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Socratic Rhetoric and Political Philosophy: Leo Strauss on Xenophon’S Symposium

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Socratic Rhetoric and Political Philosophy: Leo Strauss on Xenophon’S Symposium CHAPTER 11 Socratic Rhetoric and Political Philosophy: Leo Strauss on Xenophon’s Symposium Dustin Gish “With respect to what ought not be said,” replied Socrates, “be silent.” —Xenophon, Symposium 6.10 This chapter is an examination of Leo Strauss’ study of Xenophon’s Symposium. Since that study is made to appear as the final section of Xenophon’s Socrates, published in 1972, which itself is the final volume of Strauss’ interpretation of Xenophon’s Socratic writings as a whole, we must consider Strauss’ interpre- tation of this dialogue in light of his treatment elsewhere of the problem of Socrates, according to Aristophanes and Plato, as well as Xenophon, and there- with the origins of political philosophy itself. 1 The Socratic Turn The tradition of political philosophy traces its origin back to the thought of Socrates, the first philosopher to recognize that human affairs—above all, the political things (ta politika)—are worthy of serious study, and indeed are “of decisive importance for understanding nature as a whole.”1 This Socrates, that is, “the true Socrates,” who had emerged out of the comic portrait of an earlier Socrates depicted in Aristophanes’ Clouds and whose thought had become eminently political, we in turn know only in and through the writings of his students, Xenophon and Plato.2 The Socratic writings of both authors, but especially Xenophon, refute the identification of this true Socrates with that ridiculous image of “a certain Socrates” as a “Thinker” and “idle talker,” characterized by an “amazing lack of phronesis, of practical wisdom or pru- dence,” one who was unaware of the context within which philosophy takes 1 Strauss (1958 [1996]), 158. 2 Strauss (1958 [1996]), 140, 158, 164. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004�9983�_0�3 Socratic Rhetoric and Political Philosophy 259 place, and radically “unpolitical” because utterly lacking in self-knowledge.3 The “turn” in Socratic thought away from philosophic inquiry and investiga- tions of natural phenomena, or natural science, towards political philosophy, which was occasioned by the true Socrates’ reflection on the absurdity of the Aristophanean Socrates, carried philosophy down from the heavens and set- tled it within its proper political milieu.4 Having considered both at length, Strauss concluded that, while perhaps at times differing in their portraits of Socrates as much as serious tragedy does from comedy, the Socrates of Xenophon and of Plato are nevertheless identical.5 Why? The earlier Socrates, being “unerotic” and “unaware of the essential difference between philosophy and the polis,” had failed to grasp the character of the political as such. “To this accusation,” however, “Xenophon and Plato give one and the same reply. Socrates is political and erotic.” Both presentations of Socrates, Strauss contends, must be taken “as replies to Aristophanes’s presentation of Socrates,” because in their Socratic writings we discover that Socrates “was eminently political. He was the philosopher of self-knowledge, and therefore of practical wisdom.”6 Xenophon and Plato recognized the post-turn Socrates as the true Socrates, the founder of polit- ical philosophy, and so depicted him in and through their writings as the political philosopher, the one who first grasped the distinct nature of political affairs and the examination of the human things as the key to understanding the whole. While turning attention to the human things, Socrates also realized the limitations of the pursuit of wisdom and the power of speech, especially with respect to that aspect of human beings which is “recalcitrant to reason and which therefore cannot be persuaded.”7 3 Plato, Apology of Socrates 18b–d, 19c; Xenophon, Symposium 6.6–10. Strauss (1958 [1996]), 154, 157, 158, 164, 193. 4 Xenophon, Oeconomicus 11.1–7; Cicero, Tusculan Disputations V.4. 5 See Bruell (1998) xvii: “Strauss’ summary orientation implies—what his books also show— that despite these and other differences of presentation . Xenophon’s Socrates is identical to the Socrates of the Platonic dialogues.” 6 Strauss (1958 [1996]), 193, 164. 7 Strauss (1958 [1996]), 162–3, 186..
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