German Sokrates: Heidegger, Arendt, Strauss

437 Pages·2009·1.64 MB·English

by  Rodrigo Chacon

Abstract
GERMAN SOKRATES:
HEIDEGGER, ARENDT, STRAUSS

by
Rodrigo Chacón

This dissertation traces the genesis of three conceptions of political
philosophizing in the work of Heidegger, Arendt, and Strauss. I draw on recently
published works to shed light on their respective turns to ‘political philosophy’ as
responses to the crisis of the Weimar Republic. I argue that the philosophical,
theological, and political dimensions of the crisis led to a rediscovery of Socratic
philosophizing.
Heidegger rediscovered the Socratic project of a ‘philosophy of human
affairs’ in his early lectures on Aristotle, which Strauss and Arendt attended in
1922 and 1924/25 respectively. Heidegger’s project was to refound philosophy on
its existential basis by redirecting the ‘care’ of philosophy away from attempts to
secure universal and binding knowledge to the self-illumination of life in its
historical ‘facticity’. In an unprecedented effort to understand the phenomena to
which Plato and Aristotle referred, Heidegger showed that philosophy grows out
of a world of common practical concerns, opinions, and passions. He thus
inadvertently refounded philosophy as ‘political philosophy’ and made possible
the projects of Arendt and Strauss.
Strauss was particularly affected by Heidegger’s confrontation with the
problem of ethics or of providing a rational answer to the question concerning the
right or the good way of life. Strauss understood this problem Socratically as the
question of the necessity and possibility of a techne politike or political science. I
argue that Strauss’s work as a whole responds to this question. Like Heidegger,
Strauss was aware of the fact that a rational justification of one’s way of life—
especially when it is shared with a political community—may be impossible.
Beyond this, it may be unnecessary—if faith or divine revelation are sufficient for
achieving human perfection.
Drawing on Arendt’s Denktagebuch and her dissertation on Augustine, I
argue that her project emerged from a similar ‘theological-political predicament’:
whether or not we should be completely at home in this world is the guiding
question of Arendt’s oeuvre. This question grew out of Arendt’s condition as a
Jew born and raised in Germany and her discovery of neo-orthodox ‘dialectical
theology’.
Thus read, the work of Heidegger, Arendt, and Strauss appears in a fresh
light. It becomes the source of a conception of neo-Socratic political philosophy.
GERMAN SOKRATES:
HEIDEGGER, ARENDT, STRAUSS

by

Rodrigo Chacón

September 2009

Submitted to the New School for Social Research of the New School in
partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy.

Dissertation Committee:
Dr. James E. Miller
Dr. David Plotke
Dr. Richard J. Bernstein
Dr. Andreas Kalyvas
UMI Number: 3396646

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© Rodrigo Chacón 2009
Acknowledgments

I discovered the work of Leo Strauss and Martin Heidegger almost fifteen years
ago in Mexico City in the lectures of professor Eric Herrán. I wish to thank him at
the outset for introducing me to political philosophy in such an excellent and rare
way.
My graduate studies were made possible by the support of the Fulbright-
García Robles scholarship fund, the McArthur-Ford-Hewlett Foundation, and the
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología. I owe it to these institutions that my
greatest debts are moral—particularly to Mexico and the United States of
America—and not financial.
Professor Steven B. Smith suggested to me several years ago that a good
dissertation was waiting to be written comparing Hannah Arendt’s The Human
Condition and Strauss’s Natural Right and History. I am grateful for this and
other cues, and for his encouragement over the years.
I learned much about Socratic dialogue and friendship from my students at
Eugene Lang College and the TU-Dresden. I thank Rafael Khatchaturian in
particular for helping me edit and improve the manuscript.
At various moments friends provided support when I was losing my
way—and listened patiently when I was too excited to keep my findings to
myself. Gracias de todo corazón a Paula Ramírez, Fernanda Ezeta, Melissa
iv
Amezcua, Carolina Gallegos-Anda y Oi Yen Lam. Thank you, Kang Chen, for
sharing your intelligence and passion for the most important things, and for your
careful comments which saved me from more than one embarrassment. Santiago
Chacón, Lupita Vizcarra, Alejandro Rodiles, and Paola Karam provided a home
and loving friendship, and I wish to thank them as well.
Mario Chacón read everything I sent him. I never imagined that reading a
PhD dissertation could help transform filiality into friendship.
I owe it to Kaicho T. Nakamura and the Sangha at state street to have
pointed to what words cannot express about the essence of ethics.
Professors Claudia Baracchi and Yirmiahu Yovel rekindled my love of
philosophy every time I saw them lecture.
I thank Richard J. Bernstein for his trust, for his honest critique, and for
his example of committed scholarship. I thank Andreas Kalyvas for preventing
me from becoming complacent with my ideas. Thanks, finally and most
especially, to my mentors David Plotke and Jim Miller.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments iv

