Philosophy and Politics: the Problem of Action and Thought after the French Revolution (TS A)	Philosophy and Politics: the Problem of Action and Thought after the French Revolution (TS B)
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Philosophy and Politics	Philosophy and Politics
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The Problem of Action and Thought after the French Revolu-tion	The Problem of Action and Thought after the French Revolu-tion
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I	I
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When Tocqueville 120 years ago visited the United States, he did not come out of curiosity for a strange and foreign country. He was convinced that he would see in the New World whatever was in store for the old and could learn here the inherent meaning of the most recent events in the old history of Western civilization. The American and French Revolutions, related to each other in many ways and separated only by a few years, had opened, according to Tocqueville a new and unprecedeted chapter in history. This history, as he rightly foresaw, was most likely to run its full course first in America, while Europe, though set on essentially the same course, was following more slowly and less consistently because of the many remainders of the past. In America, and not in Europe, the full implications of the modern age, which had begun with the discoveries of the 16th century and the rise of the natural sciences to an all-powerful position in the hierarchy of human knowledge in the 17th , were likely to reveal themselves in much greater purity. The building of a modern world had here already begun when the old continent was still, for almost another century, struggling in a chaos of conflicting trends and developments. Seen from the viewpoint of modernity, America is the oldest and not the youngest country of the world. Tocqueville, at any rate, came to America in order to learn the lessons of the French Revolution . What he saw and what he learnt, he epitomized in two remarks which, though they occur at very different places of his work on America, must be read together: His first conclusion is that “A new science of politics is needed for a new world;”I, 7 and this sentence occurring in the first pages reads, as though this had been his original purpose . The second statement, coming nearly at the end of the same work, tells us what happened in the process: “As the past has ceased to throw its light upon II, 331the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.” No new science of politics, so it seems now, will be possible precisely because of the extreme newness of the present that is no longer illuminated by the past.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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Tocqueville wrote at the beginning of the rise of the modern world and before the industrial revolution had changed this world even externally beyond recognition. His insights which in [metamark (text connection)]120 years have lost nothing of their truth, though they are better documented and carry a greater urgency with them, were gained only from a strictly political experience, from observations of the new living-together of men, without much awareness of the gigantic economic and technical changes under whose immediate impression Marx was to conceive his theories. What Tocqueville actually meant was that the French and American Revolutions, the foundation of Republics and the spread of equality of condition, i.e. the rise of a classless society, demanded a new science of politics; by this, he rejected implicitly the theory, so dear to historians and liberals of his own time, that the foundation of modern republics was nothing but a liberation from feudal servitude and essentially a revival of Roman antiquity. If that had been true, then at least the French Revolution, enacted, as Marx |2 pointed out, in Roman clothes and saturated with Roman rhetoric would have produced another Cicero. Tocqu. could not accept this view because he was too much aware of the one decisive difference, namely that all ancient body politics had rested on slavery and that absolute equality of condition was as unknown in antiquity as in any other period of history.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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One1 needed not to3 understand the full implications of the industrial[metamark (text connection)] Revolution--and this perhaps only we are now slowly coming into a position to do--in order to realize that much more was involved than5 social justice; to grant equality to laborers meant implicitly to to put labor as a human activity on a footing of equality with all other activities. It meant even more. Insofar as democracy,6 understood as majority rule,7 was the only form of government which was consistent with equality, and since necessarily the majority would be laborers, it meant the eventual victory of laboring activity over all others8. Marx understood this side of the modern condition much more clearly than Tocqueville9 and he even went so far as to see the distinction between man and animal in the fact that man’s metabolism with nature is labor, as opposed to the traditional distinction between reasoning and non-reasoning creatures. If Marx had been consistent with his own theory, which ultimately rests on this definition of man as an animal laborans, he might have elaborated that new science of politics which Tocqueville demanded for the new world, and put the “productive force” of labor into that key position which reason had held throughout our tradition. He had very good reasons not to do this,10 but to insist, instead and in agreement with the whole classical tradition, that “the realm of freedom begins only where the realm of labor ends”, that11 only the eventual emancipation from labor will guarantee human freedom and dignity. Marx’s unsurpassed12 influence in the [metamark (text connection)]modern world, in all parts of the globe where the industrial revolution and equality of condition have taken roots, is due to the fact that he was the first to put the “figure of the worker” (to use Ernst Jünger’s term) on the map. Yet, even14 he did15 not become16 the father of a new science of politics, but developed out of Hegel’s philosophy a new science of history. He became in his own eyes and in the eyes of his followers, the |3 “Darwin of History”, the man who had discovered the law of historical development as Darwin supposedly had discovered the law of biological development. And insofar as he saw this law operating in social life and its productive conditions, independent ultimately of forms of government as well as of political action, he became the father of the social sciences which, only 100 years after he started to write, have almost completely eclipsed the political and the historical sciences. In order to judge this eclipse correctly, it may be well to remember that at its origin stood Tocqueville’s insight that the mind of man has begun to wander in obscurity and Marx’s unwillingness to follow up and come to terms with his own central discoveries.	When Tocqueville 120 years ago visited the United States, he did not come out of curiosity for a strange and foreign country, but because he was convinced that he would see in the New World whatever was in store for the old and could learn the inherent meaning of the most recent events in the old history of Western civilization. What he saw and what he learnt, he epitomized in two remarks which, though they occur at very different places of his work on America, must be read together: His first conclusion is that “A new science of politics is1 needed for a new world,”I, 7 and this sentence stands almost at the beginning of the whole work, as though this had been the secret prupose with which he embarked upon the great enterprise. The second statement, coming nearly at the end of the same work, reads like the sad reply to it: “As the past has ceased to throw its light upon II, 331the future, the mind of man wanders in obscurity.” No new science of politics, so it seems now, will be possible precisely because of the extreme newness of the present that is no longer illuminate by the past. Tocqueville wrote at the beginning of the rise of the modern world and before the industrial revolution had changed this world even externally beyond recognition. His insights which in 120 years have lost nothing of their truth, though they are better documented and carry a greater urgency with them, were gained only from a strictly political experience, that is from observations in to the living-together of men, without any real comprehension of the gigantic economic and technical changes under whose immediate impression Marx was to conceive his theories. What Tocqueville actually meant was that the French and American Revolutions, the foundation of Republics and the spread of equality of condition, i.e. the rise of a classless society, demanded a new science of politics; by this, he rejected implicitly the theory, so dear to historians and liberals of his own time, that the foundation of modern republics was nothing but a liberation from feudal servitude and essentially a revival of Roman antiquity. If that had been true, then at least the French Revolution, enacted, as Marx |2 pointed out, in Roman clothes and saturated with Roman rhetoric surely would have produced another Cicero. In any case, he could2 not have accepted this view because he was too much aware of one decisive difference, namely that all ancient body politics had rested on slavery and that absolute equality of condition was as unknown in antiquity as in any other known period of history. One needed not3 understand the full implications of the industrial Revolution -- and this perhaps only we are now slowly coming into a position to do -- in order to realize that what was involved was4 much more than questions of5 social justice; to grant equality to laborers meant implicitly to to put labor as a human activity on a footing of equality with all other activities. It meant even more. Insofar as democracy understood as majority rule was the only form of government which was consistent with equality, and since necessarily the majority would be laborers, it meant the eventual victory of laboring activity over all other human activities8. Marx understood this side of the modern condition much more clearly and he even went so far as to see the distinction between man and animal in the fact that man’s metabolism with nature is labor, as opposed to the traditional distinction between reasoning and non-reasoning creatures. If Marx had been consistent with his own theory, which ultimately rests on this definition of man as an animal laborans, he might have elaborated that new science of politics which Tocqueville demanded for the new world, and put the “productive force” of labor into that key position which reason had held throughout our tradition. He had very good reasons not to do this but to insist, instead and in agreement with the whole classical tradition, that “the realm of freedom begins only where the realm of labor ends” and11 only the eventual emancipation from labor will guarantee human freedom and dignity. Marx’s actual12 influence in the modern world, that is13 in all parts of the globe where the industrial revolution and equality of condition have taken roots, is due to the fact that he was the first to put the “figure of the worker” (to use Ernst Jünger’s term) on the map. But theoretically,14 he was15 not the father of a new science of politics, but developed out of Hegel’s philosophy a new science of history. He became in his own eyes and in the eyes of his followers, the |3 “Darwin of History”, the man who had discovered the law of historical development as Darwin supposedly had discovered the law of biological development. And insofar as he saw this law operating in social life and its productive conditions, independent ultimately of forms of government as well as of political action, he became the father of the social sciences which, only 100 years after he started to write, have almost completely eclipsed the political and the historical sciences. In order to judge this eclipse correctly, it may be well to remember that at its origin stood Tocqueville’s insight that the mind of man has begun to wander in obscurity and Marx’s unwillingness to follow up and come to terms with his own central discoveries.
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That the new science of history, which of course is not the same as1 historical sciences2, should have developed out of Hegel’s philosophy need not be surprising. All sciences, as we know them in the Occident, are children of philosophy. And even that this new child became a science of history rather than of politics is in keeping with the tradition. For3 reasons which we shall explore later,4 the science of politics has always been a kind of stepchild, the only one upon which the mother did not look with any particular joy. The origin of political philosophy is different from that of all other “branches” of philosophy. Physics and metaphysics, (or philisophy of nature and ontology), logics and ethics, they all are connected and remain inspired by one original wonder before and gratitude for the miracles of man and earth and the universe. Political philosophy is the only branch of philosophy which began with a profound conflict between the philosopher and the particular realm with which he was concerned, the field of human affairs, ta tôn anthrôpôn pragmata in Plato’s phrase, the things that concern men insofar as they live together or, to use Arist’s definition, the things whose ἀρχή, whose beginning & cause is Man5. In all other fields of human knowledge and inquiring6 , the philosopher knew himself to be the spokesman7 of and possibly the pacemaker8 for all humanity. In this one field, on the contrary, he came to know himself as different and antagonistic to all others. The point is not that philosophy is only “for the few” and remains a mystery for the “multitude”, for this it shares with all sciences, and not that scientific as well as philosophical inquiry requires a certain isolation from other men and the routine of daily life, for this it shares even with craftsmanship and art,10 but that philosophy since Plato required an explicit and permanent11 turning-away from the multitude and the12 world of |4 common human affairs, and that this world, if it is not “ruled” by philosophy or, what amounts to the same, by philosophical standards will be antagonistic and detrimental to the philosopher himself. Hegel echoes Plato when he calls philosophy a world13 “standing on its head” for common sense or when he states that “philosophy14 is an isolated temple and its servants constitute an isolated caste15 of priests, who must not go together with the world and ought to guard the possession of truth.”Philos. d. Religion. Bln 1840, vol. 22, 355-6 And he goes on to say that the problem of how16 the empirical philosopher is17 to overcome the conflict between himself as a man and as a philosopher, must be left to circumstances and18 is of no interest to20 philosophy. Political philosophy therefore21 treats precisely of that what, not only according to Hegel but actually according to almost all post-Socratic philosophy, is of no immediate interest to22 philosophy. That it could be of great interest to23 the philosopher has been quite clear since the death of Socrates, and all philosophers were aware of it24. To see politics in terms of history meant that even the events in the realm of human affairs could be traced to a higher cause than Man. Not men act , but the Absolute through them: Philosophy could become reconciled to political reality only under the condition that it is not, but only seems to be the realm of the τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πράγματα, the realm of human actions and sufferings.25	That the new science of history, which of course has little to do with1 historical science2, should have developed out of Hegel’s philosophy need not be surprising. All sciences, as we know them in the Occident, are children of philosophy, and among them -- for3 reasons which we shall explore later --4 the science of politics has always been a kind of stepchild, the only one upon which the mother did not look with any particular joy. The origin of political philosophy is different from that of all other “branches” of philosophy. Physics and metaphysics, (or philisophy of nature and ontology), logics and ethics, they all are connected and remain inspired by one original wonder before and gratitude for the miracles of man and earth and the universe. Political philosophy is the only branch of philosophy which began with a profound conflict between the philosopher and the particular realm with which he was concerned, the field of human affairs, ta tôn anthrôpôn pragmata in Plato’s phrase, the things that concern men insofar as they live together. In all other fields of human knowledge and questioning6, the philosopher knew himself to be a kind7 of spokesman8 for all humanity. In this one field, on the contrary, he came to know himself as different and antagonistic to all others. The point is not that philosophy, as indeed most sciences,9 is only “for the few” and remains a mystery for the “multitude”, but that philosophy since Plato seemed possible |4 only through an explicit11 turning-away from the world of common human affairs, and that this world, if it is not “ruled” by philosophy or, what amounts to the same, by philosophical standards will be antagonistic and detrimental to the philosopher himself. Philosophy, according to Hegel,13 “is an isolated temple and its servants constitute an isolated estate15 of priests, who must not go together with the world and ought to guard the possession of truth.”Philos. d. Religion. Bln 1840, vol. 22,355-6 And he goes on to say that the problem of the empirical philosopher of how17 to overcome the conflict between himself as a man and as a philosopher, must be left to circumstances; it18 is of no immediate19 interest for20 philosophy. Political philosophy treats precisely of that what, not only according to Hegel but actually according to almost all post-Socratic philosophy, is of no immediate interest for22 philosophy. That it could be of great interest for23 the philosopher has been quite clear ever after Socrates’ death24.
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The most obvious, though perhaps not the deepest reason for this antagonism between philosophy and politics in the widest sense, as concerning specifically human affairs, has always been the temporality, instability and relativity of the human world as opposed to the stability, permanence and finality of things eternal1. It would be wrong, said Plato, to take human affairs altogether seriously (spoudadzein), and Aristoteles adds that such exaggerated seriousness would preEth. Nic. 1141a20suppose that man is the best there is (the ariston) in the universe. This2, according to Greek philosophy, is absurd ib.(atopos), even when3 it is admitted that man is the highest living 11414blff.being. That the misery of the human condition resides in man’s mortality, and that this mortality is so essential a trait of human existence that the words for “men” (anthrôpoi) and “mortals” (Thnétoi) can be used interchangeably, is as axiomatic not only for Greek philosophy but for the whole of Greek culture, as that the specifically human possibility for greatness consists in “immortalizing” oneself (athanatidzein in 1177b27 ff.Aristoteles’ terms). It is this self-immortalization which |5 inspired Achilles to prefer a short life and immortal fame to a full human life; it is the task of the poets to prevent oblivion of what is worthy of eternal remembrance, as it is later with Herodotos the deepest motive for historiography to record the “great and wonderous5 works and deeds”, done by Greeks and Barbarians lest they sink into oblivion and remain without Histoiriae Introduct.that fame which is the only way in which mortals can become immortal. The origin of the polis itself--and its7 birth coincides in word and content with the birth of politics as we understand it--8is ascribed by Pericles to the desire of men to secure for themselves a safe place for remembrance10 , so that they would become inThuk. II, 41dependent of the poets “whose verses might charm for the moment only”. Life in and by itself can therefore never become an absolute and exaggerated love of life (philopsychia) was held to be characteristic of slaves only. To be a slave meant ultimately to lack a place and an opportunity to prove himself worthy of immortal memory; to remain alive under such conditions, proved that one had a slave-like soul. (Plato therefore, in all seriousness, justifies slavery, the degradation of man by man, by arguing that the slave could have committed suicide and by not doing so had proved that he indeed was a slave by nature.) If these were the worst who loved that mortal and perishable thing: life, over all others, the best, the aristoi, were those12, in the words of Heracli tos who “chose One thing before all others, immortal fame before all mortal things.”B29 And Aristotle13 still sees the essential characteristic of an aristocracy not in the rule of a native nobility (which rule he considers as one of the possible forms of oligarchy,Eth.Nic a perversion of aristocracy), but in the rule by those who have distinguished themselves according to these standards.	The most obvious, though perhaps not the deepest reason for this antagonism between philosophy and politics in the widest sense, as concerning specifically human affairs, has always been the temporality, instability and relativity of the human world as opposed to the stability, permanence and finality of the strictly philosophical topics1. It would be wrong, said Plato, to take human affairs altogether seriously (spoudadzein), and Aristoteles adds that such exaggerated seriousness would preEth. Nic. 1141a20suppose that man is the best there is (the ariston) in the universe. And this2, according to Greek philosophy, is absurd ib.(atopos), although3 it is admitted that man is the highest living 1414blff.being. That the misery of the human condition resides in man’s mortality, and that this mortality is so essential a trait of human existence that the words for “men” (anthrôpoi) and “mortals” (Thnétoi) can be used interchangeably, is as axiomatic not only for Greek philosophy but for the whole of Greek culture, as that the specifically human possibility for greatness consists in “immortalizing” oneself (athanatidzein in 1177b27 ff.Aristoteles’ terms). It is this self-immortalization which |5 inspired Achilles to prefer a short life and immortal fame to a full human life; it is the task of the poets to prevent oblivion of what is worthy of eternal remembrance, as it is later with Herodotos the deepest motive for historiography to record the “great and woderous5 works and deeds”, done by Greeks and Barbarians lest they sink into oblivion and remain without Histoiriae,6 Introduct.that fame which is the only way in which mortals can become immortal. More than that even, the7 birth of the Polis (as distinguished from other forms of human living-together)8 is ascribed by Pericles to the desire of men to secure for themselves a safe place of remembrance9 for everything great10, so that they would become inThuk. II, 41dependent of the poets “whose verses might charm for the moment only”. Life in and by itself can therefore never become an absolute and exaggerated love of life (philopsychia) was held to be characteristic of slaves only. To be a slave meant ultimately to lack a place and an opportunity to prove himself worthy of immortal memory; to remain alive under such conditions, proved that one had a slave-like soul. (Plato therefore, in all seriousness, cf.11justifies slavery, the degradation of man by man, by arguing that the slave could have committed suicide and by not doing so had proved that he indeed was a slave by nature.) If these were the worst who loved that mortal and perishable thing: life, over all others, the best, the aristoi, were these12, in the words of Heraclitos who “chose One thing before all others, immortal fame before all mortal things.”B29 And Aristoteles13 still sees the essential characteristic of an aristocracy not in the rule of a native nobility (which rule he considers as one of the possible forms of oligarchy,Eth. Nic a perversion of aristocracy), but in the rule by those who have distinguished themselves according to these standards.
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To this life in the polis1, the political life2, which had seemed the highest human life possible, the philsophers opposed their philosophical life, the βίος θεωρητικός. Philosopizing-- φιλοσοφείν--from the beginning was the alternative and in competition with πολιτεύεσθαι, politicize. Yet, the originally political ideal of immortalizing oneself was not lost. Philosophizing,3 to Plato as well as to4 Aristotle was the best and highest way of athanatidzein, immortalizing oneself, namely6 by concerning oneself with immortal, ever-lasting things only. If Plato and Aristotle could prove that this concern, which they call ed philosophy, was the best, perhaps the only way for mortals (not to win immortal life!), but to immortalize themselves7, then according to Greek standards they had demonstrated the absolute superiority of the bios theôrétikos, a life devoted to contemplation |6 . The point was of course that for them this immortality was no longer identical with immortal fame, and therefore independent, of the polis8, of the human community. They needed the polis no longer for immortality but only insofar as they, too, were mortal, had mortal--bodily needs.9	Philosophizing1, then2, to Plato as well as Aristotle was one,5 the best and highest way of athanatidzein, immortalizing oneself by concerning oneself with immortal, ever-lasting things only. If Plato and Aristotle could prove that this concern, which they called philosophy, was the best, perhaps the only way for mortals (not to win immortal life!), but to immortalize themeselves7, then according to Greek standards they had demonstrated the absolute superiority of the bios theôrétikos, a life devoted to contemplation |6 . The point was of course that for them this immortality was no longer identical with immortal fame, and therefore independent, to a degree unheard of before8, of the human community.
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The most important consequence of this development was that radical separation of thought and action which from then on runs like a red thread throughout the whole history of political philosophy. Not that these two had been thought to be identical before, but in an not altogether articulate way they had been so intimitately intertwined that one cannot very well speak of a separation and could never have based1 on this distinction2 two altogether different ways of life--the bios theôrétikos and the bios politikos, or the vita contemplativa and the vita activa. Thought and action were grounded in3 the same human faculty which to the Greeks remained the highest faculty of man4, the faculty of speech. ad 6Thought did not merely precede and guide5 action and speech did not merely eventually explain and justify action6,[metamark (text connection)]--all this are later interpretations which do not do justice to the pre-philosophical Greek past7 and therefore are inadequate to explain the Greek understanding8 of politics, of life9 in the polis, which is taken for granted by both Plato and Aristotle10. To be aware that through action I can disclose thought and11 that through thinking I can act, because both move in12 the essentially human medium13 of speech14, meant to be aware15 of being human in an articulate, specific sense16. Action without speech was violence; since it could not disclose17 its meaning in words18, it remained senseless and meaningless. Thought on the other hand was so closely connected with speech that one single word19, logos was used for both: “word” and “thought or argument20.”21 Achilles was “the speaker of great words and the doer of great deeds” and these two were only aspects of the same fundamentally human way of [metamark (text connection)]greatness. Action therefore, in and by itself, disclosed some truth, and only for Plato became it true that it lies in the nature of praxis to adhere less to truth than lexis, speech. Nor were the Greeks, or at least the Athenians, unaware of the fact that this attitude distinguished them from other nations. Pericles counted it under the things Athenians could be justly proud of that they did not think that words (logoi) could harm II, 40works (erga) but rather that whatever the work achieves is first real in the word. And when Aristotle gave his twofold definition of man as a dzôn politikon and a dzôon logon echon, he meant to distinguish free22 men as the Greeks knew them from the barbarians on one hand and the slaves on the other, that is, he gave not so much a definition according to his own philosophy [metamark (text connection)] for his own definition he used naturally the key word of his Whole philosophy, the word nous; the most adequate life for man is kata ton noun, according to the spirit, for nous, spirit, is malista anthrôpos, most human,[metamark ]] as that he summarized and explained what Greeks in general thought man to be--a being that can be free only if he lives in a polis and 1178a6 |7 manages his affairs with his fellow-men in the manner of speech, through persuasion and not through mute violence. In this, as in most other respects, Aristotle echoes here the geneal27 opinion of [metamark (text connection)]Greek polis life28 much more faithfully than Plato; (nowhere is his opposition to Plato more tangible and more decisive than when he proposes, in his political philosophy, to demonstrate1145b4 (the relative truth) of all opinions (deiknynai panta ta endoxa) and quotes with approbation that “no saying is alto- 1153b26gether wrong which many people” hold true. For Plato, on the contrary, the very task of the philosopher consists in getting away from these endoxa and this phémé, not to explain and demonstrate them.)	The most important consequence of this development was that radical separation of thought and action which from then on runs like a red thread throughout the whole history of political philosophy. Not that these two had been thought to be identical before, but in an not altogether articulate way they had been so intimitately intertwined that one cannot very well speak of a separation and could not base1 on it2 two altogether different ways of life -- the bios theôrétikos and the bios politikos, or the [metamark /]vita contemplativa and the vita activa. Thought, on3 the contrary4, had been a kind of5 action, and the meaningful of action had been8 of course seen9 in the fact that it somehow discloses thought10. Both were grounded in11 that human faculty which to the Greeks remained12 the highest faculty13 of man14, the faculty15 of speech16. Action without speech was meaningless, just as all thought found17 its, as it were active manifestation19, in speech20. Achilles was “the speaker of great words and the doer of great deeds” and these two were only aspects of the same fundamentally human way of greatness. Action therefore, in and by itself, disclosed some truth, and only for Plato became it true that it lies in the nature of praxis to adhere less to truth than lexis, speech. Nor were the Greeks, or at least the Athenians, unaware of the fact that this attitude distinguished them from other nations. Pericles counted it under the things Athenians could be justly proud of that they did not think that words (logoi) could harm II, 40works (erga) but rather that whatever the work achieves is first real in the word. And when Aristotle gave his twofold definition of man as a dzôn politikon and a dzôon logon echon, he meant to distinguish men as the Greeks knew them from the barbarians on one hand and the slaves on the other, that is, he gave not so much a definition according to his own philosophy [23for his own definition he used naturally the key word of his for his own definition he used naturally the key word of his24 Whole philosophy, the word nous; the most adequate life for man is kata ton noun, according to the spirit, for nous, spirit, is malista anthrôpos, most human]25, as that he summarized and explained what Greeks in general thought man to be--a being that can be free only if he lives in a polis and that can be free only if he lives in a polis and26 1178a6 |7 manages his affairs with his fellow-men in the manner of speech, through persuasion and not through mute violence. In this, as in most other respects, Aristotle echoes here the general27 opinion of Greek polis much more faithfully than Plato; (nowhere is his opposition to Plato more tangible and more decisive than when he proposes, in his political philosophy, to demonstrate1145b4 (the relative truth) of all opinions (deiknynai panta ta endoxa) and quotes with approbation that “no saying is alto- 1153b26gether wrong which many people” hold true. For Plato, on the contrary, the very task of the philosopher consists in getting away from these endoxa and this phémé, not to explain and demonstrate them.)
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[metamark (text connection)]	[metamark (text connection)]
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It is in the same vain of following Greek popular opinion and opposing Plato’s political philosophy, that Aristotle defines the man of action, the politikos, as a phronimos, an understanding man, as opposed to the sophos, the wise man, whom Plato had wanted to rule the city1. The phronimos understands2 1140b9“3what is good for himself and what is good for men in general. ” In his definition already, Aristotle limited4 the competence of the phronimos in particular and of the political life in general. He5 wanted to show the limitations of action by limiting it to what is merely good for people. If we want to know, independent of philosophical interpretation and the philosophical separation of action from thought, the current Greek6 opinion of the human capacity of phronein, of understanding and this on its highest level, we may do well to remember the last lines with which Sophocles concludes7 the intensely political play of the Antigoné8, and which, curiously enough, contain some of the key words which later were to play such an important role in Aristotle’s political philosophy; such as10 eudaimonia, the awareness of having a good life, phronein, the understanding of it, and11 logoi,12 a way of life in general rather than the mere physical faculty of being able to talk, as logos also is meant14 in Aristotle’s definition of man as logon echôn, as being able to live in the manner of speech. Pollô to phronein eudaimonias/ prôton hyparchei; ... megaloi de logoi/ megalas plégas tôn hyperauchôn/ apoteisantes/ géra to phronein edidaxan. Understanding is by far the first thing15 inherent and necessary for a blessed life; ... and16 great words, if they responded to17 and paid back18 the great blows dealt by the divine19 powers, will have taught under- standing20 (insight) when we are old21.”22 Here, action and thought are almost one and the same, summed up as it were and bound together in the great words with which man meets his destiny and asserts24 himself in his essentially human condition. This he can do only if he lives together with others in the way of a polis, if he lives a political life in the original sense of the word; only thus can he be heard and make his words the permanent witness of otherwise changing circumstances and passing events. To find the right words, to be equal in greatness in words to the greatness of whatever may happen teaches insight and understanding; this insight is finally |9 eudaimonia, blessedness or happiness (or whatever other word we may try to translate the untranslatable), because it is the state in which the meaningfulness of the human condition as a whole is present and noticed by25 one particular human being. All this belonged for the Greeks to the life in the polis in general and expressed their particular political way26 of life. The reality of action and of thought were27 the words in which they uttered themselves and were heard by others. There was therefore no contradiction or opposition between the reality of action and the spirituality of thought, for both remained without reality as long as they remained without words. Not real and, by the28 same token, not political was only speechlessness-- mute violence29, mute suffering30, and the inarticulateness, not of passion, but of blind desire. Non-real was that what could not make itself permanently at home31 in the world of men32, in33 the polis which could not strike out with such force into34 the world35 of audible and visible appearance36 that it would be reasonably sure not to be forgotten. The same fundamental attitude to speech is expressed in a nonpoetical way in the words which the sophist Gorgias is supposed to have taught his followers37 and which Plato quotes as follows38: Gorgias,39 Pasa hé praxis kai hé kyrôsis dia logôn esti: all action and sovereignty exists through words. Only through words can human action acquire its dignity; or rather only in sofar action is not aneu logou, without word, has it meaning. And meaningfulness of the whole human condition in its entirety and in all its aspects is guaranteed beyond doubt wherever it speaks and is being heard by others. The sovereignty of men began where this possible meaningfulness of human life, which physei, by nature, belonged to the human condition, had found its corresponding body politic, which was the polis, because here speaking had become [metamark (text connection)]a daily way of life, (the politeuesthai and agoreuesthai, the politicizing and constant talking on the market place were indeed the concrete content of everyday life of a Greek citizen). (The apparent contradiction in Aristotle’s definition of man as a dzôon politikon and logon echôn, that it on one hand meant the distinction between Greeks and other nations, between free men40 and slaves, and therefore--like all political notions according to A.-- could not be physei, by nature, but nomô, by man-made institution, while, on the other he insists that man is by nature “political, is solved if we remember that the faculty of speech for A. was on one hand something belonging to the nature of man insofar as he iscf. distinguished from animal, and on the other, belonging to the Greeks in a polis insofar as only they have succeeded41 to eliminate brutishness altogether. Under no circumstances can this contradiction42 be solved by the current modern interpretation according to which men are by nature sociable and like to live together or have to, as other animals with herd instincts. One should not forget that the word “political” has only for us, but not43 to Greek ears, an altogether generalized meaning; To Aristotle, it was the adjective of the noun polis, a special form of government, or rather of living together, different, for instance, from kingship or |10 [metamark (text connection)]basileia, which was an earlier Greek way of living together, or from despotism, which was the form of government of Asian empires. To be a dzôon politikon meant to lead a truly human life in the polis, as the highest possible way of life, and to be a “political being” by nature meant to have the natural faculty of speech, which however led to true human sovereignty only in the polis.)	It is in the same vain of following Greek popular opinion and opposing Plato’s political philosophy, that Aristotle defines the man of action, the politikos, as a phronimos, an understanding man, as opposed to the sophos, the wise man. The phronimos is understand2 1140b9”3what is good for himself and what is good for men in general This definition is already typical of Aristotle’s philosophy who wanted to limit4 the competence of the phronimos in particular and of the political life in general. In other words, he5 wanted to show the limitations of action by limiting it to what is merely good for people. If we want to know, independent of philosophical interpretation and the philosophical separation of action from thought, the Greek current6 opinion of the human capacity of phronein, of understanding and this on its highest level, we may do well to remember the last lines with which Sophocles concluded7 the intensely political play of the Anitogoné8, and in9 which, curiously enough, contain some of the key words which later were to play such an important role in Aristotle’s political philosophy, especially10 eudaimonia, the awareness of having a good life, phronein, the understanding of it, logoi as12 a way of life in general rather than as13 the mere physical faculty of being able to talk, as it then occurs14 in Aristotle’s definition of man as logon echôn, as being able to live in the manner of speech. Pollô to phronein eudaimonias/ prôton hyparchei; ... megaloi de logoi/ megalas plégas tôn hyperauchôn/ apoteisantes/ géra to phronein edidaxan. Understanding is by far and above all15 inherent and necessary for a blessed life; ... but16 great words with which we pay back17 and respond to18 the great blows dealt by the higher19 powers teach when we are old understanding20 (insight). Here, action and thought are almost one and the same, summed up as it were and bound together in the great words with which man meets his destiny on earth23 and assert24 himself in his essentially human condition. This he can do only if he lives together with others in the way of a polis, if he lives a political life in the original sense of the word; only thus can he be heard and make his words the permanent witness of otherwise changing circumstances and passing events. To find the right words, to be equal in greatness in words to the greatness of whatever may happen teaches insight and understanding; this insight is finally |9 eudaimonia, blessedness or happiness (or whatever other word we may try to translate the untranslatable), because it is the state in which the meaningfulness of the human condition as a whole is revealed at every single moment to25 one particular human being. But if we prefer a non-poetical expression26 of the same fundamental Gorgias29, attitude30, we may simply go back to Plato who,31 in the Gorgias32, quotes33 the current opinion on34 the role35 of “words” as36 that what makes both, thought an action, meaningful37 and permanent38: Pasa hépraxis kai hé kyrôsis dia logôn esti: all action and sovereignty exists through words. Only through words can human action acquire its dignity; or rather only insofar action is not aneu logou, without word, has it meaning. And meaningfulness of the whole human condition in its entirety and in all its aspects is guaranteed beyond doubt wherever it speaks and is being heard by others. The sovereignty of men began where this possible meaningfulness of human life, which physei, by nature, belonged to the human condition, had found its corresponding body politic, which was the polis, because here speaking had become a daily way of life, (the politeuesthai and agoreuesthai, the politicizing and constant talking on the market place were indeed the concrete content of everyday life of a Greek citizen). (The apparent contradiction in Aristotle’s definition of man as a dzôon politikon and logon echôn, that it on one hand meant the distinction between Greeks and other nations, between free man40 and slaves, and therefore -- like all political notions according to A. -- could not be physei, by nature, but nomô, by man-made institution, while, on the other he insists that man is by nature “political, is solved if we remember that the faculty of speech for A. was on one hand something belonging to the nature of man insofar as he iscf. distinguished from animal, and on the other, belonging to the Greeks in a polis insofar as only they have succedeed41 to eliminate brutishness altogether. Under no circumstances can this conradiction42 be solved by the current modern interpretation according to which men are by nature sociable and like to live together or have to, as other animals with herd instincts. One should not forget that the word “political” has only for us, but to Greek ears, an altogether generalized meaning; To Aristotle, it was the adjective of the noun polis, a special form of government, or rather of living together, different, for instance, from kingship or |10 basileia, which was an earlier Greek way of living together, or from despotism, which was the form of government of Asian empires. To be a dzôon politikon meant to lead a truly human life in the polis, as the highest possible way of life, and to be a “political being” by nature meant to have the natural faculty of speech, which however led to true human sovereignty only in the polis.)
