The Philosopher and the City
Leo Strauss and the Limits of Theoretical Rationality
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1984-6746.2025.1.47115Keywords:
Leo Strauss, esoteric and exoteric, writing and speech, philosophical way of life.Abstract
In this paper, I analyze the rediscovery of the distinction between the esoteric and exoteric form of writing and speech made by Leo Strauss, a peculiar technique that pre-modern philosophers would have developed to expose their ideas in periods of persecution, when the choice of words were a matter of life and death. According to Strauss, the practice of exoteric writing protects not only the philosopher, but the city itself from the transgressive content characteristic of the radical questioning of philosophy. In addition, this kind of writing and speech has a pedagogical character, as it enables the rise of the young philosopher. Realized that this practice is a liberating power of all morality, it requires a kind of temperament that is not found in all individuals, therefore, ensuring that certain things are only said just “between the lines” is to respect the plurality of the different ways of life. I conclude that the resumption of the distinction between the esoteric and the exoteric proposed by Strauss, far from being an obscurantist tendency, intends to safeguard the philosophical way of life and the existence of new philosophers.
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