【转载】 施特劳斯论自由教育

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What Is Liberal Education?
　　By Leo Strauss
　　Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor
　　Department of Political Science
　　The University of Chicago
　　An Address Delivered
　　at the Tenth Annual Graduation Exercises
　　of the
　　Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults
　　June 6, 1959
　　________________________________________
　　Leo Strauss was born in Germany in 1899. Since coming to the United States in 1938 he has been professor of political science and philosophy at the New School for Social Research and professor of political science at the University of Chicago. In 1954-55 he was visiting professor of philosophy and political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among the books Professor Strauss has written are The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, Natural Right and History, and Thoughts on Machiavelli.
　　________________________________________
　　 You have acquired a liberal education. I congratulate you on your achievement. If I were entitled to do so, I would praise you for your achievement. But I would be untrue to the obligation which I have undertaken if I did not supplement my congratulations with a warning. The liberal education which you have acquired will avert the danger that the warning will be understood as a counsel of despair.
　　 Liberal education is education in culture or toward culture. The finished product of a liberal education is a cultured human being. "Culture" (cultura) means primarily agriculture: the cultivation of the soil and its products, taking care of the soil, improving the soil in accordance with its nature. "Culture" means derivatively and today chiefly the cultivation of the mind, the taking care and improving of the native faculties of the mind in accordance with the nature of the mind. Just as the soil needs cultivators of the soil, the mind needs teachers. But teachers are not as easy to come by as farmers. The teachers themselves are pupils and must be pupils. But there cannot be an infinite regress: ultimately there must be teachers who are not in turn pupils. Those teachers who are not in turn pupils are the great minds or, in order to avoid any ambiguity in a matter of such importance, the greatest minds. Such men are extremely rare. We are not likely to meet any of them in any classroom. We are not likely to meet any of them anywhere. It is a piece of good luck if there is a single one alive in one's time. For all practical purposes, pupils, of whatever degree of proficiency, have access to the teachers who are not in turn pupils, to the greatest minds, only through the great books. Liberal education will then consist in studying with the proper care the great books which the greatest minds have left behind -- a study in which the more experienced pupils assist the less experienced pupils, including the beginners.
　　 This is not an easy task, as would appear if we were to consider the formula which I have just mentioned. That formula requires a long commentary. Many lives have been spent and may still be spent in writing such commentaries. For instance, what is meant by the remark that the great books should be studied "with the proper care"? At present I mention only one difficulty which is obvious to everyone among you: the greatest minds do not all tell us the same things regarding the most important themes; the community of the greatest minds is rent by discord and even by various kinds of discord. Whatever further consequences this may entail, it certainly entails the consequence that liberal education cannot be simply indoctrination. I mention yet another difficulty. "Liberal education is education in culture." In what culture? Our answer is: culture in the sense of the Western tradition. Yet Western culture is only one among many cultures. By limiting ourselves to Western culture, do we not condemn liberal education to a kind of parochialism, and is not parochialism incompatible with the liberalism, the generosity, the open-mindedness, of liberal education? Our notion of liberal education does not seem to fit an age which is aware of the fact that there is not the culture of the human mind but a variety of cultures. Obviously, "culture" if susceptible of being used in the plural is not quite the same thing as "culture" which is a singulare tantum, which can be used only in the singular. "Culture" is now no longer, as people say, an absolute but has become relative. It is not easy to say what culture susceptible of being used in the plural means. As a consequence of this obscurity people have suggested, explicitly or implicitly, that "culture" is any pattern of conduct common to any human group. Hence we do not hesitate to speak of the culture of suburbia or of the cultures of juvenile gangs both non-delinquent and delinquent. In other words, every human being outside of lunatic asylums is a cultured human being, for he participates in a culture. At the frontiers of research there arises the question as to whether there are not cultures also of inmates of lunatic asylums. If we contrast the present day usage of "culture" with the original meaning, it is as if someone would say that the cultivation of a garden may consist of the garden being littered with empty tin cans and whiskey bottles and used papers of various descriptions thrown around the garden at random. Having arrived at this point, we realize that we have lost our way somehow. Let us then make a fresh start by raising the question: what can liberal education mean here and now?
　　 Liberal education is literate education of a certain kind: some sort of education in letters or through letters. There is no need to make a case for literacy; every voter knows that modern democracy stands or falls by literacy. In order to understand this need we must reflect on modern democracy. What is modern democracy? It was once said that democracy is the regime that stands or falls by virtue: a democracy is a regime in which all or most adults are men of virtue, and since virtue seems to require wisdom, a regime in which all or most adults are virtuous and wise, or the society in which all or most adults have developed their reason to a high degree, or the rational society. Democracy in a word is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy. Prior to the emergence of modern democracy some doubts were felt whether democracy thus understood is possible. As one of the two greatest minds among the theorists of democracy put it, "If there were a people consisting of gods, it would rule itself democratically. A government of such perfection is not suitable for human beings." This still and small voice has by now become a high-powered loudspeaker. There exists a whole science -- the science which I among thousands profess to teach, political science -- which so to speak has no other theme than the contrast between the original conception of democracy, or what one may call the ideal of democracy, and democracy as it is. According to an extreme view which is the predominant view in the profession, the ideal of democracy was a sheer delusion and the only thing which matters is the behavior of democracies and the behavior of men in democracies. Modem democracy, so far from being universal aristocracy, would be mass rule were it not for the fact that the mass cannot rule but is ruled by elites, i.e., groupings of men who for whatever reason are on top or have a fair chance to arrive at the top; one of the most important virtues required for the smooth working of democracy, as far as the mass is concerned, is said to be electoral apathy, i.e., lack of public spirit; not indeed the salt of the earth but the salt of modern democracy are those citizens who read nothing except the sports page and the comic section. Democracy is then not indeed mass rule but mass culture. A mass culture is a culture which can be appropriated by the meanest capacities without any intellectual and moral effort whatsoever and at a very low monetary price. But even a mass culture and precisely a mass culture requires a constant supply of what are called new ideas, which are the products of what are called creative minds: even singing commercials lose their appeal if they are not varied from time to time. But democracy, even if it is only regarded as the hard shell which protects the soft mass culture, requires in the long run qualities of an entirely different kind: qualities of dedication, of concentration, of breadth and of depth. Thus we understand most easily what liberal education means here and now. Liberal education is the counter-poison to mass culture, to the corroding effects of mass culture, to its inherent tendency to produce nothing but "specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart." Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant. Liberal education is the necessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society. Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.
　　 Someone might say that this notion of liberal education is merely political, that it dogmatically assumes the goodness of modem democracy. Can we not turn our backs on modem society? Can we not return to nature, to the life of preliterate tribes? Are we not crushed, nauseated, degraded by the mass of printed material, the graveyards of so many beautiful and majestic forests? It is not sufficient to say that this is mere romanticism, that we today cannot return to nature: may not coming generations, after a man-wrought cataclysm, be compelled to live in illiterate tribes? Will our thoughts concerning thermonuclear wars not be affected by such prospects? Certain it is that the horrors of mass culture (which include guided tours to integer nature) render intelligible the longing for a return to nature. An illiterate society at its best is a society ruled by age-old ancestral custom which it traces to original founders, gods or sons of gods or pupils of gods; since there are no letters in such a society, the late heirs cannot be in direct contact with the original founders; they cannot know whether the fathers or grandfathers have not deviated from what the original founders meant, or have not defaced the divine message by merely human additions or subtractions; hence an illiterate society cannot consistently act on its principle that the best is the oldest. Only letters which have come down from the founders can make it possible for the founders to speak directly to the latest heirs. It is then self-contradictory to wish to return to illiteracy. We are compelled to live with books. But life is too short to live with any but the greatest books. In this respect as well as in some others, we do well to take as our model that one among the greatest minds who because of his common sense is the mediator between us and the greatest minds. Socrates never wrote a book but be read books. Let me quote a statement of Socrates which says almost everything that has to be said on our subject, with the noble simplicity and quiet greatness of the ancients. "Just as others are pleased by a good horse or dog or bird, I myself am pleased to an even higher degree by good friends. . . . And the treasures of the wise men of old which they left behind by writing them in books, I unfold and go through them together with my friends, and if we see something good, we pick it out and regard it as a great gain if we thus become useful to one another." The man who reports this utterance, adds the remark: "When I heard this, it seemed to me both that Socrates was blessed and that be was leading those listening to him toward perfect gentlemanship." This report is defective since it does not tell us anything as to what Socrates did regarding those passages in the books of the wise men of old of which he did not know whether they were good. From another report we learn that Euripides once gave Socrates the writing of Heraclitus and then asked him for his opinion about that writing. Socrates said: "What I have understood is great and noble; I believe this is also true of what I have not understood; but one surely needs for understanding that writing some special sort of a diver."
　　 Education to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness. In what way, by what means does liberal education remind us of human greatness? We cannot think highly enough of what liberal education is meant to be. We have beard Plato's suggestion that education in the highest sense is philosophy. Philosophy is quest for wisdom or quest for knowledge regarding the most important, the highest, or the most comprehensive things; such knowledge, he suggested, is virtue and is happiness. But wisdom is inaccessible to man and hence virtue and happiness will always be imperfect. In spite of this, the philosopher, who, as such, is not simply wise, is declared to be the only true king; be is declared to possess all the excellences of which man's mind is capable, to the highest degree. From this we must draw the conclusion that we cannot be philosophers -- that we cannot acquire the highest form of education. We must not be deceived by the fact that we meet many people who say that they are philosophers. For those people employ a loose expression which is perhaps necessitated by administrative convenience. Often they mean merely that they are members of philosophy departments. And it is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists. We cannot be philosophers but we can love philosophy; we can try to philosophize. This philosophizing consists at any rate primarily and in a way chiefly in listening to the conversation between the great philosophers or, more generally and more cautiously, between the greatest minds, and therefore in studying the great books. The greatest minds to whom we ought to listen are by no means exclusively the greatest minds of the West. It is merely an unfortunate necessity which prevents us from listening to the greatest minds of India and of China: we do not understand their languages, and we cannot learn all languages. To repeat, liberal education consists in listening to the conversation among the greatest minds. But here we are confronted with the overwhelming difficulty that this conversation does not take place without our help -- that in fact we must bring about that conversation. The greatest minds utter monologues. We must transform their monologues into a dialogue, their "side by side" into a "together." The greatest minds utter monologues even when they write dialogues. When we look at the Platonic dialogues, we observe that there is never a dialogue among minds of the highest order: all Platonic dialogues are dialogues between a superior man and men inferior to him. Plato apparently felt that one could not write a dialogue between two men of the highest order. We must then do something which the greatest minds were unable to do. Let us face this difficulty -- a difficulty so great that it seems to condemn liberal education as an absurdity. Since the greatest minds contradict one another regarding the most important matters, they compel us to judge of their monologues; we cannot take on trust what any one of them says. On the other hand we cannot but notice that we are not competent to be judges. This state of things is concealed from us by a number of facile delusions. We somehow believe that our point of view is superior, higher than those of the greatest minds -- either because our point of view is that of our time, and our time, being later than the time of the greatest minds, can be presumed to be superior to their times; or else because we believe that each of the greatest minds was right from his point of view but not, as be claims, simply right: we know that there cannot be the simply true substantive view but only a simply true formal view; that formal view consists in the insight that every comprehensive view is relative to a specific perspective, or that all comprehensive views are mutually exclusive and none can be simply true. The facile delusions which conceal from us our true situation all amount to this, that we are, or can be, wiser than the wisest men of the past. We are thus induced to play the part not of attentive and docile listeners but of impresarios or lion-tamers. Yet we must face our awesome situation, created by the necessity that we try to be more than attentive and docile listeners, namely, judges, and yet we are not competent to be judges. As it seems to me, the cause of this situation is that we have lost all simply authoritative traditions in which we could trust, the nomos which gave us authoritative guidance, because our immediate teachers and teachers' teachers believed in the possibility of a simply rational society. Each of us here is compelled to find his bearings by his own powers however defective they may be.
　　 We have no comfort other than that inherent in this activity. Philosophy, we have learned, must be on its guard against the wish to be edifying -- philosophy can only be intrinsically edifying. We cannot exert our understanding without from time to time understanding something of importance; and this act of understanding may be accompanied by the awareness of our understanding, by the understanding of understanding, by noesis noeseos, and this is so high, so pure, so noble an experience that Aristotle could ascribe it to his God. This experience is entirely independent of whether what we understand primarily is pleasing or displeasing, fair or ugly. It leads us to realize that all evils are in a sense necessary if there is to be understanding. It enables us to accept all evils which befall us and which may well break our hearts in the spirit of good citizens of the city of God. By becoming aware of the dignity of the mind, we realize the true ground of the dignity of man and therewith the goodness of the world, whether we understand it as created or as uncreated, which is the home of man because it is the home of the human mind.
　　 Liberal education, which consists in the constant intercourse with the greatest minds, is a training in the highest form of modesty, not to say of humility. It is at the same time a training in boldness: it demands from us the complete break with the noise, the rush, the thoughtlessness, the cheapness of the Vanity Fair of the intellectuals as well as of their enemies. It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard the accepted views as mere opinions, or to regard the average opinions as extreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the most strange or the least popular opinions. Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity. The Greeks had a beautiful word for "vulgarity"; they called it apeirokalia, lack of experience in things beautiful. Liberal education supplies us with experience in things beautiful.

　　found at : http://www.realuofc.org/libed/strauss/liberal.html

 

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回复: 【zt】施特劳斯论自由教育

　　Liberal Education and Mass Democracy*
　　Leo Strauss
　　________________________________________
　　Published in Higher Education and Modern Democracy: The Crisis of the Few and Many, ed. Robert A. Goldwin (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1967), pp. 73-96.
　　________________________________________
　　 Liberal education is education in culture or toward culture. The finished product of a liberal education is a cultured human being. "Culture" (cultura) means agriculture, the cultivation of the soil and its products, taking care of the soil, improving the soil in accordance with its nature. "Culture" means derivatively and today chiefly the cultivation of the mind, the taking care and improving of the native faculties of the mind in accordance with the nature of the mind. Just as the soil needs cultivators of the soil, the mind needs teachers. But teachers are not as easy to come by as farmers. The teachers themselves are pupils and must be pupils. But there cannot be an infinite regress: ultimately there must be teachers who are not in turn pupils. Those teachers who are not in turn pupils are the great minds or, in order to avoid any ambiguity in a mater of such importance, the greatest minds. Such men are extremely rare. We are not likely to meet any of them in any classroom. We are not likely to meet any of them anywhere. It is a piece of good luck if there is a single one alive in one's time. For all practical purposes, pupils, of whatever degree of proficiency, have access to the teachers who are not in turn pupils, to the greatest minds, only through the great books. Liberal education will then consist of studying with the proper care the great books which the greatest minds have left behind -- a study in which the more experienced pupils assist the less experienced pupils, including the beginners.
　　 This is not an easy task, as would appear if we were to consider the formula which I have just mentioned. That formula requires a long commentary. Many lives have been spent and may still be spent in writing such commentaries. For instance, what is meant by the remark that the great books should be studied "with the proper care"? At present I mention only one difficulty: the greatest minds do not all tell us the same things regarding the most important themes; the community of the greatest minds is rent by discord and even by various kinds of discord. Whatever further consequences this may entail, it certainly entails the consequence that liberal education cannot be simply indoctrination. I mention yet another difficulty. "Liberal education is education in culture." In what culture? Our answer is: culture in the sense of the Western tradition. Yet Western culture is only one among many cultures. By limiting ourselves to Western culture, do we not condemn liberal education to a kind of parochialism, and is not parochialism incompatible with the liberalism, the generosity, the open-mindedness, of liberal education? Our notion of liberal education does not seem to fit an age which is aware of the fact that there is not the culture of the human mind but a variety of cultures. Obviously, "culture" if susceptible of being used in the plural is not quite the same thing as "culture" which is a singulare tantum, which can be used only in the singular. "Culture" is now no longer, as people say, an absolute but has become relative. It is not easy to say what culture susceptible of being used in the plural means. As a consequence of this obscurity people have suggested, explicitly or implicitly, that "culture" is any pattern of conduct common to any human group. Hence we do not hesitate to speak of the culture of suburbia or of the cultures of juvenile gangs both non-delinquent In other words, every human being outside of lunatic asylums is a cultured human being, for he participates in a culture. At the frontiers of research there arises the question as to whether there are not cultures also of inmates of lunatic asylums. If we contrast the present day usage of "culture" with the original meaning, it is as if someone would say that the cultivation of a garden may consist of the garden being littered with empty tin cans and whiskey bottles and used papers of various descriptions thrown around the garden at random. Having arrived at this point, we realize that we have lost our way somehow. Let us then make a fresh start by raising the question: what can liberal education mean here and now?
　　 Liberal education is literate education of a certain kind: some sort of education in letters or through letters. There is no need to make a case for literacy; every voter knows that modern democracy stands or falls by literacy. In order to understand this need we must reflect on modern democracy.
　　 What is modern democracy? It was once said that democracy is the regime that stands or falls by virtue: a democracy is a regime in which all or most adults are men of virtue, and since virtue seems to require wisdom, a regime in which all or most adults are virtuous and wise, or the society in which all or most adults have developed their reason to a high degree, or the rational society. Democracy in a word is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy. Prior to the emergence of modern democracy some doubts were felt whether democracy thus understood is possible. As one of the two greatest minds among the theorists of democracy put it, "If there were a people consisting of gods, it would rule itself democratically. A government of such perfection is not suitable for human beings."
　　 This still and small voice has by now become a high-powered loudspeaker. There exists a whole science -- the science which I among thousands profess to teach, political science -- which so to speak has no other theme than the contrast between the original conception of democracy, or what one may call the ideal of democracy, and democracy as it is. According to an extreme view which is the predominant view in the profession, the ideal of democracy was a sheer delusion and the only thing which matters is the behavior of democracies and the behavior of men in democracies.
　　 Modem democracy, so far from being universal aristocracy, would be mass rule were it not for the fact that the mass cannot rule but is ruled by elites, i.e., groupings of men who for whatever reason are on top or have a fair chance to arrive at the top; one of the most important virtues required for the smooth working of democracy, as far as the mass is concerned, is said to be electoral apathy, i.e., lack of public spirit; not indeed the salt of the earth but the salt of modern democracy are those citizens who read nothing except the sports page and the comic section. Democracy is then not indeed mass rule but mass culture. A mass culture is a culture which can be appropriated by the meanest capacities without any intellectual and moral effort whatsoever and at a very low monetary price. But even a mass culture and precisely a mass culture requires a constant supply of what are called new ideas, which are the products of what are called creative minds: even singing commercials lose their appeal if they are not varied from time to time. But democracy, even if it is only regarded as the hard shell which protects the soft mass culture, requires in the long run qualities of an entirely different kind: qualities of dedication, of concentration, of breadth and of depth.
　　 Thus we understand most easily what liberal education means here and now. Liberal education is the counter-poison to mass culture, to the corroding effects of mass culture, to its inherent tendency to produce nothing but "specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart." Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant. Liberal education is the necessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society. Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.
　　 In order to understand the necessity just mentioned, one must return to the original meaning of liberal education. To begin at the beginning, the word "liberal" had, just as it has now, a political meaning: but its original political meaning is almost the opposite of its present political meaning. Originally a liberal man was a man who behaved in a manner becoming a free man as distinguished from a slave. "Liberality" referred then to slavery and presupposed it. A slave is a human being who lives for another human being, his master: he has in a sense no life of his own: he has no time for himself. The master on the other hand has all his time for himself, i.e.. for the pursuits becoming him: politics and philosophy. Yet there are very many free men who are almost like slaves since they have very little time for themselves, because they have to work for their livelihood and to rest so that they can work the next day. Those free men without leisure are the poor, the majority of citizens.
　　 The truly free man who can live in manner becoming a free man is the man of leisure, the gentleman who must possess some wealth -- but wealth of a certain kind: a kind of wealth the administration of which, to say nothing of its acquisition, does not take up much of his time but can be taken care of through the supervision of properly trained subordinates. The gentleman can be a gentleman farmer and not a merchant or entrepreneur, yet if he spends much of his time in the country he will not be available sufficiently for the pursuits becoming him; he must therefore live in town. His way of life will be at the mercy of those of his fellow citizens who are not gentlemen, if he and his like do not rule: the way of life of the gentlemen is not secure if they are not the unquestioned rulers of their city, if the regime of their city is not aristocratic.
　　 One becomes a gentleman by education, by liberal education. The Greek word for education is derived from the Greek word for child: education in general, and therefore liberal education in particular, is then, to say the least, primarily not adult education. The Greek word for education is akin to the Greek word for play, and the activity of the gentlemen is emphatically earnest; in fact, the gentlemen are "the earnest ones." They are earnest because they are concerned with the most weighty matters, with the only things which deserve to be taken seriously for their own sake, with the good order of the soul and of the city.
　　 The education of the potential gentlemen is the playful anticipation of the life of gentlemen. It consists above all in the formation of character and of taste. The fountains of that education are the poets. It is hardly necessary to say that the gentleman is in need of skills. To say nothing of reading, writing, counting, reckoning, wrestling, throwing of spears and horsemanship, he must possess the skill of administering well and nobly the affairs of the household and the affairs of his city by deed and by speech. He acquires that skill by his familiar intercourse with older or more experiences gentlemen, preferably with elder statesmen, by receiving instruction from paid teachers in the art of speaking, by reading histories and books of travel, by meditating on the works of the poets and of course by taking part in political life. All this requires leisure on the part of the youths as well as on the part of their elders: it is the preserve of a certain kind of wealthy people.
　　 This fact gives rise to the question of the justice of a society which in the best case would be governed by gentlemen ruling in their own right. Just government is government which rules in the interest of the whole society and not merely of a part. The gentlemen are therefore under an obligation to show to themselves and to others that their rule is best for everyone in the city as a whole. But justice requires that equal men be treated equally, and there is no good reason for thinking that the gentlemen are by nature superior to the vulgar. The gentlemen are indeed superior to the vulgar by their breeding, but the large majority of men are by nature capable of the same breeding if they are caught young, in their cradles. Only the accident of birth decides whether a given individual has a chance of becoming a gentleman or will necessarily become a villain: hence aristocracy is unjust.
　　 The gentlemen replied as follows: the city as a whole is much too poor to enable everyone to bring up his sons so that they can become gentlemen: if you insist that the social order should correspond with tolerable strictness to the natural order, i.e., that men who are more or less equal by nature should also be equal socially or by convention, you will merely bring about a state of universal drabness. But only on the ground of a narrow conception of justice, owing its evidence to the power of the ignoble passion of envy, must one prefer a flat building which is everywhere equally drab to a structure which from a broad base of drabness rises to a narrow plateau of distinction and of grace, and which therefore gives some grace and some distinction to its very base. There must then be a few who are wealthy and well born and many who are poor and of obscure origin. Yet there seems to be no good reason why this family is elected to gentility and that family is condemned to indistinctness: that selection seems to be arbitrary, to say the least. It would indeed be foolish to deny that old wealth sometimes has its forgotten origins in crime. But it is more noble to believe, and probably also truer, that the old families are the descendents of the first settlers and from leaders in war or counsel; and it is certainly just that one is grateful.
　　 Gentlemen may rule without being rulers in their own right; they may rule on the basis of popular election. This arrangement was regarded as unsatisfactory for the following reason. It would mean that the gentlemen are strictly speaking responsible to the common people, i.e., that the higher is responsible to the lower, and this would appear to be against nature. The gentlemen regard virtue as choiceworthy for its own sake, whereas the others praise virtue as a means for acquiring wealth and honor. The gentlemen and the others disagree then as regards the end of man or the highest good; they disagree regarding first principles. Hence they cannot have genuinely common deliberations.1 The gentlemen cannot possibly give a sufficient or intelligible account of their way of life to the others. While being responsible to themselves for the well-being of the vulgar, they cannot be responsible to the vulgar.
　　 But even if one rests satisfied with a less exacting notion of the rule of gentlemen, the principle indicated necessarily leads one to reject democracy. Rougly speaking, democracy is the regime in which the majority of adult free males living in a city rules, but only a minority of them are educated. The principle of democracy is therefore not virtue but freedom as the right of every citizen to live as he likes. Democracy is rejected because it is as such the rule of the uneducated. One illustration must here suffice. The sophist Protagoras came to the democratic city of Athens in order to educate human beings, or teach for pay the art of administering well the affairs of one's household and of the city by deed and by speech, the political art. Since in a democracy everyone is supposed to possess the political art somehow, yet the majority, lacking equipment, cannot have acquired that art through education. Protagoras must assume that the citizens received that art through something like a divine gift, albeit a gift which becomes effective only through human punishments and rewards: the true political art, the art which enables a man not only to obey the laws but to frame laws is acquired by education, by the highest form of education which is necessarily the preserve of those who can pay for it.
　　 To sum up, liberal education in the original sense not only fosters civic responsibility -- it is even required for the exercise of civic responsibility. By being what they are, the gentlemen are meant to set the tone of society in the most direct, the least ambiguous and the most unquestionable way: by ruling it in broad daylight.
　　 It is necessary to take a further step away from our opinions in order to understand them. The pursuits becoming the gentleman are said to be politics and philosophy. Philosophy can be understood loosely or strictly. If understood loosely, it is the same as what are now called intellectual interests. If understood strictly, it means quest for the truth about the most weighty matters or for the comprehensive truth or for the truth about the whole or for the science of the whole. When comparing politics to philosophy strictly understood, one realizes that philosophy is of higher rank than politics. Politics is the pursuit of certain ends; decent politics is the decent pursuit of decent ends. The responsible and clear distinction between ends which are decent and ends which are not is in a way presupposed by politics. It surely transcends politics. For everything which comes into being through human action, and which is therefore perishable or corruptible, presupposes incorruptible and unchangeable things -- for instance, the natural order of the human soul -- with a view to which we can distinguish between right and wrong actions.
　　 In the light of philosophy, liberal education takes on a new meaning: liberal education -- especially education in the liberal arts -- comes to sight as a preparation for philosophy. The gentleman as gentleman accepts on trust certain most weighty things which for the philosopher are the themes of investigation and of questioning. Hence the gentleman's virtue is not entirely the same as the philosopher's virtue. A sign of this difference is the fact that whereas the gentleman must be wealthy in order to do his proper work, the philosopher may be poor. Socrates lived in tenththousandfold poverty. Once he saw many people following a horse and looking at it, and he heard some of them conversing much about it. In his surprise he approached the groom with the question whether the horse was rich. The groom looked at him as if he were not only grossly ignorant but not even sane: "How can a horse have any property?" At that Socrates understandably recovered, for he thus learned that it is lawful for a horse which is a pauper to become good provided it possess a naturally good soul: it may then be lawful for Socrates to become a good man in spite of his poverty.
　　 Since it is not necessary for the philosopher to be wealthy, he does not need the entirely lawful arts by which one defends one's property, e.g., forensically: nor does he have to develop the habit of self assertion in this or other respects -- a habit which necessarily enters into the gentleman's virtue. Despite these differences, the gentleman's virtue is a reflection of the philosopher's virtue: one may say it is its political reflection. This is the ultimate justification of the rule of gentlemen. The rule of the gentlemen is only a reflection of the rule of the philosophers who are understood to be the men best by nature and best by education.
　　 Given the fact that philosophy is more evidently quest for wisdom than possession of wisdom, the education of the philosopher never ceases as long as he lives; it is the adult education par excellence. For, to say nothing of other things, the highest kind of knowledge which a man may have acquired can never be simply at his disposal as other kinds of knowledge can; it is in constant need of being acquired again from the start. This leads to the following consequence. In the case of the gentleman, one can make a simple distinction between the playful education of the potential gentleman and the earnest work of the gentleman proper. In the case of the philosopher this simple distinction between the playful and the serious no longer holds, not in spite of the fact that his sole concern is with the weightiest matters but because of it. For this reason alone, the rule of philosophers proves to be impossible.
　　 This leads to the difficulty that the philosophers will be ruled by the gentlemen, i.e., by their inferiors. One can solve this difficulty by assuming that the philosophers are not as such a constitutent part of the city. In other words, the only teachers who are as such a constituent part of the city are the priests. The end of the city is then not the same as the end of philosophy. If the gentlemen represent the city at its best, one must say that the end of the gentleman is not the same as the end of the philosopher. What was observed regarding the gentleman in his relation to the vulgar applies even more to the philosopher in his relation to the gentlemen and a fortiori to all other non-philosophers: the philosopher and the non-philosophers cannot have genuinely common deliberations.
　　 There is a fundamental disproportion between philosophy and the city. In political things it is a sound rule to let sleeping dogs lie or to prefer the established to the non-established or to recognize the right of the first occupier. Philosophy stands or falls by its intransigent disregard of this rule and of anything which reminds of it. Philosophy can then live only side by side with the city. As Plato put it in the Republic, only in a city in which the philosophers rule, and in which they therefore owe their training in philosophy to the city, is it just that the philosopher be compelled to engage in political activity; in all other cities, i.e., in all actual cities, the philosopher does not owe his highest gift of human origin to the city and therefore is not under an obligation to do the work of the city.
　　 In entire agreement with this, Plato suggests in his Crito, where he avoids the very term philosophy, that the philosopher owes indeed very much to the city and therefore he is obliged to obey at least passively even the unjust laws of the city and to die at the behest of the city. Yet he is not obliged to engage in political activity. The philosopher as philosopher is responsible to the city only to the extent that by doing his own work, by his own well being, he contributes to the well being of the city: philosophy has necessarily a humanizing or civilizing effect. The city needs philosophy but only mediately or indirectly, not to say in a diluted form. Plato has presented this state of things by comparing the city to a cave from which which only a rough and steep ascent leads to the light of the sun: the city as city is more closed to philosophy than open to it.
　　 The classics had no delusions regarding the probability of a genuine aristocracy ever becoming actual. For all practical purposes they were satisfied with a regime in which the gentlemen share power with the people in such a way that the people elect the magistrates and the council from among the gentlemen and demand an account of them at the end of their term of office. A variation of this thought is the notion of the mixed regime, in which the gentlemen form the senate and the senate occupies the key position between the popular assembly and an elected or hereditary monarch as head of the armed forces of society. There is a direct connection between the notion of the mixed regime and modern republicanism.
　　 Lest this be misunderstood, one must imniediately stress the important differences between the modern doctrine and its classic original. The modern doctrine starts from the natural equality of all men and it leads therefore to the assertion that sovereignty belongs to the people; yet it understands that sovereignty in such a way as to guarantee natural rights of each; it achieves this result by distinguishing between the sovereign and the government and by demanding that the fundamental governmental powers be separated from one another. The spring of this regime was held to be the desire of each to improve his conditions, or what came to be called his material conditions. Accordingly the commercial and industrial elite rather than the landed gentry predominated.
　　 The fully developed doctrine required that one man have one vote, that the ballot be secret, and that the right to vote be not abridged on account of poverty, religion or race. Governmental actions on the other hand are to be open to public inspection to the highest degree possible, for government is only the representative of the people. The responsibility of the people, of the electors, does not permit of legal definition and is therefore the most obvious crux of modern republicanism. In the earlier stages the solution was sought in the religious education of the people, in the education based on the Bible, of everyone to regard himself as responsible for his actions and for his thoughts to a God who would judge him, for, in the words of Locke, rational ethics proper was much beyond the capacities of "day laborers and tradesmen, and spinsters and dairy maids" as is mathematics.
　　 On the other hand, the same authority advises the gentlemen of England to set their sons upon Puffendorf's Natural Right "wherein (they) will be instructed in the natural rights of men, and the origin and foundation of society, and he duties resulting from thence." Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education is addressed to the gentlemen rather than to "those of the meaner sort," for if the gentlemen "are by their education once set right, they will quickly bring all the rest into order." For, as we may suppose, the gentlemen are those called upon to act as representatitves of the people and they are to be prepared for this calling by a liberal education which is above all an education in "good breeding." Locke takes his models from the ancient Romans and Greeks and the liberal education which he recommends consists to some extent in acquiring an easy familiarity with classical literature: "Latin I look upon as absolutely necessary to a gentleman."2
　　 Several of Locke's points are brought out clearly in The Federalist. These writings reveal their connection with the classics simply enough by presenting themselves as the work of one Publius. This eminently sober work considers chiefly the diversity and inequality in the faculties of men which show themselves in the acquisition of property, but it is very far from being blind to the difference between business and government. According to Hamilton, the mechanics and manufacturers "know that the merchant is their natural patron and friend," their natural representative, for the merchant possesses "those acquired endowments without which, in a deliberative assembly, the greatest natural abilities are for the most part useless." Similarly, the wealthier landlords are the natural representatives of the landed interest. The natural arbiter between the landed and the moneyed interests will be "the man of the learned professions," for "the learned professions . . . truly form no distinct interest in society" and therefore are more likely than others to think of "the general interests of the society." It is true that in order to become a representative of the people, it sometimes suffices that one practice "with success the vicious art by which elections are too often carried," but these deplorable cases are the exception, the rule being that the representatives will be respectable landlords, merchants, and members of the learned professions. If the electorate is not depraved, there is a fair chance that it will elect as its representatives for deliberation as well as for execution those among the three groups of men "who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society," or those who are most outstanding by "merits and talents," by "ability and virtue."3

