline has already begun and its degeneracy and corruption must prove a boon to those who would seek a return to the Greeks in spite of the opposition of Rome (see Addendum 3). It is by these means that Virgil sets about expelling cowardice from the poets heart and instilling good courage. He exhorts him to be, from henceforth, ardently bold and frank (II. 123). Dante compares the effect that
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Virgil has upon him to that of the morning sun upon little flowersbent down and closed by the chill of night (II. 127-30). That Virgil and his speeches stand in the place of the sun that appears to represent the good (cf. XI. 91) indicates something of the character of that good. At the opening of Canto III Virgil declares to Dante that in entering Inferno he will see the sad people who have lost the good of intellect. The good that Virgil represents is the goodness of mind and one of the effects of the goodness of mind is to dispel all fear of that which has no power to do one harm (II. 85-90). So Virgil, as one who understands, now reiterates and insists that Dante let go all [lasciare ogne] fear and let all cowardice be dead (III. 14-15). These words echo the last of those upon the portal of Inferno: Let go all [lasciate ogne] hope you who enter (III. 9). The latter words mean one thing for the dead, who are condemned to suffer eternal punishment within the infernal city, and another for the living poet. Upon entering Hell the poet is enjoined to let go all fear and hope in relation to all that he is to meet beyond this portal. As Virgil makes clear, this is the way to gladness and understanding and the preservation of the good of intellect among the shadows (ombre) of the immortal world (II. 14-15). It seems to have been the obscurity and hardness (III.12) of the meaning of the writing which forms the gateway into Hell that led Virgil to reiterate his exhortation to boldness and daring on the poets behalf. The implication is that only in letting go all fear and hope in relation to a writing that purports to represent the word of god can one understand or interpret its obscure and difficult significance. What the poet seems to find so hard to make intelligible is the claim of the writing that justice, power, knowledge, and love are unified in god as the creator of the sorrowful city that is the embodiment of his punitive wrath. One might believe that the obscurity of this claim lies chiefly in the proposition that wrath may be identified with love. The poet may find equally difficult, however, the proposition that punitive justice and power can be combined with the highest knowledge: the irrational or brute force of power exercised in the name of punitive justice seems just as incompatible with the highest rationality as with first love. God or a writing that purports to be that of god claims that two pairs of traits which seem to be incombinable are united in god and the result is the creation of the sorrowful city. The speeches that form the gateway into Hell seem to represent the character of scripture in general. Virgils assurance that if Dante undertakes his journey free of cowardice he will come to the proper interpretation of the seemingly unintelligible claims of this speech, therefore, indicates that Dantes Comedy is directed to an interpretation of scripture that will reveal
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its secret things (III.21) or the true and hidden significance of these claims. That Virgil should be his master and leader (II. 140) in such an effort indicates that Dante will somehow employ Virgils writingsand the writings of the ancient poets in generalas a key to the interpretation of the biblical writings. III. T H E O M AC H Y At the outset this effort seems to meet with a formidable resistance. Dante is plunged into a whirlwind of unintelligibility: diverse languages, accents and utterances of anger and pain, shrieks, the noise of the beating of hands, all form an incoherent cacophony (III. 22-30). This infernal babel defines the precincts immediately beyond Hells portal wherein those who were neither rebellious nor faithful, who pleased neither god nor his enemies, are confined. Any possible position of neutrality in relation to the biblical god has been nullified by the biblical god, who understands the attempt to adopt a position of detachment in relation to him and his kingdom to be a declaration of war (III.39; cf. Par., XVII. 69). One is either for him or against him. To say neither yes nor no then in relation to the biblical godthat is, to doubt as Dante understands it (VIII. 110-11)is an offense against God or a sin. But such doubt is necessarily the starting point of all unfettered inquiry and genuine interpretation. Such inquiry is blocked from the beginning, then, by the criminalization of doubt by revelation. The way that Dante describes this situation is in terms of gods pleasure or displeasure: all human actions are either pleasing or displeasing to god (III. 62-63). There is no action then that is neither an act of piety nor of impiety and nothing that is, from gods point of view, neither holy nor unholy. Yet, since gods pleasure looks to no higher measure than that pleasure itself and the will to which it is identical (Par., XX. 77-78)or since that will is itself the sole criterion of the holy and the unholy, the pious and the impious all human action, indeed everything in the world, is deprived of intrinsic intelligibility (Par., XXI. 91-96; cf. Par., VII. 94-96). The Christian god is himself the whirlwind of unintelligibility that Dante encounters upon first entering Inferno. We now realize the deeper import of Virgils claim that he was rebellious to [Gods] law: the biblical god can support no position of neutrality vis--vis his rule and as such must attempt to deprive not only his enemies, but all the world of the good of intellect. Antique poetry and philosophy are banished from his Paradise and seemingly condemned to the sorrowful city whose inhabitants are defined, according to Virgil, by the
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Interpretation
absence of mind. Though the neutrals are separated from the antique poets and philosophers by the river Archeron, Dante effaces this division by leaving unexplained his transit across these waters. Yet Virgil and his fellow occupants of the Noble Castle in Limbo are afflicted neither with sadness nor pain (IV. 28, 41-42, 84) and are certainly not deprived of the good of intellect. The ancients of Limbo are, therefore, properly speaking exterior to Inferno as it has been defined. They are obviously occupants of neither Purgatory nor Paradise. They are outside of the order of the biblical god altogether. Through the invention of his Limbo Dante denies the biblical claim that one is either a partisan or an enemy of god and that all human thought and action is a matter of piety or impiety (De Monarchia III.2.4). On what grounds does this denial rest? Since the brotherhood of poets are the first to greet Dante and since it is they who usher him into the Noble Castle where mind is preserved amidst the mindlessness of the sorrowful city of which god is the creator, Dante seems to wish to suggest that it is above all the works of the poets, in which the gods of the poets survive, that have established this neutral terrain (see Addendum 4). This assumption is confirmed by the fact that along the way into Limbo Dante for the first time intrudes into the Christian Hell the characters and topography of Virgils underworldthe arrival at the banks of the river Archeron and the encounter with the ferryman Charon are the immediate preludes to the poets entrance into the no mans land of Limbo. Virgil has as his allies in the war of piety and rebellion to gods law, then, Homer, Ovid, Horace, and Lucan (IV. 80-93), and the truth of this rebellion is not Virgils or Homers enmity toward god, but the enmity of the gods of Virgils Aeneid or Homers Iliad and Odyssey to the god of the Old and New Testaments. But if the biblical god finds the foundation of his existence in a writing, that writing in its opposition to the surviving writings of the antique poets in which the existence of the antique gods endures establishes a theomachy such that the pleasures of the biblical god come into conflict with the pleasures of the gods of the poets. What is holy and pious to Zeus cannot be so to the god of Moses and Paul. But then, as Socrates argues in the Euthyphro, in the face of the plurality of hostile gods, a single action may be both holy and unholy or, moreover, neither (Euthyphro, 9d ). The neutral territory required to decriminalize doubt and initiate inquiry into the secret things of the immortal world (the interpretation of Christian revelation)a neutrality in the light of which the intelligibility of the world is conceivable and the appropriation of the good of intellect possibleis guaranteed by the persistence of the gods of the poets in the works of Virgil, Homer, and Ovid. Polytheism and
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its theomachy allows for the neutral terrain to be established upon which one may exercise ones intellect as neither friend nor foe, partisan nor antagonist, of the holy. The war of piety, therefore, is not an action that Dante and Virgil themselves conduct, but an action they establish as a precondition for their proper activity, viz., the inquiry into the secret things or what Dante calls the war of the journey (II. 4-5). Virgil declares to Dante upon entering Limbo that its occupants, though lacking faith, did not sin or that doubt is no sin (IV. 33-36). In response Dante says, for the first time, that here he recognized people of great courage and worth [valore] (IV. 44). At the very same moment Dante, for the first time, politely expresses his doubts in regard to the Christian faith: he questions whether Jesus ever undertook the fabled harrowing of Hell, that is, whether he rose again in glory. Virgils response concerning a mighty one who passed through shortly after his own arrival, though appearing to dispel Dantes doubt and confirm the teachings of the faith, in fact has the effect of purging Limbo of all biblical accretions (IV. 46-63). There can be no loyal citizens of Jerusalem on the neutral terrain of Limbo. The effect, therefore, is to eliminate from this terrain Moses and his claim that the one true god is not only supremely wise, but, as such, a law-giver or a just ruler of a particular people and city. But this seems to be merely the necessary effect of the re-instantiation of polytheism and not only in the sense that the presence of the great teacher of monotheism is hardly compatible with the presence of the inventors and preservers of the gods of the Greeks. For under the pressure of the gods of the poets, or what those gods ultimately represent, the ostensible unity of the biblical god, in which the attributes of power, justice, knowledge, and love are said to be identical, is shattered. Dante shows that the Christian god implicitly contains within himself the theomachy of the ancient gods (Burger 1999, 48). In his Convivio, Dante argues that what, according to the testimony of the poets, the Greek religion took to be gods, Plato understood to be universal forms or natures which he called ideas (Conv., II.4; see Addendum 5). As examples of such pagan gods Dante offers Jupiter, god of power, and Pallas or Minerva, goddess of wisdom. The gods of the Greeks separate what Moses sought in his god to join. Dante claims that the pagans were right to do so insofar as when we turn to examine the intelligences or what the common people call angels (i.e., the most obvious remnant of both Greek polytheism and Aristotelian cosmology within Christianity) we are forced to attribute to these intelligences two forms of blessedness,
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Interpretation
since human naturehas not only one blessedness but two, namely that of civil life and that of contemplative life, it would be illogical for us to find these beings have the blessedness of the active, that is, of the civil life, in governing the world [i.e., moving the heavens] and not that of the contemplative life which is more excellent and divine. (Lansing 1990, 48)
However, as Dante goes on to argue, the one that has the blessedness of governing cannot have the other because their [the angels] intellect is one and eternal (Lansing, 1990, 49), that is, contrary to the teaching of Christian theology, contemplation in the proper sense and ruling are essentially incompatible and combinable in one human life, e.g., that of Dante, only due to the manifold character of the human soul (Conv., III.2) and only over time. Wisdom as such cannot exercise political rule. Dante thus divides the angels into two orders and implicitly denies that the motion of the heavens is guided by intelligence properly speaking. However, if the virtue of political rule or the active life is justice, as that of the contemplative life or the exercise of the intellect properly speaking is wisdom, we may conclude that Dantes division of the angels into two separate orders corresponds not only to the poets separation of rule and mind in Jupiter and Minerva, but to what Dante takes to be Platos separation of the ideas of justice and wisdom or knowledge. Dante applies this same division to the inhabitants of Limbo, dividing their ranks into those who engaged in the life of political rule and those who engaged in the life of the mind and forces a figure like Cicero to choose: he is not enrolled in the ranks of the active or political, who are, with the exception of Saladin, all Roman or proto-Roman (i.e., Trojan), but with those of the contemplatives who are all, with the exceptions of Averroes and Avicenna, Greeks or Grecophile Romans. That the biblical god, even in his alleged transcendence, is not exempt from this essential division of political justice and wisdom or knowledge is made clear precisely through Virgils testimony regarding the mighty ones salvation of the children of Israel who were once inhabitants of the underworld, i.e., the very speech that appears designed to confirm Dantes faith in fact overturns the foundation of that faith as it is exhibited in the writings of god. For gods election of, e.g., Adam over Socrates or David over Junius Brutus, i.e., on the one hand, of the first man who, knowing both god and his commandment, rejected both and thereby brought sin into the world over a man who, though ignorant of god and his law, lived a life of blameless virtue or, on the other hand, of a ravisher, adulterer, murderer and exemplar of the injustice of monarchical rule over an avenger of adulterous ravishment and
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the expeller of unjust monarchical rule, gives the exercise of divine power and justice the appearance of injustice. One might argue, however, that gods justice takes on the aspect of its contrary precisely because it is united with his knowledge and love and so comes to be indistinguishable from the determinations of prudence which, because of their singularity and uniquenessi.e., their liberation from any universal or general rulemay assume the appearance of the arbitrary in the eyes of the ignorant. Yet god, in his salvation of the Hebrews and rejection of the Romans and Greeks, exhibits not the particular and individual determinations of prudence, but a general and universal rule: he advances the Hebrews as a class over, e.g., the Greeks as a class. And yet he prefers the Hebrews as a class not according to the intrinsic merit of the members of that class, but solely because he has chosen that class as a class. There is no measure beyond gods will according to which that choice might be made intelligible. Gods choice itself abundantly confirms this fact, for god chooses and loves a class based upon an ostensible community of body (the seed of Abraham) over a class based upon a genuine community of mind (the school of the poets and the family of the philosophers). Gods wisdom as a principle of election determining the character of his justice is unwise. Gods justice (in its union with his knowledge) is, therefore, injustice and his knowledge (in its union with his justice) ignorance. Knowledge and love, on the one hand, and justice and power, on the other, cannot be made to cohere in god. The ancient poets were right to portray Jupiter and Minerva as two and, it would seem, they are rightly said to be two distinct ideas or universal forms or natures. Thus, just as Dante reintroduces the structure of polytheism into the context of Christian faith, he uncovers and liberates the structure of Platos ideas latent within the alleged unity of the Christian god. By these means Dante submits gods pleasure and will to an intelligible measure and through this establishes the neutral terrain required as the starting point of all inquiry. That Dante is able to do this on the basis of a demonstration that this structure is of necessity already implicitly present in the Christian god despite the assertions to the contrary of Christian theology, indicates that the opposition Dante displays in his Limbo between the Greeks as representative of the contemplative life and Romans of the civic or active cannot be overcome in the kingdom of god. Dante argues that the attempt of Christianity to unify Athens and Rome in the New Jerusalem is necessarily a failure. He is now in a position, therefore, to disassemble once again the single beast that ultimately
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Interpretation
blocked his path into the three beasts that he originally encountered; he can separate out the Greek and the Roman elements from within their inclusion and apparent oneness in the new Rome. We are prepared, therefore, for a return of the structure of the three beasts, and our expectation is not disappointed. Dante applies the three beasts to the writing of the gate of Hell and the result is the three gatekeepers of the second, third, and fourth circles of Hell. The last of these is called by Virgil wolf. The three cantos wherein the three circles over which these gatekeepers preside are depicted (V-VII) articulate the nature of these three beasts, that is, of the Greek and the Roman insofar as they have been incorporated within the New Rome and of the roots of the empire of the New Rome itself. Through this articulation Dante shows that the elements that the New Rome pretends to elevate and unify within itself are, in fact, debased and further fragmented through this inclusion. Not only does the attempt to unify knowledge and love, on the one hand, and power and justice, on the other, fail, but in the attempt love and knowledge are severed and power and justice disjoined. Before turning to examine these cantos, we should note that the poets arrival in Limbo recapitulates the opening of the poem in the obscure wood. Now, however, rather than the discovery of the delectable mountain with the sun at its summit, Virgil leads him through the wood of thronging spirits towards a fire that vanquished a hemisphere of darkness (IV. 65-69). It is at this moment that Virgil and Dante encounter Homer, Ovid, Horace, and Lucan in whose company they proceed onward toward the light, talking of things it is beautiful to pass over in silence, even as it was beautiful to speak of them there (IV. 102-5). This conversation accompanies their progress through the seven walls of the Noble Castle and their entrance into its interior where they find an open place which was luminous and high (IV. 115-16). In his new beginning Dante has replaced a thwarted ascent out of darkness into the light of the sun, with a successful partial illumination of the darkness within the realm of darkness. What Dante portrays imagistically must reflect the content of the beautiful conversation between the poets that he withholds from the reader: the conversation must itself have represented an illumination of the darkness of the immortal world by means of which Dante is now able to appropriate the good of intellect, or the core of what is Greek, without obstruction. But if the next three circles of Inferno (Cantos V-VII) articulate the reality of the three beasts that previously posed an obstacle to Dantes appropriation of the good, then Virgils and Dantes
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unhindered passage through and examination of the inmates of these three circles must reflect the conversation between the ancient poets and Dante that allowed for this appropriation. This conversation then consisted in an examination of things modern in the light of the wisdom of the ancients. What Dante has learned from Virgil, Homer, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, et al., is that there can be no direct ascent to the good, but only an indirect appropriation of it through the examination of or inquiry into the false appearances or shadows (ombre) that obscure its truth. What initially appeared to be merely an obstacle to any ascent proves ultimately to be simultaneously the necessary means to any ascent (Benardete 1989, 149). IV. L OV E
AND
L AW
If the figure of the leopard represents the swiftness of Alexandersthe Westsconquest of Persiathe East (Archer 1958, 75; Scofield 1984, 873, 881-82)the figure of Minos, which now takes the leopards place (V. 4), seems to represent the result of Christianitys attempt to fuse the claims of Greek philosophy to transcend the horizon of the city and its law (the West) with the divine law of the Jews (the East). Minos is the son of a god and the author of a quasi-divine law that was famous for its unusual rigor and severity. According to Virgil, his kingdom was in the exact center of the Mediterranean or midway between East and West (XIV. 94, 103-5). Dante represents this concatenation by describing Minos as possessed of both a superhuman knowledge (of sin) and a subhuman bestiality (V. 4-10). The inhabitants of the second circlethose who submit reason to desire (talento)reflect this same fusion of West and East: Semiramis, Dido, and Paris, representative of Eastern empires and kingdoms, are joined with Cleopatra, Helen, and Achilles, Greek inhabitants of the East. As a modern, Tristan, the great adulterer, seems out of place on the list, yet together with Paolo and Francesca, whose crime is also adultery, he proves to embody the effect of Christianity as a fusion of the Greek West and the barbarian East. Semiramis, who made lust licit in her law (V. 56), that is, gave a legal sanction to the most antinomian of erotic longings so that she might conduct legally a love affair with her son, seems to reflect Christianitys attempt to combine law and the transcendence of law. Christianity makes sacred the antinomian erotic longing to join with the source of both the law and ones own being (Rom. 3:19-23; 4:13-15; 6:1-6, 12-14; 8:12-17, 27-30; 10:4; 12:4-5). But antinomian desire being made the core of piety results, paradoxically, in the spiritual criminalization of a particular form of antinomian erotic desire: adultery is no longer subject to temporal but eternal punishment,
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Interpretation
since marriage or eros subordinate to law is made holy as a pre-figuration of the trans-legal union of man and god. This appears to be what Francesca means by the perverse evil (V. 93) which afflicts Paolo and herself: a religion of trans-legal love has made trans-legal love a metaphysical crime (Matt. 5:2732; 1 Cor. 6:9-10). The fact that Christianity cannot bring itself to sacralize a form of sexual eros which seems to resemble its own pretensions so closely points to the failure of Christianity to effect the transcendence of the law to which it aspires. Francesca herself makes clear the character of this failure in her narrative of her love for Paolo. She explains that after love for her beautiful appearance (persona) had seized her lover, she was compelled to return his love as lovepardons no loved one from loving. But the mutual love commanded by love himself was so strong that it has resulted in their eternal union in one death (V. 100-106). A god of love that pardons no one who does not return his love and who rewards love with a completion in eternal bodily unionor the shadow of such a unionis an apt description of the Christian god who punishes those who fail to return his love and rewards those who do with an eternal union with this eternal lover which is ultimately of a bodily character: god himself is incarnate and his lovers in union with him enjoy the possession of a glorified body. That the law stands behind the importation of punishment and reward into the context of love is clear. But that the law is also at work in the representation of the fulfillment of love in bodily union is made evident when one notes that it is characteristic of the law to portray the completion and perfection of the soul in terms of the satisfactions of body (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.3, III.9-10; Plato, Republic 518d-e). The genuinely trans-legal fulfillment of eros in the minds pursuit of knowledge of the beings (viz., philosophy) seems to be alluded to in a simile which makes it difficult to believe that Dante was unfamiliar with at least one of Platos dialogues in addition to the Timaeus. Dante compares the souls in the second circle to flocks of birds and Francesca and her lover as they descend to Dante and Virgil to doves with wings raised and steady to their sweet nest (V. 83). But if Francesca and Paolo are to nesting doves as Dante and Virgil are to nestlings, then Dante and Virgil would seem to be in the process of wing growing. Though not confined to Platos Phaedrus, the conceit of eros as winged and wing-growing is given its most elaborate expression there (249c-252c). According to the argument of the Phaedrus, however, eros as wing-growing is ultimately directed not to the beautiful appearance of the belovedwhich, when properly used, serves only as a reminder of the
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beautiful itselfbut to the ascent to and cognition of the hyper-Uranian beings, among which the beautiful itself stands (247c-248c, 250c-d). Eros is directed not to bodily union or even knowledge of the whole which the material cosmos might appear to represent, but to minds cognition of the trans-cosmological beings. That Francesca and Paolo are related negatively to a version of this account of the proper end of love is made clear first of all by the fact that in their confusion they have been cast into a dark whirlwind which is the counterpart of the whirlwind of unintelligibility that Dante and Virgil first encountered in passing through the gate of Hell andfar from their wings permitting an ascent beyond the heavensthey are confined in their flight to an unlit cavern beneath the earth. Moreover, as Dante has explained, those here confined are characterized by their having been unable to combine reason and desire in the proper manner (V. 37-39). Francesca and Paolo are the first genuine inhabitants of Inferno insofar as they are the first to exhibit the class characteristic of the damnedthey have lost the good of intellect. When Dante asks about the cause of this loss in their case he is informed by Francesca that the root of their subjecting reason to misdirected desire was a book, Lancelot of the Lake (V. 124-28). The books topic is a trans-legal love affair (that between Lancelot and Guinevere). The book, therefore, represents an attempt to combine mind and reason (in the form of the written word) with a love that finds its satisfaction beyond the limitations of the law. The effect of the book, however, is the splitting asunder of reason and love: Francesca and Paolo cease to read and commence to embrace (V. 13338). The book which pretends to unite mind and a love that transcends the boundaries of the law, in teaching that the end of love is a union of bodies, causes the separation of mind and love in its readers who make reading the book instrumental to that end. As T. E. Swing has observed (Hollander 1969, 112), the phrase with which Francesca so discreetly indicates the final result of her literary encounter with Paolothat day we read no furtherseems intended by Dante to echo the famous phrase employed by Augustine to describe his final conversion to Christianity after his reading (under very special circumstances) of a passage from the Bibleand then I read no further (Confessions, VIII. 12; cf. IV.3). Francesca and Paulo represent the effects of the Biblea book that purports to offer the way to the final union of love and mindupon those readers who are converted to its teaching: the separation of mind and love and the confusion of the end of the latter with bodily union. The book that claims