13
One of the reasons for this extraordinary estimate of speech as harboring in itself the whole meaningfulness of human existence was that words seemed to save both, action and thought the perishability of events and the fleeting passing of ideas from oblivion and conserve them for that earthly immortality which according to Greek standards was the highest goal of each individual human life. The moment the philosophers began to conceive of immortality in terms different from immortal fame--be it that they no longer trusted the political community to be equal to the task of remembering that which is great, be it that they discovered in philophy itself some other element of immortality, some theion, divine, which would be self-sufficient and independent of the memory of posterity (and we shall see later that both was the case)--it is obvious that neither action nor speech could retain its former position and that neither of them was held adequate to harbor meaning [metamark (text connection)]or to disclose truth. It is true that once more, in Roman times and history, one single event was assumed to contain in itself the whole meaning of the history of a people--the foundation of Rome, because this foundation from the beginning was meant for eternity. Here again, albeit in a very different way, we find an attitude which looks upon what we call politics as a way of man to participate in immortality, so that the sanctification of the gigantic and almost superhuman effort of foundation (tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem) of laying the fundaments for a new hearth and home became the cornerstone of Roman religion and religious service almost identical with political activity. In the words of Cicero, “there exists nothing in which human virtue accedes closer to the holy ways (numen[gap] of the gods than the foundation of new or the preservation of alreaDe Re publ. VII, 12dy established cities.” Yet, no new political philosophy came from this great and basically new political experience, which, on the contrary even in its Roman version remained bound to its beginning |11 [metamark (text connection)]in Greek philosophy.	One of the reasons for this extraordinary estimate of speech as harboring in itself the whole meaningfulness of human existence was that words seemed to save both, action and thought the perishability of events and the fleeting passing of ideas from oblivion and conserve them for that earthly immortality which according to Greek standards was the highest goal of each individual human life. The moment the philosophers began to conceive of immortality in terms different from immortal fame -- be it that they no longer trusted the political community to be equal to the task of remembering that which is great, be it that they discovered in philophy itself some other element of immortality, some theion, divine, which would be self-sufficient and independent of the memory of posterity (and we shall see later that both was the case) -- it is obvious that neither action nor speech could retain its former position and that neither of them was held adequate to harbor meaning or to disclose truth. It is true that once more, in Roman times and history, one single event was assumed to contain in itself the whole meaning of the history of a people -- the foundation of Rome, because this foundation from the beginning was meant for eternity. Here again, albeit in a very different way, we find an attitude which looks upon what we call politics as a way of man to participate in immortality, so that the sanctification of the gigantic and almost superhuman effort of foundation (tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem) of laying the fundaments for a new hearth and home became the cornerstone of Roman religion and religious service almost identical with political activity. In the words of Cicero, “there exists nothing in which human virtue accedes closer to the holy ways (numen of the gods than the foundation of new or the preservation of alreaDe Re publ. VII, 12dy established cities.” Yet, no new political philosophy came from this great and basically new political experience, which, on the contrary even in its Roman version remained bound to its beginning |11 in Greek philosophy.
14
We are so used to the terminological antagonism between thought and action, to the opposition of thinking, which the men of action deem unpractical when it leaves the limitations of mere calculations (of reckoning with consequences as Hobbes so admirably put it) to acting, which the men of thought deem to be meaningless if it does not have a telos, an end and aim which can be justified as serving the interests of thinking, that we find it difficult to understand that there was a time when these two human activities were not conceived to be opposites. Yet, for an understanding of political philosophy, both as regards its history and its complex and many-sided problems, it is necessary to realize that our facile opposition is the consequence of certain events, that the priority of thought over action and the separation of them is not a matter of course, just as the modern emphasis on doing1 [metamark (text connection)] and the degradation of thinking2 either to the place of a working hypothesis which can be justified only in the experiment, that is in doing something, or to the position of the Historian’s after-thought to whose backward glance meaning may reveal itself is [metamark (text connection)]the consequence of certain modern events and developments. Those3 moreover, even though they may in many respects have put the tradition upside down or downside up are by no means independent or uninfluenced by those earlier events which we mentioned. It is necessary in order to understand why political actions and events the whole recorded history of mankind could for so many centuries be of little interest and less meaning to the educated world. And it is even more necessary, in order to understand the profound shock which the 18th century revolutions must have had on the men of thought. They seemed to prove to them that thought can be realized through political action and that political events could be of the greatest relevance to thought. In the foundation of a new body politic in accordance with certain theoretical principles, action all of a sudden had become so overwhelmingly meaningful that the meaningfulness4 of thought began to grow pale in comparison.	We are so used to the terminological antagonism between thought and action, to the opposition of thinking, which the men of action deem unpractical when it leaves the limitations of mere calculations (of reckoning with consequences as Hobbes so admirably put it) to acting, which the men of thought deem to be meaningless if it does not have a telos, an end and aim which can be justified as serving the interests of thinking, that we find it difficult to understand that there was a time when these two human activities were not conceived to be opposites. Yet, for an understanding of political philosophy, both as regards its history and its complex and many-sided problems, it is necessary to realize that our facile opposition is the consequence of certain events, that the priority of thought over action and the separation of them is not a matter of course, just as the modern emphasis on action1 and the degradation of thought2 either to the place of a working hypothesis which can be justified only in the experiment, that is in doing something, or to the position of the Historian’s after-thought to whose backward glance meaning may reveal itself is the consequence of certain modern events and developments, which3 moreover, even though they may in many respects have put the tradition upside down or downside up are by no means independent or uninfluenced by those earlier events which we mentioned. It is necessary in order to understand why political actions and events the whole recorded history of mankind could for so many centuries be of little interest and less meaning to the educated world. And it is even more necessary, in order to understand the profound shock which the 18th century revolutions must have had on the men of thought. They seemed to prove to them that thought can be realized through political action and that political events could be of the greatest relevance to thought. In the foundation of a new body politic in accordance with certain theoretical principles, action all of a sudden had become so overwhelmingly meaningful that the meaningfullness4 of thought began to grow pale in comparison.
15
[For]1 as far as politics is concerned2 the realm of human affairs, where men live together in the twofold |12 manner of action and speech, the most fateful consequence of the philosophers’ turning away from it and discovering a new and more reliable way of immortalizing oneself4, which, however, was open only to a few, was that action had5 lost its capacity of being meaningful in and by itself. It needed a justification and remained senseless if it was undertaken without some telos, some end for the sake of which it was being done. This telos, moreover, could itself not belong to the same sphere in which action took place; for if action has no meaning in and by itself, then action in general, without an ultimate aim outside its own sphere, would be driven into an infinite process where every aim becomes at once the starting point [metamark (text connection)]for a new acting activity. [This]7 process [then]8 goes on in infinity every end immediately is transformed into a cause of something new appeared to the Greeks who did not know about progress to be 1194a18-28“empty and vain”. The end of action was both the aim, the hou heneka, for the sake of11 which the activity was started12 and the end in which it13 ended. The ultimate end of action, praxis, could therefore only be some non-action, something which involved no acting activity. This ultimate end became theôria, contemplation. And contemplation, seen from the viewpoint of action, was an activity which has its end in itself, where means and end were not separated, and where the activity itself contained already that for the sake of which it was undertaken. (This is what Aristotle called energeia.)	The most fateful consequence,1 as far as politics,2 the realm of human affairs, is concerned3 where men live together in the twofold |12 manner of action and speech, the most fateful consequence of the philosophers’ turning away from it and discovering a new and more reliable way of immortalizing onself4, which, however, was open only to a few, was that action lost its capacity of being meaningful in and by itself. It needed a justification and remained senseless if it was undertaken without some telos, some end for the sake of which it was being done. This telos, moreover, could itself not belong to the same sphere in which action took place; for if action has no meaning in and by itself, without relation to some future end,6 then action in general, without an ultimate aim outside its own sphere, would be driven into an infinite process where every aim becomes at once the starting point for a new acting activity. A7 process which8 goes on in infinity and where9 every end immediately is transformed into a cause of something new appeared to the Greeks who did not know about progress to be 1194a18-28“empty and vain”. The end of the10 action was both the aim, the hou heneka, which guided the acting activity12 and the end in which this activity13 ended. The ultimate end of action, praxis, could therefore only be some non-action, something which involved no acting activity. This ultimate end became theôria, contemplation. And contemplation, seen from the viewpoint of action, was an activity which has its end in itself, where means and end were not separated, and where the activity itself contained already that for the sake of which it was undertaken. (This is what Aristotle called energeia.)
16
That this consideration of action under the category of end and means brings action into a dangerously close relationship with fabrication is manifest in many aspects, and perhaps nowhere clearer indicated as in the first sentence of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle compares techné, art, i.e. the art of fabricating somethin[gap] with praxis, action, because both have an end for the sake of which they are undertaken. This indeed is completely true for all fabrication where the ergon, the actual work, is the result and the aim of the fabricating process, which in itself, without such an end-product1, would become meaningless. This end, moreover, is indeed that for the sake of which all other means are used and which justifies them; the finished table organizes all means of carpenting and justifies them, including the violence done to the tree which is |13 killed in order to provide wood. The relationship, finally2 , between thinking and doing in the process of fabrication is such that the mental image of the end product plus the calculation of the means with which to create it must precede the actual fabrication, which as mere activity becomes3 a kind of execution with4 the hands of what has been prescribed by the mind. The moment fabrication enters its active stage, it becomes execution. In fabrication, as distinguished from action, the processes of thinking and doing are separated from each other to a large extent, to an extent, indeed that they can be performed by different persons. If we are to transpose these categories onto the realm of acting, then we shall necessarily begin to divide the acting persons into those who know what to do and how it should be done and those who do only, or, into those who know how to give order and those who know how to obey them, whereby the actual activity lies exclusively with those who obey. Since the Greeks, thanks to their slave economy and because of their great contempt for work and labor, had considerable experience in doing things without actually doing them, that is with supervising work and having it executed by others, it is almost a matter of course that as soon as it occurred5 to them to paralleliz[gap] [gap] action with fabrication, they would begin to see action, too, as residing in a master-servant relation and to introduce the notion of rulership as a constituent element into all political affairs. Just as the most striking outward characteristic of the free citizen was that he did not do manual work but had it executed, so the most outstanding characteristic of the free man in the political sense became now that he gave only orders and had others to execute them, that is did no longer act himself. Plato, in fact, states already in the Statesman that the “truly kingly science of statesmanship”305 does not consist in acting (prattein) but in ruling (archei[gap] over those who can do something.	That this consideration of action under the category of end and means brings action into a dangerously close relationship with fabrication is manifest in many aspects, and perhaps nowhere clearer indicated as in the first sentence of the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle compares techné, art, i.e. the art of fabricating somethin with praxis, action, because both have an end for the sake of which they are undertaken. This indeed is completely true for all fabrication where the ergon, the actual work, is the result and the aim of the fabricating process, which in itself, without such an endproduct1, would become meaningless. This end, moreover, is indeed that for the sake of which all other means are used and which justifies them; the finished table organizes all means of carpenting and justifies them, including the violence done to the tree which is |13 killed in order to provide wood. The relationship, moreover2, between thinking and doing in the process of fabrication is such that the mental image of the end product plus the calculation of the means with which to create it must precede the actual fabrication, which as mere activity then is3 a kind of execution through4 the hands of what has been prescribed by the mind. The moment fabrication enters its active stage, it becomes execution. In fabrication, as distinguished from action, the processes of thinking and doing are separated from each other to a large extent, to an extent, indeed that they can be performed by different persons. If we are to transpose these categories onto the realm of acting, then we shall necessarily begin to divide the acting persons into those who know what to do and how it should be done and those who do only, or, into those who know how to give order and those who know how to obey them, whereby the actual activity lies exclusively with those who obey. Since the Greeks, thanks to their slave economy and because of their great contempt for work and labor, had considerable experience in doing things without actually doing them, that is with supervising work and having it executed by others, it is almost a matter of course that as soon as it occured5 to them to paralleliz action with fabrication, they would begin to see action, too, as residing in a master-servant relation and to introduce the notion of rulership as a constituent element into all political affairs. Just as the most striking outward characteristic of the free citizen was that he did not do manual work but had it executed, so the most outstanding characteristic of the free man in the political sense became now that he gave only orders and had others to execute them, that is did no longer act himself. Plato, in fact, states already in the Statesman that the “truly kingly science of statesmanship”305 does not consist in acting (prattein) but in ruling (archei over those who can do something and cause them to do it6.
17
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	This re-interpretation of action in the light of fabrication, techné and poiésis, was certainly one of the most revolutionary aspects of political philosophy if seen against the background, the current opinions and prejudices of Greek city life. For politeuesthai, living a political life was degraded in this re-interpre-
18
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 13 (This statement and the relationship between archein and prattein which it establishes is crucial. This relationship was first experienced in the early Greek kingship, basileia, and the assertion of Plato that statesmanship is a kingly science recalls the early use of the words: Archein then was the beginning of an enterprise and prattein meant to see through, under the leadership of the beginner and together with others, to bring to an end what the archôn, the beginner and therefore the king, had begun. Archein and prattein originally belonged together and were, so to speak, the two aspects of all action. In the Greek polis where the experience of action in the sense of starting an enterprise and seeing it through to its end was no longer the central political factor, the experience of slave-holding in its political aspect, as a relationship between men and therefore between masters and servants changed the original meaning of the words as well as the relationship between them. Now, it was the master who ruled over those who executed his orders. Archein was still understood as beginning something, but this beginning was no longer seen as an action, as something which one had to do. To begin and to rule became one and the same, and neither had anything to do with action. Action, by the same token, lost its dignity and degraded into mere execution. Insofar, moreover, the relationship between archein and prattein remained at the core of political theory, all rulers were seen as masters of slaves, since this was the earliest and most authoritative basis of experience for rule in general. The most important categories of political action became the categories of order and obedience. The notion, already to be found in Plato and Aristoteles that no political community can exist in which there is no division between those who command and those who obey, between those who rule and those who are ruled, relies on experiences made in slavehouseholds where nothing would ever be achieved if the master did not give orders and the slaves would not execute them. Our modern so-called individualist notion of freedom as guaranteed liberties from governmental arbitrariness presupposes this relationship and echoes the old experiences of a slave-holding community. Our bills of rights, insofar as they are understood as restraints upon state power rather than as general agreement upon a certain way of life, are still framed in the same language.)
19
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 13 One may say that Aristotle’s whole political philosophy was centered around the problem of praxis, action, and had no greater concern than to avoid an interpretation of action in the light of fabrication. Against Plato, he tried to re-establish the dignity of the bios politikos and the greatness of the statesman. That he failed in this great endeavor can best be seen when in the Nicomachean Ethics, he discussed two outstanding examples of acting men in private and public life respectively, namely the benefactor and the legislator. In the first instance, he raises the question why the benefactor loves those whom he has helped more than he is loved by them, and replies that the benefactor has done a work, an ergon, while the other have only endured his beneficence, 1168aff13that this work outlasts him and his activity, it remains, while the usefulness of that which is only endured passes away. Aristotle concludes that it is better to do than to endure and that everybody loves his own work, that which he himself has brought into being. Reminding his readers that this is truest for poets who love their poems almost as much as mothers love their children, he demonstrates beyond doubt to what an extent the “work” of action is similar in his conception to the “work” of art, techné, or fabrication, poiésis. Yet, it is rather easy to see how this interpretation, while it may explain psychologically the reason for lack of gratitude and the inclination of benefactors to look upon their recipients’ lives as something they have “made”, spoils the action of the benefactor. or destroys the very relationship which the beneficence had established. In other words, action can result in an end-product, an ergon, only under the condition that its own authentic non-tangible and always utterly fragile meaning is destroyed.
20
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	Even more surprising, if measured against the background of Greek city life is the position which Aristotle gives to the legislator. To him, as to Plato before him, the legislator replaces the statesman, the politikos, but the reason given is very different. Plato had originally likened the statesman to the physician and the laws to prescriptions which the physician leaves with his patient when Statesmanhe goes on a journey. In the work of his old age, these laws are no longer temporary prescriptions and substitutes for the art of heal-
21
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 13 - b - statesmanship, but the permanent standards of how men at all times and an unforseeable future ought to live together. The laws had become in the political field what the ideas were in the field of philosophical speculation; they were permanent because they were modelled after the eternity of the ideas; and the legislator was the philosopher who translated the ideas into laws for human behavior. Plato’s original problem of how to make kings philosophers or alternatively; of how to persuade philosophers to rule as kings, seem ed to have found its solution: the philosopher laid down the laws after which he could retire from the life of the polis and still remain its absent ruler. The horrible omnipresence of laws and prescriptio regulating the smallest detail of life (which Hegel found so offending and which to us is almost the quintessence of tyranny) in the republic of the Nomoi corresponds exactly to the permanent personal absence of its secret ruler -- the philosopher.
22
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	To Aristotle, the laws are like the erga of the techné politiké, 1181a23the tangible work of the art of statesmanship. They are the best results in this whole field of human affairs because only they have the same solidity as the work of art and fabrications. The legislators, and neither the wise man nor the understanding men, the sophoi or the phronimoi, can be said to be “the exponents” of the art of politics and of them alone can it be said that they politeuesthai “take part in politics; these alone act (prattousin) like 114125f.manual laborers”, that is, do things when they act as manual laborers do them. It is difficult to say which side of this statement of Aristotle is more alien to the current opinions held in a Greek city state. To liken action and politeuesthai to work and even to that of manual laborers meant to talk about the highest form of human life in terms of the admittedly lowest mode of human activity. To put the legislator into the place of the politikos, the citizen and ultimately the statesman, meant to make that what the Greeks thought to be merely the conditions of their life into its actual content. For the legislator did not properly belong to the Greek City state, just as the laws which he laid down and which indeed were assumed to be permanent did not form the political content of the city. The legislator was called in and thought to be necessary in order to make political activity possible and the laws were felt to be the boundaries within which this activity took place -- just as the wall of the city made its physical existence possible.
23
13b This re-interpretation of action in the light of fabrication, techné and poiésis, was certainly one of the most revolutionary aspects of political philosophy if seen against the background, the current opinions and prejudices of Greek city life. For politeuesthai, living a political life was degraded in this re-interpretation1 |14 almost to the level of the life of the craftsman, the banausos, who to the Greeks was the equivalent2 of aphilistine3 precisely because his occupation led him to think of everything in terms of means and end, in terms of being useful for the sake of something. It wyas4 the sign of the banausos to regard the tree as potential wood for a table, whereas it was the sign of a noble and free man to regard the tree as that what it is from its own physis, its own nature, as that which has meaning precisely because and as long as it is not used for ulterior purposes. What was revolutionary was that the philosophers extended this contempt of the field of fabrication and economics to the field of action and politics. Yet, it may also have been that this generalized contempt saved them from discovering those decisive shortcomings of action which yare6 almost necessary to show themselves as soon as action is measured and judged by the standards of fabrication and which have plagued political thought ever since its foundations were laid in the days of the decaying Greek city state.	tation1 almost to the level of the life of the craftsman, the banausos, who to the Greeks was a kind2 of philistine3 precisely because his occupation led him to think of everything in terms of means and end, in terms of being useful for the sake of something. It was4 the sign of the banausos to regard the tree as potential wood for a table, whereas it was the sign of a noble and free man to regard the tree as that what it is from its own physis, its own nature, as that which has meaning precisely because and as long as it is not used by men5 for ulterior purposes. What was revolutionary was that the philosophers extended this contempt of the field of fabrication and economics to the field of action and politics. Yet, it may also have been that this generalized contempt saved them from discovering those decisive shortcomings of action which are6 almost necessary to show themselves as soon as action is measured and judged by the standards of fabrication and which have plagued political thought ever since its foundations were laid in the days of the decaying Greek city state.
24
If we consider action as something which ought to realize some preconceived idea or fulfil a certain desire which rises in the individual in his isolation but which he can obtain only from and with the help of others, and if we consider these ideas or desires as the aims of the acting activity, then it is obvious that these aims1 and intentions will have much less chance of fulfilment as the craftsman’s intention to fabricate an object. For the production of this object eventually depends only on the craftsman him- self who is the author of his work and his art; he can fabricate in isolation whatever he has intended and conceived of in isalation. He does not depend upon other people’s will and intention, or, at least, only in the sense that he needs them to guarantee him the external circumstances which are most favorable for his work. The work itself depends only upon himself. Action, on the contrary, since it is possible only in a web of relationship of many wills and many intentions and since it is by definition related not2 to dead material3, but4 to other men5, who are equally obsessed by ideas and desires, the chances are that no intention ever will be realized in even a compromised purity and that no |15 work will ever be recognized by its author as his own in the sphere of action6 as it can be recognized by its author in the field of fabrication. Who ever starts to aact7, and no human being can live altogether without acting because that would mean to live without any human relationship whatsoever, must know that he never knows the eventual outcome of whatever he has begun This element of radical unpredictability, so utterly foreign to the sphere of fabrication, could be eliminated from the sphere of action only if there were only One actor and the whole of mankind his obedient servant. But then, action would indeed be superfluous and whatever would still be done by men, would be done in the mode of fabrication. The unpredictability of action arises from the very fact of the plurality of men and it can be eliminated only if the plurality of men itself is being eliminated and we all have become as though we were One man, members of one gigantic and needlessly separated organism. This organism can be conceived of in the image of Hobbes’ Leviathan or after the Platonian model of the herd which the statesman guards as the wise shepherd or in the fashion of the ideal republic proposed by the old Plato in the Nomoi where the laws themselves have taken out of human hands all necessity and responsibility for action or in the manner of Hegel’s world history where all men become somehow the puppets of some higher will which pulls the strings (an image by the way which we find already in Plato), each time the same happens: action has lost its unpredictability and with it seemingly its haphazardness, its accidental character; by the same token, mankind has lost its characteristic of plurality. It is as though not men, but One Man inhabits the earth.	If we consider action as something which ought to realize some preconceived idea or fulfil a certain desire which rises in the individual in his isolation but which he can obtain only from and with the help of others, and if we consider these ideas or desires as the aims of the acting activity, then it is obvious that these aimes1 and intentions will have much less chance of fulfilment as the craftsman’s intention to fabricate an object. For the production of this object eventually depends only on the craftsman him- self who is the author of his work and his art; he can fabricate in isolation whatever he has intended and conceived of in isalation. He does not depend upon other people’s will and intention, or, at least, only in the sense that he needs them to guarantee him the external circumstances which are most favorable for his work. The work itself depends only upon himself. Action, on the contrary, since it is possible only in a web of relationship of many wills and many intentions and since it is by definition related to other men3, and not4 to dead material5, who are equally obsessed by ideas and desires, the chances are that no intention ever will be realized in even a compromised purity and that no |15 work will ever be recognized by its author as his own in the sphere of politics6 as it can be recognized by its author in the field of fabrication. Who ever starts to act7, and no human being can live altogether without acting because that would mean to live without any human relationship whatsoever, must know that he never knows the eventual outcome of whatever he has begun that very literally he does not know what he is doing.8 This element of radical unpredictability, so utterly foreign to the sphere of fabrication, could be eliminated from the sphere of action only if there were only One actor and the whole of mankind his obedient servant. But then, action would indeed be superfluous and whatever would still be done by men, would be done in the mode of fabrication. The unpredictability of action arises from the very fact of the plurality of men and it can be eliminated only if the plurality of men itself is being eliminated and we all have become as though we were One man, members of one gigantic and needlessly separated organism. This organism can be conceived of in the image of Hobbes’ Leviathan or after the Platonian model of the herd which the statesman guards as the wise shepherd or in the fashion of the ideal republic proposed by the old Plato in the Nomoi where the laws themselves have taken out of human hands all necessity and responsibility for action or in the manner of Hegel’s world history where all men become somehow the puppets of some higher will which pulls the strings (an image by the way which we find already in Plato), each time the same happens: action has lost its unpredictability and with it seemingly its haphazardness, its accidental character; by the same token, mankind has lost its characteristic of plurality. It is as though not men, but One Man inhabits the earth.
25
In other words, if the meaningfulness of action is judged in terms of achievement of a goal and fulfilment of the original intention and measured by its eventual result, as the fabrication pro cess is measured and judged by its end product, then action is by far less meaningfull and true to its own designs than fabrication, and the life of the politikos by far less desirable than the life of the artist or craftsman. Classical philosophy, to be sure did not yet draw this conclusion; for that1 the contempt for manual labor was too deep-rooted. But it paved the way to it by understanding action in the ca tegories of fabrication. Because of its unpredictability2, everything that happens between men and all events which come into being through that what man does to man loses its interest, becomes a field of |16 incidents without rhyme and reason, a story of miseries and frustrations. a trostloses Ungefähr, as Kant was to call it, which may be able to testify to the misery of man and thereby to disclose something about human nature or man’s condition on earth, but which certainly did not harbor meaning or truth.3	In other words, if the meaningfulness of action is judged in terms of achievement of a goal and fulfilment of the original intention and measured by its eventual result, as the fabrication pro cess is measured and judged by its end product, then action is by far less meaningfull and true to its own designs than fabrication, and the life of the politikos by far less desirable than the life of the artist or craftsman. By1 the same token2, everything that happens between men and all events which come into being through that what man does to man loses its interest, becomes a field of
26
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	that very iterally he does not know what he is doing. The moment man acts into the world, everything becomes unpredictable, he has begun something whose end he cannot foretell, he has started a process in the world rather than, as when he fabricates some thing added a new creation to the world. Yet, man whereever he lives together with others cannot abstain from action, from starting these unpredictable processes, because he himself is a beginner. As Augustine said: Initium ut esset homo creatus est ante quem nemo fuit; that a beginning be man was created before whom nobody was. Man is a beginner because he is a person, because he is not no-body, but somebody. In the realm of fabrication, he is homo faber, adding new things to the world of things; in the realm of living-together, into which he is born as a newcomer he introduces his own life, which itself is an unpredictable process and thereby unavoidably starts new processes. Politically speaking, the decisive trait of the human condition is not that men are mortal, but that they are being born; birth, rather than death, is the decisive factor in all political organization which must ever stand ready to receive new beginners into a communal pattern which is more permanent than each of them. Natality, as distinguished from mortality, is the condition of human plurality; and politics exist, are necessary only because man is a being who is only in the plural as long as he is alive. The singularity of each of us shows itself in its radical aspect when we die; each of us dies for himself and, as it were, in the singular; viewed from the side of our earthly existence, the end of life means that we leave the realm of plurality, that we depart from our living together with other men.