 

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接上：

　　 Under the most favorable conditions, the men who will hold the balance of power will then be the men of the learned professions. In the best case, Hamilton's republic will be ruled by the men of the learned professions. This reminds one of the rule of the philosophers. Will the men of the learned professions at least be men of liberal education? It is probable that the men of the learned professions will chiefly be lawyers.
　　 No one ever had a greater respect for law and hence for lawyers than Edmund Burke: "God forbid I should insinuate anything derogatory to that profession, which is another priesthood, administrating the rights of sacred justice." Yet he felt compelled to describe the preponderance of lawyers in the national counsels as "mischievous." "Law . . . is, in my opinion, one of the first and noblest of human sciences: a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the understanding, than all the other kinds of learning put together: but it is not apt, except in persons very happily born, to open and to liberalize the mind exactly in the same proportion." For to speak "legally and constitutionally" is not the same as to speak prudently." ". . . Legislators ought to do what lawyers cannot; for they have no other rules to bind them, but the great principles of reason and equity, and the general sense of mankind."4 The liberalization of the mind obviously requires understanding of "the great principles of reason and equity" which for Burke are the same thing as the natural law.
　　 But it is not necessary to dwell on the particular shortcomings from which representative government might suffer. Two generations after Burke, John Stuart Mill took up the question concerning the relation of representative government and liberal education. One does not exaggerate too much by saying that he took up the these two subjects in entire separation from one another. His Inaugural Address at St. Andrew's5 deals with liberal education as "the education of all who are not obliged by their circumstances to discontinue their scholastic studies at a very early age," not to say the education of "the favorites of nature and fortune." That speech contains a number of observations which will require our consideration and reconsideration. Mill traces the "superiority" of classical literature "for purposes of education" to the fact that literature transmits to us "the wisdom of life": "In cultivating . . . the ancient languages as our best literary education, we are all the while laying an admirable foundation for ethical and philosophical culture." Even more admirable than "the substance" is "the form" of treatment: "It must be remembered that they had more time and that they wrote chiefly for a select class possessed of leisure" whereas we "write in a hurry for people who read in a hurry." The classics used "the right words in the right places" or, which means the same thing, they were not "prolix."
　　 But in Considerations on Representative Government,6 Mill pointed out that liberal education has very little effect on the "miscellaneous assembly," which is the legal sovereign and which is frequently ruled by men who have no qualifications for legislation except "a fluent tongue, and a faculty of getting elected by a constituency." To secure "the intellectual qualifications desirable in representatives," Mill thought, there is no other mode than proportional representation as devised by Hare and Fawcett, a scheme which in his opinion is of "perfect feasibility" and possesses "transcendent advantages."
　　 The natural tendency of representative government, as of modern civilization, is toward collective mediocrity; and this tendency is increased by all reductions and extensions of the franchise, their effect being to place the principal power in the hands of classes more and more below the highest level of instruction in the community.
　　 It is an admitted fact that in the American democracy, which is constructed on this faulty model, the highly cultivated members of the community, except such of them as are willing to sacrifice their own opinions and modes of judgment, and become the servile mouthpieces of their inferiors in knowledge, do not ever offer themselves for Congress or State legislatures, so certain is it that they would have no chance of being returned. Had a plan like Mr. Hare's by good fortune suggested itself to the enlightened and patriotic founders of the American Republic, the Federal and State Assemblies would have contained man of those distinguislied men, and democracy would have been spared its greatest reproach and one of its most formidable evils.
　　 Only proportional representation which guarantees or at least does not exclude the proper representation of the best part of society in the government will transform "the falsely called democracies which now prevail, and from which the current idea of democracy is exclusively derived" into "the only true type of democracy," into democracy as originally meant. For reasons which are not all bad, Mill's remedy has come to be regarded as insufficient, not to say worthless. Perhaps it was a certain awareness of this which induced him to look for relief in another part of the body politic. From the fact that the representative assemblies are not necessarily "a selection of the greatest political minds of the country," he drew the conclusion that for "the skilled legislation and administration" one must secure "under strict responsibility to the nation, the acquired knowledge and practiced intelligence of a specially trained and experienced few."
　　 Mill appears to sugggest that with the growth and maturity of democracy, the institutional seat of public spirited intelligence could and should be sought in the high and middle echelons of the officials. This hope presupposes that the bureaucracy can be transformed into a civil service properly so-called, the specific difference between the bureaucrat and the civil servant being that the civil servant is a liberally educated man whose liberal education affects him decisively in the performance of his duties.
　　 Permit me to summarize the preceding argument. In the light of the original conception of modern republicanism, our present predicament appears to be caused by the decay of religious education of the people and by the decay of liberal education of the representatives of the people. By the decay of religious education I mean more than the fact that a very large part of the people no longer receive any religious education, although it is not necessary on the present occasion to think beyond that fact. The question as to whether religious education can be restored to its pristine power by the means at our disposal is beyond the scope of this essay. Still, I cannot help asking these questions: is our present concern with liberal education and our present expectation from such liberal education not due to the void created by the decay of religious education? Is such liberal education meant to perform the function formerly performed by religious education? Can liberal education perform that functional?
　　 It is certainly easier to discuss the other side of our predicament, the predicament caused by the decay of liberal education of the governors. Following Mill's suggestion, we would have to consider whether and to what extent the education of the future civil servants can and should be improved, or in other words whether the present form of their education is liberal education in a tolerably strict sense. If it is not, one would have to raise the broader question whether the present colleges and universities supply such a liberal education and whehter they can be reformed. lt is more modest, more pertinent and more practical to give thought to some necessary reforms of the teaching in the Departments of Political Science and perhaps also in the Law School. What I have in mind are changes less in the subjects taught than in the emphasis and in the approach: whatever broadens and deepens the understanding should be more encouraged than what in the best case cannot as such produce more than narrow and unprincipled efficiency.
　　 No one, I trust, will misunderstand the preceding remarks and impute to me the ridiculous assertion that education has ceased to be a public or political power. One must say, however, that a new type of education or a new orientation of education has come to predominate. Just as liberal education in its original sense was supported by classical philosophy, so the new education derives its support, if not its being, from modern philosophy. According to classical philosophy, the end of the philosophers is radically different from the end or ends actually pursued by the non-philosophers. Modern philosophy comes into being when the end of philosophy is identified with the end which is capable of being actually pursued by all men. More precisely, philosophy is now asserted to be essentially subservient to the end which is capable of being actually pursued by all men.
　　 We have suggested that the ultimate justification for the distinction between gentlemen and non-gentlemen is the distinction between philosophers and non-philosophers. If this is true, it follows that by causing the purpose of the philosophers, or more generally the purpose which essentially transcends society, to collapse into the purpose of the non-philosophers, one causes the purpose of the gentlemen to collapse into the purpose of the non-gentlemen. In this respect, the modern conception of philosophy is fundamentally democratic.
　　 The end of philosophy is now no longer what one may call disinterested contemplation of the eternal but the relief of man's estate. Philosophy thus understood could be presented with some plausibility as inspired by Biblical charity, and accordingly philosophy in the classic sense could be disparaged as pagan and as sustained by sinful pride. One may doubt whether the claim to Biblical inspiration was justified and even whether it was always raised in entire sincerity. However this may be, it is conducive to greater clarity, and at the same time in agreement with the spirit of the modern conception, to say that the moderns opposed a "realistic," earthly, not to say pedestrian conception to the "idealistic," heavenly, not to say visionary conception of the classics.
　　 Philosophy or science was no longer an end in itself but in the service of human power, of a power to be used for making human life longer, healthier, and more abundant. The economy of scarcity, which is the tacit presupposition of all earlier social thought, was to be replaced by an economy of plenty. The radical distinction betwen science and manual labor was to be replaced by the smooth cooperation of the scientist and the engineer. According to the original conception, the men in control of this stupendous enterprise were the philosopher-scientists. Everything was to be done by them for the people but, as it were, nothing by the people. For the people were, to begin with, rather distrustful of the new gifts from the new sort of sorcerers, for they remembered the commandment, "thou shalt not suffer a sorcerer to live." In order to become the willing recipients of the new gifts, the people had to be enlightened. This enlightenment is the core of the new education. It is the same as the diffusion or popularization of the new science. The addressees of the popularized science were in the first stage countesses and duchesses rather than spinsters and dairy-maids, and popularized science often surpassed science proper in elegance and charm of diction.
　　 But the first step entailed all the further steps which were taken in due order. The enlightenment was destined to become universal enlightenment. It appeared that the difference of natural gifts did not have the importance which the tradition had ascribed to it: method proved to be the great equalizer of naturally unequal minds. While invention or discovery continued to remain the preserve of the few, the results could be transmitted to all. The leaders in this great enterprise did not rely entirely on the effects of formal education for weaning men away from concern with the bliss of the next world to work for happiness in this. What study did not do and perhaps could not do trade did: immensely facilitated and encouraged by the new intentions and discoveries, trade which unites all peoples, took precedence over religion which divides the peoples.
　　 But what was to be done to moral education? The identification of the end of the gentlemen with the end of the non-gentlemen meant that the understanding of virtue as choiceworthy for its own sake gave way to an instrumental understanding of virtue: honesty is nothing but the best policy, the policy most conducive to commodious living or comfortable self-preservation. Virtue took on a narrow meaning with the final result that the word virtue fell into desuetude. There was no longer a need for a genuine conversion from the pre-moral if not immoral concern with worldly goods to the concern with the goodness of the soul, but only for the calculating transition from unenlightened to enlightened self-interest. Yet even this was not entirely necessary. It was thought that at least the majority of men will act sensibly and well if the alternative will be made unprofitable by the right kind of institution, political and economic. The devising of the right kind of institutions and their implimentation came to be regarded as more important than the formation of character by liberal education.
　　 Yet let us not for one moment forget the other side of the picture. It is a demand of justice that there should be a reasonable correspondence between the social hierarchy and the natural hierarchy. The lack of such a correspondence in the old scheme was defended by the fundamental fact of scarcity. With the increasing abundance it became increasingly possible to see and to admit the element of hypocrisy which had entered into the traditional notion of aristocracy; the existing aristocracies proved to be oligarchies rather than aristocracies. In other words it became increasingly easy to argue from the premise that natural inequality has very little to do with social inequality, that practically or politically speaking one may safely assume that all men are by nature equal, that all men have the same natural rights, provided one uses this rule of thumb as the major premise for reaching the conclusion that everyone should be given the same opportunity as everyone else: natural inequality has its rightful place in the use, non-use or abuse of opportunity in the race as distinguished from at the start. Thus it became possible to abolish niany injustices or at least many things which had become injustices. Thus was ushered in the age of tolerance. Humanity which was formerly rather the virtue appropriate in one's dealings with one's inferiors -- with the underdog -- became the crowning virtue. Goodness became identical with compassion.
　　 Originally the philosopher-scientist was thought to be in control of the progressive enterprise. Since he had no power, he had to work through the princes. The control was then in fact in the hands of the princes, if of enlightened princes. But with the progress of enlightenment, the tutelage of the princes was no longer needed. Power could be entrusted to the people. It is true that the people did not always listen to the philosopher-scientists. But apart from the fact that the same was true of princes, society came to take on such a character that it was more and more compelled to listen to the philosopher-scientist if it desired to survive. Still there remained a lag between the enlightenment coming from above and the way in which the people exercised its freedom.
　　 One may even speak of a race: Will the people come into full possession of its freedom before it has become enlightened, and if so, what will it do with its freedom and even with the imperfect enlightenment which it will already have received? An apparent solution was found through an apparent revolt against the enlightenment and through a genuine revolt against enlightened despotism. It was said that every man has the right to political freedom, to being a member of the sovereign, by virtue of the dignity which every man has as man, the dignity of a moral being. The only thing which can be held to be unqualifiedly good is not the contemplation of the eternal, not the cultivation of the mind, to say nothing of good breeding, but a good intention, and of good intentions everyone is as capable as everyone else, wholly independently of education. Accordingly, the uneducated could even appear to have an advantage over the educated: the voice of nature or of the moral law speaks in them perhaps more clearly and more decidedly than in the sophisticated who may have sophisticated away their conscience.
　　 This belief is not the only starting point and perhaps not the best starting point, but it is for us now the most convenient starting point for understanding the assertion, which was made at that moment -- the assertion that virtue is the principle of democracy and only of democracy. One conclusion from this assertion was Jacobin terror which punished not only actions and speeches but intentions as well. Another conclusion was that one must respect every man merely because he is a man, regardless of how he uses his will or his freedom, and this respect must be implemented by full political rights for everyone who is not technically criminal or insane, regardless of whether he is mature for the exercise of those rights or not. That reasoning reminds one of Locke's criticism which led him to the conclusion that one may indeed behead a tyrannical king but only with reverence for that king. It remains then at the race between the political freedom below and the enlightenment coming from above.
　　 Hitherto I have spoken of the philosopher-scientist. That is to say, I have pretended that the original conception, the seventeenth-century conception, has retained its force. But in the meantime philosophy and science have become divorced: a philosopher need not be a scientist and a scientist need not be a philosopher. Only the title Ph.D. is left as a reminder of the past. Of the two henceforth divorced faculties of the mind, science has acquired supremacy: science is the only authority in our age of which one can say that it enjoys universal recognition. This science has no longer any essential connection with wisdom. It is a mere accident if a scientist, even a great scientist, happens to be a wise man politically or privately. Instead of the fruitful and ennobling tension between religious and liberal education, we now see the tension between the ethos of democracy and the ethos of technocracy.
　　 During the last seventy years, it has become increasingly the accepted opinion that there is no possibility of scientific and hence rational knowledge of "values," i.e., that science or reason are incompetent to distinguish between good and evil ends. It would be unfair to deny that, thanks to the survival of utilitarian habits, scientists in general and social scientists in particular still take it for granted in many cases that health, a reasonably long life and prosperity are good things and that science must find means for securing or procuring them. But these ends can no longer claim the evidence which they once possessed; they appear now to be posited by certain desires which are not "objectively" superior to the opposite desired. Since science is then unable to justify the ends for which it seeks the means, it is in practice compelled to satisfy the ends which are sought by its customers, by the society to which the individual scientist happens to belong and hence in many cases by the mass.
　　 We must disregard here the older traditions which fortunately still retain some of their former power, because their power is more and more corroded as time goes on. If we look then only at what is peculiar to our age or characteristic of our age, we see hardly more than the interplay of mass taste with high-grade but strictly speaking unprincipled efficiency. The technicians are, if not responsible, at any rate responsive to the demands of the mass: but a mass as mass cannot be responsible to anyone or to anything for anything. It is in this situation that we raise the question concerning liberal education and mass denlocracy.
　　 In this situation the insufficiently educated are bound to have an unreasonably, strong, influence on education -- on the determination of both the ends and the means of education. Futhermore, the very progress of science leads to an ever-increasing specialization, with the result that a man's respectability becomes dependent on his being a specialist. Scientific education is in danger of losing its value for the broadening and the deepening of the human being. The only universal science which is possible on this basis -- logic or methodology -- becomes itself an affair of and for technicians. The remedy for specialization is therefore sought in a new kind of universalism -- a universalism which has been rendered almost inevitable by the extension of our spatial and temporal horizons. We are trying to expel the narrowness of specialization by the superficiality of such things as general civilization courses or by what has aptly been compared to the unending cinema, as distinguished from a picture gallery, of the history of all nations in all respects: economic, scientific, artistic. religious and political. The gigantic spectacle thus provided is in the best case exciting and entertaining; it is not instructive and educating. A hundred pages -- no, ten pages of Herodotus introduces us immeasurably better into the mysterious unitv of oneness and variety in human things than many volumes written in the spirit predominant in our age. Besides, human excellence or virtue can no longer be regarded as the perfection of human nature toward which man is by nature inclined or which is the goal of his eros. Since "values" are regarded as in fact conventional, the place of moral education is taken by conditioning, or more precisely, by conditioning through symbols verbal and other, or by adjustment to the society in question.
　　 What then are the prospects for liberal education within mass democracy? What are the prospects for the liberally educated to become again a power in democracy? We are not permitted to be flatterers of democracy precisely because we are friends and allies of democracy. While we are not permitted to remain silent on the dangers to which democracy exposes itself as well as human excellence, we cannot forget the obvious fact that by giving freedom to all, democracy also gives freedom to those who care for human excellence. No one prevents us from cultivating our garden or from setting up outposts which may come to be regarded by many citizens as salutarv to the republic and as deserving of giving to it its tone. Needless to say, the utmost exertion is the necessary, although by no means the sufficient, condition for success. For "men can always hope and never need to give up, in whatever fortune and in whatever travail they find themselves." We are indeed compelled to be specialists but we can try to specialize in the most weighty matters or, to speak more simply and more nobly, in the one thing needful. As matters stand, we can expect more immediate help from the humanities rightly understood than from the sciences, from the spirit of perceptivity and delicacy than from the spirit of geometry. If I am not mistaken, this is the reason why liberal education is now becoming almost synonymous with the reading in common of the Great Books. No better beginning could have been made.
　　 We must not expect that liberal education can ever become universal education. It will always remain the obligation and the privilege of a minority. Nor can we expect that the liberally educated will become a political power in their own right. For we cannot expect that liberal education will lead all who benefit from it to understand their civic responsibility in the same way or to agree politically. Karl Marx, the father of communism, and Friedrich Nietzsche, the step-grandfather of fascism, were liberally educated on a level to which we cannot even hope to aspire. But perhaps one can say that their grandiose failures make it easier for us who have experienced those failures to understand again the old saying that wisdom cannot be separated from moderation and hence to understand that wisdom requires unhesitating loyalty to a decent constitution and even to the cause of constitutionalism. Moderation will protect us against the twin dangers of visionary expectations from politics and unmanly contempt for politics. Thus it may again become true that all liberally educated men will be politically moderate men. It is in this way that the liberally educated may again receive a hearing even in the marketplace.
　　 No deliberation about remedies for our ills can be of any value if it is not preceded by an honest diagnosis -- by a diagnosis falsified neither by unfounded hopes nor by fear of the powers that be. We must realize that we must hope almost against hope. I say this, abstracting entirely from the dangers threatening us at the hands of a barbaric and cruel, narrow-minded cunning foreign enemy who is kept in check, if he is kept in check, only by the justified fear that what would bury us would bury him too. In thinking of remedies we may be compelled to rest satisfied with palliatives. But we must not mistake palliatives for cures.
　　 We must remember that liberal education for adults is not merely an act of justice to those who were in their youth deprived through their poverty of an education for which they are fitted by nature. Liberal education of adults must now also compensate for the defects of an education which is liberal only in name or by courtesy. Last but not least, liberal education is concerned with the souls of men and therefore has little or no use for machines. If it becomes a machine or an industry, it becomes undistinguishable from the entertainment industry unless in respect to income and publicity, to tinsel and glamor. But liberal education consists in learning to listen to still and small voices and therefore in becoming deaf to loudspeakers. Liberal education seeks light and therefore shuns the limelight.
　　Notes:
　　* This essay combines major portions of two lectures given by Professor Strauss on separate occasions. "What is Liberal Education?" a commencement address delivered to the Basic Program in Liberal Education for Adults, University of Chicago, June 6, 1959; and "Liberal Education and Responsibility," an address delivered to the Arden House Institute in Leadership Development, sponsored by the Fund for Adult Education, March, 1960.
　　1 Cf. Crito 49d 2-5.
　　2 Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Epistle Dedicatory, pp. 93-94.
　　3 The Federalist, Nos. 10, 35, 36, 55, 57, 62 and 68.
　　4 The Works of Edmund Burke (Bohn Standard Library), I, 407; II, 7, 317-318; V. 295.
　　5 James and John Stuart Mill on Education, ed. by F. A. Cavenagh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), 11-157, by permission of the publisher.
　　6 John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (London: Routledge, undated), 93, 95, 101-102, 133-140 and 155.

