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The Unavailability of the Ordinary: Strauss on the Philosophical Fate of Modernity
Author(s): Robert Pippin

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Source: Political Theory, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Jun., 2003), pp. 335-358
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THE UNAVAILABILITYOF THE ORDINARY
Strauss on the Philosophical Fate of Modernity
ROBERTPIPPIN
Universityof Chicago
In NaturalRight andHistoryLeo Straussarguesfor the continuing "relevance" of the classical

understandingof natural right. Since this relevance is not a matter of a direct return,or a
renewedappreciationthata neglecteddoctrineis simplytrue,the meaningof this claim is some-
what elusive. But it is clear enough that the core of Strauss's argumentfor that relevanceis a
claim about the relation between human experience and philosophy. Strauss argues that the
classical understandingarticulates and is continuouswith the "livedexperience" of engaged
participants in political life, the ordinary,and he argues (in a way quite similar to claims in
Heidegger)thatsuch an ordinaryor everydaypoint of view has been "lost."Theauthorpresents
here an interpretationand critique of such a claim.
Keywords:ordinary;Strauss;ancients; modernity;Rosen; Hegel
For Stanley Rosen
InNaturalRightand History(NRH)LeoStraussarguesforthecontinuing
;'relevance" of naturalright.Sincethisrele-
of the classicalunderstanding
vanceis not a matterof a directreturn,or a renewedappreciation thata
neglecteddoctrineis simplytrue,themeaningof thisclaimis somewhatelu-
sive.Butit is clearenoughthatthecoreof Strauss'sargument forthatrele-
vanceis a claimabouttherelationbetweenhumanexperienceandphiloso-
phy. Straussarguesthat the classical understanding articulatesand is
AUTHOR'S NOTE:A version of this essay was presentedat a conference, "LivingIssues in the
Thoughtof Leo Strauss:Fifty Yearsafter NaturalRight and History,"in late June 2002 at the
Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung,in Munich, Germany.I am grateful to the editors of the
forthcoming volume of those conference essays (NaturalRight and History:A Reassessment),
NathanTarcovand RichardZinman,forpermission topublish myessay in thisjournal. I am also
grateful to HeinrichMeier,Nathan Tarcov,and the participants in the discussions during that
conferenceforseveral commentson the thesis of the essay, as well as to RobertHowseand Dan-
iel Donesonfor generous commentson an earlier draft.
POLITICALTHEORY,Vol. 31 No. 3, June 2003 335-358
DOI: 10.1177/0090591703251905
C)2003 Sage Publications
335
336 POLITICALTHEORY/ June 2003
continuous with the "lived experience"of engaged participantsin political

life. He appearsto meanby this the everydayexperienceof choices, conflicts,
and other humanbeings as these appearfromthe participantpoint of view,
"within"some sort of horizon establishedby theirvariousengagementsand
practicalprojects.In the modem world by contrast,he claims that we have
manufactureda kind of artificialexperience, have createdby educationand
trainingover the course of time habits of heartand mind that have obscured
and distortedhow the humanthings originallymake sense just as mattersof
praxis.Because of this we havebeen left disorientedandat a loss withrespect
to the basic questions abouthow to live that unavoidablyappearwithin this
participantpoint of view. This is the heartof our "crisis."
This claim by Straussraises importantphilosophicalissues aboutthe dis-
tinct natureof this "ordinary"humanexperience,the conditionsof the possi-
bility of an undistortedor originalor genuinely humanordinaryexperience,
how differentinterpretationsof what it is might be adjudicated,and espe-
cially the natureof its claim on us in Strauss'snarrative.(We need, for exam-
ple, some answer to the skeptical question: Who cares how the practical
worldfeels to us or looks, whatit is like for us to experienceit? Thatordinary
world is as full of gods, angels, ghosts, wretchedprobabilityexpectations,
primitivefears, andbanalityas it is full of humanmeaning,right andwrong,
high andlow.) Straussdoes not addressthese issues in a straightforwardthe-
matic way, but he does address them indirectly by constantly relying on
implied answers to such questions, and his treatmentwill be the theme of
these remarks.
It is a somewhatsprawling,complex theme, difficultto addresseconomi-
cally. The issue of the relationbetween philosophy and experience, or how
theremight be a philosophicalappreciationof "life as it is lived,"is arguably
the centraltheme of all modem Europeanphilosophy since Hegel. And it is
especially striking that in that traditionthe theme is often raised with the
samepracticalurgencyas in Strauss.The attemptis to recoversome everyday
perspectivethatis said to have been, oddly,not only lost but missing (hardto
find). The attemptoften is to invoke a radicallynew sort of philosophy(or a
way to avoidor end philosophy)in orderto returnto "life as it is reallylived";
as if withoutsuch a reminder,we mightbecome all too habituatedto life lived
in some inappropriateregister,might live in some way out of scale, measur-
ing and directingour lives disproportionately.We might even permanently
"forget"what the humanscale andmeasureare like. And the relevantfigure
or image is often this "remembering"what has been forgotten,and it shows
up everywherein characterizationsof the task of modernphilosophy.It reso-
nates in Hegel's claims about philosophy as partly a "phenomenology"of
Pippin / THE UNAVAILABILITYOF THE ORDINARY 337
experience; in Kierkegaard'sremarkson The Present Age; in Nietzsche's

insistence that we recover a capacity to look at science "from the point of
view of life,"ratherthanvice versa;in the popularityof Lebensphilosophiein
the twentieth century (Dilthey, Simmel, Plessner, Bergson, Scheler, Hans
Jonas);in Wittgenstein'sassurancethatordinarylanguageis alright,thatthe
extraordinarycharacter of philosophy is evidence of pathology; and in
Heidegger's claims aboutthe forgettingof the meaningof being. As Strauss
himself puts it, "theproblemof naturalrightis today a matterof recollection
ratherthan actualknowledge."'It is a strikingand somewhatunderreported
fact that this is the company Strausskeeps ("thefriendsof the lost, missing,
but recoverableordinary").
Obviously the centralissue in such a contrastwill be how to distinguish
between a picturein which the everydayhas been forgottenbut is recover-
able, layeredoveror screenedbehindartificialconstructsandfantasies,anda
picturein which therecan be no such contrast,in which therearehistorically
multiple(if sometimescontinuous)everydays,not primordialandderivative
experiences.The deepest and most comprehensiveversion of the latterpic-
tureis Hegel's andso involves the rightway to understandwhatit meansto tie
philosophy,when understoodas reflectionon the meaningof humanexperi-
ence, to history,all as opposed to what I regardas this persistentdreamof a
lost (but findable)everyday,humanexperience of the human.But a number
of preliminariesare necessary first.
L.PHILOSOPHYAS ZEITDIAGNOSE
The idea of recovering or rememberingpresupposes some account of

what was forgottenand why, how an ordinaryexperiencecame to be so lay-
ered over with such a distortingscreen, and why that is so important.This
means that a narrativeand a diagnostic element must be centralto a philo-
sophical self-understanding,and it is importantfirst to appreciatewhat is
involvedin ascribingsuchtasksto philosophy,especially since Straussinher-
its some of these notions without explicit formulation.
Hegel of course was the first to claim that philosophy could take as its
propersubjectmatterhistorical "actuality"("Wirklichkeit"), and he went so
far as to deny thatphilosophy was concernedwith what it had traditionally
taken itself to be about:the "ideal."That there might be a distinctlyphilo-
sophical comprehensionof the greatswirl of events in actualhumanhistory
has always seemed highly implausible to most philosophers.2For many,
Hegel seems to be giving philosophythe implausibletaskof illuminatingthe
rational meaning of what he called in the Phenomenology the "shapes of