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to fulfill more perfectly than Greek philosophy the unity of mind and eros in a transcendence of the city and its law, in fact reproduces the effect of the law upon the soulthe gospel is simply the New Law (Rom. 8:2; Aquinas, Treatise on Law, Ques. 91, Art. 5). Before recounting the cause of her present affliction, Francesca had declared that there is no greater sorrow than to recall, in wretchedness, the happy time and insisted that Virgil knows this as well as she (V. 121-23). The passage from the second book of the Aeneid to which she refers, however, is that wherein Aeneas, in response to Didos demand to hear the story of his wanderings from its beginning in the fall of Troy, insists that to recall his grief and pain is to renew that grief and pain in this happy time of his recent salvation from Junos wrath. Francesca proves that she is an incompetent reader and in her confusion equates grief with happiness and pain and wretchedness with salvation. In her reference to Virgils Aeneid, however, Francesca not only spells out the terms of her conversionhow she became a citizen of gods sorrowful citybut points to Virgils volume as an alternative to gods volume insofar as it is the cause of contrary effects: we recall that Dante, on his first encounter with Virgil, exclaimed, Oh, glory and light of other poets, may the long study and great love that have made me search your volume avail me (I. 82-84). The aid provided by Virgil and his volume has so far proven indispensable to Dante in his confrontation with Christianity, and one of the secrets of its antidotal power has now been made clear. It joins what god has split asunder. V. B L AC K S
AND
WHITES
Dante replaces the image of the lion as representative of Rome with Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of Hades (VI. 13-15). Cerberus presides over the circle of the gluttonous. Yet the cantos most manifest concern is neither the sin nor the sinners of the third circle, but the problem of civil war as it is exhibited in the case of the Florentine republic. A three-headed dog would appear to be a perfect representation of the city at war with itself (De Monarchia I.16.1-5), if it were not for the fact that the parties within Florence seem to be but two. Cerberus is a more fitting image then of the civil war that convulsed the empire of Rome at the end of the Republic, insofar as each outbreak of strife was preceded by an attempt at rule by triumvirate. The civil wars that afflicted Rome, however, came only at the culmination of her expansion and rise to greatness and dominion. In the case of the Florentine republic these wars are occurring in her infancy and prevent-
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ing her rise to greatness and dominion. This may be attributed to the fact that what is a late development coinciding with the corruption of her polity in the case of Romeviz., the fusion of man-god and universal king in the person of Caesaris a first principle of all political life in medieval Florence: the new Caesar and his legions, i.e. the priesthood (cf. Paradiso XXIV.59; also Armour 1989, 85), form the third faction in addition to the split between Whites or plebeians and Blacks or patricians within the party politics of Florence. Cerberus proves to represent perfectly the internal divisions within the city. Moreover, the civil dissension between Bianci and Neri is rooted in the transcivil dissension between the Guelphs (the party of the papacy) and the Ghibellines (the party of the empire). The result of the intrusion of the legions of the New Caesar into the life of the Italian cities is thus the disjoining of political power from political justice on two levels: civil strife makes impossible the rule of law and the power of the papacy is a power that claims to transcend in its sovereignty any and all political law. God is the cause not of the union of justice and power, but their division. That Virgil is able to silence Cerberus three barking heads by letting them feed upon the earth which they crave reflects the gluttony of the submerged who are the occupants of the third circle (VI. 15). Both point to the materialism of the city, that is, its directedness to the goods of the body. The bodies of those submerged upon which Virgil and Dante tread, however, are described by the poet as vanities (VI. 36). They are the degraded and empty images of the soul. Despite its low concern with the bodily good, the city fraudulently claims to be able to provide the soul with what it requires apart from the body. The city is the locus of political idealism according to which moral virtue is the good of the soul. The New Rome or the city of god, however, has taken over both these aspects of political life: it is greedy for earth (territory and wealth) and it claims, through its teachings regarding moral virtue, to be able to provide the soul with its true good. The materialism of the church explains its ruinous involvement in the affairs of Florence and the other Italian cities, to which Ciacco (the Hog) alludes in speaking of the one who, though temporizing now, will soon intervene in the affairs of Florence, viz., Boniface VIII (VI. 67-72). The churchs claim to be able to minister to the soul, as trumping that of the city, however, turns out to be the deeper cause of the corruption of the city of man at the hands of the ecclesiastical polity. Ciacco, in answer to Dantes question regarding the origins of the discord that has assailed Florence, locates the ultimate causes of strife in three passions: pride, envy, and avarice
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Interpretation
(VI. 74-75). That this account of the causes of discord in Florence is inadequate is obvious. The citizens of every city that has ever existed have been animated by these same passions, but not every city at all times has been afflicted with civil war. Rome, whose citizens exhibited these passions as violently as those of any city before or since, owed her greatness to the proper and prudent exploitation of precisely these affections. Ciaccos condemnation, nonetheless, points to the deepest cause of Florences disintegration: according to the teaching of the city of god, these passions are not the natural engines of political life to be prudently refined and harnessedi.e., through habituation worked up into political or moral virtuesin the interest of the pursuit of freedom and empire, but sins to be condemned and, with the help of gods grace, extirpated from the human heart in the interests of preparing the soul for citizenship within the kingdom of god. The church, in its ostensible transcendence of political life and political law, condemns the roots in the human soul of political virtue and political greatness. The desire for glory and the striving for distinction (i.e., pride and envy) as yoked to the quest for empire (i.e., avarice)the roots of the beautiful virtues of the antique city (e.g., courage and magnanimity)are condemned as, at best, splendid vices by the New Rome, while the anti-political qualities of humility, meekness, and poverty of the spirit are praised as the truth of moral virtue as instrumental to the allegedly supra-political end of blessedness. However, since the passions at the root of antique moral and political virtue, though they may be reviled, can never be expelled from the human soulhuman beings are political animals and these are the unavoidable accompaniments of political lifethe teachings of the church concerning moral virtue, insofar as they are authoritative, ensure that political life is carried out under the pall of moral reprobation and the fog of hypocrisy. That is to say, the teachings of Christianity ensure that these passions are disjoined from an aspiration to moral and political virtue or from the pursuit of the noble or beautiful. Christianity undermines political idealism as political and leaves in its wake a cynicism in regard to the conduct of political affairs which ensures that only the lowest aspirations of the citythe acquisition of wealth or material gainare pursued in a petty and narrowly self-interested way: political power becomes simply a means to amassing a personal fortune. In this the kings and princes of medieval Europe simply follow the example of the princes of the church who, though they may in their speeches praise earthly poverty and recommend the laying up of spiritual riches in heaven, in their deeds demonstrate their concern for laying up earthly treasure here and now (Purg., XVI. 100-102).
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The political result of this state of affairs is the radical diminution of political life: the horizon of political ambitions is lowered and narrowed and the city left fractured and disordered. Florence and her sister cities are cast in the mud and submerged (Purg., VI. 76-126, XVI. 12-129). That this coincides with the interests of the church and its political ambitions, likewise carried out under such a pall and fog, is evident: the greater the disorder of the cities of Italy and Europei.e., the weaker the secular powerthe wider the dominance of the papacy may extend (Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 7). Ciaccos response to Dantes inquiry regarding the fate of the best men among the Florentines points to the same issue of the dwarfing of political life under the influence of the moral teachings of Christianity. These men who were so worthy and put their genius to doing good turn out to be, according to the judgment of god, among the blackest souls and different faults weigh them down toward the bottom (VI. 77-87). The greatest of these figures, Farinata, whose worth was proved by the fact that he held the good of Florence above the good of his faction, is among the Epicureans of the sixth circle or those who lacked any belief in the immortality of the soul (X. 32). Tegghiaio Aldobrandi and Jacabo Rusticucci, on the other hand, are condemned among the Sodomites for the sin of homosexuality (XVI. 40-45). Two of the more common attributes of the greatest political menattributes which, whether moral faults or no, might plausibly be thought to be at a minimum incidental, and at a maximum genuinely serviceable to the just conduct of political affairs and the pursuit of the common good (lack of belief in a good beyond this life and of an attachment to a private, familial interest might be considered conditions for a wholehearted devotion to a this-worldly public or political good)are, according to Christian teaching, among the blackest of sins. The absurdity and destructiveness of such views from a political point of view is thus made clear by Dante. The Christian moral teaching, therefore, runs counter to the possibility of wholehearted devotion to the public good both incidentally and essentially. On the one hand, it condemns those passionspride, envy, and avaricethe gratification of which, through the prizes of honor, political office, and material gain, are the means whereby certain men are persuaded to serve the city as if it were of greater value than their own souls; and on the other hand, it consistently enjoins one to turn away from the temporal political goods of the city of man to the eternal and spiritual or allegedly trans-political rewards of the city of god. Gods judgment and justice are, accordingly, in fundamental conflict with what is required for the justice and public good of the city. Within the Christian polity, the authoritative teaching regarding the
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truth of justice and the sound exercise of political power are necessarily at odds. The Christian polity is necessarily an unjust polity. What Dante suggests at the end of Canto VI, however, where Dante and Virgil discuss the niceties of divine punishment and reward as it is related to the question of the resurrection of the body (VI. 94-111), is that the Christian moral teaching proffers its condemnation of the city as ministering merely to the goods of the body, precisely in the name of a hypertrophic appeal to the satisfaction of the body. Through the teaching of the resurrection of the body, Christianity ultimately rejects the doctrine of the reality of the separate soul as vigorously as any Epicurean and looks forward to the delights of bodily union with as much relish as the most enthusiastic Sodomite: the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the bodydependent as it is upon the doctrine at the core of the Christian conception of divinity, viz., the incarnationis simply an exaggerated version of the citys own confusion of the good of the body for the good of the soul. VI. C A E S A R
AND
PETER
Near the end of Canto VI, Virgil identifies God and his ministerswhose arrival will mark the time of the last judgment and herald the reunion of the souls of the damned with their bodieswith the enemy power (96). Dantes identification of Pluto, king of the dead, god of wealth and the guardian of the fourth circle, as the great enemy (VI. 115) and Virgils reviling him with the epithet accursed wolf (VII. 8) makes clear that this third gate-keeper is a new version of the she-wolf or an image of the prince and the power of the New Rome. Indeed, Pluto declares himself to be such in his babbling (Hollander 2000, 140). Dantes calling him a cruel beast brings to mind both the fact that snarling Minos sports a tail and the porcine character of Ciacco. On the one hand, the bestialization of the human and the gods of human shape cannot but remind us of the fate of Ulysses men at the hands of Circe and her witchcraft. On the other hand, Ulysses ability, with the help of the god Hermes, to resist Circes spells finds its parallel here in the way in which Virgil overcomes both his friends fears and the power of Pluto by demonstrating the insubstantiality of the claim of the prince of the church (pape satan) to be first (allepo). In response to Virgils command to silence himself, he collapses like sails swollen by the wind full in a heap when the mainmast snaps (VII. 13-15). His power is shown to be wholly unreal. Ulysses and his voyage are brought to mind once more when Dante compares the punishment of the inmates of the fourth circle to the
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crashing of wave upon wave over Charybdis (VII. 22-24). Dante attributes the configuration of this punishment directly to the justice of god (VII. 19-21). The previous canto has shown this justice to be identical to injustice on the political plane. This justice has established a joust or trial of arms between two contending parties who roll enormous weights around the track of the circle, pushing them with their chests until they collide with the opposing party, at which point each party simply reverses course, one crying why do you hoard? and the other why do you squander? and the contest begins again (VII. 25-35). It is a trial of arms in which victory can never be gained and each side is equally a loser. It is an eternally thwarted race around a track upon which an insurmountable obstacle inevitably arises. From their tonsured heads, Dante is able to recognize that all of the members of one of the parties in this contest are clerics. Virgil confirms this surmise and adds that avarice is the sin for which these priests, cardinals, and popes pay the price (VII. 37-48). They are the ill-keepersthose who hoardand they are pitted against a host of ill-giversthose who squander. When Dante suggests that he surely will be able to recognize some of the priestly contestants, Virgil informs him that this is impossible: their own lack of knowledge precludes all knowledge of them (VII. 52-54). In the case of the clerics, at the very least, it is a form of ignorance that has committed them to this fruitless contest. Virgil, however, remains silent as to the precise nature of the knowledge that they lacked, the character of the brawl they have fallen into with their opponents, and the identity of these opponents themselves. The solution to this enigma is revealed by Dante in the Purgatorio where we find a similar sequence of Ulyssean allusions. In Canto XIV of Purgatorio the poet encounters a fellow Tuscan, Guido del Duca, who declares that the inhabitants of the Po valley have so changed their nature that it seems that Circe had them at pasture. He compares them to filthy pigs, little snarling dogs, wolves and foxes full of fraud. The cause of this universal bestialization he claims to know: virtue is fled from as an enemy by all, as if it were a snake. As to why virtue is thus shunned he can offer no sure explanation (29-54). Dante himself, however, has shown this recoil from virtue to be a pan-European phenomenon and, in accord with his teaching regarding the bestialization of Florentine politics in Inferno VI, located its cause in the authority of the Christian religion: in the valley of the princesa grander version of Guidos pasture of Circe and the poets own bordello of Italy (Purg., VI. 76-78)we have been shown how two angels with broken swords
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prevent any contact between the most significant political rulers of the time and the serpent who tempted Eve (Purg., VII. 64VIII. 108). These emissaries of the kingdom of god prevent these rulers from combining with their rule something like independent knowledge of good and evil or the Ulyssean experience of the world and of human vice and worth, that is, from acquiring political prudence. In Purgatorio XVI, Dante encounters Marco Lombardo who claims to have gained the knowledge of the world and to have loved the worth that Ulysses sought. In the light of his alleged knowledge he is able and willing to offer the poet what Guido del Duca could not: in response to the poets double doubt about the cause of virtues desertion of the worldwhether it lies in the heavens (as Sordello argued) or here below (as Guido del Duca suggested)Marco locates the cause not in the heavens, but in the affairs of men. The world has been made wicked, however, not through the corruption of mens nature (i.e., through the biblical fall), but through ill-guidance.
Rome, which made the world good, was wont to have two Suns, which made visible both the one road and the other, that of the world and that of god. The one has quenched the other, and the sword is joined to the crook: and the one together with the other must perforce go illsince the one does not fear the other. [T]he Church of Rome, by confounding in itself two governments, falls in the mire and befouls both itself and its burden. (106-12, 126-29)
The poet claims Marco for his own (O Marco mine) and declares that he reasons well. Marcos image of the two Suns adumbrates Dantes arguments from De Monarchia against the doctrine of papal supremacy articulated most forcefully by Boniface VIII in his bull Unam Sanctam (Tierney 1964, 189). According to the latter, the authority of the papacy stands in relation to the authority of the emperor as Sun to Moon: as the Sun is first in the order of creation and the source of the Moons light, so the pope is first in the order of rule and the source of Caesars power. According to Marcos image and Dantes reasoning, the political authority of the emperor is entirely independent of the spiritual authority of the pope (De Mon., III. 12, 16; Conv., IV.6; Kantorowicz 1957, 458-60). Marcos teaching, therefore, is a refutation of the fraudulent claims concerning the ostensible Donation of Constantine that Boniface and his allies used to support their case for papal supremacy and according to which the emperor rightfully ceded rule over the Western half of the empire to the Roman pontiff (Inf., XIX. 115-17).
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It is now possible to recognize the particular character of the ill-keeping of which the priests, cardinals, and popes of the fourth circle are guilty: they are the claimants to the illegitimate Donation of Constantine. Their rivals in the contestthe ill-giversare the princes, kings and emperors (the sons of Constantine) who put their temporal authority in the thrall of the ecclesiastical polity. They are the rulers of the valley of the princes, the swine in Circes pen. The round weights they push and crash against one another in their joust are representative of the two Suns whose fire and light have been extinguished through their ill-giving and ill-keeping. Their brawl itself is the constant clash between Caesar and Pope that is the inevitable result of the latters attempt to yoke supreme political authority to the office of pontifex maximus, that is, to make the priest not fifth and first, but simply first in the order of the political regime (Aristotle, Politics 1328b 12-13). The contest of arms is necessarily inconclusivei.e., will never lead to the sort of victory and universal empire that Rome attainedbecause the strife between the spiritual and temporal powers is the root of the dissolution of whatever unity the city is able to achieve (cf. Strauss 1963, 254). VII. C O N C LU S I O N In Cantos V through VII of Inferno Dante has offered the reader his portrait of the most far-reaching claims of Christianity and the Catholic Church, at the same time demonstrating their spuriousness and elaborating upon the malignant effects of the attempt to translate them into action. As Dante presents it, Christianity pretends to possess, on the one hand, the truth regarding both mans intellectual or spiritual nature and his moral, political or temporal nature and, on the other hand, insight into the fact that the latter should and can be made a means to the fulfillment of the former. This pretense culminates in the churchs doctrine of papal supremacy, through which it lays claim to the legitimate exercise of power not simply over the spiritual but the temporal lives of men as well. The church, in other words, claims to possess knowledge of the best regime or that political order in which mans nature can reach its perfection in preparation for the realization of his ultimate, supernatural endunion with god. Thus the church asserts a right to rule on the basis of the alleged possession of a comprehensive wisdom, indeed a divine science, regarding man and his relation to the whole of things and the first principle of that whole, viz., god. The church claims to combine power and justice, with wisdom. The doctrine of papal supremacy then echoes the teaching of scripture (or gods dead writing) that god unites perfectly in his own person
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wisdom with power and justice. Indeed, it is wholly derivative of the latter: theological monarchy is simply a reflection and prefigurement of the kingdom of god. Dante, in demonstrating the speciousness of the unity of justice, power, and wisdom in god, simultaneously refutes the churchs claim to legitimately unite spiritual and temporal power in its empire over every aspect of human existence. Dante concludes that what the advocates of papal supremacy understand to be the best regimethe comprehensive rule of a divine science or wisdom that transcends the lawis actually, as Virgil suggests in Canto VII when insisting on the priesthoods lack of knowledge, the worst possible regime, viz., the comprehensive rule of lawless ignorance. Dante, therefore, suggests that the universal theological monarchy of Christendom is a sophistical tyranny on the grandest possible scale (see Addendum 6). Because the Islamic version of a universal theocracy is necessarily based in law, however imperfect that law may be, it is significantly superior to that regime to which the Catholic Church, at its most pretentious, aspires. Mohamed and his successors built a great empire. Saladins conduct, according to Dante, puts him in the same class as the greatest rulers of ancient Rome. No Christian prince has ever come near to rivaling such accomplishments. Insofar as the church aspires to the kind of authority to which Bonifaces Unam Sanctam lays claim and, therefore, to the authority to suppress any alternative and superior understanding of the political, the trans-political and the proper relation between them, the church itself is responsible not only for the fact that men flee from virtue as from a snake, but for having erected a blockade on the road to an experience of the world and of human vice and worth, that is, to any genuine knowledge of the human good and the best regime. The New Rome is the obstacle both to the practical recovery of any sound political order, and to the theoretical acquisition of a Ulyssean political knowledge or to a recovery of political philosophy as originally conceived by the GreeksPlato and Aristotle (Fortin 2002, 173). Dantes Comedy is dedicated to a renewal of Greek political philosophy and, therefore, to a thorough analysis of the obstacles standing in the path to such a renewal. This analysis, first presented in concentrated form at the opening of the Comedy in Dantes treatment of the three beasts, is then unfolded and given complete articulation over the course of the work as a whole. Yet Dantes Comedy is not merely propaedeutic: to articulate the obstacles to the recovery of Greek political philosophy is already to resurrect it on new and alien terrain.
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ADDENDUM 1 Hollander shows the link between the metaphor of the flood of his heart in which Dante nearly drowns at the opening of the poem and the metaphorical river in which Dante bathes his eyes before his final vision of the reality of which this river is a metaphor at the end of the poem (Hollander, 1969, 196); but if the river represents god and his kingdom, so too must the dangerous flood. ADDENDUM 2 At the center of the Aeneid (VI. 750-853), Virgil discriminates between the character of Rometo bring peace to the conquered, spare the defeated, and tame the proudand that of Greeceto perfect the arts, discover the science of rhetoric, and trace the ways of heaven (i.e., philosophize). In doing so he demonstrates the self-defeating trajectory of the formeras soon as its empire is established and peace prevails its raison dtre evaporatesand the superior humanity of the latter (Benardete, 2002, 218). ADDENDUM 3 That the medieval church was indeed in a state of radical decline is made evident by the victory of Philip the Fair in his contest with Boniface VIII and the establishment of the Avignon papacy under Clement V. Dante allows his Bonaventure to describe the continuing corruption and weakening of the legions of the New Rome despite the efforts of Dominic and Francis to renew their strength (Par., XII. 37-45, 106-20). ADDENDUM 4 The striking difference between the Christian and Muslim contexts for the recovery of Greek philosophy, viz., the revival of the pagan gods in the former case alone, was made possible not only by the survival of Latin literature in the West, but also by Dantes retrieval of those gods in the modern context. ADDENDUM 5 Cf. Maimonides, Guide (1963), 521: The books [of the ancients] extant among us today contain an exposition of the greatest part of the opinions and practices of the Sabians; some of the latter are generally known at present in the world. I mean the building of temples, the setting-up in them of images made of cast metal and stone, the building of alters and the offering-up upon them of either animal sacrifices or various kinds of food, the
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institution of festivals, the gatherings for prayer and for various kinds of worship in those temples in which they locate highly venerated places that are called by them the temple of the intellectual forms. ADDENDUM 6 If the pope hadsuch fullness of power that in temporal and spiritual matters he could by right do without exception anything not against divine or natural law, then Christs law would involve a most horrendous servitude, incomparably greater than that of the old law. For all Christiansemperors and kings, and absolutely all their subjectswould be in the strictest sense of the term the popes slaves, because there never was nor will be by right anyone with more power over any man whatever than power over him in respect of all things not against natural and divine law. The pope could therefore by right deprive the king of France and every other king of his kingdom without fault or reason, just as without fault or reason a lord can take from his slave a thing he has let him have. (William of Ockham 1992, 23-24)
REFERENCES Archer, Gleason L., trans. 1958. Jeromes Commentary on Daniel. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House. Armour, Peter. 1989. Dantes Griffin. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Averroes. 2001. Decisive Treatise and Epistle Dedicatory. Trans. Charles Butterworth. Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press. Barolini, Teodolinda. 1992. The Undivine Comedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Benardete, Seth. 1989. Socrates Second Sailing: on Platos Republic. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. . 2002. Encounters and Reflections. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Borges, Jorge Luis. 1999. The Last Voyage of Ulysses. In Selected Non-Fictions. New York: Viking Press. Burger, Ronna. 1999. Making New Gods. In Plato and Platonism, ed. Johannes M. Van Ophuijsen. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.