　　found at : http://www.ditext.com/strauss/lib2.html

 

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王双洪：施特劳斯谈自由教育

　　[内容提要]本文介绍了施特劳斯关于自由教育的论述。施特劳斯将文化作为自由教育得以实施的条件和最终达到的目标，并且认为自由教育与现代民主制相辅相成，现代民主制保证了公民受教育的权利，而现代民主制之产生和运行也需要自由教育。自由教育必须研读经典。
　　
　　Abstract：According to Strauss, culture is both the necessary condition and the target for liberal education. He also maintains that there is mutual support between liberal education and modern democratic system. The latter protects the right of citizens to get access to education, whereas the former makes possible the rise and smooth operation of modern democracy. He concludes that readings on classics are an essential part of liberal education.
　　
　　
　　　　熟悉美国学界掌故的人可能都知道，20世纪80年代末，施特劳斯的高足布鲁姆曾经以《走向封闭的美国精神》一书引起了不小的轰动，当时所谓的美国知识精英纷纷出面评判和讨论，抨击甚至谩骂者不占少数。有人讲，该书是对施特劳斯思想最为通俗的发挥，虽然不无偏颇，但一定程度上表明了弟子对老师思想的继承和延续。同时，布鲁姆所引起的反响，亦可以说是对施特劳斯提出问题的应验和反弹——问题紧张、积聚到一定浓度时，就要以激烈的方式表达出来。布鲁姆戳到美国政制和现状痛处的相对主义、自由教育等问题，早在1950年代，就被施特劳斯在那次看似温和却切中肯綮的讲演《什么是自由教育》中道出了。我们不得不叹服，施特劳斯这位游走于古典学问中的老先生，目光之锐利和深远，言语之精准与节制。施特劳斯从不直接对现实说三道四，只专心阅读和解释经典，也许正是由于这个原因，他给现代民主和教育下的诊断，并不仅仅属于某个时代和某个民族，今天读来依然有切身之感。
　　
　　　　1959年6月6日，施特劳斯在芝加哥大学的大学学院“成人自由教育基本计划”第十届毕业典礼上致词，题目是“什么是自由教育”。{1}在一开始，施特劳斯就提出，“自由教育是在文化之中或朝向文化的教育，它的成品是一个有文化的人”。由此，我们似乎可以窥见文化之于自由教育的重要性。
　　
　　　　施特劳斯曾经在自己小范围的研讨课上明确表示过对作为现代概念的“文化”的轻视，但在“什么是自由教育”一文中，他为什么不但使用“文化”一词，还把文化作为自由教育得以实施的条件和最终达到的目标呢？是他观念有变，还是前后矛盾？
　　
　　　　其实，注意一下“文化”一词出现的语境，以及在不同语境中的含义不同，我们就会发现，施特劳斯对待“文化”的态度并不矛盾。首先，他轻视“文化”这一概念是在自己“小范围”的研讨课上，属于私下里的言说；重新解释并应用“文化”一词，是在公共场合演讲。施特劳斯曾经表示过，“哲学和科学必须维持在小范围内，哲学家和科学家必须尊重社会所信赖的意见。尊重这些意见与真正接受这些意见是完全不同的事情……哲学家和科学家……既能使他们向一小部分人展示自己认定的真理，又不危及大多数人绝对信奉的那种社会所仰赖的意见”。{2}这虽然是施特劳斯对古典作家写作艺术的论述、总结，但他本人也深谙此道，懂得保持哲学与信仰之间的张力，避免不合时宜地让大多数人了解某种观念或带来混乱和无谓论争，保证“城邦”的正常秩序。在“什么是自由教育”的演讲中，他也没有忘记对作为现代概念的“文化”表示自己的不屑与轻蔑，只不过态度温和而克制：
　　
　　　　文化现在不再是绝对的，而已经成为相对的……于是，我们就用不着犹豫谈论所谓的“郊区文化”或“少年帮文化”……换句话说，任何疯人院之外的人都可以称作有文化的人，因为，他参与了某一文化。
　　
　　　　明白了施特劳斯对作为现代概念和原初意义的“文化”所做的区分，我们不难发现，他在研讨课和公共演讲中不同说法的初衷所在。在论述自由教育的过程中，施特劳斯对“文化”重新做出了解释，与时下的文化概念形成鲜明对照。他首先强调“文化”一词的动词意味，文化是“对土壤及其作物的培育，对土壤的照料，以及按其本性对土壤品质的提升”，自由教育中的“文化”含义就是从以上意义派生出来，用我们古人的语言可以解释为“以文化之”，以美好、智慧、有文采的事物来培养、教化（人），大概包括三个意义维度，如果简练一些表达，就是“文化”、“文”和“化”。首先，“文化”指对心灵的培育——文化，以文化之；其次，还包含培育得以实施的前提，指伟大的心灵及其留下的杰作——文；再次包括文化最终要达到的目的：唤醒个体内在的自由和卓越——化。
　　
　　　　时下的“文化”概念则显得过于狭隘和庞杂。说其狭隘，是因为文化不再像原初意义那样是一个泛称，足以涵盖所有伟大心灵的智慧和德性。当下的“文化”在不同语境中使用看似含义不同，但指的不过是“某一人群中共同的行为方式”而已。比如说，可能指的是“西方文化”，也可能指“东方文化”，或者“非洲土著文化”。说时下文化概念庞杂，是因为文化含义脱离、失去了原初意义中指涉“人类心灵”的内核的部分，似乎一切可以归为一类的人或事物后面都可以缀以“文化”一词，例如，作者文中提到的“郊区文化”、“少年帮文化”。如果联想到我们的语境，还有“酒文化”、“茶文化”、“吃文化”、“穿文化”等等。当下的文化概念已经成为一个什么都想装、什么都能装的筐子。如果这些指涉可以称为文化的话，那么，和施特劳斯解释的文化概念相比，当下文化的特点是只有广度和宽度，而施特劳斯的“文化”特点是其深度和厚度，这是同一概念在使用上的重要差别。
　　
　　　　文化在现代民主多元而自由的园子里“成长”，枝枝蔓蔓掩住了其原初意义上的高贵与单纯。“自由教育与现代民主制相辅相成”是颇有深意的一句话。它暗含着施特劳斯本人对现代民主制的看法。现代民主制保证了公民受教育的权利，自由教育在现代社会中得以实施需要民主制作为前提，这个道理对每一个生活在现代民主制中的成员来讲是个常识，不难理解。但是，现代民主制为何需要自由教育？又在何种程度上需要呢？在施特劳斯的许多文章中，自由民主制的危机和教育问题都是相伴出现的。吉尔丁说过，“施特劳斯罕有不经反思教育问题而谈论自由民主制的危机”。{3}施特劳斯这次演讲的重心不在民主制的危机，而在自由教育，所以，吉尔丁的那句话反过来说也照样成立，施特劳斯是要通过反思现代民主制的危机来谈论自由教育问题。现代民主制追求的是自由与平等，而不是德行与智慧；把自由作为一种目的，意义十分不明确，因为，这意味着对邪恶和善良都要讲究自由。
　　
　　　　关于自由的价值，卢梭也曾谈到过，自由之于人，恰如甘美的醇酒，对有些人是回味无穷的佳酿，对体质虚弱或者不适应的人来讲，也许会损害了他们的身体，或者导致他们毫无节制地沉醉。所以，当自由平等慷慨大方地许诺要把统治的权利赋予大众时，大众却在民主制的指导和训练下，成了“除体育杂志和滑稽剧之外什么也不看”的一群人，他们陶醉于大众文化而不自知。大众所追随的价值观念纷繁错杂且变化频仍，看似丰富多元，实则单调乏味。柏拉图《理想国》中对民主制度下人们性格的描述放在现代民主制度身上似乎依然恰切：
　　
　　　　这种制度中……的人物性格，各色各样，有如锦绣衣裳，五彩缤纷，看上去确实很美。而一般群众也或许会因为这个缘故而断定，它是最美的，就象女人和小孩一见色彩鲜艳的东西就觉得美是一样的。{4}
　　
　　　　大众只能看到事物表面的现象，他们需要正确引导，不能统治自己的生活，在当下的民主制度中，大众既缺乏统治的能力——德行和智慧，又缺乏统治需要的精神——投入公共事业的精神，这种民主最终还是要受治于一个高于大众的所谓精英阶层，该阶层追求的不是唤醒大众之公共精神，让大众实现对自己的统治，而是追求民主制度的平稳运作，需要的恰恰是那些陶醉于大众文化迅速更迭的新鲜事物而不自知、忘了思考的大众。施特劳斯对大众的价值观念以及大众文化的态度，流露出他本人对现代民主制的看法，或者毋宁说，他认为，大众文化是现代民主制造成的必然结果。
　　
　　　　民主制度与现代民主制之间不能划等号，二者内涵迥异。原初意义上的民主制是一种理想的民主政体，是“其中所有或绝大多数成年人富有德性和智慧”，“理性高度发展的社会”。相形之下，现存民主制度显得平庸并且可疑，“不是大众统治，而是大众文化”。对于原初意义上的民主而言，现存的民主制度就是柏拉图自然洞穴之下人为挖掘的又一个洞穴，“今天的我们正处于第二个洞穴之中，它比苏格拉底所关注的那些幸运而无知的人们所处的洞穴更要幽深”。{5}所以，施特劳斯指出，“自由教育是大众文化的解毒剂……是一架阶梯，凭借这架阶梯，我们可以努力从大众民主上升至原初意义上的民主”。
　　
　　　　早在30年代，施特劳斯就表达过自由教育的先声，他说，“我们需要一些希腊人所不需要的预备性教诲，需要通过阅读的学习”。{6}所谓阅读，是手段而不是最后的目的，阅读是为了寻找能够在自由教育中胜任的老师。恐怕有些人很难接受这样一种说法，即活跃在大学课堂上，指导学生们读什么书，如何读书的教授们并不是真正的老师，虽然他们的的确确教授知识给学生们。在施特劳斯的意义上，面对古代伟大心灵的智慧，大学教师只不过是较有经验的学生，堪称真正老师的人是柏拉图所说的哲人，即古代的伟大心灵，后来每个时代的迷路者，都要返回到他们那里寻求启示，发现路标。施特劳斯从来不认为自己是哲学家，深谙伟大心灵智慧与德行不可企及，充满敬畏地自谦自己不过是个学者，要依赖伟大思想家的作品来言说与思考。当今的“哲学家”只不过是为了方便划分和管理而加诸于人的廉价头衔而已。
　　
　　　　我们无法和古人交谈，接受他们的点拨，听他们娓娓道来，循循善诱；同时我们也不知道，这个喧嚣浮躁的时代是否还能产生施特劳斯所说的能够胜任老师角色的“伟大心灵”，即使产生，又能有几人足够幸运，可以和他们在课堂上、在现实中相遇？值得我们这个时代庆幸的是，伟大心灵的言说是向我们敞开的，我们还可以和那些心灵在他们的智慧结晶——伟大的书中相遇。
　　
　　　　现代民主社会中，时间会赋予人们一种后来居上的盲目自信，许多现代人一厢情愿认为，自己比伟大的心灵更有智慧。似乎被科学技术裹挟着在现代化之路上迅跑的现代人，在心性和智慧上就一定超过了古人，这是接受启蒙人被大写之后所获得的信心。我们不必强求要在古人今人之间分出高低上下，在当下的解释学语境中，让有些人以尽量接近古人的方式理解古人已属不易。对于自信得有些狂妄的现代人来讲，这是个没镜子的世界，他们无法用自己的眼睛看清自身的处境，只有借助古人的眼睛才能返观自身。施特劳斯提出了一条重要的阅读或者说解释原则，即我们不能用我们的眼睛去看古代人，而是要用古代人的眼睛来看我们。我们和古人的相遇，只有抱持着“敬畏”的态度，去“专注温良地倾听”，伟大心灵才会真正地敞开，让我们听到他们最真实的声音。
　　
　　　　研读伟大的书，必然会产生如何理解、如何解释伟大思想的问题，自由教育“需要一个长长的注释。许多生命已经、并仍将消耗在对这些注释的写作中”，我们应该“以恰当的注意来研读那些最伟大的心灵留下的杰作”。对于“恰当的注意”，施特劳斯没有多置一词，只是提醒我们，最伟大的心灵们在最重要的主题上并不告诉我们相同的东西。
　　
　　　　显然，这里强调的还是解释方法，要以文本作者理解自己的方式理解文本，采取close reading的方法，阅读者（解释者）的目光在字里行间停留的时候，应该注意到文本中矛盾之处，在看似矛盾的地方，才能真正发现作者真正想告诉你的东西。也许作者所处的时代不是一个可以放开喉咙畅所欲言的时代，也许作者想在同一篇文章中告诉不同读者相异的东西。施特劳斯发现了“隐微写作”，看出了文本中的矛盾在伟大的心灵那里是有意为之的，我们要做的就是去寻找、发掘作者隐藏的微言大义。{7}
　　
　　　　伟大的心灵如何向我们言说呢？他们如何发挥作为教师的作用？
　　
　　　　施特劳斯在这些关键问题上没有直接告诉我们答案，而是举苏格拉底和柏拉图的例子来说明。怪不得有人会说，施特劳斯总是把自己的观点隐藏在伟大思想家的面具之下：他通过注释经典，让伟大的心灵直接发言。在施特劳斯那里，也许告诉我们苏格拉底和柏拉图怎么做、怎么说，要比他本人直接讲授道理更能恢复听众（读者）对一些根本问题的恰当理解。他引证了色诺芬关于苏格拉底的论述，说那几段论述几乎谈到了与他所讲主题相关的所有应被提及的事情：
　　
　　　　就像别人被一匹良马、一条好狗或一只灵鸟取悦那样，我（苏格拉底）自己则因好朋友们而获得更高的快乐……古代的贤人们通过将它们写进书中而遗留下来的财富，我与我的朋友们一起开启它并穿行其中，而且如果我们发现了什么好东西，我们就把它挑出来，并当作一次丰盛的收获，倘若我们因此而能相互促益的话。
　　
　　　　当我（色诺芬）听到这些时，对我来说，不仅苏格拉底受到祝佑，他还将那些倾听他谈话的人引向了完美的高贵气质。
　　
　　　　我已经理解的部分是卓越而高贵的；我相信我所不能理解的部分同样如此；但为了理解这本著作，一个人肯定需要成为某种专门的潜水者。
　　
　　　　施特劳斯用色诺芬的苏格拉底为自己代言。他所言不差，苏格拉底短短的一段话包含了他本人想要说明的几乎所有道理。首先，自由教育是通过研读伟大的书来完成的，苏格拉底在阅读中获得的愉悦，丝毫不逊于别人在物质满足中得到的享乐；其次，苏格拉底对待伟大的书和古代贤人的态度在言词中也有流露，在第三段引文中，苏格拉底面对赫拉克利特的著作，充满谦卑，认为不管已经理解还是尚未理解的，伟大的著作都卓越而高贵，这种态度即是施特劳斯所说的“敬畏”和“倾听”。并且，为了完全理解古人的书，要有人成为“专门的潜水者”，深入文本，寻找、发掘作者隐藏的深意，这也正是施特劳斯提倡的解释方法。第三，苏格拉底不仅自己在古代贤人的书中获得精神上的愉悦和财富，并且和朋友们分享，此处的古代贤人便是苏格拉底面对的伟大心灵。
　　
　　　　文中的引用部分省略了两句话，“如果我知道什么好的事情，我就传授给他们，并把他们介绍给我所认为会使他们在德性方面有所增长的任何其他教师”。{8}在此，施特劳斯借苏格拉底和色诺芬所要说明的是：伟大的心灵不仅能够引导我们走向德性和高贵，并且能够因其与古代贤人对共同事物的关注——他们之间的共通感而成为我们认识其他伟大心灵的中介。施特劳斯的古典学问运用极为圆熟，仅短短几段引文就涵盖了自己想要说明的道理。
　　
　　　　他提出“自由教育通过何种道路和方式唤醒我们身上人的卓越”的问题，但不做答，同样还是举古人例子作为问题的参照。在柏拉图那里，最高意义上的教育就是哲学，“哲学是对智慧的探求，或关于最重要、最高或最整全的事物的知识的探求”。哲人是做这种探求的“最高水平”的人，但即使哲人也无法获得整全的德行和幸福，因为，那种智慧不是属人的。哲人只追求真理，而不占有真理。
　　
　　　　柏拉图对话录中只有较高者和较低者之间、从来没有最高水平心灵之间的对话，即使采取对话的形式，伟大心灵也只是独白。要促成伟大心灵之间的对话，我们必须做出努力，把诸多伟大心灵历时性发生的言说，放进我们共时性的视野，并且发现伟大心灵在重大问题上并不一致后，还要做一项更加难以胜任的工作，那就是怀着敬畏之心在伟大心灵的对话间做出裁决。唯有如此，得到古人的智慧的引导从洞穴之中上升。
　　
　　　　在柏拉图的时代，伟大的心灵相信完全理性的社会是可能的，当下的社会，已经失去了可以称作权威的传统，不相信绝对的价值和真理存在，一切都是相对的，一切都可以因人、因时、因地做出调整、让步与妥协，人们只能自己盲目地寻找并且不断地变幻方向。这个时代不可能产生柏拉图意义上的哲人。在不相信完全理性、不相信传统权威力量、无法产生哲人、无法获得最高形式的教育的语境中，我们只能热爱哲学，靠近哲人，学习哲学思考，通过倾听伟大哲人或者说伟大心灵之间的交谈实现自由教育。
　　
　　　　施特劳斯本人就是自由教育的践行者，他带领着弟子们研读圣贤之作，通过注释古书和伟大心灵的对话。他绝大部分时间都是在读书和思考，这是他生活的核心和乐趣。其弟子布鲁姆回忆，“他在任何组织中都不活跃，不在任何权威机构中任职，除了理解和帮助那些也有可能像他那样行事的人之外，再也没有野心”。{9}施特劳斯显然不是什么所谓的“公共知识分子”。但让人有点费解的是，这样一个人在芝加哥大学期间，除“什么是自由教育”这场之外，还做过多场演讲，据说，施特劳斯在前往克莱尔蒙特人学院（Claremont Men's College）教书之前，最后一次在芝加哥大学露面，就是在成人教育中心演讲。以施特劳斯理解古人的方式大概就能理解他本人做法的初衷，他认为，柏拉图《理想国》和《法义》是教育的典范，苏格拉底和那个雅典人都是要影响和引导资质较好的年轻人，城邦未来的立法者。柏拉图写作的所有对话篇都可以看作是苏格拉底的教育，教育在其最高意义上就是哲学。在此意义上，施特劳斯所践行的自由教育就是他的政治哲学，二者做的是相同的事情——探索并告诉人们通往美好生活的方向。
　　
　　
　　注释：
　　
　　{1}中译见刘小枫、陈少明主编：《经典与解释5：古典传统与自由教育》，北京华夏版2004。
　　{2}施特劳斯：“何谓政治哲学”，引自《现代政治思想》，商务印书馆，1985。
　　{3}吉尔丁：《自由教育与自由民主制的危机》，见《经典与解释5：古典传统与自由教育》，前揭。
　　{4} 《理想国》，郭斌和、张竹明译，页332，北京，商务印书馆， 2002。
　　{5}Leo Strauss，“Review of Julius Ebbinghaus's über die Fortschritte der Metaphysik ”，见《德国文学报》（Deutche Literaturzeitung）第52期（1931年12月27日）2453栏，转引自刘小枫主编：《施特劳斯与古典政治哲学》，上海，三联书店2002，页288。
　　{6}同上。
　　{7}关于施特劳斯的解释学，详见坎特：“施特劳斯与当代解释学”，刘小枫、陈少明编：《经典与解释的张力》，上海三联，2003，99页。
　　{8}该处引文为笔者所引，色诺芬：《回忆苏格拉底》第一卷第六章，吴永泉译本，页37-38，北京：商务印书馆，1984。以上前两段引文为施特劳斯在《什么是自由教育》中的引用，也出自色诺芬的《回忆苏格拉底》。
　　{9}布鲁姆： “纪念施特劳斯”，见氏著：《巨人与侏儒》，秦露等译，北京，华夏出版社，2003，页4。
　　
　　（转引自开放时代）