27
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	As long as we live, and no matter what kind of life we lead, we cannot avoid the unpredictability of human actions in which the only thing we can foretell is not the actual outcome of the process which we have started, but that every good deed, done for no matter which cause or motive, will make the world a little better, and every bad deed, done for no matter which sublime end, will immediately and now make the world a little worse. just as a every great deed will here and now raise the level of human existence, show for better and worse what man is capable of. This is the only permanence actions have in and by themselves, |15b and even this permanence remains bound to memory, to the will of men to remember which itself is already an active process. Politically, there is only one, and therefore all-important way to make the outcome of actions a little more predictable, and that is bound up with the human capacity to make promises and keep them. Promises are like little islands of stability thrown into the ocean of the future. Stability in human affairs depends utterly on them. (When Nietzsche in his tragic and absurd search for new values almost incidentally, in his latest work, re- defined man as the “animal which can make promises”, he inadvertently had opened perhaps the door to a new “science of politics”, insofar as modern politics’ greatest predicament is an unprecedented helplessness of man before his own future; the processes which the modern age has set into motion are less predictable and more threatening than any action has ever been before. Nietzsche had discovered the only power man has over the future which he can never rationalize through calculations and today less than before because of the chaotic maze of contradictory trends and conflicting actions. Although the much abused “will to power” is by no means the main characteristic of man, not even of the man of action, it is true that will to power over the future is inherent in all action. Yet, even this power is limited, and promises -- treaties and convenants -- can never altogether eliminate the element of unpredictability which is one of the basic elements of the human condition.
28
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	We often deplore today the gap between man’s technological power and his political and social wisdom. More important than this gap, which will never be closed because it resides in our inability to know with the precision of workmanship what we are doing in the realm of action, is the fact that with modern technology, as distinguished from all previous fabrication, man has begun to extend the sphere of action into nature; our predicament is not machinery as such, which is indeed purely instrumental, but that our machinery is designed to generate natural processes and that the modern world is built on these processes much rather than on production of stable use objects. [metamark ———————————————>]
29
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	The chain reaction of the atom bomb is like a symbol of how we produce, not so much destructive objects, but start processes of destruction. If there our social science can be said to lag behind what we are doing through natural science, then mostly because social science, to a large degree has adopted the earlier concept of natural science of fabrication and imagines that he can “condition” man to a fabricated society, whereas the natural sciences do no longer reckon with these productive capacities of man in which a definite and tangible object is the end product, but with processes which, so to speak, are let loose and channelled into the human world. Insofar as the social sciences reflect the actual conditions of modern society, it looks as though we try to make human behavior ever more predictable whereas the unpredictability of action, characteristic of the political and social realm, becomes more and more the hallmark of man’s intercourse with nature. The more the individual resigns himself to being “conditioned” and to renounce his capacity of action, of starting something new with regard to another person (pros tina as Aristotle used to define one of the elementary qualities of all action, praxis, as distinguished from poiésis, making which is unconcerned with other persons), the more he begins to act into nature, to start new, naturally unforeseen processes.
30
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	To act into nature means that even natural events and happenings are no longer predictable, that the sphere of unpredictability has enormously expanded and now, in turn, threatens man. This becomes quite manifest as soon as natural forces, and not only man-made instruments, are introduced into the political realm, and this is the event which is symbolized by the political role of atomic power. Man has, so to speak, dragged nature into his own unpredictability with the result that natural forces, such as the future of life on earth, are no longer safe and their continued existence no longer predictable.
31
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	incidents without rhyme and reason, a story of miseries and frustrations, a trostloses Ungefähr, as Kant was to call it, which may be able to testify to the misery of man and thereby to disclose something about human nature or man’s condition on earth, but which certainly did not harbor meaning or truth.
32
II	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
33
A record of misery, a story without meaning1, this is in fact what history, the record of actions and events, became immediately after the downfall of the Roman Empire and throughout the long centuries of an unequivocally Christian culture in the Occident. (We hear often today2 that the idea of history in its modern sense is of Christian, or Jewish-Christian origin, because the Bible holds a different time concept from that of antiquity3 , looks upon time in the image of a line, having beginning and end,4 instead of the eternal recurring cycles of [metamark (text connection)]Greek time speculations. At the same time, it5 is pointed out that Augustine wrote a first kind6 of philos. of hist. in the Civitas Dei7. Both arguments have a certain validity and point to important differences between ancient and Christian culture. However,8 the point is that the problem of history arose in Christian thought only with Augustine, and somewhat10 accidentally. Since11 the fall of Theodor Mommsen, in Journal of the History of Ideas, XII, 3, June 1951.Rome occurring in his lifetime12 was interpreted by Christians and pagans alike as a central event, Aug.13 devoted 13 years of his life to the refutation of a belief that would indeed have made a purely secular historical event of central import to mankind. In his civitas Dei, only one book is devoted to the secular aspects of human history and when he asked Orosius to write a world history, he - J14. W. Woodworth transl. of Orosius Seven Books, 1936 commissioned him to become “the true compiler of the evils of the world”. Even more important is that Augustine closes his own history with the birth of Christ; history by itself has nothing to tell; it was a preparation for the full revelation of truth after which secular powers will rise and fall as they have done in the past, but no fundamentally new truth will be revealed in this and no specific meaning should be attached to it by Christians18.--Those who base their affirmation of the Christian origin of the modern concept of history on the Biblical time concept are, I am afraid, equally mistaken. The notion that mankind as a whole has a beginning and an end is utterly alien |17 to the secular concept of history, in which history in and by itself is meaningful, without any help from a20 transcendent source for which history may become the field where it appears and reveals itself to the time-limited minds of men. Modern historical consciousness did not begin21 when the creation of the22 world or the birth of Christ were taken as starting points for chronological enumeration; similar chronologies we know from Babylon, and the Christian chronology followed the Roman practice to count time from the year of the foundation of Rome. In stark contrast to all these chronologies stands the modern calendar which is not much O. Cullman, Christ and Time. London, 1951.older than two hundred years and which takes the birth of Christ as a turning point from which we number both forward and backward. Decisive in this is not that the birth of Christ now appears as the turning point of world history; as such, it had appeared to many centuries before without causing anything similar to our chronology24; but that the history of mankind now, for the first time, reaches out into an infinite past to which we can add at will, as we go along and inquire ever further into the history of mankind, as it stretches out into an infinite future. In other words, the decisive thing about our chronology is that it establishes25 mankind in a potential,26 earthly immortality, without beginning or end. Nothing, indeed, could be more alien to Christian, or at least primitive Christian thought with its eschatological expectations than this potential earthly immortality.27	A record of misery, a story of a trostloses Ungefähr1, this is in fact what history, the record of actions and events, became immediately after the downfall of the Roman Empire and throughout the long centuries of an unequivocally Christian culture in the Occident. (We hear today often2 that the idea of history in its modern sense is of Christian, or Jewish-Christian origin, because the Bible holds a different time concept from that of ancient pagan culture3, looks upon time as having beginning and end, and sees it in a rectilinear manner4 instead of the eternal recurring cycles of Greek time speculations. That this difference5 is of great importance should not be denied7. But8 the point is that the problem of history arose in Christian thought only with St.9 Augustine, and there quite obviously10 accidentally. It is because11 the fall of Theodor Mommsen, in Journal of the History of Ideas, XII, 3, June 1951.Rome was interpreted by Christians and pagans alike as a central event, that he13 devoted 13 years of his life to the refutation of a belief that would indeed have made a purely secular historical event of central import to mankind. In his civitas Dei, only one book is devoted to the secular aspects of human history and when he asked Orosius to write a world history, he clearJ14. W. Woodworth transl. of Orosius Seven Books, 1936ly15 commissioned him to become “the true compiler of the evils of the world”. Even more important is that St.16 Augustine himself17 closes his own history with the birth of Christ; history by itself has nothing to tell; it was a preparation for the full revelation of truth after which secular powers will rise and fall as they have done in the past, but no fundamentally new truth will be revealed in this and no specific meaning should be attached to it by the Christian18. -- Those who base their affirmation of the Christian origin of the modern concept of history on the Biblical time concept are, I am afraid, equally mistaken. The notion that mankind as a whole has a beginning and an end is utterly alien |17 to the secular concept of history, i.e. a concept19 in which history in and by itself is meaningful, without any help from an20 transcendent source for which history may become the field where it appears and reveals itself to the time-limited minds of men. Modern historical consciousness did not beginn21 when the creation of world or the birth of Christ were taken as starting points for chronological enumeration; similar chronologies we know from Babylon, and the Christian chronology followed the Roman practice to count time from the year of the foundation of Rome. In stark contrast to all these chronologies stands the modern calendar which is not much O. Cullman, Christ and Time. London, 1951.older than two hundred years and which takes the birth of Christ as a turning point from which we number both forward and backward. Decisive in this, however,23 is not that the birth of Christ now appears as the turning point of world history; as such, it had appeared to many centuries before without causing anything similar to our chronlogy24; but that the history of mankind now, for the first time, reaches out into an infinite past to which we can add at will, as we go along and inquire ever further into the history of mankind, as it stretches out into an infinite future. In other words, the decisive thing about our chronology is that it establishe25 mankind in a potentially26 earthly immortality, without beginning or end. Nothing, indeed, could be more alien to Christian, or at least primitive Christian thought with its eschatological expectations than this potential earthly immortality
34
Yet, almost as removed as Christian medieval philosophy is from modern historical consciousness, it is from those aspects of ancient2 philosophy which are of great3 relevance to traditional political philosophy. One of the reasons that it kept this tradition intact and introduced few important changes into the early relationship and hierarchy4 between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa was that it had lost the perhaps most urgent motive to which this political philosophy owed its origin--the need for athanatidzein, for immortalizing oneself. Since the immortality of the soul had become a tenet of faith, there certainly was no need any longer for establishing one’s immortality on earth and thought was no longer conceived as a better and more immediate immortalization |18 , but rather as a way to reach out even before death to that eternity which awaits everybody in the life of a Hereafter. The problem of action, of the meaningfulness of human affairs, lost its acuteness; if the Christian, like Augustine’s Civ. Dei XVIII, 54 (?)heathenly City was but a pilgrim on earth, the whole sphere of politics could be looked upon from the viewpoint of a temporary abode. Tertullian therefore, who unlike Augustine was still confronted with an intact body politic and surrounded by Romans who considered the foundation and preservation of political communities to be the highest and most divine form of human life, could rightly say: nulla enim res nobis magis aliena quam publica: (no matter7 is so alien to us Christians than public life and political affairs). This, to be sure, was to change in the centuries8 when first the Church entered upon the legacy of the fallen Roman Empire and eventually the whole Occident became Christian. During these centuries9, both action and thought as it had been understood by ancient philosophy,11 were adapted and absorbed into the new Christian faith. Seen from the viewpoint of ancient philosophy, the most striking aspect of Tertuallian’s12 statement lies in the “we”, comprehending all Christians. It is as though the freedom from politics, which the philosophers had asked for themselves as distinguished [metamark (text connection)]from the multitude, was now being asked for all. In this one respect, that is in the primitive Christian attitude toward the political realm the remark of Nietzsche, that Christianity is Platonism for the people is true--even though for an entirely different reasons than15 Nietzsche anticipated. What the ancients had thought to be the privilege and the ever doubtful prerogative of the philosopher, to have another, non-political w ay of immortalizing himself than the multitude, had become a way16 of life17 for all.	Yet, almost as removed as Christian medieval philosophy is from modern secular1 historical consciousness, it is from those aspects of ancients2 philosophy which are of greatest3 relevance to traditional political philosophy. One of the reasons that it kept this tradition intact and introduced few important changes into the early relationship and hierachy4 between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa was that it had lost the perhaps most urgent motive to which this political philosophy owed its origin -- the need for athanatidzein, for immortalizing oneself. Since the immortality of the soul had become a tenet of faith, there certainly was no need any longer for establishing one’s immortality on earth and thought was no longer conceived as a better and more immediate immortalization |18 , but rather as a way to reach out even before death to that eternity which awaits everybody in the life of a Hereafter. The problem of action, of the meaningfulness of human affairs, lost its acuteness; if the Christian, like Augustine’s Civ. Dei XVIII, 54 (?)heathenly City was but a pilgrim on earth, the whole sphere of politics could be looked upon only5 from the viewpoint of a temporary abode. Tertullian therefore, who unlike Augustine was still confronted with an intact body politic and surrounded by Romans who considered the foundation and preservation of political communities to be the highest and most divine form of human life, could rightly say: nulla enim res nobis magis aliena quam res6 publica: (nothing7 is so alien to us Christians than public life and political affairs). This, to be sure, was to change in the centurie8 when first the Church entered upon the legacy of the fallen Roman Empire and eventually the whole Occident became Christian. At that time9, however,10 both action and thought as it had been understood by ancient philosophy were adapted and absorbed into the new Christian faith. Seen from the viewpoint of ancient philosophy, the most striking aspect of Tertullian’s12 statement lies in its radicality and even more in13 the “we”, comprehending all Christians. It is as though the freedom from politics, that s-cholé14 which the philosophers had asked for themselves as distinguished from the multitude, was now being asked for all. In this one respect, that is in the primitive Christian attitude toward the political realm the remark of Nietzsche, that Christianity is Platonism for the people is true -- even though for an entirely different reasons tha15 Nietzsche anticipated. What the ancients had thought to be the privilege and the ever doubtful prerogative of the philosopher, to have another, non-political way of immortalizing himself than the multitude, had become a matter16 of course17 for all.
35
The importance of this development for the actual history of Western civilization, political and spiritual, secular and religious, can hardly be overemphasized. It meant, no matter what1 philosophers in the more narrow and technical sense would think about it, that philosophy itself, or at least the topics of it, were no longer a matter of the few; that periagôgé, the turning |19 around of the whole soul from the world of human affairs to the realm of the eternal which Plato in the allegory of the cave had demanded of the philosopher only,2 was now required from everybody. In a sense, albeit quite unanticipated by himself, Plato’s dream of putting politics, the tôn anthrôpôn pragmata,3 into their place had come true, though not in the Platonian form of a veritable tyranny of reason which would have eliminated action from the city and the affairs of men altogether, but in a hierarchical, authoritarian form in which action was put under the authority of the spirit, while at the same time the realm of the spiritual was opened to everybody.	The importance of this development for the actual history of Western civilization, political and spiritual, secular and religious, can hardly be overemphasized. It meant, no matter how1 philosophers in the more narrow and technical sense would think about it, that philosophy itself, or at least the topics of it, were no longer a matter of the few; that periagôgé, the turning |19 around of the whole soul from the world of human affairs to the realm of the eternal which Plato in the allegory of the cave had demanded of the philosopher only was now required from everybody. In a sense, albeit quite unanticipated by himself, Plato’s dream of putting politics, the tôn anthrôpôn pragmata into their place had come true, though not in the Platonian form of a veritable tyranny of reason which would have eliminated action from the city and the affairs of men altogether, but in a hierarchical, authoritarian form in which action was put under the authority of the spirit, while at the same time the realm of the spiritual was opened to everybody.
36
By the same token, the originally Greek sharp distinction between action and thought, between a way of life devoted to contemplation and a way of life devoted to action, the priority of thought1 over action which must guide acting as the mental image and the calculation of means guides fabrication, was re-affirmed rather than re-examined and remained virtually unchanged2 through the centuries up to the modern age. The Platonian & Aristotelian tendency to blur4 the distinction between action6 and fabrication became7 even stronger8. Seen from the viewpoint of the vita contemplativa, labor and work and action tended9 to coincide; the common denominator being10 not to be occupied with things eternal and therefore not to be restful, but “active.11 ” The vita activa was not merely the translation for the Bios politikos, but comprehended12 all forms of human activities.13	By the same token, the originally Greek sharp distinction between action and thought, between a way of life devoted to contemplation and a way of life devoted to action, the priority of tough1 over action which must guide acting as the mental image and the calculation of means guides fabrication, was re-affirmed rather than re-examined and preserved2 through the centuries up to the modern age virtually unchanged3. Even more if Aristotle’s bios politikos had still preserved intact4 the basic5 distinction between doing6 and acting,7 even though as we saw his actual interpretation of prattein had already a strong tendency to apply to it catego- ries which are valid only for and were found in analyzing poiein, the latin medieval translation of it into the vita activia put the stamp of finality on this identification (or confusion) and had itself a tendency to extend the notion of activity one more step downward, as it were, namely to laboring as well8. Seen from the viewpoint of the vita contemplativa, labor and work and action had a tendency9 to coincide; the common denominator, namely10 not to be occupied with things eternal and therefore not to be restful, but “active” somehow tended to overshadow12 all other aspects13
37
It would be wrong to maintain that the hierarchy because thought & action broke down, and that man’s mind began to wander in darkness, as the result of the French Revolution; it had broken already with the rise of the natural science which replaced observation with experiment and with the new conviction of scientists that we must do in order to know, |20 which eventually ended in the modern assumption that I can know only what I have made myself. [metamark (text connection)]All this precedes, and is not the consequence of, modern physics and technology. Modern technology “does” as nature does; it no longer fabricates out of given material but starts natural processes, it “makes, ” as it were, that what is natural and will behave “naturally” once it has been started. This development is already foreshadowed in the earlier stages of the modern age when physics were still thought to be inferior to mathematics, but no longer for the reason given by traditional philosophy that only the mathematical is pure of matter, eternal and unchanging, but beDe Nostri temporis studiorum ratione. IV ed. Godesberg, 47cause, in the words of Vico, “geometrica demonstramus, quia facimus”, the geometrical can be proven because we make it ourselves; and Vico goes on to say--almost to prophecise--“si physica demonstrare possemus, faceremus”, if we could prove the physical, we would have to make it. The next step, one is tempted to say, was to make nature, and that is what modern technology does insofar as it no longer fabricates use objects out of given material, but starts natural processes. The first of these natural man-made processes were started by the experiments of natural scientists who wanted to know and deemed observation and contemplation inadequate for knowledge. Yet, if knowing is the result of making instead of preceding it, and if truth can be only where I make, then truth in the sense in which our whole pre-modern tradition used and understood the word, simply does not exist. And that we still use the same word--saying for instance truth is nothing but consistency of statements or working hypotheses--does not bring it back, but only adds to our confusion.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
38
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	It would be wrong to maintain that this hierarchy broke, and that man’s mind began to wander in darkness, as the result of the French Revolution; it started in fact with the rise of the natural science which ushered in the age of modernity, with the new conviction of scientists that we must do in order to know, that is, use
39
-1 With Descartes’ philosophy of doubt, this new attitude had found its new philosophy. In2 contradiction to the whole occidental tradition, and not only to the Chri stian part of it, it demanded3 that one doubt of everything (de omnibus dubitandum est) because truth is not given to man, it is not the revelation of the objective world. Truth, briefly, is not revelation and not the aequatio rei et intellectus, because mind may not be adequate to receive truth; in the unsurpassed formulation of Descartes, not God, but an evil spirit may be the master of the world, and just as God reveals truth, the evil spirit may hide it forever from human minds. This doubt is the very opposite of faith, not only in God but in the adequacy of reason as well. The rationality of Cartesian philosophy should not make us blind to the fact that it is born out of a radical mistrust precisely in reason, and that modern rationalism5 no less than irrationalism6 are based on it. All modern, critical philosophy is “subjective” only because it is what Nietzsche called it-- a “school of suspicion. That truth is revelation is the basis which ancient science and philosophy had8 in common with occidental revealed religion. Its universal assumption is that truth appears and is being seen or heard; its philosophic Greek version is that it can be received in purity only by a theôrein, seeing without acting without doing anything.	experiment with nature instead of merely observe her, in order to learn her secrets. This first impulse to do in order to know has eventually and consistently ended in the belief that I can know only what I myself have made, that knowing depends upon making. Yet, if truth is that what I make, then there is no truth, at least not in the sense in which our whole tradition used and understood this word.1 With Descartes’ philosophy of doubt, this new attitude had found its new philosophy, and it assumed -- in2 contradiction to the whole occidental tradition, and not only to the Chri stian part of it --3 that one must4 doubt of everything (de omnibus dubitandum est) because truth is not given to man, it is not the revelation of the objective world. Truth, briefly, is not revelation and not the aequatio rei et intellectus, because mind may not be adequate to receive truth; in the unsurpassed formulation of Descartes, not God, but an evil spirit may be the master of the world, and just as God reveals truth, the evil spirit may hide it forever from human minds. This doubt is the very opposite of faith, not only in God but in the adequacy of reason as well. The rationality of Cartesian philosophy should not make us blind to the fact that it is born out of a radical mistrust precisely in reason, and that modern rationality5 no less than irrationality6 are based on it. All modern, critical philosophy is “subjective” only because it is what Nietzsche called it -- a “school of suspicion”7. That truth is revelation is the basis which ancient science and philosophy has8 in common with occidental revealed religion. Its universal assumption is that truth appears and is being seen or heard; its philosophic Greek version is that it can be received in purity only by a theôrein, seeing without acting without doing anything.
40
Not only is the breakdown of the fundamental categories of political philosophy older than the French Revolution, even the awareness that--in the words of Hobbes--the astronomy of Copernicus and the physics of Galilei before whom “no security had existed in these sciences” (De Cive, Preface ) demanded a reconsideration of politics in terms of scientific reliability was already fully developed in Hobbes, who indeed maintained2 that political philosophy (philosophia civilis) was not older than his own book De Cive. (Epistolae ... in Opera philosophica, Amsterdam 1668, vol. 4, p. 1-2) But what happened at the end of the 18th century was that these trends suddenly and with an elementary force broke into the political realm4 and achieved there5 that kind of unrevocable reality which only events, but never mere thoughts or mere scientific discoveries possess. From then on, everybody actually lived in a changed world6 and, as far as the philosopher was concerned, in a world where action had achieved an allpowerful victory over thought, so that from now on hardly anybody could any longer believe that thought preceded action, but on the contrary with Hegel saw in it that reflective after-thought which comes in the dawn of a culture when everything is at its end and meaning is finally disclosed.	Not only is the breakdown of the fundamental categories of political philosophy older than the French Revolution, even the awareness that -- in the words of Hobbes -- the “1astronomy of Copernicus and the physics of Galilei before whom “no security had existed in these sciences” (De Cive, Preface) demanded a reconsideration of politics in terms of scientific reliability was already fully developed in Hobbes, who indeed maintaine2 that political philosophy (philosophia civilis) was not older than his own book De Cive. (Epistolae ....3 in Opera philosophica, Amsterdam 1668, vol. 4, p. 1-2) But what happened at the end of the 18th century was that these trends suddenly and with an elementary force broke into the realm of human affairs itself4 and achieved that kind of unrevocable reality which only events, but never mere thoughts or mere scientific discoveries possess. From then on, everybody actually lived in a changed worl6 and, as far as the philosopher was concerned, in a world where action had achieved an allpowerful victory over thought, so that from now on hardly anybody could any longer believe that thought preceded action, but on the contrary with Hegel saw in it that reflective after-thought which comes in the dawn of a culture when everything is at its end and meaning is finally disclosed.
41
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 20 This impulse to do in order to know, which eventually ended in the conviction that I can know only what I have made myself, precedes, and is not the consequence of, modern physics and technology. Modern technology “does” as nature does, because it does no longer simply fabricate out of given material but starts natural processes, it makes, as it were, that what is natural and will behave “naturally” once it has been started. This development is already forshadowed in the earlier stages of the modern age when physics were still thought to be inferior to mathematics, but no longer for the reason given by traditional philosophy that only the mathematical is pure of matter, eternal and unchanging, but beDe Nostri temporis studiorum ratione. IV ed. Godesberg, 47cause, in the words of Vico, “geometrica demonstramus, quia facimus”, the geometrical is demonstrated as true because we make it ourselves; and Vico goes on to say -- almost to prophecise - “si physica demonstrare possemus, faceremus”, if we could demonstrate the physical as true, we would have to make it. The next step, one is tempted to say, was to make nature. Yet, if knowing depends upon making instead of independently preceding it, and if truth can be only where I make, then truth in the sense in which our whole pre-moderb tradition used and understood the word, simply does not exist. And that we still use the same word -- saying for instance truth is nothing but consistency of statements or hypothesis which prove themselves in being worked out -- does not bring it back, but only adds to our confusion.
42
While it may be difficult to say from which actual political events the modern age, the rise of natural sciences and the new “school of suspicion” in philosophy, sprang, it is comparatively easy to perceive the political origin of the philosophers’ new interest in politics and of the revision of the old hierarchy between acting and knowing. Hobbes and Spinoza were both prompted to reconsider politics and conceive of a new political philosophy because of civil wars and revolutions in the 17th century, just as Tocqueville, Hegel Marx1 wrote, not simply under the influence of, but in the world changed through revolutions of the late 18th century. The disturbing factor in these modern civil wars and revolutions was not so much the greatness of the events, or the extent to which they disturbed and changed the life of all contemporaries, proving what the ancients had known only too well, that even philosophers remain utterly dependent upon the affairs of men. On the contrary, in the long centuries when secular history, had seemed to possess3 in the words of Vico, “neither a common basis nor continuity nor coherence ” ,5Scienza nuova the philosopher had learnt to oppose to this domain6 of senseless disturbances7 the immobile dignity and personal aloofness which we see for the first time in stoicism and which from then on has somehow adhered to the ideal of the philosopher as a “wise man”, his wisdom externally showing and proving itself in his not being moved by human deeds and sufferings. The last philosopher to possess this dignity seems to have been Spinoza, and in him it appears already a little old-fashioned, and perhaps for this very reason so noble and magnificent. The truly disturbing factor was that the multitude itself appeared as action8 in these new civil wars and that action itself all of a sudden could no longer be understood as the privilege of the ruler. For the comparable peace between philosophy and politics all through the Christian Middle Ages had rested on a situation in which, though eternal things for the first time had become the concern of each Christian, thought as well as action, properly speaking, had been reserved to the few, to two different castes as it were who ruled together. What disturbed the philosophers, what stirred them, as it were, into action, at least into formulating a new theory of action, was |22 certainly not that the position of a king or the condition of the10 gentleman were in jeopardy, but that position and condition of the philosopher were no longer secure.	While it may be difficult to say from which actual political events the modern age, the rise of natural sciences and the new “school of suspicion” in philosophy, sprang, it is comparatively easy to perceive the political origin of the philosophers’ new interest in politics and of the revision of the old hierarchy between acting and knowing. Hobbes and Spinoza were both prompted to reconsider politics and conceive of a new political philosophy because of civil wars and revolutions in the 17th century, just as Hegel and Marx and Tocqueville1 wrote, not simply under the influence of, but in the world changed through revolutions of the late 18th century. The disturbing factor in these modern civil wars and revolutions was not so much the greatness of the events, or the extent to which they disturbed and changed the life of all contemporaries, proving what the ancients had known only too well, that even philosophers remain utterly dependent upon the affairs of men. On the contrary, in the long centuries when purely2 secular history, in the words of Vico, had seemed to possess4 “neither a common basis nor continuity nor coherence, ”5 Scienza nuova the philosopher had learnt to oppose to this whole field6 of senseless disturbance7 the immobile dignity and personal aloofness which we see for the first time in stoicism and which from then on has somehow adhered to the ideal of the philosopher as a “wise man”, his wisdom externally showing and proving itself in his not being moved by human deeds and sufferings. The last philosopher to possess this dignity seems to have been Spinoza, and in him it appears already a little old- fashioned, and perhaps for this very reason so noble and magnificent. The truly disturbing factor was that the multitude itself appeared in these new civil wars and that action itself all of a sudden could no longer be understood as the privilege of the ruler. For the comparable peace between philosophy and politics, thought and action,9 all through the Christian Middle Ages had rested on a situation in which, though eternal things for the first time had become the concern of each Christian, thought as well as action, properly speaking, had been reserved to the few, to two different castes as it were who ruled together. What disturbed the philosophers, what stirred them, as it were, in to action, at least into formulating a new theory of action, was |22 certainly not that the position of a king or the condition of a10 gentleman were in jeopardy, but that position and condition of the philosopher were no longer secure.
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In the beginning of the 19th century, for the generation of Hegel, Tocqueville and Marx this insecurity had reached a climax whose very intensity is perhaps best felt when we remember that under the impact of the French and American Revolutions, where so great and decisive things had been achieved1 in action, the philosopher himself did no longer trust philosophy and felt the temptation to desert it altogether. This is what actually happened in the case of Marx; but one should not forget that the young Hegel found his way back to philosophy only with difficulties and that he may not have been unequivocally opposed to Hölderlin’s saying, who was the friend of his youth, that philosophy is the “hospital” to which one may retreat if other things have failed2. (Poetry, to this generation, was a kind of action against mere contemplation.) It is true that the terror of the French Revolution frightened the intellectuals badly and marked a turning point in the lives of a whole generation; but whereas the horrors of the civil wars of the 17th century had evoked in Spinoza as well as Hobbes a yearning for peace at almost any price and consequently had produced a political philosophy in which action, more than ever before, was trusted only to3 the few (as in the case of Spinoza) or to5 one ruler (as in the case of Hobbes), the disillusioned enthusiasm for the greatness of the 18th century revolutions produced no such return, but, on the contrary, especially in Hegel’s case transformed itself directly into an unlimited admiration of Napoleon Bonaparte, the man of action. Not even the defeat of Napoleon could produce a disillusionment with action as such; he remained the symbol of a greatness which formerly had been granted, if at all, only to the great heroes and statesmen of classical antiquity.	In the beginning of the 19th century, for the generation of Hegel, Tocqueville and Marx this insecurity had reached a climax whose very intensity is perhaps best felt when we remember that under the impact of the French Revolution, that is under the greatness of what could be achieved only1 in action, the philosopher himself did no longer trust philosophy and felt the temptation to desert it altogether. This is what actually happened in the case of Marx; but one should not forget that the young Hegel found his way back to philosophy only with difficulties and that he may not have been unequivocally opposed to Hölderlin’s saying, who was the friend of his youth, that philosophy is the “hospital” to which one may retreat if one has failed in poetry2. (Poetry, to this generation, was a kind of action against mere contemplation.) It is true that the terror of the French Revolution frightened the intellectuals badly and marked a turning point in the lives of a whole generation; but whereas the horrors of the civil wars of the 17th century had evoked in Spinoza as well as Hobbes a yearning for peace at almost any price and consequently had produced a political philosophy in which action, more than ever before, was thought to be3 the well-guarded privilege of the4 few (as in the case of Spinoza) or of5 one ruler (as in the case of Hobbes), the disillusioned enthusiasm for the greatness of the 18th century revolutions produced no such return, but, on the contrary, especially in Hegel’s case transformed itself directly into an unlimited admiration of Napoleon Bonaparte, the man of action. Not even the defeat of Napoleon could produce a disillusionment with action as such; he remained the symbol of a greatness which formerly had been granted, if at all, only to the great heroes and statesmen of classical antiquity.