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Cantor, Paul. 1996. The Uncanonical Dante: The Divine Comedy and Islamic Philosophy. Philosophy and Literature 20. Fortin, Ernest L. 2002. Dissent and Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Dante and His Precursors. Trans. Marc LePain. New York: Lexington Books. Hollander, Robert. 1969. Allegory in Dantes Commedia. Princeton: Princeton University Press. . 2000. Dante: The Inferno. New York: Anchor Books. Kantorowicz, Ernst H. 1957. The Kings Two Bodies: a Study in Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lansing, Richard H. 1990. Dantes Il Convivio. New York: Garland Publishing. Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. 1984. Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry. Trans. E. A. McCormick. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Maimonides, Moses. 1963. The Guide of the Perplexed. Trans. Shlomo Pines. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Scofield, C. I., ed. 1984. Oxford NIV Scofield Study Bible. New York: Oxford University Press. Singleton, Charles S. 1973. Dante Alighieri: The Divine Comedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Strauss, Leo. 1963. Marsilius of Padua. In History of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. Chicago: Rand McNally. Tierney, Brian. 1964. The Crises of Church and State: 1050-1300. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. William of Ockham. 1992. A Short Treatise on Tyrannical Government. Trans. Arthur S. McGrade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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International Duties and Natural Law: A Comparison of the Writings of Grotius and Plato
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NAT H A N E . BU S C H CHRISTOPHER NEWPORT UNIVERSITY nbusch@cnu.edu
The fields of international relations and international law have experienced a resurgence of interest in Hugo Grotiuss doctrines of just war theory and natural law, as scholars have become increasingly aware that the positivist traditions of international law do not sufficiently address such issues as humanitarian interventions or anticipatory self-defense. But even though scholars often cite Grotian natural law as a supplement to or replacement of positivist law, they have seldom examined the theoretical underpinnings of Grotiuss conceptions of natural law itself. This paper analyzes difficulties with Grotiuss natural law doctrines, which especially come to light when compared with the teachings on justice, human sociality, and international relations in Platos Republic. In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in just war theory and natural law among legal scholars and scholars of international relations. As Randy E. Barnett recently put it, We are in the midst of a natural law revival (1995, 93). Scholars have become increasingly aware that the positivist tradition in legal theorywhich grounds international duties and obligations solely on treatiesis unable to address ongoing challenges and moral dilemmas in international relations, from humanitarian interventions to preemptive and preventive military strikes. Especially in the aftermath of the NATO intervention into Kosovo (which took place without the approval of the United Nations Security Council), the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region of Sudan, scholars have increasingly turned to natural law as a moral and legal justification for international actions and foreign policy (see, for example, Nardin 2004; Hall 2001; Bellamy 2004; Rychlak 2004; Coverdale 2004; Davenport 2005; Johnson 2005; Adams 1993; Donnely 2006).
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One of the primary theorists to whom contemporary scholars have turned for a discussion of just war and natural law is Hugo Grotius, whose arguments were laid out in his major treatise, The Law of War and Peace (for just a few of these instances, see Elshtain 2005, 753; Nardin 2004, 1516; Fixdal and Smith 1998; Magenis 2002; Saunders and Mantilla 2002; Bradford 2004, 143334). Grotius argues that human nature, specifically our natural human sociality, links everyone together in an international society. According to Grotius, this sociality gives rise to a natural law, which defines states obligations and ought to guide their actions in the international realm. In this return to Grotian conceptions of natural law, however, neither the proponents nor the critics of the return sufficiently engage the theoretical foundations of Grotiuss natural law doctrine. Proponents too often turn to Grotiuss thought as a convenient means of supporting their arguments, while critics too often simply dismiss Grotiuss natural law doctrines without addressing his understanding of human sociality (Binder 1999, 217). Despite the renewed interest in, and application of, Grotiuss thought to international relations and legal scholarship, a more systematic engagement of the theoretical underpinnings of Grotian natural law is necessary if one is either to accept or reject his teachings. A natural starting point for this theoretical examination of human sociality would lie in the thought of the classical political philosophers, not least because Grotius draws his greatest inspiration from the classical foundations of Socratic political thought, referring repeatedly to the writings of Aristotle, Plato, and Cicero and drawing heavily on their notions of man as a naturally social animal (Pangle and Ahrensdorf 1999, 162; for the decisive discussion of the connection of Cicero to Socratic political thought, see Strauss 1953, 15356). And, yet, it is precisely the classical notions of human sociality that provide the greatest contrast with, and challenge to, Grotiuss thought. As Leo Strauss notes in Natural Right and History, although classical notions of natural right begin with the idea that man is by nature a social being, the kinship that men feel for one another as a result of this sociality is by nature limited: mans power of love or of active concern is by nature limited; the limits of the city coincide with the range of mans concern for nonanonymous individuals (1953, 129, 131). As Strauss thus elaborates, while the Socratic philosophers would have likely agreed with Grotius that humans are naturally social, they suggest that our sociality at most extends to concern for our own society, and not for humanity as a whole (an apparent exception is Cicero; but see Addendum 1). Insofar as our duties arise from our natural sociality, then,
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the classical philosophers would suggest that states are not obliged to be just toward each other. Perhaps the clearest elaboration of this Socratic challenge to Grotian conceptions of natural law can be found in the works of Plato. In particular, in the Republic, Platos dialogue on justice, we see an elaboration of human psychology that includes a presentation of thumos, or love of ones own, which constrains our feeling of kinship primarily to nonanonymous individuals (Strauss 1953, 131; see also Arnhart 1998, 146; Bloom 1968, 349-51; and Pangle 1988, 452-55). The political implications of thumos are revealed in the best or most just city that Socrates and his two young interlocutors go to great lengths to create. It turns out that even in this best city, justice consists almost exclusively in what I will call internal justicethat is, each part performing its appropriate function within the city. In his very definition of justice, therefore, Platos Socrates implicitly rejects Grotiuss attempt to apply natural law to the international realm. As I will argue, a primary reason for Socrates limitation of justice in the city arises from his understanding of thumos. To be sure, however, Platos Socrates is far from being an advocate of genocide or ruthless aggression; his recommendations for foreign policy are not guided by natural law, but they are nevertheless humane. For Socrates view of foreign policy, and of politics in general, is elevated by his understanding of the end of politics. Politics, for Socrates, aims at the cultivation of the good life, understood as moral or philosophic virtue. Yet, as I hope to show, this elevated end for political life is perfectly compatible with, and may even necessitate, a limitation of our duties in the international realm. In the following discussion, I will begin by outlining the reemergence of natural law doctrines in current debates on international law. Part II will examine Grotiuss basic precepts on natural law, the law of nations, and just war, and show how his conclusions about foreign policy follow from these precepts. Part III will then explain the grounds of a Platonic disagreement with the Grotian teaching and analyze the extent to which the arguments in the Republic reveal the limitations in Grotiuss foundation for international duties. Finally, I will discuss the implications of this analysis for current debates on natural law. I. A R E -E M E R G E N C E O F N AT U R A L L AW IN LEGAL THEORIZING Natural law dominated legal thinking on international law for centuries, beginning with the Roman incorporation of natural law to rule its
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empire, the Catholic Churchs doctrines of natural law encapsulated in St. Thomas Aquinass writings, and later, in the 1600s, especially with Grotius the so-called father of modern international law. Beginning in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, natural law began to fall out of favor and was largely replaced by legal positivismthe grounding of international duties in treaties and other commitments voluntarily entered into by sovereign states (Nardin 2004, 17; Hall 2001, 27184). This positivist tradition has, however, consistently encountered serious theoretical and practical difficulties, especially in binding states to international duties. As Stephen Hall notes, the transition from natural law to exclusively positivist law has created a crisis of identity for international law, resulting from legal positivisms radical refusal to acknowledge the juridical character of any object which is not sourced to an act of sovereign will located in history. In particular, it expels from the realm of legal thought those pre-positive juridical norms of the natural law, from which the positive law draws all its authority (2001, 271; cf. Hollis 2005, Joyner 2002). The core of the problem cited by legal scholars is that positivist law, including the legal framework encapsulated by the United Nations, centers almost exclusively on the idea of national sovereignty (Charter of the United Nations 1945, Article 2:7). This sovereignty gives states exclusive authority over their own territory and largely prevents any kind of external interventions into their territoryincluding those intended to prevent widespread human rights abuses within a state or those aimed at eliminating a growing threat to other statesunless the state has signed a treaty explicitly allowing such interventions. And, obviously, no state would voluntarily sign such a treaty. Given these limitations in positivist international law, a number of scholars have returned to the just war tradition and notions of natural law in efforts to better address and clarify duties in the international realm (Nardin 2004, 1128; Bellamy 2004, 13147; Adams 1993, 271; Coverdale 2004, esp. 222, n.1). For example, Jean Bethke Elshtain turns to the just war tradition to justify the U.S. actions in the Global War on Terrorism, arguing that the use of military power to combat terrorism and to aid in humanitarian interventions not only serves the U.S. interests, but is also morally justified by natural law (2003; 2005). Similarly, Fixdal and Smith argue that the just war tradition is able to encompass most of the main arguments in the current humanitarian intervention literature and, thus, that the debate on humanitarian intervention would benefit from a more explicit use of this framework (1998, 285).
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International lawyers have also looked to natural law as a grounding for anticipatory self-defense, or preemption. For example, Sean D. Magenis argues for the superiority of the natural law tradition over that of positive law: Any valid system of international law cannot deny the inherent right of self-defense. The inherent right of self-defense includes the right of anticipatory self-defense and reprisal. A natural law system allows both anticipatory self-defense and reprisal while positivist international law does not. Therefore, natural law is superior to positivism in the field of international law on the use of force (2002, 434). The justification for anticipatory self-defense becomes more controversial, however, when it comes to preventive strikes, which are intended to eliminate an adversarys capability to strike before the adversary has fully acquired that capability (i.e., while the adversary is stockpiling weapons, developing weapon systems, etc.). But on this subject as well, legal scholars have turned to Grotiuss just war doctrine to justify their arguments. For example, Steven Barela argues that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not conform to Grotiuss notions of just war because Grotius only defends preemptive strikes when an expected attack is imminent, and Iraq posed no imminent threat (2004). On the other hand, William Bradford argues that Grotian conceptions of natural law actually justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Given that todays world has weapons of mass destruction that can be delivered without prior warning, Bradford maintains that it would be too late to engage in a preemptive strike when that threat became imminent. He therefore argues that the United States was justified in using not only preemptive force, but also preventive force to eliminate Iraqs weapons of mass destruction programs (2004). Similarly, Jacob Knepper argues that the doctrine of preemption laid out in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America largely fits with Grotiuss theories of just war, even though it expands the notion of preemption to include preventive strikes (2004). It is clear from the above discussion that natural law and the just war tradition have made a comeback in legal theorizing, and that Grotiuss writings are frequently cited as an alternative to the positivist legal tradition. But too often, proponents of this alternative have focused exclusively on whether or not particular actions are justified by the natural lawor, more troublingly, they appear to resort to natural law merely because no other tradition can support actions they believe strongly inwithout sufficiently examining the deeper, theoretical underpinnings of natural law itself. In the next section, we will therefore examine the foundations of Grotiuss natural law doctrines.
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II. G ROTIUS S C ONCEPTION OF THE L AW OF NATURE , THE L AW OF N ATIONS , AND I NTERNATIONAL D UTIES In The Law of War and Peace, Grotius presents his just war doctrine, which says that a state has the right to engage in warfare, but only if the war is just, or lawful. This doctrine is based mainly on the premise that man is rational and social by nature. In the preface, or Prolegomena, to his work, Grotius begins by arguing against philosophers such as Carneades, who say that there is no such thing as natural justice. Carneades argues that men are naturally self-interested, and laws are merely created in order to help them to achieve their self-interest. Grotius responds quite strongly to this argument because it implies that there are no duties in the international realm (nor, in fact, in the domestic realm). For if laws are created for the sake of our self-interest, we are fully justified in violating the laws when they no longer serve our interest (Grotius 1925, Prolegomena [P], 5). While Grotius does think that it is in the long-term interest of every state to obey international laws, he nevertheless thinks it is necessary to ground the obedience to law on duty, rather than mere self-interest (P, 18). He attempts to accomplish this by referring to human nature (Pangle and Ahrensdorf 1999, 16263). Men, Grotius argues, are not only inclined to look to their own advantage; because they are naturally social, they desire the company of others and care for others. Grotius explains this sociality most clearly in his Prolegomena: among the traits characteristic of man is an impelling desire for society, that is, for social lifenot of any and every sort, but peaceful, and organized according to the measure of his intelligence, with those who are of his own kind (P, 6). The natural desire for society, Grotius argues, is the source of natural law: For the very nature of man, which even if we had no lack of anything would lead us into the mutual relations of society, is the mother of the law of nature (P, 16). And this natural law extends to the relations among states, since mans natural sociality is not limited to the borders of his own state. Natural law is thus the basis for our moral duties, both domestically and internationally (P, 8). There certainly is a great deal to this argument. We do desire company (and feel lonely when this desire is not satisfied) and we are often sincerely concerned with the welfare of others. It therefore makes some sense to side with Grotius against Carneades. But it is one thing to admit that we are social, and another to say that this sociality causes us to care for all of humanity. It is worth examining Grotiuss description of our sociality carefully, since it is his foundation for our international duties. In the statement quoted in the
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preceding paragraph, Grotius says that man desires life in a peaceful and organized community, with those of his own kind. Grotius makes two assumptions in this statement. First, men must be able to identify with everyone else enough to consider them to be their own. If not, then our sociality actually limits our spontaneous concern for all of humanity. And second, it must be possible to conceive of the world as a peaceful and organized international community. If this is not the case, then our sociality might incline toward other political associations, such as the state, which are peaceful and organized, and can thus more properly be called a community. These two assumptions are important, for they are the very assumptions with which Platos Socrates appears to disagree. Grotius, however, thinks that both of these are possible and that our sociality therefore does extend to the international realm. This becomes clear in Book I, where Grotius presents a detailed discussion of the various types of law and shows how they apply to international relations. Grotiuss discussion of the different types of law Although Grotius lays out three different meanings of the word law [ius] in Book I, there is one main principle underlying allthat man is a rational and social animal. His first definition of law is simply that which is just, or more specifically, that which is not unjust (I.i.3). Although this definition does constitute a significant lowering of the Socratic conception of justice as human flourishing (Pangle and Ahrensdorf 1999, 16364; Forde 1998, 64041), Grotius nevertheless grounds his notion of justice (and injustice) on human reason and sociality (I.i.3). Our reason tells us whether a given practice is opposed to the nature of society by determining whether it accords with a general principle: if the practice were general, human society and the common good would of necessity be destroyed (ibid.). And, as Grotius adds, the reason why we should be just is because we are naturally social. Thus, because of our social nature, we avoid certain actions because they are inconsistent with a healthy society. As he quotes approvingly from Seneca, men refrain from injuring one another because we are born for community of life. For society can exist in safety only through the mutual love and protection of the parts of which it is composed (ibid.). On the basis of this first signification of law, Grotius says there are two kinds of social ties, those based on equality, among for example brothers, or citizens, or friends, or allies, and those based on pre-eminence, such as those between father and children, master and slave, king and subjects, God and men. Justice incorporates both of these types of social relations: so there
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is one type of that which is lawful applying to those who live on an equality, and another type applying to him who rules and him who is ruled, in their relative positions (ibid.). The second meaning of the word law, or right, arises from the first. It is a moral quality of a person, making it possible to have or to do something lawfully (I.i.4). These privileges are derived from the two types of social ties, equality and pre-eminence, that are governed by the first law. Thus, this conception of legal right includes power, now over oneself, which is called freedom, now over others, as of that of the father (patria potestas) and that of the master over slaves (I.i.5). In addition, this right includes the freedom we have to possess and use property. So this second definition grants us certain private rights, as individuals, which other individuals and the public are obligated to respect. The public, however, has certain superior rights, since they are exercised by the community over its members, and the property of its members, for the sake of the common good (I.i.6). The third meaning of the word law is a rule of moral actions imposing obligation to what is right (I.i.9). Grotius divides this third kind of law into two categories, natural law and volitional (or positive) law, and discusses each in turn. Natural law is supported both by principles of reason and by God: the law of nature is a dictate of right reason, which points out that an act, according as it is or is not in conformity with rational nature, has in it a quality of moral baseness or moral necessity; and that, in consequence, such an act is either forbidden or enjoined by the author of nature, God (I.i.10). But this concept of law does not simply depend upon God, since Grotius argues in his Prolegomena that the law of nature would still be valid even if there were no God or if He had no concern for human affairs (P, 9). Nor, in fact, could God change the law of nature if He wanted to (I.i.10). God might have been the source of natural law insofar as He gave us our natures, but having done so, they are no longer dependent upon His will. The Law of Nature is proven by two types of arguments, a priori and a posteriori. The a priori argument demonstrat[es] the necessary agreement or disagreement of anything with a rational and social nature (I.i.12), while the a posteriori one is based on the fact that all or most nations agree on certain laws. Since, he says, an effect that is universal demands a universal cause (I.i.12), the universal effectidentical laws in all or most nationsmust have the same universal causemans social nature. Volitional or positive laws, on the other hand, are not strictly
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natural; they arise from either human or divine will. Grotius says that there are three types of human volitional laws: (1) municipal law, which originates in the sovereign power of the state; (2) a less extensive right, which includes the codified rights of parents over children; and (3) the law of nations, which has received its obligatory force from the will of all nations, or of many nations (I.i.14). Men consent to these laws because proper action must be enforced, and there is no natural means of doing so (P, 15). The volitional laws derive their authority from consent, but the obligation to obey them actually arises from natural law: the mother of municipal law is that obligation which arises from mutual consent; and since this obligation derives its force from the law of nature, nature may be considered, so to say, the great-grandmother of municipal law (P, 16; see also I.i.10). Although volitional laws make obligatory many of the precepts of natural law, they are not identical to it. We see this, for example, in the difference between the law of nature and the law of nations. As Grotius says, the law of nature is unchanging and (nearly) universally recognized among all nations, while the law of nations can vary from region to region (I.i.14). There are several ways that volitional laws can differ from the law of nature: they can require actions that are neither commanded nor forbidden by the law of nature (e.g. the law requiring us to drive on the right side of the road); they can forbid actions that are allowed by the law of nature (e.g., the laws against polygamy); and, surprisingly, they can allow actions that are specifically forbidden by law of nature. I will return to this third difference later in my discussion. The law of nature and international duties After establishing his definitions of the different kinds of law, Grotius applies them to international relations. This is the subject of Book I, chapter 2, Whether it is Ever Lawful to Wage War. He bases his arguments largely on Ciceros discussion in De Finibus. Cicero says that first principles of nature [are] those in accordance with which every animal from the moment of its birth has regard for itself and is impelled to preserve itself (I.ii.1). Grotius agrees with Cicero that it is ones first duty to keep oneself in the condition which nature gave to him (I.ii.1; see Addendum 2). These first principles of nature are wholly in accordance with warfare. In fact, it seems, they would justify not only defensive wars, but also offensive ones: In the first principles of nature there is nothing which is opposed to war; rather, all points are in its favor. The end and aim of war being the preservation of life and limb, and the keeping or acquiring of things useful to life, war is in perfect accord with those first principles of nature (I.ii.1, emphasis added).
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But Cicero adds that these first principles are not the only principles of nature. Secondary impulses later arise in us, which ought to take precedence over the primary ones: there follows a notion of the conformity of things with reason, which is superior to the body. Now this conformity, in which moral goodness becomes the paramount object, ought to be accounted of higher import than the things to which alone instinct first directed itself (I.ii.1). These secondary impulses arise from our rational and social nature, and forbid actions that go against this nature. Grotius concludes that Right reason...and the nature of society...do not prohibit all use of force, but only that use of force which is in conflict with society, that is which attempts to take away the rights of another (I.ii.1). And since mans sociality extends beyond the borders of ones state, these natural laws ought to govern relations among states. Grotius approves of Themistiuss statement that kings who measure up to the rule of wisdom make account not only of the nation which has been committed to them, but of the whole human race, and that they are, as he himself says, not friends of the Macedonians alone, or friends of the Romans, but friends of mankind (P, 24). Grotius argues that there are such things as just wars, but they must correspond with the principles of law that he has laid out. There are therefore two kinds of just war: (1) in defense of ones rights, such as life and property, and (2) to correct abuses in others, even if they dont directly affect oneself (II.xxv.1; see also Cutler 1991, 46; Bull 1971, 171). Aggressive wars which attempt to take away the rights (including the property) of others are forbidden, since they are in conflict with society. As Grotius again quotes Cicero: if every one of us should seize upon the possessions of others for himself and carry off from each whatever he could, for his own gain, human society and the community of life would of necessity be absolutely destroyed (I.ii.1). But both defensive wars and offensive wars in defense of rights are justified, since they are in accordance with both the primary and secondary principles of nature. Grotius does not, however, say that a state is justified in using use any means necessary to allow it to win these wars: Least of all should that be admitted which some people imagine, that in war all laws are in abeyance. On the contrary war ought not to be undertaken except for the enforcement of rights; when once undertaken, it should be carried on only within the bounds of law and good faith (P, 25). Mans natural sociality does not disappear once warfare breaks out. Wars must therefore be conducted within the bounds of law, either the law of nature or the law of nations: between enemies written laws, that is, laws of particular states, are not in force, butunwritten laws are