 

[xzlylzg]

回复: 【zt】施特劳斯论自由教育

这里或许有个问题：到底何为经典？柏拉图的作品是经典、欧几里德《几何原本》难道不是经典吗？自由教育也应该是敢于面对人类知识成果的教育。自然科学教育并不一定会让一个人变得偏狭、功利、自负。其实看看一些近现代科学家的作品，你会发现他们对人类命运的思索并不比整日里只会鼓捣古希腊、罗马文献、自命清高的人浅薄。请别误会！我丝毫没有攻击的意思。我个人也觉得阅读古典作品对自由教育是绝对必要的。但或许应该拓展对经典文本的理解。毕竟，努力成为一个全面的“人”也是自由的一种体现。如果把liberal education、liberal arts（人文教育）仅仅理解为文科教育，贻害必将深远。

 

[泠箖]

回复: 【ZT】施特劳斯论自由教育

费曼有篇文章，说他有次跟个美学家出去同游散步，风景漂亮，两人赏花，美学家突然囋叹了起来，
然后说你们这些科学家，一定是将植物解剖，美就被你们这些人破坏了。费曼听了顿时觉得：
这个人根本是莫名奇妙！有科学的视野，在欣赏花朵的时候反而加深了对美的感受。

我想这个小故事，应该可以支持你想说的一个观点：自由教育也应该是敢于面对人类知识成果的教育。
但是按照史特劳斯的文脉来看，他并不反对科学教育（就我所知他也不反科学，就连海德格也不反科学），
那么问题出在哪里？问题出在【教育】对我们而言的意义是什么？史特劳斯文章表明，教育的目的，
是要让我们成为更有教养（[FONT=新細明體]Bildung[/FONT]）的人，教养是什么？受过教育就等于有教养吗？学历高就会有教养吗？
如果是这样，那么台湾的陈水扁跟美国的小布什都很有教养了，如果你同意他们都很有教养，
那我想这篇文章的讨论可以就此作废

姑且这样说好了，所谓教养（[FONT=新細明體]Bildung[/FONT]），概念虽然抽象，其意指大致是说【个人内在精神的塑造与充实完好，
具有广泛的知识、品味、正确的价值观、是非善恶的判断力，外在表现彬彬有礼，言行举止得体】，
【广泛的知识】，当然包含了科学，也不是单指人文领域而已。

另一个问题是：什么是经典？[FONT=新細明體]80[/FONT]年代末期，西方受解构、后现代、多元等概念（我说的是概念，不是理论）影响，
什么是经典成了各派交锋的场所，哲学界也有这样的状况，分析哲学写的哲学史，跟欧陆写的哲学史绝对不一样
（我就看过有国外分析哲学的教授在嘲笑尼采，认为他不是哲学家，欧陆却把尼采当哲学家），是不是要在这里重新讨论这个话题呢？
我目前只能先搁置，回头针对你问这个问题的意图来回答，单从你的举例来看：
【柏拉图的作品是经典、欧几里德《几何原本》难道不是经典吗？】
你在后面有补出来说，自由教育也应该是敢于面对人类知识成果的教育，又说「但或许应该拓展对经典文本的理解」，
前面一点我已经响应了，后面一点，我也同意。

但为什么要回归古典？请各位继续看文章，我先卖个关子。
（我一直很担心没人想看英文啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊）

又另，讨论议题带点火气事件好事，攻击也无妨，只要不沦为谩骂都行，希望能够再讨论。

 

[泠箖]

回复: 【ZT】施特劳斯论自由教育

让我来加点码，转一篇

甘阳: 政治哲人施特劳斯

　　一、 引言
　　二、现代性与“历史观念”的问题
　　三、施特劳斯在美国
　　四、施特劳斯、自由主义、后现代
　　五、政治、哲学、政治哲学
　　六、结语：政治哲学作为教育
　　
　　一、引言
　　
　　无论从思想学术的意义上讲，还是从社会政治的影响上看，列奥·施特劳斯（LeoStrauss,1899-1973）及其创立的政治哲学学派都是当代西方最奇特的一个现象。这种奇特性突出地表现在其学术影响和政治影响的不对称上，亦即施特劳斯学派对当代西方学术界的影响历来甚小，而对美国政界的影响却似乎甚大。不太夸张地说，所谓施特劳斯学派在西方学术界内历来是最孤立、最边缘、最不受承认甚至最受排斥的学派。例如尽管人们公认施特劳斯创立了一个政治哲学学派并与其弟子们编有西方大学用书《政治哲学史》，但我们可以注意到，迄今为止的绝大多数当代西方政治哲学专著或政治哲学教科书和参考书都从不提及他的名字。在当代西方主流政治哲学的场域中，无论是自由主义的内部辩论，还是自由主义与社群主义或后现代哲学等的辩论中，施特劳斯的名字几乎完全缺席。这首先是因为施特劳斯学派的治学方式大异于一般西方学术界，他们长期来相当自觉地抱持一种孤芳自赏、独往独来的态势，而与几乎所有当代西方学术都格格不入。施特劳斯本人几乎从不引用任何当代西方学术成果，事实上在他眼里几乎所有当代西方学术都早已误入歧途而积重难返。从施特劳斯的视野看，无论是各种各样的当代自由主义，还是各种各样的当代左翼学术，说到底都归属同一阵营，即他们都是坚信现代必然胜于古代、而未来必然胜于现在的“现代人”或“进步人”，都属于施特劳斯所谓“现代民主的官方高级祭司”(theofficialhighpriestsofdemocracy)，从而不可能真正切入他认为最重大的时代问题即“现代性的危机”和“西方文明的危机”。施特劳斯的不同寻常之处在于他坚持必须从西方古典的视野来全面批判审视西方现代性和自由主义（两者在他那里往往作同义词用）。在他看来欧洲十七至十八世纪的那场著名的“古今之争”或“古典人与现代人之争”

