The Philosophical Intention and Legacy of Hobbes

McIlwain, David

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-13381-8_5

David McIlwain⁴

Part of the book series: Recovering Political Philosophy ((REPOPH))

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Abstract

Michael Oakeshott’s engagement with Leo Strauss on Hobbes is known to be an important part of Oakeshott’s development as a thinker, but the extent to which the Hobbes chapter of Strauss’s Natural Right and History forms a response to Oakeshott’s “Introduction to Leviathan” is less well known. McIlwain argues that when taken with Oakeshott’s rejoinder in “The Moral Life in the Writings of Thomas Hobbes” this constitutes the rudiments of a dialogue. Participating in the scholarly return to Hobbes in the 1930s, both thinkers approached Hobbes’s thought on moral grounds. The chapter examines and compares the divergent interpretations in which Strauss detected the origins of modern technological mindset in Hobbes while Oakeshott presented Hobbes as securing the non-substantive civil autonomy for a Renaissance individuality.

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Notes

1.
Michael Oakeshott, “Thomas Hobbes,” in The Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence: Essays and Reviews 1926–51, Selected Writings, Volume III, ed. Luke O’Sullivan (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2007), 110.
2.
Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? (New York: Free Press, 1959), 172.
3.
Michael Oakeshott, The Social and Political Doctrines of Contemporary Europe (London: Basis Books by arrangement with Cambridge University Press, 1940), xx–xxi.
4.
Michael Oakeshott, “John Locke,” in Concept of a Philosophical Jurisprudence, 59.
5.
Oakeshott would argue that rationalists and political economists had “bewitched liberalism by appearing to solve the problem of individualism when they had really only avoided it.” Michael Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” in Hobbes on Civil Association, 67 n. 116.
6.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 78.
7.
Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 25.
8.
Michael Oakeshott, “The Moral Life in the Writing of Thomas Hobbes,” in Hobbes on Civil Association, 130–131.
9.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 10.
10.
Oakeshott, “Moral Life in the Writing of Thomas Hobbes,” 128.
11.
Ibid., 130.
12.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 61–62.
13.
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 166–167.
14.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 14. Oakeshott’s later emphasis on the continuities in Hobbes’s thought may have been partly a reaction to Strauss’s privileging of the conscious break Hobbes had established with earlier thought. In his 1935 review of recent Hobbes literature Oakeshott had written, “If there is danger ahead [in Hobbes’s scholarship], it lies in the exaggeration of the, at least, semi-medieval portrait with which this recent work presents us. For there can be no doubt that Hobbes’s writings do represent a profound revolution in European thought, there can be no doubt that he was one of the most original of philosophers.” Oakeshott, “Thomas Hobbes,” 117.
15.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 7.
16.
Leo Strauss, “Notes on The Concept of the Political,” in Heinrich Meier, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, trans. J. Harvey Lomax (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 119.
17.
Leo Strauss, “The Living Issues of Postwar German Philosophy,” in Heinrich Meier, Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem, trans. Marcus Brainard (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 127.
18.
Leo Strauss, “Preface to Hobbes Politische Wissenschaft,” Interpretation 8, no. 1 (January 1979): 2.
19.
Timothy Burns, “Leo Strauss and the Origins of Hobbes’s Natural Science,” The Review of Metaphysics 64, no. 4 (June 2011): 823.
20.
Leo Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, trans. E. M. Sinclair (New York: Schocken, 1965).
21.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 1990), 37–38.
22.
Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 57.
23.
I owe this formulation of the state of nature to Aleksandar Pavković.
24.
Strauss, “Notes on The Concept of the Political,” 109.
25.
Leo Strauss, On Tyranny: Corrected and Expanded Edition, Including the Strauss-Kojève Correspondence, ed. Victor Gourevitch and Michael S. Roth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 192.
26.
Strauss, What is Political Philosophy, 90.
27.
Schmitt, Concept of the Political, 58 n.
28.
Leo Strauss, The City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 42–43.
29.
Jacob Klein and Leo Strauss, “A Giving of Accounts,” The College 25, no. 2 (April 1970): 3.
30.