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in force, that is, those which nature prescribes, or the agreement of nations has established (P, 26). So far, Grotiuss teaching has seemed relatively straightforwardstates have the duty to obey the law of nature and the law of nations, even during war. But this teaching is complicated by the fact that the law of nature and the law of nations often place different obligations on nations. Grotiuss resolution of this difficulty is by no means simple. The relation between the Law of Nature and the Law of Nations Since Grotius says that the law of nature is almost universally accepted among nations (I.i.12), one might expect that the law of nations would never conflict with the law of nature. But in fact, that is far from being true. Grotius even goes so far as to say that the law of nations often allows what the law of nature forbids (III.iv.15). Even more surprising is the fact that Grotius does not simply reject the law of nations as unjust when it conflicts with the law of nature. Instead, he makes certain concessions to the law of nations when these conflicts occur. Grotius addresses these cases most directly in Book III, which discusses what is permissible in war. In Book III, Grotius says that certain actions are permissible in war that would be forbidden in most other cases (Forde 1998, 64146). This permission can arise from the law of nature or the law of nations. Certain actions are permissible by nature if they are necessary for the purpose of securing a right, when the necessity is understood not in terms of physical exactitude but in a moral sense (III.i.2). Some examples of actions that are permissible by nature are killing others if this is absolutely necessary for the preservation of ones life (even if the person has actually done nothing wrong), and seizing another persons property if it places one in imminent danger (even if the owner did not intentionally threaten one). Permission that arises from the law of nations is somewhat more troubling. In these instances, the law of nations permits what the law of nature forbids. When this occurs, Grotius argues, a state should not be punished for following the law of nations. But this, in fact, allows some horrible practices at times, including the rights to keep land that one takes even in an unjust war, to lay waste to the enemies homes and countryside, and the right to slaughter women, children, and even supplicants. The reason why Grotius takes this position appears to be because he thinks law fails of its outward effect unless it has a sanction behind it (P, 19; I.i.9). In these cases, it is necessary to make concessions to the law of nations; while the law of nations allows certain injustices, is better than no sanctioned law at all (P, 15; Forde 1998, 643, 647).
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Interpretation
So what does this imply for the law of nature? Has Grotius simply sided with the law of nations over and against the law of nature? No the law of nature is still critical for Grotiuss teaching on international relations. As we have seen, the obligation to obey the law of nations still arises from the law of nature (P, 15; I.i.10). Recall Grotiuss reasons for rejecting the teaching of Carneades. If Grotius completely severed the link to the law of nature, there would be no obligation to obey even the law of nations. But Grotius argues that the law of nature obliges us to obey even those laws that have arisen from human will, such as the law of nations. Second, although certain vicious actions are permitted by the law of nations, they are still morally objectionable. In other words, the law of nature is still morally binding, even though a given state cannot, and should not, be punished for following the law of nations when it allows something that the law of nature forbids: something is said to be permissible, not because it can be done without violence to right conduct and rules of duty, but because among men it is not liable to punishment (III.iv.2). The nation, it seems, still has a moral duty to obey the law of nature, even though it should not be punished for following the law of nations (P, 35; Forde 1998, 644). One can thus conclude that, while Grotius makes certain exceptions in the enforcement of laws, the law of nature is still central to his conception of duties in the international realm. The law of nature is what keeps all duty in the international realm (including the duty to follow the law of nations) from unraveling (Forde 1998, 64445). But the very fact that the law of nations often conflicts with the law of nature points to a serious theoretical problem in Grotiuss presentation of human sociality. Grotius has tried to prove that we are naturally social by arguing that we have a spontaneous desire for the company of others, and a spontaneous concern for others. And he derives the natural law from this sociality. For our duties to extend to the entire international realm, therefore, we must have a spontaneous concern for all of humanity. But the fact that the law of nations often conflicts with the law of nature must make one question whether this is true. Could it be that our sociality does not, in fact, incline us toward an equal concern for all of humanity? If this is the case, then it is hard to see how we could ground a natural law that extends equally across all of humanity. This is the precise issue that drives Socrates discussion of international politics. Socrates appears to limit our duties in the international realm because he questions whether our sociality can expand to include all of humanity. If we are to understand the full extent of the Socratic challenge to Grotius, we must examine Socrates teaching on international relations.
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III. J USTICE , H UMAN S OCIALITY, AND THE I MPLICATIONS OF D OMESTIC C IVIC V IRTUE IN P LATO S R EPUBLIC Taken as a whole, one finds several areas of disagreement with Grotiuss doctrines of international duties and natural law in Platos dialogues. For example, several of the Platonic dialogues present a criticism of the justice of natural law itself in the name of natural right: law, including natural law, is too blunt an instrument to be applicable in every circumstance and, as such, cannot consistently form the basis of just human action (see for example, Platos Statesman, 271d272b, 294a296a; Laws, 720ce, 861b; Strauss 1953, 14656). The present discussion, however, will focus more directly on the arguments in the Republic that draw into question the fundamental starting points for Grotiuss doctrines on natural law, particularly Grotiuss understanding of human sociality and the goals of justice. In the Republic, Socrates and his two young interlocutors, Adeimantus and Glaucon, attempt to create the perfectly just city in speech. And yet, surprisingly, when Socrates defines the justice of their city, he explicitly limits the citys justice to relations inside the citys borders, effectively ruling out international duties. As we will see, the reasons for this limitation of justice arise from the natural limits of human sociality and the necessary requirements for justice inside the city. Given the centrality of these notions for Grotiuss doctrines of natural law, Platos Republic presents a fundamental challenge to Grotiuss arguments. The definition of justice in the Republic In order to understand the political teaching in the Republic, we must begin with Socrates definition of justice. At 433a, Socrates defines justice as the proper arrangement of the parts of a whole. This definition applies both to the city and the individual. In the city, this means that each one must practice one of the functions of the city, that one for which his nature made him most naturally fit (433a). Socrates and his interlocutors agree that the citizens will have three different natures, making them fit for three corresponding functions within the city: the golden natures will be the rulers; the silver ones, the soldiers; and the bronze, the artisans. The city will be just, therefore, if these three classes perform their functions well. As for the individual, justice requires that the parts of the soul perform their functions well: reason must rule; thumos or spiritedness must help reason do so; and desire must obey the rule of reason (441e442a). In no case, however, does this doctrine suggest that there is a natural whole larger than the city. Political justice is entirely concerned with the proper functioning of the citys internal parts.
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This definition of justice has serious and far-reaching implications for international relations. By limiting justice to the city and the individual, Socrates implies that a state has no duties or obligations to be just to other states. These implications will be explained in the course of the discussion below. Yet it is appropriate to begin by asking why Socrates puts forward the limited definition that he does. Why, in other words, does he implicitly deny what Grotius strongly assertsthat one can consider a whole to encompass every state in the international sphere, or even all of humanity? Socrates gives essentially two arguments showing that beyond the city there is no natural whole on which obligations can be based. In the sections that follow, I will show how these arguments develop in the pages of the Republic leading up to Socrates official definition of justice. Socrates reasons for limiting justice to the city Let us first try to get our bearings. It will be useful if we summarize the political exigencies, foreign and domestic, that in Platos view must be addressed by any sound analysis of political justice. One such exigency is the citys foreign relations, which prominently (and perhaps surprisingly) affect the city almost from the citys inception. These foreign relations are introduced in Book II, after Glaucon rebels against the first city they create (372d ff.). Socrates and Adeimantus have just finished creating a city which is directed towards the satisfaction of only our basic bodily needs. The men of this city join together because they cannot provide for these needs alone, and they trade for those products they do not have. Glaucon is disgusted with this city, however, dismissing it as a city of sows (372d). What he wants is a city which pursues more than merely the necessary; he wants a luxurious city (372e). Such a city introduces infinite desires, and will therefore need to take money and land from other cities. As Socrates asks, Then must we cut off a piece of our neighbors land, if we are going to have sufficient for pasture and tillage, and they in turn from ours, if they let themselves go to the unlimited acquisition of money, overstepping the boundary of the necessary? (373d). Since the desires are unlimited, the city will not just cut off one piece of land from its neighbor and expand no more. If the city has unlimited desires, then its expansion is potentially infinite. This, Socrates says, is the origin of war (373e). Because the city will engage in warfare, it will need spirited, or thumotic, soldiers both to attack other cities and to defend their city from attackers. Thus, not only do foreign relations affect this city almost from the start, but these foreign relations are characterized above all by warfare. Now that we have established the background for the discussion, we are ready to
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examine Socrates two arguments about why justice cannot be extended to the international realm. a. The natural limits of love of ones own To state this argument simply, Socrates suggests that there is a natural limit to mans sociality which at most inclines one to devote oneself to a city, but not beyond. Mans sociality is limited because (when considered from the politically decisive standpoint) it stems from that part of human psychology which Socrates calls thumos, and thumos is naturally limited. What exactly is thumos? The term is hard to define, but roughly speaking, it is the source of anger, most forms of courage, and the love of ones own. Thumos makes its first appearance in the Republic with the soldiers of the city. Although thumos is presented as an element in every human soul (435e436b), the soldiers must be especially thumotic because they will need to defend their own, their city, and fight everyone else. But once soldiers are introduced, they become the source of a great deal of trouble for the city. For Socrates and Glaucon are now faced with the problem of making the soldiers just. Socrates poses the problem: with such [thumotic] natures, how will [the soldiers] not be savage to one another and the rest of the citizens? [T]hey must be gentle to their own and cruel to their enemies (375b). Socrates points out, however, that thumos actually helps to keep the soldiers from turning on their own: You know, of course, that by nature the disposition of noble dogs is to be as gentle as can be with their familiars and people they know and the opposite with those they dont know (375e). Thus, we can see the source of a natural limit to justice: as fundamentally thumotic, the soldiers, and in fact all men, are naturally gentle only to their own, the people they know. Grotius himself points to mans thumotic nature when he says that man desires society only with those who are of his own kind (P, 6). But in this discussion, Socrates highlights both the political opportunities and the political limitations arising from thumos. Of course, Socrates does not suggest that thumos alone is sufficient for making the soldiers in his city just to their fellow citizens. It must be guided and reinforced or else it will give rise to conflict within the city. For this reason, much of their subsequent discussion is spent finding additional ways to keep the soldiers in check; otherwise they will look to their own advantage, even at the expense of the rest of the city. It is for this reason that Socrates introduces the rigorous education of the guardians to virtue (376c), the communism of property (416c-d), and the main reason for avoiding excessive wealth and poverty in the city (421d422a; see also Platos Laws, 1988, 744d). But thumos is the natural foundation which all these institutional
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structures are intended to guide and support. Socrates lays particular emphasis on the citys need to be neither too big nor too small if the citizens are to love each other as their own rather than divide into hostile factions. At 423a, Socrates has just finished explaining how every other city is actually more than one city, since they are all divided into many different factions. Their own city, on the other hand, will be the biggest, since it will not be divided into many cities. Socrates then says that they must not make their city too large, or it will divide into factions. He therefore concludes that this would be the fairest boundary for our rulers; so big must they make the city, and, bounding off enough land so that it will be of that size, they must let the rest go (423b). After Glaucon asks what particular boundary he has in mind, Socrates says I suppose this one...up to that point in its growth at which its willing to be one, let it grow, and not beyond (423b). There seems to be a natural limit to the size of a city; it should expand until it reaches that limit, but no further, if it is to avoid faction and civil war. At this point in the dialogue, we have therefore come full circle from Glaucons initial introduction of infinite passions into the city. If the city is to be just internally, it must not pursue the unlimited acquisition of wealth and land. The reason why there is a natural limit to the size of the city is that there is a natural limit to the love of ones own. In this discussion, Socrates suggests that man is a social animal, but apparently denies that it is possible for our sociality to extend to people we do not, and never will, know. Justice requires mutual friendship and trust, something which is only possible within ones own city, where people know each other (Strauss 1953, 13031). Above all else, the citizens must consider each other to be their own or justice completely collapses. It is primarily for this reason that the Athenian Stranger says in the Laws: There is no greater good for a city than that its inhabitants be well known to each other (738e). This is why the ancient polis, a small, restricted community, was considered to be the only setting in which virtue could truly flourish. Platos Socrates would therefore probably agree with Aristotles statement that the size of a city should be limited to two degrees of separationthat is, ones friends and ones friends friends (Aristotle 1984, 1326b220; Strauss 1953, 13031). We have thus seen Socrates sociological reason for denying that justice can extend beyond the borders of the city: such a conception goes against mans nature. Men are not naturally inclined to be just to people they do not know. If men cannot conceive of even their own city as a whole when it grows too large, there is no possibility that they could conceive of many cities, or all of humanity, as a whole. As we often hear, there
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might be only six degrees of separation dividing everyone in the world. But Socrates suggests that civic virtue begins to collapse after the second degree. From this argument, one can see the core of a Platonic criticism of Grotiuss attempt to apply natural law to the international realm. As we have seen, Grotius argues that natural law arises from our natural desire for social companionship and a natural concern for others. And yet, he also admits that man has a desire only for society with those of his own kind. Platos Socrates would appear to agree with this statement, but he shows its true political implications: it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to expand this love of ones own to include all of humanity. But if this is the case, then our spontaneous concern for all of humanity will be very weak indeed. If this Socratic understanding of the limits to human sociality is correct, then Grotiuss foundation for our duties in the international realm collapses. b. The recurring threat of international conflict The Republic also presents a second reason why the conception of the whole cannot be extended to the international realm. It is impossible because the international realm is characterized by a continual threat of war. If all cities are potential enemies of each other, there can be no coherent conception of a whole that extends beyond the individual cities. And the most striking feature of this argument is that even healthy cities will engage in aggressive warfare. Although Socrates has removed (or attempted to remove) unlimited acquisition in his city, he does not remove acquisition altogether. He says explicitly that the city must expand to reach its natural size: up to that point in its growth at which its willing to be one [i.e., not divided by faction], let it grow, and not beyond (423b). Depending on the number of cities and the extent of unoccupied land, even natural or internally just cities might need to cut off a piece of their neighbors land (373d). Even if we suppose (for now) that no cities expanded more than is healthy or natural, they would nevertheless wage war on each other when land is limited. But the constant threat of war becomes much worse when we recognize that most cities will not be healthythey will not limit their desire for wealth and land. Socrates has already suggested that other cities will wage war because they let themselves go to the unlimited acquisition of money, overstepping the bounds of the necessary (373d). Even though Socrates has limited (but not eliminated) the aggressiveness of his own city by limiting its desire for the acquisition of wealth and land, it is unlikely that other cities will do the same.
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In this second argument, we can see several reasons why justice does not apply to the international realm. First, it is impossible to consider the international realm to be a whole. For it to be a whole, there would need to be some kind of coherent, ordered, international society; it would be ridiculous to consider a field of actual and potential enemies to be such a whole. Second, the international realm simply does not match the official definition of justice that Socrates gives. In each case where he has applied the definition, in the city and the individual, there has been a wise ruling part that governs the other parts. The international realm simply has no ruling body to ensure that the other parts act according to the rule of wisdom. Finally, it is unlikely that other cities will be internally just, or ruled by wise rulers; most of them will therefore pursue infinite acquisition and war. Since there is very little chance that such cities would perform their functions as a part of a larger whole, justice in the international sphere breaks down. Justice is impossible to maintain if the other states are unwilling to be ruled by wisdom, which they almost certainly will be. This argument gives us additional grounds for questioning Grotiuss assumption that our sociality causes us to have a spontaneous concern for all of humanity. Grotius has argued that man has a desire for for social lifenot of any and every sort, but peaceful, and organized (P, 6). But Socrates second argument makes us doubt whether the international realm can seriously be considered such a community. If this is the case, then the international realm simply cannot satisfy our social desires. We are much more likely to associate with our individual states, which are much more peaceful and organized. Since Grotius attempts to ground duty on our social inclinations, and these inclinations are better satisfied domestically, Grotiuss own premises may make it impossible for our duties to expand to the international realm. Socrates specific foreign policy recommendations In case there was any question of the implications of Socrates arguments, in Book IV Socrates describes the foreign policy of his city: the city will not hesitate to use ruthless war tactics against its enemies. As we will see, Socrates later appears to moderate the citys warfare in important ways (469b ff.), but the ruthless tactics described in Book IV are necessitated by the internal requirements of the city. In order to make their city just, Socrates and his interlocutors have needed to limit its size and wealth. But we now encounter a serious
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problem: because their city must be relatively small and poor, it will necessarily be weak. Adeimantus asks: how will our city be able to make war when it possesses no money, especially if its compelled to make war against a wealthy one? (422a). The city now finds itself in a tough predicament: the conditions necessary for justice inside the city have made it vulnerable to external attack by large, wealthy powers. Socrates answers Adeimantuss challenge by arguing that the soldiers military toughness will be a sufficient defense against any attacker, especially attackers made soft and fat by their wealth. In fact, Socrates asserts they will be able to fight with several such cities at once. Although this initial response satisfies Adeimantus, it is terribly inadequate. Wealth does not necessarily make a city soft; it often makes the city powerful and imperialistic. Moreover, only a rich city can afford the expensive technologies, such as a large navy, that are essential for successful warfare. As a citizen of Athens, Adeimantus should have known that much (for a discussion of wealth as the source of Athenian power, see Thucydides 1998, II.xiii). Tough, virtuous soldiers will obviously aid in the defense of the city, but it is not clear that they will be sufficient (see also Platos Laws 1988, 627ad, 638ab). Since Socrates argument that their city can defeat large, wealthy cities in open military battles is so obviously defective, he then turns to outline more, let us say, innovative strategies for its defense. Socrates suggests to Adeimantus that they can combine forces with one of their opponents to attack a third, richer, city (422d). The soldiers will say to their attackers: We make use of neither gold nor silver, nor is it lawful for us, while it is for you. So join us in making war and keep the others property (422d). Socrates says that no city will choose to make war against solid, lean dogs rather than with the dogs against fat and tender sheep (422d). We now see why Socrates has introduced the idea of the citys defending itself against more than one aggressor: when the city has two attackers, the city can join forces with one attacker against the other. But will the city always have such an option? One must wonder what it would do if there were only one potential enemy. In these instances it might be necessary to join with the enemy to attack an innocent city. Socrates certainly does not rule out this option. Socrates appears to have no reservations in encouraging another city to undertake what most people would consider an unjust foreign policy, namely attacking another city in order to plunder it. Granted, Socrates never says that their own city will keep any plunder, but this is certainly not a strategy that Grotius would recommend. Indeed, Grotius argues that it is not lawful to urge or press anyone to do what is unlawful for him to do (III.i.21),
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and he clearly says that it is unlawful to attack another city in order to plunder it (II.xxii.3; P, 8). And these arent the only underhanded war tactics that Socrates recommends. In response to Socrates first innovative suggestion, Adeimantus says: But if the money of the others is gathered into one city, look out that it doesnt endanger the city that isnt rich (422de). Socrates then describes a second strategy. In order to keep the city they have helped from becoming too powerful, they will team up with the poor in that city to defeat the citys rich, offering to the [poor] the money and the powers or the very persons of the others (423a). In other words, in order to defend themselves, they will cause a civil war in the opposing city by encouraging the poor to steal from the rich, and even to enslave them. Moreover, in this second defensive strategy, Socrates suggests that they create a revolution in the other city without even considering whether or not the city is still their enemy. After all, they were just allies. But the simple fact that the city was threatening at one point, combined with the fact that it is even more powerful now, is enough for Socrates to suggest inciting a civil war. We can see very clearly the fundamental disagreement between Socrates and Grotiuss political recommendations. While Grotius thinks that a state is justified in engaging in a pre-emptive attack against another city, he says that the danger must be immediate, and, as it were, at the point of happening (II.i.5). Indeed, he later re-iterates this point: quite inadmissible is the doctrine proposed by some that by the law of nations it is right to take up arms in order to weaken a rising power, which, if it grew too strong, might do us harm (II.i.17). But this seems to be precisely what Socrates is recommending. As Thomas Pangle concludes in his analysis of this passage, in order to maintain its own security, the best city (and therefore, in principle, any city, or the city as such) may have to actively undermine the security and independence of its neighbors, and not only as a just punishment for the neighbors acts or plans of injustice (Pangle 1998, 383). This foreign policy is a necessary result of arguments a and b above. Because of our limited sociality and the necessity of cultivating virtue, the just city must be small and relatively poor. And since other cities will not be internally just, but will instead give themselves to the unlimited acquisition of wealth and land, they will become wealthy, powerful, and imperialistic. The just city is thus at a disadvantage when it comes to war and will need to use ruthless defensive strategies. The conditions necessary for justice inside the city have forced the city to engage in ruthless defensive strategies. In short, virtue at home requires ruthlessness abroad.