　　（QuarrelbetweentheAncientsandModerns）虽然表面上以“现代人”的全面胜利为结果，但这争论本身并未真正结束，因为西方现代性的正当性究竟何在，西方现代性究竟把西方文明引到何处去，都是根本尚未澄清而且变得越来越迫切需要回答的问题。他同时认为，虽然对西方现代性的批判几乎伴随现代性本身而来，但从卢梭发端一直到尼采和海德格尔及其后现代徒子徒孙的现代性批判实际都是从西方现代性的方向上来批判西方现代性，因此其结果实际都是进一步推进现代性，从而进一步暴露“现代性的危机”和“西方文明的危机”。施特劳斯由此强调，对西方现代性的真正批判必须具有一个不同于现代性的基地，对自由主义的批判必须首先获得一个“超越自由主义的视野”（ahorizonbeyondliberalism）。而这个超越西方现代性和自由主义的基地或视野在他看来就是西方古典思想，特别是他所谓“柏拉图－法拉比－迈蒙尼德政治哲学”的视野。我们由此也就可以理解为什么施特劳斯会与几乎所有当代西方学术都格格不入，因为显而易见绝大多数当代西方学者都会认为施特劳斯这样一种取向简直是一种“时代错乱症”（anachronism）。也因此，长期以来西方主流学界基本都把施特劳斯及其弟子看成是学界怪胎而从不认真理会。
　　
　　但不可思议的是，从八十年代后期以来，施特劳斯这样一种对西方现代性和自由主义传统进行最彻底批判的政治哲学，突然被美国主流媒体说成已经成为华盛顿的官方政治哲学，特别是成了美国共和党高层的政治理念。尤其在1994年共和党一举结束美国国会被民主党把持长达六十年的格局，取得在参、众两院都成为多数党的历史性胜利时，美国主要媒体如《纽约时报》、《时代周刊》、《新闻周刊》、《新共和周刊》以及《纽约时报杂志》等在惊呼美国政治大地震时，都指称当时已经去世二十年的施特劳斯是“共和党革命的教父”，认为这位原芝加哥大学政治哲学家是“当今美国政治最有影响的人物之一”。不可否认，施特劳斯的学生或学生的学生确实大量进入美国联邦政府的各重要决策部门，而且实际并不限于共和党。在政界地位较高的包括目前小布殊政府的首席全球战略家、国防部副部长沃尔福维兹（Paul Wolfowitz），共和党军师小克利斯托（William Kristol），但也包括克林顿的政治顾问、自由主义派政治哲学家盖尔斯顿（William Galston）等。1999年施特劳斯诞辰百年，其弟子们出版纪念文集，书名题为《施特劳斯、施特劳斯派、与美国政教体制》，似乎也有意突出施特劳斯对美国政治的影响。而在此之前，自由派学者更出版有《施特劳斯与美国右派》，将施特劳斯与美国右翼政治直接挂钩。所有这些，都不免造成一种印象，似乎施特劳斯的主要关切不是古典西方政治哲学倒是美国政治。但事实上施特劳斯生前很少谈及美国，也从不参与美国的任何当代政治辩论或政治活动，更从未写过任何关于美国政治的文章。他在美国唯一从事过的一次“政治“行为也只属于那种典型的院系政治，亦即当卡尔.波普尔在五十年代谋求芝加哥大学的职位时，施特劳斯曾与另一位政治哲学名家佛格林（Eric Voegelin）联手加以封杀，使波普尔终于没有在美国找到工作。这是因为这两位政治哲学家都认为波普尔的《开放社会及其敌人》是纯粹的半吊子说大话，品味低劣之极，从而认定波普尔是当代不学无术而欺世盗名的典型。施特劳斯对波普尔这类人的厌恶自然不足为奇，因为施特劳斯正是“开放社会的敌人”！事实上施特劳斯政治哲学的全部出发点首先就是强调，任何“政治社会”必然是一个“封闭的社会”(aclosedsociety）即柏拉图意义上的“自然洞穴”，而象波普尔这些自以为已经走出“自然洞穴”的人，在施特劳斯看来只不过是已经堕入了现代人自己制造的“人为洞穴”或“第二层洞穴”而尚不自知罢了。
　　
　　二、 现代性与“历史观念”的问题
　　
　　施特劳斯对美国政治的影响诚然与六十年代以来美国保守主义的强劲崛起有关。当代美国保守主义本是对美国六十年代学生造反的强烈反弹而发展起来的。美国保守派学者常将六十年代美国与六十年代中国“文化大革命”相提并论，称六十年代以来的美国社会变革就是同样给美国造成浩劫的“美国文化大革命”。著名思想史家克利斯蒂勒（Paul Kristeller）在1991年一篇广有影响的文章中甚至有这样的名言：“如果中国人已经一定程度上克服了他们的文化革命，我们美国的文化革命却仍然天天都在愈演愈烈，而且在可见的未来都看不到可以克服这种文化革命的迹象。”施特劳斯虽然从不参与美国的政治辩论，但他对西方现代性的诊断却足以提醒美国保守派认识到，当代美国问题的根源必须归结到西方现代性的起源。事实上施特劳斯早在六十年代学生运动以前就深刻指出，现代性的本质就是“青年造反运动”，其根源就在由马基亚维里开端的西方现代性对西方古典的反叛，因为“现代反对古代”正就是“青年反对老年”，因此施特劳斯称马基亚维里是近代以来一切“青年运动”的鼻祖。在施特劳斯之前，尼采在其关于“主人道德与奴隶道德”的著名论述中已经指出，“主人道德”或“贵族道德”的全部基础在于“以最大的敬意尊重老年和传统，因为所有法律的基础全在于这种对老年和传统的双重尊重”上，因此贵族道德必然“尊祖先而抑后辈”（infavor of ancestors and disfavor of those yet to come）；但西方现代性则颠倒了这一道德基础，越来越不尊重祖先和老年，因为“现代观念”能地只相信所谓“进步”和“未来”，尼采认为这是因为西方现代性起源于“奴隶”反对“主人”亦即“低贱反对高贵”的运动，因此现代性要刻意取消“高贵”与“低贱”的区别，而用所谓的“进步”与否来作为好坏的标准。施特劳斯的看法与尼采一脉相承，认为西方现代性给人类带来了一个全新的观念即所谓“历史观念”的发现，这一发现的重大后果就是人类开始用“进步还是反动”的区别取代了“好与坏”的区别。由于这种“历史观念”已经如此地深入人心，施特劳斯认为现代人常常忘了“好与坏”的标准本应逻辑地先于“进步和倒退”的标准，因为只有先有“好坏”的标准才有可能判断某一历史变革究竟是人类的进步还是人类的败坏。但“历史观念”的兴起实际却使现代人已经本末倒置，不是用“好”的标准去衡量某种新事物是否对，而是倒过来用“新”本身来判断一切是否好。现代与古代因此形成一种有趣对照：如果说古代常常把“好”的标准等同于“古老”的，因此“古”就是“好”，而“最古的”（上古、太古）就是“最好的”，那么现代性则恰恰倒过来把“好”的标准等同于就是“新”，由此现代性的逻辑就是：新的就是好的，最新的就是最好的，因此青年必然胜于老年，而创新必然胜于守旧。在这样一种强劲“历史观念”的推动下，现代性必然地具有一种不断由“青年反对老年”、不断由今天反对昨天的性格、从而现代性的本质必然地就是“不断革命”。在这样一种万物皆流，一切俱变，事事只问新潮与否，人人标榜与时俱进的世界上，是否还有任何独立于这种流变的“好坏”标准、“对错”标准、“善恶”标准、“是非”标准、“正义”与否的标准？还是善恶对错、是非好坏的标准都是随“历史”而变从而反复无常？如果如此，人间是否还有任何弥足珍贵值得世人常存于心甚至千秋万代为人景仰的永恒之事、永恒之人、永恒之业？这就是施特劳斯五十年前出版的成名作《自然正义与历史》（Natural Right and History,1953）所提出的中心问题。
　　
　　施特劳斯这本著作的书名中就出现的natural right一词颇足以对中文翻译造成困难。因为施特劳斯在此书中刻意用natural right一词指称两种正好对立的观念，即一是他所谓的古典的natural right学说，另一种则是他所谓现代的natural right学说。在指古典学说时他的natural right用法基本应该读作“自然正确”、“自然正当”，或更准确些可以译为“古典的自然正义说”；而在指现代学说时则就是指人们熟悉的西方17世纪以来兴起的所谓“自然权利”或“天赋权利”说。大体而言施特劳斯这部著作的前半部分所使用的naturalright多指“自然正确”或“自然正义”，而该书后半部分（第五和第六章）所用的natural right基本是指“天赋权利说”（因此后半部分有时也用比较明确的复数natural rights，但他往往仍然用单数的natural right）。施特劳斯全书的基本思想实际就是论证，17世纪以来西方现代“自然权利”或“天赋权利”说及其带来的“历史观念”的兴起，导致了西方古典的“自然正义”或“自然法”(Natural Law)的衰亡。这也就是该书书名《自然正义与历史》的含义，即“历史观念”颠覆了“自然正义”或“自然正确”的观念。确切地说，施特劳斯认为，西方现代性及其“历史观念”的发展最终导致“彻底的历史主义”（radical historicism），即彻底的虚无主义，亦即根本否认世界上还有可能存在任何“好坏”、“对错”、“善恶”、“是非”的标准，同时这种“历史观念”导致似乎人间再没有任何永恒之事，因为一切都转瞬即逝，一切都当下消解。这种“历史观念”因此无情地冲刷着人心原有的深度、厚度和浓度，导致人类生活日益平面化、稀释化和空洞化。这就是施特劳斯所谓的“西方文明的危机”和“现代性的危机”。
　　
　　我们这里不妨借用施特劳斯弟子，但后来成为自由主义政治哲学家的盖尔斯顿教授的《康德与历史的问题》来简略说明何为西方现代性意义上的“历史观念”以及为什么“历史观念”导致虚无主义。盖尔斯顿指出，西方现代的“历史观念”大体经历了三个阶段，第一阶段是“进步观念”的提出，第二阶段是“历史观念”的提出，而第三阶段则是走向所谓“历史主义”（historicism）。第一阶段即所谓“进步观念”的兴起是在马基亚维里开端的反叛古代以后，培根等早期启蒙哲学家的乐观主义的“历史”观念，他们坚信一旦现代人彻底地挣脱“古人”的思想枷锁以后就能走上人类无限“进步”的大道，尤其相信“科学技术的进步”必然会给人类带来福祉和光明。但卢梭第一个打破了启蒙运动的这种迷梦，指出“科学技术的进步”并不等于人类的进步，因为科学技术同样可以造成人类的败坏甚至毁灭人类。康德接过了卢梭的这个问题而将“进步观念”改造成他自己的“历史观念”。所谓“历史观念”就是承认卢梭所言科技进步和现代的进展将伴随着人类的灾难，但康德认为“历史”作为一个总体过程必然地甚至不以人的意志为转移地走向自己的终点，这个终点就是人类的“目的王国”即自由王国。这是因为康德哲学将“自然”（必然）与“道德”（自由）分离，因此康德的“道德”即自由的实现就必须在“历史”中来完成，但这“历史”的进展并不是由人的道德行为来实现，而是由“天意”借用邪恶和暴力来促成，但最后的结果则是根除邪恶和暴力。盖尔斯顿强调正是康德首先提出的这个“历史观念”导向黑格尔和马克思的“历史的狡计”概念，即所谓历史是由看不见的无形之手所推动或即由“恶”推动，但即使尸横遍野、血留成河，人类最后必定将从“必然王国”走向“自由王国”，从而达成“历史的终结”。而从这种终点的立场看，人类在这一过程中的一切苦难、灾难似乎都是必要的甚至值得的。第三阶段则是上述“历史观念”的破产，特别是第一次世界大战以后，欧洲没有人再相信康德黑格尔马克思的这种“总体历史”，随之出现的是存在主义的“历史主义”观念，即认为历史根本就没有方向，更没有目标，甚至根本不存在所谓的“历史”。因为所谓“历史”至多是某个“特别时刻”（aprivileged moment）的突然来临或“绽出”，这种“绽出”既无法预料，更没有任何因果必然性，一切都是任意的，一切都只能归结为某个体或某群体的“命运”。──盖尔斯顿主要研究的是上述第二阶段即康德提出的“历史观念”，因此他对第三阶段的“历史主义”未多论述。我们或许可以补充说，所谓第三阶段的“历史主义”，或施特劳斯所谓的“彻底历史主义”（radical historicism），其最大的代表作自然正是海德格尔的《存在与时间》（1927）。正是海德格尔拈出的所谓“绽出”（ekstasis）或他后期特别喜欢用的所谓“突然发生”(Ereignis)，根本地启了以后的所有后现代哲学的思路：一切所谓的历史、世界、人，都是断裂的、破碎的、残片式的，一切都只不过是个“突然发生”的偶在而已。
　　
　　我们现在可以提出一个看法：施特劳斯的《自然正义与历史》虽然全书没有一个字提及海德格尔的名字，也没有提及海德格尔的任何著作，但《自然正义与历史》这个书名似乎正遥遥罩向他从前的老师海德格尔的代表作之书名《存在与时间》。海德格尔这个书名突出了他最基本的思想，即只有从“时间的视野”才能把握或领会“此在”甚至“存在”的意义，但他所谓的“时间”，或他所谓的时间性、历史性，都是指某种突然“爆出”或“绽出”或所谓“自我出离”的“时刻”或“瞬间”。施特劳斯的书名《自然正义与历史》似乎隐隐地提问，在海德格尔这样的“时间”和“历史”下，是否还有“正义”的可能？“此在”是否能成为追问“正义”的存在者？“存在”是否至少能暗示“正义”的某种可能或不可能？在这样“爆出”或“绽出”的“时刻”中，或在这种“特别时刻”中领会到的此在和存在，是否还有“善恶”之别、“好坏”之分、“对错”标准？施特劳斯认为海德格尔的哲学没有给“政治哲学”留下空间，因为这个空间被留给了某些已知或未知的“神祉”。但在施特劳斯看来，西方现代性的“历史观念”发展到海德格尔的“时间”概念，正是堕入了最彻底的虚无主义，因为如果一切都只是由“命运”决定的无法把握的“绽出时刻”，那么人的一切选择就都只能是“盲目的选择”，人被免除了选择善恶与是非、好坏与对错的责任，因此“我们不可能再作为有责任的存在者而生活”，这表明“虚无主义的不可避免的实践结果就是盲目的蒙昧主义（fanatical obscurantism）”。
　　
　　但我们需要立即指出，施特劳斯的目的却并不是要专门或特别批判海德格尔。恰恰相反，他只是要指出海德格尔的思想乃代表“历史观念”和现代性的最彻底展开。事实上施特劳斯认为海德格尔的最大贡献恰恰在于他以彻底的“知性真诚”第一个指出在现代性下“伦理是不可能的”，从而以最大的勇气面对一个基本“事实”即西方现代性的底下是一个虚无主义“深渊”（abyss），而其他人如新康德主义文化哲学家卡西尔却不敢面对这一“事实”。施特劳斯最不同寻常之处在于他一再强调，从马基亚维里、霍布士、洛克、卢梭、康德、黑格尔、马克思、一直到尼采、海德格尔，所有这些现代思想巨人实际都是“共谋者”，亦即他们都在参与同一个伟大事业即“现代性的筹划”，不管他们之间有多少分歧，但在“筹划现代性”这一总方向上他们是完全一致的。而所有这些现代思想巨人的共同之处就在于他们都具有最彻底的“知性真诚”。正是这种彻底的“知性真诚”使他们日益深刻地展开现代性的逻辑，从而日益暴露出现代性的最大问题即虚无主义，由此现代性的最大反讽就在于：“理性发展得越高，虚无主义也就发展得越深，我们也就越无法成为社会的忠诚成员”（the more we cultivate reason,the more we cultivate nihilism,the less are we able to beloyal members of society）。施特劳斯从三十年代开始就认为，现代性的最深刻问题就是这一所谓“知性真诚”（intellectual probity）或“哲学自由”的问题。早在他1930年发表的第一本著作《斯宾诺莎的宗教批判》中，施特劳斯已经指出，斯宾诺莎写《神学政治论》的根本关切和唯一目的就是要捍卫“哲学追问的自由”（freedom of philosophing），斯宾诺莎对于当时的斯特劳斯来说就是“哲学”的化身。我们下面会看到，这一“知性真诚”或“哲学自由”的问题乃是施特劳斯政治哲学的中心问题。这里仅指出，施特劳斯虽然深刻批判现代性，但他同时对所有这些现代思想巨人怀有极高的敬意，其原因即在于他自己对“知性真诚”的认同。例如他一方面深刻检讨马基亚维里的问题，另一方面却又承认自己“情不自禁地热爱马基亚维里”。同样，他虽然对海德格尔后来与纳粹的关系深恶痛极，但他始终认为“我们时代的唯一伟大思想家是海德格尔”。
　　
　　在施特劳斯看来，当代的一个通病往往是把现代性的黑暗面都归结给某些个别思想家，然后似乎现代性又没有问题了。他强调重要的不是要谴责个别思想家，而是要透彻理解“现代性”的基本性格和方向，才能真正了解为什么现代性的运动会从“第一次浪潮”（马基亚维里、霍布士、洛克等）推进到“第二次浪潮”（卢梭、康德和黑格尔、马克思），又从第二次浪潮推进到“第三次浪潮”（尼采和海德格尔）。尤其现代性的第二次浪潮和第三次浪潮也是现代性的两次大危机，其中卢梭、尼采、海德格尔都曾以最大的努力批判现代性而试图返回“古典”世界（例如尼采之高扬希腊悲剧，海德格尔之力图返回“前苏格拉底思想”），但施特劳斯认为由于他们都是向着现代“历史观念”的方向去努力，因此不但没有能够返回古典的自然世界，反而比任何其他人都更大地推进了现代性的方向。《自然正义与历史》一书即试图勾勒出现代性的这一方向并与“古典”思想相对照。但该书的结构却非常特别，全书除“导论”外一共六章，排列次第是：第一和第二章讨论当代，中间的第三和第四章处理古代，最后的第五和第六章则讨论近现代（马基亚维里、霍布士、洛克、卢梭、柏克等）。这一安排的结果是，全书结尾处恰恰回到全书的开头（从近现代到当代），亦即全书第一章的开头实际是接着全书结尾来的。全书的中心则是中间的第三和第四章，特别是从第三章到第四章的过渡，实际是从“古典哲学”到“古典政治哲学”的过渡。第四章因此是全书的核心所在，论述施特劳斯所谓“苏格拉底－柏拉图路向的政治哲学”。
　　
　　施特劳斯这一章节安排的次第似乎暗示此书可以有几种不同的读法。除了最通常的从头读到尾以外，至少还可以有两种读法。一是可以直接从现代部分即第五章开始，即现代“天赋权利”说的兴起，随后是第六章“天赋权利说的危机”和历史观念的兴起，接下去从第六章返回第一章（当代），即从“历史观念”到十九世纪“历史学派”再到二十世纪的“彻底的历史主义”，而从第一章到第二章看上去似乎有点奇怪地转向韦伯，实际却是从彻底历史主义即虚无主义而指出虚无主义必然遭遇韦伯面临的“诸神冲突”的问题，或各种不可调和的“终结价值”的冲突问题。我们知道韦伯所谓“诸神冲突”的问题其实也就是罗尔斯力图用他所谓“政治的自由主义”来解决的问题，亦即一个社会具有多种彼此冲突而且不可能调和的终极价值取向时如何可能安排一个政治。罗尔斯真的可以解决韦伯无法解决的问题吗？这里可以暂且不论，因为施特劳斯并没有活着看到罗尔斯成名，但重要的是施特劳斯在五十年代提出的问题不仅是韦伯在二十世纪初面临的问题，而且同样是罗尔斯等无数人在二十世纪末面临的问题。而施特劳斯想提醒读者的其实是，“诸神冲突”的问题实际把我们带回到了“古代世界”的开端，因为人类古代首先面临的都是“诸神冲突”的问题。由此从讨论当代的第二章直接过渡到讨论古代开端的第三章也就非常顺理成章了。施特劳斯的全部思考实际就是认为，当人类走到现代性的尽头，实际也就必然会回到“古代人”在一开始就面临的问题。如果说海德格尔用诗歌的语言暗示了一个似乎“诸神共舞”的美妙的“前苏格拉底诗意世界”，那么不如说韦伯的“诸神冲突”的世界才是“前苏格拉底时代”的世界。这里因此也就可以考虑另一种可能的读法，即直接从第三章开始亦即从古代一开始的“非政治的哲学”开始，从第三章到第四章的过渡是要说明为什么“古代非政治的哲学”是不充分的，从而有第四章考察的“苏格拉底政治哲学”的兴起，以及“古典自然正义论”的三种形态，即苏格拉底－柏拉图的自然正义论，亚里士多德的自然正义论，以及中世纪基督教的托马斯的“自然法”。从第四章到第五章的过渡则是“古今之争”，即西方现代性对西方古典的反叛，从而有现代“天赋权利”的兴起，接着是天赋权利的危机、历史观念的兴起和走向彻底历史主义一直到诸神冲突，从而再度回到古代。施特劳斯刻意安排这样一个从今到古、从古到今的循环结构，自然是为了突出“古今之争”的问题，从而诱使读者去考虑：现代政治哲学真的高于古典政治哲学吗？现代人真的胜过古代人吗？这当然都只有读者自己去判断。
　　
　　施特劳斯学派最近已经连续开了三次纪念《自然正义与历史》出版五十年的学术讨论会。最近中文世界学者也已经对施特劳斯的政治哲学产生甚大兴趣，本书中文版的出版正好是该书出版五十周年之际，可谓适得其时。鉴于施特劳斯学派晚近以来已经崛起为足以与整个美国主流学界相抗衡的显学，我们以下有必要先看一下这个颇为奇特的学派。
　　
　　三、施特劳斯在美国
　　
　　不过不管施特劳斯与美国政治究竟发生了什么关系，有一点需要强调的是，他本人的思想并不是在美国政治和美国思想的氛围中所形成的。施特劳斯于1899年9月20日生于德国一个乡下小镇，与他的同时代人例如汉娜．阿伦特、本雅明、肖勒姆（GershomScholem）、洛维特（Lowith）等同属所谓“德国犹太人”。对他们这一代犹太人来说，尚在青少年时代首先目睹的就是第一次世界大战的爆发以及斯宾格勒《西方的没落》的冲击，随后则是海德格尔哲学革命的强烈震撼，但紧接着的则是第二次世界大战的爆发、纳粹德国灭绝犹太人的种族屠杀，以及他们个人作为犹太人的流亡生涯。1938年施特劳斯被迫流亡到美国，已经是四十岁的中年。在美国的最初十年，显然适应得很辛苦，发表的大多是些两页左右的简短书评，看得出来是在通过写这些书评逐渐熟悉美国学术氛围，但他想的当然不是如何跟上美国潮流“进入主流社会”，而是苦思自己如何不被困死在美国主流学界当时盛行的种种时尚之中。所幸的是，到五十岁那年，他总算在学术界初步站稳了脚跟，那一年（1949年）他被聘任为芝加哥大学政治哲学教授，并受邀在当年的沃尔格林系列讲座（Walgreen Lectures）发表演讲，演讲结果就是他后来出版的成名作《自然正义与历史》（1953），该书“导论”和开首两章对美国流行思潮的深刻批判，正是他十年沉思的结晶。但更重要的是，他在芝加哥大学的讲课深刻影响了芝大的青年学子，当时两位同年以15岁进入芝大的神童学生──日后在美国都大大出名的理查．罗蒂（RichardRorty）和爱兰．布鲁姆ㄗAllanBloomㄘ即都受他的影响而全力攻读柏拉图。据罗蒂在自传中回忆，当时芝加哥大学的基本风气是普遍认为美国流行的主流思想和学术例如杜威实用主义等太过肤浅而渴求更深刻的思想资源，正是在这种氛围下施特劳斯的讲课被认为最深刻而风靡芝大，吸引了芝大最好的学生。虽然罗蒂以后重回杜威实用主义传统并成为批判施特劳斯派的主将之一，但布鲁姆则成为施特劳斯学派第二代掌门人。不过施特劳斯对学生的巨大吸引力也恰恰使他在教授圈中甚受嫉恨，流行的抱怨是最好的学生都被施特劳斯“偷走”了。而就施特劳斯本人而言，他对这些青年学子的感激之情实不下于这些学生对他的感激之情，日后当他的密友柯耶夫（Kojeve）向他抱怨说现在巴黎最好的青年学子在知性上都已未老先衰时，施特劳斯回信得意地说：“要想见到心态尚未老化的青年学子，那就必须到芝加哥来”。施特劳斯弟子们以后大多都继承了施特劳斯这种首重教学的传统，尤其着重本科的“自由教育”（liberal education）。
