The Political Philosophy By L e o ..Strauss . . T ...

The Political Philosophy of Hobbes

Its Basis and Its Genesis

By

Leo .S.t.rauss

T ranslated from the German Manuscript By Elsa M. Sinclair

T HE UN I VERS I TY OF CH I CAGO PRESS

II

THE MORAL BASIS

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THE MORAL BASIS

7

Political philosoQ.hy is independent of natural science because its pnnciples are not borrowed from natural science, are not, indeed, borrowed from any science, but are provided by experience, by\the experience which_every: one h~imself,\or, to

put it more accurately, are discovered by the efforts ol self-

knowledge and the self-examination of every one. ? As a result, evidence in political philosophy is of quite a different kind from evidence in natural science. On the one hand, it is much easier to understand: its subject and its concepts are not so remote from the average man as are the subject and concepts of mathematics which form the basis of natural science.2 On the other hand, 'the politiques are the harder study of the two'; by reason of their passions, men obscure the, in itself, clear and simple knowledge of the norms which political philosophy builds up. Moreover, man with his passions and his selfseeking is the particular subject of political philosophy, and man opposes by every kind of hypocrisy the self-knowledge on

which the proof of these norms rests.3 According to Hobbes, political philosophy is not only inde-

pendent of natural science, but it is a main component of human knowledge, of which the other main component is natural science. The whole body of knowledge is divided into natural science on the one hand, and political philosophy on the other:~ Every classification of knowledge is based on a classification of the existent.5 Hobbes's classification of the sciences is based on a classification of existing things into natural and artificial.6 But this classification does not fully correspond to his intention, for most things which are produced by art, in particular all machines, are the subject of natural science.' It is not so much the artificially produced things that are basically

1 De ccrpore, cap. 6, art. 7; Letrnzthon, Introduction. ? De homine, Ep. ded.; L ................
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