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The capitulation of thought before action, or of philosophy before politics is embodied in Hegel’s philosophy of history, but was prepared by the suspicion of thought against itself, by the universalized doubt in Cartesian philsophy and the prerogative |23 of doing over seeing and contemplating1 inherent in modern natural science. In a sense, it is perfectly true that in Hegel philosophy abolished Buggenhagenitself, as it was recently stated, although Hegel himself did not yet doubt the priority of contemplation over action, or the superiority of the philosopher who sees the “world-spirit2 on horseback” over Napoleon who actually was riding into Jena. The one concept which in Hegel’s philosophy threw the traditional hierarchy of thought and action out of balance, and thereby destroyed the validity of all previous political philosophy, was not the concept of dialectics, nor incidentally a new inquiry of either thought or action in its own terms, but the concept of history on whose grounds the two were supposed to meet and to be eventually reconciled to each other. With3 Hegel, istory4 the story of human past deeds and sufferings, which had been least considered by the philosopher (who since Plato had deemed only the mathematical, and later, the natural sciences worthy of philosophical attention) acquired the supreme dignity of revealing absolute truth; and since this revealing quality was not considered to be inherent in any single event, which on the contrary as such was judged in traditional terms as meaningless in itself and always frustrating for the doer, but to be5 inherent in the historical process as a whole, history itself had become the authentic topic of philosophy, that one field of human experience where truth revealed itself.	The capitulation of thought before action, or of philosophy before politics is embodied in Hegel’s philosophy of history, but was prepared by the suspicion of thought against itself, by the universalized doubt in Cartesian philsophy and the prerogative |23 of doing over knowing1 inherent in modern natural science. In a sense, it is perfectly true that in Hegel philosophy abolished Buggenhagenitself, as it was recently stated, although Hegel himself did not yet doubt the priority of contemplation over action, or the superiority of the philosopher who sees the “world spirit2 on horseback” over Napoleon who actually was riding into Jena. The one concept which in Hegel’s philosophy threw the traditional hierarchy of thought and action out of balance, and thereby destroyed the validity of all previous political philosophy, was not the concept of dialectics, nor incidentally a new inquiry of either thought or action in its own terms, but the concept of history on whose grounds the two were supposed to meet and to be eventually reconciled to each other. History with3 Hegel, the story of human past deeds and sufferings, which had been least considered by the philosopher (who since Plato had deemed only the mathematical, and later, the natural sciences worthy of philosophical attention) acquired the supreme dignity of revealing absolute truth; and since this revealing quality was not considered to be inherent in any single event, which on the contrary as such was judged in traditional terms as meaningless in itself and always frustrating for the doer, but inherent in the historical process as a whole, history itself had become the authentic topic of philosophy, that one field of human experience where truth revealed itself.
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It1 is true that philosophy in the traditional sense abolished itself here, insofar as the distinction between the temporal and the eternal things is abolished; this, usually is considered to be an abolishment of the eternal in favor of the temporal or the immanentization (sometimes called secularization) of the Absolute. For our purposes, it is important to understand that in Hegel’s2 gigantic stream which with the beginning of civilized mankind began to unfold in one superhuman development the absolute truth of the Spirit, the sharp contours of events and actions are no less dissolved than the singularity of particular thoughts. If meaning, according to the pre-Platonic past of the Greeks,3 manifested itself in action when and if it was accompanied by speech, if meaning in the specifically philosophical4 development of the West was equated with revealed and5 contemplated truth, then meaning in Hegel |24 was disclosed in neither6 action nor7 thought as such, but only in a8 historical development which submerged them both.	If it1 is true that philosophy in the traditional sense abolished itself here, insofar as the distinction between the temporal and the eternal things is abolished; this, usually is considered to be an abolishment of the eternal in favor of the temporal or the immanentization (sometimes called secularization) of the Absolute. For our purposes, it is important to understand that in the2 gigantic stream which with the beginning of civilized mankind began to unfold in one superhuman development the absolute truth of the Spirit, the sharp contours of events and actions are no less dissolved than the singularity of particular thoughts. If meaning, according to the pre-Platonic past of the Greeks manifested itself in action when and if it was accompanied by speech, if meaning in the specifically philosophically4 development of the West was then disclosed as5 contemplated truth, then meaning in Hegel |24 adhered to neither,6 action or7 thought as such, but only to8 historical development which submerged them both.
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However, in another sense, philosophy and contemplation were saved by Hegel. Hegel’s notion of history as a stream of happenings rather than a recorded story of deeds & events made it possible for him to cling to a notion of truth according to which truth was not man-made, but remained an1 absolute which only needed2 and used3 temporality and mankind for its own manifestation. Not what men did, but what became manifest in their doings and despite their intentions was ultimate meaning. And his meaning revealed4 itself only to the contemplative, backward directed understanding mind, the mind of the philosopher. The position of the philosopher is saved, but at what a price! At the price that to him, as for the historian, the meaning discloses itself only when the story has come to its end, that he comes only when everything is at its end, that perception of truth comes not only as an after-thought, after everything is over, but as a6 consolation for coming too late. The consolation consists in the conviction that man anyhow7 can never8 do what he intends to do, that in all action the invisible “ruse of reason” directs the hands9 of the actor. In other words, the consolation is10 that active life, seen from the viewpoint of the individual actor is without meaning, as though he played his part in a piece whose fifth act will occur12 only when he is dead. The consolation for not being the man of action who alone brings meaning into the world is that Napoleon, though he is the world-spirit14 on horse back, never can know, has not even the time to know who he really is.	However, in another sense, philosophy and contemplation were saved by Hegel. Hegel’s notion of history as a stream of happenings rather than a recorded story of deeds & events made it possible for him to cling to a notion of truth according to which truth was not man-made, but still the1 absolute which needs2 and uses3 temporality and mankind for its own manifestation. Not what men did, but what became manifest in their doings and despite their intentions was ultimate meaning. This meaning, inherent in the historical process4 itself, could disclose itself5 only to the contemplative, backward directed understanding mind, the mind of the philosopher. The position of the philosopher is saved, but at what a price! At the price that to him, as for the historian, the meaning discloses itself only when the story has come to its end, that he comes only when everything is at its end, that perception of truth comes not only as an after-thought, after everything is over, but as the reconciliation and6 consolation for coming too late. The consolation consists in the conviction that no man7 can actually8 do what he intends to do, that in all action the invisible “ruse of reason” directs the hand9 of the actor. In other words, the consolation consists in10 that that11 active life, seen from the viewpoint of the individual actor is without meaning, as though he played his part in a piece whose fifth act will take part12 only when he is dead. The consolation for not being the man of action who alone brings meaning into the world and its history,13 is that Napoleon, though he is the world spirit14 on horse back, never can know, has not even the time to know who he really is.
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Hegel therefore, in his whole philosophy, and not only in that1 part which is technically called a philosophy of history, did, what so many of the contemporary historians wanted to do, he wrote, in the words of the French historian Michelet, the history of the “race (of mankind) considered as an individual”, construed as it were the biography of this monstrous, gigantic individual--mankind. If, in his words, “the ultimate aim and interest of philosophy is to reconcile thought with reality”, if Hist. of. Phil III, 684philosophy is “the true theodicy” then the price of this reconciliation and justification is that it must obliterate the plurality of men and with it the variety, unpredictability and [metamark (text connection)]contradictions2 of their actions. |25 [metamark (text connection)]if the philosopher, who has gone through the Cartesian school of suspicion and stands at the historical place where the modern age is about to turn into the full development of a modern world, can no longer trust reason to disclose a region of what is in itself eternal and therefore feels bound to discover the eternal in the temporal affairs, or in the affairs of the mortals, he does not found the new science of politics which Tocqueville demanded, but a new science of history. When Hegel responded to what he himself would have called the Zeitgeist, which expected very little from thinking and very much from doing, he discovers4 meaning in the construction of history in the image of One gigantic end product manufactured by the thousandfold lives and thoughts and sufferings of one gigantic Subject who, being without humanly discoverable mind, is guided by the ruse of reason. Meaning is the end product of the activity of Mankind and it manifests itself in history in the same way as it manifested itself in speech for the pre-philosophical understanding of ancient Greece. Whatever men do or say or think can be understood only as part and parcel of history’s or mankind’s endproduct. The past therefore loses its independent dignity, it becomes “the link in the chain”, and though the chain is called “sacred” it remains merely a “link”. For “the present”, when the product has ib. 695reached its relative accomplishment and finality, is now “the highest” (das höchste). This solution of Hegel, where an immanent meaning is finally discovered under the essentially inhuman condition of making out of a plurality of many men and many nations One gigantic artificial Man, has a curious and certainly unnoticed similarity with Plato’s early search for a6 law for the polis7 that would never be broken and his ironically dismissed solution, that it would indeed be best for the undisturbed validity of this law if only One man, and not men would inhabit the cityStatesman. However, the connection between Hegel and Aristotle is even more direct and more relevant.8 The teaching of Aristotle that action has a telos, a goal and meaning outside itself, like fabrication, so that all acting is conceived of in the category of end and means is applied by Hegel to the whole of history, where then9, in his own words, all |26 these particular ends (or intentions)10 of individual actors are transformed into means to produce the idea because the idea is absolute power. (“Handeln ist treiben des Subjeckts als solchen für besondere Zwecke. Alle diese Zwecke sind nur Mittel, die Idee hervorzubringen, weil sie die absolute Macht ist.”ib. II, 193) The new distinction between action & fabrication is that action transforms all its ends into means for new ends.11 History is one gigantic fabrication process where one single subject through a universal division of labor in time and space eventually produces the end product of meaning, which only the philosopher at the end of historical time will be able to perceive adequately, even though all men, all those who perform their unknown tasks under the command of the world spirit, cannot help groping and hoping for this meaning as long as they live. What to previous philosophers13 had been a reason for deepest concern, that men do not know what they are doing, is to Hegel of no concern at all: “The idea is realized in the world, about this nobody need to worry: that rulers have the idea (i.e. know what they are doing) is not necessary.” 🞽 (ib. II, 193) Kant’s trostloses Ungefähr, the curse of meaningless haphazardness has been banished from history; it was to fall with redoubled force upon the lives, the individual histories of living men.	Hegel therefore, in his whole philosophy, and not only in the1 part which is technically called a philosophy of history, did, what so many of the contemporary historians wanted to do, he wrote, in the words of the French historian Michelet, the history of the “race (of mankind) considered as an individual”, construed as it were the biography of this monstrous, gigantic individual -- mankind. If, in his words, “the ultimate aim and interest of philosophy is to reconcile thought with reality”, if Hist. of. Phil III, 684philosophy is “the true theodicy” then the price of this reconciliation and justification is that it must obliterate the plurality of men and with it the variety, unpredictability and contradictoriness2 of their actions. If the affairs of men, ta tôn anthrôpôn pragmata, must, after all, be taken seriously,3 |25 if the philosopher, who has gone through the Cartesian school of suspicion and stands at the historical place where the modern age is about to turn into the full development of a modern world, can no longer trust reason to disclose a region of what is in itself eternal and therefore feels bound to discover the eternal in the temporal affairs, or in the affairs of the mortals, he does not found the new science of politics which Tocqueville demanded, but a new science of history. When Hegel responded to what he himself would have called the Zeitgeist, which expected very little from thinking and very much from doing, he discove s4 meaning in the construction of history in the image of One gigantic end product manufactured by the thousandfold lives and thoughts and sufferings of one gigantic Subject who, being without humanly discoverable mind, is guided by the ruse of reason. Meaning is the end product of the activity of Mankind and and5 it manifests itself in history in the same way as it manifested itself in speech for the pre-philosophical understanding of ancient Greece. Whatever men do or say or think can be understood only as part and parcel of history’s or mankind’s endproduct. The past therefore loses its independent dignity, it becomes “the link in the chain”, and though the chain is called “sacred” it remains merely a “link”. For “the present”, when the product has ib. 695reached its relative accomplishment and finality, is now “the highest” (das höchste). This solution of Hegel, where an immanent meaning is finally discovered under the essentially inhuman condition of making out of a plurality of many men and many nations One gigantic artificial Man, has a curious and certainly unnoticed similarity with Plato’s early search for one6 law that would never be broken and his ironically dismissed solution, that it would indeed be best for the undisturbed validity of this law if only One man, and not men would inhabit the cityStatesman. However, the connection between Hegel and Aristotle is even more direct and more relevant,8 The teaching of Aristotle that action has a telos, a goal and meaning outside itself, like fabrication, so that all acting is conceived of in the category of end and means is applied by Hegel to the whole of history, where the9, in his own words, all |26 these particular ends of individual actors are transformed into means to produce the idea because the idea is absolute power. (“Handeln ist treiben des Subjeckts als solchen für besondere Zwecke. Alle diese Zwecke sind nur Mittel, die Idee hervorzubringen, weil sie die absolute Macht ist.”ib. II, 193) History is one gigantic fabrication process where one single subject through a universal division of labor in time and space eventually produces the end product of meaning, which only the philosopher at the end of historical time will be able to perceive adequately, even though all men, all those who perform their unknown tasks under the command of the world spirit, cannot help groping and hoping for this meaning as long as they live. What to all12 previous philo-phers13 had been a reason for deepest concern, that men do not know what they are doing, is to Hegel of no concern at all: “The idea is realized in the world, about this nobody need to worry: that rulers have the idea (i.e. know what they are doing) is not necessary.” (ib. II, 193)14 Kant’s trostloses Ungefähr, the curse of meaningless haphazardness has been banished from history; it was to fall with redoubled force upon the lives, the individual histories of living men.
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In Hegel’s philosophy of history, philosophy has become interpretation of history, it has not yet been transformed into a science1 of history which could take the place of the political science. This transformation was performed by Marx and the operation itself was indeed simple: Marx had only to eliminate the world-spirit2, the one hidden, intangible3 subject of Hegel’s fabrication process, and to put Society5 into its stead . If the truth of the philosopher7 was being realized in history through the medium of acting men, and if the laws of this realization process could be discovered like the laws of the process of natural development and physical events, then it needed only consciousness, scientifically guided action,8 in order to make history, or to realize philosophical truth If the philosophy of the past had ended with the transformation of the philosopher into the historian or rather into the discoverer of the laws of history, then the philosopher of the future would be the one who knew how to make history. The maker of history is both, that what former times called the man of action as well as the man of thought. And just as Hegel had shown that the truth of the past is realized in the historical10 record of Mankind11 as a whole, so Marx went on to design a future in which truth will be realized in Society as a whole. Socialized mankind, as Marx used to call it, is a state of affairs in which every single member of the human race will be consciously and presently the13 |27 link of a14 “holy chain”, as Hegel said, or, as we may say,15 a being,16 whose essential trait is its relationship to and its function in Society. This, I may add, is unfortunately by no means utopian; even in countries in which Marx’s doctrines are violently repudiated, we can daily discover those trends which bring us nearer, not to the socialization of the means of production, which is a very harmless affair, useful or harmful as the case may be, but to the socialization of man.	In Hegel’s philosophy of history, philosophy has become interpretation of history, it has not yet been transformed into a scienc1 of history which could take the place of the political science. This transformation was performed by Marx and the operation itself was indeed simple: Marx had only to eliminate the world spirit2, the one hidden subject of Hegel’s fabrication process, to which he objected precisely because it was an intangible, hidden subject,4 and to put into its stead Society as the subject of the historical process6. If the truth of the philosophers7 was being realized in history through the medium of acting men, and if the laws of this realization process could be discovered like the laws of the process of natural development and physical events, then it needed only consciousness, scientifically guided action in order to make history, or to realize the9 philosophical truth If the philosophy of the past had ended with the transformation of the philosopher into the historian or rather into the discoverer of the laws of history, then the philosopher of the future would be the one who knew how to make history. The maker of history is both, that what former times called the man of action as well as the man of thought. And just as Hegel had shown that the truth of the past is realized in the record of the past11 as a whole, so Marx went on to design a future in which truth will be realized in Society as a whole. Socialized mankind, as Marx used to call it, that12 is a state of affairs in which every single member of the human race will be consciously and presently that13 |27 link of an14 “holy chain”, as Hegel said, or, as we may say a being whose essential trait is its relationship to and its function in Society. This, I may add, is unfortunately by no means utopian; even in countries in which Marx’s doctrines are violently repudiated, we can daily discover those trends which bring us nearer, not to the socialization of the means of production, which is a very harmless affair, useful or harmful as the case may be, but to the socialization of man.
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If I may briefly enumerate those traits of Marx’s science of history2 which are of relevance in our context, I must3 remind you that in his concept of the man of action as the conscious maker of the future, the fabricator of history, all the implications inherent in looking on action in the light of fabrication have been fully developed. Since4 fabrication always and necessarily involves an element of violence, Marx saw all action primarily as6 violent action, he understood action7 in terms of wars and revolutions. Violence, he used to say, is the midwife of History. Fabrication, moreover, has its end and the justification of its means in the end product8; the end justifies indeed all means and the end has begun to justify the most extraordinary and terrifying means in the field of politics. And as long as we think in these terms, there will be hardly anything which will not at one moment or another appear as adequate and plausible; as long as we think that we know the end of our actions, and believe, consciously or unconsciously, that our life would be without meaning if we did not try to achieve ends in the realm of human affairs as we do in the realm of making things, moralizing will be of little avail. Finally, and in our context, perhaps most important is the radical but radically consistent transformation of the relevance of all thoughtful expressions in the Marxian doctrine. His9 theory of ideological superstructures which comprehend all those fields of human activity which manifest themselves chiefly through speech--be they religion or legislation, art or philosophy-- maintains that contrary to our whole tradition the true function |28 of speech is not to reveal truth, but to conceal it for the sake of some action, that the meaning of actual happenings are not only not revealed in “what each period says about itself and imagines it is” (this Hegel too would have maintained), but actually hidden by it. Thought, in other words, in and by itself, is either the lying justification of some past violence or the lying propagandizing preparation11 of some future violent action. If Nietzsche had known Marx, he would immediately have been aware that the modern “school of suspicion” has reached its climax in the doctrine of ideological superstructures.	It was the greatness of Marx not to shy away from the consequences of his own thought.1 If I may briefly enumerate those traits which are of relevance in our context, I have only to3 remind you that in his concept of the man of action as the conscious maker of the future, the fabricator of history, all the implications inherent in looking on action in the light of fabrication have been fully developed. Insofar as4 fabrication always and necessarily involves an element of violence, Marx consequently5 saw all action as primarily6 violent action, in terms of wars and revolutions. Violence, he used to say, is the midwife of History. Fabrication, moreover, has its end and the justification of its means in the actual result8; the end justifies indeed all means and the end has begun to justify the most extraordinary and terrifying means in the field of politics. And as long as we think in these terms, there will be hardly anything which will not at one moment or another appear as adequate and plausible; as long as we think that we know the end of our actions, and believe, consciously or unconsciously, that our life would be without meaning if we did not try to achieve ends in the realm of human affairs as we do in the realm of making things, moralizing will be of little avail. Finally, and in our context, perhaps most important is the radical but radically consistent transformation of the relevance of all thought ful expressions in the Marxian doctrine. The9 theory of the10 ideological superstructures which comprehend all those fields of human activity which manifest themselves chiefly through speech -- be they religion or legislation, art or philosophy -- maintains that contrary to our whole tradition the true function |28 of speech is not to reveal truth, but to conceal it for the sake of some action, that the meaning of actual happenings are not only not revealed in “what each period says about itself and imagines it is” (this Hegel too would have maintained), but actually hidden by it. Thought, in other words, in and by itself, is either the lying justification of some past violence or the lying propagandizing prepartion11 of some future violent action. If Nietzsche had known Marx, he would immediately have been aware that the modern “school of suspicion” has reached its climax in the doctrine of ideological superstructures.
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With Marx we have come to the treshold of the modern world. Nobody after him, as far as political philosophy or political science is concerned, has yet been his equal, although all of them, his opponents no less than his disciples,1 have remained dependent upon him--upon his concept of history as a lawful development and his concept of society in which men function, but do neither act nor think. If from this vantage point we throw one last glance back to the development of political philosophy since the beginning of the modern age3, it is obvious that politically speaking the most relevant new concept, the only one which in newness and originality could compare with the age’s new concept of nature, was the idea of history. And this idea is at least 100 years older than Hegel’s philosophy, just as Marx’ concept of society is at least 70 years (?)5 older than Marx.	With Marx we have come to the treshold of the modern world. Nobody after him, as far as political philosophy or political science is concerned, has yet been his equal, although all of them, his opponents no less than his disciples have remained dependent upon him -- upon his concept of history as a lawful development of truth2 and his concept of society in which men function, but do neither act nor think. If from this vantage point we throw one last glance back to the development of political philosophy since the beginning of the modern ag3, it is obvious that politically speaking the most relevant new concept, the only one which in newness and originality could compare with the age’s new concept of nature, was the idea of history. And this idea is of course much older than,4 at least 100 years older than Hegel’s philosophy, just as Marx’ concept of society is much5 older than Marx.
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We said at the beginning that the man od action and the man of thought parted company when the philosophers thought they had discovered a new, non-political way for immortalizing themselves, for athanatidzein. Politically speaking, the philosophers in antiquity were those men who thought they could immortalize themselves without the help of the polis, without immortal fame which only the polis could guarantee. Since1 the philosophers never succeeded (and after Plato actually never again seriously tried) to impose their rules on the multitude, to rule politics with philosophical standards, the many who were not philosophers3 continued, regardless of popular speculation about an hereafter, to find their own immortality--and |29 only the best, as Heraclitus told us, looked for this-- within the framework of politeuesthai, of living,4 acting and thinking in and with the city. In this generality, where we are not concerned with the content of this life5, this statement can be regarded as adequate for Rome no less than for Greece. We also saw that in the long centuries of a truly Christian European civilization, this whole problem lost its interest insofar as everybody, philosopher no more and no less than the multitude, had become convinced of an immortality which lay beyond politics and beyond earthly affairs. Whoever the best, the aristoi, in these centuries may have been, they certainly were not those who wanted immortal fame.	We said at the beginning that the man od action and the man of thought parted company when the philosophers thought they had discovered a new, non-political way for immortalizing them selves, for athanatidzein. Politically speaking, the philosophers in antiquity were those men who thought they could immortalize themselves without the help of the polis, without immortal fame which only the polis could guarantee. As to1 the rest of mankind, since the2 philosophers never succeeded (and after Plato actually never again seriously tried) to impose their rules on the multitude, to rule politics with philosophical standards, they3 continued, regardless of popular speculation about an hereafter, to find their own immortality -- and |29 only the best, as Heraclitus told us, looked for this -- within the framework of politeuesthai, of living acting and thinking in and with the city. In this generality, where we are not concerned what politeuesthai concretely meant5, this statement can be regarded as adequate for Rome no less than for Greece. We also saw that in the long centuries of a truly Christian European civilization, this whole problem lost its interest insofar as everybody, philosopher no more and no less than the multitude, had become convinced of an immortality which lay beyond politics and beyond earthly affairs. Whoever the best, the aristoi, in these centuries may have been, they certainly were not those who wanted immortal fame.
52
The problem of immortality in an earthly form could not but come up again, albeit in an entirely transformed way, when the European community of Christian nations broke down and that process of secularization set in which, perhaps, would be more correctly described as a process of separation of religion and politics in which institutionalized religion lost political significance and finally most of its specifically political elements1 and politics lost its religious sanction. The first reaction to this separation, from the side of the philosophers, was to consider the whole political realm, and more specifically the various forms of government2, under the viewpoint of security: how much safety it provides for the individual; and the original impulse toward3 political organization, formulated in the theories about a “4state of nature, ” was5 seen in man’s drive to defend himself. This urge became political with6 the abrogation of self-defense in favor of an over-all system of security which, under the name of government, had the obligation to defend all against all. Action is seen here primarily and even exclusively as attack and defense based on the “ability to kill” which is equal to all; and the role of the philosophers, specifically of Hobbes and Spinoza, is to implore their fellow-citizens to renounce this ability and to repudiate action for the sake of peace for all. This reaction however, although its theories survived in many variations and became in a transformed way even the frequently not openly admitted basis of liberalism, was short-lived in reality. The early introduction of the notion of history, first formulated in Vico’s scientia nuova, marks the |30 the turning point.	The problem of immortality in an earthly form could not but come up again, albeit in an entirely transformed way, when the European community of Christian nations broke down and that process of secularization set in which, perhaps, would be more correctly described as a process of separation of religion and politics in which institutionalized religion lost political significance and finally most of its specifically political element1 and politics lost its religious sanction. The first reaction to this separation, from the side of the philosophers, was to consider the whole political realm, and more specifically the various forms of gove nment2, under the viewpoint of security: how much safety it provides for the individual; and the original impulse to3 political organization, formulated in what these centuries called the4 state of nature, was consequently5 seen in man’s drive to defend himself which ultimately led to6 the abrogation of self-defense in favor of an over-all system of security which, under the name of government, had the obligation to defend all against all. Action is seen here primarily and even exclusively as attack and defense based on the “ability to kill” which is equal to all; and the role of the philosophers, specifically of Hobbes and Spinoza, is to implore their fellow-citizens to renounce this ability and to repudiate action for the sake of peace for all. This reaction however, although its theories survived in many variations and became in a transformed way even the frequently not openly admitted basis of liberalism, was short-lived in reality. The early introduction of the notion of history, first formulated in Vico’s scientia nuova, marks the |30 the turning point.