Leo Strauss, Letter to Gerhard Kruger, October 15, 1931, The Strauss-Krüger Correspondence: Returning to Plato through Kant, ed. Susan Meld Shell (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 29.
31.
Thomas Hobbes, “The Epistle Dedicatory,” Leviathan, ed. C. B. Macpherson (London: Penguin, 1985), 75.
32.
Carl Schmitt, Political Theology, trans. George Schwab (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 66.
33.
Cited in David Janssens, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Philosophy, Prophecy, and Politics in Leo Strauss’s Early Thought (Albany: SUNY Press, 2008), 139.
34.
Ibid., 139–140.
35.
Meier, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, 35.
36.
Leo Strauss, “Notes on The Concept of the Political,” 119.
37.
Strauss, What is Political Philosophy, 172.
38.
Janssens, Between Athens and Jerusalem, 130.
39.
Leo Strauss, “Quelques Remarques sur la Science Politique de Hobbes à propos du livre récent de M. Lubienski,” Recherches philosphiques 2 (April 1933): 609–622.
40.
Leo Strauss, Letter to Alexandre Kojève, June 3, 1934, On Tyranny, 227.
41.
Strauss arrived in England with a reference from the French historian Henri Sée—an acquaintance of Tawney. Tawney managed to secure for Strauss a temporary post at Cambridge (where he would meet Barker) and would later help him find more permanent positions in the United States. See S. J. D. Green, “The Tawney–Strauss Connection: On Historicism and Values in the History of Political Ideas,” The Journal of Modern History 67, no. 2 (June 1995): 256.
42.
Michael Oakeshott, “Leo Strauss on Hobbes,” 142.
43.
Oakeshott, “Leo Strauss on Hobbes,” 147.
44.
Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 28–29.
45.
Oakeshott, “Leo Strauss on Hobbes,” 143–144.
46.
Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 27.
47.
Strauss, What is Political Philosophy, 172 n. 2. See also Strauss, Natural Right and History, vii.
48.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. C. B. Macpherson (London: Penguin, 1985), III, 96.
49.
Leo Strauss, Studies in Platonic Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 230.
50.
Oakeshott, “Leo Strauss on Hobbes,” 153.
51.
Ibid., 154.
52.
Ibid., 157–158.
53.
Michael Zuckert and Catherine Zuckert, Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 34.
54.
Daniel Tanguay, Leo Strauss: An Intellectual Biography, trans. Christopher Nadon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 39–40.
55.
Oakeshott, “Leo Strauss on Hobbes,” 154.
56.
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 169.
57.
Noel Malcolm, “Oakeshott and Hobbes,” in A Companion to Michael Oakeshott, ed. Paul Franco and Leslie Marsh (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2012), 230.
58.
Ian Tregenza, Michael Oakeshott on Hobbes: A Study in the Renewal of Philosophical Ideas (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2003), 49.
59.
Leo Strauss, Letter to Eric Voegelin, March 14, 1950, in Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, Faith and Political Philosophy: The Correspondence Between Leo Strauss and Eric Voeglin, 1934–1964, ed. and trans. Peter Emberley and Barry Cooper (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1993), 23.
60.
Hobbes, Leviathan, XI, 161.
61.
Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 4–5.
62.
Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, 210.
63.
Tregenza, Michael Oakeshott on Hobbes, 66.
64.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 27.
65.
Ibid., 62.
66.
Ibid., 26.
67.
Ibid., 11.
68.
Oakeshott, “Leo Strauss on Hobbes,” 151–152.
69.
Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 5.
70.
See Devin Stauffer, “Reopening the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns: Leo Strauss’s Critique of Hobbes’s ‘New Political Science,’” American Political Science Review 101, no. 2 (2007): 223–233.
71.
Ibid., 152.
72.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 62.
73.
Timothy Fuller, “Encounters with Michael Oakeshott,” The Michael Oakeshott Association, accessed October 16, 2016, http://www.michael-oakeshott-association.com/pdfs/conf01_commem_fuller.pdf.
74.
Leo Strauss, “On the Spirit of Hobbes’ Political Philosophy,” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 4, no. 14 (October 1950): 405–431.
75.
Jan-Werner Müller, “Re-imagining Leviathan: Schmitt and Oakeshott on Hobbes and the problem of political order,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 13, nos. 2–3 (2010): 319–320.
76.
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 166–167. In addition to Oakeshott, Strauss may have had John Laird in mind. See John Laird, Hobbes (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1934), 57: “In matters of metaphysics, it is permissible to suggest that while Hobbes’s voice had all the modernity of the new mechanics, his hands—that is to say, his technique—were scholastic, and even Aristotelian. In ethical and political theory, however, voice and hands were both medieval.”