spirit"(Gestalten des Geistes). It appearsthat he proposes to show in what
sense a concrete, shared,historicalform of life could be said to be a rational
outcome of a prior collective experience, especially of the experience of
somethinglike a breakdownin a form of life, and thathe intendsto give phi-
losophy thereby a kind of "diagnostic"and even narrativefunction.And all
this in a way thatparticularlytargetsour ideals or norms;why some come to
have the grip on us they do; why such a normmight lose such a grip. (Hegel
treatsthese "breakdowns"in a form of life as constitutiveof Geist itself, as in
his famousremarksaboutthe "life of Geist"not shying away fromdeath,and
Geist's "tarryingwith the negative."3They are, rather,anomaliesin Strauss,
signs that somethingis going wrong, failing, and that is an importantdiffer-
ence in their notions of diagnostic philosophy and reliance on narrative.)
Hegel's full claim aboutrationaloutcomes appeals to a practical,narrative,
and collective or institutionalrationalitythat is difficult to summarizeeco-
nomically.It involves not only the attempt,alreadyextremelycontroversial,
to identify a genuinely common form of life, shape of spirit, or
Weltanschauung4 but an appealto some sortof trans-individualdimensionof
practicalrationality.And, finally,the most contentiousdisputehere (andthe
one of most relevanceto Strauss)concernsHegel's assessmentof European
modernization,his accountof what it means that we live now so differently
thanbefore, andhis telling us just whathe thinksit does mean-that the real-
ization of human freedom has entered a decisive (because decisively self-
conscious) period.5
For many,all of this amountsto superficial,armchairsociology, not phi-
losophy,andthose samecriticsmight complainthatHegel has a lot to answer
for, a lot of bad, pseudo-philosophicprofundityabout historical actuality,
aboutjazz, professionalwrestling,andDisneyland,can be tracedback to his
extraordinaryclaim that philosophy is its own time comprehended in
thought.But Hegel's inventionof this diagnosticrole inaugurateda greatdeal
morethancaf6-societyanalysis.To come closer to some of Strauss'sassump-
tions, later thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger were certainly resolute
anti-Hegelians, but they continued the attempt at a philosophical
Zeitdiagnose,at reachingthe properdiagnosisof whatwas happeningto us in
the later modernperiod. And their appealtoo was to something like philo-
sophical fate, not individualgenius, the conditions of bourgeois economic
life, or one damnthingafteranother.In a way thatwe have to thinkof as mod-
eled on Hegel's account,theirclaims had it thatthe most importantthing to
understandaboutthe civilizationof "thelast man"was thatit was philosophy
itself thathadfailed ("forlife"), hadnow become a thingof the past,haddied,
andthatwith this death,the aspirationsof enlightenmentsince Socratesdied

as well, ceased to havea grip,to be a genuine,possible aspiration.Infact,they
claimed,the "lived-out"consequencesof such aspirationscould now be seen
to have amountedto a kind of "nihilism,"whether in the sense Nietzsche
caredabout(no possible distinctionbetween noble andbase)6or the version
thatHeideggercaredabout:the forgettingof the questionof the meaningof
being.
Two brief qualificationsare now needed on such appealsto the causality
of philosophicalfate, as introducedthusfar,before turningagainto Strauss's
claims.
First, such appeals to philosophical fate in these latterNietzschean and
Heideggerean cases (and Strauss's) obviously involve a much more
restrictedsense of institutionalrationalitythanHegel claims. This is the lim-
ited sense in which one could be saidto have reasonsfor what one does, even
if the overall goal to be achieved might be in some broadersense irrational.
One might, for example,have very good reasons for a revengemurderif one
is a memberof a Sicilian mafia clan.7It would indeed be clearly irrationalto
be a memberof such a clan and not plot such revenge. But, one might argue,
thereareno good prudentialor moralreasonsto participatein such an institu-
tion, and the objective structureand rules of the institutionmight also be in
themselves irrational.Analogously, Nietzsche and Heidegger obviously do
not shareHegel's view thatthe institutionsof bourgeoissociety arein them-
selves rational (that is, can be viewed as rational outcomes in a putative
civilizationalstrugglefor self-knowledge).They thereforedeny thatsubjects
have, in the broadestsense, good reasonsto participate.But Nietzsche does
argue that "last man"civilization is a rational or rationallyinevitable out-
come of the originalideals of ChristianmoralityandSocraticismandthatwe
learn somethingessential aboutmoralideals by understandingsuch a devel-
opment.And Heideggerattributesan enormousrangeof laterideas andphe-
nomena to Plato and the developmentof Platonic metaphysics,everything
fromCartesianphilosophyto the Ge-stellof the technologicalworldview.All
these are for them in some sense rationaloutcomes, and they play a central
role in how bothphilosopherswantus to understand"thespiritualsituationof
the age."
Second, Hegel famously does not believe that such a philosophicalcom-
prehensionof the significanceof ordinarynormativelife is ever ableto play a
significantrole itself in the debatesandinterpretationsthatmakeup thatlife.
Philosophy "comes on the scene too late"8and is more like a "priestlysect"
than a partisanparticipant.9
11.STRAUSS'SAt;llL)IAGNOSE
Weneedallthesecontroversial notionsof distincthistoricalepochs;a dis-

tinctlyphilosophicaldiagnosisof an epoch,of philosophicalfate;andthis
broaderandmorerestrictedsenseof historicalrationalityall to understand
the famousclaimsby Leo Straussin NRH andin othertexts(1) thatit was
modernEuropean philosophythatwas"incrisis,"notphilosophyassuch(the
diagnosticclaim);(2) that,givenits premises,modernphilosophycouldnot
butbein sucha crisiseventually(heretheclear"causality of fate"claim);and
(3) thatwe couldrecoverto someextent,could"remember," whathadbeen
lost (forgotten)in themodernrushto embracethenewidealsof powerand
securityandhappiness.(Thatis, a rationaldevelopment of modernpremises
is restrictedto the assumption of those premises, andthesepremisescanbe
avoided.Whatmodernphilosophers have"goodreasons"(quamoderns)to
believeanddo maynotbe goodreasons,all thingsconsidered.)l° Setin con-
text, thatis, Strauss,especiallyin NRH, is clearlycarryingon the kindof
diagnosticgoalgivento philosophyby Hegel.Strauss'saccountsof modern
relativism,nihilism,andhistoricismarenotsociocultural orhistoricalexpla-
nations.Hisaccountis alsoanaccountof thephilosophical fateof ideas,and
he assumesthatphilosophicalcommitments havehistorical,social,andnot
justintellectualimplications. He clearlyassumesthatsomeof thosehistori-
cal implications arerelevantto understanding themeaningof thosecommit-
mentsandarerelevantto assessingthem.A gooddealof theaccountinNRH
is narrative,in otherwords(inthewordsof SusanShell,"whoorwhatkilled
naturalrightand can it be revived?''ll),and the main structureof such
Straussean narratives consistsin various"slipperyslope"claims.Hobbesor
Rousseauor Kantmayhaveunderstood theirpositionsin a certainway,as
defensesof theobjectivityof certainimportant values,say,buttheydidnot
appreciatethe implicationsof theirpositions,manyof whichweremade
clearermuchlater(couldonlyhavebeenmademuchclearerlater?)by the
likesof, especially,Nietzsche.WehearfromStraussanallusiontoNietzsche,
andalsoto Heidegger,in theclaimthat
modernthoughtreachesits culmination,its highest self-consciousness, in the most radi-

cal historicism,i.e., in explicitly condemningto oblivion the notion of eternity.l2
thatthatculmi-
Thatthoughtcouldreachin historicaltimea culmination,
togetherwiththeimplication
nationshouldbe a kindof self-consciousness,
thatwe neededto experiencethisculminationbeforewe couldunderstand
properlywhatmodernthoughtinvolvedall soundunmistakable Hegelian
notes.l3So, eventhoughthefollowingmightsoundoddto attributeto a man
who wrote, "thedelusions of communismare alreadythe delusions of Hegel

and even of Kant,"14it nevertheless seems fair, if we assume that Strauss
believes thatphilosophycan take some philosophicalbearingfromhistorical
actuality,to claim that he looks sort of like a middle-of-the-roadHegelian.
Thatis, he stands"inbetween"Hegel's full embraceof post-Kantianphiloso-
phy andbourgeoismodernityas historicallyrationalandthe Nietzscheanand
Heideggereanclaim that such a historicalworld is in the midst of a nihilism
crisis that is the historically rational, if catastrophic,outcome of all post-
Socraticphilosophy(accordingto Nietzsche) or all post-Platonicphilosophy
(accordingto Heidegger).'5(If we take ourbearingsfrom Hegel's claim that
philosophy is "the farthestthing possible" from an attemptto instructthe
state about what it ought to be,16then we can also note Strauss'sHegelian
intuitionsby saying of Hegel what Strausssaid approvinglyof Burke:that
whatlooks like "thediscoveryof History"is really a "returnto the traditional
view of the essential limitations of theory."17)In final summation then,
accordingto Strauss:there is a moderncrisis (this, the anti-Hegelbit); it is
due to philosophicalassumptionsandtheirinevitablefate (the Hegelianbit);
but it is an avoidableconsequence of modernphilosophy,not philosophyas
such (the anti-Nietzsche/Heideggerbit).
Finally we shouldnote that Strauss'sapproachties philosophy itself to a
historical fate even more tightly than Hegel's, for whom philosophy is "its
time comprehendedin thought,"and so in some way an expression of that
time, of whathas alreadygone on, not an independentexplicans.ForStrauss,
on the otherhand,a historicaltime can be viewed as philosophyexpressedin
action.
III. THERECOVERYOF THEORDINARY