INTRODUCTION
The Problem of a Political Philosophy, Or Why Socrates? 1

I. Why Arendt and Strauss? 7
II. What is Socratic Political Philosophy? Some Preliminaries 14
III. Concluding Remarks 35

CHAPTER ONE
The Young Heidegger’s Political Philosophy (1922-1924) 38

I. “Wie Du anfiengst, wirst du bleiben”?: 43
Heidegger’s Turn From Theology to Philosophy
to Political Philosophy (1911-1922)
II. Who is the True Philosophos? Heidegger’s Reading of 52
Aristotle’s Metaphysics Alpha, 1-2 (1922)
III. Who is the True Politikos? Heidegger’s Reading of Aristotle’s 61
Politics and Rhetoric (1924)
IV. Heidegger’s Two Conceptions of Political Philosophy 73
V. Concluding Remarks 94

CHAPTER TWO
Descending the Magic Mountain to Begin a Socratic Ascent: 102
Leo Strauss in Weimar (1929-1931)

I. “Ethos anthropoi daimon”?: Strauss Becoming Strauss 108
II. Political Science, Political Liberalism and Political Theology 113
in the Dwindling Days of Weimar
III. Götterdämmerung: the Davos Disputation Between Martin 123
Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer
IV. Descending From Davos—What Did Leo Strauss Do? 128
V. Concluding Remarks 156

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CHAPTER THREE
Hannah Arendt in Weimar: 160
Beyond the Theological-Political Predicament? (1928-1929)

I. The ‘Theological-Political Predicament’ 164
II. Philosophy and Theology: “for me they belonged together” 169
III. Liberal Theology: The Religion of Culture 172
IV. Dialectical Theology: Destroying the Gods of this World 181
V. Arendt in Marburg: Between Bultmann and Heidegger 188
VI. Love in Augustine 196
VII. Arendt’s Theological-Political Predicament 201
VIII. Concluding Remarks 216

CHAPTER FOUR
Strauss’s Turn to Political Philosophy (1931-1936) 219

I. Maimonides in Weimar and his Critique of Heidegger: 221
Strauss’s “Cohen and Maimonides” (1931)
II. Hobbesheidegger is Heideggerhobbes: Strauss’s Studies in 248
Hobbesian Political Philosophy (1931-1936)
III. Strauss’s Second Sailing (1935/36) 294
IV. Concluding Remarks 305

CHAPTER FIVE
Arendt’s Turn to Political Philosophy (1950-1958) 311

I. Political Philosophy in Arendt’s Denktagebuch 313
II. Arendtian (Anti-)metaphysics 316
III. The Ethical-Political Implications of Arendtian (Anti-) 325
metaphysics
IV. Arendt’s Critique of Platonic Political Science 332
V. Political Philosophy: Out of the Sources of Socrates and 358
Heidegger?
VI. Concluding Remarks 380

CONCLUSION 386

BIBLIOGRAPHY 404
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