　　
　　到芝加哥后的第十四年，施特劳斯与其第一批弟子出版集体成果《政治哲学史》（1963），成功地淘汰了此前流行的萨拜因（GeorgeSabine）的《政治理论史》，也标志着所谓施特劳斯政治哲学学派的初步成型。次年（1964）施特劳斯六十五岁寿辰，弟子们又特别出版了祝寿文集，书名题为《古代人与现代人：政治哲学传统论集》，典型地反映了施特劳斯学派的基本关怀：重新展开“古今之争”，力图从“古典西方”的视野检讨“西方现代性”的问题,包括强烈批判当代美国主流学术。整个学派的基本取向或可用施特劳斯的两句名言概括：
　　“现代人与古代人之争这段公案必须重新开审；换言之，我们必须学会严肃而不带偏见地考虑这种可能性：斯威夫特当年把现代世界比作小人国，而把古典世界比作巨人国，他是对的。”
　　“彻底质疑近三、四百年来的西方思想学说是一切智慧追求的起点。”
　　施特劳斯这一原本植根于欧洲思想特别是尼采－海德格尔传统的“古今之争”问题意识，对其美国弟子产生的一个深刻冲击是促使他们重新思考美国文明与现代性的关系究竟是什么？这些美国弟子以后逐渐分成两派，一派认为“美国政治就其最好的方面而言体现了一种实践的智慧（practicalwisdom）,这种智慧更多地来自于古老的传统，而非来自洛克”,亦即认为美国较多继承了西方古典传统而较少受西方现代性的影响;另一派则是以布鲁姆为首的主流施特劳斯派，强调美国政教体制从一开始就建立在西方现代性的基础上，亦即建立在施特劳斯所谓“低俗而稳固的基础上”（lowandsolidground）。但尽管有这种分歧，两派实际一致认为西方现代性的弊病必须由西方古典政治哲学来矫正。早期施特劳斯学派圈子中因此实际有一个非明言的等级，即研究古典的高于研究现代的，研究欧洲和早期现代思想（马基亚维里、霍布士、卢梭等）又高于研究美国和当代的。也是因此，早期施特劳斯弟子实际较少有人专攻美国政治，比较例外的是专治美国开国时期“联邦党人”思想的戴孟德（MartinDiamond）和专治“反联邦党人”思想的斯多林（HerbertStroring），以及研究美国宪法的伯恩斯（WalterBerns）等。但以后施特劳斯学派在美国政治和美国宪法研究领域俨然成为一大派，而且即使他们专治古典的学生也往往同时研究美国政治。这是因为这些美国弟子日益觉得现代性的问题就是美国的问题，现代性的危机就是美国的危机，确切地说他们深感焦虑的是六十年代以后美国日益加速的巨大社会文化变革究竟把美国带到何处去。可以说，施特劳斯本人植根于欧洲意识的“西方的危机”意识在其美国弟子那里日益转化为“美国的危机”意识。由此也就可以看出，施特劳斯学派的所谓“古典研究”绝不是为古典而古典的学究式研究，而恰恰是由强烈的当代政治关怀出发的：深入研究西方古典的根本目的正是为了更深刻地理解西方现代性及其危机，反过来施特劳斯更认为惟有深刻地理解现代性才能真正体会古典思想的良苦用心所在。
　　正因为如此，施特劳斯强调“政治哲学本质上不是一门学院职业”──“政治哲学”既不是一个学科，也不是一个专业，而是从施特劳斯强调的“危机意识”出发（现代性的危机、西方文明的危机、当代美国的危机），把整个西方文明作为研究对象。在施特劳斯看来，当代学术的日益专业化本身就是“现代性危机”的一部分，因为这种专业化只不过大批量地造就尼采所谓的“我们学者”。按尼采的说法，“学者”的出现是知识民主化和平等化的结果：“学术人发表了一份独立宣言，宣告今后不再接受哲学的统治”，从此以后知识不再有等级秩序，不再有纲目之别，一切知识都平等了，没有什么重要不重要之分，而只有时尚的翻新。其结果是大批量的知识生产，但只不过徒然让人“知道越来越多的鸡毛蒜皮”（knowing more and more about less and less），不但不能使人专注于思考，反而导致所谓的“学者们”日益陷入“普遍的世侩主义和蔓延的媚俗主义”（universal philistinism and creeping conformism）施特劳斯主张的“政治哲学”因此完全打破文学、史学、哲学、神学等专业篱笆，同时更贯穿从古典西方研究、中世纪伊斯兰、犹太教和基督教思想、近代西方思想起源一直到当代美国研究。用施特劳斯的话说，如果今天已经被迫都要专业化，那么就让我们“在最重大的问题上专业化”（to specialize in the most weighty matters），这就是专注于从古到今的整个西方思想传统，具体地说是研究从古典文献一直到美国“独立宣言”和“美国宪法”等历代西方重要文本。通常而言，施特劳斯最好的学生往往首先集中研究古典特别是柏拉图，其次则是卢梭和尼采，因为这二者最深刻地暴露了西方现代性的内在危机从而成为以后所有现代性批判的源头（施特劳斯所谓现代性的第二次和第三次浪潮）。但施特劳斯的“政治哲学”读法同时强调，研究柏拉图的前提是把握修昔底德，因为修昔底德最充分地展示了古典政治的视野，而研究卢梭和尼采的前提则是把握马基亚维里、霍布士和洛克，因为后三者奠定了现代政治的视野。在施特劳斯极为独特的阅读西方思想序列中，柏拉图、卢梭和尼采隐隐居于最高位阶，而亚里士多德、康德和海德格尔则分别被视为前三者的补充或深化，亦即强调柏拉图与亚里士多德的同大于异，强调把握康德黑格尔的关键在卢梭，以及阅读尼采海德格尔必然返回柏拉图，等等。这里的中心线索始终是要首先把握西方现代性对西方古典的反叛即所谓“古今之争”，如施特劳斯所强调，“古典人与现代人的争论是最根本的争论，这一争论要比柏拉图与亚里士多德之争更根本，也比康德黑格尔之争更根本”；甚至，“古今之争”的问题比“雅典与耶路撒冷的分歧”更根本，因为“西方现代性”是对雅典和耶路撒冷的双重反叛。这里因此有必要特别指出，施特劳斯虽然以其文本细读方式即所谓“字里行间阅读法”（reading between the lines）而出名，又有所谓分辨古典著作中的“俗白教导”(exoteric teaching）与“隐讳教导”（esoteric teaching）之别的著名主张，但所有这些文本细读的前提是先立乎其大的眼界，否则文本细读必陷入学究式的琐碎无聊。
　　
　　从施特劳斯五十年代初在芝加哥大学带出第一批学生开始，到现在大约五十年下来，他们在诠释西方从古到今的重要思想文本方面确实已经积累了相当惊人的成果，形成了他们自己非常独特的一整套阅读西方思想传统的方式。就目前西方政治思想史的研究而言，大概可以说已经逐渐成为两大学派的天下，一是以普考克（J.G.APocock）和斯金纳（QuentinSkinner）为代表的所谓“剑桥学派”或“共和主义史学”派，另一就是施特劳斯学派。两派都是某种意义上的“复古派”即都强调古典传统而批判主流自由主义，两派都同样重视经典文本的重新编辑重新校订以及重新翻译和重新解释，但两派在解释近代西方思想起源上则发生根本冲突：剑桥学派或“共和主义史学”派将马基亚维里看作古典共和主义的现代复兴者，施特劳斯却突出强调马基亚维里是西方现代性的第一奠基人，亦即恰恰是对西方古典传统的全面反叛。这一马基亚维里解释上的重大分歧意味着他们对古典的解释根本不同（剑桥学派实际并不研究古希腊罗马本身，而是着重文艺复兴到美国革命这一段的所谓“共和主义传统的复兴”，他们对古典的看法基本来自汉娜．阿伦特对亚里士多德政治学的解释），对当代的看法也截然不同（剑桥学派可以“显得”比较激进和左倾，从而比较吸引人）。就西方学术界内的地位而言，剑桥学派明显具有体制上的优势，亦即他们属于职业历史学界而且是史学界公认的显学，施特劳斯学派的尴尬则在于他们既不属于史学界，也不属于哲学界，甚至也不属于政治学界（尽管他们多数在政治学系），而只能属于他们自己界定的“政治哲学”，但这种“政治哲学”又与西方主流政治哲学格格不入。简言之，剑桥学派或“共和主义史学”是主流学界内的显学，而施特劳斯学派则完全在主流学界之外。施特劳斯及其学派真正令人佩服的地方在于他们早期数十年间一直自甘寂寞，在非常不利于他们的总体学术氛围下从不随波逐流。
　　
　　1973年施特劳斯默默地去世，没有任何一家美国主流媒体给予关注。事实上直到那时为止，除了他自己的学生以及芝加哥大学等极少数地方以外，施特劳斯的名字几乎完全不为一般西方学术界所知，更不要说媒体和公众。作为一个政治哲学学派，施特劳斯派的形成早于罗尔斯等理论，甚至可以说是二战以后美国的第一个政治哲学学派，但他们对于以后美国和西方的主流政治哲学发展几乎没有发生影响。1971年罗尔斯发表《正义论》后，大多数人显然都同意诺齐克的说法，即“政治哲学家们现在必须在罗尔斯理论的范围内工作，不然就要说个理由”。施特劳斯学派确实由布鲁姆在《美国政治科学评论》（1975）上给出了他们的理由，即全盘否定罗尔斯，认为整部《正义论》建立在三大误解之上：误解霍布士、洛克、卢梭的“自然状态”说；误解康德的道德哲学；更误解亚里士多德的“幸福”理论，布鲁姆的结论因此极为辛辣地说：《正义论》的最大弱点在于其作者缺乏教育，即没有读好西方政治哲学的传统！（该文的标题因此题为“正义：罗尔斯对抗政治哲学传统”）也因此，施特劳斯学派虽然号称研究“政治哲学”，但却几乎完全不理会罗尔斯以来的整个当代西方主流政治哲学。他们确实认为越新的理论就越无价值，因为各种新说无非就是时尚，而时尚就是不必读已经人人知道的东西。他们因此好用“巨人与侏儒”的比喻，认为专注于经典可以站在巨人的肩膀上，最低好处是在标新立异的年代可以心有所主，不会被时尚弄得七荤八素，而当代学术界那种人人标榜“原创性”的风气恰恰注定只能是侏儒。由此，施特劳斯学派对不断翻新的各种当代理论都完全不屑一顾。
　　
　　对于海德格尔以后的西方思想界，施特劳斯本人唯一重视的只有一个远在巴黎的柯耶夫（Kojeve），并让其最得意的弟子如票糧譟等到巴黎同时拜柯耶夫为师。这是因为施特劳斯认为柯耶夫最深刻地展示了西方“现代性”的内在逻辑和最终结果。柯耶夫从黑格尔揭示的“主人－奴隶关系辩证法”入手，深刻指出现代性的基本动力或逻辑是“争取承认的斗争”(struggle for recognition)，亦即今天甚为流行的所谓“承认的政治”（politics of recognition）。确切地说，现代性的内在逻辑或道德正当性在于“奴隶”──一切被压迫被奴役的人（包括性别、种族、阶级、民族）争取自我解放、争取被“承认”为平等自由者的历史，这一历史最终指向于柯耶夫所谓“普世无差异的国家”（the universal and homogeneous state）。但施特劳斯向他指出，这样一种“普世无差异的国家”是可欲的吗？这样一种结果难道不是必然会导致尼采早就预言的所谓“报废的人”（the last man）吗？因为这样一种“普世无差异的国家”无非意味着人世间以后将没有高贵与卑贱之分、没有聪明与愚蠢之分、没有优美与丑恶之分、没有深刻与肤浅之分、没有高雅与庸俗之分，没有好诗与坏诗之分、没有经典著作与垃圾作品之分。一切都是拉平的、平等的、因此最通俗、最流行、最大众化的就是最好的，因为这样最民主、最平等、最政治正确。施特劳斯认为，正因为现代性具有这样一种把人类引向“报废的人”的逻辑，现代性实际意味着整个人类的危机。虽然现代性建立在“低俗但稳靠”（low but solid）的基础上，并非没有其正当性，但其“低俗”最终导致现代性的最大悖论，即现代性最初是要把人提到神的地位，结果却是把人降低到了动物的地位。施特劳斯因此在其《古今自由主义》中提出：“真正的自由人今天最紧迫的责任莫过于要全力对抗那种堕落的自由主义（perverted liberalism），这种堕落的自由主义宣扬人的唯一目的就是只要活得开心而不受管教，却全然忘了人要追求的是品质高贵、出类拔萃、德性完美。”柯耶夫承认施特劳斯展示了对现代性批判的最大视野，因此两人互视为最大敌手却终身为莫逆之友。
　　
　　施特劳斯弟子以后都居心叵测地高捧柯耶夫，原因之一是他们认为施特劳斯与柯耶夫的辩论正是“古今之争”在最深刻意义上的重新展开（柯耶夫展示最彻底的现代性，而施特劳斯揭示最深刻的古典性），而另一层潜台词则是要说：美国的后现代都是法国的舶来品，而法国的后现代说到底都来自于柯耶夫，而他们自己与柯耶夫亦师亦友，因此对所谓后现代的问题早已洞若观火。这种说法诚然矫情，但也并非全无道理。这首先是因为柯耶夫三十年代在巴黎高师开设的著名“黑格尔《精神现象学》讲座”被公认深刻影响了两代法国哲学（从存在主义到后现代哲学），尤其柯耶夫揭示西方现代性的理性主体和历史主体实质上是“欲望主体”，从而使“欲望”成为整个法国后现代哲学的中心问题。此外，尽管施特劳斯与柯耶夫在四十年代末的辩论当时完全没有引起注意，但他们辩论的基本问题──例如“欲望及其满足”的问题，“承认的政治”、“全球化国家”，以及由此导致的所谓“历史的终结”、“哲学的终结”、以及“人的终结”或“人的非人化”等等，几乎无一不是八十年代以后西方主流自由主义和后现代哲学关注的基本问题。这里只需指出，最近十年爆得大名的两本书──福山的《历史的终结与报废的人》（1992）以及西方左翼最新最时髦的《帝国》（2000），实际都是在重述柯耶夫的“全球性普世一体化国家”的问题。福山本是施特劳斯派弟子（布鲁姆的学生），只不过他在施特劳斯与柯耶夫的辩论中更多采取柯耶夫的“现代”立场，因此他不但明言继承黑格尔－柯耶夫的问题逻辑，而且他整本书其实就是用通俗的当代流行语言重新包装了柯耶夫。而《帝国》一书虽然不提柯耶夫的名字，但他们所谓的至大无外的“帝国”恰恰就是柯耶夫早就勾勒出的“全球性普世一体化国家”，而他们与柯耶夫的谱系关系实际同样非常清楚，即来自法国后现代与柯耶夫的血缘关系（作者之一哈特本是研究法国后现代特别是德勒兹的专家）。法国后现代哲学的基本问题本来自于对柯耶夫问题的进一步追问，即在黑格尔－柯耶夫这种至大无外的“普世一体化国家”下如何可能逃逸、抵制、反抗──德里达的“延异”和德勒兹的“游牧”等等都是这种无处可逃时怎么逃、打不过怎么打的所谓“策略”（因此以后的后现代理论越来越象是毛主席著名的“游击战术”的文学理论版），而《帝国》在这方面不过是加了一个新名词即所谓“杂多异质”（multitude）罢了。如果说福山象是帝国总部的长官助理，报告天下太平，那么哈特等则象帝国下层的小科员，虚张声势地说“杂多异质”是星星之火可以燎原。这当然都是后话。
　　
　　大多数西方学术界或知识界人士第一次听到施特劳斯的名字大概已经要到1985年。是年5月《纽约书评》发表柏拉图专家布恩野的长文，全面否定施特劳斯的柏拉图研究，文章题为“没有秘密的狮身人面像”（SphinxwithoutaSecret）,意思就是施特劳斯神神鬼鬼似乎有什么微言大义，其实什么东西都没有。这是西方主流学界第一次在具有广泛公共影响的知识界杂志上正面挑战施特劳斯及其学派，而在此之前主流学界通常倾向以“沉默”来表示对施特劳斯的轻视。此文的发表因此实际也恰恰表明，施特劳斯学派在学界的影响似乎已开始日益坐大，终于使主流学界觉得不能再对施特劳斯学派置之不理。紧接着，美国纪念宪法二百周年，《纽约书评》又发表美国史研究的权威学者伍德（GordonWood）的长文,惊呼施特劳斯学派大规模侵入美国史的领域，他尤为不解的是施特劳斯派的人大多不是历史学家，为什么要在他认为是他专业领地的美国建国等问题上争夺解释权，殊不知施特劳斯学派向来认为美国建国这样重大的问题当然首先是政治哲学的主题；伍德在恼火之余不禁以主流学界代言人的口气说：“学术界对施特劳斯派有普遍的敌意和蔑视”（wide spread hostility and contempt towards the Straussiansin academic circles）。确实，到八十年代后期，美国主流学界与施特劳斯学派之间已日益无法相互容忍，冲突终于在1987年全面爆发。是年施特劳斯学派掌门人布鲁姆出版震撼全美国的《蔽塞的美国心智》一书，创下美国出版史上前所未有的当年儕蚾掛忮堤拻坋勀聊的惊人记录，肮奀婓臟埮睿匙燮謗華腔藩笚釧种抎埤奻詢擔埤忑长湛珨爛眳壅，引发的各种评论更是充斥于美国所有的报纸、杂志和电台电视，几乎将整个美国学术界和知识界都拖入一场旷日持久的大论战中，论战的激烈程度常被称为美国南北内战以来所仅见﹝由于布鲁姆此书的矛头几乎指向整个美国学术界，导致主流学界几乎以一种“正邪大决战”的态势全力围剿布鲁姆和施特劳斯学派。辩论的中心可以归结为一个问题：美国大学生应该读什么样的书？应该接受什么样的教育？布鲁姆基本延续施特劳斯在五十年代初就提出的对美国主流学术的批判，认为二战以后的美国高等教育盛行的是实证主义和相对主义的社会科学以及虚无主义的人文科学，导致美国高等教育日益不知所谓。该书的副标题因此题为。但布鲁姆从前的同班同学、深知施特劳斯派修辞方式的理查．罗蒂立即指出，这个副标题的正确读法其实要反过来读，亦即布鲁姆说的其实是：“民主如何导致哲学的失败并导致大学生不屑理会柏拉图”How democracy has failed philosophy and made it difficult for students to take Platos seriously）。
　　罗蒂相当清楚，布鲁姆的中心论点实际就是施特劳斯早已指出的当代西方主流学术是“民主的官方高级祭司”(the official high priests of democracy)，导致所谓“学术”其实日益成为推动民主的“宣传”（propaganda）。罗蒂这篇题为“施特劳斯主义、民主、与布鲁姆”的文章因此认为，施特劳斯主义是将哲学置于民主之上，一向喜欢将问题简明化的罗蒂随后就提出他著名的命题：“民主对于哲学的优先性”（The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy），在他看来进步学者就是要作民主的吹鼓手，也没有什么好难为情的。另一位有名气的民主派政治学教授巴伯则认为施特劳斯政治哲学是要用“哲学家暴君”（Philosopher Despot）来取代美国民主政治，而布鲁姆的畅销书则是“哲学家暴君”用来引诱美国人民的“最动听、最精致、最博学、而又最危险的传单”（amost enticing,amost subtle,amost learned,amost dangerous tract）。《纽约书评》发表的重头批判文章则由古典学养足以与布鲁姆匹敌的著名自由派学者妮斯邦（Martha Nussbaum）操刀，该文标题日后几乎成为施特劳斯派的代名词：“非民主的前景”。妮斯邦认为布鲁姆没有看到“哲学民主化的前景”，而她则力图证明早在古希腊罗马时代许多伟大哲学家就已经认为“哲学”是普通人和大多数人都应该有“权利”学的。但妮女士学问虽然好，要想证明古希腊罗马那样的“贵族社会”竟然已经有“哲学民主化”的思想，实在也有点太天方夜谭，反让人觉得妮女士的“西方中心主义”是否太病入骨髓，太美化古希腊罗马奴隶制。事实上，古今中外提出“哲学民主化”的第一人当然是我们伟大领袖毛主席，他老人家不但提出“工农兵学哲学”的口号而且是在全中国的每一个农村和每一个工厂大规模实践了的，惜乎妮斯邦没有想到应该先到中国来考察一下“哲学民主化”的经验。
　　
　　布鲁姆尤其尖锐攻击西方学术界近年来大谈非西方文化的时髦即所谓“杂多文化主义”（multiculturalism），认为这种“文化民主化”时髦其实根本就没有向非西方文化学习之心，而只是把美国流行的“文化研究”特别是性别研究、种族研究或同性恋研究这类“政治正确的学术”输出到非西方国家，恰恰是一种“恩赐”心态，是一种“伪装的新帝国主义”（adisguisedformofanewimperialism）和文化上的“美国和平队心态”（thePeaceCorpmentality）。在他看来今日以“文化研究”为名研究非西方文化的学术工业越发达，所有非西方文化也就越被加速美国化，结果只能是“杂多文化成为美国校园文化，而美国校园文化成为全球知识分子文化”。不难想见布鲁姆这些尖锐的抨击是如何地犯众怒，如何地不符合西方主流学界的“政治正确”标准，如何地不符合“全球化”的世界潮流。因此，他受到美国自由派民主派全球化派主流学界潮水般的口诛笔伐也就毫不奇怪了。而且主流学界对布鲁姆和施特劳斯学派的评论都一反西方学界的斯文俗套，连表面的客气话都不屑讲，都是直截了当毫不留情地全盘否定。
　　
　　施特劳斯学派在八十年代后期以来引起西方主流学术界和知识界如此强的反弹，实际恰恰说明施特劳斯学派远非不食人间烟火的学界怪胎，而是极为深刻地切入了当代世界最敏感的问题。事实上施特劳斯本人从来就不是“学究”，他之强调“返回古典”本来就是一种最强烈的当代意识，他的中心问题历来是“现代性问题”，亦即追问西方现代性究竟把西方带到何处去。施特劳斯思想及其学派在八十年代后期开始真正开始日益被人注意或批判，大体与两个背景有关，一是美国自由主义与保守主义自六十年代以来的意识形态辩论在八十年代达到白日化;二是与此相关，美国主流自由主义政治哲学日益转到施特劳斯历来关心的道德政治问题。因此，虽然布鲁姆引起的巨大争论首先是在政治和意识形态层面展开，但论争同时更在政治哲学和道德哲学理论层面，两者纠缠在一起。我们以下试作一些疏理。

