The portrait of strauss painted in the pages of this book is not likely to be one that will be satisfying to many of those who call themselves “Straussians” nor to many of those who have great antipathy for Straussians. If this is the case, this study will have been in some sense successful. This isn't to suggest that the preceding pages and arguments are not open to challenge. I am sure that they are and I hope that they will be challenged for the sake of further argument not only about Strauss but about the kinds of questions that he poses to contemporary thinkers. But beyond particular disagreements, Strauss's thought should be dissatisfying to those who seek definitive answers to large philosophical and political questions. And what Strauss's many admirers and enemies have in common is precisely the belief that definitive answers are available. The enduring importance of Strauss's thought, however, lies in the questions he poses, and not in any of the answers he might seem to provide.

Strauss's intellectual aim was to question contemporary dogmas, including first and foremost the commonplace views that all truth is a matter of historical circumstance and that we cannot talk about human nature. On neither issue, however, does Strauss provide a definitive counterargument, that is, that there is transhistorical truth or that there is a human nature. Instead, his contention is that the cases against transhistorical truth and human nature have not been made definitively.