2/2 To Salomon's "This freedom in asceticism is the last and ultimate opportunity for human self-realization in disintegrating periods" and similar passages in his 1939 Tocqueville piece, Strauss writes: "But what does 'a natural world' mean? I find that you make too great a concession to sociology or romanticism by orienting yourself towards a somewhat healthy period in contrast to our sick period. I am inclined to believe that all periods as periods are sick, which does not mean that one period is not more tolerable than another. For example, Victorian England was more tolerable than post-war Europe. But was it therefore better in every respect? Wasn't the possibility of seeing the actual questions more seriously endangered by the Victorian pseudo-solution than by the uncertainty leading to the borders of barbarism during the 20s and 30s of this 20th century? In short: the natural world to which we must return cannot be any period of the past (or the future); because the human things are necessarily imperfect, always and everywhere. The advantage of the past (a very specific past) over the present consists only in that modern philosophers have taken from us the possibility of understanding the natural world, while certain pre-modern philosophers made a serious and partly even successful attempt to understand the natural world—this world, whose sun shines no less brightly for us than for Homer, as we immediately notice when we renounce philosophical terminology and call things by their names."

On “august lice-catching” Plato's Sophist 227a–b (Benardete translation) “Eleatic Stranger: They certainly have, Theaetetus. But, as a matter of fact, the pursuit of their speeches does not at all care either less or more for the art of bath-sponging than for the drinking-of-drugs, regardless of whether the purification they do benefits us a lot or a little. For this pursuit, for the sake of the acquisition of mind, tries to understand the kinship and the lack of kinship of all arts, and with this in mind honors all of them on an equal basis. It does not believe that in terms of similarity the others are more laughable than the other ones, and it does not hold that the one who shows an art of hunting through the art of generalship is any the more august [σεμνότερον] than the one who does it through the art of lice-killing, but it does hold him to be for the most part more vain.” When considering this passage in class, Christopher Bruell referred to this Churchill story: “In addition to heavy doses of square bashing and target practice, Churchill also demanded improvements in the battalion’s sanitary and catering arrangements. 'We are here to make war – on lice,' he told his officers before launching into a lengthy lecture on the life cycle of the louse and its impact on warfare ancient and modern.” scottishmilitarydisasters.co…

“When I was a student, Bacon had a very bad press, and the verdict of Harvey, that he philosophizes like a Lord Chancellor, was regarded as the last word about Bacon. Then later I began to read Bacon, and for the first time I was absolutely surprised how wrong this view which I had imbued in school was in the face of this enormous fertility and genius, imagination, which Bacon manifestly shows when you begin to read him” (Strauss, Grotius seminar, autumn 1964, Chicago)

Kirk Emmert (under Strauss' supervision) on Churchill “Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations – all take their seat at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always remember, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance” (A Roving Commission, 1930)

Seth Benardete on Odysseus' tears. Demodocus' 1st song (8.74ff.): quarrel of Odysseus & Achilles. O. covers his head, 8.83–92; "for he was ashamed of weeping before the Phaeacians" (8.86). "but we do not know why O. weeps" yet: "O's tears, then, would be at the sheer waste of his life"; "the conflict itself was drained of its justice"; "to have been nothing else than to be the subject of song"; "The Phaeacians are the sole beneficiaries of ten years of fighting" "He is famous no doubt; but the price is higher than he could have expected"; "It is as if his momentary wish in the face of the storm to have died for nothing had been the truth of the war" 2nd song (8.266–366): Ares & Aphrodite. No tears from O. D's 3rd song (8.499ff.), requested by O. (8.493–95): the wooden horse. "O. shed piteous tears" (8.523–31). "H. goes out of his way not to tell us the reason for O. tears"; "He replaces the reason or reasons with a simile" Yet: "The hollowness of past and future right, when they are measured against all he has lost, makes him experience the equivalent of Andromache's fate" "O's tears, then, could equally be for his vindication of Menelaus' legal right and rejection of Paris's 'natural' claim to Helen" "He has beaten everything and everyone, but for what?"; "resounding 'No!'" / "Yes!" (to Troy's destruction) Re: both songs 1 & 3: "why did O. weep at D's two songs" = "why did O. choose mortality" = "What was the good he found in the bad?"

The authentic title is "Studies in (—on?) Platonic political philosophy"

Today in Aristotle's Rhetoric: 1964 - "In interesting matters the solutions are never so elegant."

James Redfield: "Hannah Arendt was so much a temperament that I think she did not establish a set of methods for others to use and this sort of thing. And I mean in this I would contrast her to McKeon, a figure with whom I myself was much less sympathetic. McKeon sort of had a way of doing things, and you split everything up in three parts, or later on it was in four parts, but anyway there was always a certain set of parts, and you learn to do that, and so you can recognize these people by the way they do things. Whereas the Arendt people are recognizable more by almost a certain sort of tone of voice, certain favorite books — you know, that if they're talking about Billy Budd and Isak Dinesen, you might want to think maybe this is an Arendt person. That combination is somehow diacritical. She's not a systematic person, although there was a strand of system in her. She once said to me, 'Basically I'm a Prussian,' which was a sort of funny thing to say" (from an unpublished interview)

In Kant Seminar today in 1967 - "Rousseau surely has much more in common with the earlier way of writing than Kant does… The other men of the first rank of whom we think in modern times, none of them was a university professor. Kant was the first… Descartes is not thinkable as a professor… Locke almost became one, but then he ran away before it was too late."

Today in 1968: Aristotle's Ethics - "There is one and only one highest good, which Aristotle calls happiness, and the core of it is virtue… happiness, although its core is virtue, is of a higher rank than virtue. Happiness is something worthy of reverence, whereas virtue is something worthy of praise."

Today in 1963: Aristotle's Ethics - "In the polis friendship is superior to justice. If you have justice you need still friendship in addition, but if you have friendship you do not need justice. So friendship is more encompassing than justice."

Kojève: ...Je considère donc qu’il est de mon devoir de mentionner ici même le nom de ce philosophe de génie [Heidegger], qui a d’ailleurs philosophiquement mal tourné, peut-être précisément à cause d’un malencontreux désir de « dépasser » Hegel en « revenant à »… Platon d’abord (via Husserl), à Aristote ensuite, puis à… Hölderlin et finalement à Parménide, voire à Héraclite, ou à qui sais-je encore. Ayant mentionné l’influence de l’ex-Heidegger, je dois signaler également celle de mes amis Jacob Klein et Leo Strauss (respectivement russe et allemand d’origine et actuellement américains). Sans eux je n’aurais su ce qu’est le Platonisme. Or, sans le savoir, on ne sait pas ce qu’est la philosophie