We reachnow the maintopic I wantto concentrateon. Strausshimself has
a complex versionof his own diagnosticclaim. Firsthe has a distinctway of
describingsuch a crisis andof suggestingan escape:the crisis of naturalright
provokes an attempt to recover in some way what has been so greatly
blurred-"the evidence of those simple experiences of right and wrong
which are at the bottom of the philosophicalcontentionthat thereis natural
right."18In orderto make this claim, Straussneeds to defend a typical asser-
tion in NRH:"Itwas takenfor granted[in modernity]thatit [theexperienceof
history]is a genuineexperienceandnot a questionableinterpretationof expe-
rience."'9Straussobviously thinks it is "questionable,"but there is an enor-
mous amountinvolved in the claim thatpersons in the modernworld regu-
larly misunderstandtheir own experience when they understand it as
essentiallyhistorical,that,especially, theirexperienceof the historicallyarti-

ficial and so mutableis not really an experienceof the historicallyartificial
andso mutable.(Thiswould have to be the case if thereis naturalright,andif
the best reason for believing this is that it is ineliminable in any genuinely
human experience.) But this distinction is very difficult to state properly
because Straussis not engaged in a metaphysicsof natureor any accountof
how therecould be historicallyimmutablevalue propertiesin reality,andhe
proposes no epistemology that would demonstratepermanentlypossible,
presumablynoetic access to such properties.In effect, naturalright is, is
wholly constitutedby, the natural-right-experience. But on this model, expe-
riencingone's social andpoliticalworldas historicalis also all therecan be to
such a world being historical. But Strauss must be claiming that modem
experiencecan presentus both with intimationsof the naturalnessof distinc-
tions of right as well as, somehow, contraveningexperiences.
The way Straussformulateshis claim about a historical crisis is decep-
tively simple in itself. Strauss could, after all, simply have written books
aboutthe claims of GreekandBritish,Frenchand Germanpolitical philoso-
phers, offering interpretationsand assessmentsin the usual way of a profes-
sional philosopherin a modernuniversity(most of whom afterall hardlysuf-
fer from a historicism sickness. Most contemporaryphilosophers tend to
treateverytext as ajournalarticlewrittenyesterday.)Therearecontemporary
philosophersin ethics who considerthemselvesAristotelianbuthavenothing
investedin Aristotlebeing "ancient";manyin the philosophyof mathematics
or set theory or ethics again consider themselves Platonists about abstract
objects or Platonic realists about moral properties,for whom, likewise, the
ancients-modemsissue is irrelevant.
Moreover,the manifestationsof a moralcrisis, if thereis one, might have
little to do with philosophyand philosophicalfate. Such a supposedmodern
unwillingnessor inabilityto makeandsustainethicaldiscriminations20 might
be an eventwith varioussocial andeconomic causes, or mightperhapsbe due
to human frailty, ignorance,fear, and irrationality.The history of political
philosophy might just be irrelevantto all that. Said the other way around,
there may be a serious crisis in the philosophical understandingof natural
right,but the body politic might go on its merryway, unaffectedanduninter-
ested, prettymuch securein a robust(butdeluded)realistor religiousconvic-
tion about ethical life. To philosophize in the light of the "crisis of modern
naturalright" is already to have required,for philosophical reflection, an
epochal "antiquity,"a historicalother.It is to have suggestedthatour under-
standingof classical naturalright is in some philosophical sense (i.e., with
respect to its meaning) a function now of its alternativehistoricalstatus,its
premodernity.This is almost but not quite a historicistpremise in Strauss's

account, as Stanley Rosen has pointed out.21
Secondly, Straussarguesthatthe "twin sisters"of a relativisthistoricism
and a value-free scientism must be understoodas themselves modifications
of a prescientific, natural,or ordinary"humanexperience of the human,"
upon which such enterprisesstill depend for their ultimate sense or point.
However,he also suggests in variousplaces thatthe scientific andhistoricist
worldviewshave become so intertwinedwith experiencein daily life thatno
phenomenologyor methodor call to armsor simple appealto experiencecan
retrievesuch experiencesin the modernworld. (This is anothertremendous
concession to the powerof "theexperienceof history."22) As he putsin Perse-
cution and the Art of Writing,we are "trapped"in some region of ignorance
even deeperanddarkerthanthose in which the famousPlatoniccave prison-
ers must sit. Because of what our everydayexperiencehas literallybecome,
we are now trapped"below"the cave.23
And this all promptsStrauss'sthirdfoundationalclaim (togetherwith his
relianceon some claim aboutthe causalityof fate, andaboutthe "loss"of the
ordinary).Only,he often insists, a considerationof classical Greekpolitical
thought,which, besides being philosophy,also articulatesthe ordinaryexpe-
rience accessible before the modem distortion,can call such an alternative
fully to mind-can call to mind the ordinaryway in which things make a
humansense, especially the simple experiences of right and wrong.
So the claim is that all of our ordinaryexperienceis so intertwinedwith
and orientedfrom scientific principles, a disenchantedworldview,a robust
sense of individualism,an acceptanceof rapid and basic historicalchange,
and so forththatit would be naive andpointless to tilt at these windmills,to
rant that this is all some vast mistake. "Our"world, at its most intimately
experiencedlevels, in its most coherentand typical manifestations,does not
have in it, is not experiencedas having any longer, ghosts, witches, angels,
intercedingsaints, or immaterialsouls, but it also, just as honestly experi-
enced, does not "pointus" any longer to any realm of being higherthanthe
human,or an orderedcosmos withinwhich manhas a place, nordoes it make
availableany longer "the evidence of those simple experiences of right and
wrong which are at the bottom of the philosophicalcontentionthatthere is
naturalright."24(At least, such evidence has become very badly "blurred.")
This again is the point of tension between Strauss'sclaims that the modem
experience of history is both a "misunderstanding" and that that misunder-
standingis genuinelynew, a deep featureof ourexperience.(Thereis also an
echo here andin manyotherplaces in Straussof Nietzsche's claim that,para-
doxically, the most importantand disturbingmanifestationof modem nihil-
344 POLITICALTHEORY/ June2003
ism is the absence of any experienceof such a crisis.) To his credit, Strauss
does not shy awayfrom the magnitudeof the problemcreatedby this unusual
situation.
On the one hand, as his various"slipperyslope" argumentssuggest, this
situationmay be said to have created a context in which human life is not
coherentlylivable. We need to distinguishbetterfrom worse in a way not a
functionof our simple preferences;we cannotin such a world and so experi-
ence a great"need"for a modem doctrineof naturalright.On the otherhand,
"A wish is not a fact."And, (in my favorite Straussquotation)
even by provingthata certainview is indispensablein living well, one merelyprovesthat

the view in questionis a salutarymyth:one does not prove it to be true.Utility andtruth
are two entirely differentthings.25
And he goes farther.The classical naturalright doctrine we "need"so