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One must underscore that the most fundamental reason for this paradoxical situation is that, for the classical philosophers, including Plato, the goals of virtue are placed so high. As Steven Forde notes, Grotiuss natural law bars only clear, positive injustices, acts that are unambiguously destructive to society (1998, 640). This lowering of the goals of justice and the other virtues allows Grotius to extend moral obligations farther than the Ancients do. But, insofar as the goals of virtue aim higher than this minimalist definition, the political constraints that Socrates highlights in the Republic particularly the need for a small, comparatively poor citynecessarily apply and explain why Socrates limits justice to the boundaries of the city (Strauss 1953, 135-36). But the discussion in Book IV is not Socrates last word on the foreign policy of his and his interlocutors city. At the end of Book V, he seems to give a very different account of how the city should engage in warfare (for a similar recognition of the differences between the discussions of war in Books IV and V, see Kochin 1999, 41621, and Pangle and Ahrensdorf 1999, 39). It might seem that in this section Socrates is now advocating justice among states in the international realm, or more precisely among Greek cities. And this view is partially rightSocrates does argue for gentler war policies than previously existed. This passage is especially striking, since it seems so fundamentally different from the previous discussion of justice in international politics found in the Republic. Any thorough treatment of the Socratic teachings on foreign policy will therefore need to address this section. The discussion of war in Book V In this discussion, Socrates attempts to change the way Greek cities conduct warfare. His reforms stop the common practices of enslaving the citizens of the other Greek cities (469b), plundering corpses (469e), ravaging the countryside, and burning houses (471a). He even goes so far as to assert that they will say that other Greeks are by nature friends (470c). How do we account for this apparent change in foreign policy? Has Socrates simply forgotten his discussion at 422a423b? Or has he changed his mind? While there does seem to be an attempt to soften the sharp distinction that Socrates previously drew between his city and others, I do not think this section constitutes a retraction of his earlier discussion. While the previous discussion focused on how to defend the city against actual or potential threats, this one focuses on what punishments the city should administer after it has defeated its enemy. Socrates therefore never retracts his previous war strategies: when the city is threatened, it ought to defend itself in any way it can. But Socrates does
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try to make the city less retributive after the war is over. There is, however, a significant difference between this discussion and the ones in Books IIIV. In this discussion, Socrates explicitly attempts to expand the love of ones own to include the other Greek cities, something which seemed impossible before. This expansion is accomplished by drawing a sharp contrast between Greeks and the barbarians: I assert that the Greek stock is with respect to itself its own and akin, with respect to the barbaric, foreign and alien (470c). And this distinction is fairly convincing: the Greek cities did share essentially the same language, religion, and culture; they do seem very similar when one compares them to the barbarians. A Greek would probably feel a greater kinship with a Greek citizen of another city than with a Persian (especially when the Persians were attacking all of Greece). Thus, as far as it goes, this does seem to be a change from the portrayal of thumos that we saw in Books IIIV. To a certain degree, love of ones own might be able to include all of Greece. But one is left wondering how deep this thumotic attachment would run. The strength of the love of ones own would diminish as one moved out from immediate family and personal friends, to the city, to Greece as a whole. Especially given the earlier discussion, it is questionable whether Socrates would believe that the thumotic attachments would be strong enough to support justice (except when faced with an immediate threat of invasion). It is striking, for example, that Socrates actually never says he believes that the other Greeks are by nature friends; he merely says well say that they are by nature friends (470c). In this section, Socrates has done all he can to expand the love of ones own to incorporate all of Greece, but he might remain skeptical about how successful this attempt will be. And, of course, he never even attempts to expand the love of ones own to incorporate all of humanity. Nevertheless, we must ask why Socrates tries to implement these reformed war strategies. If we keep the discussion of Book IV in mind, we have reasons to doubt that he really thought that states have duties towards each other. So why does he try to make the city more gentle towards the other Greeks, if it is not for the sake of justice? He does clearly point one reason for this: there is a constant threat of invasion by the barbarians. As Socrates says, they should not enslave other Greeks because they are well aware of the danger of enslavement at the hands of the barbarians (469c). Thus, while the previous discussion took for granted that the citys enemies would be Greek, this discussion considers the very real threat of an invasion by the barbarians. Indeed, in the past, Greece repelled the Persian invasion only by uniting to fight
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against it. If the Greeks consider themselves enemies, they will not be able to unite against another invasion. When possible, then, the city should maintain good relations with other cities. If they are to be able to unite, they must first be able to trust each other. By softening the retribution after war, Socrates hopes to make the Greek cities consider themselves by nature friends and make victors in war have the frame of mind of men who will be reconciled and not always be at war (470e). If Socrates city wants to escape being conquered by the barbarians, it must be able to unite with other Greek cities. It must therefore maintain gentler, friendlier relations with them than Greek cities typically do (see Addendum 3). But this is not the only reason why Socrates attempts to make retribution gentler, since he also recommends softening retribution against the barbarians themselves. For example, Socrates argues that Greeks
as Greekswont ravage Greece or burn houses, nor will they agree that in any city all are their enemiesmen, women, and children but there are always a few enemies who are to blame for their differences. And, on all these grounds, they wont be willing to ravage lands or tear down houses, since many are friendly. (471b, emphasis added)
Glaucon responds to this statement by attempting to re-direct their savagery towards the barbarians: I for one...agree that our citizens must behave this way towards their opponents; and towards the barbarians they must behave as the Greeks do now toward one another (471b). But Socrates does not allow this; he simply ignores Glaucons interjection. Instead, he makes a general, categorical statement, forbidding any such destruction: So, shall we also give this law to the guardiansneither waste countryside nor burn houses? (471bc). Of course, Socrates does not forbid retribution altogether. Rather than burning the countryside, he recommends taking away the defeated enemys crops for a year (470b). There must, after all, be some punishments to deter potentially aggressive states. Nevertheless, by reducing retribution after war, Socrates seems to want to make people more gentle, or less vicious overall. But what are the reasons for this? Apparently, Socrates does not think that such viciousness is healthy for the citizens of the city: simply put, the best life does not involve infinite acquisition, warfare, retribution, or cruelty. Thus, a clear-sighted, courageous ruler will not hesitate to use ruthless methods when forced by necessity to defend the city, but this fact does not mean that he should encourage these qualities in his citizens. But these principles are not introduced for the sake of justice, or duty to another city, but for the sake of his own citizens souls. We must recall Socrates statement that he wants the victors to have the frame
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of mind of men who will be reconciled and not always be at war (470e, emphasis added). He focuses not on justice, or the evils of war itself, but on the disposition of the victors. It is because he sees cruel, vindictive men as unhealthy that Socrates limits retribution in war; it is not because the victors are obligated not to punish the defeated city (see Addendum 4). In the discussion of war in Book V, Socrates does try to make the citizens of the city in speech (and perhaps the readers of the Republic) more gentle than the Greeks typically were. But I have tried to show that Socrates reasons for presenting this teaching are not grounded in the belief that cities have duties towards one another. One must conclude that Socrates consistently maintains the official definition of justice that he presented in Book IV. Justice is the proper arrangement of the parts of a whole, and the whole cannot be reliably extended beyond the city. C O N C LU S I O N This article attempts to show how the Platonic understanding of human sociality undermines Grotiuss attempt to extend the dictates of natural law to the international realm. Platos Socrates has shown the political limitations that result from the natural inclination to distinguish between ones ownkin, friends, and countryand the rest of humanity. Grotiuss attempt to ground our international duties on our human sociality fails for precisely this reason. In addition, Platos Socrates would likely view Grotiuss attempt to ground international relations on natural law as simply too idealistic. In his treatment of foreign relations, Socrates repeatedly draws attention to the fact that states have no assurance that other states will not attack them; there exists a perpetualand very realthreat of war. When such conditions prevail, states will find it necessary to use whatever means are available to maintain their security. Grotius does make some major concessions to this idea in his doctrine of permissionsstates cannot be punished for violating the law of nature when such actions are permitted by the law of nations. But he nevertheless condemns such actions as immoral, despite the fact that such strategies are expedient, and often absolutely necessary. Socrates, on the other hand, suggests that a state cannot be blamed for doing what is necessary for its survival. But he does try to limit the ruthless actions of states to times when they are absolutely necessary. He therefore eliminates offensive wars for the sake of infinite wealth and land, makes the citys retribution more gentle after war, and has the citizens of the city in speech attempt to educate other Greeks
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to adopt the same policies. Nor would he necessarily rule out intervening to help another state, provided that there was not a significant risk. But as the discussion in Book IV makes very clear, when a states vital security interests are at stake, it need not be bound by any international duties. Needless to say, this Platonic conception of international relations shares a great deal with the modern realist school in international relations thought, and would certainly come as a disappointment to many natural law theorists. But given the renewed application of Grotiuss arguments to international relations and legal theory, the Platonic challenge to Grotian conceptions of natural law is increasingly important. If scholars are going to incorporate Grotiuss thought into their theories of natural law, they need to address this challenge directly. It is also possible that, after examination, other traditions of natural law could provide a more solid foundation for natural law than Grotiuss. As John Coverdale notes, there are multiple traditions of natural law, some of which are not based on the same theoretical foundations as Grotian natural law (2004, 22223). Despite the apparent difficulties with the Grotian strain of natural law, it would therefore be hasty to write off natural law altogether at this point. For example, the Catholic tradition of natural law finds its support ultimately through divine law, rather than human sociality per se. Alternatively, the so-called new natural law school grounds duties not on human sociality but on practical reason alone (Finnis 1980; George 1992; Discher 1999). Each of these distinct natural law traditions would need to be examined on its own terms. And, while such an examination is beyond the scope of this essay, such a similar critical analysis of these other natural law traditions would be necessary if natural law is to re-establish its place in contemporary legal scholarship.
ADDENDUM 1 Cicero presents a doctrine of natural law based on human sociality. But even Cicero highlights this problem, the limits of sociality, in De Finibus, the very work where he elaborates the natural law doctrine: a closer [fellowship] exists among those of the same nation than among all of humanity, and one more intimate still among those of the same city. For this reason our ancestors wanted the law of nations and civil law to be different (1994, III.69). For an extended discussion of Ciceros distancing himself from the Stoic natural law teaching, see Strauss 1953, 15356.
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ADDENDUM 2 It is not clear how Grotius can move from the fact that one is impelled to preserve oneself to a duty to preserve oneself. Just because one has a natural inclination towards certain actions does not by any means imply that he has a duty to carry out those actions. This is a theoretical difficulty, since Grotius attempts to make the same leap between our natural inclination towards society and a duty to look to the good of society. For additional discussions of this theoretical difficulty, see Finnis 1980, 46, and Forde 1998, 640. ADDENDUM 3 If Socrates goal is to enable the Greeks to unite against a barbarian invasion, one must ask the question: what if the other Greek cities are unable or unwilling to unite? Socrates would likely say that it might be necessary to make them unite, regardless of whether they agree. For reasons of defense against the barbarians, a state might therefore need to unite the Greek cities by force. Socrates appears to point to this necessity in the Gorgias (1998, 515a519d). In that discussion, Socrates criticizes Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades, and Themistocles (515c) for making the Athenian people more money-loving, vicious, and imperialistic by leading Athens in war. But at the end of this lengthy criticism, Socrates repeats his list and omits Miltiades (519a). The reason for this seems to be that Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, led Athens in a defensive war against the Persians. He indeed might have made the Athenians more vicious, but there was no alternative; they needed to repel the Persian attack. But what does one make of Socrates criticism of Miltiades son, Cimon, who created the Delian League in order to unite Greece against the Persians? Athens led the Delian League, and collected tribute from other Greek cities so that they could keep their defenses strong enough to repel another Persian attack. At times, Cimon even kept the cities in league by force. Over time, the Delian League gradually became the Athenian empire. Socrates seems to disapprove of this, but it is not clear that there was any alternative. If the cities wanted to withdraw in spite of the continued Persian threat, defense required Athens to use force to keep the Greek cities allied. There is no clear line between defense and offense: when others around you are trying to establish an empire, you might need to establish an empire yourself out of self-defense (for similar arguments, see Aristotle 1984, 1333b1522, and the arguments of the Athenian envoys at Sparta in Thucydides 1998, I.75).
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ADDENDUM 4 Michael Kochin similarly argues that the discussion of war in Book V is intended to moderate the citizens of the city, but he maintains that it also makes war compatible with justice (1999, 421), in part because this gentler warfare will also habituate other Greek cities to refrain from enslaving Greeks and using other brutal tactics during war (ibid., 419). While I agree that this new war doctrine is intended to moderate the citizens, I believe that Kochins account dismisses the teaching in Book IV too quickly. For one thing, it assumes that other Greek cities will be educable, even though the citizens in other cities lack the rigorous education and training that the guardians and auxiliaries have received. Moreover, this new teaching never actually retracts the ruthless and underhanded tactics employed by the city in Book IV when its survival is threatened.
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An Update of Strausss Notes and References...in Natural Right and History
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An Update of Strausss Notes and References in the First Part of the Chapter The Crisis of Modern Natural Right in Natural Right and History
FABRICE PARADIS BLAND WITHERSPOON INSTITUTE, PRINCETON fparadisbeland@gmail.com
Every serious reader of Natural Right and History has probably already been confronted with the difficult task of consulting the passages of Rousseaus works referred to by Leo Strauss in the first part of the chapter The Crisis of Modern Natural Right. This endeavor is made difficult by two different things. First, given the unavailability in 1953 of the Pliade edition of Rousseaus complete works in five volumes, Strauss had to refer to multiple different editions. Those editions can prove hard to gather today. Hence, the reader of Natural Right and History will find provided here a transposition of all of Strausss references to Rousseaus works in the aforementioned Pliade edition. Second, in certain cases, the information provided to us by Strauss about the editions he used is inaccurate. In one particular case, that of mile, he even makes a mistake. Indeed, contrary to what he tells us, the edition of mile that he used is not the one from Garnier, but the one from Flammarion in two volumes. For some of Rousseaus works Lettres M. de Beaumont, Discours sur l'ingalit, Observations (Rponse au Roi de Pologne), Dernire Rponse ( M. Bordes), Lettre Grimm, Lettre Lecat, Lettre labb Raynal, Essai sur lorigine des langues, Lettres crites de la montagne, Prface au Narcisse Strauss relies on books (the first volume of Hachettes edition of Rousseaus complete works, the Garnier edition of Rousseaus Contrat Social, a collection called Discours et Rveries, and the Flammarion edition of the Rveries du Promeneur solitaire) that each contain more than one of Rousseaus works. Furthermore, and without mentioning it, Strauss quotes on nine occasions G. R. Havens commentary on Rousseaus First Discourse, as well as a note written by the editor of Rousseaus Dernire Rponse ( M. Bordes) in the first volume of Rousseaus complete works edited by Hachette. Those mistakes or imprecisions
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represent an unnecessary obstacle to the comprehension of Strausss text, an obstacle that the present work is intended to iron out. In what follows, the roman numeral in parentheses after each title of Rousseaus refers to one of the five volumes of the Pliade edition of Rousseaus complete works. (1) a) DAlembert = Lettre dAlembert sur les spectacles, ed. Lon Fontaine (Paris, Garnier). Lettre dAlembert, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome V, 1995, pp. 1-125. b) Beaumont = Lettre M. de Beaumont, apud Contrat Social (Paris, Garnier ed.). Lettre Beaumont, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome IV, 1969, pp. 925-1007. c) Confessions = Les Confessions, ed. Ad. Van Bever (Paris, Crs, 1927). _ Les Confessions, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome I, 1964, pp. 1656. d) C.S. = Du Contrat Social ou Principes du droit politique, ed. Halbwachs (Paris, Aubier). Du Contrat social ou Principes du Droit Politique, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 347-470. e) First Discourse = Discours sur les sciences et les arts, ed. G. R. Havens (New York/London, Oxford University Press, 1946). Premier Discours, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 1-30 Introduction and commentary by G.R. Havens, editor of Discours sur les sciences et les arts (New York/London, Oxford University Press, 1946). Henceforth quoted as Havens Commentary. f) Second Discourse = Discours sur lorigine de lingalit, in Discours et Rveries (Paris, Flammarion ed.). Discours sur lorigine de lingalit parmi les hommes, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 109-223. g) mile = mile ou de lducation (Two volumes, Flammarion ed., 1937). mile de lducation, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome IV, 1969, pp. 239-868. h) Hachette = Rousseau, Oeuvres compltes, Vol. 1, ed. Lahure (Paris, Hachette ed.) Observations. Rponse au Roi de Pologne, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 35-57. Henceforth quoted as Observations (Answer to the King of Poland).
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Dernire Rponse. M. Bordes, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 71-96. Henceforth quoted as Last Answer (To Mr. Bordes). Lettre Grimm, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 59-70. Henceforth quoted as Letter to Grimm. Lettre Lecat, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 97-102. Henceforth quoted as Letter to Lecat. Lettre labb Raynal, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 31-33. Henceforth quoted as Letter to the Abb Raynal. Essai sur lorigine des langues, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome V, 1995, pp. 371-429. Henceforth quoted as Essay on the Origin of Languages. i) Julie = Julie ou la Nouvelle Hlose (Garnier ed.). Julie ou la Nouvelle-Hlose, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome II, 1964, pp. 1-745. j) Montagne = Lettres crites de la montagne, apud Rveries du Promeneur solitaire (Paris, Garnier ed.). Lettres crites de la montagne, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome III, 1969, pp. 683-897. k) Narcisse = Prface de Narcisse, apud Discours et Rveries (Paris, Flammarion ed.). Prface au Narcisse, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome II, 1964, pp. 957-974. l) Rveries = Les Rveries du promeneur solitaire, ed. Marcel Raymond (Lille/Genve, Giard/Droz, 1948). Rveries du Promeneur Solitaire, Paris, Pliade, uvres Compltes, Tome I, 1964, pp. 993-1099. (2) First Discourse (III), pp. 19-20 Narcisse (II), pp. 967-969, 971 n.; Second Discourse (III), pp. 112-113, 113-114, 118-120; DAlembert (V), pp. 61-62, 93-94, 121-122; Julie (II), pp. 154-156; C.S. (III), IV, 4, 8; Montagne (III), pp. 880-882. No modern thinker has understood better than Rousseau the philosophic conception of the polis : the polis is that complete association which corresponds to the natural range of mans power of knowing and of loving. See especially Second Discourse (III), pp. 111-113 et C.S. (III), II, 10. (3) First Discourse (III), pp. 7 n., 11-12 n., 22. On me reproche davoir affect de prendre chez les anciens mes exemples de vertu. Il y a bien de lapparence que jen aurais trouv encore davantage, si javais pu remonter plus haut in Observations (Answer to the King of Poland) (III), p. 42.
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(4) The classic formulation of this interpretation of Rousseau is to be found in Kants Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbrgerlicher Absicht, Siebenter Satz (The Philosophy of Kant, ed. by Carl J. Friedrich [Modern Library ed.], pp. 123-127). (5) C.S. (III), I, 1; II, 7, 11; III, 15; mile (IV), 248-252, 310-312, 316; Second Discourse (III), pp. 111-112, 189-190, 192, 207-208. (6) First Discourse (III), pp. 5, 9-10, 12. Last Answer (To Mr. Bordes) (III), pp. 82-83: Morality is infinitely more sublime than the marvels of the understanding. (7) First Discourse (III), pp. 14, 22; mile (IV), pp. 605-606; Julie (II), pp. 588 ff., 698-699; Montagne (III), pp. 758-759. (8) First Discourse (III), pp. 13-14; Second Discourse (III), p. 192; Julie (II), pp. 391-392; Observations (Answer to the King of Poland) (III), pp. 54-57: Original equality is the source of all virtue. Last Answer (To Mr. Bordes) (III), pp. 87-88: Cato has given the human race the spectacle and the model of the purest virtue which has ever existed. (9) Narcisse (II), pp. 968-969, 970-971, 971 n.; mile (IV), pp. 523-524; C.S. (III), I, 8; Confessions (I), p. 181. (10) Observations (Answer to the King of Poland) (III), pp. 49-50, 54-57; Second Discourse (III), pp. 112-113, 185-187; Montagne (III), pp. 837-838. Compare the quotation from Platos Apology of Socrates (21b ff.) in the First Discourse (III) (p. 13) with the Platonic original: Rousseau fails to quote Socrates censure of the (democratic or republican) statesmen; and he substitutes for Socrates censure of the artisans a censure of the artists. (11) First Discourse (III), p. 30; Second Discourse (III), pp. 154-157; mile (IV), pp. 502-504, 522-523; Confessions (I), p. 147; Observations (Answer to the King of Poland) (III), pp. 36-37, 41-42; Last Answer (To Mr. Bordes) (III), pp. 91-94. (12) This procedure is unobjectionable, since Rousseau himself said that he did not yet reveal his principles fully in the First Discourse and that that work is inadequate also for other reasons (Havens Commentary, pp. 51, 56, 92, 169-170); and, on the other hand, the First Discourse reveals more clearly than do the later writings the unity of Rousseaus fundamental conception. (13) First Discourse (III), pp. 8-9, 14-15, 22-24; Narcisse (II), pp. 964 n., 966967, 971 n.; Second Discourse (III), pp. 111-113, 178-179, 211-213; C.S.
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(III), II, 8 (toward the end); mile (IV), pp. 248-249; Gouvernement de Pologne, chaps. ii et iii; Montagne (III), pp. 703-707 . (14) First Discourse (III), pp. 6-7, 11-12, 17-19, 25-26; Last Answer (To Mr. Bordes) (III), pp. 91-92; Narcisse (II), pp. 965-968; Second Discourse (III), p. 192; DAlembert (V), pp. 14-15, 16-17, 25; Julie (II), pp. 605-606; mile (IV), pp. 469-470. (15) First Discourse (III), pp. 8-9, 15-16, 17-19, 26, 27-29; Narcisse (II), pp. 970971, 971 n.; Second Discourse (III), pp. 118-119, 193-194; C.S. (III), II, 7; Confessions (I), pp. 391-392. Observations (Answer to the King of Poland) (III), p. 46 n.: Ce serait en effet un dtail bien fltrissant pour la philosophie, que lexposition des maximes pernicieuses et des dogmes impies de ses diverses sectes [] y a-t-il une seule de toutes ces sectes qui ne soit tombe dans quelque erreur dangereuse? Et que devons-nous dire de la distinction des deux doctrines, si avidement reue de tous les philosophes, et par laquelle ils professaient en secret des sentiments contraires ceux quils enseignaient publiquement? Pythagore fut le premier qui fit usage de la doctrine intrieure; il ne la dcouvrait ses disciples quaprs de longues preuves et avec le plus grand mystre. Il leur donnait en secret des leons dathisme, et offrait solennellement des hcatombes Jupiter. Les philosophes se trouvaient si bien de cette mthode, quelle se rpandit rapidement dans la Grce, et de l dans Rome, comme on le voit par les ouvrages de Cicron, qui se moquait avec ses amis des dieux immortels, quil attestait avec tant demphase sur le tribunal aux harangues. La doctrine intrieure na point t porte dEurope la Chine; mais elle y est ne aussi avec la philosophie; et cest elle que les Chinois sont redevables de cette foule dathes ou de philosophes quils ont parmi eux. Lhistoire de cette fatale doctrine, faite par un homme instruit et sincre, serait un terrible coup port la philosophie ancienne et moderne. (The italics are not in the original.) Cf. Confessions (I), p. 468. (16) First Discourse (III), pp. 6-7, 8, 29; Second Discourse (III), pp. 161-162; C.S. (III), I, 6, 8; II, 7; mile (IV), pp. 248-251. (17) First Discourse (III), pp. 11-12, 15-16, 17, 20-21, 30; Narcisse (II), pp. 965966; Second Discourse (III), pp. 189-190; C.S. (III), I, 9 (end); Observations (Answer to the King of Poland) (III), p. 46 n. (18) First Discourse (III), pp. 5-6, 17, 21-22, 26-27, 29-30; Narcisse (II), pp. 960961, 968-969.
