Deceitful Politics: A Commentary on Xenophon's "Hiero"

Author: Strauss
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: Ancient classics believed that due to human weakness or dependence, universal happiness is impossible, and thus, they never dreamed of a completed history. With their hearts' eyes, they saw a happy society, a society in which human nature could reach its highest potential. However, since they also saw how limited human power is, they believed the realization of the best regime depended on luck. Modern people, however, are not satisfied with this utopia; they try to ensure the realization of the best social order. To succeed, or rather, to convince themselves that they can succeed, they must lower human goals: replacing moral virtue with universal recognition, and replacing happiness with the satisfaction derived from universal recognition. – Strauss’s debate is quite unusual. Typically, in cases of such deep and intense disagreements, serious discussions are rare, but both sides’ desire to understand the issue is stronger than their desire to uphold their positions. This is why they so thoroughly articulated their propositions. – De Tyrannide by Strauss is a seminal work that laid the foundation for his Platonic political philosophy research. Not only was it significant for his academic career, but it also holds epoch-making importance for the academic history of the 20th century—and even for Western academia since the Enlightenment. However, as Voegelin said, Strauss’s work is difficult to understand, marked by its obscurity—indeed, we need to read this book as Strauss read Xenophon’s Hiero. Translating De Tyrannide from English to French is challenging, and so is translating Kojève’s commentary from French to English, and both into Chinese is even harder, not to mention the private correspondence—often discussing profound metaphysical issues in highly unconventional language—that frequently comes up for discussion. It is indeed a great fortune that we were able to invite Mr. He Ji, who has translated major works of political philosophy, to take on this translation.