badly seems to manyto requirea teleological view of nature,a view thathas
been discreditedby modem naturalscience, the most rigorousandauthorita-
tive body of knowledgewe have availableto us. This would seem to requirea
dualism, a nonteleological science of the universeand in some way a differ-
ent, teleological "science of man."Straussconsidersthis the Thomisticsolu-
tion but he clearly rejects it, boldly insisting, "An adequatesolution to the
problemof naturalright cannotbe found before this basic problemhas been
solved,"26unmistakablyimplyingthatit has not yet andappearingto promise
thathe will solve it, in the book to follow. (In these terms,at least, he does not,
buthe does makeclearthatthe "ordinary"he will appealto, the humanexpe-
rience of the human,since it is not itself based on a theory,is in fact the origi-
nal touchstonenecessaryfor theorizingto have any point, avoids relianceon
an antiquatedcosmology, anddoes not resurrectteleological science since it
is itself not a productor object of any sort of science. Hence again the enor-
mous importanceof this sort of appealto experience.27)
The strategyproposedin NRH returnsus to the issue touched on before:
the appealto a moreoriginal,less distortedexperienceof the humanthingsas
such, as human,not as artificiallyconstructedthroughthe lens of some the-
ory. In a word, that word that has circulated so much in twentieth-century
thought;in Husserlon the life-world;in Heideggeron pre-predicativeexperi-
ence, being-in-the-world,andthe everyday;in the laterWittgenstein,Austin,
Cavell (and through Cavell's insistence, found anew in Emerson and
Thoreau);andrecentlyin two books by StanleyRosen:an appealto "theordi-
nary" as a way of bypassing, avoiding, not refuting the supposedly
reductionist, skeptical, disenchanting, enervating trajectory of modern
naturalism.
IV ANCIENT TEXTS AND NATURAL ATTITUDES
There are several passages from any number of books that could be cited
where Strauss invokes his own notion of the ordinary or prescientific. Per-
haps the clearest and broadest is from NRH, so I'll quote from it at length.
After noting that it was in the nineteenth century when it first became obvious
that a "drastic" distinction must now be made between the "scientific" under-
standing and the "natural" understanding (the different way things make
sense in "the world in which we live"), Strauss makes a general remark that is
positively redolent of Heidegger.
The naturalworld,the worldin which we live andact, is not the objector the productof a
theoreticalattitude;it is not a world of mere objects at which we detachedlylook, butof
"things"or "affairs"which we handle.28
He then goes on to make an extraordinarily sweeping claim.
Yet as long as we identify the naturalor prescientificworld with the world in which we
live, we are dealing with an abstraction.The world in which we live is alreadya product
of science, or at anyrateit is profoundlyaffectedby the existence of science.... To grasp
the naturalworldas a worldthatis radicallyprescientificor prephilosophic,one hasto go
backbehindthe firstemergenceof science or philosophy.It is not necessaryfor this pur-
pose to engage in extensive and necessarily hypotheticalanthropologicalstudies. The
informationthatclassicalphilosophy suppliesaboutits origins suffices, especially if that
informationis supplementedby considerationof the most elementarypremises of the
Bible, for reconstructingthe essential characterof "the naturalworld."By using that
information,so supplemented,one would be able to understandthe origin of the idea of
naturalright.29
There is a historical claim in this passage, the scope and importance of

which are unclear. In the Introduction to The City and Man Strauss insists that
the "scientific understanding" depends on and is secondary to the "pre-scien-
tific understanding." It is "dependent" because it assumes for its own mean-
ing (presumably its point, purpose, or importance) what is here called "the
common sense view of political things," understood as "the understanding of
political things which belongs to political life," or "the citizen's understand-
ing of political things."30This is the distinction on which he bases another
major claim in What Is Political Philosophy.
In all laterepochs [laterthanthe classical], the philosopher'sstudyof politicalthingswas

mediatedby a traditionof political philosophywhich actedlike a screenbetweenthe phi-
losopherandpoliticalthings,regardlessof whetherthe individualphilosophercherished
or rejectedthattradition.Fromthis it follows thatthe classical philosopherssee the polit-
ical things with a freshnessand directnesswhich have neverbeen equaled.They look at
political things in the perspective of the enlightened citizens or statesmen.They see

thingsclearlywhich the enlightenedcitizens or statesmendo not see clearly,or do not see
at all. But this has no otherreason but the fact that they look fartherafield in the same
direction as the enlightened citizen or statesman.They do not look at political things
from the outside, as spectatorsof political life.31
I want eventuallyto claim thatthis disjunction-"inside" the naturalatti-

tude and so originallyundistortedby theory,theoreticalskepticism,or scien-
tific attitudeor, on the otherhand,a perspective"outside"anddistortingand
artificially "screening"such experiences-is not exhaustive or persuasive.
But this "screen"theory alreadyseems far too historicist for Strauss'sown
purposes.If thereis such a screenthatdecisively prohibitsourabilitynow to
appreciateor even to imagine successfully the point of view of the partici-
pant-citizen,there is no reason given to believe thatthe insights of classical
texts won't be just as "screened"for us in just the same way as the political
things themselves, no reason we won't be bound to treatthem as early ver-
sions of us, the spectatorsocial scientists. And Straussnowherearguesthat
the idiosyncrasies of Greek accounts of political life, the application of
unusualtermslike kalos, thepolis, the gods, andso forth,arenotlikewise also
"screens,"mediationslike Athenianor Cretanor Spartan.He nowhereshows
thatthey should rathercount as expressiveof an original experience.Not to
mentionthatStrausshimself in some contextsseems to suggestthatthis puta-
tive historicaldistortionis irrelevantin the face of the "simpleexperiencesof
rightandwrong"capturedin the two epigramsthatbegin NRH.The citations
seem to be saying, contraryto what seems the thesis of the book, that even
without the recovery of ancient texts, it is manifestly obvious that the rich
man's deed is an evil one andthatNabothis virtuousin resistingthe tempta-
tions of self-interest,andin keeping faithwith the Lord.But if we don't need
the classical renaissancethat Straussencourages,what is the point of NRH?
(Strauss'sacroamaticteachingcould be thatit is the very appearanceof self-
sufficiencyand obviousnessin these passages thatevinces the darkerside or
limitationsof the naturalattitude,with its correspondingpresuppositionthat
philosophy is dangerousand corruptingand, perhapsworst of all, unneces-
sary. Straussclaims that "strivingfor knowledge of the eternaltruthis the
ultimateend of man"andthereforethat"justiceandmoralvirtuecan be fully
legitimatedonly by the fact thatthey arerequiredfor the sake of thatultimate
end, or thatthey arethe conditionsof the philosophiclife."32But none of this
has anythingto do with how we "ordinarily"recoil from the act of the rich
man, or affirmNaboth's fidelity to the law. Strauss,like Plato, neverforgets
that it was in the name of ordinarypiety that Socrates was executed. This
means that Straussis obviously awarethathe is playing a dangerousdouble
game, calling for a recollection of a form of life potentially quite hostile to
philosophy, the human perfection. Or such ordinaryexperience is both the

naturalhome of naturalright and, paradoxically,a cave. And, addingto the
perplexity,Plato's cave image does not suggest any naturalway out or inter-
nal dialectic from the cave to enlightenment-just the opposite.33These
would all obviously be topics for several additionalessays.)
Also, it may be thatit is just here that the relevanceof Strausseanherme-
neutics is so crucial,thatwe mustunderstandthe "forgotten"artof writingin
orderto engage in this recoveryproperlyand avoid the objectionjust stated.
This would also be a large andindependenttopic, but the centraldifficultyin
such an appealis obvious. On Strauss'spremises,the same problemswould
arise in our being able to recoversuch an art,as in recoveringwhatwe puta-
tively need the artto recover.
V ADDRESSINGDECENTMEN
We are now in a position to contrastthe competing diagnosticclaims: on
the one hand, we have the claim that modem culture,let us say, in its prac-
tices, politics, assumptions,naturalscience, skepticism, denial of transcen-
dence, is rational,the realizationof the philosophicalfate of humanity.Since
I shareStrauss'sskepticismthatthis realizationcould be a mattersimply of
the application of a methodology, I have been treating such a claim as
paradigmaticallypresentedin Hegel's account of historical rationality,that
modem culture should be treatedas a rationaloutcome of the experienced
insufficiencies, even tragic failings, of premodemforms of life. This means
exactly what it seems to mean in Hegel: a greatsubordinationof the roles of
artand religion in modem life (they both have become essentially "thingsof
the past")anda defense of whatHegel himself frequentlycalls the "prosaic"
characterof modem bourgeoislife, the unheroiclife of nuclearfamilies,civil
society, marketeconomies, and representationaldemocracies.Modernityis
our unavoidablephilosophical fate, and its fate is, at least in essentials, the
rationalrealizationof freedom.
Although this is not the "historicist"experience directly treated by
Strauss,even the Hegelian invocationof reasonwould not allow escape from
the accusationthatsuch a putative"rationalization" of social andpoliticallife
in modernityis anotherdistortionof and distancefrom the ordinaryexperi-
ences withoutwhich the practicallynecessary appeal to naturalrightfails.
On the otherhand,thereis the "screen"or distortionclaim of Strauss(and
Heidegger) that paradigmaticmodem experiences and assumptions arise
from, dependessentially on, artificialhumanconstructsthatblock any genu-
inely human,original, natural,participantexperience of the human.A typi-
cally modem experience (presumablythe sort describedin modernnovels