53
History, for the modern consciousness, guarantees the same potential earthly immortality that the polis guaranteed to its citizens. But while the polis guaranteed a potential immortality--immortal fame--to each citizen, history guarantees whatever immortality may be achieved to mankind rather than to individual men. History itself is already a notion in which mankind is being seen as subject of a process, and the individual men, authors of their individual actions, is submerged in it.1 With it, mankind (2rather than individual men,)3 tries once more to find more than a temporary abode, to find and found a permanent home on earth. The Greeks thought that the polis owed its origin less to the necessities of human life and human interdependence as to the striving of each to liberate himself from them in order to be able to achieve in the polis that distinction from all others that may lead into earthly immortality. Politics, properly speaking, therefore included all manners of aristeuein, of showing that one is the best of all, from the olympic games to theatrical performance: and all these activities that of the orarator in a law suit no less than that of the artist became4 necessarily agons, competetive contests. The agonal spirit made them political. The polis7 provided the public visible place where one could appear and show who one actually is and the guarantee that such appearance, if properly seen and appreciated, would never altogether be lost. Modern man, to be sure, is much less ambitious; but at the basis of his historical consciousness lies nevertheless the same striving not to be forgotten on earth after he has left the earth. Marx struggle for the working classes in the name of equality, his contention that all history is a history of class struggles, where the privileged classes wrote history and impressed their memory on mankind while the underprivileged were not granted the humanly speaking supreme8 right, the right not to be forgotten, must be seen in this light, if we want to understand Marx’s deepest impulses9. To partake in history had for Hegel and Marx the same ring, was so to speak the same touchstone of being human, as to the ancient to be an inhabitant, a free citizen of the polis. History in other words has taken in modern times almost the place of politics, and politics has, verbally as well as objectively, been degraded to a mere technique of administration, manipulation or representation. To have a place in history has meant in the modern age something very similar to having a place in the ancient political community.	History, for the modern consciousness, guarantees the same potential earthly immortality that the polis guaranteed to its citizens. With it, mankind rather than individual men, tries once more to find more than a temporary abode, to find and found a permanent home on earth. The Greeks thought that the polis owed its origin less to the necessities of human life and human interdependence as to the striving of each to liberate himself from them in order to be able to achieve in the polis that distinction from all others that may lead into earthly immortality. Politics, properly speaking, therefore included all manners of aristeuein, of showing that one is the best of all, from the olympic games to theatrical performance: and all these activities that of the orarator in a law suit no less than that of the artist were4 necessarily in the form of5 agons, of6 competetive contests. The polis, at the same time,7 provided the public visible place where one could appear and show who one actually is and the guarantee that such appearance, if properly seen and appreciated, would never altogether be lost. Modern man, to be sure, is much less ambitious; but at the basis of his historical consciousness lies nevertheless the same striving not to be forgotten on earth after he has left the earth. Marx struggle for the working classes in the name of equality, his contention that all history is a history of class struggles, where the privileged classes wrote history and impressed their memory on mankind while the underprivileged were not granted the humanly speaking surpreme8 right, the right not to be forgotten, must be seen in this light, if we want to understand Marx’s actual impuls9. To partake in history had for Hegel and Marx the same ring, was so to speak the same touchstone of being human, as to the ancient to be an inhabitant, a free citizen of the polis. History in other words has taken in modern times almost the place of politics, and politics has, verbally as well as objectively, been degraded to a mere technique of administration, manipulation or representation. To have a place in history has meant in the modern age something very similar to having a place in the ancient political community. |31 For Marx and Hegel the making of history has taken the place of political action not only because they saw acting in the light of making, but also because they considered history to be the ultimate political reality.10
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For Marx and Hegel the making of history took the place of political action not only because they saw acting in the light of making, but also because they considered history to be the ultimate political reality. Characteristic of modern political consciousness is not only the illusion that history can be “made”, but also the the desire to make sure that history will survive the temporal generations of men. The care for a potential earthly immortality--and this means both, the consciousness that the mortality of the individual is embedded in something less mortal and perhaps even immortal and that this immortality is not eternity, that it is only potential --seems inherent in all purely secular Western politics. From here, it seems almost a matter of course that the result of secularization, of the separation of politics from religion, was not a new science of politics, but of history, especially since this separation took place under conditions where men everywhere began to feel members of the human race rather than one particular country or one city. It seems like a curious coincidence, or perhaps more than a coincidence, that as soon as History seemed to have provided a potential earthly immortality for all--true to the universal equality and global interconnectedness of all men in modern times--, mankind found for the first time a kind of tangible proof that its immortality is indeed merely potential, when science discovered the means to destroy with man-made instruments all life on earth. Politically, this is of course of much greater relevance than the already very symptomatic considerations of some scientists of the last century about a possible death of all life or a possible destruction of the earth through some cosmic processes. It now looks as though we were meant to be able to ward off such seemingly necessary cosmic processes, precisely because we are already able to bring about catastrophe all by ourselves.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
55
We cannot inquire here how this new science of history, which came in the stead of a new science of politics, once more transformed action and with it the meaningfulness of human living-together. I may remind you that the totalitarian movements from the beginning announced that they were “thinking in centuries” and this ideological statement was never meant as a1 propaganda phrase. What is relevant in our context is that the relationship of Hegel to history shows a surprising similarity to Plato’s relationship to the affairs of the polis, albeit in a radically changed manner. What matters here is that just as Plato tried to impose upon the affairs of men the absolute standards of his doctrine of ideas, thus Hegel can conceive of meaningfulness in history only under the condition that the Absolute, which reveals itself fully only to the philosopher, is realized in the deeds and sufferings of men. Hidden behind Hegels so-called pragmatic affirmation of the real as being the2 “reasonable”, we may easily find the same original hostility of the philosopher to the pragmata tôn anthrôpôn which Plato openly and unashamedly proclaimed in the cave story of the Republic. The very fact that for Hegel philosophy ultimately meant “reconciliation with reality” --and this certainly was not the reality of the naturally given but the historical reality of man’s past and the political reality of human affairs in general--speaks a clear enough language. What reconciles the philosopher with the realm of human affairs is that even there he can perceive the Absolute. Without it, this whole realm would immediately fall back into that tormenting void of meaninglessness and senselessness which every action, taken in itself, must bear anyhow. Hegel, in other words, did to history with its multiplicity of developments, events and actions the same what Plato did to the political realm with its endless variety of opinions; he measures these events with the yardstick of the Absolute just as Plato measured opinions with the yardstick of truth. In both instances, the multiple is sacrificed to the One, the plurality of men which utters itself politically in opinions, in the fact that no one man can claim to have the one truth, and whose endless variety then fills our record of the past, is eliminated. Just as Plato demanded that One Man, the king-philosopher who knew the truth, should rule the city of the many, so Hegel demands that the one philosopher to whose backward glance the Absolute unfolds in the process of time should be the possessor and dispenser of meaning for which all other men, in their [gap] thoughts [gap] in vain.3	We cannot inquire here how this new science of history, which came in the stead of a new science of politics, once more transformed action and with it the meaningfulness of human living-together. I may remind you that the totalitarian movements from the beginning announced that they were “thinking in centuries” and that, to a degree, this ideological statement is no1 propaganda phrase. What is relevant in our context is that the relationship of Hegel to history shows a surprising similarity to Plato’s relationship to the affairs of the polis, albeit in a radically changed manner. What matters here is that just as Plato tried to impose upon the affairs of men the absolute standards of his doctrine of ideas, thus Hegel can conceive of meaningfulness in history only under the condition that the Absolute, which reveals itself fully only to the philosopher, is realized in the deeds and sufferings of men. Hidden behind Hegels so-called pragmatic affirmation of the real as being “reasonable”, we may easily find the same original hostility of the philosopher to the pragmata tôn anthrôpôn which Plato openly and unashamedly proclaimed in the cave story of the Republic. The very fact that for Hegel philosophy ultimately meant “reconciliation with reality” -- and this certainly was not the reality of the naturally given but the historical reality of man’s past and the political reality of human affairs in general -- speaks a clear enough language. What reconciles the philosopher with the realm of human affairs is that even there he can perceive the Absolute. Without it, this whole realm would immediately fall back into that tormenting void of meaninglessness and senselessness which every action, taken in itself, must bear anyhow.
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What then, may we ask, is the reason for this perennial conflict between philosophy and politics, which lay dormant throughout the Middle Ages and broke1 out anew with the rise of the modern world2? What is it that made the philosopher despair, not of Man, but of men and their doings? Why did he pretend, in Plato’s |32 words, that only his body, not his soul, inhabits the city?3	What then, may we ask, is the reason for this perennial conflict between philosophy and politics, out of which political philosophy was born2? What is it that made the philosopher despair, not of Man, but of men and their doings? Why did he pretend, in Plato’s
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	And the reason that Hegel and Marx could not think about politics except in historical terms means, among other things, that
58
[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 30 But while the polis guaranteed a potential immortality -- immortal fame -- to each citizen, history guarantees whatever immortality may be achieved to mankind rather than to individual men. History itself is already a notion in which mankind is being seen as subject of a process, and the individual men, authors of their individual actions, is submerged in it.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 31 Characteristic of modern political consciousness is not only the illusion that history can be “made”, but also the the desire to make sure that history will survive the temporal generations of men. The care for a potential earthly immortality -- and this , means both the consciousness that the mortality of the individual is embedded in something less mortal and perhaps even immortal and that this immortality is not eternity, that is potential only -- seems inherent in all purely secular Western politics. From here, it seems almost a matter of course that the result of secularization, of the separation of politics from religion, was not a new science of politics, but of history, especially since this separation took place under conditions where men everywhere began to feel members of the human race rather than one particular country or one city.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	It seems like a curious coincidence, or perhaps more than a coincidence, that as soon as History seemed to have provided a potential earthly immortality for all -- true to the universal equality and global interconnectedness of all men in modern times --, mankind found for the first time a kind of tangible proof that its immortality is indeed merely potential, when science discovered the means to destroy with man-made instruments all life on earth. Politically, this is of course of much greater relevance than the already very symptomatic considerations of some scientists of the last century about a possible death of all life or a possible destruction of the earth through some cosmic processes. It now looks as though we were meant to be able to ward off such seemingly necessary cosmic processes, precisely because we are already able to bring about catastrophe all by ourselves. 🞽 ad 31 Hegel, in other words, did to history with its multiplicity of developments, events and actions the same what Plato did to political realm with its endless variety of opinions; he measures these events with the yardstick of the Absolute just as Plato measured opinions with the yardstick of truth. In both instances, the multiple is sacrificed to the One, the plurality of men which utters itself politically in opinions, in the fact that no one man can claim to have the one truth, and whose endless variety then fills our record of the past, is eliminated. Just as Plato demanded that One Man, the king-philosopher who knew the truth, should rule the city of the many, so Hegel demands that the one philosopher to whose backward glance the Absolute unfolds in the process of time should be the possessor and dispenser of meaning for which all other men, in their deeds and thoughts strive in vain.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	words, that only his body, not his soul, inhabits the city?
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In order to find out what this1 conflict is about which gave rise to our whole tradition of political thought and was forgotten, not even through the rise of the modern age--for Hegel still maintained that to common sense, that is the sense which rules the common world of human affairs, philosophical speculation moves in a world turned upside down--but only when the modern world had pushed, as it were, the philosopher against the wall to such an extent that political philosophy itself disappeared, we shall go back to its3 beginning, to the moment when for5 the first time6 the men of thought parted company7 from the men of action, when with Pericles the last philosophic statesman and with Socrates the last political philosopher had died.8 It was then that Plato formulated the first political philosophy which, at the same time, was the first philosophy in which the philosopher explicitly took position toward and, to an extent, against politics. With Plato’s demand that the philosophers should be the rulers of the City began a development that first put the philosophers into voluntary abstention from the affairs of the City and finally ended with his expulsion from it.	[metamark —————→]In order to find out what the1 conflict is about which gave rise [metamark (text connection)]to our whole tradition of political thought and then2 was forgotten, not even through the rise of the modern age -- for Hegel still maintained that to common sense, that is the sense which rules the common world of human affairs, philosophical speculation moves in a world turned upside down -- but only when the modern world had pushed, as it were, the philosopher against the wall to such an extent that political philosophy itself disappeared, we shall go back to the3 beginning of our tradition4, to the moment when, in5 the words of Cornford,6 the men of thought parted from the men of action, when with Pericles the last philosophic statesman and with Socrates the last political philosopher had died It was then that Plato formulated the first political philosophy which, at the same time, was the first philosophy in which the philosopher explicitly took position toward and, to an extent, against politics. With Plato’s demand that the philosophers should be the rulers of the City began a development that first put the philosophers into voluntary abstention from the affairs of the City and finally ended with his expulsion from it.
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III	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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The gulf1 between philosophy and politics opened historically with the trial and condemnation of Socrates, which in the history of political thought plays the same role of a turning point which the trial and condemnation of Jesus played in the history of religion. Our tradition of political thought began when2 the death of Socrates made Plato despair of polis life and, at the same time, doubt certain fundamentals of Socrates’s teachings. The fact that Socrates had not been able to persuade his judges of his innocence and his merits, which were so obvious to the better and younger part of Athen’s citizenship, made him doubt the validity of persuasion. We have difficulties to grasp the importance of this doubt, because “persuasion” is a very weak and inadequate translation of the ancient Peithein whose political importance is indicated by the fact that Peithô, the goddes of Persuasion, had a temple in Athens. Persuasion, |33 peithein, was the specifically political form of speech, and since the Athenians were proud that they, in distinction from the barbarians, conducted their political affairs in the form of speech,4 without compulsion, rhetorics5 the art of persuasion was considered7 the highest, the truly political art. Socrates’ speech in the Apology is one of its great examples and it is against this Apology that Plato wrote the Phaidon,8 a “revised Apology”, which he called ironically9 “more persuasive” (pinthanôteron)63,10 because it ends with a myth of a Hereafter with bodily punishments and rewards which is calculated to frighten the audience rather than merely persuade it. Socrates’ point in his defense12 before the citizens and judges of Athens had been13 that his behavior was in the best interest of the city. In the Crito15, he had explained16, to his friends, that he could not17 flee but must rather suffer the death penalty for political and philosophical reasons. It seems18 that he was19 not only unable to20 persuade his judges, but also unable to21 convince his friends. The22 city had no use for a philosopher and the friends had no use for political argumentation. This is part of the23 tragedy to which Plato’s dialogues -24 testify.	The abyss1 between philosophy and politics opened historically with the trial and condemnation of Socrates, which in the history of political thought plays the same role of a turning point which the trial and condemnation of Jesus played in the history of religion. Our tradition of political thought began with2 the death of Socrates which3 made Plato despair of polis life and, at the same time, doubt certain fundamentals of Socrates’s teachings. The fact that Socrates had not been able to persuade his judges of his innocence and his merits, which were so obvious to the better and younger part of Athen’s citizenship, made him doubt the validity of persuasion. We have difficulties to grasp the importance of this doubt, because “persuasion” is a very weak and inadequate translation of the ancient Peithein whose political importance is indicated by the fact that Peithô, the goddes of Persuasion, had a temple in Athens. Persuasion, |33 peithein, was the specifically political form of speech, and since the Athenians were proud that they, in distinction from the barbarians, conducted their political affairs in the form of speech and4 without compulsion, the art of persuasion which6 was rhetorics was7 the highest, the truly political art. Socrates’ speech in the Apology is one of its great examples and when Plato writes in the Phaidon what has been called8 a “revised Apology”, he consciously tried to give a defense which is9 “more persuasive” (pinthanôteron) 63precisely10 because it ends with a myth of a Hereafter with bodily punishments and rewards which is calculated to frighten the audience rather than merely to11 persuade it. (Socrates defends himself12 before the citizens and judges of Athens in the Apology; his point is13 that he is politically right and that14 his behavior was in the best interest of the city. He explains15, in the Crito16, to his friends, that for political reasons he cannot17 flee but must rather suffer the death penalty. The point seems to have been18 that he could19 not persuade his judges, and that he could not21 convince his friends. In other words, the22 city had no use for a philosopher and the friends had no use for political argumentation. This was the real23 tragedy to which Plato’s dialogues with their decisive conflict between the Socratic and the later ones24 testify.)25
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Closely connected with the doubt of the validity of persuasion is Plato’s furious1 denunciation of doxa, opinion, which not only runs like a red thread through his political works, but became2 one of the cornerstones of his concept3 of truth. Platonian truth even when doxa is not mentioned is always understood as the very5 opposite of opinion, doxa. The spectacle of Socrates’ submitting6 his own doxa to the irresponsible opinions of the Athenians7 and being8 outvoted by a majority made him despise opinions and taught him that yearning for absolute standards by which human deeds could be judged and human thought achieve some measure of reliability which from then on9 became the primary impulse for his political philosophy and influenced decisively even the purely philosophical doctrine of ideas. I do not think, as is often maintained that11 the concept of ideas was primarily a concept of standards and measurements, nor that its12 origin |34 is political. But this error is very14 understandable and n15 justifiable because16 Plato himself was the first to use the ideas for political purposes, for the purpose to introduce absolute standards into the realm of human affairs where without such transcending18 standards everything remains relative--as Plato himself used to point out: we do not know what absolute19 greatness is but experience only that something is grea- 34ater20 or smaller in relationship with something else. The opposition of truth and doxa was certainly the most anti Socratic conclusion which Plato drew from Socrates’ trial. Socrates in failing to convince the City had shown that the city is no safe place for the philosopher, not only in the sense that his life is not safe because of the truth he possesses, but also in the much more important sense that the city cannot be trusted with preserving the memory of the philosopher, his potential greatness and the immortal fame which is due to him. If they could kill Socrates, they were only too liable to forget him when he was dead. His earthly immortality could be safe only if one succeeded to inspire philosophers with a solidarity of their own which was opposed to the solidarity with the polis and one’s fellow-citi_ zens. The old argument against the σοφοι--the wise men--, recurring in Plato as in Aristotle, that they do not know what is good for themselves, which is the prerequisite for political wisdom, that they look ridiculous when they appear on the market place, that they are the common laughing stock, as Thales was laughed at by a peasant girl when staring to the skies he fell into the well before his feet, this argument was turned by Plato against the City. |34a In order to comprehend the enormity of Plato’s demand that the philosopher should become the ruler of the city, we must keep in mind these common “prejudices” which the polis had with respect to philosophers, but not with respect to artists and poets. Only the sophos does not know what is good for himself andwill know even less what is good for the polis. The sophos, the wise man as ruler, must be seen in opposition to the current ideal of the phronimos, the understanding man whose insights into the world of human affairs qualify him for leadership, though of course not for rule. Philosophy, love of wisdom, was not at all thought to be the same as this insight, this phronésis. Aristotle is in agreement with this opinion when he states: “Anaxagoras & Thaleswere wise men, but not understan ding men; they did not concern themselves with the anthrôpinaagatha, the human good.” (1141b421) For only the wise man is concerned with matters outside the polis. With this public opinion, Aristotle is again in full agreement, when he states: Anaxagoras & Thales were wise, but not understanding men. They were not interested in what is good for men--the ανθρωπινα αγαθα. Plato did not contest that the concern of the philosopher was with eternal, non-human matters. But he did not agree that this made him unfit to play a political role. He did not agree with the polis which had concluded concluded that the philosopher without concern for the agathon was himself in constant danger to become a good-for-nothing. (The notion of agathos, good, has no connection here with what we call goodness in an absolute sense; it means exclusively good for ...) This reproach that philosophy may deprive citizens of their personal fitness is implicitly contained in Pericles’ famous statement: Philokaloumen met’ euteleias kai philosophoumen aneu malakias--we love the beautiful without exaggeration and we love wisdom without softness, unmanliness. In distinction from our own prejudices, where softness and unmanliness are rather connected with the love of the beautiful, the Greeks saw this danger in philosophy ; philosophy, the concern with truth regardless of the world of human affairs, but not love of the beautiful which everywhere was represented in the polis, its statues and its poetry, its music and its Olympic games, drove its adherent out of the polis and made them unfit for it. When Plato claimed rulership for the sophos because he alone could behold the idea of the good, the highest of the eternal essences, he opposed the polis on two grounds: He first claimed that the philosopher’s concern with eternal things did not endanger him to become a good-for-nothing, and he second asserted that these eternal things were even more “valuable” than they were beautiful, although they were beyond “use.” His reply to Protagoras that not man, but a god is the measure of all things human is only another version of the same statement.22	Closely connected with the doubt of the validity of persuasion [metamark (text connection)]is Plato’s denunciation of doxa, opinion, which not only runs like a red thread through his political works, but becomes even2 one of the cornerstones of his doctrine3 of truth. Platonian truth even when doxa is not mentioned is always understood and formulated4 as the opposite of opinion, doxa. The spectacle of Socrates’ having to submit6 his own doxa to the irresponsible opinions of the Atheniasn7 and see it8 outvoted by a majority made him despise opinions and taught him that yearning for absolute standards by which human deeds could be judged and human thought achieve some measure of reliability which from then became the [metamark (text connection)]primary impulse for his political philosophy and, as we shall see,10 influenced decisively even the purely philosophical doctrine of ideas. (That11 the concept of ideas was primarily a concept of standards and measurements, as even today is still often maintained -- first of |34 [metamark (text connection)]is not correct. Its12 origin is not13 political. But this error is all the more14 understandable and even15 justifiable as16 Plato himself was the first to use the ideas for political purposes, that is17 for the purpose to introduce absolute standards into the realm of human affairs where without such transcendent18 standards everything remains relative -- as Plato himself used to point out: we do not know what greatness is but experience only that something is greater20 or smaller in relationship with something else.)
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Plato’s elevation of the idea of the good to the highest place in the world of ideas, the idea of ideas which occurs in the cave allegory must be understood in this political context. It is much less a matter of course than we, who have grown up in the consequences of the Platonic tradition are liable to think. Plato, obviously, was guided by the Greek proverbial ideal of the kalon k’agathon, and it is therefore significant that he decided himself for the good, instead of the beautiful. Seen merely from the side of the ideas themselves, which are defined as that whose appearance illuminates--the good is called the phanestaton--, the kalon which is “good for nothing” but merely shines forth (and therefore is called by Plato, when he is unconcerned with political implications the ekphanestaton) Cf. Heidegger alétheia--or-- thotéshad much more right to become the idea of ideas. The difference between the good and the beautiful is, not only to us but even more to the Greeks, that the good is applicable, that it has an element of the useful-for in in itself. Only because the world of ideas is illuminated by the idea of the good, could Plato, [use the ideas for political pur-poses and] in the Nomoi, erect his ideocracy, in which eternal ideas were translated into human laws. Yet, Plato’s attempt to play a political role--and he was the last philosopher who tried this--was quite in line with Socrates teachings. Not Plato, Socrates was the first philosopher who overstepped the lines drawn by the polis for the sophos, for the man who is concerned with eternal non-human and non-political things. The tragedy of this conflict resides in a misunderstanding: what the polis did not understand was that Socrates did not claim to be a sophos, a wise man, but a φιλό-σοφος, a lover of wisdom, because he doubted that wisdom is for mortals. He therefore saw the irony in the saying from Delphi, that he be the wisest of all mortals; it meant the man who knows that men cannot be wise is the wisest of them all. The polis did not believe him, but demanded that he admit that he, like all sophoi, was politically a good for nothing. As a philosopher he had nothing to teach his fellow fellow citizens.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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The conflict between the philosopher and the polis had come to a head because Socrates had made new demands for the philosopher , precisely because he did not claim to be wise. And it is in this situation that Plato designed his tyranny of truth, where not what is temporally good and of what men can persuade each other, but eternal truth of which one cannot persuade is to rule the City. What had become apparent in the Socratic experience was that only rulership might assure the philosopher of that earthly immortality which the polis was supposed to assure to all its citizens. For while the thought and actions of all men were threatened by their own inherent instability and human forgetfulness, the thoughts of the philosopher was exposed to willful oblivion. The same polis therefore which guaranteed to its inhabitants an immortality and stability which they never could hope for without it, was a threat and a danger to the immortality of the philosopher. The philosopher, it is true, in his intercourse with eternal things needed the earthly immortality less than anybody else. Yet this eternity, which was more than earthly immortality, came into conflict with the polis whenever the philosopher tried to bring his concern to the attention of his fellow citizens. As soon as the philosopher submits his truth, the reflection of the eternal, to the polis, it becomes immediately an opinion among opinions. It loses its distinguishing quality, for there is no visible hallmark which marks off truth from opinion. It is as though the moment the eternal is brought into the midst of men, it becomes temporal, so that the very discussion of it with others threatens already the existence of the world in which the lovers of wisdom move.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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[gap] In the process of reasoning out the implications of Socrates’ trial, Plato arrived both at his concept of truth as the very opposite of opinion and at his notion of a1 specifically philosophical form of speech, dialegesthai, as the very2 opposite of persuasion and rhetorics.[metamark (text connection)] (Aristotle takes these distinctions and oppositions already as a matter of course when he begins his Rhetorics, which belongs to his political writings no less than the Ethics, with the statement: Hé rhétoriké estin antistrophos té 1354a1dialektiké: The art of rhetorics, i.e. the art of persuasion and therefore the political art of speech, is the counterpart of the art of dialectics, the art of philosophical speech.) The chief distinction between persuasion and dialectics is that the former always addresses a multitude (peithein ta pléthé) whereas dialectics is possible only as a dialogue between two (autos autô). Socrates’ mistake was to adress his judges in the form of dialectics, that is the reason why he could not persuade them; his truth, on the other hand4 because he respected the limitations inherent in persuasion became an opinion among opinions, not worth a bit more than the non-truths of the judges. Socrates insisted in talking the matter through with his judges as he used to talk about all kind of things with single Athenian citizens or with his pupils; and he believed that he could arrive at some truth thereby and persuade the others of it. Yet, persuasion does not come from truth, it comes from opinions6Phaidros, 260, and only persuasion reckons & knows how7 to deal with the multitude. To persuade the multitude means to force upon its multiple opinions one’s own opinion; persuasion8 is not9 the opposite of rule by violence10, it is only another form11 of it12. The myths of an13 Hereafter with which Plato concluded all his political dialogues, with the exception of the Nomoi, |35 are neither truth nor mere opinion; they are designed as stories which can frighten, that is, an attempt to use violence by words only. He can do without this concluding myth in the Nomoi, because the detailed prescriptions and even more detailed catalogue of punishments makes a violence with mere words unnecessary.14	In the process of reasoning out the implications of Socrates’ trial, Plato arrived both at his concept of truth as the very opposite of opinion and at his notion of the1 specifically philosophical form of speech, dialegesthai, as the opposite of persuasion and rhetorics. (Aristotle takes these distinctions and oppositions already as a matter of course when he begins his Rhetorics, which belongs to his political writings no less than the Ethics, with the statement: Hé rhétoriké estin antistrophos té 1354a1dialektiké: The art of rhetorics, i.e. the art of persuasion and therefore the political art of speech, is the counterpart of the art of dialectics, the art of philosophical speech.) The chief distinction between persuasion and dialectics is that the former 🞽 But content is the same: [gap] always addresses a multitude (peithein ta pléthé) whereas dialectics is possible only as a dialogue between two (autos autô). (3Socrates’ mistake was to adress his judges in the form of dialectics, that is the reason why he could not persuade them; his truth, on the other ha4 because he respected the limitations inherent in persuasion became an opinion among opinions, not worth a bit more than the non-truths of the judges. Socrates insisted in talking the matter through with his judges as he used to talk about all kind of things with single Athenian citizens or with his pupils; and he believed that he could arrive at some truth thereby and persuade the others of it. Yet, “5persuasion does not come from truth, it Phaidros, 260comes from opinions ” , precisely because persuasion has7 to deal with the multitude and the multitude is incapable of truth. If one wants to persuade the multitude, that8 is rule over their opinions,9 the only things they are capable of10, one has to use a kind11 of violence12. The myths of the13 Hereafter with which Plato concluded all his political dialogues, with the exception of the Nomoi,
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Although it is more than probable that Socrates was the first who had used dialegesthai systematically, talking something through with somebody, he probably did not look upon this as the opposite or even the counterpart to persuasion and it is certain that he did not oppose the result of these dialectics to doxa, to opinion. To Socrates, as to his fellow-citizens, doxa was the formulation in speech of what dokei moi, what appears to me. This doxa had as its topic not what Aristotle called the “eikos”, the probable the many verisimilia, (as distinguished from the unum verum, the one truth on one hand and the limitless falsehoods, the falsa infinita, on the other), but comprehended the world as it opens itself to me. It, therefore , was not subjective fantasy and arbitrariness, but also not something absolute, valid for all. The assumption was that the world opens up difcf. Kierkegaardferently to every man, according to his position in it; and that the “sameness” of the world, its common-ness (koinon as the Greeks would say, common to all) or “objectivity” (as we would say from the subjective viewpoint of modern philosophy) resides in the fact that the same world opens up to all and that despite all differences between men and their positions in the world, and consequently their doxai, “both, you and I are human.”	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	The Platonic opposition of truth and doxa was certainly the most anti Socratic conclusion which he drew from Socrates’ trial. Socrates in failing to convince the City had shown that the city is no safe place for the philosopher, not only in the sense that his life is not safe because of the truth he possesses, but also in the much more important sense that the city cannot be trusted with preserving the memory of the philosopher, his potential greatness and the immortal fame which is due to him. If they could kill Socrates, they were only too liable to forget him when he was dead. His earthly immortality could be safe only if one succeeded to inspire philosophers, the lovers of truth, with a solidarity of their own which was opposed to the solidarity with the polis and one’s fellow-citizens. The old argument against philosophers, recurring in Plato as in Aristotle, that they do not know what is good for themselves, which is the prerequisite for political wisdom, that they look ridiculous when they appear on the market place, that they are the common laughing stock, as Thales was laughed at by a peasant girl when staring to the skies he fell in to the well before his feet, this argument was turned by Plato against the city. One of the reasons why he wanted to establish his tyranny of reason or rather of truth, to make the philosopher also the ruler of the polis was that he felt that only rulership could assure to the philosopher that earthly immortality which the polis assured and was supposed to assure to all its citizens. For while the thought and actions of all men were threatened by their own inherent instability and human forgetfulness, the thoughts of the philosopher was exposed to a willful oblivion. The same polis therefore which guaranteed to its inhabitants an immortality and stability which they never could hope for without it, was a threat and a danger to the immortality of the philosopher.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	The danger to the philosopher from the side of the polis arises from the unavoidable fact that the moment the philosopher submits his truth to judgment of the polis, it becomes an opinion among opinions; There is outwardly nothing which marks truth off, there is no visible hallmark by which it can distinguish itself. On the contrary, it is all too likely that opinions overrule truth because the holders of opinion are much more skilled to present them to the multitude than the philosopher whose ignorance of what is good for his had already become proverbial. The best for the philosopher would be never to enter the arena of opinions and to find some better way to deal with his fellow citizens than mere persuasion. 🞽 ad 34a In order to comprehend the enormity of Plato’s demand that the philosopher should become the ruler of the city, we must keep in mind these common “prejudices” which the polis had with respect to philosophers. Who does not know what is good for himself will know even less what is good for the polis. The sophos, the wise man as ruler, must be seen in opposition to the current ideal of the phronimos, the understanding man whose insights into the world of human affairs qualify him for leadership, though of course not for rule. Philosophy, love of wisdom, was not at all thought to be the same as this insight, this phronésis. Anaxagoras & Thales are wise men, but not understanding men; they did not concern themselves with the anthrôpina In one respect, Plato’s notion of philosophy was in complete agreement with that of the polis, namely that the philosopher does not occupy himself with things that are good for ..., such things being by definition neither divine 1156a22nor eternal, but only usful (chrésimon) and therefore, as Aristotle said, most unstable, and accidental since they are not necessarily whatever 1140a27they are but they can always be different. From this, the polis concluded that the philosopher without knowledge of the agathon 🞽 agatha, the human good.” (1141b4) was himself in constant danger to become good for nothing. (The notion of agathos, good, has no connection here with what we may call goodness in an absolute sense; it means exclusively good for ..) This reproach that philosophy may deprive citizens of their personal valor is implicity contained in Pericles’ famous statement: Philokaloumen met’ euteleias kai philosophoumen aneu malakias -- we love the beautiful without exaggeration and we love wisdom without softness, unmanliness. In distinction from our own prejudices, where softness and unmanliness are rather connected with the love of the beautiful, the Greeks saw in philosophy this danger; for philosophy, the concern with truth regardless of the world of human affairs, but not love of the beautiful which everywhere was represented in the polis, its statues and its poetry, its music and its Olympic games, drove its adherent out of the polis and its concerns. When Plato claimed rulership for the sophos because he alone could behold the idea of the good, the highest of the eternal essences, he opposed the polis on two grounds: He first claimed that the philosopher’s concern with eternal things did not endanger him to become a good-for- nothing, and he second asserted that these eternal things were even more “valuable” than they were beautiful. (His reply to Protagoras that not man, but a god is the measure of all things human is only another version of the same statement.) Yet, we should not forget that what appears here in the guise of a strictly philosophical argument, had been prompted by an exclusively political experience, the trial and defeat of Socrates, of whom the polis had demanded that he admit that he was a good for nothing.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	It is this contention that appears in the surprising Platonic elevation of the idea of the good to the highest place in the world of ideas. This elevation is much less a matter of course than we, who have grown up in the consequences of the Platonic tradition are liable to think. Plato, obviously, was guided by the Greek prove bial ideal of the kalon k’agathon, and it is therefore significant that he decided himself for the good, instead of the beautiful. Seen merely from the side of the ideas themselves, which are defined as that which illuminates -- the good is called the phanestaton --, the kalon which is “good for nothing” but merely shines forth (and therefore is called by Plato, when he is unaware and unconcerned of political implications the ekphanestaton) Cf. Heidegger alétheia-or-thotéshad much more right to become the idea of ideas. The difference between the good and the beautiful is, not only to us but even more to the Greeks, that the good is applicable, that it has an element of the useful-for in initself. Only because the world of ideas is illuminated by the idea of the good, could Plato, in the Nomoi, erect an ideocracy, in which the ideas were translated into laws. What appears in the Republic in the guise of a strictly philosophical argument, had been prompted by an exclusively political experience -- the trial and defeat of Socrates. He was the first philosopher who had overstepped the lines drawn by the polis for the sophos, for the man who is concerned with eternal non-human and non-political things. The tragedy of this conflict resides in a misunderstanding: what the polis did not understand was that Socrates did not claim to be a sophos, a wise man, because he doubted that wisdom is for mortals. He therefore saw the irony in the saying from Delphi, that he be the wisest of all mortals; it meant the man who knows that men cannot be wise is the wisest of them all. The polis did not believe him: Socrates the lover of philosophy Socrates, manifestly, was in search for the “agathon anthrôpinon”, for what is good for man, and it is precisely for this reason that the polis had demanded that he admit that he, like all sophoi, was politically a good for nothing insofar as he was a philosopher, and a useful citizen like all others only insofar as he, too, was a man.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	The conflict between the philosopher and the polis had come to a head because Socrates had made new demands for the philosopher. And it is in this situation that Plato designed his tyranny of truth, where not what is temporally good and of what men can persuade each other, but eternal truth of which one cannot persuade is to rule the City. What had become apparent in the Socratic experience was that only rulership might assure to
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	are neither truth nor mere opinion; they are designed as stories which can frighten, that is, an attempt to use violence by words only. He can do without this concluding myth in the Nomoi, because the detailed prescriptions and an even more detailed catalogue of punishments makes a violence with mere words unnecessary.
