Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T16:07:10.567Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Esotericism and the Critique of Historicism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2006

ARTHUR M. MELZER
ARTHUR M. MELZER
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

“The relation of history to reason,” observes Jurgen Habermas, “remains constitutive for the discourse of modernity—for better or worse” (1987, 392). The worse of it is: the modern premise of reason's imbeddedness in history means that unless we can demonstrate—through an increasingly suspect “grand narrative” of “reason in history”—that history is fundamentally rational, we must accept that reason is fundamentally historical and that all our “knowledge” is merely temporary, local, and arbitrary.

To avoid this collapse into historical relativism, we must reassess the crucial premise: reason's historicity. Why is the modern mind so utterly captivated by the idea that every mind is a prisoner of its times? This question receives its most probing treatment in the work of Leo Strauss. His rediscovery of the theory of esotericism—which is the premodern understanding of the relation of reason to history—poses important new challenges to the whole historicist paradigm. It points the way to a “posthistoricist” relegitimation of reason through a return to Socratic rationalism.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 100 , Issue 2 , May 2006 , pp. 279 - 295
Copyright
© 2006 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alfarabi. 2001. “The Harmonization of the Opinions of the Two Sages, Plato the Divine and Aristotle.” In Alfarabi, The Political Writings, ed. Charles E. Butterworth, Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press.
Atlas James. 2003. “Leo-Cons. A Classicists Legacy: New Empire Builders.” In The New York Times, May 4. Section 4, p. 1.Google Scholar
Cicero. 1951. De Natura Deorum. Trans. H. Rackam. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Collingwood R. G. 1946. The Idea of History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Condorcet Antoine-Nicolas de. 1955. Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind. Trans. June Barraclough. New York: Noonday Press.
Diderot Denis. 1778. Encyclopédie ou dictionairre raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de lettres, Nouvelle édition. Geneva: Chez Pellet.
Gadamer Hans-Georg. 1975. “The Problem of Historical Consciousness.” Trans. Jeff L. Close. Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 5 (Fall): 1– 52.Google Scholar
Habermas Jurgen. 1987. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Trans. Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hegel G. W. F. 1967. The Phenomenology of Mind. Trans. J. B. Baillie. New York: Harper and Row.
Herman Peter C. 2004. Historicizing Theory. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press..
Husserl Edmund. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. Trans. D. Carr. Evanston, Il: Northwestern University Press.
Jaffa Harry. 1952. Thomism and Aristotelianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jameson Fredric. 1981. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Klein Jacob. 1968. Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra. Trans. Eva Brann. Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.
Klein Jacob. 1985. Jacob Klein: Lectures and Essays, ed. Robert Williamson and Elliot Zuckerman. Annapolis, MD: St. John's College Press.
Leibniz G. W. 1981. New Essays on Human Understanding. Trans. Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Löwith Karl. 1964. From Hegel to Nietzsche. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Mannheim Karl. 1952. “Historicism.” In Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge, ed. Paul Kecskemeti. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Marx Karl. 1978. Manifesto of the Communist Party. In The Marx-Engels Reader. Second Edition. ed. Robert C. Tucker. New York: Norton.
Meier Heinrich. 1994. “The History of Philosophy and the Intention of the Philosopher: Reflections on Leo Strauss.” Unpublished conference paper.Google Scholar
Nietzsche Friedrich. 1966. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House.
Nietzsche Friedrich. 1980 [First published 1874]. Of the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life. Trans. Peter Preuss. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.
Pfaff William. 2003. “The Long Reach of Leo Strauss.” In International Herald Tribune, May 15.
Pippin Robert. 1997. Idealism as Modernism: Hegelian Variations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Poster Carol. 1997. “Aristotle's Rhetoric Against Rhetoric: Unitarian Reading and Esoteric Hermeneutics.” In American Journal of Philology 118 (Summer): 219– 49.Google Scholar
Rawls John. 1985. “Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical.” In Philosophy and Public Affairs 14: 3 (Summer): 223– 51.Google Scholar
Rawls John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rorty Richard. 1999. Philosophy and Social Hope. New York: Penguin Books.
Rousseau Jean-Jacques. 1992. The Collected Works of Rousseau, Vol. II. Trans. Judith Bush, Roger Masters, and Christopher Kelly. Hanover New Hampshire: University Press of New England.