anddramaandpoetry,as well as in philosophy)is alreadythe expressionof a
misunderstanding,a distortionof somethingmoreoriginal,fundamental,and
genuinely revelatory-the experience of distinctions of value (or of being
qua being in Heidegger'snarrative).Over and over again Straussinsists that
this latterordinaryexperienceof value is the truebasis of the claim of natural
right, an intuitive sense of nobility and baseness, high and low, right and
wrongthatmodernphilosophycan claim does not exist because modernphi-
losophy has systematicallycovered it over.
At this point, however, we are preventedfrom investigatingany further
such an appealto prereflective,ordinarylived experienceas a philosophical
claim by the following qualificationthatStraussmakesin his essay "OnClas-
sical Political Philosophy."After noting that classical political philosophy
"startedfrom the moral distinctionsas they are made in everydaylife,"34he
there introduces a crucial limitation in any philosophical expectations of
classical political philosophy.Such a philosophy,he notes, "limiteditself to
addressingmen who, because of their naturalinclinations as well as their
upbringing,took those distinctionsfor granted."Or"thepolitical teachingof
the classical philosophers,as distinguishedfrom their theoreticalteaching,
was primarilyaddressednot to all intelligent men, but to all decent men."35
Now Straussgoes on in this essay to admitthatonce a genuinephilosopher
enters the inevitable debate aboutvalue that common opinion gives rise to,
his responsewill look finally "absurd"or "ridiculous,"because he will come
to realize and to claim that "the ultimate aim of political life cannot be
reachedby political life, but only by a life devotedto contemplation,to phi-
losophy."36But these original limitationson any philosophical treatmentof
value-limitations alreadyvisible in Strauss'sparsingof "politicalphiloso-
phy" not as philosophy about the political things but as about the political
mission of philosophy-in effect slam the door on any furtherphilosophical
treatmentof the debateposed above:"modernity(i.e., understoodas what is
reflectedin basic, orientingexperiencesof the humanworld)as rational"ver-
sus such modern experience as "distorting."For Straussis conceding that
these putativelyoriginal,fundamentalexperiencesof noble/basedistinctions
andthe like requirespecific conditionsthatcannotthemselves be the subject
of philosophical debate and are certainly not results of philosophically
informedpolitical action. These conditionsarenaturaland social (mattersof
"upbringing"),and one can authoritativelyclaim that they are the true and
properconditionsonly if one alreadytakes one's bearingsfrom the "simple"
or "natural"experiencesthatarepriorto and so the conditionsof anyfurther
philosophicalreflectionon value.Withoutthe naturaldispositionsandupbring-
ing, one will not be able to appreciatesuch distinctions,and the whole point
Pippin/ THE UNAVAILABILITYOF THE ORDINARY 349
of Strauss'streatmentof classical naturalright has been to show that these

distinctionscannotbe regardedas conclusions of a systematicphilosophical
accountor deductionorpolicy. Youeithersee it oryou don't, andif you don't,
thereis no way of "arguingyou into seeing it,"partof the indirectpoint,pre-
sumably,of the so-called "Socratic"and aporeticdialogues.37
This last is in some sense a valuable,truepoint, andI don't wantto dispute
it. But we shouldnote firstthatit was precisely this awareness-that ourethi-
cal life is woven deeply andin microscopicdetailintothe web of ourlives as a
whole and is not a matterof "isolatable"obligationto law or a coordination
problem among egoists, or even responsive directly to philosophical cri-
tique-that beganthe so-called "conservative"reactionto revolutionarypol-
itics that, according to Strauss, terminated catastrophicallyin Hegelian
historicism.All we need addto generatethat sortof historicistconclusionis
something Straussobviously also accepts, that such dispositions and social
conditions change, and add thatthey change radically,on mattersas funda-
mentalas what it is to be a manor a woman, slavery,child labor,andso forth.
That claim, togetherwith the denial earlierthatthe ancientGreekversion of
such prereflectiveconditionshas anyprivilegedstatus,will locate suchorigi-
nal and all-importantbases for morallife in time, andin time essentially,and
thatwill make Strauss'scase for, as opposed to his analysis of, the claims of
classical naturalright fairly weak.
Moreover,since Straussis admittingthat identifying those who have or
can have this naturalexperienceestablishes nothingphilosophically,merely
classifies those who alreadyexperiencethe world in these terms and distin-
guishes those who do not (and given their upbringing,most likely cannot),
what sort of answeris being providedto those who might admitthe existen-
tial need of naturalright but who are not aided in realizing such a need by
being pointedto a communityin which such a need was, luckily for them,sat-
isfied? Most of NRHtries to establishthe disorienting,crisis-like, even nihil-
istic consequencesof the modem rejectionof naturalright.Thatis supposed
to be the philosophicalorrationalfate of such a rejection.But thatjust all may
be our fate. For the reasonsjust discussed, thatjust establishes such a need,
andthese invocationsof ancientGreekexperiencecannotserve as the answer
to Strauss'swise remarkabouttruthquoted earlier.It is worthrecalling.
Even by proving that a certainview is indispensablein living well, one merely proves
that the view in questionis a salutarymyth: one does not prove it to be true.Utility and
truthare two entirelydifferentthings.38
And we shouldbe clearhere aboutthe complexity of Strauss'sposition, a

complexity thathis "screen"metaphorscan often disguise. He is not saying
thatGreekpoliticalexperiencewas in some way in directcontactwith human

nature,the ideas of the virtuesand so forth,and so the recordof such experi-
ence in classical political philosophy can guide us back to those originals.
The language of metaphysicaloriginals and less thanreal images is wholly
out of place here. (Forone thing,thereis no idea of the humansoul, no idea of
eros. There is only experienceas a touchstonehere.)
Let me put it anotherway. It is clear enough from much of what Strauss
writes, especially about the Platonic ideas, that he regardsan engagement
with certainfundamentalproblemsas unavoidablein any worthyhumanlife,
thathe regardsthose problemsas permanentandcoeval with humanthought
itself, andthatthe absenceof such engagementin much modernthoughtand
even modem experienceis not proof againstthis claim. This is why the image
of forgettingis so important;it allows him to say thatsuch nonpresencedoes
not requirere-creation(perhapsarbitrarilyandjust as a response to a need)
but remembering. It also explains some of the attraction of at least
Heidegger'sway of framingthe issues, becauseit is obviously a consequence
of Strauss's"coeval"claim thathe must say, with Heidegger,thatwe arenot,
or not yet again, "thinking."
VI. THENATURALA7TITUDEAS THE "WAYOF DESPAIR"

I have been suggesting thatthe claim about"original"and "distortion"is
very difficult to defend with any consistency.The attemptat such a distinc-
tion has raiseda numberof questions aboutStrauss'sposition, which I sum-
marize here in the simplest termspossible.
1. If naturalright is constitutedby a certainsort of experience, and if thatexperiencehas

been lost or forgotten,whatstatuscan the claim of naturalrightpossibly havenow?39
2. If the epigramsin NRHcall to any reader'smind the "simpleexperiences"of right and
wrong thatform the startingpoint of classical political thought,why do we need such a
complex historicalrecovery?
3. Why shouldwe be strugglingto get from one cave to another?Why recoverthe ordinary
if the ordinarylooks as it does in Plato's Republic?Are there betterand worse caves?
Isn't one sort of darknesslike any other sort?
4. If we, as modems, are now "screened"from ordinaryexperience,why wouldn'twe be
just as "screened"from any deep understandingof the texts that manifestand analyze
such experience?
5. It appears(with Strauss'sremarksabout"decentmen")thatthe only personswho could
appreciatethe recoveredexperiencearejust those who don't need to. Whatwould then
be the point of the recovery?
These all amountto internalproblemssuggested by tensions in Strauss's

texts. I turnin conclusionto whatI taketo be the main substantial,philosoph-
ical obstacle to recoveringor to being able to trustany such putativeoriginal
experience. This objection is based on sweeping theoreticalclaims inaugu-
ratedby KantandHegel. In Hegel's language,modem life has itself become
thoroughly"reflective,"the first partof what he means in claiming thatit is
becoming potentially"rational."We assumethe roles we occupy,respondto
moralclaims as we do, in a way now muchmore self-consciously awareof it
being our way, among other possible ways. Such roles are assumednot just
inhabited,andsince we areawarethatthey arenot roles sharedby othertimes
and places, we understandthat the authorityand legitimacy claims inherent
in suchroles requiresomejustificationbeyondtheirbeing ourway. Toputthe
point in anotherway: an enduring,continuoushumanlife is not an event or
occurrence,a happening,like others.Lives don't just happen;they must be
activelyled, steered,guided,we now for the firsttime fully appreciate.A sub-
ject mustnot only "takeup the reins"of a life in orderto do this butmustdo so
continuously,andwith an eye towardthe unity andintegrationwithoutwhich
lives cannotbe coherentlyled. Wherethereis such unity andintegration,it is
a result of our work, and not a discovery of an underlyinghuman nature.
Moreover,leading a life in this way is reflexive because it always involves
actively taking a point of view or standon some relevantevent or person or
state in the world, and this in an always challengeableand potentiallyrevis-
able way. If this were not so, any "ordinary"point of view could notbe saidto
be ours, to be something for which we were responsible, which we had to
"standbehind."(We would not then merit the respect we are entitled to as
responsiblesubjects.)After the Kantianturn,all humanexperiencehadto be
understoodas essentially a judging, a result,a holding to be true, a claim to
which I commit myself, am not committedto otherwise,for which I implic-
itly pledge a defense, and so forth. In the much more radical
(Kierkegaardean)language developedby Heideggerand Sartreto make this
point, one is a subject (does not flee such an unavoidableself-responsible
stance in bad faith or inauthenticity)only by not simply being a subjector
being an anything,even while one is not some free-floatingmere possibility,
not nothing at all.
It is this reflective characterof experiencethat made all ordinaryexperi-
ence forever afterwardsseem extraordinarilysuffused with what Hegel
called "negativity"(an activity or even one's own self possibly not-being
what it seemed), a questionfor furtherquestions,ratherthanan unexplained
explainer.In Hegel's Phenomenologylanguage, "consciousness,however,is
explicitly the concept (Begriff) of itself"40andjust therein"the pathwayof
doubt... the way of despair."Thatis, "consciousnessgoes beyondlimits, and