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(19) First Discourse (III), p. 3 (cf. Havens Commentary, pp. 38, 46, 50); Narcisse (II), pp. 968-969, 971-973, 974 n.; Second Discourse (III), pp. 112-113, 114115, 177-178, 179-180, 184, 184-185, 187-188, 191; Julie (II), Preface (beginning); C.S. (III), I, 1; Beaumont (IV), pp. 966-968. (20) First Discourse (III), pp. 3, 9 n., 13-14, 15, 19, 26-27, 28-30; Havens Commentary, p. 227; Letter to Grimm (III), pp. 60-61, 64-65; Observations (Answer to the King of Poland) (III), pp. 36-37, 38-40, 41-42; Last Answer (To Mr. Bordes) (III), pp. 71 [Strauss quotes here a note written by the editor of Rousseaus Complete Works published by Hachette (page 47, note 1), which goes as follows: Rousseau na rpondu Bordes quune seule fois; mais il avait dj rpondu au Roi de Pologne. Il appelle cette rponse dernire rponse, pour avertir quil ne rpondra plus personne], 72-73, 77-79; Letter to Lecat (III), p. 102; Second Discourse (III), pp. 132-133, 212213, 217-218; DAlembert (V), pp. 6-7; Beaumont (IV), pp. 966-967; Montagne (III), pp. 727-729, 782-783, 871-872. A critic of the First Discourse had said: On ne saurait mettre dans un trop grand jour des vrits qui heurtent autant de front le got gnral Rousseau replied to him as follows: Je ne suis pas tout--fait de cet avis, et je crois quil faut laisser des osselets aux enfants. (Letter to the Abb Raynal (III), p. 33; cf. Confessions (I), p. 407). Rousseaus principle was to say the truth en toute chose utile (Beaumont (IV), pp. 967-968, 994-995; Rveries (I), IV); hence one may not only suppress or disguise truths devoid of all possible utility but may even be positively deceitful about them by asserting their contraries, without thus committing the sin of lying. The consequence regarding harmful or dangerous truths is obvious. (Cf. also Second Discourse (III), end of the First Part, and Beaumont (IV), pp. 955-956. Compare Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften, XI, p. 92 : [Johannes von Mueller spricht] von der sonderbaren Aufgabe : sich so auszudrcken, dass die Obrigkeiten die Wahrheit lernen, ohne dass ihn die Untertanen verstnden, und die Untertanen so zu unterrichten, dass sie vom Glck ihres Zustandes recht berzeugt sein mchten . (21) First Discourse (III), pp. 6-7; Montagne (III), pp. 787-788; Confessions (I), pp. 638-639, 649-650; Rveries (I), V-VII. (22) First Discourse (III), pp. 11-12 n.; Narcisse (II), pp. 966-968; Second Discourse (III), pp. 138, 142-143, 155-156, 207-208; Julie (II), pp. 491-494; mile (IV), pp. 269-271, 348-349, 509-511, 534-536; Last Answer (To Mr. Bordes) (III), p. 92: osera-t-on prendre le parti de linstinct contre la raison? Cest prcisment ce que je demande.
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(23) First Discourse (III), pp. 3, 5, 6, 8-9, 13-14, 15, 17, 17-18, 18 n., 18-19, 2627, 30; Observations (Answer to the King of Poland) (III), pp. 41-42; Narcisse (II), pp. 962-963, 965-966, 970-971; Second Discourse (III), pp. 122, 124-125; mile (IV), pp. 570, 626-627, 627; Beaumont (IV), pp. 945946. Cf. Kant, Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Erster Abschnitt (toward the end). (24) First Discourse (III), p. 8; Second Discourse (III), pp. 139-140, 145-146, 167168, 192-193, 210-211; Confessions (I), pp. 277, 638-639, 639-642, 649-650; Rveries (I), VI (end) and VII. (25) Confessions (I), pp. 388, 406-407. (26) Cf. especially C.S. (III), I, 6 (beginning), which shows that the raison dtre of the social contract is set forth, not in the C.S., but in the Second Discourse. Cf. also C.S. (III), I, 9. (27) Second Discourse (III), pp. 133-134. Cf. Confessions (I), pp. 404-405. Cf. Jean Morel,Recherches sur les sources du discours de lingalit, Annales de la Socit J.-J. Rousseau, V (1909), pp. 163-164. (28) Second Discourse (III), pp. 140-144, 164-165, 183-184, 208-209; Julie (II), p. 684 n.*; mile (IV), pp. 580-581, 592-593; Beaumont (IV), pp. 955-958; Rveries (I), III. Cf. Havens Commentary, p. 178. (29) As regards the prehistory of this approach, see above, pp. 173-74 and 203-4. (30) Second Discourse (III), pp. 123-124, 215-216. (31) Second Discourse (III), pp. 124-125, 125-126, 138-139, 139-140, 142-144, 151-152, 153-154, 164-165, 166, 192-193; Julie (II), pp. 155-156; C.S. (III), I, 2; II, 4, 6. Cf. mile (IV), pp. 600-601. (32) Second Discourse (III), pp. 156-157. Cf., C.S. (III), I (beginning); DAlembert (V), pp. 99-100, 101; and Confessions (I), p. 422. Rousseau was fully aware of the antibiblical implications of the concept of the state of nature. For this reason, he originally presented his account of the state of nature as altogether hypothetical; the notion that the state of nature was once actual contradicts the biblical teaching which every Christian philosopher is obliged to accept. But the teaching of the Second Discourse is not that of a Christian; it is the teaching of a man addressing mankind; it is at home in the Lyceum at the time of Plato and Xenocrates, and not in the eighteenth century; it is a teaching arrived at by applying the natural light to the study of man's nature, and nature never lies. In accordance
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with these statements, Rousseau asserts later on that he has proved his account of the state of nature. What remains hypothetical, or less certain than the account of the state of nature, is the account of the development leading from the state of nature to despotism, or the history of governments. At the end of the First Part of the bipartite work, Rousseau calls the state of nature a fact: the problem consists in linking two facts given as real by a sequence of intermediate and actually or supposedly unknown facts. The given facts are the state of nature and contemporary despotism. It is to the intermediate facts, and not to the characteristics of the state of nature, that Rousseau refers when he says in the first chapter of the C.S. that he does not know them. If Rousseaus account of the state of nature were hypothetical, his whole political teaching would be hypothetical; the practical consequence would be prayer and patience and not dissatisfaction and, wherever possible, reform. Cf. Second Discourse (III), pp. 123-124, 126-127, 131, 132-135, 151-152, 161-164, 191, 192-194, 207-208; cf. also the reference to the thousands of centuries required for the development of the human mind (ibid., p. 146) with the biblical chronology; see also Morel, op. cit., p. 135. (33) Second Discourse (III), pp. 122-124, 131-133, 138-139, 146-147, 152-154, 180-182, 202-203, 217-218. (34) Second Discourse (III), pp. 122-126, 138-139, 142-144, 151-152, 169-170, 170-171, 216-217; cf. also Condorcet, Esquisse dun tableau historique des progrs de lesprit humain, Premire poque (beginning). (35) Second Discourse (III), pp. 124-126, 150-151, 154-157; cf. also mile (IV), pp. 505-506. (36) Second Discourse (III), pp. 125-126, 136, 138-139, 145-147, 151-152, 154157, 161-162, 166, 169-171, 189-190, 192-193, 198-200, 202-204, 207-208, 218-220. (37) Second Discourse (III), pp. 134-135, 138, 141-143, 146-147, 148-149, 149150, 152-154, 155-156, 157-158, 160-161, 164-165, 199-200, 210-211. Morel (op. cit., p. 156) points in the right direction by saying that Rousseau substitue la fabrication naturelle des ides gnrales, leur construction scientifiquement rflchie (cf. above, pp. 172-74). In Rousseaus model, Lucretius poem (V, 1028-1090), the genesis of language is described without any reference to a genesis of reason: reason belongs to mans natural constitution. In Rousseau, the genesis of language coincides with the genesis of reason (C.S. (III), I. 8; Beaumont (IV), pp. 935-936, 950-951).
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(38) Rousseaus contention that man is by nature good is deliberately ambiguous. It expresses two incompatible views a rather traditional view and a thoroughly anti-traditional one. The first view can be stated as follows: Man is by nature good; he is bad through his own fault; almost all evils are of human origin: almost all evils are due to civilization; civilization has its root in pride; i.e. in the misuse of freedom. The practical consequence of this view is that men ought to bear the now inevitable evils of civilization in a spirit of patience and prayer. According to Rousseau, this view is based on belief in biblical revelation. In addition, natural man or man in the state of nature, as Rousseau describes him, is incapable of pride; hence pride cannot have been the reason for his leaving the state of nature (a state of innocence) or for his embarking on the venture of civilization. More generally expressed, natural man lacks freedom of will; hence he cannot misuse his freedom; natural man is characterized, not by freedom, but by perfectibility. Cf. Second Discourse (III), pp. 134-135, 138, 141-143, 149-150, 202-203; C.S. (III), I, 8; cf. above, n. 32. (39) Cf. Spinozas criticism of Hobbes in Ep. 50 with Tr. theol.-pol., chap. iv (beginning) and Ethics III, praef.; cf. above, chap. v, A, n. 9. (40) Second Discourse (III), pp. 114-115, 122-124, 139-140, 142-145, 146-148, 161-162, 164-166, 168-169, 170-171, 172-173, 173, 174-175, 177-178, 179, 179-180, 184, 184-185, 187-188, 221-222; Narcisse (II), pp. 968-969, Julie (II), p. 731 n**. (41) Moses Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften (Jubilums-Ausgabe), II, p. 92; cf. Second Discourse (III), pp. 132-133, and above, pp. 230-31. (42) Cf. C.S. (III), II, 6 (see chap. iii, n. 18, above). As for the connection between the C.S. and the Second Discourse, see nn. 26 and 32 above. (43) Cf. C.S. (III), II, 4 and Second Discourse (III), pp. 125-126. (44) Rousseau agrees with the classics by explicitly agreeing with the principle established by Montesquieu that liberty not being a fruit of all climates, is not within the reach of all people (C.S. (III), III, 8). Acceptance of this principle explains the moderate character of most of Rousseaus proposals which were meant for immediate application. Deviating from Montesquieu and the classics, Rousseau teaches, however, that every legitimate government is republican ((III), II, 6) and hence that almost all existing regimes are illegitimate: very few nations have laws ((III), III, 15). This amounts to saying that in many cases despotic regimes are
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inevitable, without becoming, by this fact, legitimate: the strangling of a sultan is as lawful as all governmental actions of the sultan (Second Discourse (III), p. 191). (45) Essay on the Origin of Languages (V), pp. 380-381, mile (IV), pp. 502-504, 521-522, 599-601. (46) Second Discourse (III), pp. 141-142 (cf. Spinoza, Ethics, III, 9 schol.), pp. 161-162, 174-175, 181-182, 183-184, 192-193; C.S. (III), I, 1 (beginning), 4, 8, 11 (beginning); III, 9 n. (end). Cf. the headings of the first two parts of Hobbes De cive; also Locke, Treatises, II, secs. 4, 23, 95, 133. (47) Wissenschaftliche Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts, Schriften zur Politik und Rechtsphilosophie, ed. Lasson, pp. 346-347: In einer niedrigern Abstraktion ist die Unendlichkeit zwar auch als Absolutheit des Subjekts in der Glckseligkeitslehre berhaupt, und im Naturrecht insbesondere von den Systemen, welche anti-sozialistisch heissen und das Sein des einzelnen als das Erste und Hchste setzen, herausgehoben, aber nicht in die reine Abstraktion, welche sie in dem Kantischen oder Fichteschen Idealismus erhalten hat. Cf. Hegels Encyclopdie, secs. 481-82. (48) Second Discourse (III), pp. 151-153, 167-168, 171-172, 189-190, 202-206; cf. also mile (IV), pp. 502-504. (49) Cf. n. 28 above. (50) See pp. 172-74 above. (51) C.S. (III), I, 6, 8; Second Discourse (III), pp. 111-112. As for the ambiguity of freedom, cf. also Second Discourse (III), pp. 181-184. (52) Second Discourse (III), pp. 111-112, 151-153, 162-165, 167-168, 170-171, 189-190, 192-193, 202-206, 219-222; Nouvelle-Hlose (II), pp. 458-459; C.S. (III), II, 11; III, 15; mile (IV), p. 676. (53) Second Discourse (III), pp. 111-112, 123-124, 125-126, 131, 155-157, 160161, 164-165, 166, 170-171, 173-174, 174-175, 178-179; C.S. (III), I, 6 (beginning), I, 2. (54) Second Discourse (III), pp. 131-132, 153-154, 162-164, 164-165, 170-171, 173-174, 175-179, 184, 187-188, 193-194; C.S. (III), I, 2, 8, 9; II, 4, (toward the end); mile (IV), pp. 524-525, 841-842. (55) C.S. (III), I, 6, 7; II, 2-4, 7; mile (IV), pp. 248-249. The discussion of the social contract in the Second Discourse (III) is admittedly provisional (p. 184).
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(56) C.S. (III), I, 7; II, 3, 6. Cf. ibid., II, 12 (Division of Laws) with the parallels in Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu, to say nothing of Hooker and Suarez; Rousseau does not even mention natural law. (57) Second Discourse (III), pp. 112-113, 185-186; Julie (II), pp. 552-555; C.S. (III), IV, 4; Montagne (III), pp. 837-838, 888-891. Cf. Rousseaus criticism of the aristocratic principle of the classics in Narcisse (II), pp. 965-966, and in the Second Discourse (III), pp. 222-223. (58) Narcisse (II), pp. 970-971; Second Discourse (III), pp. 112-114, 185-186; C.S. (III), II, 3, 6-7; III, 2, 11. Compare the reference to miracles in the chapter on the legislator (C.S. (III), II, 7) with the explicit discussion of the problem of miracles in Montagne (III), ii-iii. (59) Julie (II), pp. 588-593; C.S. (III), IV, 8; Beaumont (IV), pp. 975-976; Montagne (III), pp. 693-710, 758-759; cf. also n. 28 above. (60) Narcisse (II), pp. 970-971; Second Discourse (III), pp. 112-114, 122, 168169, 170-171, 192, 211-213; C.S. (III), II, 8, 10, 12; III, 1; mile (IV), pp. 829-831; Pologne, chaps. ii-iii; cf. also Alfred Cobban, Rousseau and the Modern State (London, 1934), p. 284. (61) Cf. especially C.S. (III), I, 8; II, 11. Second Discourse (III), pp. 170-172, 192; Julie (II), pp. 276-277, 335-336, 338-339; mile (IV), pp. 603, 816-818; Confessions (I), pp. 358-359, 416, 448-449, 516-517; Rveries (I), vi. (62) Second Discourse (III), pp. 167-168, 169-170; DAlembert (V), pp. 106-108; Julie (II), pp. 320-321, 399-400, 466-467, 487-488 (cf. also pp. 113-114, 193-195, 199-200, 223 n., 244-245, 334-336); Rveries (I), x (p. 1099). (63) Second Discourse (III), pp. 157-158, 182-183. (64) Second Discourse (III), pp. 144-145, 164-165, 192-193, 207-208; mile (IV), pp. 502-503; Rveries (I), V and VII. See above pp. 261-62. (65) Second Discourse (III), pp. 133-134, 161-162, 170-172; Beaumont (IV), pp. 966-967. (66) First Discourse (III), pp. 18-19; Rveries (I), VI (end). (67) Rveries (I), IV (beginning).
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Book Review: Aristotle and Modern Politics: The Persistence of Political Philosophy
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Aristide Tessitore, ed., Aristotle and Modern Politics: The Persistence of Political Philosophy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002, 438 pp., $32.95.
WILL MORRISEY HILLSDALE COLLEGE will.morrisey@hillsdale.edu
By modern politics Aristide Tessitore means first and foremost modern liberalism, variations of which continue to flourish, despite rumors of liberalisms imminent demise, some of them more than two centuries old. In recent years the debates over liberalism often center on Aristotle, of all people, a philosopher rightly described here as unacquainted with modern politics (2). Then again, philosophers tend toward some acquaintance in principle with every major human possibility. For example, Aristotles firm critique of those who elevate the life of acquiring goods for the household above the management of those goods after they arrive in the household stands as an expression of reluctance toward any project such as that introduced by Machiavelli in The Prince, which begins with an invitation to a life of acquisition. What is more, intelligent non-philosophers or would-be philosophers or self-imagined philosopherscontributors to scholarly journals, for example have reached for help from Aristotle in their attempts either to shore up modern liberalism or to bring it down, whether those attempts address the question of the structure of political communities (liberalism vs. communitarianism), the moral foundations of liberalism, or the relations between political economy or acquisition and government or management. Finally, Aristotle continues to offer guidance on the vexed question of philosophys relationship to political life, a question ideologues of the past hundred yearswith their grand claims to wisdom and their often squalid, vicious effects in practice have sharpened to an edge that even Aristotle might be supposed unacquainted with.
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Another theme ought to be mentioned, however, as it haunts many of these essays rather in the manner that the specter of communism haunted industrializing Europe, according to Marx. Machiavelli conceived of a political device instrumental to his politics of acquisition, namely, the state. Centralized, bringing government to bear throughout the princes realm in a way not seen since the ancient polis, and yet extending far beyond the polis in the size of the territory it could rule; ruling with a material effectiveness impossible for the Church; dominating hitherto independent nodes of authority such as aristocracies, towns, and provinces, the state might be formed into one of at least two regimesmonarchy and republic. But, as it actually developed, the state folded into every regime an indispensable regime-unto-itself: a new kind of regime of the few. This regime-within-the-regime, required in practice by every modern state, features a new kind of aristocracy (eventually called `meritocracy and imbued with technical competence as its chief virtue) with a new kind of oligarchy (the rule of the few who were not personally rich, but rich by virtue of their command of the wealth of the state, and by the states command, its regulation, of the wealth of the wealthy). Aristotle never saw such a thing, but contemporary Aristotelians have, and must address it. This is why Tessitores concentration on liberalism makes sense. Insofar as political life, ruling and being ruled, finds some direct expression in modernity, within its states, liberal states permit that life in ways not seen in (for example) Wilhelmine Germany or todays Russia or China, let alone in the tyrannies that oppressed those nations for much of the last century. The first three essayists bring Aristotle to bear on considerations of modern liberalism and communitarianism. In his unfailingly sensible contribution to the volume, Bernard Yack recalls Aristotles insistence that the political community is in some sense `prior to the individuals who compose it. He rightly observes that this priority does not support any aspiration to communal harmony; Aristotle understands political communities as scenes of conflict, competition, and compromise: just as there are peaks of virtue and cooperation that can be found only among citizens, so there are forms of distrust, conflict, and competition that only citizens experience (19). Aristotle rejects the communism of Platos guardians, let alone the exaggerated hopes for moral harmony and elevated behavior associated with todays communitarianism (20). Aristotles zoon koinonikon finds pleasure in his group, finding in his capacity to reason a means to see the mutual advantage to be gained
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from groupishness. Human groups comprise persons who differ from each other in some significant (at best complementary) ways but who also share goods and dangers, establish ways to manage what they share and their mutual relations to those things, and who bind themselves to one another by ties of friendship and justice. But Aristotelian fathers, villagers, tribesmen, and citizens differ from the communalists envisioned by such moderns as Rousseau, in at least two ways. Nowhere will you find in Aristotles writings the lyric celebration that Rousseau, among others, has taught us to associate with community. Nor will you find a discussion of Rousseaus favorite passion, love of country, in Aristotles account of the passions in the Rhetoric (22). Aristotle formulates no General Will; rather, it is individual actorsfathers, ship-captains, oligarchs, demagogues, or tyrantswho speak in the name of Aristotelian communities (23). Aristotle wants to know, Who rules? Aristotelian friendship means a disposition to give individuals what is good for them, and rests on a sense of mutual obligation, not an impassioned attachment (26-26). Justice is still less a sentiment but develops rather from long habituation and requires extensive training and moral education (29). Justice derives from nature, not in the Rousseauian sense of natural sentiment but from the distinctively human capacity to speak and to deliberate about the good. [W]hile many animals surpass human beings in social friendship and mutual concern, only human beings hold each other accountable to standards of justice (30). Justice differs from friendship, which involves other-regarding actions we are ourselves disposed to perform, because it concerns otherregarding actions that we are disposed to demand from others (30). Establishing such habits of action in any community must reflect a choice that some individuals make and impose on others (30); in political communities, these are the regimes. Thus Aristotle does not involve himself in such modern dichotomies, fundamentally derived from Rousseau, as mechanism versus organism, Gemeinschaft versus Gesellschaft. Not regarding human communities as contracts among anti-social or a-social beings in a state of nature, nor needing to respond powerfully to other thinkers who do so regard those communities, Aristotle feels no temptation to run to the other extreme. Aristotles understanding of community cuts right across these familiar modern dichotomies (32). Communitarians have been making vain predictions about the coming dissolution of liberal and individualistic societies since the end of the French Revolution (35). But the countries where modern liberalism is
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oldest give every appearance of the greatest social stabilityfar more so than many communities that would hold themselves together with much stronger social bonds. The experiences of the past two centuries provide good reasons for doubting that communion always arises out of community and that the sense of belonging that communitarians seek can be anything more than a temporary social phenomenon (36). Aristotle would not be surprised, himself having doubted, famously, that harmony can be reduced to a single beat. Martha C. Nussbaum writes on Aristotelian Social Democracy. This is an unusual theme, inasmuch as Aristotle more than suspects that the many who are poor, when they rule, will (as the expression goes) soak the rich. Rightly observing that Aristotle spoke about human being and good human functioning along with the design of political institutions, and that he connected these two levels of reflection through a certain conception of the task of political planning, Nussbaum argues that the task of such planning is to make available to each and every citizen the material, institutional, and educational circumstances in which good human functioning may be chosen; to move each and every one of them across a threshold of capability into circumstances in which they may choose to live and function well (47). For Aristotle, such considerable political and material ambitions immediately raise the question, Who is a citizen? Nussbaum seems to take this as settled, however, at least in the modern West. There, most residents of each country are citizens of that country. But the debaters over immigration in Europe and North America remind us that Aristotles question remains pertinent. Public health, common meals for the poor, free and equal citizenship for all adults, the setting aside of half of privately-owned lands for common use as in Sparta (48-49), without either the slavery or the military aristocracy of Sparta: these begin the list, which also includes being able to laugh, to play, to enjoy recreational activities and being able to live ones own life in ones very own surroundings and context (70). The job of government, on the Aristotelian view, does not stop until we have removed all impediments that stand between [the] citizen and fully human functioning (60). The liberalism of this social democracyits share of libertyinheres mainly in one feature: The government aims at capabilities, and leaves the rest to the citizens (59). That is (for example), Nussbaums social democracy will provide us with parks but will not force us to stroll in them. The entire structure of the polity will be designed with a view to these functions (76). In order to choose freely and prudentially citizens need coercively to frame and
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enforce a set of social and political structures in which choice can flourish (85). With Yack, Nussbaum acknowledges Aristotles interest in the way practical reasoning distinguishes human sociality from animal sociality indeed, how it distinguishes all non-autonomic human activities from animal activities. Practical reason is both ubiquitous and architectonic. It both infuses all the other functions and plans for their realization in a good and complete life (72). Here, however, is where the silent presence of the modern state begins to loom. It is important to notice that in defending common ownership Aristotle is not defending state ownership. Common ownership is in a very real sense ownership by all the citizens in common, and not by some remote bureaucratic entity (77). [I]t is especially difficult to foster common ownership under modern conditions of size and population, she prudently notes, citing as an example the worker-controlled industry (ibid.). She does not here sufficiently reflect upon the size and bureaucratic character of modern industrial corporations themselves, which Tocqueville already compared to empires. Perhaps in response to the difficulties of modern statism, Nussbaum finds that social democracy needs a scheme of basic rights in order to give further definition to the concept of strong separateness, by which she means individuality or personal integrity (85). In this area the Aristotelian must diverge from Aristotle (86). Aristotle is too paternalistic and harsh in ways likely to horrify most liberals (86). He does not engage in sustained philosophical reflection on the limits of the law (86). This criticism might strike one as implausible, given the dialogue between the citizen and the philosopher Aristotle presents in the late chapters of the Politics and indeed given the importance for Aristotle of the very prudential reasoning in which citizens engagequite apart from questions of the philosophers way. But Nussbaums dilemma really reflects the problem of the modern state itself, the problem faced squarely by such writers as Benjamin Constant and Tocqueville. The next essay does not take up this problem. Susan D. Collins raises instead an ethical question, which in turn leads to the volumes second set of essays, on moral virtue. Collins addresses the question of justice in Aristotle, considering not the Politics but the Nicomachean Ethics. Todays neo-Aristotelians would bring Aristotle into the camp of liberalism. In doing so, they tend to favor one of two aspects of human life that Aristotle himself tries to balance: virtue as a quality of civic devotion and virtue as a constituent of human
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flourishing (106). As a quality of civic devotion, justice differs in different political orders or regimes, and also according to circumstances (106). The political and the exigent can make human flourishing possible, but they can also limit it. The magnanimous man, whose soul comprises all the virtues and each to the greatest degree (107), might find his great soul limited in any regime, even in a kingship ruled by him. Neo-Aristotelian liberals (among whom Collins numbers the social-democratic Nussbaum) incline to see politics and human flourishing as mutually reinforcing, in principle if not in practice. Aristotle doubts this: Aristotle confronts in a full and systematic way the questions of either side of virtues coin (111). Although human beings are indeed political animals who require the polis in order to flourish, and although politics is the authoritative voice with respect to the human good, it does not follow that politics is therefore the correct or true voice (111). Accordingly, Aristotle presents two meanings of justice: justice as the lawfulgeneral justiceand justice as the fairparticular justice (113). Justice in its lawful aspect points not merely to conventionality; if it did, there would be no theoretical problem, inasmuch as one could easily say that there is justice defined by the polis and justice according to nature. But lawful justice points to the unique feature of justice, its other-directedness. [J]ustice is not complete virtue simply but complete as the sum of the virtues directed toward another; justice is thus identical with the use [chresis] of compete virtue, the use of virtue with a view to another, and not only with a view to [the virtuous individual] himself (115). Citizenship in the community means that any action, including a virtuous action, has a dual aspect: it can be understood from the point of view either of ones own good or anothers good (115). These two things might easily contradict one another, as anyone who considers the policy of military conscription will see. Further, the same problem arises with respect to particular justice, which is that part of general justice that pertains to the desire for gain (117). Justice as fairness refers to either the distribution of goods, including public honors and offices, or the redress of unjust distributions. Once again, in practice it is the regime that determines what acts of particular justice will be practiced, from one polis to another. And an act of distribution that serves the common good might not entirely serve the good of the individual to whom the distribution is made. [T]his is the dilemma of moral virtue: as justice, it looks to the good of the community, and as virtue, it looks to the good of the virtuous individual, yet these are different ends and different perfections (122).