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The word doxa does not only mean opinion, but also splendor and fame. As such, it is related to the political realm which is the public sphere in which everybody can appear and show who he himself is. To assert one’s own opinion belonged to his3 being able to show oneself, to be seen and to be heard by others To the Greeks, this7 was the one great privilege attached to public life and lacking in11 the privacy of the household, where one is neither seen nor heard by others. (The family, wife and children, and the slave servants were of course not recognized as fully human.) In private life, one is hidden12 and can neither appear nor shine; no doxa is possible there. |36 |36 Socrates’ who refused public office and honor did never retired14 into this private life, but on the contrary moved on the market15 place, in the very midst of these doxai, these opinions. What Plato later called dialegesthai, he himself called maeutics the art of midwifes16: he wanted to help everybody to give birth to what he himself thought anyhow, to find the truth in the doxa. This method had its significance in a twofold conviction: every man has his own doxa, his own opening to the world, and Socrates therefore must always begin with questions; he cannot know beforehand what kind of dokei moi, of: it appears to me, the other possesses. He must make sure of the other’s position in the common world. Yet, just as nobody can know beforehand the other’s doxa, thus nobody can know all by himself and without further effort the inherent truth of his own opinion. Socrates wants to bring out this truth which everybody potentially possesses. If we remain true to his own metaphor of maeutics, we may say: Socrates wanted to make the city more truthful by delivering each of the citizens of their truths. The method to do this is dialegesthai, but this dialectics which brings out truth does not intend to17 destroy doxa or opinion, but on the contrary reveals this doxa in its own truthfulness. The role of the philosopher is not to rule the city, but to be its “gadfly”, [metamark (text connection)] to make the citizens more truthful. In this, we may see already the nucleus of a certain alienation: the idea that the citizens must be improved--for Plato later the main task of the statesman (he reproaches Pericles that after his death the Athenians were no better, rather worse, than before he became their statesman)--is quite foreign to Pre-Socratic times where the philosopher still had its full share in aristeuein, in showing that he is better than others and possibly the best of all (and in this game all citizens were engaged), but certainly was not burdened with the task to educate them. Yet, the difference to Plato is decisive: Socrates did not want to improve the citizens so much as he wanted to make their doxai, that what political life existed of, better, a life in which he too took part. Maeutics21 to Socrates22 |37 was a political activity, a give and take, fundamentally on a basis of strict equality, whose fruits could not be measured by results, arriving at this or that general truth. It is therefore obviously still quite in the Socratic tradition that Plato’s early dialogues so frequently conclude inconclusively, without a result or a conclusion. To have talked something through, to have talked about something, some doxa of one citizen, seemed result enough in itself.	[metamark (text connection)]Although it is more than probable that Socrates was the first who had discovered dialegesthai, talking something through with somebody, he probably did not look upon this as the opposite or even the counterpart to persuasion and it is certain that he did not oppose the result of these dialectics to doxa, to opinion. To Socrates, as to his fellow-citizens, doxa was the formulation in speech of what dokei moi, what appears to me. This doxa had as its topic not what Aristotle called the “eikos”, the probable the many verisimilia, (as distinguished from the unum verum, the one truth on one hand and the limitless falsehoods, the falsa infinita, on the other), but comprehended the world as it opens itself to me. It, therefore , was not subjective fantasy and arbitrariness, but also not something absolute, valid for all.1 The assumption was that the world opens up differentlycf. Kierkegaard to every man, according to his position in it; and that the “sameness” of the world, its common-ness (koinon as the Greeks would say, common to all) or “objectivity” (as we would say from the subjective viewpoint of modern philosophy) resides in the fact that the same world opens up to all and that despite all differences between men and their positions in the world, and consequently their doxai, “both, you and I are human.” The2 word doxa does not only mean opinion, but also splendor and fame. As such, it is related to the political realm which is the public sphere in which everybody can appear and show who he himself is. This3 being able to show oneself, to be seen by others4 and therefore5 to shine as well as to6 be heard by others and to assert one’s own opinion7 was for8 the Greeks the9 one great privilege attached to public life as such10 and denied to11 the privacy of the household, where one is neither seen nor heard by others. (The family, wife and children, and the slave servants were of course not recognized as fully human.) In private life, one hides oneself12 and can neither appear nor shine; no doxa is possible there. |36 Socrates’ who refused to an extent13 public office and honor did never retire14 into this private life, but on the contrary moved on the marked15 place, in the very midst of these doxai, these opinions. What Plato later called dialegesthai, talking something through with somebody, he himself called maeutics16: he wanted to help everybody to give birth to what he himself thought anyhow, to find the truth in the doxa. This method had its significance in a twofold conviction: every man has his own doxa, his own opening to the world, and Socrates therefore must always begin with questions; he cannot know beforehand what kind of dokei moi, of: it appears to me, the other possesses. He must make sure of the other’s position in the common world. Yet, just as nobody can know beforehand the other’s doxa, thus nobody can know all by himself and without further effort the inherent truth of his own opinion. Socrates wants to bring out this truth which everybody potentially possesses. If we remain true to his own metaphor of maeutics, we may say: Socrates wanted to make the city more truthful by delivering each of the citizens of their truths. The method to do this is dialegesthai, but this dialectics which brings out truth does not destroy doxa or opinion, but on the contrary reveals this doxa in its own truthfulness. The role of the philosopher -- if we may apply this term to Socrates who did not yet think of himself in these terms,18 [metamark (text connection)]is not to rule the city, but to be its “gadfly”, not19 to tell them a philosophical non-political truth, but to20 make the citizens more truthful. In this, we may see already the nucleus of a certain alienation: the idea that the citizens must be improved -- for Plato later the main task of the statesman (he reproaches Pericles that after his death the Athenians were no better, rather worse, than before he became their statesman) -- is quite foreign to Pre-Socratic times where the philosopher still had its full share in aristeuein, in showing that he is better than others and possibly the best of all (and in this game all citizens were engaged), but certainly was not burdened with the task to educate them. Yet, the difference to Plato is decisive: Socrates did not want to improve the citizens so much as he wanted to make their doxai, that what political life existed of, better, a life in which he too took part. Dialegesthai21 to him |36 (In Sophocles’ King Oedipus, which is the great tragedy of doxa, of appearance and illusion, where the22 |37 was a political activity, a give and take, fundamentally on a basis of strict equality, whose fruits could not be measured by results, by23 arriving at this or that general truth. It is therefore obviously still quite in the Socratic tradition that Plato’s early dialogues so frequently conclude inconclusively, without a result or a conclusion. To have talked something through, to have talked about something, some doxa of one citizen, seemed result enough in itself.
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It is obvious that this kind of dialogue which needs no conclusion in order to be meaningful is the kind of speech which is most frequent and most appropriate for friends. Friendship, indeed, to a large extent consists of this kind of talking about something which is between the friends and which they have in common. By talking about it, that which is between becomes even more common to them. It gains not only its specific articulateness, but develops and expands and finally, in the course of time and life, begins to constitute a little world of its own which is shared in friendship. In other words, politically speaking, Socrates tried to make friends out of Athens’ citizenry, and this indeed was a very understandable purpose in the polis whose life consisted in an intense and uninterrupted contest of all against all, of aei aristeuein, ceaselessly showing oneself to be the best of all. In this agonal spirit, which eventually was to bring the ruin to the Greek city states because it made alliances between them well-nigh impossible and poisoned the domestic life of the citizens with envy and mutual hatred (envy was the national vice of ancient Greece), the commonweal was constantly threatened, because the commonness of the political world was constituted only by the walls of the city and , the boundaries of its laws2; it was not seen or experienced in the relationships between the citizens, not in the world which lay between them,3 common to all of them, but opening up4 in a different way to each man. If we use Aristotle’s terminology in order to understand the Socrates’ better,--and great parts of Aristotle’s political philosophy, especially those in which he is in explicit opposition to Plato, go back to Socrates--we may use that part of the Nicomachean Ethics where A. explains that |38 a community does not consist of equals, but on the contrary of people who are different and unequal. The community comes into being through equalizing: isasthénai1133a16. This equalization takes place in all exchange, as between the physician and the farmer, and it is based on money. The political, non-economic equalization is friendship, philia.[metamark (text connection)] (That Aristotle sees friendship in analogy to want and exchange is related to the inherent materialism of his political philosophy, that is his conviction that politics ultimately is necessary because of the necessities of life from which men strive to free themselves; just as eating is not life, but the condition for living, so living together in the polis is not the good life, but its material condition. In this Aristotle remains a Platonian. He there- fore ultimately sees friendship from the viewpoint of the single citizen, not from that of the polis: its supreme justification is that “nobody would choose to live without friends even though he possessed all other goods.”1155a1) The equalization in friendship means of course not that the friends become equal, but that they become equal partners in a common world, that they constitute together a [metamark (text connection)]community. That is what friendship achieves, and it is obvious that this equalization of friendship has as its polemical point the ever further differentiation which is inherent in an agonal life. Aristotle concludes: “it seems that friendship keeps together the communities”1155a27 rather than justice, as, we may add, Plato maintained in the Republic, the great dialogue about justice. And Aristotle says in another context that friendship is better than justice, because no justice is necessary between friends.	[metamark ———————>]It is obvious that this kind of dialogue which needs no conclusion in order to be meaningful is the kind of speech which is most frequent and most appropriate for friends. Friendship, indeed, to a large extent consists of this kind of talking about something which is between the friends and which they have in common. By talking about it, that which is between becomes even more common to them. It gains not only its specific articulateness, but develops and expands and finally, in the course of time and life, begins to constitute a little world of its own which is shared in friendship. In other words, politically speaking, Socrates tried to make friends out of Athens’ citizenry, and this indeed was a very understandable purpose in the polis whose life consisted in an intense and uninterrupted contest of all against all, of aei aristeuein, ceaselessly showing oneself to be the best of all. In this agonal spirit, which eventually was to bring the ruin to the Greek city states because it made alliances between them well-nigh impossible and poisoned the domestic life of the citizens with envy and mutual hatred (envy was the national vice of ancient Greece), the commonweal was constantly threatened, because the commonness of the political world was constituted only by the walls of the city and its laws1, which also were considered to be boundaries or walls2; it was not seen or experienced in the relationships between the citizens, not in the world which lay between them and which was3 common to all of them, and which opened4 in a different way to each man. If we use Aristotle’s terminology in order to understand the Socrates’ role5 better, -- and great parts of Aristotle’s political philosophy, especially those in which he is in explicit opposition to Plato, go back to Socrates -- we may use that part of the Nicomachean Ethics where A. explains that |38 a community does not consist of equals, but on the contrary of people who are different and unequal. The community comes into being through equalizing: isasthénai1133a16. This equalization takes place in all exchange, as between the physician and the farmer, and it is based on money. The political, non-economic equalization is friendship[metamark (text connection)], philia. (That Aristotle sees friendship in analogy to want and exchange is related to the inherent materialism of his political philosophy, that is his conviction that politics ultimately is necessary because of the necessities of life from which men strive to free themselves; just as eating is not life, but the condition for living, so living together in the polis is not the good life, but its material condition. In this Aristotle remains a Platonian. He there- fore ultimately sees friendship from the viewpoint of the single citizen, not from that of the polis: its supreme justification is that “nobody would choose to live without friends even though he possessed all other goods.”1155a1) The equalization in friendship means of course not that the friends become equal, but that they become equal partners in a common world, that they constitute together a community. That is what friendship achieves, and it is obvious that this equalization of friendship has as its polemical point the ever further differentiation which is inherent in an agonal life. Aristotle concludes: “it seems that friendship keeps together the communities”1155a27 namely6 rather than justice, as, we may add, Plato maintained in the Republic, the great dialogue about justice. And Aristotle says in another context that friendship is better than justice, because no justice is necessary between friends.
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The political element1 in friendship2 is that through the truthful dialogue3 each of the friends can understand4 the truth inherent in the other’s5 opinion, he6 can understand (not so much his friend7 as a personas8) how and in which specific articulateness the common world appears to the other who for ever is unequal and different. This kind of understanding, to see the world as we say today rather tritely from the other fellow’s point of view, is the political kind of insight par excellence; if one wanted to define, in the way of the tradition, the one outstanding virtue of the statesman, one could say that it consists in understanding the greatest possible number and variety not of viewpoints, i.e. not of subjectivities |39 (which of course also exist but with which we now are not concerned), but of realities9 as they open themselves up to the various opinions of the citizens10, and, at the same time to be able to communicate between them so that the common-ness of this world becomes apparent. If such an understanding and an action which would be inspired by it were to take place without the help of the statesman, then the prerequisite would be that each of the citizens is articulate enough to show his opinion in its truthfulness and therefore to understand his fellow citizens. Socrates seems to have believed that the political function of the philosopher is to help establish this kind of common world, built on the understanding of friendship, where no rulership is needed11.	The most obvious thing which happens1 in the truthful dialogue between two which2 is i dialegesthai is that because3 each is forced to make manifest4 the truth inherent in his5 opinion the other6 can understand (not so much him7 as) how and in which specific articulateness the common world appears to the other who for ever is unequal and different. This kind of understanding, to see the world as we say today rather tritely from the other fellow’s point of view, is the political kind of insight par excellence; if one wanted to define, in the way of the tradition, the one outstanding virtue of the statesman, one could say that it consists in understanding the greatest possible number and variety not of viewpoints, i.e. not of subjectivities |39 (which of course also exist but with which we now are not concerned), but of worlds9 as they open themselves up to the various opinions of their inhabitants10, and, at the same time to be able to communicate between them so that the common-ness of this world becomes apparent. If such an understanding and an action which would be inspired by it were to take place without the help of the statesman, then the prerequisite would be that each of the citizens is articulate enough to show his opinion in its truthfulness and therefore to understand his fellow citizens. Socrates seems to have believed that the political function of the philosopher is to help establish this kind of common world, built on the understanding of friendship.
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For this purpose, Socrates relied on two insights, the one being contained in the word of the Delphian Apoll, Gnôthi sauthon, Know thyself, and the other related by Plato (and later also used by TheaitosAristotle): “It is much better to be in disagreement with the whole world than, being one, to be in disagreement with myself.” The latter is the key sentence for the Socratic conviction that virtue can be taught and learned.	For this purpose, Socrates relied on two insights, the one being contained in the word of the Delphian Apoll, Gnôthi sauthon, Know thyself, and the other related by Plato (and later also used by TheaitosAristotle): “It is much better to be in disagreement with the whole world than, being one, to be in disagreement with myself.” The latter is the key sentence for the Socratic conviction that virtue can be taught and learned.
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In the Socratic understanding, the Delphian Know Thyself meant: only through knowing what appears to me and thus only to me, and therefore remains forever related to my own concrete existence can I ever understand truth. Absolute truth, which would be the same for all men and therefore unrelated, independent of each man’s existence, can not exist for mortals. To mortals, the important thing is to make doxa truthful, to see in every doxa truth and to speak in such a way that the truth of one’s opinion reveals itself to oneself and to others. On this level, the Socratic “I know that I do not know” means not more than: I know that I do not have the truth for everybody, I cannot know the other fellow’s truth except by asking him and thus learn his doxa, that what2 has revealed itself to him in distinction from all others. The Delphian oracle in its ever equivocal ways honored Socrates with being the wisest of all men, because he had accepted the limitations of truth for mortals, its limitations through dokein, through appearances, and because he at the same, in opposition to the Sophists, had |40 discovered that3 doxa was neither subjective illusion nor arbitrary [metamark (text connection)]distortion, but that truth invariably adhered to it. If the quintessence of the sophists’ teachings consisted in the dyo logoi, in the insistence that each matter can be talked about in two different ways, then Socrates was the greatest of them all, because he thought that there are, or should be, as many different logoi as there are men, and that all these logoi together form the human world insofar as men live together in the manner of speech.	In the Socratic understanding, the Delphian Know Thyself meant: only through knowing what appears to me and thus only to me, and therefore remains forever related to my own concrete existence can I ever understand truth. Absolute truth, which would be the same for all men and therefore unrelated, independent of each man’s existence, can not exist for mortals. To mortals, the important thing is to make doxa truthful, to see in every doxa truth and to speak in such a way that the truth of one’s opinion reveals itself to oneself and to others. On this level, the Socratic “I know that I do not know” as important part of his maeutics1 means not more than: I know that I do not have the truth for everybody, I cannot know the other fellow’s truth except by asking him and thus learn his doxa, that was2 has revealed itself to him in distinction from all others. The Delphian oracle in its ever equivocal ways honored Socrates with being the wisest of all men, because he had accepted the limitations of truth for mortals, its limitations through dokein, through appearances, and because he at the same, in opposition to the Sophists, had |40 discovered doxa was neither subjective illusion nor arbitrary distortion, but that truth invariably adhered to it. If the quintessence of the sophists’ teachings consisted in the dyo logoi, in the insistence that each matter can be talked about in two different ways, then Socrates was the greatest of them all, because he thought that there are, or should be, as many different logoi as there are men, and that all these logoi together form the human world insofar as men live together in the manner of speech.
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The chief criterion for the man who speaks truthfully his own doxa was for Socrates “that he is in agreement with himself”, that he does not contradict himself and does not say contradictory things. This is what most people do and yet, what each of us somehow is afraid of doing. The fear of contradiction comes from the fact that each of us, “being one” can at the same time talk with himself (eme emauthô) as though he were two. Because I am already two-in-one, at least when I try to think1, the friend in Aristotle’s definition is an “other self”, (esti gar ho philos allos autos)1166a10 & 1170b7 and only who has made the experience of talking with himself and therefore of being in agreement or disagreement with himself, [metamark (text connection)]is capable of being a friend, of acquiring another self; the 1166a13condition being that he homognômei heautô, that he is in agreement with himself, because somebody who contradicts himself is unreliable. The faculty of speech and the fact of human plurality correspond to each other, not only in3 the sense that I use words for communication with those, with whom I am together in the world, but in the even more relevant sense that speaking with myself I live together with myself.	The chief criterion for the man who speaks truthfully his own doxa was for Socrates “that he is in agreement with himself”, that he does not contradict himself and does not say contradictory things. This is what most people do and yet, what each of us somehow is afraid of doing. The fear of contradiction comes from the fact that each of us, “being one” can at the same time talk with himself (eme emauthô) as though he were two. Because I am already two-in-one, at least when I try think through something1, the friend in Aristotle’s definition is an “other self”, (esti gar ho philos allos autos)1166a10 & 1170b7 and only who has made the experience of talking with himself and therefore of being in agreement or disagreement with himself, is capable of being a friend, of acquiring another self; the 1166a13condition being that he homognômei heautô, that he is in agreement with himself, because somebody who contradicts himself is unreliable. The faculty of speech and the fact of human plurality correspond to each other, but2 not only on3 the sense that I use words for communication with those, with whom I am together in the world, but in the even more relevant sense that speaking with myself I live together with myself.
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[metamark (text connection)]The axiom of contradiction, with which Aristotle founded Western logics, can be traced back to this fundamental discovery of Socrates. Because I am one, I will not contradict myself, and I can contradict myself because in thought I am two-in-one and therefore do not only live with others for whom I am one, but also with myself. The fear of contradiction is the fear of splitting up, of no longer remaining one, and this is the reason why the axiom of contradiction could become the fundamental rule for |41 [metamark (text connection)]all thought. Here lies also the reason why the plurality of men can never entirely be abolished and why the escape of the philosopher from the realm of plurality always remains an illusion: even if I were to live entirely by myself, I would, as long as I am alive, live in the condition of plurality; I would have to put up with myself, and nowhere does this I-with-myself show clearer as in pure thought which always is a dialogue between the two who I am. The philosopher, on the contrary, who trying to escape the human condition of plurality takes his flight into absolute solitude, is more radically delivered to this plurality inherent in every human being than anybody else, because it is the companionship with others which, calling me out of the dialogue of thought, make me one again--one single, unique human being speaking with but one voice and recognizable as such by all others. However, and this is What1 Socrates was driving at and what Aristotle’s theory of friendship explains2 more fully, is that3 living together with others begins with living together with oneself. Socrates’ teachings meant; only who knows how to live with himself, is fit to live with others. The self is the only person from whom I cannot depart, whom I cannot leave and with whom I am welded together. Therefore “it is much better to be in disagreement with the whole world than being one to be in disagreement with myself.” Ethics, no less than logics, has its origin in this statement, for conscience in its most general sense is also4 based on the fact that I can be in agreement or disagreement with myself, and that means that I do not only appear to others but also to myself. This possibility is of the greatest relevance to politics, if we understand with the Greeks the polis as the public-political realm in which men attain their full humanity, their full reality as men, because they “are” not only, as in the privacy of the household, but appear. How much the Greeks understood full reality as the reality of this appearance, and how much it mattered for specifically moral questions, we may gauge from the ever recurring problem in Plato’s political dialogues, whether a good deed, such as justice, is what it is even “if it remains unknown to, hidden before men and gods.”[metamark (text connection)] For the problem of conscience in a purely secular context, without faith into an all-knowing and all-caring |42 [metamark (text connection)] God who will pass a final judgment on life on earth, this question is indeed decisive. It is7 the question whether conscience can exist in a purely secular society and play a role in purely secular politics; and it is also the question whether morality as such has an earthly reality. Socrates’ answer is contained in his frequently9 reported advice to the pupils10: “Be as you would like to appear to others”, that is, appear to yourself as you would want to appear if seen by others. Even when you are alone, you are not altogether alone; you yourself can testify, must testify to your own reality. Or to put it again in a more Socratic way--for Socrates, although he discovered conscience did not yet have a name for it--: the reason why you should not kill, even under conditions where nobody will be able to see it11, is that you cannot possibly want to be together with a murderer; yet by committing murder, you have delivered your- 42aself12 to the company of a murderer as long as you live. ad 4[metamark (text connection)]Moreover, in the dialogue of solitude13 in which I am strictly by myself14, I am not altogether separated from15 that plurality which is the world of men16 and which we call in its most general sense humanity. This humanity17, or rather this plurality18 is indicated already19 in the fact that I am two-in-one. (“One is one and all alone20 and evermore shall be so” is true only of God21.) Men exist not only in the plural as all earthly things22, but have an indication of this plurality within themselves23. Yet the self, with whom I am together in solitude can never assume for myself the same definite unique shape24 and distinction which all other people have for me; it remains changeable25 and somewhat equivocal. It is26 in the form of this changeability and equivocality that it represents to me27, while I am only by myself, all men, the humanity28 of all men. What I29, expect other people to do30 and this expectation is is to a large extent determined by31 the everchaning potentialities32 of the self with whom33 I live together34. In other words, a murderer is not only condemned35 to the permanent company36 of his own murderous self, but he will see all other people in the image of his own action; he will live in37 a world of potential murderers. Of38 political relevance is not so much39 his one isolated act, or the desire to commit it, as this40 doxa of his,41 this way in which the world opens up to him,42 and which forms for43 better and worse part and parcel of44 the political reality he lives in. In this sense, and to the extent that we still live with ourselves, we all change the human world constantly for better and for worse45, even we do not act at all.46	The axiom of contradiction, with which Aristotle founded Western logics, can be traced back to this fundamental discovery of Socrates. Because I am one, I will not contradict myself, and I can contradict myself because in thought I am two-in-one and therefore do not only live with others for whom I am one, but also with myself. The fear of contradiction is the fear of splitting up, of no longer remaining one, and this is the reason why the axiom of contradiction could become the fundamental rule for |41 [metamark (text connection)]all thought. Here lies also the reason why the plurality of men can never entirely be abolished and why the escape of the philosopher from the realm of plurality always remains an illusion: even if I were to live entirely by myself, I would, as long as I am alive, live in the condition of plurality; I would have to put up with myself, and nowhere does this I-with-myself show clearer as in pure thought which always is a dialogue between the two who I am. The philosopher, on the contrary, who trying to escape the human condition of plurality takes his flight into absolute solitude, is more radically delivered to this plurality inherent in every human being than anybody else, because it is the companionship with others which, calling me out of the dialogue of thought, make me one again -- one single, unique human being speaking with but one voice and recognizable as such by all others. However, and this is what1 Socrates was driving at and what Aristotle’s theory of friendship explained even2 more fully, living together with others begins with living together with oneself. Socrates’ teachings meant; only who knows how to live with himself, is fit to live with others. The self is the only person from whom I cannot depart, whom I cannot leave and with whom I am welded together. Therefore “it is much better to be in disagreement with the whole world than being one to be in disagreement with myself.” Ethics, no less than logics, has its origin in this statement, for conscience in its most general sense is based on the fact that I can be in agreement or disagreement with myself, and that means that I do not only appear to others but also to myself. This possibility[metamark (text connection)] is of the greatest relevance to politics, if we understand with the Greeks the polis as the public-political realm in which men attain their full humanity, their full reality as men, because they “are” not only, as in the privacy of the household, but appear. How much the Greeks understood full reality as the reality of this appearance, and how much it mattered for specifically moral questions, we may gauge from the ever recurring problem in Plato’s political dialogues, whether a good deed, such as justice, is what it is even “if it remains unknown to, hidden before men and gods.” For the problem of conscience in a purely secular context, without faith into under the assumption that no5 an all-knowing and all-caring |42 God exists6 who will pass a final judgment on life on earth, this question is indeed decisive. We touch here upon7 the question of8 whether conscience can exist in a purely secular society and play a role in purely secular politics; and it is also the question whether morality as such has an earthly reality. 🞽 The deed hidden from men & gods: Rep. 359-361 Socrates’ answer is contained in the advice9 reported by all writers about him10: “Be as you would like to appear to others”, that is, appear to yourself as you would want to appear if seen by others. Even when you are alone, you are not altogether alone; you yourself can testify, must testify to your own reality. Or to put it again in a more Socratic way -- for Socrates, although he discovered conscience did not yet have a name for it --: the reason why you should not kill, even under conditions where nobody will be able to see you as a murderer11, is that you cannot possibly want to be together with a murderer; yet by committing murder, you have delivered yourself12[metamark (text connection)] to the company of a murderer as long as you live. And since nobody wants to live13 in company with a murderer14, the one who upholds15 that a man can be happy16 and be a murderer, if only nobody knows about it17, is in a twofold disagreement with himself -- he makes a self- contradictory statement20 and he lives together with one with whom he cannot agree21. This twofold disagreement, the logical contradiction and the ethical bad conscience22, was for Socrates still one and the same phenomenon23. That is the reason why he thought that virtue can be taught, or to put in a more plausible24 and less trite way, that the awareness of man as a thinking25 and an acting being26 in one, as somebody whose thoughts invariably and unavoidably [metamark (text connection)]accompany his acts27, is what improves men and citizens. The underlying assumption28 of this teaching is thought29, and not action, because only in thought do I realize31 the dialogue32 of the two-in-one who33 I am34. To teach the Athenians how35 to think independent36 of any special [metamark (text connection)]doctrine was therefore to Socrates37 a highly38 political task. What, in39 his own eyes, distinguished him from his fellow-citizens was that he had no40 doxa of his own (41this he meant when he talked about his own sterility)42 and therefore was43 better prepared to see44 the truth, to bring out the truth from everybody’ else’s doxa. What distinguished him from the philosophers who came after him was that he alone could see thruth in all opinions45, while they, in their con-46
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 42a Moreover, in the dialogue of solitude in which I am strictly by myself, I am not altogether separated from that plurality which is the world of men and which we call in its most general sense humanity. This humanity, or rather this plurality is indicated already in the fact that I am two-in-one. (“One is one and all alone and evermore shall be so” is true only of God.) Men exist not only in the plural as all earthly things, but have an indication of this plurality within themselves. Yet the self, with whom I am together in solitude can never assume for myself the same definite unique shape and distinction which all other people have for me; it remains changeable and somewhat equivocal. It is in the form of this changeability and equivocality that it represents to me, while I am only by myself, all men, the humanity of all men. What I, prior to all experience and surviving all experience, expect other people to do is to a large extent determined by the everchaning potentialities of the self with whom I live together. In other words, a murderer is not only condemned to the permanent company of his own murderous self, but he will see all other people in the image of his own action; he will live in a world of potential morderers, all people will appear to him also in the light of his own image. Of political relevance is not so much his one isolated act, or the desire to commit it, as this doxa of his, this way in which the world opens up to him, and which forms for better and worse part and parcel of the political reality we live in. In this sense, and to the extent that we still live with ourselves, we all change the human world constantly for better and for worse, even we do not act at all.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	To Socrates, who was firmly convinced that nobody can possibly want to live together with a murderer or in a world of potential murderers, the one who maintains that
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To Socrates, who was firmly convinced that nobody can possibly want to live together with a murderer or in a world of potential murderers, the one who maintains that |43 a1 man can be happy and be a murderer, if only nobody knows about it,2 is in a twofold disagreement with himself3--he makes a selfcontradictory statement and he lives together with one with whom he cannot agree. This twofold disagreement, the logical contradiction[metamark (text connection)] and the ethical bad conscience, was for Socrates still one and the same phenomenon. That is the reason why he thought that virtue can be taught, or to put in a less trite way, that the awareness that man is a thinking and an acting being in one, namely somebody whose thoughts invariably and unavoidably accompany his acts, will improve men and citizens. The underlying assumption of this teaching is thought, and4 not action, because only in thought do I realize the dialogue of the two-in-one who I am. ad [metamark (text connection)]To Socrates, man is not yet5 an animal rationale, a being endowed with the capacity of reason,6 but a thinking being whose thought is manifest in the manner of speech. This, to an extent, man was already for pre-Socratic philosophy, and the identity of speech and thought which together are logos is perhaps one of the outstanding characteristics of Greek culture. What Socrates had to add to this, was the dialogue of myself with myself, as the primary condition for thought. The political relevance of this discovery is that it asserts that the condition of solitude, which before and after him was thought to be7 the prerogative and professional habitus of the philosopher only and which naturally always was suspected by the polis as being anti-political, is on the contrary the necessary condition for the good functioning of the polis, a better guarantee than rules of behavior enforced by laws and fear of punishment. Here again we must turn to Aristotle if we want to find an already weakened echo of Socrates. Apparently in reply to the Protagorean: Anthrôpos metron pantôn chrématôn--man is the measure of all human things, literally of all things used by men--and to Plato’s repudiation: Theos, a god8 (namely the divine as it appears in the ideas) is the measure of all human things, he says: estin hekastou metron hé areté kai ho agathos: the measure for everybody is virtue and the good man 🞽 (1176 a15f.) i.e. what men are themselves when they act and nothing which is external like the laws or superhuman like the ideas.) Nobody can doubt that such teaching was and always will be in a certain conflict with the polis which must demand respect for its laws independent of personal conscience, and Socrates knew the nature of this conflict full well when he called himself a gadfly. We, on the other hand, who have made our experiences with totalitarian mass- c organizations whose primary concern is to eliminate all possibilities of solitude--except in the inhuman form of solitary confinement--can easily testify that not only secular, but also all religious forms of conscience can be abolished if10 a minimum amount of being alone with oneself is no longer guaranteed11. The fre quently observed fact that conscience itself did no longer function under certain conditions of political organizations, and this quite independent of fear of punishment, is explicable on these grounds. No man can keep his conscience intact who cannot realize the dialogue with himself, that is who lacks the solitude required for all forms of thinking. Yet Socrates came also in another less obvious way in conflict with the polis, and this side of the matter he seems not to have realized. The search for truth in the doxa can lead to the catastrophic result, that the doxa is altogether destroyed, or that that what appeared to me is revealed as illusion. This, you will remember, is what happened to King Oedipous whose whole world, the reality of his kingship, went to pieces when he began to look into it. After having discovered the truth, Oedipous is left without any δοξα--in its manifold meanings of opinion, splendor, fame and a world of one’s own, his own appearance of the world. Truth therefore could destroy δοξα, it could destroy the specific political reality of the citizens. It is obvious, from what we know of Socrates’ influence, that many of his listeners must have gone away, not with a more truthful opinion, but with no opinion at all. The inconclusiveness of many Platonic dialogues can also be seen in this light: All opinions are destroyed, but no truth given in their stead. And did not S. himself admit that he had no δοξα of his own, but was “sterile”? |44 [metamark (text connection)]because they had separated themselves from the world of opinions, could see truth only to the extent that it revealed itself in their own doxa, their own opinion, but nowhere else in the world. Yet, what distinguished from the philosophers before him and with him all philosophers who came after him, that Socrates was the first who was concerned primarily with truth. Was not perhaps this very sterility, this lack of opinion, a prerequisite for truth? However that may be, Socrates, all his protests not to possess any special teachable truth notwithstanding, must somehow already have appeared like an expert in truth. The abyss between truth and opinion which from then on was to divide the philosopher from all other men had not yet opened, but it was already indicated, or rather foreshadowed in the figure of this one man who, wherever he went, tried to make everybody around him and himself first of all more truthful.12	🞽 ad 42 To Socrates, man is primarily3 -- not an animal rationale, a being endowed with the capacity of reason --6 but a thinking being whose thought is manifest in the manner of speech. This, to an extent, man was already for pre-Socratic philosophy, and the identity of speech and thought which together are logos is perhaps one of the outstanding characteristics of Greek culture. What Socrates had to add to this, was the dialogue of myself with myself, as the primary condition for thought. The political relevance of this discovery is that it asserts that the condition of solitude, which before and after him was thought of as being7 the prerogative and professional habitus of the philosopher only and which naturally always was suspected by the polis as being anti-political, is on the contrary the necessary condition for the good functioning of the polis, a better guarantee than rules of behavior enforced by laws and fear of punishment. Here again we must turn to Aristotle if we want to find an already weakened echo of Socrates. Apparently in reply to the Protagorean: Anthrôpos metron pantôn chrématôn -- man is the measure of all human things, literally of all things used by men -- and to Plato’s repudiation: Theos, a God8 (namely the divine as it appears in the ideas) is the measure of all human things, he says: estin he kastou metron hé areté kai ho agathos: the measure for everybody is virtue and the good man (1176 af15.)9 i.e. what men are themselves when they act and nothing which is external like the laws or superhuman like the ideas.) Nobody can doubt that such teaching was and always will be in a certain conflict with the polis which must demand respect for its laws independent of personal conscience, and Socrates knew the nature of this conflict full well when he called himself a gadfly. We, on the other hand, who have made our experiences with totalitarian mass- c organizations whose primary concern is to eliminate all possibilities of solitude -- except in the inhuman form of solitary confinement -- can easily testify that not only secular, but also all religious forms of conscience can be abolisged together with10 a minimum amount of being alone with oneself. The fre quently observed fact that conscience itself did no longer function under certain conditions of political organizations, and this quite independent of fear of punishment, is explicable on these grounds. No man can keep his conscience intact who cannot realize the dialogue with himself, that is who lacks the solitude required for all forms of thinking.