since these limits areits own, it is somethingthatgoes beyonditself.... Thus
consciousness suffersthis violence at its own hands;it spoils its own limited
satisfaction."41The only way such dimensions of experiencecould possibly
be avoided would be by a kind of "activeforgetting"(which Nietzsche once
recommendedas a cure for modem homesickness), and not by a remember-
ing of moreinnocent(or "natural"or undistorted,unscreened)times. (Or,in a
claim Hegel shareswith RousseauandKant,we must lose this naturalnessin
orderto reclaim a form of the everydayas our own. The fall is the greatest
human boon, and while a distinctly human existence is a self-inflicted
"wound,"it is a wound that we can heal, even "withoutscars."42)
In saying this, it must be stressedthatHegel, like Strauss(for thatmatter,
like Burke,like Oakeshott,like Heidegger,like Gadamer,like Wittgenstein,
like Cavell, like Bernard Williams), rejects the idea of a philosophical
enlightenmentof and so interventionin the ordinaryway of going on, and
none of these "friends of the ordinary"think that the everyday can be
appealedto as a ground,ortruth-maker,as a componentin an argumentabout
anything.Thatwouldbe to miss the whole point.43And indeedon one reading
of Strauss,to appreciatethe genuinely pretheoreticalexperienceis to be able
again to appreciate it as a cave, precisely as unenlightenable, and this
renewed appreciationwould be wholly philosophic, would not involve any
change in our ways of going on.
But Hegel is stressing something that many in this club do not: that the
ordinaryordinarilytearsitself apart,thatwhole forms of life come to fail cat-
astrophically,fail to sustainallegiance,can come to seem alien, to lose mean-
ing, often as a result of the skepticism,alienation, the interweavingof self-
consciousness, even "everyday"aspectsof reflection, all presentin everyday
sensibilities, and so forth. Hegel is not willing to write off so much of that
"tearingapart"as somethinglike a stormor otherdisturbance.(As the quota-
tions above indicate, he thinks it is something we do to ourselves, and this
purposively,ratherthan merely suffer.)He wants to know if such breaking
down andrebuildingmake any kind of sense, not, he admits,in and for a life
but, as he often says, "after"it, for the "priestlysect" of philosophers.At the
simplest and so most misleadinglevel, we can see a clash of images in these
accountsof failure andrebuilding:one, Hegel's, invoking some greaterself-
consciousness and explicitness about our normative"self-legislation,"and
other,Strauss's,invokinga transformedHeideggereanfigure,forgetting,for-
getting especially the genuinely humanscale and therebysubjectto various
slipperyslopes anddangerousblind spotsonce a skepticismaboutanddissat-
isfactionwith ordinary,always available,prudentialwisdom seizes the imag-
ination of the West. (We "tear ourselves apart"for Strauss, too, in other
words, but because we in essence don't know what we're doing, not, as in
Hegel, because more and more gradually,we do.)
This is much too largea topic to allow anypersuasivedefense,butI amtry-
ing to stress that the issue at stake does not turnon somethingas obvious as
the great varieties of very different, incompatible historical experiences,
something taken for granted by intelligent commentators at least since
Herodotus.The Hegelian claim at issue-that the transitionin the Western
language (and "experience")of self-understandingfrom roughly "soul"to
the "self,"or a distinctsubjectof experiencethat cannotbe understoodas an
object of any sort-seems to capturea wholly differentexperience of our-
selves, not anticipatedin antiquityand one that casts doubt on any general
appeal to the ancient ordinary.(Any pretheoreticalexperience would be
prereflexiveand if so not ours, not attributablein the relevantsense to us.)
This idea that consciousness could be in some sort of constant"negative
relation to itself' helps us conceptualize a wide panoply of phenomeno-
logical data characteristicof the distinctness of modernity and visible in
muchmodernphilosophyandliterature,not to mentionmedialike film. (The
experience in question is also very differentfrom the "Socratic"sense that
manyof ourbeliefs mightbe false. It is closer to the slow realizationthatthere
is nothingin the worldthatmakes our beliefs about "oughts"or normstrue,
that sustaininga commitmentdoes not look like finding such a truth-maker,
even while we cannotgive up such normativebindingness.)The natureof a
free life could be reformulatedon such an understanding,could be said now
not to consist in substantiveknowledge of the eternaland the properhuman
place withinit, or in a spontaneouscausalpower,butin the proper,new sortof
relationto oneself, somethingthatmustbe achievedand,accordingto Hegel,
only in relation to others.
This is, in my view, the real philosophicalissue at stake in what Strauss
calls the "second wave" or Rousseauianstage of modernity(althoughit is
never discussed in these terms, as the problem of autonomy,by Strauss),44
andit involves the most ambitiousphilosophicalclaim of all modernity:that
the source of all normativenecessity is self-legislating spontaneityor free-
dom, a claim that presumesthe negative or reflective notion of subjectivity
that we discussed above. A treatmentof this question would be necessary
before we could know an answerto a very importantquestion(an answerto
whatwould be Strauss'sobvious skepticism):whetherthis emphasison self-
legislation, with this emphasis on self-authoring,could preserve a robust
notionof law, "real"normativeforce, or whetherwe havebegunanotherslip-
pery slope, from spontaneityto the creativeimaginationto the will to power
to resolute deciding.45(And in Platonic terms, the most difficult question
would arise:whether,at the most fundamentallevel, humaneros, a yearning
for completeness and totality, for some "ultimate"sense, for what Strauss
calls "eternity,"could be said to be satisfiedby such a human,self-legislating
whole. And what follows if it is not?)
In these terms,the question of whethersome fundamentalelement of the
modem philosophicaltraditionis fated-philosophically fated-for a nihil-
istic culminationis only directlyaddressedif we can formulatea responseto
this question aboutthe relation between spontaneityand law, rationalfree-
dom and normativenecessity. This is the doctrinethatin post-KantianIdeal-
ism thatrendersunavailablethe ordinaryas normativelysufficient.The ordi-
nary,like everythingelse in humanexperience,is, in Sellar's famousphrase,
"fraughtwith ought," and there are no original, natural oughts; they are
always, in the language developed here, results, commitments.In Hegel's
language,such experienceis always a manifestationof the "laborof the Con-
cept,"more an epiphenomenaof suchworkthanan "originalbasis for assess-
ing." This is the heart of the claim that there is no prereflective or natural
humanexperienceof the human;thereis ratheronly the implicitlyreflective,
already"negative,"not yet fully explicitlyreflectivehumanexperience,if it is
to count as human.46 The counter-Strausseanclaim is thateven the most ordi-
nary of lives has to be understoodas a complex of commitments,not mere
habits of heartand mind, and thaton the modem understandingof freedom
(or the post-Kantian)these mustultimatelybe redeemableby reasonin some
way for themto be ours, for us to be able to standbehindthem, even for them
to count for us as significant.
If it is truethatwe cannotbe said to inhabit,embody,be wholly absorbed
in a naturalattitudebutthatsuch an attitudeis even "originally"reflexiveand
therebyself-negating,always potentiallydestabilizedand disorienting,then
philosophersdo not either "look fartherafield in the same directionas the
enlightenedcitizen or statesman"by also inhabitingandextendingthepartic-
ipant point of view or stand outside the practical world and explain its
motions from a third-personpoint of view. Philosophy should ratherbe
understoodas renderingexplicit the originalself-transformationof the natu-
ralattitudeinto whatit always is, implicitly:morethannaturalby being a sec-
ond nature-therefore, itself by being "beyonditself." Straussclaimed that
classical political philosophersdid "notlook at political things fromthe out-
side, as spectatorsof political life,"47in the way that,he charges,all modem
political philosophy did. I have been trying to suggest that this is not an
exhaustivedisjunctionwhen appliedto certainstrainsof modernphilosophy,
but this for an unusualreason. Fromthe point of view I have been tryingto
suggest, thereis no such "outsidevs. inside"duality.Or said in Hegel's dia-
lectical way, everythinginside always alreadyhas its own "outside."And,
perhapsmoreimportantlyfor the spectator,theoreticalattitudethatStraussis
worried about: vice versa. Every "outside"already has its "inside,"is an

expressionof a form of life, a "shapeof spirit."Philosophyis, andis nothing
but, its own time comprehendedin thought.
NOTES
1. Leo Strauss,Natural Right and History (NRH) (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press,