 

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　　四、施特劳斯、自由主义、后现代
　　
　　就美国主流政治哲学领域而言，在罗尔斯1971年发表《正义论》后的最初阶段，争论大多都围绕他的所谓“差异原则”，亦即主要是在与经济和分配领域有关的理论问题。但80年代中期以后，经济和分配领域的讨论基本淡出，主流政治哲学领域的所有辩论几乎完全转到了所谓道德文化问题上。这种转移与美国政治和意识形态论争的发展有相当直接的关系。从某种意义上，以罗尔斯为代表的美国自由主义近年来可以说一直在辩护两个多少有点矛盾的立场。即第一他们要维护美国新政自由主义传统，从而论证国家干预经济生活的合理根据；但第二他们作为对六十年代以来种族、性别、文化问题上所谓“文化多元化”的支持者，则强烈论证国家不能干预道德宗教文化领域。简言之，“国家”要在经济上进行合理干预，而在道德文化上绝对“中立”。这两个立场实际恰恰就是罗尔斯从《正义论》（1971）到《政治的自由主义》（1993）的运动轨迹，这个轨迹非常清楚地反映出当代美国政治对罗尔斯的直接影响，尽管罗尔斯是特别“学院派”的学者。罗尔斯的学生们，例如批判施特劳斯颇力的霍尔姆斯（StephenHolmes）等，亦都是一方面继续全力辩护新政自由主义以来国家干预经济生活的传统，同时则强烈主张道德文化生活上的“国家中立”。但是并非所有美国自由派都同时支持上述两种立场。
　　
　　另一方面，当代美国保守主义最初本是作为对六十年代社会动荡反弹而发展起来的“道德文化保守派”，但以后在共和党政治下则与“市场放任主义”结合在一起，两者相当矛盾。因此共和党内部政治的问题历来是如何将所谓“道德文化保守派”和“经济保守派”（实为经济自由放任派）调和起来。美国保守主义迄今没有能产生一种理论，甚至也没有人作过努力，从理论上将“市场自由放任”和“道德文化保守”调和起来，这两者因此只有政治策略上的调和。
　　
　　以上经济生活和道德文化领域的问题，在美国的特殊历史背景下其实组合得非常奇怪。如果我们将问题本身与美国政治的特殊环境分离的话，其实会有非常不同的组合。例如完全可能出现以下两种结合：
　　
　　1、双重放任：亦即“市场自由放任”与“道德文化放任”完全可以并行不悖。事实上这两者本来是可以甚至应该结合在一起的所谓“自由主义”。两者现在在美国一属于保守主义，一属于自由主义，完全是美国特殊政治环境造成，并非理论上必然如此。事实上现在美国的新生保守派即已经试图将两者结合在一起。例如所谓“泡泡族”（Bobos）就是明显的例子。而在美国主导的全球化过程中，事实上这两种思潮和观念往往最可能结合在一起成为诸多非西方国家的双重思想主流。
　　
　　2、双重保守，亦即“新政自由主义”的国家调节市场与“道德文化保守”同样完全可以结合在一起。事实上在美国有相当多的自由派支持“新政自由主义”的经济政策，但却对所谓道德文化上的“中立主义”极有保留。例如最早批评罗尔斯的桑德尔，在坚持“新政自由主义”传统上完全与罗尔斯等一致，但却对罗尔斯在道德文化问题上的“自由”立场强烈批评。其他美国老牌的新政自由主义者例如著名史家施莱辛格等更是典型的“经济新政自由主义”但在道德文化上持日益保守立场。而施特劳斯学派虽然在道德文化问题上是自由派的最大对手，但布鲁姆等对罗斯福时代的新政自由主义一向肯定。从理论上来说，经济上的国家调节市场与道德文化上的保守立场并无矛盾，反而是美国目前这种道德文化保守与市场放任经济组合在一起极不协调，这同样是特定历史条件下的产物，并非理所必然。
　　
　　到八十年代中期，美国政治出现有史以来的最大变化，即保守主义成为美国社会的主流意识形态，自由主义在美国则已经成为处于守势的意识形态。有趣的是这意味两个并不相同的事情，即一方面是在经济上“市场自由放任”压倒了主导美国将近六十年的“新政自由主义”，但另一方面，则是“道德文化保守主义”在美国成为政治和社会上的主流意识形态（在学院内特别名牌大学则往往不是主流）。施特劳斯学派到八十年代逐渐成为与整个美国主流自由派学界分庭抗礼的学派，无庸讳言是与美国道德文化保守主义强劲崛起有关的，但与市场自由放任派则毫无关系。事实上80年代中期以后，经济和分配领域的讨论基本淡出，几乎所有辩论都完全集中在所谓道德文化问题上。罗尔斯本人从1985年开始连续发表多篇文章集中辩护他的“权利优先于善”（thepriorityofrightoverthegood）的理论，并在1993年集为《政治的自由主义》，但此书显然不可能获得当年《正义论》那样的影响和地位。事实上美国自由主义不但在在经济问题上处于守势，而且在道德文化上也只在学院内仍占上风，但在社会上则同样处于守势。虽然作为一种社会意识形态的自由主义与作为一种学院论述的理论自由主义是不同的层面，但这两者在美国历来紧密相连，只不过在学院内自由派的势力比较大而已。学院派自由主义在八十年代末以来的论述不免被保守派戏称为“自由主义的补课”，即补“道德问题”的课，因为事实上几乎所有自由主义政治哲学著作全都在讨论道德问题，例如“自由主义与道德生活”，“自由主义与善”，“自由主义的德性”，不然就是检讨为什么现在美国人对历来主导的自由主义有那么多“不满”，等等。从某种意义上可以说八十年代后期以来，美国的自由主义论述一方面集中在道德文化问题上，同时在这方面多少都有某种“自我辩护”的味道，辩护“自由主义并没有忽视道德生活”，辩护“自由主义并不是只讲权利不讲善”，辩护“自由主义并不是不讲德性”，等等。但这当然暴露出自由主义从前确实比较忽视这些问题，否则就没有必要现在说这么多辩护性的话了（保守主义就从来不需要辩护不讲“德性”）。不管怎样，九十年代以来的美国似乎突然成了一个特别“尊德性”的国家，例如有影响的“美国政治法律哲学学会”的年刊（Nomos）1992年卷即以《德性》为主题，各种“德性伦理学”发展更是迅速。中心的问题是自由主义与“德性”（virtue）的关系以及所谓“权利与善”何者优先等等。
　　
　　但所有这些问题，事实上正是施特劳斯一生思考的主要问题。如果说罗尔斯现在的中心论点是“权利优先于善”，那么施特劳斯的基本立场正是“善先于权利”。更确切地说，施特劳斯所谓“古今之争”的问题之一就是检讨从古典政治哲学的“善先于权利”如何转变到近代西方霍布士以来“权利先于善”的问题。他在三十年代发表的《霍布士的政治哲学》，以及五十年代初发表的《自然正义与历史》中，对霍布士以来西方近代“自然权利”说或“天赋人权”说的批评，事实上早已提出了桑德尔和麦金太尔等在八十年代提出的几乎所有问题。因为他对霍布士等“天赋权利”说的批判实际就是批判后来罗尔斯等主张的“权利对于善的优先性”，就是在批判今天所谓“权利本位的自由主义”（rights-basedLiberalism）。施特劳斯弟子、著名天主教神学家佛尔丁曾相当准确地指出，近世以来西方道德政治理论的一个基本演变轨迹是从所谓“自然法”（naturallaw）转为“自然权利”（naturalrights），而在“自然”这个词贬值以后，所谓“自然权利”就变成了“人的权利”（humanrights）即今天所谓“人权”。但施特劳斯认为这一从“自然法”到“自然权利”再到“人的权利”的转变过程，就是西方走向虚无主义的过程，因为他认为主张“权利先于善”就是否认有真正的善，即否认“自然正确”或“自然正义”。事实上《自然正义与历史》第一章开始与全书结尾就是谈的这个问题。我们前面曾说他这本书的开始是接着结尾来的，因此让我们先看结尾部分，这部分是讨论18世纪英国思想家柏克。施特劳斯指出，柏克承认政治社会的目的是要保护人的权利，特别是追求幸福的权利。但柏克强调幸福的追求只有通过“德性”（virtue），亦即通过“德性强加给激情的制约”。如果说康德把道德意志作为第一位的话，那么柏克则强调人的意志必须永远置于理性、审慎和德性的统治之下。因此柏克认为政府的基础并不在“虚幻的人权”（imaginatyrightsofmen）,而在“尊奉义务”。施特劳斯认为，柏克事实上在许多地方都已经与古典传统背道而驰，但尽管如此，柏克毕竟还是深受古典精神影响而不会把个体和权利置于“德性”之上。
　　
　　但是施特劳斯指出，这种“德性”在权利之上的观念到20世纪就被完全颠倒了。他在全书第一章开头的论述几乎已经将罗尔斯等后来的立场表述得一清二楚。他说20世纪的“大方的自由派”（generousliberals）认为，由于人不能获得关于绝对好和绝对正确的真正知识（genuineknowledgeofwhatisintrinsicallygoodorright），因此必须对所有关于“好或对”的意见给予宽容，承认所有的偏好和所有的文明都是同样好同样值得尊重的。“自由主义的相对主义(liberalrelativism)之根源在于只讲宽容的天赋权利传统，亦即认为每个人都有天赋权利去追求他自己理解的幸福”。这自然正是穆勒在《论自由》中首先奠定而今天罗尔斯等继续开展的自由主义的基本立场，但施特劳斯则强调，“在尊重差异性和个别性(diversityandindividuality)与承认自然正确之间是有张力的”，因为“当代对自然正确的拒绝就导致虚无主义而且就等同于虚无主义。”
　　
　　施特劳斯关于德性问题的中心论点是：古典政治哲学使政治服从于道德德性，更服从于理论德性（作为人的目的或人的灵魂之完善），但现代政治哲学从马基亚维里开始则将德性服从于政治（看成只是政治上有用的德性），并且使哲学变成服务于人类现实需要的手段，降低了人类的可能性。施特劳斯之所以特别强调马基亚维里是现代性之父，是因为马基亚维里颠倒基督教自奥古斯定以来的基本等级秩序而特别可以让人看清西方现代性的起源。就基督教传统而言，奥古斯定的《上帝之城》本带有某种申辩的性质。如奥古斯定自己明言，此书是因为罗马陷落后人们普遍指责这是因为基督教败坏了罗马公民道德所导致，因此他要为基督教在罗马公民面前辩护，他首先要强调罗马之败落是罗马自身的败坏所导致，而不是因为基督教，他甚至要强调基督徒才是最好的罗马公民，因为基督徒最不败坏，最有服从的美德。但如此一来自然引出一个危险问题，即是否基督徒的首要责任就是作罗马或任何政体的一个好公民？奥古斯定当然要断然否定这一点，因此他必须接着长篇大论地论证作一个好基督徒绝对高于作任何好公民，因为上帝之城绝对高于任何公民政治。而马基亚维里之所以可以被看成是现代性之父，恰恰就在于他根本性地颠倒了奥古斯定的秩序，亦即强调“好公民”的问题绝对高于好基督徒的问题（爱你的城邦高于爱你的灵魂）。施特劳斯指出虽然自由主义通常不承认马基亚维里是他们先驱，但实际上自由主义正是延着马基亚维里的基本路线，把好公民的问题变成绝对第一位的问题，而把好基督徒或好人的问题都变成只是私人领域之事。所谓权利在先，正义第一，都是要寻求规定好公民的公共标准，而为了达成这个公共标准，首先就必须把任何宗教道德的“好”的标准打入私人领域。就此而言，罗尔斯等所谓的“权利先于善”，恰恰正是以更彻底的方式规定了马基亚维里“好公民问题是最高问题”的基本立场。自由主义的吊诡就在于，它认为最高的善或至善就是把所有的善的标准都放到没有公共意义的私人领域。在这私人领域，基督教的善、犹太教的善，伊斯兰的善，儒家的善都是“好”的，你好我好大家好，但它们都不是“好公民”的标准，好公民的标准是独立于所有这些善的“权利”、正义等等。事实上自由主义几乎必然地走向“惟法律主义”，罗尔斯常引用西季维克说近世西方的伦理学概念是“准司法或法律主义的”（quasi-juralorlegalistic），正是这个意思。自由主义说这是最高的善，最高的道德，因为它能公平对待所有的善，所有的道德主张，因而最高的道德就是不必裁判谁家的道德是好的，亦即摆脱一切道德纷争。自由主义宣称其目的是一视同仁地尊重所有宗教、所有种族、所有性别、所有历史文化传统，但其结果实际则是使得所有宗教、种族、性别、历史文化传统都失去了意义，都不重要了，都是可有可无的东西，因为都只有私人领域的意义，并不具有公共意义。这在施特劳斯看来，当然正是虚无主义和相对主义。
　　
　　诚然，今日自由主义所谓的"权利先于善"，当然不是说自由主义完全无视善，而是说自由主义认为人类世界呈现伯林所谓的价值多元即各种善的看法彼此冲突而且不可能调和。因此自由主义认为可以发现或建立一套"权利"不以任何一家的善观念出发，却能平等对待所有相冲突的善观念。如此一来，自然立即出来一个问题：这套不以任何善观念为基础的"权利"其本身的基础究竟何在？康德以前的回答可以说是各种形态的"自然法"，但康德彻底颠覆了自然法，将自然法贬为只能决定人的情绪欲望的外在必然性领域，而绝不能决定人的自由意志。因此康德以及今日自由主义的回答实际就是这"权利"的最终基础来自于"自由"。因此权利法律正义不能立足于任何善或幸福生活的观念，而只能完全从"自由"观念抽出来。
　　
　　但这里所谓"自由"实在非常诡异。就其第一层意义而言，这里的自由不过是同义反复，亦即自由就是指主体有能力“摆脱”（freedomfrom）任何特定善观念的支配，亦即一个自由人的自由标志首先就在于他不受任何特定族群宗教的善观念支配，所以是自由的。但试问这个不属于任何宗教种族历史文化的彻底的"自由人"接下去干什么呢？康德说这自由人会给自己"立法"，他说有选择自由的人必然首先选择一种"有法"而不是"无法"（lawless）的状态，而这法必然归结为他所谓"道德法"，即把人当目的而非手段等等。同样，罗尔斯说，这自由人亦即经过"无知之幕"过滤掉了一切历史的宗教的族群的甚至性别的各种偶性之后剩下来的"光秃秃的个人"必然会首先选择他所谓"正义的两个原则"。可是何以见得呢？西季威克已经指出，康德没有意识到他在两种意义上使用“自由”一词，亦即一种意义的“自由”就是主体独立于欲望的控制等等，另一层意义的“自由”则是去“自由地选择作善还是作恶”。从第一层的自由推断不出有这样“自由”的人一定选择“作善”。罗尔斯特别引用了西季威克的这个批评，认为西季威克对康德的批评是决定性的。但罗尔斯认为他自己的“原初状态”解决了康德似乎未能解决的问题。但我们似乎看不出罗尔斯在什么意义上比康德解决得好，因为他说在“原初状态”中的当事者有绝对的自由来选择任何他们愿意的事，但他们会觉得最符合他们的是选择作一个与大家“平等”的成员。可是罗尔斯这个说法似乎实在很薄弱。何以见得有绝对自由的人一定会选择有法而不是无法？何以见得这个彻底自由的人一定选择把人当目的，却不会选择偏偏把人当手段？何以见得这个被无知之幕搞得连自己是男是女都还不知道的自由人一定会选择"正义原则"而不是偏偏选择弱肉强食呢？
　　
　　我们在这里实际可以立即看出从康德的“自由”到福科和德勒兹等人的“自由”线索了。可以说福科等人是将康德的第一层意义上的"自由"更加激进化绝对化，同时却根本否定了康德第二层意义上的"自由"。在福科等看来有选择自由的人选择的绝不是"权利"，而是"权力"，选择的绝非正义，而是统治。因此任何以普遍立法名义开展出来的权利或正义只能是掩饰压迫和非正义，因此自由的唯一可能就是彻底坚持第一层意义上的"自由"，即彻底地“独立”于任何肯定性的法律或正义等等，因为所有这些都必然导致对自由的压迫。福科在评康德“什么是启蒙”的著名文章中将自己与康德哲学的关系说得非常清楚（事实上福科作法国国家博士学位的第二论文就是翻译康德的《人类学》，康德哲学因此本是福科的基本学术背景）。他说康德一方面主张启蒙、批判、自由，但另一方面却又试图先划定一个范围，规定在哪些方面“理性的使用”是“正当的”（legitimate），哪些则是“不正当的”（illegitimate），生怕出现“越轨”（transgression），但在福科看来，今天的“批判”就是要尽一切可能“越轨”。福科的“人文科学考古学”首先就瓦解了康德的“先验主体”，康德以普遍性为前提的立法主体在福科那里是不堪一击的。福科等人的自由因此自然要比康德罗尔斯的自由更是彻底的自由，绝对的自由，冲决一切网罗的自由。因为在康德罗尔斯那里中心问题毕竟是自由如何通过自我立法来限制自由的问题，而福科等则去掉了这一自我立法的要求，而只强调自由作为一种彻底的否定一切的动力机制（libido）。为了这种彻底的自由，不但必须否定一切族群、宗教、历史、文化、社会、社群、家庭、婚姻以致性别（他们和自由主义一样认为所有这些都只是偶性）对个人的牢笼，而且还必须不断否定个人本身，因为个人本身就是分裂的（德勒兹的所谓Schizophrenia），这个分裂可以说就是因为个人只有一半要自由，另一半则总是希求肯定性的建制。因此福科赞扬德勒兹的《反奥狄浦斯》是"非法西斯生活的导言"。确实，那本书将否定性的自由推到了最大的极限，而绝对地否定任何一点肯定性建制。那就是不能有一分一妙的"定居"，而必须"游牧"，不要说定居，就是连阵地战都不能打，而必须坚持打游击战，总之必须作一个彻底的"游牧人"。不太歪曲地说，福科和德勒兹等人恰恰认为真正的自由人应该选择的不是"有法"而是"无法"，如果康德认为选择有法是自由人的道德义务，那么福科等恰恰认为选择"无法"才是自由人的道德义务，因为自启蒙以来的一切以自由为名的“立法”在福科看来当然都只是在营造各种"监狱"。
　　
　　福科和德勒兹等虽然激进，但确实极大地扩张了自由的论域，尤其是大大深化了人们对可能危害自由的层面的认识。西方主流自由主义近三十年来的主要用力实际上是力图最大程度地包容吸纳福科等激进自由派提出的问题，从而在实际上是大大扩张了自由的范围（例如同性恋的自由，病人的自由，自杀的自由，更不必说女性的自由，少数族的自由等等）。就对当代自由主义的补充发展而言，事实上不可否认福科等左翼激进派的贡献甚大。在美国，自由主义与激进派的共同基础因此可以说远远大于自由主义与保守派例如施特劳斯派的共同性，这是因为自由主义与激进派都共同承认上面所说那层康德第一层意义上的"自由"，都强调赤裸裸的个人是最根本出发点。诚然，自由主义与激进派毕竟有其区别，这种区别主要在于，自由主义的根本关切毕竟并不单纯在于自由的个人，而更多在于这些自由的个人如何能组成自由社会和自由国家。而激进派在西方激进政治基本失败以后，事实上把社会国家及其法律、制度、思想、学校等等都看成是先天的恶，因此基本上只关注自由个人，只关心这些自由个人如何否定、挣脱、消解、打破各种宰制。他们最多关心一点所谓弱势团体，这种关心也未必是在这些弱势团体本身，而更多是为了表达他们反社会控制、反国家机器的理论而已。从道德政治哲学的理论上讲，两者的区别在于，自由主义必须强调前述康德意义上的两种自由，这两种自由缺一不可，第一种自由使得自由主义可以抽取出它需要的最基本要素即赤裸裸的个体，不受任何外在必然性支配，而是绝对自主或自律（autonomy）；第二种自由即选择立法或选择正义的自由则保证这赤裸裸的个人不是不受任何制约的野兽，是能为自己立道德法来约束自己，从而对自己和他人都能负道德责任的道德个体。反过来，激进自由派则基本只讲第一种自由，不谈甚至反对第二种自由。这里自由主义是要先把人变成赤裸裸的孤立的个体，然后再考虑如何把这些个体组织到一个政治社会里。可是对于激进自由派或后现代自由派而言，既然已经是孤立个体，为何还要再加入任何政治社会？从前左翼运动还可以有统一意识形态把大家组织成一个政党之类的，但现在后现代左翼对“权力”和控制的极端敏感和警惕，已经使得这样的政治不可能，唯一可能的是某个“特定时刻”到来时大家一起喊个口号，发个宣言，然后赶紧各自分开，因为否则必然要有“权力”和宰制问题出来。这是为什么现在左翼只能是一个学院里的东西。
　　
　　施特劳斯抓住的正是这个自由主义与后现代共同的东西，即康德意义上这个自主自足的“自由”。在他看来，这个“自由”正是“虚无主义”（Nihilism）的问题。因为这个自主自足的自由实际先把人连根翻起，置于“虚无”之中，然后试图在虚无中再建家园。虽然施特劳斯并没有活着看到"后现代"的流行，但在他那里所谓后现代当然只不过是现代的充分展现而已。用他的语言，就是现代性的第二波（卢梭康德）必然导向第三波（尼采海德格尔）。施特劳斯的特点实际就在于他把自由主义和激进派基本看成是同根生，因此他对自由主义的批判等同于他对后现代的批判，反过来也可以说在他那里批判后现代就必须批判自由主义本身，因为在他看来自由主义和现代性的内在逻辑必然导向这种走向亦即必然是"后现代"的展开。确实可以说施特劳斯早预见了日后所谓“后现代”的巨浪洪波。纯粹就思想的逻辑而言，施特劳斯在四十年代后期就把握住这一从自由主义到后现代的内在关联，确实非同凡响，这当然主要来自于他对尼采海德格尔哲学的透彻理解。
　　
　　施特劳斯会首先承认康德所说的这种否定的自由确实是人可能达到的一种状态，但他会立即强调这绝不是象康德所预设的那样是所有人的潜能，在他看来这种彻底的自由不但不是所有人都能达到，甚至也不是大多数人所欲求，因为大多数人追求的事实上是肯定的建制。奠定自由的途径因此绝不能象康德罗尔斯那样先把所有人都提升到"绝对自由"的状态，这等于把所有人都连根拔起，等于必须以"虚无主义"才能奠定政治社会根基，结果只可能是彻底动摇政治社会的根基。而这，在施特劳斯看来正是现代性的最大危险所在。在施特劳斯看来，西方现代性的全部问题，在于类似康德这样的哲学家抹煞了哲学家的自由与普通人的自由的区别，他们想当然地以为哲学家所欲也就是全人类所欲。按照施特劳斯的说法，“西方文明的危机”来自于西方“古典政治哲学”的衰落，更确切地说，来自于西方现代政治哲学对西方古典政治哲学的反叛，而“现代性的危机首先是现代政治哲学的危机”。因此他一生以复兴“古典政治哲学”为己任。所有这些说法无疑都有点奇怪。我们现在不能不问，施特劳斯所谓“政治哲学”到底是什么？或，到底什么是“施特劳斯政治哲学”？
　　
　　五、政治、哲学、政治哲学
　　
　　“政治哲学”是个含混的名词，因为“政治”和“哲学”这些字眼的含义在今天都歧义丛生。今天当然有无数多的政治哲学和政治哲学家，不过大多数情况下这些政治哲学都并不事先告诉读者什么是政治哲学，以及为什么要政治哲学。笼统而言大多数所谓政治哲学大概是用某种哲学的方法来谈某些政治的问题，而比较更雄心勃勃的政治哲学则大概企图用某种系统的哲学方法来构造一个政治的系统。但在施特劳斯看来，这样的政治哲学都没有首先严肃地追问，政治和哲学到底是什么关系？在他看来大多数所谓政治哲学甚至从未首先追问到底“什么是政治的?”(“whatispolitical?”)，更从未反思所谓“哲学”到底是一种什么样的活动？事实上这样的政治哲学往往不假思索地以为自己的研究是“价值中立”的，实际却恰恰拒绝把自己的诸多“预设”(assumptions)带进问题。施特劳斯认为政治哲学必须首先对“哲学”本身加以质疑，必须对各种预设本身进行盘问。如果政治哲学家不先追问这些问题，那就是缺乏自我批判，缺乏对自身活动的深刻反思，是把太多未经考察的东西不假思索地带进了自己的研究，等于事先预设了太多未必成立的前提。施特劳斯政治哲学不同于几乎所有其它政治哲学之处或许就在于，他坚持政治哲学的首要和中心问题就是要检讨哲学与政治社会的关系，因此他最早曾将他的“政治哲学”称为是一种“哲学社会学”（Sociology of philosopy）的研究。正是从这一问题意识出发，他返回到古代的苏格拉底和柏拉图，即返回西方哲学的源头，以图重新检讨哲学到底是怎样的一种活动，以及政治哲学为什么必要。但这里首先需要强调，所谓"苏格拉底问题"并不是施特劳斯的原初出发点，恰如“前苏格拉底问题”也并不是海德格尔的原初问题意识一样。他们都是从某种先行问题出发而回过去重新检查传统，这个出发点是现代性的问题。这从施特劳斯的思想著述过程可以看得非常清楚，即他是倒着从现代走回古典的。他前期和中期的著作主要都是处理现代传统（斯宾诺莎、霍布士、洛克、卢梭到马基亚维里，即使他的犹太传统研究也是倒着从当代的新康德主义哲学家柯亨到近代早期的斯宾诺莎，再到中世纪犹太大哲迈蒙尼德和阿拉伯大哲法拉比）。他真正全力投入"苏格拉底问题"研究事实上已是在他生命的最后十年。这最后十年他接连出版了《城邦与人》（1964），《苏格拉底与阿里斯托芬》（1966），《色诺芬的苏格拉底论述：释〈家政篇〉》（1970），《色诺芬的苏格拉底》（1972），以及临终前完成死后出版的《柏拉图〈法篇〉的言与行》（1975）。但我们必须强调所有这些都不是为古典而古典的研究，而是从他的“现代性问题”出发的。
　　
　　施特劳斯对政治哲学的基本看法以及他关于“古典政治哲学”问题的提出，实际隐含着他对整个西方近代哲学和政治哲学的看法，即他认为西方哲学自近代以来是一个日益走火入魔（Philosophygonemad）的过程，亦即现代哲学和现代政治哲学拒绝了“古典政治哲学”的自我认识（“哲学只是认识世界，不是改造世界”），而狂妄地以为整个世界可以而且必须按照“哲学”来改造。所谓“从前的哲学只是解释世界，而现代的哲学则要改造世界”这个著名的表述并不只是某些个别思想家的自大，而是贯穿整个西方近代以来“哲学”的基本抱负和自觉使命。由此，西方近世以来的“哲人”不但“真诚”地追求真理，同时更“真诚”地要最彻底地按照哲学看到的真理来全面改造不符合真理的整个世界。其结果就是“哲学”不断批判不符合真理的“政治”，导致的是“政治”的日益走火入魔（不断革命），以及“哲学”本身的日益走火入魔（不断“批判”）。施特劳斯认为这导致现代性最突出的两个问题，即一方面是“政治的哲学化”，另一方面则恰恰是“哲学的政治化”（politicization of philosophy）。所谓“政治的哲学化”是因为现代政治似乎必须从“哲学”的学说和主义出发才能奠定自己的正当性，这是以往的政治从来没有的。以往的政治都以道德、习俗和宗教为基础，从来没有象现代政治这样地要求理性化、知性化、哲学化。而“哲学的政治化”则是因为哲学从以往主要作为一种私人性的纯粹知性追求变成了一种公共政治的武器和工具，实现了现代哲人培根主张的“知识是权力”，因此哲学从来没有如此地公共化、大众化、通俗化，这表明哲学在现代西方“变成了一种意识形态”。在施特劳斯看来现代性的这种特点实际意味着政治和哲学的双重扭曲，即政治被哲学所扭曲，而哲学又被政治所扭曲。
　　
　　施特劳斯政治哲学的全部出发点，可以说就是希望找到一条出路来克制"哲学"的走火入魔，从而防止“政治”的走火入魔。这个出路，他认为就在返回苏格拉底开创的古典政治哲学的起点，因为他认为深入的研究可以发现，古典"政治哲学"的起源原本就是为了克制"哲学"的走火入魔，以维护政治社会的稳定。在他看来这也就是所谓从“前苏格拉底哲学”转变到“苏格拉底政治哲学”的真正含义所在。换言之，苏格拉底之所以将“古典哲学”引向“古典政治哲学”的方向，以及苏格拉底本人之所以从“哲人”转变为“政治哲人”，就是因为意识到，“哲学”就其本性而言就具有“癫狂性”(madness)，这是因为哲学作为追求智慧的纯粹知性活动，必须要求无法无天的绝对自由，必须要求不受任何道德习俗所制约，不受任何法律宗教所控制，因此哲学就其本性而言是与政治社会不相容的：哲学为了维护自己的绝对自由，必然要嘲笑一切道德习俗、必然要怀疑和亵渎一切宗教和神圣，因此“哲学”作为一种纯粹的知性追求对于任何政治社会都必然是危险的、颠覆性的。正因为如此，苏格拉底把他自己的"转向"──从“哲学”转向“政治哲学”，看成是从神志癫狂“转向或返回神志正常（sanity），亦即返回常识”。换言之，哲学下降为政治哲学的必要性，就在于防止哲学的走火入魔，或防止“苏格拉底本人的走火入魔”，因为苏格拉底在成为"政治哲人"之前首先是“哲人”。因此，由苏格拉底带来的这个转变，亦即由"前苏格拉底哲学"转向"苏格拉底政治哲学"，其意义在苏格拉底自己看来意味着"从以往哲人的癫狂(madness)返回清明(sobriety)与温良(moderation)。"施特劳斯接着说，"苏格拉底与他前辈哲人的不同在于，苏格拉底没有把智慧与温良分开。用今天的话来说，苏格拉底的这个转变可以说是返回常识，或返回常识的世界"。
　　
　　但施特劳斯认为，古典政治哲学之返回常识世界，返回“清明”和“温良”，并不意味着改变哲学的性质，而是改变了哲学的表达方式。哲学之为哲学永远都是癫狂的、颠覆性的知性活动，否则就不是哲学。因为“温良不是思想的美德，柏拉图把哲学比作癫狂，正是清明和温良的反面；思想必然要求的不是温良，而是无畏，伤风败俗在所不顾。但温良是控制哲人言论的美德。”换言之，“政治哲人”在“思想”方面与“哲人”一样“癫狂”，但在言论表达尤其在写作上却变得无比的谨慎小心。正是在这里，施特劳斯提出了他一生最著名的“发现”，即发现了他所谓“一种被遗忘的写作方式”。这里所谓“被遗忘”就是被“现代人”所遗忘，但据说在此之前，从柏拉图和色诺芬开始，古典政治哲人都懂得使用一种特别的写作方式（apeculiarmannerofwriting），这就是同一个文本里面用两种语言说话，传递两种不同的教导：一套是对“社会有用的教导”（thesociallyusefulteaching），即所谓“俗白教导”（theexotericteaching）；另一套则是政治上有忌讳而不宜直言的“真正的教导”（thetrueteaching），即所谓“隐讳教导”（theesotericteaching）。“俗白教导”是任何人都能轻易读懂的，而“隐讳教导”则是只有少数训练有素而且仔细阅读的人反复琢磨文本才能领会的。之所以如此，就在于“古典政治哲人”深刻地认识到哲学与政治的冲突，因为“哲学”是一种力图以“真理”取代“意见”的知性活动，但任何“政治社会”的存在却离不开该社会的“意见”即该社会的主流道德和宗教信念，以及以这种主流道德和宗教为基础制定的法律；如果这些“意见”被“哲学”颠覆，也就可能导致该政治社会的瓦解。但由于“哲学”从根本上就是要追求“真理”来取代“意见”，而几乎任何政治社会的“意见”都不可能是“真理”，因此哲学对于政治必然是有颠覆性的，也因此哲学的“真正教导”即“隐讳教导”必须只限于少数人知道，以免危害政治社会。施特劳斯日后说，这个基本思想可以表达为一个三段论：
　　
　　“哲学旨在以知识取代意见，但意见却是政治社会或城邦的要素，因此哲学具有颠覆性，也因此哲人必须以这样的方式来写作：改善而非颠覆政治社会。换言之，哲人之思想的美德在于某种癫狂（mania），但哲人之公共言说的美德则在于温良（sophrosyne）。哲学本身是超政治、超宗教、超道德的，但政治社会却永远是而且应该是道德的宗教的。”