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To put it in another way, the conflict between philosophy and politics, between the philosopher and the polis, broke out after and because Socrates had been the first philosopher who had wanted-- not to play a political role--but to make philosophy relevant for the polis. The conflict became all the sharper as this attempt coincided (but it probably was no mere coincidence) with the rapid decay of Athenian polis life in the thirty years which separate the death of Pericles from the trial of Socrates. The conflict ended with a defeat of philosophy; only through the famous apolitia, the indifference and contempt for the world of the city, so characteristic for all post-Platonic philosophy, could the philosopher protect himself against the suspicions and hostilities of the world around him. With2 Aristotle begins the time when he no longer feels responsible for the city, and this not only in the sense that he feels that philosophy has no special task in the realm of politics, but in the much larger sense that the philosopher has less responsibility for it than any of his fellow-citizens, that the philosopher’s way of life is different. Where Socrates still obeyed the laws which, wrongly, had condemned him because of he felt responsible3 for the city, Aristotle left Athens immediately and without any compunction,4 when he was in danger of5 a similar trial: The Athenians, he is reported6 to have said, should |45 not sin twice7 against philosophy. The only thing which the philo-sopher from now on wanted with respect to politics, was to be left alone; and the only thing he demanded was to be protected by the government in his freedom to think.	[metamark (text connection)]because they had separated themselves from the world of opinions, could see truth only to the extent that it revealed itself in their own doxa, their own opinion, but nowhere else in the world. Yet, what distinguished from the philosophers before him and with him all philosophers who came after him, that Socrates was the first who was concerned primarily with truth. In actual polis life, Socrates, all his protests not to possess any special teachable truth notwithstanding, must somehow already have appeared like an expert in truth. The abyss between truth and opinion which from then on was to divide the philosopher from all other men had not yet opened, but it was already indicated, or rather foreshadowed in the figure of this one man who, wherever he went, tried to make everybody around him and himself first of all more truthful.1 To put it in another way, the conflict between philosophy and politics, between the philosopher and the polis, broke out after and because Socrates had been the first philosopher who had wanted -- not to play a political role -- but to make philosophy relevant for the polis. The conflict became all the sharper as this attempt coincided (but it probably was no mere coincidence) with the rapid decay of Athenian polis life in the thirty years which separate the death of Pericles from the trial of Socrates. The conflict ended with a defeat of philosophy; only through the famous apolitia, the indifference and contempt for the world of the city, so characteristic for all post-Platonic philosophy, could the philosopher protect himself against the suspicions and hostilities of the world around him. Yet, with2 Aristotle begins the time when he no longer feels responsible for the city, and this not only in the sense that he feels that philosophy has no special task in the realm of politics, but in the much larger sense that the philosopher has less responsibility for it than any of his fellow-citizens, that the philosopher’s way of life is different. Where Socrates still obeyed the laws which, wrongly, had condemned him because of his special responsibility3 for the city, Aristotle left Athens immediately and without any conjunctions4 when he was in danger to have to stand5 a similar trial: The Athenians, he is reportet6 to have said, should |45 not twice sin7 against philosophy. The only thing which the philo-sopher from now on wanted with respect to politics, was to be left alone; and the only thing he demanded was to be protected by the government in his freedom to think.
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If this flight of philosophy from the sphere of human affairs were exclusively due to historical causes, it is more than doubtful that its immediate results, the parting of the man of thought from the man of action, would have been able to establish our tradition of political thought and to survive two and a half thousand of years of the most various political and philosophical experiences without being challenged in its fundaments. The truth is rather that in the person and in the trial of Socrates another and much deeper contradiction between philosophy and politics appeared than is apparent from what we know of Socrates’ own teachings.	If this flight of philosophy from the sphere of human affairs were exclusively due to historical causes, it is more than doubtful that its immediate results, the parting of the man of thought from the man of action, would have been able to establish our tradition of political thought and to survive two and a half thousand of years of the most various political and philosophical experiences without being challenged in its fundaments. The truth is rather that in the person and in the trial of Socrates another and much deeper contradiction between philosophy and politics appeared than is apparent from what we know of Socrates’ own teachings.
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It seems to obvious, almost a banality, yet it is generally forgotten that every political philosophy first of all expresses the attitude of the philosopher to the affairs of men, the pragmata tôn anthrôpôn, to which he, too, belongs and that this attitude itself involves and expresses the relationship between the specifically philosophical experience and the experiences we make when we move among men. It is equally obvious that every political philosophy at first glance seems to be before the alternative either to interpret philosophical experiences in the light and with the categories, which owe their origin to the realm of human affairs; or, on the contrary, to claim the priority of the philosophical experience and judge [metamark (text connection)]all politics in its light. (The best form of government then would be a state of affairs in which philosophers have a maximum chance to philosophize, and that means where everybody conforms to standards which are likely to provide the best conditions for this. Yet, the very fact that only Plato of all philosophers ever dared to design a commonwealth exclusively from the viewpoint of the philosopher and that, practically speaking, this design never was taken quite seriously, not even by philosophers, indiactes1 that there is another side to this question. The philosopher though he perceives something which is more than human, which is divine (Theion ti), remains a man, so that the conflict between the philosopher and the affairs of men is ultimately a conflict within the philosopher himself. It is this conflict which Plato rationalized and generalized into a conflict between body and soul; only the body |46 [metamark (text connection)]inhabits the city of men whereas the divine thing which philosophy perceives is seen by something which itself is already divine and somehow separated from the affairs of men, and this is the soul. The more the philosopher becomes a true philosopher, the more will he separate himself from his body, and since as long as he is alive such separation can actually never be achieved, he will try to do what every free citizen in Athens did in order to separate and free himself from the necessities of life, he will rule over the body as a master rules over his slaves. If the philosopher attains rulership over the city, he will do no more to its inhabitants as he has done already to his body; and his tyranny will be justified both in the sense of best government and in the sense of personal legitimacy by the philosopher’s prior obedience, as a mortal man, to the commands of his soul, as a philosopher. All our current sayings that only those who know how to obey are entitled to command, or that only those who know how to rule themselves are legitimate to rule over others have their roots in this relationship between body and soul, seen as a metaphor for the relationship between politics and philosophy. The Platnonian2 metaphor of a conflict between body and soul, originally devised in order to express the conflict between philosophy and politics, had such a tremendous impact on our religious and spiritual history, that it overshadowed the basis of experience from which it sprang, just as the Platonian division itself which divided man into two overshadowed the original experience of thought as the dialogue of the two-in-one, the eme emautô, which is the very root of all such divisions. This does not mean to say that the conflict between philosophy and politics could smoothly be dissolved into some theory about the relationship between soul and body, but that nobody after Plato had been as aware as he of the political origin of the conflict nor dared to express it in such radical terms.)	It seems to obvious, almost a banality, yet it is generally forgotten that every political philosophy first of all expresses the attitude of the philosopher to the affairs of men, the pragmata tôn anthrôpôn, to which he, too, belongs and that this attitude itself involves and expresses the relationship between the specifically philosophical experience and the experiences we make when we move among men. It is equally obvious that every political philosophy at first glance seems to be before the alternative either to interpret philosophical experiences in the light and with the categories, which owe their origin to the realm of human affairs; or, on the contrary, to claim the priority of the philosophical experience and judge all politics in its light. (The best form of government then would be a state of affairs in which philosophers have a maximum chance to philosophize, and that means where everybody conforms to standards which are likely to provide the best conditions for this. Yet, the very fact that only Plato of all philosophers ever dared to design a commonwealth exclusively from the viewpoint of the philosopher and that, practically speaking, this design never was taken quite seriously, not even by philosophers, indicates1 that there is another side to this question. The philosopher though he perceives something which is more than human, which is divine (Theion ti), remains a man, so that the conflict between the philosopher and the affairs of men is ultimately a conflict within the philosopher himself. It is this conflict which Plato rationalized and generalized into a conflict between body and soul; only the body |46 inhabits the city of men whereas the divine thing which philosophy perceives is seen by something which itself is already divine and somehow separated from the affairs of men, and this is the soul. The more the philosopher becomes a true philosopher, the more will he separate himself from his body, and since as long as he is alive such separation can actually never be achieved, he will try to do what every free citizen in Athens did in order to separate and free himself from the necessities of life, he will rule over the body as a master rules over his slaves. If the philosopher attains rulership over the city, he will do no more to its inhabitants as he has done already to his body; and his tyranny will be justified both in the sense of best government and in the sense of personal legitimacy by the philosopher’s prior obedience, as a mortal man, to the commands of his soul, as a philosopher. All our current sayings that only those who know how to obey are entitled to command, or that only those who know how to rule themselves are legitimate to rule over others have their roots in this relationship between body and soul, seen as a metaphor for the relationship between politics and philosophy. The Platonian2 metaphor of a conflict between body and soul, originally devised in order to express the conflict between philosophy and politics, had such a tremendous impact on our religious and spiritual history, that it overshadowed the basis of experience from which it sprang, just as the Platonian division itself which divided man into two overshadowed the original experience of thought as the dialogue of the two-in-one, the eme emautô, which is the very root of all such divisions. This does not mean to say that the conflict between philosophy and politics could smoothly be dissolved into some theory about the relationship between soul and body, but that nobody after Plato had been as aware as he of the political origin of the conflict nor dared to express it in such radical terms.)
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Plato himself described the relationship between philosophy and politics in terms of the attitude of the philosopher toward the polis in the parable of the cave which forms the center of his political philosophy and of the Republic. The allegory1 , in which Plato means to give a kind of concentrated biography of the philosopher, unfolds4 in three stages, each of them6 |47 marked as a7 turning point8, as turnings-about, and9 all three together form10 that periagôgé holés tés psychés, that turning-about of the whole human being, which to Plato is the very formation of the philosopher. The first of these takes place in the cave itself; the future philosopher frees himself from the fetters which chain the cave dwellers’ “legs and necks” so that “they can only see before them”, their eyes glued to a11 screen on which shadows and images of things appear; when12 he first13 turns around, he14 sees in the rear of the cave an artificial fire that illuminates the things in the cave as they really are. [metamark (text connection)](If we want to elaborate on the story, we could say that this first periagôgé is that of the scientist who, not content with what people use to say about things, turns around and wants to find out how things are by themselves, regardless of the opinions held by the multitude. For to Plato, the images on the screen were the distortions of doxa and he could use metaphors taken exclusively from sight and visible perception, because the word doxa, unlike our word opinion, has the strong connotation of the visible. The images on the screen at which the cave dwellers are staring are their doxai, that what and how things appear to them. If they want to look at things how they really are, they must turn around, i.e. change their position. For, as we saw before, every doxa depends and corresponds to one’s own position in the world.) More surprising than this first turning about, and A much more decisive turning-point in the philosopher’s biography comes when this solitary adventurer is not satisfied with the fire in the cave and with the things now appearing as they really are, but wants to find out where this fire comes from and what the causes of things are. He turns about and finds an exit from the cave, a stair-case which leads him to the clear sky, a landscape without things and with no men. There appear the ideas, the eternal essences of perishable things and mortal men illuminated by the sun, the idea of ideas, which enables the beholder to see and the ideas to shine forth.15	Plato himself described the relationship between philosophy and politics in terms of the attitude of the philosopher toward the polis in the parable of the cave which forms the center of his political philosophy and of the Republic. The story1, as you will remember unfolds2 in three stages, in3 which Plato means to give a kind of concentrated biography of the philosopher, who thought he turns away4 |47 in complete solitude from the companionship of men, cannot but remain a man. The5 three stages of this biography are all6 marked as turning points8, as turnings-about, all three together forming10 that periagôgé holés tés psychés, that turning-about of the whole human being, which to Plato is the very formation of the philosopher. The first of these takes place in the cave itself; the future philosopher frees himself from the fetters which chain the cave dwellers’ “legs and necks” so that “they can only see before them”, their eyes glued to the11 screen on which shadows and images of things appear; he turns around and14 sees in the rear of the cave an artificial fire that illuminates the things in the cave as they really are. (If we want to elaborate on the story, we could say that this first periagôgé is that of the scientist who, not content with what people use to say about things, turns around and wants to find out how things are by themselves, regardless of the opinions held by the multitude. For to Plato, the images on the screen were the distortions of doxa and he could use metaphors taken exclusively from sight and visible perception, because the word doxa, unlike our word opinion, has the strong connotation of the visible. The images on the screen at which the cave dwellers are staring are their doxai, that what and how things appear to them. If they want to look at things how they really are, they must turn around, i.e. change their position. For, as we saw before, every doxa depends and corresponds to one’s own position in the world.)
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	More surprising than this first turning about, and a much more decisive turning-point in the philosopher’s biography comes when this solitary adventurer is not satisfied with the fire in the cave and with the things now appearing as they really are, but wants to find out where this fire comes from. He turns around and finds an exit from the cave, a stair-case which leads him to the clear sky where no things are and no men. Illuminated by the sun, there appear the ideas, the eternal essences of the things which in the cave are perishable; and greater and more difficult to behold than even these ideas is the sun, the idea of ideas, which enables the beholder to see and the ideas to shine forth.
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This, certainly is the climax in the life of the philosopher, and it is here that the tragedy begins. Being only a mortal man, |48 he does not belong here and he must return to the cave as his earthly home; and yet, in this cave he can no longer feel at home.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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Each of his turning-abouts had been accompanied by a loss of sense and orientation: the eyes accustomed to the shadowy appearances on the screen are blinded by the fire in the rear of the cave; the eyes then adjusted to the dim light of the artificial fire are blinded by the light of the sun; yet, worst is the loss of orientation which befalls those whose eyes once were adjusted to the bright light under the sky of ideas and must now find their way in the darkness of the cave. Why philosophers do not know what is good for them,2 how they are alienated3 from the affairs of men, is grasped in this metaphor4; they can no longer see in5 the darkness of the6 cave, they have lost their sense of orientation, [they have lost their]7 what we would call [their]8 common sense. When they come back and try to tell the cave dwellers what they have seen outside the cave, they do not make sense; to the cave dwellers, whatever they say is as though it were “turned upside down.” The returning philosopher is in danger because he has lost the common sense with which to orient himself in a world which is common to all and what he harbors in his thought contradicts the9 common sense of the world10.	This, certainly is the climax in the life of the philosopher, and it is here that the tragedy begins. Being only a mortal man, |48 he must return to the cave as his earthly home; and yet, in this cave he can no longer feel at home.1 Each of his turning-abouts had been accompanied by a loss of sense and orientation: the eyes accustomed to the shadowy appearances on the screen are blinded by the fire in the rear of the cave; the eyes then adjusted to the dim light of the artificial fire are blinded by the light of the sun; yet, worst is the loss of orientation which befalls those whose eyes once were adjusted to the bright light under the sky of ideas and must now find their way in the darkness of the cave. Why philosophers do not know what is good for them and2 how they alienate themselves3 from the affairs of men, is explained4; they can no longer stand5 the darkness of what they consider to be a6 cave, they have lost their sense of orientation, that7 what we would call common sense. When they come back and try to tell the cave dwellers what they have seen outside the cave, they do not make sense; to the cave dwellers, whatever they say is as though it were “turned upside down.” The returning philosopher is in danger because he has lost the common sense with which to orient himself in a world which is common to all and what he harbors in his thought contradicts common sense.
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It belongs to the puzzling aspects of the allegory of the cave that Plato depicts its inhabitants as frozen, chained before a screen, without any possibility to do anything or to communicate with one another. Indeed, the two politically most significant words designing human activity, talk and action (lexis and praxis) Metaphysics 980a21-25are conspicuously absent in the whole story. The only occupation of1 the cave dwellers is2 to look on the screen. They obviously3 love seeing for its own sake, independent from all practical needs. The cave dwellers, in other words,5 are depicted as ordinary men, but in that one quality which they share with philosophers; they are represented by Plato as potential philosophers, occupied with the one thing in darkness and ignorance with which the philosopher is concerned in brightness and full knowledge. The6 allegory of the cave is designed to depict not so much how philosophy looks from the viewpoint of politics, but how politics, the realm of human affairs, looks from the viewpoint of philosophy. And the purpose is to discover in the realm of philosophy those standards which are appropriate for a City |49 of cave-dwellers to be sure, but still for inhabitants who, albeit darkly and ignorantly, have formed their opinions and are concerned with the same matter as the philosopher.	It belongs to the puzzling aspects of the allegory of the cave that Plato depicts its inhabitants as frozen, chained before a screen, without any possibility to do anything or to communicate with one another. Indeed, the two politically most significant words designing human activity, talk and action (lexis and praxis) Metaphysics 980a21-25are conspicuously absent in the whole story. From Aristotle, we know psychologically1 the urge, common2 to all men and leading some of them to philosophy, is the3 love for4 seeing for its own sake, independent from all practical needs. The cave dwellers are depicted as ordinary men, but in that one quality which they share with philosophers; they are represented by Plato as potential philosophers, occupied with the one thing in darkness and ignorance with which the philosopher is concerned in brightness and full knowledge. In other words, the6 allegory of the cave is designed to depict not so much how philosophy looks from the viewpoint of politics, but how politics, the realm of human affairs, looks from the viewpoint of philosophy. And the purpose is to discover in the realm of philosophy those standards which are appropriate for a City |49 of cave-dwellers to be sure, but still for inhabitants who, albeit darkly and ignorantly, have formed their opinions and are concerned with the same matter as the philosopher. What Plato does not tell us in the story, because it is designed for the political purposes of those who liberate themselves from the commonly accepted opinions on philosophical matters is what distinguishes the philosopher from those who also love seeing for its own sake and have formed their opinions about those matters. In the terms of the cave-allegory, it is puzzling that Plato does not tell us what makes the future philosopher start out on his solitary adventure, what makes him break the fetters with which he is chained to the screen of illusion and his fellow-men. And it is equally puzzling that again, at the end of the story, he mentions the dangers which await the returning philosopher, (and concludes from these dangers that the philosopher though he is not interested in human affairs must assume rulership, if only for the fear of being ruled by the worse) but he does not tell us why he cannot persuade his fellow-citizens, who anyhow are already glued to the screen and therefore in a certain condition for the “higher things” (Hegel), to follow his example and choose the way out of the cave.7
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What Plato does not tell us in the story, because it is designed for these political purposes is what distinguishes the philosopher from those who also love seeing for its own sake or what makes him start out on his solitary adventure and causes him to break the fetters with which he is chained to the screen of illusion. Again, at the end of the story, Plato mentions in passing the dangers which await [metamark (text connection)]the returning philosopher, (and concludes from these dangers that the philosopher though he is not interested in human affairs must assume rulership, if only for the fear of being ruled by the worse) but he does not tell us why he cannot persuade his fellow-citizens, who anyhow are already glued to the screen and therefore in a certain condition for the “higher things” (Hegel), to follow his example and choose the way out of the cave.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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In order to answer these questions, we must recall two statements of Plato which do1 not occur in2 the cave allegory , but without which this allegory remains obscure and which it, so to speak, takes for granted. The one occurs in Theaetetos where Plato discusses the difference between epistémé, knowledge, and doxa, opinion, and defines the origin of philosophy: mala gar philosophou3 touto to pathos, to thaumadzein; ou gar allé arché philosophias é hauté.155 (for wonder is what the philosopher endures most5 ; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than wonder..) And the second6 occurs in the Seventh Letter when7 Plato talks about those things which to him are the most serious ones (peri hôn egô spoudadzô) that is not so much philosophy,8 as we understand it,9 as its eternal topic and end10: Of this11 he says, rhéton gar oudamôs estin hôs alla mathémata, all’ ek pollés synousias gignomenés ... hoion apo pyros pédésantos exaphthen12 phôs .13..34114 (It is altogether not possible to talk about this15 like about other things we learn; rather16 from much being-together with this .. a light is lit as |50 from a flying fire.) In these two statements, we have the beginning and the end of the philosopher’s life which the cave story omits17.	In order to answer these questions, we must recall two statements of Plato which are1 not related to2 the cave allegory , but without which this allegory remains obscure and which it, so to speak, takes for granted. The one occurs in Theaetetos where Plato discusses the difference between epistémé, knowledge, and doxa, opinion, and defines the origin of philosophy: mala gar philosophpou3 touto to pathos, to thaumadzein; ou gar allé arché philosophias é hauté.155 (for wonder is very much4 what the philosopher endures; for there is no other beginning of philosophy than wonder..) And the other6 occurs in the Seventh Letter where7 Plato talks about those things which to him are the most serious ones (peri hôn egô spoudadzô) that is not so much philosophy as we understand it as the last results of philosophizing10: Of these11 he says, rhéton gar oudamôs estin hôs alla mathémata, all’ ek pollés synousias gignomenés ... hoion apo pyros pédédantos exaphten12 phôs34113 ...14 (It is altogether not possible to talk about it15 like about other things we learn; but16 from much being-together with this .. a light is lit as |50 from a flying fire.) In these two statements, we have the beginning and the end of the philosopher’s life which the cave story tells17.