1968), 7. OtherStrausstexts referredto, and their abbreviations:"CorrespondenceConcerning
Modernity"("CCM"),translatedby SusanneKlein andGeorgeTucker,IndependentJournalof
Philosophy 4 (1983): 105-19; The City and Man (CM) (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press,
1964); "OnClassical PoliticalPhilosophy"("OCP"),in TheRebirthof Classical PoliticalRatio-
nalism:An Introductionto the Thoughtof Leo Strauss(RCP),editedby ThomasL. Pangle (Chi-
cago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1989), 49-62; On Tyranny(07), editedby VictorGourevitch
and Michael S. Roth (New York:Free Press, 1991); Persecutionand the Art of Writing(PAW)
(Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1980); "PoliticalPhilosophy and History"("PPH"),in
WhatIs Political Philosophy (WIPP)(Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1988), 56-77; and
Spinoza's Critiqueof Religion (SCR),translatedby E. M. Sinclair(Chicago:Universityof Chi-
cago Press, 1997).
2. "PPH,"56, for Strauss'sformulation.Perhapsthe first expressionof such skepticismis
Aristotle's claim in his Poetics that poetry is more philosophical than history,able to present
broad human problems and general types since not tied to unrepeatableevents and unique
particulars.
3. G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenologyof Spirit, translatedby A. V. Miller (Oxford:Oxford
UniversityPress, 1998), 19.
4. Montesquieu'sterm of art was the "spiritof laws." Strauss'word is mostly "regime,"
which he identifieswith "theformof life of a society, its style of life, its moraltaste,formof soci-
ety, form of state, form of government,spirit of laws" (WIPP,34).
5. This is the greatestdisputeaboutthe contentof Hegel's claims. A sweepingresistanceto
this whole style of thoughtis understandable.Thereareas manypeople who cringein academic
pain when they hear terms like "the"modems as there are protestorswho howl at mention of
"the"ancients.Among academics,a professionalnominalism,supplementedin the humanities
by suspicion of grandor Eurocentricnarratives,has become a powerful orthodoxy.Strauss's
argumentis thatsuch aggregationis justified because (1) classical political philosophyall share
the same "specificassessment,"that"thegoal of political life is virtue,"and (2) thatall modem
political philosophyagree in their"rejectionof the classical scheme as unrealistic"(WIPP,40).
How (1) would deal with Thrasymachus,Gorgias, Protagorus,and the like, and how the latter
would include Hoelderlinor Hegel or Schiller, is not clear to me. Strausslateradmitsthereis a
Hegelian attemptat reconciliationwith the ancient emphasis on virtue, but he indicates that
Hegel's reliance on his philosophy of history vitiates that attempt(WIPP,52-55).
6. Nietzsche even describes the "self-sublation" (Selbstaufhebung) of morality.
Morgenrote, 1886 Preface, sec. 4, in Kritische Studienausgabe,edited by G. Colli and M.
Montinari(Berlin:de Gruyter,1988), 16.
7. Cf. the very helpful discussionof these issues in MartinHollis's book, TrustwithinRea-
son (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1998).
8. G. W. F. Hegel, Elementsof the Philosophy of Right, translatedby H. B. Nisbet (Cam-
bridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1991), 23.
9. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectureson the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3, editedby PeterHodgson,

translatedby R. F. Brown,PeterHodgson, andJ. M. Stewart(Berkeley:Universityof California
Press, 1998), 162.
10. "Ibegan,therefore,to wonderwhetherthe self-destructionof reasonwas not the inevita-
ble outcome of modernrationalismas distinguishedfrom pre-modernrationalism"(SCR, 31).
11. Susan Shell, "NaturalRight andthe HistoricalApproach,"forthcoming.One might note
variations on this theme: Nietzsche's "what did naturalright die from?" Answer: "natural
causes."Heidegger's "whatdid commitmentto naturalright and all thatcame with it kill off?"
Answer:"anopeningto the meaningof being issue."And Hegel's narrative,"givenclassical nat-
uralrightas origin,whatwill eventuallygrow from suchbeginnings?"Answer:"spirit'sfull self-
consciousness in modem ethical life."
12. WIPP,55.
13. I admitthat it is sometimes not easy to see clearly how Strausswants us to understand
such a claim aboutculminationand self-consciousness.He can also write,in NRH,that"thecon-
temporaryrejectionof naturalrightleads to nihilism-nay, it is identicalwith nihilism"(p. 5). I
find this "nay"constructionpuzzling. PerhapsStraussmeans that, since the rejectionof natural
rightinevitablyleads to nihilism,thereforewe can say thatit is identicalwith nihilism.This inter-
pretationwould highlighteven moreStrauss'srelianceon a "causalityof fate"argumentin order
to justify that "inevitably."
14. WIPP,56. I cannotresist pointingout thatwhat Strausssays is a seriousdistortionof the
claims madeabouthumanhistoryby KantandHegel. It is truethatboth admitthatthe "operative
mechanism"of historicalchange is egoism, violence, immorality,even "the slaughterbench."
But it is profoundlymisleadingto associate thatclaim with "communism"and presumablythe
arrogationby leaders to themselves of the right to commit violence in orderto effect virtuous
ends. For both Kant and Hegel, the very first premise in their account is that majorhistorical
change is not subjectto the will of rulersor leadersor anyonebut works "behindthe back,"and
unintentionally.Straussmust of course realize that Hegel says that the owl of Minervatakes
flight only at dusk, when philosophypaints its grey in grey,but he does not mentionthathere in
this swipe at what amountsto the gross misuse of Kant's,Hegel's, indeed Marx'sphilosophyof
history by Russian revolutionaries.
15. Anotherpoint of contact:Hegel is the sortof strongcritic of modem naturalrightand so
contractariandoctrinesof the statethatStraussaffirmedin his remarkson Burke,even while dis-
tancinghimself from anyrelianceon providenceor even prudentcompromisewith thatdoctrine
(evident, he thinks, in Burkeand Hegel).
16. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, 21.
17. NRH, 304. And: "Therecame into being a new type of theory,of metaphysics,having as
its highestthemehumanactionandits productratherthanthe whole, which is in no way the prod-
uct of human action" (p. 320). In Strauss's narrative,once the notion of a completed history
beganto seem implausible,the reactionsof KierkegaardandNietzsche, on the one hand,andthe
historical school and eventualHeideggereanhistoricism,on the other, were the only possible
reactions.
18. Ibid., 32.
19. Ibid.
20. If that is the crisis, the presentage can sometimes look like the triumphof a self-righ-
teous, naive moralism.
21. StanleyRosen, "Philosophyand OrdinaryLanguage,"in Metaphysicsin OrdinaryLan-
guage, by StanleyRosen (New Haven,CT:Yale UniversityPress, 1999), 121. It "approaches"a
historicistclaim because Straussneed not have invokedany historicalepoch to make his point
about such "simple experiences."Such ought to be availableeverywhereand every when, and
need requireno "special"help fromthe Greeks. Strausshimself seems sometimesto admitthis,

