Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute
Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute
Murray N. Rothbard vs. the Philosophers - Ludwig von Mises Institute
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REVIEWS AND COMMENTS BY MURRAY N. ROTHBARD 97<br />
argument or makes an error, Strauss immediately and persistently<br />
assumes that this simply couldn’t be and that <strong>the</strong>re<br />
must be some deep, twisted, hidden meaning to all this.<br />
This is <strong>the</strong> Straussian method, and this is virtually <strong>the</strong><br />
one method of textual analysis that he uses here. He had<br />
done similar things with Hobbes, Locke, etc., but not nearly<br />
so virulently. Now, it is true, as Strauss points out, that in<br />
those days, radical thinkers (i.e., thinkers against <strong>the</strong> usual<br />
stream) were wont to be circumspect, because <strong>the</strong>y were in<br />
considerably more danger than <strong>the</strong>y are today. But it is one<br />
thing to look for circumspection and quite ano<strong>the</strong>r to construct<br />
a veritable architectonic of myth and conjecture based<br />
on <strong>the</strong> assumption of Machiavelli as an omniscient Devil,<br />
writing on a dozen different layers of “hidden meaning.”<br />
The Straussian ratiocination is generally so absurd as to be<br />
a kind of scholar’s version of <strong>the</strong> Great Pyramid crackpots<br />
or of <strong>the</strong> kind of screwball historians that flourish in <strong>the</strong><br />
American Mercury. Strauss’s methodology is to genuine history<br />
of political thought as astrology and numerology are to<br />
genuine astronomy.<br />
If this seems extreme, I shall give a couple of examples<br />
of <strong>the</strong> almost excruciatingly crackpot nature of Strauss’s<br />
scholarship (a crackpottiness that has to be discovered by<br />
ra<strong>the</strong>r careful reasoning, it is true, because of <strong>the</strong> density of<br />
<strong>the</strong> Straussian style.) These are two of innumerable examples.<br />
First, Strauss’s flight into numerology. On page 48, he<br />
remarks on what is to him <strong>the</strong> strange and wondrous fact<br />
that Machiavelli’s Discourses have 142 chapters, <strong>the</strong> same<br />
number of chapters of Livy’s History. To me, this is not at<br />
all surprising, since <strong>the</strong> Discourses are proclaimed to be a<br />
commentary on Livy’s History. But this is enough for<br />
Strauss. This “strange fact” he says, “makes one wonder<br />
whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> number of chapters of <strong>the</strong> Prince is not also<br />
significant.” 46 This somehow gives Strauss <strong>the</strong> clue that<br />
46 Ibid., p. 47.