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Thaumadzein, the wonder at that what is as it is, is according to Plato a pathos, something which is endured, and as such Theaetet 1871quite distinct from doxadzein, from forming an opinion about something. The wonder which man endures or which befalls him cannot be related in words because it is too general for words. Plato must have met3 it first4 in those frequently reported traumatic states of Socrates when he would suddenly, as though seized by a rapture, fall into complete motionlessness5, just staring without seeing or hearing anything. That this speechless wonder is at the beginning of philosophy became axiomatic for both, Plato & Aristotle. And it this relatedness to a concrete & unique experience which marked off the Socratic school from all former philosophies6. To A., no less than to Pla. to7, ultimate truth is beyond words. In A’s8 terminology, the human recipient of truth is nous, spirit,9 whose content are without logos (hôn ouk esti lo gos). Just as Plato opposed doxa to truth, so A,10 op- poses phronésis11 (political insight) to nous, philosophical spirit. (1142aff25.)This wonder at everything, that is as it is, remains unrelated to any specific thing, and Kierkegaard therefore interpreted it as the experience of no-thing, of nothingness. From it springs the specific generality of philosophical statements which distinguish them from the statements of the sciences. Philosophy as a special discipline--and the extent to which it remains a special discipline--is grounded in this experience. And12 as soon as the speechless state of wonder translates itself into words, it will not13 begin with statements but14 formulate in unending variations what we call the ultimate questions--what is Being? who is Man? what meaning has Life? what is Death?, etc.--all of which have in common that they cannot be answered scientifically. Socrates’ “I know that I do not know” expresses in terms of knowledge this lack of a scientific answer. But in the state of wonder, this statement loses its dry negativity15 ; for the result left behind in the mind of the person who has endured the pathos of wonder, can only be expressed in: Now I know what it means not to know; now, I know that I do not know. It is from this actual experience of not-knowing, in which one of the basic aspects of the human condition on earth reveals itself, that the ultimate questions arise--not from the rationalized demonstrable fact that there are certain things which man does not know, a fact which believers in progress may hope16 to sell17 fully amended one day or which positivists18 may discard as irrelevant. In asking the ultimate, unanswerable questions, man establishes him as a question-asking being. This is the reason why |51 that science where man asks answerable questions owes its origin and must remain related to philosophy. Were man ever to lose the faculty of asking ultimate questions19, he would by the same token lose his faculty of asking answerable questions; he would cease to be a question-asking being20 and that would be the end, not only of philosophy, but of science as well. As far as philosophy is concerned, if21 it is true that it begins with thaumadzein and ends with speechlessness, then it ends exactly where it began. Beginning and end are here the same; and this is the most fundamental of the so-called vicious circles which one may find in so many strictly philosophical arguments.22	Thaumadzein, the wonder at that what is as it is, is according to Plato a pathos, something which is endured, and as such quite distinct from doxadzein, from forming an opinion about something. The wonder which man endures or which befalls him cannot be related in words because it is too general for words. This wonder therefore cannot be adequately expressed,2 Plato must have seen3 it in those frequently reported traumatic states of Socrates when he would suddenly, as though seized by a rapture, fall into complete notionlessness5, just staring without seeing or hearing anything. That this speechless wonder is at the beginning of philosophy became axiomatic for both, Plato & Aristotle. And it this relatedness to a concrete & unique experience which marked off the Socratic school from all former philosophers6. To A., no less than to Plato7, ultimate truth is beyond words. In his8 terminology, the human recipient of truth is nous, spirit whose content are without logos (hôn ouk esti lo gos). Just as Plato opposed doxa to truth, so A.10 op- poses phronèsis11 (political insight) to nous, philosophical spirit. (1142aff25.) This wonder at everything, that is as it is, remains unrelated to any specific thing, and Kierkegaard therefore interpreted it as the experience of no-thing, of nothingness. From it springs the specific generality of philosophical statements which distinguish them from the statements of the sciences. Philosophy as a special discipline -- and the extent to which it remains a special discipline -- is grounded in this experience. For12 as soon as the speechless state of wonder translates itself into words, it will begin to14 formulate in unending variations what we call the ultimate questions -- what is Being? who is Man? what meaning has Life? what is Death?, etc. -- all of which have in common that they cannot be answered scientifically. Socrates’ “I know that I do not know” expresses in terms of knowledge this lack of a scientific answer. But in the state of wonder, this statement loses its dry negative flavor15; for the result left behind in the mind of the person who has endured the pathos of wonder, can only be expressed in: Now I know what it means not to know; now, I know that I do not know. It is from this actual experience of not-knowing, in which one of the basic aspects of the human condition on earth reveals itself, that the ultimate questions arise -- not from the rationalized demonstrable fact that there are certain things which man does not know, a fact which either may be hoped by recklessly progressivists16 to be17 fully amended one day or which positivism18 may discard as irrelevant. In asking the ultimate, unanswerable questions, man establishes him as a question-asking being, and in this sense21 it is true what Ari-22
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	that science owes its origin, (not its historical necessarily, but that origin which remains its ever-present source throughout the generations) to philosophy, as Aristotle maintains. One thing, I belive, is certain: Were man ever to lose the faculty of asking ultimate questions, he would by the same token lose his faculty of asking answerable questions; he would cease to be a question-asking being and that would be the end, not only of philosophy, but of science as well. As far as philosophy is concerned, if it is true that it begins with thaumadzein and ends with speechlessness, then it somehow ends exactly where it began. Beginning and end are here the same; and this is the most fundamental of the so-called vicious circles which one may find in so many strictly philosophical arguments.
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It is this philosophical shock of which Plato speaks that permeates all great philosophies and that separates the philosopher who endures it from those with whom he lives together. And the difference between the philosophers, who are few, and the multitude is by no means--as Plato already indicated--that the majority knows nothing of the pathos of wonder, but much rather that they refuse to endure it. This refusal is expressed in doxadzein, in forming opinions on1 matters about which man cannot hold opinions because the common and commonly accepted standards of common sense do not apply here. Doxa, in other words, could be- come2 the opposite of truth, because3 doxadzein is indeed4 the opposite of thaumadzein. Having opinions goes wrong when it concerns those matters of which we know only in the speechless wonder5 at that what is.	It is this philosophical shock of which Plato speaks that permeates all great philosophies and that separates the philosopher who endures it from those with whom he lives together. And the difference between the philosophers, who are few, and the multitude is by no means -- as Plato already indicated -- that the majority knows nothing of the pathos of wonder, but much rather that they refuse to endure it. This refusal is expressed in doxadzein, in forming opinions about, as we may now say,1 matters about which man cannot hold opinions because the common and commonly accepted standards of common sense do not apply here. Doxa, in other words, is not so much2 the opposite of truth, as3 doxadzein is the opposite of thaumadzein. Having opinions goes wrong when it concerns those matters of which we know only in wondering5 at that what is.
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The philosopher, therefore, who is so to speak an expert in wondering, and in asking those questions which arise out of wondering (and when Nietzsche says that the philosopher is the man around whom extraordinary things happen all the time alludes to the same matter), finds himself in a twofold conflict with the polis: since his ultimate result is beheld in speechlessness, he has put himself outside the political realm in which the highest faculty of man is precisely speech--logon echôn is what makes man a dzôon polikon, a political being. The philosophical shock, moreover, strikes man indeed in his singularity, that is, neither in his equality with all others nor in his absolute |52 distinctness from them. In this shock, man in the singular, as it were, is for one fleeting moment confronted with the whole of the universe, as he will be confronted again only in the moment of his death. By this, he is to an extent alienated from the city of man2 who can only look with suspicion on everything that concerns man in the singular. Yet, even worse in its consequences is the other conflict which threatens the life of the philosopher. The pathos of wonder itself is not alien to men; on the contrary, it is one of the most general characteristics of the human condition. However, the way out of it for the many is to have opinions on these matters like on all others, to doxadzein, and it is with these opinions that the philosopher comes into conflict, which he finds intolerable3. And since his own doxa in these matters is ultimately speechlessness or expresses itself in4 the raising of unanswerable questions, he is indeed in one decisive disadvantage the moment he returns to the political realm; he is the only one who does not know, the only one who has no distinct and clearly defined doxa which could compete with other opinions and about whose truth or untruth common sense wants to decide5, that is that sixth sense which we not only all have in common but which fits us into a common world and makes6 a common world possible at all. If he starts to speak into this world of common sense, and to it belong also our commonly accepted prejudices and judgment, he will always be tempted to speak in terms of no-sense, or--to use once more Hegel’s phrase--to turn common sense upside down.	The philosopher, therefore, who is so to speak an expert in wondering, and in asking those questions which arise out of wondering (and when Nietzsche says that the philosopher is the man around whom extraordinary things happen all the time alludes to the same matter), finds himself in a twofold conflict with the polis: since his ultimate result is beheld in speechlessness, he has put himself to an extent1 outside the political realm in which the highest faculty of man is precisely speech -- logon echôn is what makes man a dzôon polikon, a political being. The philosophical shock, moreover, strikes man indeed in his singularity, that is, neither in his equality with all others nor in his absolute |52 distinctness from them. In this shock, man in the singular, as it were, is for one fleeting moment confronted with the whole of the universe, as he will be confronted again only in the moment of his death. By this, he is to an extent alienated from the city of men2 who can only look with suspicion on everything that concerns man in the singular. Yet, even worse in its consequences is the other conflict which threatens the life of the philosopher. The pathos of wonder itself is not alien to men; on the contrary, it is one of the most general characteristics of the human condition. However, the way out of it for the many is to have opinions on these matters like on all others, to doxadzein, and it is with these opinions that the philosopher comes into conflict, which he finds untolerable3. And since his own doxa in these matters is ultimately speechlessness and, at its best,4 the raising of unanswerable questions, he is indeed in one decisive disadvantage the moment he returns to the political realm; he is the only one who does not know, the only one who has no distinct and clearly defined doxa which could compete with other opinions and about whose truth or untruth common sense, that is that sixth sense which we not only all have in common but which fits us into a common world, make6 a common world possible at all, could decide7. If he starts to speak into this world of common sense, and to it belong also our commonly accepted prejudices and judgment, he will always be tempted to speak in terms of no-sense, or -- to use once more Hegel’s phrase -- to turn common sense upside down.
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This danger arose with the beginning of our great philosophical tradition, with Plato and, to a lesser extent, Aristotle. The philosopher, over-conscious through the trial of Socrates of the inherent incompatibility between the fundamental philosophical and the fundamental political experience, generalized, as it were, the initial and initiating shock of thaumadzein. The Socratic position was lost in this process, not because Socrates did not leave any writ- ings1 behind or because Plato distorted him willfully, but because the Socratic insights, born out of a still intact relationship to politics and the specifically philosophical experience was lost. For what is true for this wonder, with which all philosophy begins, is not true for the ensuing dialogue of solitude itself. Solitude, or the thinking dialogue of the two-in-one, is an integral part of being and living together with others, and in this solitude the philosopher, too, cannot help to form an opinion4, he, too, arrives at5 his own doxa,6 his distinction from his fellow-citizens is not that he possesses any special truth from which the multitude is excluded, but that he |53 remains always ready to endure the pathos of wonder, and therefore avoids the dogmatism of mere opinion-holders . In order to be able to compete7 with this dogma-tism of δοξαζειν, Plato proposed to [metamark (text connection)] prolong indefinitely8 the speechless wonder which is at the beginning and at the end9 of philosophy. He tried to develop into a way of life (the bios theôrétikos) what10 can be only a fleeting moment or11, to take Plato’s own metaphor, the fleeting spark of fire between the two firestones. In this attempt the philosopher establishes himself, bases his whole existence, on12 that singularity13 which he experienced when he endured the pathos of thaumadzein14. And by this e destroys the plurality of the human condition within himself.15	This danger arose with the beginning of our great philosophical tradition, with Plato and, to a lesser extent, Aristotle. The philosopher, over-conscious through the trial of Socrates of the inherent incompatibility between the fundamental philosophical and the fundamental political experience, generalized, as it were, the initial and initiating shock of thaumadzein. The Socratic position was lost in this process, not because Socrates did not leave any writings1 behind or because Plato distorted him willfully, but because the Socratic insights, born out of a still intact relationship to politics and the specifically philosophical experience was lost. For what is true for this wonder, with which all philosophy begins, is not true for the ensuing dialogue of solitude itself. Solitude, or the thinking dialogue of the two-in-one, is an integral part of being and living together with others, and it is2 in this solitude that3 the philosopher arrives at his own doxa4, his own opinion;6 his distinction from his fellow-citizens is not that he possesses any special truth from which the multitude is excluded, but that he has done7 with himand |53 by himself what Socrates did with8 the young men9 of Athens; he has led that thinking dialogue which alone10 can make anybody’s doxa11, that which appears to anybody, truthful14.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	Plato’s rule of ideas, whether this rule is embodies in the person of the king-philosopher as in the Republic or exerted by an absent lawgiver through the laws as in the Nomoi, is ultimately inspired by the elevation of man in his singularity to absolute rulership. Plato’s body politic is, as he himself once says, a body, one organism in the most literal sense; the plurality of men is abolished because they live together as though they were but One man. Similarly, the solitude of the philosopher, the thinking dialogue of the two-in-one is transformed into the rule of the soul over the body; tyrannical rulership is first of all established within man himself, in order to make man consistent with himself, not through reaching agreements with himself in the living dialogue of thought, but through command and obedience. In other words, the tyrannical rule of the king-philosopher which is deemed necessary to protect the philosopher against the multitude begins or ends with the flight of the philosopher into himself and the establishment of a tyrannical rule over himself. Attempting to prolong indefinitely the speechless wonder which is at the beginning and the end of philosophy, trying to develop into a way of life (the bios theôrétikos) what can be only a fleeting moment or, to take Plato’s own metaphor, the fleeting spark of fire between the two firestones, the philosopher establishes himself, his existence, in that singularity which he experienced when he endured the pathos of thaumadzein. He destroy the plurality of the human condition within himself.
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That this development, whose original cause was political, should become of great importance for the development of philosophy in general, is obvious; it is already manifest in the curious deviations from his original concept which we can find in Plato’s doctrine of ideas , deviations due, I think exclusively, to his desire to make philosophy useful for politics. it has of course been f much greater relevance to3 political philosophy properly speaking. Politics to the philosopher, if he did not regard this whole realm as beneath his dignity, became the field where the elementary necessities of human life are taken care of and to which those standards are applied which philosophy dogmatically4 determined within its own field. |54 Politics, to be sure, never could conform5 to these standards and therefore, by and large, was judged to be an unethical business, judged[metamark (text connection)] not only by philosophers, but in the centuries to come when philosophical results, originally formulated in opposition to common sense, had finally been absorbed by the public opinion of the educated. Politics & government (rulership) were identified and both considered6 to be a reflection on the wickedness ofhuman7 nature as8 the record of the deeds and sufferings of man was seen as a reflection of9 human sinfulness. Yet, while Plato’s inhuman ideal state never became reality, and the usefulness of philosophy had to be defended throughout the centuries, because in actual political action it proved utterly useless, philosophy rendered one signal service to Western mankind. Because Plato in a sense deformed philosophy for political purposes, philosophy continued to provide Western man with10 standards and rules, yardstick and the measurements with which the human mind could at least attempt to understand what was happening in the realm of human affairs.12 It is this usefulness for understanding which was exhausted with the approach of the modern age. Machiavelli’s writings are the first sign of this exhaustion and in Hobbes we find, for the first time, a philosophy which has no use for philosophy but13 pretends to proceed from that what common sense takes [metamark (text connection)]for granted.-14 And Marx, who is the last political philosopher of the West who still stands in the tradition which began with Plato, finally tried to turn this tradition, its fundamental categories and hierarchy of values, upside down. With this reversal, the tradition had indeed come to its end.	That this development, whose original cause was political, should become of great importance for the development of philosophy in general, is obvious; it is already manifest in the curious deviations from his original concept which we can find in Plato’s doctrine of ideas.1 , deviations due, I think exclusively, to his desire to make philosophy useful for politics. Of much greater relevance2 it has of course been for3 political philosophy properly speaking. Politics to the philosopher, if he did not regard this whole realm as beneath his dignity, became the field where the elementary necessities of human life are taken care of and to which those standards are applied which philosophy found or4 determined within its own field. |54 Politics, to be sure, never conformed5 to these standards and therefore, by and large, was judged to be an unethical business, judged not only by philosophers, but in the centuries to come when philosophical results, originally formulated in opposition to common sense, had finally been absorbed by the public opinion of the educated. Government was judged6 to be a reflection on human7 nature and8 the record of the deeds and sufferings of man was seen as a reflection on9 human sinfulness. Yet, while Plato’s inhuman ideal state never became reality, and the usefulness of philosophy had to be defended throughout the centuries, because in actual political action it proved utterly useless, philosophy rendered one signal service to Western mankind; it provided it with the10 standards and rules, the11 yardstick and the measurements with which the human mind could at least attempt to understand what was happening in the realm of human affairs It is this usefulness for understanding which was exhausted with the approach of the modern age. Machiavelli’s writings are the first sign of this exhaustion and in Hobbes we find, for the first time, a philosophy which pretends to proceed from that what common sense takes for granted and therefore to be the first realistic political philosophy.14 And Marx, who is the last political philosopher of the West who still stands in the tradition which began with Plato, finally tried to turn this tradition, its fundamental categories and hierarchy of values, upside down. With this reversal, the tradition had indeed come to its end.
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Tocqueville’s remark which I quoted to you at the beginning, that the past has ceased to throw its light upon the future and that the mind of man has begun to wander in obscurity was2 written out of a3 situation where the philosophical4 categories of the past were5 no longer sufficient for understanding. We live today8 in a world9 in which not even common sense makes sense any longer10. The breakdown of common sense in the present world signalizes that philosophy and politics, their old conflicts - notwithstanding, have suffered the same fate11. And that means that the problem of philosophy and politics, or the necessity for a new political philosophy from which could come a new science of politics is once more on the agenda.	Tocqueville’s remark which I quoted to you at the beginning, that the past has been1 ceased to throw its light upon the future and that the mind of man has begun to wander in obscurity is2 written out of this3 situation where the categories of the past are5 no longer sufficient for our6 understanding. What to Tocqueville was the future, is to us the present.7 We cannot even understand properly our present situation, neither8 in philosophical terms nor9 in terms of the rules and prescriptions of common sense10. The breakdown of common sense in the present world signalizes that politics by itself is no longer capable of even understanding the realm of human affairs11. And that means that the problem of philosophy and politics, or the necessity for a new political philosophy from which could come a new science of politics is once more on the agenda.
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Philosophy, political philosophy like all its1 other branches2, will never be able to deny its origin in thaumadzein, in the wonder at that what is at3 it is. If philosophers, despite their necessary estrangement from the everyday life of human affairs, were ever to arrive at a true political philosophy4, they would have to make the plurality of men, out of which the whole field of human affairs in its grandeur and misery arises, the object of their thaumadzein. Biblically speaking, they would have to accept--as they accept in speechless wonder the miracle of the universe, of man and of being--the miracle that God did not create Man, but “male and female created He them”. They would have to accept in something more than resignation about human weakness the fact that “it is not good for man to be alone.”	Philosophy, political philosophy no more than any1 other branch of it2, will never be able to deny its origin in thaumadzein, in the wonder at that what is as3 it is. If philosophers, despite their necessary estrangement from the everyday life of human affairs, were ever to abandon their hostility to it4, they would have to make the plurality of men, out of which the whole field of human affairs in its grandeur and misery arises, the object of their thaumadzein. Biblically speaking, they would have to accept -- as they accept in speechless wonder the miracle of the universe, of man and of being -- the miracle that God did not create Man, but “male and female created He them”. They would have to accept in something more than resignation about human weakness the fact that “it is not good for man to be alone.”
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 Ad 1 The American and French Revolutions, related to each other in many ways and separated only by a few years, had opened, according to Tocqueville a new and unprecendeted chapter in history. This history, as he rightly foresaw, was most likely to run its full course first in America, while Europe, though set on the essentially the same course, was following more slowly and less consistently because of the many remainders of the past. In America, and not in Europe, the full implications of the modern age, which had begun with the discoveries of the 16th and the rise of the natural sciences to an all-powerful position in the hierarchy of human knowledge, were likely to reveal themselves in much greater purity and building of a modern world had here already begun when the old continent was still, for almost another century, struggling in a chaos of conflicting trends and developments. Seen from the viewpoint of modernity, America is the oldest and not the youngest country of the world. Tocqueville, at any rate, came to America in order to understand the French Revolution better.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 6 Thought did not merely precede and guide action and speech did not merely eventually explain and justify action, -- all this are later interpretations which do not do justice to the pre-philosophical Greek past and therefore are inadequate to explain the Greek understanding of politics, of life in the polis, which is taken for granted by both Plato and Aristotle. To be aware that through action I can disclose thought and that through thinking I can act, because both move in the essentially human medium of speech, meant to be aware of being human in an articulate, specific sense. Action without speech was violence; since it could not disclose its meaning in words, it remained senseless and meaningless. Thought moreover could be so little conceived as proceeding without speech that very early one single word, logos was used for both “word” and “thought or argument”.
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 3 for the “multitude”, for this it shares with all sciences, and not that scientific as well as philosophical inquiry can proceed requires a certain isolation from other men and the routine of daily life, for this it shares even with craftsmanship and art, but that philosophy since Plato required an explicit and permanent turning-away from the multitude and the world of
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[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]	🞽 ad 9 All this belonged for the Greeks to the life in the polis in general and expressed their particular political way of life. The reality of action and of thought were the words in which they uttered themselves and were heard by others. There was therefore no contradiction or opposition between the reality of action and the spirituality of thought, for both remained without reality as long as they remained without words. Not real and, by the same token, not political was only speechlessness -- mute violence, mute suffering, and the inarticulateness, not of passion, but of blind desire. Non-real was that what could not make itself permanently at home in the world of men, in the polis which could not strike out with such force into the world of audible and visible appearance that it would be reasonably sure not to be forgotten. The same fundamental attitude to speech is expressed in a non- poetical way in the words which the sophist Gorgias is supposed to have taught his followers and which Plato quotes as follow:
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[metamark (text connection)](This statement and the relationship between archein and prattein which it establishes is crucial. This relationship was first experienced in the early Greek kingship, basileia, and the assertion of Plato that statesmanship is a kingly science recalls the early use of the words: Archein then was the beginning of an enterprise and prattein meant to see through, under the leadership of the beginner and together with others, to bring to an end what the archôn, the beginner and therefore the king, had begun. Archein and prattein originally belonged together and were, so to speak, the two aspects of all action. In the Greek polis where the experience of action in the sense of starting an enterprise and seeing it through to its end was no longer the central political factor, the experience of slave-holding in its political aspect, as a relationship between men and therefore between masters and servants changed the original meaning of the words as well as the relationship between them. Now, it was the master who ruled over those who executed his orders. Archein was still understood as beginning something, but this beginning was no longer seen as an action, as something which one had to do. To begin and to rule became one and the same, and neither had anything to do with action. Action, by the same token, lost its dignity and degraded into mere execution. Insofar, moreover, the relationship between archein and prattein remained at the core of political theory, all rulers were seen as masters of slaves, since this was the earliest, the most general & authentic basis of experience for rule in general. The most important categories of political action became the categories of order and obedience. The notion, already to be found in Plato and Aristoteles that no political community can exist in which there is no division between those who command and those who obey, between those who rule and those who are ruled, relies on experiences made in slave-households where nothing would ever be achieved if the master did not give orders and the slaves would not execute them. Our modern so-called individualist notion of freedom as guaranteed liberties from governmental arbitrariness presupposes this relationship and echoes the old experiences of a slave-holding community. Our bills of rights, insofar as they are understood as restraints upon state power rather than as general agreement upon a certain way of life, yare still framed in the same language.) |13b One may say that Aristotle’s whole political philosophy was centered around the problem of praxis, action, and had no greater concern than to avoid an interpretation of action in the light of fabrication. Against Plato, he tried to re-establish the dignity of the bios politikos and the greatness of the statesman. How he failed in this great endeavor can best be seen, in his discussion of two outstanding examples of acting men in private and public life respectively, of the benefactor and the legislator. In the first instance, he raises the question why the benefactor loves those whom he has helped more than he is loved by them, and replies that the benefactor has done a work, an ergon, while the other have only endured his beneficence, 1168aff13that this work outlasts him and his activity, it remains, while the usefulness of that which is only endured passes away. Aristotle concludes that it is better to do than to endure and that everybody loves his own work, that which he himself has brought into being. Reminding his readers that this is truest for poets who love their poems almost as much as mothers love their children, he demonstrates to what an extent the “work” of action is similar in his conception to the “work” of art, techné, or fabrication, poiésis. Yet, it is rather easy to see how this interpretation, while it may explain psychologically the reason for lack of gratitude and the inclination of benefactors to look upon their recipients’ lives as something they have “made”, spoils the action of the benefactor, or destroys the very relationship which charity had established. In other words, action can result in an end-product, an ergon, only under the condition that its own authentic non-tangible and always utterly fragile meaning is destroyed. Even more surprising, if measured against the background of Greek city life is the position which Aristotle gives to the legislator. [metamark (text connection)]To him, as to Plato before him, the legislator replaces the statesman, the politikos, but the reason given is very different. Plato had originally likened the statesman to the physician and the laws to prescriptions which the physician leaves with his patient when Statesmanhe goes on a journey. In the work of his old age, these laws are no longer temporary prescriptions and substitutes for the art of heal-s |13c [metamark (text connection)][gap]ship, but the permanent standards of how men at all times and an unforeseeable future ought to live together. The laws had become in the political field what the ideas were in the field of philosophical speculation; they were permanent because they were modelled after the eternity of the ideas; and the legislator was the philosopher who translated the ideas into laws for human behavior. Plato’s original problem of how to make kings philosophers or alternatively, of how to persuade philosophers to rule as kings, seem ed to have found its solution: the philosopher laid down the laws after which he could retire from the life of the polis and still remain its absent ruler. The horrible omnipresence of laws and prescriptio[gap] regulating the smallest detail of life (which Hegel found so offending and which to us is almost the quintessence of tyranny) in the Republic of the Nomoi corresponds exactly to the permanent personal absence of its secret ruler--the philosopher. To Aristotle, the laws are like the erga of the techné politiké, 1181a23the tangible work of the art of statesmanship. They are the best results in this whole field of human affairs because only they have the same solidity as the work of art and fabrications. Only the legislators, and neither the wise men nor the understanding men, the sophoi or the phronimoi, can be said to be “the exponents” of the art of politics and of them alone can it be said that they politeuesthai “take part in politics; these alone act (prattousin) like 114125f.manual laborers”. They alone act in such a way that a permanent re-- sult is achieved as in the doings of manual labor. It is difficult to say which side of this statement is more alien to the current opinions held in a Greek city state. To liken action and politeuesthai to work and even to that of manual laborers meant to talk about the highest form of human life in terms of the admittedly lowest mode of human activity. To put the legislator into the place of the politikos, the citizen and ultimately the statesman, meant to make that what the Greeks thought to be merely the conditions of their life into its actual content. For the legislator did not properly belong to the Greek City state, just as the laws which he laid down and which indeed were assumed to be permanent did not form the political content of the city. The legislator was called in and thought to be necessary in order to make political activity possible and the laws were felt to be the boundaries within which this activity took place the wall of the city made its physical existence possible. But this was not the reason why Arist. elevated legislating to the highest type of political activity. His reason was that making laws was similar to fabricating something, that this action left something ta[gap]ibl[gap] [gap] behind it. Earthly immortality, in other words, [gap] was not achieved in living with things that are eternal, i.e. in philosophizing, could better rely on the relative permanence of a produced thing (an ἔργον) than on the polis and immortal fame.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]
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that very [gap]iterally he does not know what he is doing. The moment man acts into the world, everything becomes unpredictable, he has begun something whose end he cannot foretell, he has started a process in the world rather than, as when he fabricates some thing added a new creation to the world. Yet, man whereever he lives together with others cannot abstain from action, from starting these unpredictable processes, because he himself is a beginner. As Augustine said: Initium ut esset homo creatus est ante quem nemo fuit; that a beginning be made man was created before whom nobody was. Man is a beginner because he is a person, because he is not no-body, but somebody. In the realm of fabrication, he is homo faber, adding new things to the world of things; in the realm of living-together, into which he is born as a newcomer he introduces his own life, which as it itself is an unpredictable process unavoidably starts new processes. Politically, therefore the decisive trait of the human condition is not that men are mortal, but that they are being born; birth, rather than death, is the decisive factor in all political organization which must ever stand ready to receive new beginners into a communal [metamark (text connection)]pattern which is more permanent than each of them. Natality, as distinguished from mortality, is the condition of human plurality; and politics exist, is necessary only because man is a being who is only in the plural as long as he is alive. The singularity of each of us shows itself in its radical aspect when we die; each of us dies for himself and, as it were, in the singular; viewed from the side of our earthly existence, the end of life means that we leave the realm of plurality, that we depart from our living together with other men. As long as we live, and no matter what kind of life we lead, we cannot avoid the unpredictability of human actions in which the only thing we can foretell is not the actual outcome of the process which we have started, but that every good deed, done for no matter which cause or motive, will make the world a little better, and every bad deed, done for no matter which sublime end, will immediately make the world a little worse. just as every great deed will here and now raise the level of human existence, show for better and worse what man is capable of. This is the only permanence actions have in and by themselves, |15b and even this permanence remains bound to memory, to the will of men to remember which itself is already an active process. [metamark (text connection)]Politically, there is only one, and therefore all-important way to make the outcome of actions a little more predictable, and that is bound up with the human capacity to make promises and keep them. Promises are like little islands of stability thrown into the ocean of the future. Stability in human affairs depends utterly on them. (When Nietzsche in his tragic and absurd search for new values almost incidentally, in his latest work, re-defined man as the “animal which can make promises”, he inadvertently had opened perhaps the door to a new “science of politics”, insofar as modern politics’ greatest predicament is an unprecedented helplessness of man before his own future; the processes which the modern age has set into motion are less predictable and more threatening than any action has ever been before. Nietzsche had discovered the only power man has over the future which he can never rationalize through calculations and today less than before because of the chaotic maze of contradictory trends and conflicting actions. Although the much abused “will to power” is by no means the main characteristic of man, not even of the man of action, it is true that will to power over the future is inherent in all action. Yet, even this power is limited, and promises--treaties and covenants--can never altogether eliminate the element of unpredictability which is one of the basic elements of the human condition. We often deplore today the gap between man’s techonological power and his political and social wisdom. More important than this gap, which will never be closed because it resides in our inability to know with the precision of either, workmanship or science, what we are doing in the realm of action, is the fact that with modern technology, as distinguished from all previous fabrication, man has begun to extend the sphere of action into nature; our predicament is not machinery as such, which is indeed purely instrumental, but that our machinery is designed to generate natural processes and that the modern world is built on these processes much rather than on production of stable use objects.[metamark ———————————————>] |15c The chain reaction of the atom bomb is like a symbol of how we produce, not so much destructive objects, but start processes [metamark (text connection)]of destruction. If our social science can be said to lag behind what we are doing through natural science, then mostly because social science, to a large degree has adopted the earlier concept of natural science of fabrication and imagines that he can “condition” man to a fabricated society, whereas the natural sciences do no longer reckon with these productive capacities of man in which a definite and tangible object is the end product, but with processes which, so to speak, are let loose and channelled into the human world. Insofar as the social sciences reflect the actual conditions of modern society, it looks as though we try to make human behavior ever more predictable whereas the unpredictability of action, characteristic of the political and social realm, becomes more and more the hallmark of man’s intercourse with nature. The more the individual resigns himself to being “conditioned” and to renounce his capacity of action, of starting something new with regard to another person (pros tina as Aristotle used to define one of the elementary qualities of all action, praxis, as distinguished from poiésis, making which is unconcerned with other persons), the more he begins to act into nature, to start new, naturally unforeseen processes. To act into nature means that even natural events and happenings are no longer predictable, that the sphere of unpredictability has enormously expanded and now, in turn, threatens man. This becomes quite manifest as soon as natural forces, and not only man-made instruments, are introduced into the political realm, and this is the event which is symbolized by the political role of atomic power. Man has, so to speak, dragged nature into his own unpredictability with the result that natural forces, such as the future of life on earth, are no longer safe and their continued existence no longer predictable.	[keine Entsprechung vorhanden]