77.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 14 [footnote removed]. Oakeshott, “Thomas Hobbes,” 117.
78.
Having already traced Hobbes’s “rationalism” to late scholasticism, Oakeshott asserted that Hobbes was “a scholastic, not a ‘scientific’ mechanist.” However, for Oakeshott this was not the defining aspect of Hobbes’s significance as a philosopher. Ibid., 19.
79.
Oakeshott, “Leo Strauss on Hobbes,” 156.
80.
Timothy W. Burns, “Editor’s Introduction: Leo Strauss’ Recovery of Classical Political Philosophy,” in Brill’s Companion to Leo Strauss’ Writings on Classical Political Thought, ed. Timothy W. Burns (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 4.
81.
See Strauss, Natural Right and History, 164–175.
82.
Malcolm, “Oakeshott and Hobbes,” 221.
83.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 76.
84.
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 175; Strauss, What is Political Philosophy, 181.
85.
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 172.
86.
Tanguay, Leo Strauss, 110.
87.
C. B. Macpherson, “Suggestions for Further Reading,” in Leviathan, ed. Hobbes, 65.
88.
Strauss, What is Political Philosophy, 170–172.
89.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 76.
90.
Ibid., 75.
91.
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 117.
92.
In the interests of the comparison with Oakeshott I have reduced the complexity of Strauss’s analysis of Hobbes’s epistemological problems. See Timothy Burns, “Leo Strauss and the Origins of Hobbes’s Natural Science,” The Review of Metaphysics 64, no. 4 (June 2011): 823–855.
93.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 50–58.
94.
Leo Strauss, Hobbes’s Critique of Religion and Related Writings, trans. and ed. Gabriel Bartlett and Svetozar Minkov (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 93–94.
95.
Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 23–25.
96.
Oakeshott, “Moral Life in the Writing of Thomas Hobbes,” 99–101.
97.
See Boyd, “Lion and the Ox.”
98.
Cited in Ibid., 703.
99.
Ibid.
100.
Oakeshott, “Moral Life in the Writing of Thomas Hobbes,” 127.
101.
Ibid., 128.
102.
Ibid., 107.
103.
Hobbes, Leviathan, XV, 207.
104.
Boyd, “Lion and the Ox,” 712.
105.
Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 184–185. This passage is cited by Jonathan A. Boyd in “Lion and the Ox,” 712.
106.
Oakeshott, “Moral Life in the Writing of Thomas Hobbes,” 99.
107.
Ibid., 137, 140.
108.
Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 56.
109.
Oakeshott, “Leo Strauss on Hobbes,” 156.
110.
Strauss, What is Political Philosophy, 196.
111.
Leo Strauss, “Niccolò Machiavelli,” History of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 298.
112.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 32.
113.
Michael Oakeshott, Notebooks, 1922–86, Selected Writings, Volume VI, ed. Luke O’Sullivan (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2014), 403.
114.
Leo Strauss, “Seminar in Political Philosophy: Hobbes’ Leviathan and De Cive,” Session II, delivered January 8, 1964 at the University of Chicago (Leo Strauss Center, University of Chicago).
115.
Although Strauss understood that “the Renaissance as such was an attempt to restore the spirit of classical antiquity, i.e., a spirit wholly different from the capitalist spirit.” Strauss, Natural Right and History, 60–61 n. 22.
116.
Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, 242 n. 1.
117.
Oakeshott, “Introduction to Leviathan,” 4: “For, any man who holds in his mind the conceptions of the natural world, of God, of human activity and human destiny which belongs to his civilization, will scarcely be able to prevent an endeavor to assimilate these to the ideas that distinguish the political order in which he lives, and failing to do so he will become a philosopher (of a simple sort) unawares.” (The qualification “of a simple sort” was new to the 1975 version of this essay for Hobbes on Civil Association.)
118.
Müller, “Re-imagining Leviathan,” 324. This boldness extended to the text itself, and Oakeshott’s 1946 edition of Leviathan “was a reworking of the original on an almost Molesworthian [i.e., extensive] scale.” Noel Malcolm, Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, Volume 1: Editorial Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012), 303.
119.
Strauss, Natural Right and History, 323.

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Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia
David McIlwain

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McIlwain, D. (2019). The Philosophical Intention and Legacy of Hobbes. In: Michael Oakeshott and Leo Strauss. Recovering Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13381-8_5

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13381-8_5
Published: 15 March 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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