Modern Age - Spring 2016 - 83

THE POVERTY OF ANTIHISTORICISM

text, writing, an expression of mind" (233). While Strauss is never
explicit about such assumptions, he nonetheless shares with this
view a remarkable willingness to assert the objective clarity with
which it is possible to grasp the minds of thinkers separated by
centuries from present interpreters.
As Ronald Beiner has noted, this belief in the possibility of "complete liberation" from our historical life results in Strauss's "stunningly ambitious thesis" that "one could in effect set aside millennia
of intellectual and moral history and see the ethical world exactly
as Plato and Aristotle saw it."9 For this reason, Gadamer argues that
Strauss is complicit in the aspiration to "full historical enlightenment," which in fact characterizes the Hegelian epistemological
position (531-32). In tying Strauss himself to this ideal, Gadamer
thus begins to demonstrate that there are odd, even radical implications associated with the antihistoricism that Strauss espouses,
and that this approach contributes, somewhat paradoxically, to a
failure to understand and recognize moral knowledge as it really
does occur for historically situated beings.
The source of such oddities and radicalisms in Strauss's thought
lies in his dualistic philosophical outlook, specifically in what
Beiner has described as the fundamental "antinomy" that Strauss
establishes between "nature and history."10 Similarly observing
a dualistic or Manichean quality in Straussian moral philosophy,
Claes Ryn has noted that "Strauss and his followers set up a sharp
dichotomy between historically derived standards and what is
discovered by reason in 'nature.' "11 What is captured in both these
observations is the sense in which Strauss is operating with a rigid
metaphysical dualism, insisting on the radical separateness of the
good from the historical world in which human beings live. What
is philosophical, rational, and natural for Strauss can never exist
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Modern Age - Spring 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Modern Age - Spring 2016

Contents
Modern Age - Spring 2016 - Cover1
Modern Age - Spring 2016 - Cover2
Modern Age - Spring 2016 - Contents
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