so it would requirea separatediscussion to sort out the historicistdimensions of the "ancient-
modern"quarrel(insteadof simply a quarrelbetween any proponentof natureas foundationsas
againsthistory).
22. Cf. his discussion of the "overwhelmingpower of the past,"in "theattemptto solve the
Jewish problem,"in "Progressor Return,"in RCP,233.
23. Cf. HeinrichMeier's note on this image, Die Denkbewegungvon Leo Strauss(Stuttgart:
Metzler, 1996), 22, n. 2. The basic issue is whetherwe canpresumeto startout in thekindof "nat-
ural"philosophicalignorancethat Socrates described, and so come an awarenessof our igno-
rance. (We cannot, straightawayanyway,accordingto Strauss.)See especially Meier's discus-
sion andcitationsfrom Strauss'scorrespondenceon p. 25, n. 7, where Straussnotes thatanother
reasonwe live "under"the Platoniccave has to do with the entanglementof Greekphilosophyin
the traditionof revealedreligion.
24. NRH, 32.
25. Ibid., 6.
26. Ibid., 8.
27. I think RichardVelkley is quite right to tie this strategyto the influence of Heidegger.
"NaturalRightand Historyas a Response to the Challengeof MartinHeidegger,"forthcoming.
See Meier,Die Denkbewegung,29, n. 10, where Meiercites a revealingpassage whereinStrauss
makes very clear his indebtednessto Heidegger and Heideggerean"Destruktion."
28. NRH, 79.
29. Ibid., 79-80.
30. CM, 11.
31. WIPP,27-28.
32. NRH, 151.
33. This cannotbe the complete story,of course. For one thing, there are the otherimages,
especially the Divided Line, which suggests that imagination(eikasia) functions naturallyin
calling attentionto images as such andso promptingajourneytowardoriginals.Foranother,it is
indisputablethatfor the StrausseanPlato,the greatdeficiencyof life in the cave is notintellectual
but erotic. Life there does not satisfy the deepest humandesires, visible only in a few human
exemplars.I am much indebtedto RichardVelkley for correspondenceand for his suggestions
aboutthese issues.
34. "OCP,"89. "Althoughit knewbetterthanthe dogmaticskepticof ourown time the formi-
dable theoreticalobjections to which they are exposed."
35. Ibid., 58.
36. Ibid., 91.
37. And here againone must note thatone could readStrauss'snarrativeas suggestingindi-
rectly andcautiouslythatwhatphilosophicalattentionto such experienceshelps revealis finally
that there is only one "naturalright,"one human activity good by nature,philosophy, even
though this would never be conceded by the man of healthycommon sense. This suggests that
whatStrausswantsis some revivalof the ordinaryof naturalsense of hostilityto philosophy.And
just how the originalrecoverywould then also lead to a transcendenceof the ordinaryview that
its moralbearingsarein orderandunassailableis not clearin Strauss(at least not clearto me).
38. NRH, 6.
39. I note here,in responseto an interestingsuggestionmadeby NathanTarcov,thatit is the-
oreticallyopen to Straussto makemuchless of the ancients-modernscontrast,to treatit as a mat-
ter of rhetoricaland pedagogical usefulness, and to insist that our own experience, however
fraughtwith a kind of forgetfulnessandwillfulness, still does manifest somehow "theclaims of
naturalright"on any experiencer,that a kind of phenomenologyof modernlife can lay bare in
some way what has not been, perhapscannot wholly be, forgotten. Something like this is, in
essence, Stanley Rosen's emendation of Strauss. See his Hermeneuticsas Politics (Oxford:
OxfordUniversityPress, 1987), 128. I would note here only (1) thatthis is quite an extremecor-
rectionof Strauss'soriginalposition andmeans we will also have to discountthe image he used
so frequentlyto describemodem fate, a cave beneaththe Platonic cave. I take it thatthe whole
point of that image is to contest the possibility of any such depth-phenomenology,and it is not
clear to me what, if anything,is left of Strauss'sactualposition aftersuch a correction(see espe-
cially PAW,155-57; "CCM,"106-7, 109, 114; see especially such typical passages as OT,177,
where Straussmakes clear why we are "forced"to attempta "restorationof classical social sci-
ence,"or CM, 11, where the returnto classical political philosophy is called "necessary."Not to
mentionthe passage quotedabove at NRH,79-80, where Straussclearly says thatto recoverthis
ordinaryexperienceone "hasto go back"to the ancients [my emphasis],indeedto the "ancient"
ancients.I see no indicationthathe believes we havethe choice: eithersucha restorationor a rec-
ollection called forthout of present-dayexperience).(2) It is not immediatelyclear how much,
and what sortof detail, can be defendedby appealto such a historicalphenomenology.Perhaps
an aspirationto be rescued from a confusing relativism,a yearningfor some secure distinction
between the noble and the base? At best, these would be aspirationsand hopes, not answers.I
note again Strauss'spowerfulrejectionof philosophy as wishful thinking,at NRH, 6.
40. Hegel, Phenomenology,51.
41. This was a majorcomponentof Hegel's thinkingfrom early in his Jenadays andis given
fine expression in his The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy,
translatedby H. Harrisand WalterCerf (Albany:SUNY Press, 1977).
42. G. W. F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Arts, vol. 1, translatedby T. M. Knox
(Oxford:Clarendon,1975), 98.
43. This is especially trueof the complex position defendedby StanleyCavell. I don't claim
that anythingsaid here yet bears on his position, one very differentfrom Strauss's,but I would
note thatthereis somethingdifferentin simply living out the ordinary,andfeeling some need to
call it to mind. That is alreadysomething extraordinary.
44. Cf. Robert Pippin, "The Modem World of Leo Strauss,"in Idealism as Modernism:
Hegelian Variations,by RobertPippin (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1997), 209-
32.
45. In the wordsof StanleyRosen, whether"freedombegins its long decay in whatone could
call historicallibertinism.Post-Kantianismis the storyof thatlong decay"(Metaphysicsin Ordi-
nary Language, 165). In this case, I think the Kant to Nietzsche to Heidegger progressionis
adventitious,not logical or internal.What Nietzsche "took" from the Kantianand Hegelian
notionof spontaneityandtransformedinto orrevealedas will to powerwas not whatwas "there"
in Kant and Hegel. In otherwords, Nietzsche plantedthe bomb he then exploded.
46. The first argumentof the Phenomenologyof Spirit is a denial, a reductionto (determi-
nate) absurdity,of the claim that there can be a prereflectiveacquaintancewith the world.
47. WIPP,27-28.
RobertPippin is theRaymondW.andMarthaHilpertGrunerDistinguishedServicePro-
fessor in the Committeeon Social Thought,the Departmentof Philosophy,and the Col-
lege and the chair of the Committeeon Social Thought,Universityof Chicago. He is the
author of several books on the modernphilosophical traditionand the natureof Euro-
pean modernity,and he is the author of a recent book on literature,Henry James and
Modem Moral Life.

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The Unavailability of the Ordinary: Strauss on the Philosophical Fate of Modernity

Author(s): Robert Pippin

In NaturalRight andHistoryLeo Straussarguesfor the continuing "relevance" of the classical

Keywords:ordinary;Strauss;ancients; modernity;Rosen; Hegel

For Stanley Rosen

continuous with the "lived experience"of engaged participantsin political

experience; in Kierkegaard'sremarkson The Present Age; in Nietzsche's

The idea of recovering or rememberingpresupposes some account of

rational meaning of what he called in the Phenomenology the "shapes of

andthatwith this death,the aspirationsof enlightenmentsince Socratesdied

Weneedallthesecontroversial notionsof distincthistoricalepochs;a dis-

modernthoughtreachesits culmination,its highest self-consciousness, in the most radi-

who wrote, "thedelusions of communismare alreadythe delusions of Hegel

III. THERECOVERYOF THEORDINARY

essentiallyhistorical,that,especially, theirexperienceof the historicallyarti-

premodernity.This is almost but not quite a historicistpremise in Strauss's

even by provingthata certainview is indispensablein living well, one merelyprovesthat

And he goes farther.The classical naturalright doctrine we "need"so

IV ANCIENT TEXTS AND NATURAL ATTITUDES

He then goes on to make an extraordinarily sweeping claim.

There is a historical claim in this passage, the scope and importance of

In all laterepochs [laterthanthe classical], the philosopher'sstudyof politicalthingswas

political things in the perspective of the enlightened citizens or statesmen.They see

I want eventuallyto claim thatthis disjunction-"inside" the naturalatti-

philosophy, the human perfection. Or such ordinaryexperience is both the

cally modem experience (presumablythe sort describedin modernnovels

of Strauss'streatmentof classical naturalright has been to show that these

And we shouldbe clearhere aboutthe complexity of Strauss'sposition, a

thatGreekpoliticalexperiencewas in some way in directcontactwith human

VI. THENATURALA7TITUDEAS THE "WAYOF DESPAIR"

1. If naturalright is constitutedby a certainsort of experience, and if thatexperiencehas

These all amountto internalproblemssuggested by tensions in Strauss's

doubt... the way of despair."Thatis, "consciousnessgoes beyondlimits, and

worried about: vice versa. Every "outside"already has its "inside,"is an

1. Leo Strauss,Natural Right and History (NRH) (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press,

9. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectureson the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 3, editedby PeterHodgson,

need requireno "special"help fromthe Greeks. Strausshimself seems sometimesto admitthis,

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