The essays collected in Persecution and the Art of Writing all deal with one problem--the relation between philosophy and politics. Here, Strauss sets forth the thesis that many philosophers, especially political philosophers, have reacted to the threat of persecution by disguising their most controversial and heterodox ideas.

The article analyses the development of the idea of sovereignty, which is the result of six centuries of intellectual and political development that began in the early Middle Ages. Having studied the development of this idea from the idea of the plenitudo potestatis of the papacy in Gregory VII to the idea of the sovereign individual in Locke, the authors conclude that the modern understanding of popular sovereignty and the state is a consequence of the modern idea of sovereign individuals (...) that form a political community in the only possible way - on the basis of agreement. (shrink)

This essay explores a creative argument that Cicero offers to answer a fundamental question: how are we to judge among different ways of life? Is there a natural hierarchy of human types? In respon...

This essay explores a creative argument that Cicero offers to answer a fundamental question: how are we to judge among different ways of life? Is there a natural hierarchy of human types? In response to this problem, Cicero gives an account of a person’s possessing two natures. All of us participate in a general human nature, the characteristics of which provide us with certain universal duties and a natural moral hierarchy. But, we also each possess an individual nature, qualities that (...) make us unique and which we have an obligation to cultivate. By employing different concepts of natura to refer either to common human nature or to particular individual nature, Cicero establishes a basis for a normative standard that manages to affirm the superiority of certain especially valuable types of life, such as the philosopher and the statesman. At the same time, he advances a coherent account of individuality that places high value on natural human diversity. (shrink)