Sabine George H. 1953. “Review of Persecution and the Art of Writing.” In Ethics (April): 220– 22.Google Scholar
Schiller Friedrich. 1966. On Naive and Sentimental Poetry. Trans Julius A. Elias. New York: F. Ungar.
Strauss Leo. 1941. “Persecution and the Art of Writing,” Social Research 8 (November): 488– 504.Google Scholar
Strauss Leo. 1945. “Farabi's Plato,” in Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume. New York: American Academy for Jewish Research.
Strauss Leo. 1946. “On a New Interpretation of Plato's Political Philosophy,” Social Research 13 (September): 326– 67.Google Scholar
Strauss Leo. 1952a. Persecution and the Art of Writing. Glencoe, Illinois: the Free Press.
Strauss Leo. 1952b. “On Collingwood's Philosophy of History,” The Review of Metaphysics 5 (June): 559– 86.Google Scholar
Strauss Leo. 1952c. The Political Philosophy of Hobbes. Trans. Elsa M. Sinclair. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1953. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1958. Thoughts on Machiavelli. Glencoe Illinois: the Free Press.
Strauss Leo. 1959a. “Political Philosophy and History.” In What is Political Philosophy? New York: The Free Press.
Strauss Leo. 1959b. “Kurt Riezler.” In What is Political Philosophy? New York: The Free Press.
Strauss Leo. 1959c. “On a Forgotten Kind of Writing.” In What is Political Philosophy? New York: The Free Press.
Strauss Leo. 1959d. “What is Political Philosophy?” In What is Political Philosophy? New York: The Free Press.
Strauss Leo. 1959e. “On the Basis of Hobbes's Political Philosophy.” In What is Political Philosophy? New York: The Free Press.
Strauss Leo. 1961. “Relativism.” In Relativism and the Study of Man, ed. Helmut Schoeck and J. W. Wiggins. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.
Strauss Leo. 1964. The City and Man. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Strauss Leo. 1965. Spinoza's Critique of Religion. Trans. E. M. Sinclair. New York: Schocken Books.
Strauss Leo. 1966. Socrates and Aristophanes. New York: Basic Books.
Strauss Leo. 1972. “On the Intention of Rousseau.” In Hobbes and Rousseau, ed. Maurice Cranston and Richard S. Peters. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
Strauss Leo. 1983. “Philosophy as Rigorous Science and Political Philosophy.” In Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1983a. “Correspondence Concerning Modernity: Karl Lowith and Leo Strauss.” The Independent Journal of Philosophy 4: 105– 19.Google Scholar
Strauss Leo. 1987a. “Marsilius of Padua.” In History of Political Philosophy, third edition. ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1987b. “Niccolo Machiavelli.” In History of Political Philosophy, third edition. ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1987c. Philosophy and Law. Trans. Fred Baumann. New York: the Jewish Publication Society.
Strauss Leo. 1989a. “An Introduction to Heideggerian Existentialism.” In The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1989b. “How to Begin to Study Medieval Philosophy.” In The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1989c. “On Classical Political Philosophy.” In The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1989d. “Progress or Return.” In The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1989e. “Three Waves of Modernity.” In An Introduction to Political Philosophy: Ten Essays by Leo Strauss, ed. Hilail Gildin. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Strauss Leo. 1989f. “The Problem of Socrates: Five Lectures.” In The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1989g. “Thucydides: The Meaning of Political History.” In The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism, ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Strauss Leo. 1991. On Tyranny, ed. Gourevitch and Roth. New York: The Free Press.
Strauss Leo. 1993. Faith and Political Philosophy: The Correspondence Between Leo Strauss and Eric Voeglin, 1934–1964. Trans. and ed. Peter Emberley and Barry Cooper. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Strauss Leo. 1997a. “A Giving of Accounts: Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss.” In Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, ed. Kenneth Hart Green. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Strauss Leo. 1997b. “Preface to Hobbes Politische Wissenschaft.” In Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, ed. Kenneth Hart Green. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Strauss Leo. 1997c. “An Unspoken Prologue.” In Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, ed. Kenneth Hart Green. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Tanguay Daniel. 2001. “Natural Right and History in Preparation: Secularization as a Case Study.” Unpublished conference paper.
Toland John. 1720. Clidophorus. London: J. Brotherton and W. Meadows.
Toland John. 1751. Pantheisticon. London: Sam Patterson.
Troeltsch Ernst. 1922. Der Historismus und seine Probleme. Tubingen: C. B. Mohr.
Velkley Richard. 2001. “Natural Right and History as a Response to the Challenge of Martin Heidegger.” Unpublished conference paper.