本书摘要

本文是一篇课堂作业。施特劳斯作品的复杂性无需赘言，因而这篇紧赶慢赶完成的作业自然是挂一漏万。这本解经式的作品尤其复杂，甚至无法确定施特劳斯本人在多大程度上采用了所谓“隐微写作”的方法来处理自己的这部作品。——受限于学力，自然无法深入探讨这一问题。若本文能够给读者一定的参考乃至批评对象，我就已经很满足了。

        Leo Strauss's Thoughts on Machiavelli is an original study of Machiavelli's The Prince, The Discourses on Levy, and the relationship between these two books. Solely built upon meticulous textual analysis, Strauss excavates whatever seems concealed between the lines and reconstructs a new account of Machiavelli's otherwise disguised revolutionary intention to establish his universally applicable "new modes and orders."
        Chapter 1 analyzes the relationship between The Prince and The Discourses. Strauss rejects overly simplified understandings of this relationship, the most notable of which is reading The Prince in the light of The Discourses and thus treating Machiavelli as a mere patriotic republican. Rather, he argues that Machiavelli's teaching is twofold in its character, i.e., each book targets a specific group of readers (The Prince for incumbent princes, The Discourses for potential ones), both conveying all that he knows. To reveal this twofold character, Strauss suggests several methods of studying Machiavelli's books. Readers must pay particular attention including but not limited to Machiavelli's studied silence, his obvious fallacies and contradictions, his well-selected examples, his ambiguous utilization of certain terms, and even his subtle use of chapter number, because they are all potential techniques by which Machiavelli hopes to indirectly express his concealed thoughts.
        Chapters 2 and 3 study Machiavelli's intention reflected respectively in the two books. In Chapter 2, Strauss firstly analyzes the style of The Prince (the combination of a treatise and a tract for the times). This combination illustrates Machiavelli's intention to combine his general teaching, which is revolutionary, with his particular counsel, which appears in accordance with traditions. This revolutionary teaching aims at establishing new modes and orders that are based upon a "scientific" understanding of the nature of human society and subsequently upon a new explanation of virtue. The Prince thus demands that the best among the new princes, namely, prophets, be armed. This demand casts doubts upon the possibility of Machiavelli's success, since he himself plays the role of an unarmed prophet. Chapter 3 dispels this doubt. In this chapter, by analyzing The Discourses, Strauss concludes that Machiavelli's assertion that unarmed prophets must fail is a mere exaggeration, the intention behind which is to show the difficulty of his own task. In fact, the hope for the success of Machiavelli's own task lies partly in his imitation of Jesus, an unarmed prophet whose religion won over the world by non-violent propaganda. However, while Christianity succeeded because of the divine will, Machiavelli rests his success upon the presumption that human prudence can conquer Fortuna. Therefore, Strauss remarks here for the first time that Machiavelli deviates from classical political philosophy and is the first philosopher who believes, and sets it as his task, that the coincidence of philosophy and political power can be brought about by propaganda and that the multitude can be enlightened.
        Chapter 4, the longest chapter of the book, systematically reconstructs and evaluates Machiavelli's teaching. At the beginning of the chapter, Strauss devotes a huge number of pages to discussing Machiavelli's religious thought. He at first argues that, though accepting Christian method of conquering the world, Machiavelli disparages Christianity because its doctrines reject honor and thus soften man. Rather, Machiavelli seeks a combination of power and freedom, which reflects human dignity, and he overcomes the Christian doctrines by asserting the necessity of sin. The acknowledgement of this necessity makes it possible for man not to be perturbed by the suffering of conscience and thus be able to distinguish between goodness and conscience. This distinction allows Machiavelli to replace conscience with Virtue, which calculates so as to achieve goodness (in a broad sense). By relying upon Virtue alone, man can fight against—even conquer—the god, whose embodiment in the eyes of Machiavelli is Fortuna. The possibility of this conquest lies in Machiavelli's understanding of the nature of Fortuna. Strauss argues that Machiavelli intentionally blurs the boundary between nature and accident so as to show that Fortuna is actually fathomable. He further argues that this intentional blur marks Machiavelli's deviation from the Aristotelian teleological political philosophy. What follows is Strauss's comparison of Machiavelli with Aristotle and his statement that, in order to be valid, Machiavelli's new modes and orders have to rely upon new principles that are in opposition to the classical ones. Machiavelli no longer explores how man ought to live, but turns to study how man actually lives. He thus attempts to construct a "real" normative theory on top of this study. This attempt leads him to distinguish between goodness (in a narrow sense, i.e. moral virtue) and Virtue and to favor the latter. Such attempt can be detected in several places: As for individuals, Machiavelli praises those who possess this new kind of Virtue, for they are the embodiment of the kind of freedom that presupposes full knowledge of the necessity. As for political communities, he prefers republican virtues—which serve the common good of the people—to moral ones. It follows from this praise of republican virtues that goodness according to Machiavelli's understanding is not universal, but merely the sum of habits of the majority for the sake of living well. Based upon his reconstruction of Machiavelli's understanding of necessity, Virtue, and goodness, Strauss concludes that Machiavelli's teaching not only prefers bounded/closed politics to unbounded/open philosophy, but also attempts to utilize a degenerated kind of philosophy in order to strengthen politics.