Editing Exegesis (section)

=== Straussian reading ===
[[File:Al-Farabi.jpg|thumb|Strauss's study of philosophy and political discourses produced by the [[Islamic Golden Age|Islamic civilization]]—especially those of [[Al-Farabi]] (shown here) and [[Maimonides]]—was instrumental in the development of his theory of reading.]]
In the late 1930s, [[Leo Strauss]] called for the first time for a reconsideration of the "distinction between exoteric (or public) and esoteric (or secret) teaching."<ref>"Exoteric Teaching" (Critical Edition by Hannes Kerber). In ''Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s''. Edited by Martin D. Yaffe and Richard S. Ruderman. New York: Palgrave, 2014, p. 275.</ref> In 1952 he published ''[[Persecution and the Art of Writing]]'', arguing that serious writers write esoterically, that is, with multiple or layered meanings, often disguised within irony or paradox, obscure references, even deliberate self-contradiction. Esoteric writing serves several purposes: protecting the philosopher from the retribution of the regime, and protecting the regime from the corrosion of philosophy; it attracts the right kind of reader and repels the wrong kind; and ferreting out the interior message is in itself an exercise of philosophic reasoning.<ref>{{cite book |author=Smith, Steven |url=http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/764028.html |title=Reading Leo Strauss |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0226763897 |quote=excerpt entitled "Why Strauss, Why Now?" |access-date=2006-09-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109031348/http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/764028.html |archive-date=2020-11-09 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Mansfield, Harvey |year=1975 |title=Strauss's Machiavelli |work=[[Political Theory (journal)|Political Theory]] |jstor=190834 |quote=... a book containing much that is appreciably esoteric to any reader stated in a manner either so elusive or so challenging as to cause him to give up trying to understand it.}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |author=Damon Linker |date=October 31, 2014 |title=What if Leo Strauss was Right? |url=http://theweek.com/article/index/271006/what-if-leo-strauss-was-right |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141103102531/http://theweek.com/article/index/271006/what-if-leo-strauss-was-right |archive-date=2014-11-03 |access-date=2014-11-04 |work=[[The Week]]}}</ref>

Taking his bearings from his study of [[Maimonides]] and [[Al-Farabi]], and pointing further back to Plato's discussion of writing as contained in the ''[[Phaedrus (dialogue)|Phaedrus]]'', Strauss proposed that the classical and medieval art of ''esoteric'' writing is the proper medium for philosophic learning: rather than displaying philosophers' thoughts superficially, classical and medieval philosophical texts guide their readers in thinking and learning independently of imparted knowledge. Thus, Strauss agrees with the Socrates of the ''Phaedrus'', where the Greek indicates that, insofar as writing does not respond when questioned, good writing provokes questions in the reader—questions that orient the reader towards an understanding of problems the author thought about with utmost seriousness. Strauss thus, in ''Persecution and the Art of Writing'', presents Maimonides "as a closet nonbeliever obfuscating his message for political reasons".<ref>Michael Paley and Jacob J. Staub in ''Jewish Philosophy: Medieval and Modern'', printed in ''The Schocken Guide to Jewish Books'' (1992) p. 215.</ref>

[[Straussian hermeneutics|Strauss's hermeneutical]] argument<ref name="Schröder">Winfried Schröder (ed.), ''Reading between the lines – Leo Strauss and the history of early modern philosophy'', Walter de Gruyter, 2015, p. 39, "According to Robert Hunt, '[t]he Straussian hermeneutic ... sees the course of intellectual history as an ongoing conversation about important philosophical questions'."</ref>—rearticulated throughout his subsequent writings (most notably in ''The City and Man'' [1964])—is that, before the 19th century, Western scholars commonly understood that philosophical writing is not at home in any polity, no matter how liberal. Insofar as it questions conventional wisdom at its roots, philosophy must guard itself especially against those readers who believe themselves authoritative, wise, and liberal defenders of the status quo. In questioning established opinions, or in investigating the principles of morality, philosophers of old found it necessary to convey their messages in an oblique manner. Their "art of writing" was the art of esoteric communication. This was especially apparent in medieval times when heterodox political thinkers wrote under the threat of the [[Inquisition]] or comparably obtuse tribunals.

Strauss's argument is not that the medieval writers he studies reserved one exoteric meaning for the many ([[hoi polloi]]) and an esoteric, hidden one for the few (hoi oligoi), but that, through rhetorical stratagems including self-contradiction and hyperboles, these writers succeeded in conveying their proper meaning at the tacit heart of their writings—a heart or message irreducible to "the letter" or historical dimension of texts.

Explicitly following [[Gotthold Ephraim Lessing]]'s lead, Strauss indicates that medieval political philosophers, no less than their ancient counterparts, carefully adapted their wording to the dominant moral views of their time, lest their writings be condemned as heretical or unjust, not by "the many" (who did not read), but by those "few" whom the many regarded as the most righteous guardians of morality. It was precisely these righteous personalities who would be most inclined to persecute/ostracize anyone who was in the business of exposing the noble or great lie upon which the authority of the few over the many stands or falls.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=ubxOiy1-lpQC&pg=PA25 Jew and Philosopher: The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought of Leo Strauss] p. 25</ref>