　　
　　简言之，哲学作为纯粹的知性活动是非道德、非宗教或尼采所谓“超越善与恶”的，但任何政治社会的存在和稳定则离不开一套善恶标准即道德，这种道德在西方又以宗教为保证，因此“哲学”与“政治”（道德、宗教）从根本上是存在冲突的。由于“并非所有人都是或都可以成为哲人”，如果“非哲学的多数人”（theunphilosophicmultitude）都认为道德宗教是骗人的或只是鸦片，那么政治社会就必然瓦解（但革命后的新政治社会仍然必须打造一套新的“公民宗教”来维持新社会）。在施特劳斯看来，所谓“古今之争”的全部问题，实际即在于现代“哲人”拒绝了古代“政治哲人”对“哲学与政治关系”的这一深刻认识，亦即现代“哲人们”日益坚定地相信，可以用哲学的“知识”取代政治社会的“意见”。如果古典政治哲人所谓“俗白教导”按伯拉图的说法是某种“高贵的谎言”（noblelie），那么现代哲人则决心要以“知性的真诚”（intellectualprobity）来取代“高贵的谎言”，使“真理”大白于天下（启蒙）。由此，“俗白写作”这种古典政治哲学的写作方式被拒绝而且最后被“遗忘”，而以返回“常识世界”的“清明和温良”来克制“哲学走火入魔”的古典政治哲学终于衰亡，现代哲学和政治哲学由此走上不断“走火入魔”的不归路。施特劳斯由此认为现代性的问题首先是“现代政治哲学”反叛“古典政治哲学”的问题，而其核心则是以“知性的真诚”取代“高贵的谎言”。由于“知性”本身是“非道德的”，因此毫不奇怪，现代性的开端首先是马基亚维里的“非道德的政治观”（马基亚维里主义），继之演变为康德的“非道德的历史观”，最后是尼采的“超越善与恶”的个体人生观和韦伯的“非道德的社会观”（社会理性化）双峰对峙，到海德格尔则终于点破：现代性下“伦理是不可能的”。
　　
　　施特劳斯的“政治哲学”因此首先来自于他力图对抗现代"哲学"基本走向的问题意识。这个问题意识在他第一部著作《斯宾诺莎的宗教批判》（1930）中已经出现。他在那里说，斯宾诺莎的名著《神学政治论》是斯宾诺莎对“哲学”的准备或“引导”亦即其“政治哲学”，而斯宾诺莎的《伦理学》则是斯宾诺莎的“哲学”，后者是在前者清理好的基地上来开展的。确切地说，《神学政治论》清理了人间的所有“意见”即道德偏见和宗教偏见，将“人”解放为所谓“自由人”即摆脱了（freefrom）所有道德偏见和宗教信仰的“真人”，而《伦理学》则正是以这一结果为出发点，即设想完全以这种“自由真人”为基础来安排一个全新的“美丽新世界”。反过来也可以说，《伦理学》即“哲学”是真正的出发点，斯宾诺莎是从这一“真正哲学”设想的“自由真人世界”的立场来批判一切“神学政治”。这不消说正是整个西方近世哲学一直到罗尔斯等的最基本共同点，亦即贬低和怀疑所谓“前科学世界”即常识世界。笛卡尔所谓“我思故我在”以及所谓以“普遍的怀疑”作为哲学的出发点，无非是对“前科学世界”的普遍怀疑并以最彻底的方式与之断裂。康德道德哲学首先设定一个只有“自由意志”而绝对不依赖经验世界的先验道德主体，都是为了保证一个所谓“自由真人”的出发点。这里可以很容易指出，罗尔斯式政治哲学事实上都是相当于斯宾诺莎《伦理学》层面上的工作，罗尔斯《正义论》设计的所谓“原初立场”（theoriginalposition）和“无知之幕”（theveilofignorance）同样是为了要把“常识世界”先放到括弧里，以便保证在“无知之幕”后面的“当事者”是没有宗教偏见、没有种族偏见，也没有性别偏见的“自由真人”，这样“正义社会”才有可能。
　　
　　施特劳斯所谓“政治哲学”的意图恰恰与斯宾诺莎及整个现代传统反其道而行之。如果斯宾诺莎等政治哲学的目的是要把人从偏见、迷信和宗教引到“哲学”这“真理或光明世界”，那么施特劳斯的“政治哲学”的第一步恰恰是要重新把人首先从这所谓的“真理和光明世界”引回到“意见和偏见”的世界，即引回到原初性的现实的政治世界。这看起来似乎非常奇怪，施特劳斯本人不是也常常说哲学就是把人从意见引向真理吗？为什么他不跟着斯宾诺莎等人一起沿着近现代西方“哲学”的方向，把可怜的人从意见偏见世界（政治）引向真理和光明世界（哲学），却要反过来把人从被“科学的光芒”照亮的真理世界重新引回到“意见世界”即政治世界呢？这是因为在施特劳斯看来，在现代这种“科学的政治理解”中实际隐含着一个基本的假设，即“政治”是可以“取消”或“消亡”的。如他在《自然正义与历史》中所指出，从霍布士开始现代政治哲学的基本出发点就是认为人的本性是“非政治的”的动物。正因为政治及其道德和宗教历来是引起无穷纠纷的领域，现代哲学和政治哲学的基本指向实际就是希望以“哲学和科学”最终取消“政治社会”，终止“战争”，走向“永久和平”，最后达到“普世社会”（auniversalsociety）或“普世国家”（auniversalstate）。在施特劳斯的用语里，“政治社会”因此是相对于“普世社会”而言的，政治社会是特殊的特定的社会，例如雅典、罗马、美国、中国，普世社会则是消除了所有特殊社会之差别的无冲突的“全球性普世一体化国家”。施特劳斯强调，“政治哲学”乃以“政治社会”的存在为前提，但普世社会则以“政治社会”的消失为前提，因此施特劳斯“政治哲学”的前提就是：如果这种“全球性普世一体化国家”是可能的，那么“政治哲学”就是不可能的。他因此曾将他的全部思想或他认为的“古典政治哲学”的全部思想以最简洁的方式表述如下：
　　
　　1、 “普世一体化国家”(theunivresalandhomogeneousstate)是不可能的；
　　
　　2、 因此任何政治社会都是特殊的，都是“封闭的社会”（aclosedsociety）即柏拉图意义上的自然洞穴；
　　
　　3、 任何曾经存在过的政治社会或任何将来会出现的“政治社会”都必然立足于该社会一套特殊而根本的“意见”，这种“意见”不能被“知识”所取代，因此任何政治社会都必然是特殊的而且是特殊主义的社会；
　　
　　4、 政治社会这种立足于“意见”的特性因此对“哲人”的公共言论和写作强加了责任（如果普世理性社会是可能的，这种责任就是不必要的了）；
　　
　　5、 哲人的写作因此需要一种特定的写作艺术（“俗白和隐讳的写作”）。
　　
　　反过来，则我们或许也就可以将“现代性”或现代哲学与现代政治哲学的基本思想表述如下：
　　
　　1、 “普世一体化国家”是可能的；
　　
　　2、 因此现代政治社会不再是特殊的，不再是“封闭的社会”，而已经成了“开放社会（opensociety），因为现代人已经走出了柏拉图意义上的自然洞穴；
　　
　　3、现代社会以及任何将来会出现的社会都必然立足于“知识“，不再立足于“意见”；因此任何现代社会都是理性社会因此是普遍主义的，只有那些还没有“现代化”的社会仍然是特殊的和特殊主义的社会；
　　
　　4、 现代社会这种立足于“知识”的特性因此使“哲人”的公共言论和写作不必再有任何“隐讳”；相反，哲人们应该大力宣传“知识”，普及“知识”；
　　
　　5、哲人因此不再需要“写作的艺术”。
　　
　　我们不难看出，施特劳斯是多么地“反动”，多么地与“现代社会”和“现代观念”不相容。但在施特劳斯看来，这正表明所谓“普世社会“和”开放社会“云云正就是现代人的“意见”，而且是神圣不可怀疑的“意见”，任何人如果触动这个“现代权威意见”，顿时就将不容于“现代社会”，不容于“文明世界”，顿时就将被看成是“反动”，是“异端”，甚至被看成是“怪胎”。在施特劳斯看来，现代人的这种“神圣意见”渗透于一切当代学术之中，如果说在早期现代哲学例如康德那里，仍然需要一个“历史哲学”的构想和漫长过程来达到这个普世社会的“美丽新世界”，那么在“历史哲学”破产以后，这种所谓的“对政治的科学理解”就采取了更流行的所谓社会科学方法，即所谓“事实与价值之区分”：社会科学家相信现代社会必须以所谓“对政治的科学理解”亦即“知识”来取代普通公民们对政治的理解即“意见”，由此，公民们所必然具有的价值取向和偏见必须被所谓无偏见无价值预设的社会科学所代替。在施特劳斯看来，从西方近代哲学和政治哲学到现代社会科学的这种所谓“对政治的科学理解”，实际都是一种对政治的“非政治的”理解，即对政治之为政治的扭曲，因为这种所谓“科学的理解”都隐含着与“前科学的理解”（pre-scientificunderstanding）之断裂。施特劳斯强调，古典政治哲学恰恰是以“前科学”的政治理解出发，即从公民和政治家对政治的理解出发的，这正是古典政治哲学与现代政治哲学的根本不同所在。因此，返回“古典政治哲学”的第一步就在于要象古典政治哲人柏拉图和亚里士多德那样用“前科学”的眼光即公民和政治家的眼光来看待政治，而不是象现代哲学和社会科学那样用所谓“中立的观察家的政治科学的眼光”观察政治。施特劳斯以后反反覆覆强调，政治哲学首先必须以现象学的方式还原到“前哲学、前科学、前理论的政治世界”，而不能从现代以来建构起来的所谓“哲学的、科学的、理论的政治理解”出发，指的都是必须首先回到赤裸裸政治世界的问题。
　　
　　施特劳斯的“政治哲学”因此虽然强调哲学与政治的冲突，却绝非是主张逃离“政治”而走向“哲学”。恰恰相反，施特劳斯政治哲学的首要问题首先是返回政治世界，即返回“前哲学、前科学、前理论的赤裸裸的政治世界”。在他看来政治和哲学在现代已经结成了一个连环套，现代性的诡异就在于它以为可以通过“哲学”来改造“政治”，把所有人都提到“哲学”的高度，结果却是“哲学”本身被“政治化”而变成了“公民宗教”，而“政治”则反过来被“哲学化“而成了所谓“科学的政治理解”。“政治”本身几乎“看不见摸不着”了，政治的真面貌被“哲学、科学、理论”包了起来。施特劳斯“政治哲学”最奇特的地方因此就在于，如果现代即自由主义“政治”或左翼政治以自由主义的“哲学”或左翼“哲学”为前提，那么施特劳斯的“哲学”却必须以施特劳斯的“政治”为前提！换言之，要使“哲学去政治化”，必须先使“政治去哲学化”。因此，施特劳斯的“政治哲学”必须包括两个层面或步骤，即第一要把政治还原到“前哲学、前科学、前理论的赤裸裸的政治世界”，然后才可能使哲学回到“纯粹哲学、纯粹科学、纯粹理论”的园地。他在其第二本著作《哲学与法》（1935）中因此提出他著名的所谓“第一洞穴”和“第二洞穴”的说法，基本已经预示了他后来一生的路向，即认为，第一，真正意义上的“哲学”只有从柏拉图的“第一层的自然洞穴”（意见世界，政治社会）出发向上走才可能，但第二，启蒙以来的哲学已经推倒了这个“自然洞穴”，把人送到了更下面的“第二层非自然洞穴”（号称的科学世界），在这第二层洞穴已经没有“哲学”的可能性。唯一可作的只有首先从第二层的非自然洞穴返回第一层的自然洞穴，而这个返回只有借助于他所谓“政治哲学史”的诠释才能展示出来，亦即只有通过艰苦的诠释工作使古典政治哲学的视野重新为人所认识才可能。可以说，施特劳斯“政治哲学”的全部工作就是试图首先从第二洞穴（科学化的以“真人”为预设的普世大同世界）走回第一洞穴（前科学的以“常人”为预设的特殊政治世界）。恰如胡塞尔一生都在写现象学的“导引”或“前奏”，海德格尔一生都在“走向语言的途中”，施特劳斯一生都在“走向政治的途中”。
　　
　　施特劳斯这一强调“返回前科学、前哲学、前理论的政治世界”的政治哲学，诚然与他的现象学背景有关。如他自己后来所回忆，他青年时代作胡塞尔助手时印象最深的是胡塞尔曾用最简单的语言向他说明胡塞尔现象学与新康德哲学马堡学派的区别是：“马堡学派的工作是从房顶开始，我则从地基开始。”不过在后来海德格尔反叛胡塞尔的革命中，施特劳斯自然站在海德格尔一边，亦即他们都反对胡塞尔将现象学还原的目标指向意识结构分析从而重新落入笛卡尔康德范畴。胡塞尔晚年虽然也谈“前科学前理论的生活世界”，但他的关注却仍然是如何结构“科学”或理论。这在施特劳斯看来仍然没有真正“面对事实本身”，没有真正返回到“前科学前理论的生活世界”，惟有海德格尔《存在与时间》特别是其第一部分的“在世界中存在”或“在世结构”的分析真正展开了这“前科学、前理论、前哲学”的世界。但施特劳斯则显然进一步认为，“此在”首先是“政治的此在”，此在“在世”因此首先是“在政治世界之中”即在特殊的“政治社会之中”；而“在世结构”特别是其中“闲谈”、“常人”以及“沉沦”等所谓“非本真世界”，正是施特劳斯的“前科学的政治世界”即柏拉图“第一洞穴”的“意见”世界；海德格尔所谓“闲谈”在施特劳斯看来也就不是随随便便的“闲谈”，而就是政治社会的主流“意见”；所谓“常人”也就不是“普世”的常人，而总是某特定政治社会的“多数”。不过施特劳斯当然知道，海德格尔工作的主要关切是要把笛卡尔康德建构的现代认识论世界还原到这种“在世界中存在”结构，因此海德格尔的关切并不在政治世界本身，而是更关注现代科学和认识论导致“技术世界观”的全面主宰，海德格尔显然并不认为政治世界或政治哲学方面可以突破这种“技术世界观”的全面主宰。这一点施特劳斯事实上是认同的，虽然他强调现代性的问题首先来自道德政治世界观的变化，然后才是自然世界观的变化，但他同样反复强调哲学的最深危机在于十七世纪以来“自然”的概念已经完全改变，“科学”的概念也完全改变，亦即“自然”成了“自然科学”研究的“对象”，而科学本身完全以“技术”控制为方向，这导致原先以“自然”为根基的“哲学”已经不可能。其结果则是“政治”这一最实践、最人世、最特殊的世界恰恰被提升到了“最哲学、最理论、最普遍”的“科学”层面来，而“哲学”本身反过来恰恰成了最实际最人世的考虑，因为它实际上都是在致力于改造人类生活世界使之成为“科学技术世界”的一部分。施特劳斯因此多次说，现代的根本问题是新自然科学全面胜利所导致，在这个问题解决之前，政治哲学能够解决的问题是有限的，亦即不可能真正恢复“哲学”。他不无谦虚地说，他的“政治哲学”只能针对其中一部分的问题，即力图颠覆“现代社会科学”所构筑的那个虚假生活世界，使人认识“政治哲学是所有社会科学当之无愧的女王”（political philosophy is the rightful queen of the social sciences）。但问题在于现代社会科学背后是更强势的现代自然科学的整套“现代知识观”，这自然科学意识形态所构建的更大虚假生活世界则非他能够处理了。应该说，后者正是海德格尔的工作，即力图颠覆这整个自然科学意识形态及其营造的更大技术世界整体。这大概也就是为什么施特劳斯到晚年仍然说“我越是理解海德格尔的意图所在，就越是觉得仍然远远没能把握他。我能想象的天下最愚蠢的事就是闭上眼睛不读海德格尔的著作。”
　　
　　施特劳斯的“政治哲学”可以说是对海德格尔“哲学终结”的一种深刻回应。他事实上完全承认海德格革命的意义即旧意义上的哲学或形而上学由于现代性的展开而已经终结。他与海德格尔一样在寻求和思考“形尔上学终结以后”的思想或哲学的可能道路。但他的路不同于海德格尔，海德格尔认为只有走向“诗思哲学”，而施特劳斯则认为必须走向“政治哲学”；海德格认为出路在于走回“前苏格拉底问题”，施特劳斯则恰恰认为出路在于重新解释“苏格拉底问题”，从而将这一传统问题完全改造为哲学必须下降为政治哲学的问题即苏格拉底为什么要下人间。直截了当地说，施特劳斯虽然强调“重返”古典，但“重返”乃重新解释传统，不存在简单重回传统形而上学的问题（他否定柏拉图理念论正是明证），在这方面他决定性地受海德格影响。但他的政治哲学同时也可以看成是对海德格的最深刻批判，即以“苏格拉底问题”来对抗海德格的“前苏格拉底问题”。这里特别需要强调的是施特劳斯所谓“苏格拉底问题”乃是他的独门解释，完全不同于传统意义上的“苏格拉底问题”。事实上施特劳斯和伽达默尔一样都力图从海德格手里“拯救柏拉图”，亦即以强调柏拉图的“写作”（对话）来强调柏拉图不是形尔上学，两人的路向虽然完全不同，但他们的共同点是都力图对柏拉图作“非形尔上学”的全新解释（阿伦特就完全按照海德格尔把柏拉图看成是形尔上学，因此阿伦特的“后形尔上学路向”就简单以反柏拉图出发，不再劳神重新解释柏拉图。阿伦特因此反复强调她不是哲学家，也不是政治哲学家，而是“政治理论家”。不过晚年阿伦特另当别论）。
　　
　　施特劳斯对“苏格拉底问题”的独门解释，尤其在其晚年的一系列“苏格拉底研究”中得到最充分的论述。在1964年出版的《城邦与人》中，他破天荒地提出“政治哲学”就是“第一哲学”（thefirstphilosophy），这在他自己从前的著作中似乎也是从来没有的提法。换言之，在晚年的施特劳斯看来，“第一哲学”既不是本体论，也不是认识论，大概因为无论本体论还是认识论都容易助长“哲学的走火入魔”倾向，只有以“政治哲学”为第一哲学才能克制哲学的走火入魔。而更重要的是，在1966年出版的《苏格拉底与阿里斯托芬》中，他进一步提出了“两个苏格拉底”的说法，即“少年苏格拉底”，和“成年苏格拉底”。所谓“少年苏格拉底”是“苏格拉底以前的苏格拉底”，亦即还没有转向“政治哲学”的“自然哲人”苏格拉底，而成年苏格拉底则是“柏拉图的苏格拉底”，亦即转变为“政治哲人”的成熟的苏格拉底。施特劳斯认为“苏格拉底从蒂欧提玛那里得知爱欲的秘密时似乎还太年轻”，亦即那时的苏格拉底与其他“哲人”并无不同，仍然是站在“哲学”的立场鄙视政治和道德，尚未认识到从哲学转向政治哲学的必要性。但“苏格拉底本人日后的一个深刻转变是从少年式地鄙视政治和道德事务、鄙视人事和人，转向成熟地关心政治和道德事务、关心人事和人。而这个“成熟地关心政治和道德事务”的苏格拉底，就是柏拉图和色诺芬的苏格拉底，亦即“政治哲人苏格拉底”。
　　
　　施特劳斯随后就作出了一个重要观察，即虽然古代和现代都有人激烈攻击苏格拉底，但他们攻击的却不是同一个苏格拉底！古代攻击苏格拉底的最有名代表自然首推古希腊喜剧家阿里斯托芬在其喜剧《云》中对苏格拉底的攻击，而现代人攻击苏格拉底最著名的则首推尼采在其《悲剧的诞生》中对苏格拉底的攻击。但施特劳斯指出，阿理斯多芬和尼采攻击的完全不是同一个苏格拉底，因为阿里斯托芬攻击的是“少年苏格拉底”亦即还没有转变为政治哲人的苏格拉底，而尼采攻击的却恰恰是“成年苏格拉底”即政治哲人苏格拉底。事实上阿里斯托芬《云》剧攻击的正是哲人苏格拉底的“癫狂”，而尼采攻击的则是政治哲人苏格拉底没有酒神精神，亦即太清醒！在阿里斯托芬的喜剧中，凡是跟着“哲人”苏格拉底学了点哲学的人，学的首先都是“哲学的癫狂”，例如学了哲学首先就要揍自己的父亲，因为“父亲”是一切权威的象征，而哲学首先要的就是鄙视任何权威，打倒父亲因此正是打倒一切权威的起点。以后被雅典起诉的苏格拉底正是这个“癫狂”的苏格拉底。但是施特劳斯指出，阿里斯托芬喜剧对“少年苏格拉底”的攻击是对“古典政治哲学”的重要贡献，因为正是阿里斯托芬对“哲学癫狂”的攻击，使得柏拉图、色诺芬，甚至苏格拉底本人开始从“癫狂的哲学”下降到“清明和温良的政治哲学”。正因为如此，在柏拉图和色诺芬著述中的苏格拉底完全不同于阿里斯托芬喜剧中的苏格拉底，不是喜剧中那种“少年式地鄙视政治和道德事务、鄙视人事和人”的苏格拉底，而恰恰是“成熟地关心政治和道德事务、关心人事和人”的苏格拉底，即成熟的“政治哲人”苏格拉底。施特劳斯甚至说，这个转变或许不完全是柏拉图和色诺芬的虚构，而说不定就是真实苏格拉底自己的转变！但不管怎样，尼采攻击的却恰恰是这后一个苏格拉底，即柏拉图和色诺芬笔下的成熟的“政治哲人”苏格拉底！在施特劳斯看来，古典与现代的差异实莫大于此：尼采似乎以为他对苏格拉底的攻击是与阿里斯托芬的攻击一致的，殊不知阿里斯托芬绝不会攻击柏拉图的苏格拉底即成熟的“政治哲人”苏格拉底，他攻击的只是少年苏格拉底即“癫狂哲人”苏格拉底。因此，尼采和阿里斯托芬的攻击方向正好相反：阿里斯托芬攻击的是少不更事的苏格拉底，即“攻击正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”（the Socrates who assailed just icorpiety），而尼采攻击的则是柏拉图的政治哲人苏格拉底，即“维护正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”（the Socrates who defended just iceandpiety）。这里的两个苏格拉底，即“攻击正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”，以及“维护正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”，可以说是施特劳斯复兴“古典政治哲学“的全部关键所在。第一个苏格拉底就是以哲学和真理自居而激烈批判政治共同体、攻击城邦视为神圣的一切；这个苏格拉底突出的是哲学如何地高于政治，突出政治是如何地不符合真理。初读施特劳斯的人往往会以为这就是施特劳斯的“苏格拉底”。可是这个苏格拉底自然并不需要施特劳斯来发明，这个苏格拉底所代表的“哲学”正就是近世西方所最标榜的“哲学”。可以说，施特劳斯实际认为，近世以来以“哲学”批判“政治”的形态，其原型就在阿里斯托芬所攻击的少年苏格拉底即“攻击正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”，这是走火入魔的苏格拉底（Socrates gone mad）,或走火入魔的哲学（Philosophy gone mad），亦即一味以哲学标榜而完全无视任何政治共同体以“意见”为基础。这种“哲学”自现代以来至少有两种表现形态：首先表现为典型的所谓“启蒙哲学”，亦即不但以哲学为标准来批判政治，而且力图以哲学为标准来改造政治，以知识取代意见，最终使人类都生活在“光明”中，就象基督徒最终可以进入上帝的天国。这种以解放人类为目标的“哲学”形态现在当然不那么时髦了，因此出现第二种更时髦的现在形态，亦即认为启蒙是幻想，人类永远不可能解放，政治永远不可能改造，因此唯一可能的“哲学”就是不断地批判政治社会的一切，这种路线在福科德勒兹等后现代那里达到顶峰，也更能满足所谓“知识分子”的自我认同，因为这表示知识分子多么有所谓独立人格，批判意识，而且现在还再没有任何政治幻想。
　　
　　如果施特劳斯的“政治哲学”不过是要说哲学高于政治超越政治，不过是要强调以哲学鄙视政治，那么他也就太平平无奇了，因为这本就是近世以来任何稍有“知识”的人共享的最流行的现代“意见”。如果施特劳斯只不过指出启蒙哲学想解放人民大众是幻想，那么同样无甚独特，因为在这方面后现代诸公的认识丝毫不比他差。施特劳斯真正不同寻常之处是他提出了“维护正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”。施特劳斯对"哲学与政治"的根本看法实际即是认为，“不成熟的哲学”往往好标榜如何爱“哲学”，如何鄙视“政治”或“人间事”，这就象柏拉图对话《会饮篇》开场出来的那个Apollodorus，明明毫无主见，，没有头脑，却生怕别人不知道他是如何“爱哲学”，如何“鄙视政治”。但“成熟的哲学”即政治哲学则恰恰“转向成熟地关心政治和道德事务、关心人事和人”。施特劳斯由此提出了苏格拉底开创的“古典政治哲学”的深刻意义就是从“癫狂的哲学”走向或返回“清明和温良的常识政治”的问题，从而提出了“政治哲学”是要“改善而非颠覆政治社会”的问题。施特劳斯“政治哲学”的中心工作可以说就是将近代以来一直被视为“攻击正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”改造成“维护正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”。而他的“绝活”则是论证这个“苏格拉底的改造”在柏拉图和色诺芬尼那里就已经完成了，甚至是苏格拉底本人就已经完成了！他认为柏拉图和色诺芬事实上完全同意阿里斯托芬对“癫狂哲学”的批判，但认为他批判的只是“少年苏格拉底”或不成熟的自然哲人苏格拉底，但真正的苏格拉底或成熟的苏格拉底即“政治哲人苏格拉底”则是“维护正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”。这个“维护正义与虔诚的苏格拉底”诚然只是柏拉图和色诺芬的“俗白教导”，但施特劳斯强调俗白教导就是政治哲学，因为没有“俗白教导”，那就只有“癫狂哲学”，那么施特劳斯就不是在复兴“古典保守主义政治哲学”，而是融进了近代以来的激进批判哲学大潮了。施特劳斯晚年特别致力于解释色诺芬的苏格拉底对话，因为他认为色诺芬的著作在古代历来被认为是经典但从18世纪以后却开始被贬低，恰恰最反映现代“知识人”的偏见，亦即认为色诺芬笔下的苏格拉底丝毫没有“哲人”的味道和“牛氓“的精神，而与普通公民无异，这太难满足现代人的“哲学批判”精神，因此现代人都认为色诺芬歪曲了苏格拉底的形象。施特劳斯却恰恰认为，色诺芬的写作乃“俗白教导”和“隐讳教导”写作的炉火纯青之作，在其中“哲人”苏格拉底的锋芒掩藏在公民苏格拉底背后，正是“古典政治哲人”的典范。
　　
　　结语：政治哲学作为教育
　　
　　施特劳斯似乎并不认为“古典政治哲学”一定是保守的。他在1945年发表的“论古典政治哲学”或许是他本人关于“政治哲人”的最简明也最准确的讲述。他首先强调，古典政治哲学的首要特点是政治哲学与政治生活的直接性关系，亦即古典政治哲人首先是直接以公民和政治家的角度来看政治。由此施特劳斯给出古典政治哲人的三重身份，第一，政治哲人首先以好公民的面貌出现；其次，政治哲人的目标是最高的政治知识即“立法”的知识，获得这种知识的政治哲人是立法者的导师；最后，政治哲人认识到政治生活的最高目标不是政治本身所能达成，而只有哲学才能理解，因此他是献身沉思生活的哲人。这三条中最后一条无疑是最重要的，即政治哲人首先是哲人，哲人对政治并没有特别高的要求，因为哲人知道政治是一个有限性的活动场域，受到各种“必然性”的制约，即使所谓“最佳政治”也是一个“机遇”（chance）的问题，非人力可以强求。古典政治哲人从这样一种视野出发，不会象现代哲人那样妄想通过政治的改造可以造就一个新人类或甚至解放全人类达到历史的终结。惟有首先认识到政治能够达到的目标是有限度的，政治哲人方能成为立法者的导师。政治哲人的政治贡献因此主要是教育立法者，教育立法者认识到本国政治的不完善，教育立法者追求更佳政治。施特劳斯认为柏拉图的《法篇》和《理想国》是两类政治教育的典范。《法篇》是政治哲人教育当政的成年政治家，这种教育自然相当困难，受到的政治限制比较多。《理想国》则是政治哲人教育年轻的未来的立法者，这种教育是在当政者不在场的情况下进行，因此余地比较大。因此施特劳斯认为古典政治哲学并非因循守旧，不事改革，而是主张由政治哲人通过教育人特别是教育立法者来进行改革。如他在“论古典政治哲学”这篇文章中所言，“政治哲学就是试图引导资质较好的公民，或不如说引导这些公民的资质较好的子弟，从政治生活走向哲学生活。”这里所谓“引导资质较好的公民”即是指《法篇》的教育，而“引导资质较好的子弟”则是指《理想国》式的教育。后面这种教育即教育年轻未来立法者，显然是施特劳斯认为可塑性更大的。我们现在可以说，施特劳斯所谓“政治哲学”基本落实为“教育”，即通过在大学里从事“自由教育”来影响未来公民和立法者。他因此常常引用柏拉图说：“教育在其最高的意义上而言就是哲学“（education in the highest sense isphilosophy）。他在“什么是自由教育”等文章中强调，现代已经不可能有哲人，惟一可能的“哲学追问”（philosophing）只有一种方式，即研究伟大经典著作。这大概也就是施特劳斯自己所从事的“政治哲学”，即带着一批美国弟子细读圣贤书。在这教育过程中，这些弟子中有些成为一心向学者和未来的教育家，也有些可能今后成为立法者。许多人常常对施特劳斯弟子中这么多人去从事政治感到难以理解，因为他们听说施特劳斯的教导是要人作“哲人”，不要搞政治，殊不知施特劳斯政治哲学的独特品性就是强调只有从政治才能进人哲学，因为施特劳斯所谓政治哲学就是要“从政治生活走向哲学生活”（from the political life to the philosophic life），因此施特劳斯自称其政治哲学是“走向哲学的政治引导”（the political introduction to philosophy）。
　　
　　本文开始即曾说过，施特劳斯及其学派是一个相当奇特的现象。只有一点大概是人们会同意他的，即与他的现代性批判相比，现代西方的其它现代性批判确实都显得基本是在西方现代性的方向上批判现代性。施特劳斯以复兴“古典政治哲学”为己任，其坚决和彻底确实令人印象深刻。但施特劳斯个人素质上的一个突出品质是他似乎很少有焦虑感，也很少给人感觉是对古典的怀旧。他对一切最彻底消解传统的思想家似乎都反而有特别的兴趣甚至热爱。早在三十年代他就认为，古典传统的真正复兴只有在对传统的彻底摧毁走到尽头以后才真正可能，只有首先经历了尼采式最彻底的批判以后才有可能置之死地而后生。他同时认为，对政治哲学的真正理解可以说只有在所有传统都已打碎时才成为可能，因此他认为西方现代性的危机越是深刻，反倒恰恰提供了一种前所未有的有利契机使人们有可能以全新的视野来审视从前没有被真正理解的传统。施特劳斯最近的影响开始上升，或许是因为至少在美国，后现代批判等等差不多已经走到尽头，太阳底下已经再没有什么新东西了吧。施特劳斯说政治哲学更近喜剧而非悲剧，我愿期待二十一世纪是喜剧的时代。

 

[nickli1977]

回复: 【ZT】施特劳斯论自由教育

自由教育在我国目前只是一种善良的理想，现在在我国的现状是这样的：在追求自由教育的过程中，影响了专业教育的精力分配，对就业难免会有影响，没有一个较高的就业平台，学生将来是不可能自由的．而有些学生喜欢历史或哲学，但就业的压力使他可能选择经管法，这种选择是不自由的，但他可能在未来由于就业的门路更广，而获得更大的自由．这是自由的悖论呀！

 

[didierlin]

回复: 【ZT】施特劳斯论自由教育

liberal education在台灣倒像是收留在本科系裡被淘汱的學者。絕大多數博雅教育中心的老師，所寫出來的論文都充滿權威式的過時偏見。