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This dilemma would be eased but not removed by taking up residence in the best regimea regime notoriously difficult to find, even in the pages of Aristotles Politics. The dilemma of justice in the polis may disappear among friends, who share all things and wish one anothers good. Thus Aristotle is at one with liberalism in marking a sphere outside of the political that might be called private (123). But in the liberal modern state the virtues seen in true friendship are only one possibility among many possible pursuits of happiness (123). That is to say, liberalism in modernity means liberty first, perhaps because privacy marks out a sphere of protection against the state, a formidable type of political organization that Aristotle does not contemplate. The collection next turns not toward a consideration of the state, however, but to a consideration of virtue in essays by Tessitore, David K. OConnor, and Charles R. Pinches. Tessitore takes up Alasdair MacIntyres critique of modern rationalism. MacIntyre charges that the teachings of such moral philosophers as Diderot, Hume, Smith, and Kant depend upon a shared historical background their rationalism rejects; the substance of that moral tradition owes its existence to Aristotle (136). In rejecting, contra Aristotle, any notion of a human telos, rationalists ensured the failure of their project, leaving only an account of human nature and a set of moral injunctions without their teleological context (137). But human nature without a telos wrecks itself on nihilism, as Nietzsche eventually insisted. MacIntyre himself rejects the foundations of Aristotelian moral teleologyits now discredited metaphysical biology, its understanding of community that assumes the Greek polis, and the Platonic notion of the unity of individual and political virtue (138). For these MacIntyre substitutes, first, what he calls practice (a complex form of socially established human activity that leads to the attainment of a good internal to the activity of the activity at issuee.g., chess, which aims at the good of checkmate, or victory); second, what he calls narrative unity (the historical narrative of a particular human life); third, tradition (a set of practices and a particular understanding of their importance and meaning; 138-40). To put it perhaps too bluntly, MacIntyre purges Aristotelian moral philosophy of nature and of politics. In Tessitores words, MacIntyre attempts to establish a delicate balance between Nietzsches insight into the historicity of all truth claims without surrendering the Aristotelian argument for an objective order, a larger truth to which and by which our efforts are and must be measured (140).
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But, far from being a passive epistemological victim of his historical circumstances, Aristotle questions authority (141). This may be seen, Tessitore observes, in Aristotles notoriously problematic teaching on the relationship between ethical and intellectual virtues (142), the account of the rival modes of life, political and philosophic, to which Aristotle provides precisely no conventional answer, and no clear answer at all. Against MacIntyres view that Aristotle inadvertently codifies an existing and authoritative Greek tradition of class-based morality, his accountin fact preserves and reveals, rather than dispels, a wide range of persistent tensions that necessarily characterize human attempts to live well (146). The polis itself turns out to be imperfect, thus a catalyst for the full development of both practical and theoretical excellence (147). Prudence and the capacity for political philosophy are permanent political needs, needs logically prior to the notion of political authority in Aristotles thought, providing the ground by which the authoritative good held out by the polis is established and evaluated (147). Although Aristotle never saw the modern state, he of course did see a form of political organization other than the polis, namely, the empire in which he lived, to say nothing of the sub-political communities of household, village, and tribe. It may well be the case that the fortuitous set of circumstances that gave rise to the development of the Greek polis becomes the locus classicus for Aristotles study less out of cultural bias, and more because it offers the most transparent window from which to view the ethical capacities and problems of political animals (148); one might agree with Tessitore by observing that the polis may be the one circumstance in which human beings can fully achieve autarchia or self-rule. One might also add that Tocquevilles critique of modern statism rests on a similar judgment, a fact that gives evidence for the non-relative character of Aristotles argument. MacIntyres attempt to replace Aristotles natural teleology with a historical teleology or narrative unity is unnecessary if one does not assume that biology is destiny. Aristotle does not so assume, and neither does much of the modern biology that has in many ways superseded Aristotelian biology. Enlightenment mechanism does not fully explain nature, which turns out to be more complicated than Newton supposed, in the estimation of Newtons modern-scientific successors. It is Newtonian physics that underlies the attack on teleology seen in the Enlightenment moralists. MacIntyres traditionalism too easily elides the distinction between Aristotle and philosophy generally and the Bible. Tessitore reminds his readers that the Great Tradition didnt start out as a tradition at all; it took
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Aquinas to convince generations of thinkers that philosophy and revelation could mix. And Aquinas rests the authority of his achievement not on the verdict of human history or the powers of human rationality (156). Paradoxically, MacIntyres historicist defense of the superiority of the Thomistic perspective is unable to account for the heart and soul of the very version of inquiry he upholds as the example par excellence of the rationality of tradition (156).
Notwithstanding the profound differences separating the Thomistic tradition from the modern paradigms of [Enlightenment] encyclopedia and [Nietzschean] genealogy, there is one respect in which all three versions of inquiry have more in common with each other than with Aristotleall are imbued with some form of the historical consciousness that informs MacIntyres own analysis. The Thomistic, or more generally biblical, tradition elevates history as the locus of divine revelation and lives from a hope that is directed to the City of God. The encyclopedic tradition looks to a secularized version of Christian hope, one that will be fully achieved in history based on the gradual and steady progress of science. The genealogical perspective registers disappointment at the loss of Enlightenment hopes for rational progress, unmasking all claims to larger purpose as disguised expressions of the will to power. MacIntyres critique of contemporary sensibilities is circumscribed by the historical consciousness from which it arises. (156-57)
None of what Tessitore here classifies as historicist versions of inquiry actually refutes the Aristotelian understanding of human groundedness in nature or an unchanging ground of being from which these [historical] variations arise (157). Aristotles account of human nature moreover is free from both the hopes and disappointments entangled in historical consciousness (ibid.) and, if so, may prove morally superior to them. MacIntyres account of biblical revelation may itself partake too much of a later historicism. History or the course of human events may be the locus of divine revelation, but, according to the Bible, the origin of such revelation is God, creator of that locus and of all else besides. That is, the Holy Spirit of the Bible is not the Absolute Spirit of the historiciststhe latter being immanent, not holy or separated. In contrast to MacIntyre, Leo Strauss turned to Aristotle after listening to the most radical of the historicists, Martin Heidegger. David K. OConnors essay on Strausss Aristotle is a highlight of this collection. The existential choice between the political life and the philosophic life informs all of Aristotles investigations of political affairs, OConnor contends (163), and Strausss interpretation of Aristotle became
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the central vehicle through which Strauss worked out his own complicated appropriation of and resistance to Martin Heidegger (164). Strauss appropriated some of Heideggers account of philosophys responsibilities to prephilosophic experience while resisting Heideggers attack on the Aristotelian dichotomy between politically engaged practical reason and detached or disinterested theoretical reason (164). Heideggers conflation of theory and practice, (seen in his celebration of resoluteness and authenticity) struck Strauss as politically dangerous and philosophically dubious, but that conflation does at least follow from giving the prephilosophic pragmata their due. Strauss aimed to show that the Aristotelian insistence on the integrity of prephilosophic experience as the ground of philosophy need not issue in radical historicism, as it does in Heidegger, where it infect[s] philosophy with the very aspects of willfulness, passion, and partisanship that made Heideggers view of philosophy distasteful to Strauss (167). Philosophy for Heidegger consists of an energeia or being-atwork that forms as well as informs human beings through their national culture and political existence; philosophy is essentially practical and essentially patrioticinherent in the patria or fatherland (168). This energy, it might be said, resembles Hegels Absolute Spirit not of course in its dialectical rationality but in its immanence and its thoroughgoing historicity. OConnor finds in Strausss exchanges with his philosophic friend, Alexander Kojeve, a dialogue with Heidegger once-removed. (There are limits to the HeideggerKojeve parallel. OConnor mentions Kojeves employment as a minister playing midwife to the birth of the Common Market [193]. It is unlikely that a Heideggerian would find such a job interesting; as Nietzsche said about the common good, is not the Common Market ineluctably common?) In Strausss estimation, the unqualified attachment to human concerns seen in historicism leads not to philosophy but to tyranny (176), to an ultimately mad attempt at godlike creation, a comprehensive re-shaping of reality beyond the capacities even of the highest human beings. Although OConnor does not quite say this, Strauss regards the historicist projectin its very resolute commitment to practiceas profoundly imprudent, and therefore impractical as well as self-deluding. Genuine wisdom must place human individuals, nations, and even humanity itself within their real context, which is nature. The desire to know is not the same as care for the human (178). At the same time, the philosopher does rightly and prudently care for those who do or might in his estimation share in his enterprise. This philosophic care for philosophers and for potential philosophers rests not on
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the historicist concern for intersubjectivity and recognition (179) but on the shared love of wisdom, the intrinsic nobility of resolute openness to questioning (180, italics in original). Philosophic resolution differs from political resolution in needing no enemies to energize it; philosophic friendship can often be closer among those who incline to different solutions [to philosophic problems] than among those who incline to the same solution: ones zetetic friends may be quite different from ones fellow sectariansas the StraussKojeve friendship demonstrates (180). For such friendships no philosopher need engage in the total direction of human affairs (Strauss, quoted 181). Indeed, the attempt to direct human affairs through the impersonal bureaucratic structure of a modern state or would-be super-state might likely preclude friendship, insofar as that attempt absorbed the attention of the philosopher. Strausss Aristotle addresses political men without inflaming political passion and addresses philosophic men without inflaming political passion (182, italics in original). Strausss Aristotle makes this dichotomy sharper than Aristotle himself does, OConnor argues, because historicism has changed the political and intellectual circumstances in which philosophers live. Aristotles own treatment of the choice between the political and the philosophic life gives more autonomous dignity to morality and politics than Strausss Aristotle because radical historicism has transformed nomos into pure will, not pure reason (185). In resisting the Heideggerian intensification of this common ground between theory and practice, Strauss intensifies instead the philosophic perception of the secondary status (NE 10.8, 1178a9) of merely political action (185). Secondary status does not imply either strict subordination or a complete separation of the practical from the theoretical. A philosopher might find himself a place not as a citizen-philosopher, then, but as a foreigner or stranger who serves as a teacher of legislators (195), a role unlikely to endanger either the body of the philosopher (landing it in a circumstance in which it must ingest hemlock) or the philosophers soul, untempted by the ambition of making its philosophic inclinations essentially formative of nation and state (196). To steel oneself to Machiavellism is not to untrammel ones mind, but to close it (197). OConnor closes with some remarks on Strausss abiding philosophic interest in piety, an interest OConnor describes as more Socratic than Aristotelian. That is to say, Strausss Aristotle does not exhaust the philosophic interests of Strauss. Piety is the topic of this volumes third and concluding essay on virtue. Charles R. Pinches points to another man who
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transforms Aristotle as he uses him (208). Unlike Strauss, Thomas Aquinas runs [Aristotle] through the mill of Christian theology (208), but they share what Pinches calls a non-instrumental understanding of virtue, an appreciation of virtue as a condition of the soul good for its own sake. As a Christian, Pinches regards neither Aristotle nor Thomas as congruent with modern liberalism and resists efforts by liberals to appropriate either. A crucial distinction between modern liberal and classical accounts of virtue is simple: according to liberalism, one does not need to be good (be virtuous) to know the gooda substantial change from the Aristotelian and Thomistic views (212-13). For modern liberals, for example, prudence means only the ability to identify what is advantageous or useful to the attainment of the goals that suit us or me (213); prudence is no longer perfected practical reason (214), a thing noble in itself. Recent liberal thinkers friendly to Christianity tend to want to use Christianity: Liberalism as a political system has a need for virtue among its citizens if it is to be sustained, such liberals argue. Put bluntly, liberalism is in need of virtue capital (215). [T]his is a deal the church can do without, Pinches own prudence tells him (217). The Christian regimespecifically, the Christian Bios ti or way of lifemust not lend itself to the task of propping up something other than itself, subordinating itself to some way of life other than that commanded and exemplified by Jesus. Among the several extant liberalisms, Pinches prefers the attempt by Richard Rorty to make liberalism into a sort of religion, albeit a secularized onethe sort of progressivist historicism seen in John Dewey and Walt Whitman. This effort at least refuses to abstract from the circumstances of America, but rather makes of American history a sort of teleological story or myth. Pinches clearly regards Rortys project as wrong, but at least it has the modest virtue of avoiding cynicism. More profoundly, it shares with Christianity (as Pinches understands it) and also with Aristotle (as Pinches understands him) a rootedness in a particular social location (222), not in a state of nature, a categorical imperative, or an original position. Rorty embraces his particular location as an American reformist liberal at the turn of the twenty-first century, even as Aristotle presumed the setting of the polis in fourth-century Greece and as (if I understand Pinches) a Christian will understand himself as part of the concrete and Providential circumstances that inflect his own life (222). Liberals are insufficiently historicist, to use that term in a loose, none-too-Hegelian way. Christians must also finally reject Aristotle as well as liberalism, Pinches argues. Following Harris Rackham, Pinches translates megalopsychia
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as pride (221). Aristotle understands vice, which he regards as reparable, but not sin, which Christians learn to be humanly irreparable, because Aristotle does not know the God of the Bible, or the Bibles Satan, for that matter. In contrast with Aristotle, according to St. Paul and to Augustine, there is nothing we can do to break the power of sin in our lives (225). Only Gods grace can free us from that power. That is why Aquinas insists that the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which transform the life of virtue particularly as they transform prudence, are infused rather than acquired (225). Human equality resides in that we are all equally condemned by a righteous God; but Aristotle knew nothing of such ideas, regarding human beings as decidedly unequal, at least with respect to virtue and vice (225-26). Rortys progressivism shares the pride of Aristotelianism (if little else?) and therefore cannot satisfy Christians, even if it is superior in honesty to non-historicist versions of liberalism. Pinches does not clarify the Christians proper relationship to the modern, liberal state. If Christianity must not serve that state, should, can, Christians nonetheless make it serve them? Not in the sense of making of the state an instrument of Christian education or legislation, but rather in the sense of using the liberal state as early Christians arguably used the Roman Empire: as a sort of dangerous but often convenient platform for Christian evangelism. Liberalisms hard-won freedoms of travel, of speech, and of religion itself present themselves as instruments for Christian use. Might these features of the liberal state not commend themselves to Christians, even if Christians politely (and piously) decline to serve as instruments of liberalism? The liberal state might not so much buy virtue from the Christians (as Pinches acidulously describes the ambition of some liberals [215]) but find a loving limit in their free activities and spirit, thus remaining liberal. The liberty of citizens within the liberal state requires the right of property defended by the rule of lawlimits to the liberal state. That Miriam Galston, Jill Frank, Douglas J. Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen find Aristotle a helpful adviser in these matters betokens his status as a philosopher and not merely as a thoughtful observer and critic of ancient Greek politics. Galston considers the varieties of legal theory in the United States, recalling the textual formalism of the nineteenth century, largely replaced in the twentieth century by the legal realism of Oliver Wendell Holmes and the sociological jurisprudence of Roscoe Pound. She sees in recent years a renewed interest in formalist-type theories, such as neo-Aristotelian natural law theory (234), in the writings of such scholars as Russell Hittinger,
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John Finnis, and Robert P. George, as well as a turn toward anti-rationalist theoriescritical legal studies, post-structuralism, and some forms of feminism. In their several ways, all American legal theories address not only the rule of reason but the role of reason in the rule of law. Between the two extremes of formalism and subjectivism/relativism lie theorists of the middle way who reject the idea that knowledge must be absolute and unchanging to be worthy of the name (234); Cass R. Sunstein, Suzanna Sherry, and Bruce Ackerman exemplify this approach. Aristotle famously teaches that the precision possible in mathematics does not obtain in ethics. He does not call this a practical concession to the limitations of human cognition or an admission of the superior truth of the precise sciences (235). Similarly, middle-way legal theorists do not quickly advert to abstract moral and political principles, principles that exist independently of a particular legal order; at the same time, they do recognize and incorporate such principles into reasoning about human affairs to some extent (235). Middle-way theorists prefer community-wide debate, government by consent, and transformative political participation to any more elite-centered account of lawmaking and legal interpretation (237); they pay attention, therefore, to the conditions under which such debate is conducted and such consent attained, lest some citizens be excluded. Galston finds a philosophic precedent for this in Aristotles practice of reviewing prevailing opinions and putting them to the dialectical test. But Aristotle differs from middle-way theorists in widening the dialogue to include those not present and even those long dead; in America he would engage not only his neighbors but Publius and Jefferson. Nor does Aristotle assume the democratic principle of equality: Aristotle equates the force of the opinion of one wise man with the opinion held by all or most people (238). Aristotle does not use the word autonomy to describe the formation of law by citizens; rather, the importance of being able to govern oneself (and be governed by others) finds pride of place in his philosophy (239). He defines politics itself as such reciprocal ruling and being-ruled, a practice that requires practical wisdom. Aristotle thus differs from contemporary legal theorists in identifying self-governance with the active exercise of reason rather than the initiation of, participation in, or assent to rules by which a person is governed (239). One might say that Aristotle never loses sight of the regime behind the rules, of the political character of decent regimes, or of the life of reasoned discussion seen in those regimes.
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Middle-way legal theorists also incline toward what might be called transformative conventionalism. They hope to generate public goods and also moral virtues in individuals out of sociopolitical processes engaged in by adults. Aristotle, less optimistic than they about the malleability of human nature, looks to childhood education as the main source of the moral qualities upon which social cooperation depends (240). If you would have a moral citizenry, begin before your children are old enough to join in citizenship. Moral virtue culminates in citizenship, is not created by it. Concomitantly, Aristotle does not understand political association merely as one social activity among many; it is the authoritative political community that most clearly requires us to think comprehensively of the good life as such. Aristotle warns the reader against imagining that fitness to govern any one type of association can be generalized to fitness to govern any other (240). Galston sees in this tendency among middle-way theorists a reflection of life in the modern state. Given our enormous and diverse country, it may well be that intermediate associations bear a closer resemblance to certain aspects of the classical city than our nation as a whole ever can (241). But such civic associations, however salutary, seldom consider the common good in the way a self-governing political community must. Further, middle-ground theorists, in imagining the production of the common good, assume an egalitarianism that modern statescentralized, anti-aristocratic, bureaucraticthemselves encourage. In one sense these theorists aim too high, expecting a selflessness not to be found in this world if only each voice can make itself heard through the right social preconditions undergirding the political process itself. On the other hand, the very assumption that the political playing field can be so effectively leveled reflects and conduces to the anti-political statism that middle-way theorists abhor. But the common goods commonness inheres in its political character; in ruling and being ruled, not everyone exhibits the same degree of practical wisdom. This is an ineluctable natural reality, not only an excrescence of unjust social institutions. Aristotles ideas thus expose a conceptual difficulty at the core of theories of liberal constitutional democracy (248)or, at least, at the core of the theories of the theorists of the middle way. Under liberal constitutions the laws protect and regulate private property as a means of the reciprocal rule of civil society and the central state. Jill Frank asks, What form of private property might more successfully integrate private right and public good and so facilitate rather than obstruct the practices integral to liberal-democratic politics? (259). Consulting
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Aristotle, she argues that private property has not only exchange value but also value in use. The use value of private property can bind the individual and the family to the practices of citizenship (259). As a thing to be exchanged, private property means the power to hold, to withhold, and to exclude (261). I hold my property against you, and against the state, limiting both social and bureaucratic-governmental encroachment. This might often be very good. But it might also thwart rather thanenable common action and thereforebe inimical to the social coalition integral to the practices of democratic politics (261). Private property might conduce to what Tocqueville calls individualism, a comfortable anti-civic isolation that invites the very overweening statism private property rights are intended to prevent by leaving government up to the officials. Frank cites Thomas Jeffersons phrase, the earth belongs in usufruct to the living (263). That is, the earth belongs to each living generation as a trust fund belongs to its trustees; the right to use comes with an obligation, that the beneficiaries must hand the trust over to the next set of trustees (263). Jeffersonian agrarianism rests upon this principle. Whereas feudal aristocracy consisted of the few ruling the many, who did not own the property they used, and modern commerce allows for and encourages the accumulation of wealth unlimited by use, fostering a new kind of privilege and hierarchy, agrarian property-owners are (now in Jeffersons words again) the most precious part of the state because their property combines the stability and limitation of natural property in land with self-governing ownership of that property and of the fruits thereof (264). Their property, via its use, anchors their independence and freedom, and it allows them to cultivate the virtues necessary for self-governance, good citizenship, and the pursuit of the common good (264). Jeffersons friend James Madison broadens this understanding of property to include human nature; ones property includes a persons opinions and faculties, his labor, leisure and time, and his liberty of conscience (265). In this sense it helps to constitute our civic identity insofar as the use of ones faculties relates individual owners to society at large (265). Aristotle gives a fuller account of the relation between property and virtue (265). For example, he elaborates parallels between the rule of the household and the rule of the polis, both of which subordinate acquisition of property to the management of it for the good of the whole. As both private and public, property is a site of the practice of virtue (267). In this property instantiates virtue itself, which consists both of holding (I might be said to have certain virtues) and of using (I act according to my own virtues,
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strengthening or weakening my moral habits with practice and with disuse).

[G]ood habit, as a matter of holding [property] properly depends on using properly what is held, that is, acting well. And we can see that acting well, as a mode of proper use, depends on holding properly what one has as ones own, hence ownership. As the practice of holding and using things properly, property, like any activity, already calls for good habit conjoined with acting well, that is, virtue. And, as the practice of holding and using habits properly, virtue calls for property. It is by understanding property as a verb and not strictly as a noun, as an activity of use and not strictly as a fungible thing, that property is bound to, is indeed a site of virtue. (268)
Property emerges in the presence of a proper ordering of the soul, even as the practice contributes to that proper ordering, cultivating the individual virtues associated with both self-government and the pursuit of the common good (270). In so doing it not only resists the encroachments of the modern state but connects citizens to the state, interesting them in the common good as considered by their representatives in the state. Douglas J. Den Uyl and Douglas B. Rasmussen give Aristotle an (announced) libertarian twistdoing with Aristotle what Aquinas does with him, but on behalf of classical liberalism not Christianity. Beginning with might be termed the Lysander Spooner thesisthat moral action requires freedom of the will, therefore the conditions of free willing must be secured first and foremostthey reconcile libertarianism with the Aristotelian esteem for self-perfection (280). The single most common and threatening encroachment upon self-directedness and consequently self-perfection is the initiation of physical force by one person (or group) against another; this in practice requires the establishment of a sphere of freedom whereby self-directed activities can be exercised without being trampled by others or vice-versa (281), to structure a political principle that protects the condition for self-perfection rather than leading to self-perfection itself (282-83). Central to this sphere of freedom is the right to property. Because human beings are material beings, not disembodied ghosts, and being self-directed is not merely some psychic state, human beings need to have property rights to things that are the result of their own productive efforts (283). Property inheres primarily not in non-human nature but in the intellectual and physical efforts of individual human beings, who are in a significant sense value creators (284-85). Den Uyl and Rasmussen endorse what Marx would later call the labor theory of value, an idea already
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propounded by Locke; there is no such thing as pre-existing (in other words, pre-transformed) wealth (286). Unlike Marx but like Locke, they regard the right to property as natural, and the indispensable precondition to the human flourishing sought by Aristotle (289). On the economic side of the human ledger this of course leads to the free market. On the political side the right to property in this sense leads to civic friendship, an association for mutual advantage among citizens. Friendships founded upon mutual advantage are not friendships of virtue, which only occur in circles much smaller than those that characterize a state (299). All highly pluralistic and commercial cultures fail to live up to this standard, they rightly observe (300). At best, such large political societies can achieve the virtue of just rather than unjust mutual advantage, but they can never achieve an ethos of selflessness. In turn, this confirms our view, not always or necessarily shared by Aristotle himself, that the attainment of the good life is an individual quest (301). The aim of politics is not virtue, but peace and order,the natural right to liberty (301). Aristotle might well regard the regime of commercial republicanism as the best practicable regime under the conditions of modernity. He would not defend it on the voluntarist grounds libertarians defend, inasmuch as that would entail treating a meanspersonal libertyas an endhuman flourishing. He would therefore remain skeptical of the claim that the attainment of the good life is an individual quest primarily, recognizing the need for self-government and thus, realistically, the need for political life. If the aim of politics is not virtue but peace and order, do peace and order not aim at some virtue or human good? And are not peace and order likely in need of coercive defense and of at least mildly enforced cooperation? It is to politics that the final three essays of the volume turn. Beyond the protection of property rights broadly understood, modern liberalism usually attempts to address the problem of how political life, understood as reciprocal ruling and being-ruled, can be sustained within the framework of the state, which centralizes authority and tends toward bureaucracy. Each author here addresses this problem. Gerald M. Mara contributes an excellent discussion of Aristotles Regime of Athens. Mara praises John Rawlss last book, Political Liberalism, for its attentiveness to the need for political culture (307) roughly the equivalent to Aristotles notion of the way of life of a political community. Noticing that in the tolerant regimes of modern liberalism many
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citizens pursue very different ways of life founded on different moral and religious principles, Rawls seeks an overlapping consensus among citizens the overlap consisting of all principles and practices consistent with liberal politics (308). As Jefferson famously contended, it matters not whether my neighbor believes in one god or a thousand; this neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Muslim and Hindu alike may agree that robbery and battery are wrong, and citizens who agree on such things may be able to live together in the same political community, so long as they agree to disagree on their more strictly theological convictions. Mara notes that Rawlsian liberal culture is possible only for those who already accept liberal principles as compelling (308). An especially stern Muslim or Hindu (or Christian or Marxist) might require the justification of liberal principles themselves, and such justification cannot come from a culture that effectively commands Be tolerant. But why should the liberal tolerate even himself? Cultural liberalism sees practical rationality as a cultural or political, rather than a natural or anthropological possibility (309) and thus collides with philosophic problems long associated with conventionalism. Aristotle understands reason as a capacity of cross-cultural validity (310). He treats democratic Athens not as the political equivalent of a windowless monad but as a striking example of the most radical and most dangerous democracy, a popular regime with a (relatively) urban base which exercises its rule not by law but by decree, yet also a regime animated by a gentleness or mildness that could be extended into a certain kind of moderation (312). In Athens Aristotle saw more than Athens, but simultaneously the most and the least typical, the worst and the best, of democracies (312). His study of Athens presents three themes: he considers the regimes central principles, freedom and equality, as they are institutionalized and not as they might be conceived abstractly; he considers the regimes purposes and the dual temperament that strives for them, boldness and gentleness; he considers models of democratic political activity as seen particularly in prominent Athenian statesmen. The many poor overthrew the oligarchs; the new rulers sense of freedom derived negatively from their prior feeling of oppression. But of course a regime does require rule, rule now by the many poor, who might enslave the few, contradicting the principle of freedom. Aristotle suggests that a certain kind of institutionalized equality, equality before the law, can limit the rule of the many, as seen in the reforms of Solon. Equality before the law gives both the many poor and the few rich a kind of political equality, a capacity to
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rule and to be ruled: Aristotles definition of political rule simply. Solons reforms do not so much make Athens more democratic as make it more political (315). Solons reforms opened some political institutions to every class of citizens and more generally made the regimes legal structures into frameworks that manage conflict, rather than into strategic weapons for use within power contests (315).
Solon does not attempt to homogenize difference by creating a common civic ethos which would make social distinctions either irrelevant or pernicious. While the institution of legal equality makes the social differences between noble and base irrelevant from the point of view of justice, in another sense it maintains respect for differentiation among social classes since class positioning cannot justify social aggression. (316)
This made Athenian democracy more like a mixed regimethe decent form of the rule of the manythan it otherwise would have been. But such institutional forms, however well designed, will not work without a certain Bios ti, a way of life consonant with them. Aristotle would move democracy away from the aggressive boldness displayed in revolution and toward the peaceful virtues, above all a prudent gentleness (320). Hence his reservations about democratic imperialism. He indicates that Athens boldness toward other cities and the demos boldness within the politeia are reciprocally related, a point illustrated by Pericles Funeral Oration. Democracy brings war; war feeds democratization (and not only in Athens: see the account of America in the War of 1812 by Henry Adams and Henry Cabot Lodge, Von Holsts History of the United States, North American Review, October 1876an account brought to my attention by my colleague Robert Eden). To the degree that boldness compromises prospects for regime gentleness, it threatens to undermine those activities that are most politically worthwhile by hardening souls for combat not only against foreigners but against fellow-citizens at home (321). It damages one of the central requirements for good citizenship: the ability to understand that what is good for the community as a whole is not simply reducible to the interests of any single economic, social, or cultural class (323). Citizenship requires a sort of rationality, an ability to look at partisan concerns and not only to engage in struggles over them (323). The Solonian founding failed not because its institutions failed but because subsequent Athenian statesmen misused them. Along with his policy of imperialism, Pericles democratized the regime by paying the poor
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to serve in the law courts, partly in order to compete with a political rival. Aristotle praises the contrasting policies of Theramenes, the founder of two moderate oligarchic regimes in Athens, policies that aimed at mov[ing] democratic and oligarchic regimes away from conditions of extremism (329). In this Theramenes resembled Socrates: both men attempted to make the regimes in which they [found] themselves less unjust, and both were eventually executed at the hands of extremists (330). They diverged in that the philosopher did not exercise rule or compete with others for public honor, whereas the political mans moral hardness ensnar[ed] him in political violence (331). What does Aristotles assessment of Athenian democracy teach moderns? He first teaches that modern liberals such as Rawls, Habermas, and Connally fail to see the inherently strained and inconsistent character of democratic politicsfreedom and equality, boldness and gentleness, democrats and oligarchs competing for rule (332). The present focus on liberal culture can be challenged for not taking cultural complexities seriously enough (332). This means, secondly, that none of the principles advanced by modern liberalspluralism, proceduralism, and the likewill really serve as a guide for liberal democracy because those principles themselves result in drawbacks as well as goods (333). Precisely because any understanding of democracy that remains on the cultural or conventional level involves us in such contradictions and difficulties, no purely cultural/conventional account of liberalism or of democracy will do. A full consideration of the possibilities and dangers of the Athenian polity will require a rationality that is not culturally circumscribedan ascent from the cave, to coin a phrase (333). The Regime of Athens need for this sort of theoretical supplementation is signaled by its own incompleteness (333). Such supplementation need not involve us in that bugbear of modern philosophy, metaphysics. It emerges rather from the nature of politics itself, from the universal intention of citizens to identify better and worse public choices (333). This intention is not exhausted by what has come to be called public choice theory. Citizens who reason with one another practice substantive intellectual and moral virtues; they do not merely practice a conversation structured in a certain way (333). They rule and are ruled, willingly, and this points them not toward pure democracy or the unfettered rule of the many but to the mixed regime, that institutional embodiment of political life itself (334). Theory itself should not be understood as a set of systematically related concepts, but as a kind of attentive regard which considers the full range
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of possibilities and problems facing people living together in a democratic regime; political theory is a resource for practical choices, rather than the derivation of political norms from abstract rational or moral principles (335). For Aristotle, that is what natural right is. Under conditions of modernity, one decent, flawed regime is liberal democracy, and it is from there that we must proceed (335). Stephen S. Salkever distinguishes Aristotelian deliberation from the neo-Kantian theory of deliberative democracy advanced by Habermas and Rawls. Deliberative democracy opposes modern liberal contractarianism, liberal utilitarianism, the participatory democracy advanced in the 1960s by the New Left, and the communitarianism of such writers as Charles Taylor and Robert Bellah. Deliberative democrats follow Rousseau and Kant in their identification of humanity as the natural species whose dignity lies in its transcendence of mechanical nature, in moral freedom in obedience to laws it gives itself (343). Unlike many contractarians and utilitarians, deliberative democrats understand public reason in a non-instrumental sense; unlike many participatory democrats and communitarians, they prize reason as central to good citizenship. They do not, however, recur to reasoning as understood by Aristotle, as the ability to discover true things about the world and our interests (346). Rather, they regard public reason as the means by which human beings conquer their own given natures as complex but determined machineseven as scientific reason discovers and invents the means by which we conquer external nature. The need for democratic deliberation comes from the moral requirement of universal consent to the laws formulated by the citizens within political societies: no adult left behind might be its slogan. The deliberation prized by deliberative democrats occurs only within the confines of the regime of democracy itself and only by means of a form of reason that does not question the wisdom of the modern project of the conquest of nature. That is to say, the public reason of deliberative democracy rests on a dogma. It demands that human self-legislation proceed without human self-knowledge or, at least, without reopening the question of human self-knowledge, regarding that question as settled. What it calls the triumph of reason rests on a triumph of the will. Deliberative democracy has decided once and for all on the truth of its own foundations. My central contention is that, for Aristotle, the core project of pre-philosophic moral education or character (ethos) development is not to instill duty or responsibility but to develop a certain kind of practical rationality; and that the business of moral and political philosophy is not to
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anchor character in theoretical certainty, but to supply us with a set of questions and standards for examining our own characters and regimes and those of others (354). Practical reason or phronesis aims at particular actions, but it calls for the study of political science, which aims at knowledge of human beings as political animals, neither beasts nor gods (355). Reciprocally, one cannot know human nature without the ability to reason about particulars, without the sort of character that has the presence of mind, so to speak, to see particulars clearly before generalizing from the particulars. Human beings who are fully human exercise prohairesis: not merely choice or intentional choice, and certainly not free will, but the ability and the inclination to think through the options available to us and then to act on the basis of those deliberations (355). This is very hard to do (355). We are to learn to treat ethical practices not simply as the endoxa [reputable opinions] that they are, but as if they were criticizable solutions to problems posed by our inherited biological nature under various distinct circumstances, problems concerning how the prohairetic life can best be realized (356). Ethics does not consist, finally, either in learning rules or in legislating for ourselves. Ethics does not require us to dare to know but to want to know, for our own good. Wanting does not oppose reasoning or knowing, Aristotle argues, because desire does not mean a passive response to external stimuli. Desire or eros animates all living beings; human beings differ from others in our capacity for deliberation and reflection upon our desires and their objects. But deliberation and reflection do not oppose the desires as such; therefore, Aristotle needs nothing that transcends the desiresa rational will or categorical imperative, for example. Ethical life instead requires character or ethos, the combination of emotion, desire, and reason in summing up an individuals nature, an identity formed initially by habituation on the basis of biologically transmitted potentials, but gradually in the course of education becoming active, a motive force in an individual life (359). How exactly does character arise, and what has it to do with politics? Fred D. Miller concludes the volume with an essay distinguishing Aristotelian self-rule or autarchia from modern autonomy, a distinction crucial to understanding the differences between ancient and modern political philosophy. Miller compares the account of education in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics with the account of the soul in De Anima, and finds that he has a lot of explaining to do. The moral and political books present the soul as educable for a life of reasonable citizenship, for knowing both how to rule and how to be ruled on a basis of justice (376). But in De Anima it seems that
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desire or orexis animates human beings; at best, then, reason would be a scout for the passions and education would consist of teaching the scout to see farther and more clearly. But a careful reading of De Anima reveals that Aristotle is really committed to the rule of reason in his theoretical psychology, so that his philosophy of education is after all supported by his psychology (380). The reading that follows proves indeed both careful and persuasive. Over-simply put, desire has objects; objects move the soul via desire, but the way in which the object of desire plays this role depends on the cognitive condition of the agent (382). The I that desires the object knows or imagines things about what is good for it. Whether I do the right thing ultimately depends upon whether [I] seek a truly good end, as opposed to a seemingly good end, and this depends upon how [I] exercise [my] thought and imagination (384). This is where prohairesis comes in, as described also by Salkever; Miller identifies three forms of it, namely, deliberative desire (bouleutike orexis), cognitive desire (orexis dianoetike) and desiderative thought (orektikos nous). This characterization of choice as a commanding element is consistent with the thesis that reason ultimately initiates action inasmuch as reasoning may lead a person to wish for an object (385). With education, what I want will become more and more reasonable, more and more a reflection of what I should want as a human being living in my circumstances, not the least of which will be the regime of my city. By revealing to agents their natural end, [reason] enables this end, which is as such unmoved, to become an object of action for the agent, and thereby to bring about desire, the movement or change in the soul which is the proximate cause of action (385). Autarchia means this rule of reason in the individual soul, which then recognizes that, as an individual, and even as a member of a family, village, or tribe, it cannot achieve all of the goods that it should have. This is where autarchia (more often translated as self-sufficiency than more literally as self-rule) finds fulfillment rather than contradiction in the interdependence of political life. The city or polis enables human beings to develop their natural potentials, which they cannot do on their own (386). Hence, the city-state is one of the greatest human goods, and when Aristotle declares in De Anima that the faculty of desire is the moving principle in human beings as well as animals, he does not compromise his political ideal of reasons rule in the human soul, inasmuch as political autonomy for Aristotle consists of self-government of the citizens under law (386).
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Although Aristotle did not see the modern state, his political science speaks to those who would engage in state-building, not to say regime change, in modernity.
A population fit for political rule satisfies three requirements [Miller writes, summarizing Aristotles observations]: it is capable of defending the city-state, it possesses sufficient wealth, and it is capable of sharing in governance. Such a population must know how to rule as well as be ruled, or else they will only be capable of despotic rule. The hallmark of such a population is equality: The city-state wishes to consist of equal and similar persons as far as possible. Political rule requires that the citizens share in governance, taking turns in ruling and being ruled or holding different offices. Each person must be willing to rule with a view to the advantage of others and to yield up authority when it is another persons turn. This requires that individuals abide by legal procedures governing their term of office, the selection of new officials, and the rights and duties associated with each office. (387)
A political founder or law-giver must prepare the citizens for rational self-rule (390). Political autonomy (political rule according to law) requires some measure, at least, of individual autonomy (self-governance of the soul): that is, a city-state is (politically) autonomous only if the citizens are (individually) autonomous to some degree (390). The rule of law consists not of blind obedience but of the prudent and moral use of the law for the ends of the city, including justice. Whereas modern or Kantian autonomy splits reason from desire and conceives of autonomy as freedom from desire or the conquest of desire by rational self-legislation, Aristotle works with desire, seeing that desire pervades all animals, including human animals, and is not in itself bad. Reason is rightly neither the scout for the desires nor their stern ruler but their guide. The autarchic individual is both ruled by reason and motivated by desire (394). This fine volume of essays suggests a concluding thought on what Aristotle might offer to those who think about modern politics. Any science classifies the objects it knows; Aristotles political science classifies political communities according to their regimes. Regimes consist of three elements: ruling persons, ruling structures, and characteristic ways of life. Ruling structures are impersonal, but the other two elements are not. The personalism of Aristotelian political science contrasts with the principled impersonality of the modern state, whether considered as a structurea
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bureaucracy in which each employee directs his loyalty to his function in the apparatus, not toward some personor as an expression of the General Will, impersonal because general. The impersonality of the modern state is one result of the impersonality of Machiavellianism; if the ruler or prince means not to be good or evil, but to use good and evil, then he is nothing more than a throbbing nerve of libido dominandi, one set against persons divine and human who have characters. Rule by persons distinguishes itself from rule by persons who want to remake themselves into forces by its origin in speech and deliberation, particularly speech and deliberation about what is good and how to attain what is good. The conquest of nature commended by Machiavelli must finally require the conquest of human nature, embodied in persons who speak and deliberate. Liberalism therefore seems un-modern in its commitment to freedom of speech. Modern liberals much esteem speech, so much so that they require toleration of all speech, marking off a sphere for talk within the modern state, the ruling apparatus of which wants above all to act. This great achievement of liberalism has moderated the Machiavellian project, which might otherwise have done more to efface humanness from the world than it has been able to do, so far.
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Interpretation, Vol 35-2

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Volume 35

A JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

A JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

A JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

How to Interpret Ciceros Dialogue on Divination

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Introduction to the Reading of Dante: Inferno, Cantos I-VII

An Update of Strausss Notes and References...in Natural Right and History

An Update of Strausss Notes and References...in Natural Right and History

An Update of Strausss Notes and References...in Natural Right and History

An Update of Strausss Notes and References...in Natural Right and History

An Update of Strausss Notes and References...in Natural Right and History

An Update of Strausss Notes and References...in Natural Right and History

WILL MORRISEY HILLSDALE COLLEGE will.morrisey@hillsdale.edu

strengthening or weakening my moral habits with practice and with disuse).

A JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

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