Progressive Minds, Conservative Politics: Leo Strauss's Later Writings on Maimonides

Appendix I. The Preface to the 1963 Edition of the Guide, and Political Regimes

Appendix I The Preface to the 1963 Edition of the Guide, and Political Regimes The 1963 University of Chicago English-language edition of the Guide features Leo Strauss’s introductory essay, “How To Begin To Study The Guide of the Perplexed,” Shlomo Pines’s, “Translator’s Introduction: The Philosophic Sources of The Guide of the Perplexed,” and Pines’s translation of the Guide from the Arabic. It also includes a brief and usually overlooked Preface cowritten by Pines and Strauss. This appendix gives an account of the Preface. Strauss and Pines begin their Preface by justifying a new translation of the Guide of the Perplexed. Although they coauthored the Preface, and one assumes that it expresses both of their views, on close examination it becomes clear that Strauss’s thought is the guiding force behind their joint statement. For instance, Strauss and Pines open their Preface by rhetorically framing the justification of a new translation as a response to a legitimate demand: Everyone connected with the production of this translation of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed has long felt that such a new translation was necessary. The legitimate demand that must be made of any translation is not satisfied by any of the existing modern language translations of the Guide. We rightly demand that a translation should remain as close as is practicable to the original, that within the limits of the possible it should give the reader an impression—both in general and in detail—resembling the impression offered by the original. In the present translation, pains have been taken to meet this demand.1 The term “demand” appears three times. Strauss often introduces a theme or states his intention—or in some cases his personal opinion—by 185 186 Appendix I using “leading terms.” In this case, the use is playful: one only demands what one deserves by right. Pines and Strauss are demanding their rights. This rhetorical trope, while playful, illustrates a serious truth that informed much of Strauss’s reading and writing: political philosophers get hold of their readers by appealing to the authoritative opinions of their time, or if one prefers, by beginning with their readers’ prejudices. This therapeutic appeal is necessitated by the fact that communicating the truth is a delicate task; the writer, in order to provide a ladder for ascending, “from common sense to science,” must begin with the readers’ character which is, in turn, deeply shaped by prevailing conventions.2 In this case, Strauss and Pines began with the convention that looks favorably on a bald assertion of rights. After all, Strauss and Pines could have spoken of their duty to remain faithful to the intention of the author, but what holds a greater attraction for modern readers: acting according to duty and faithfulness or stridently demanding one’s rights?3 Strauss and Pines responded to “the demand” for a translation of the Guide that is “as close as is practicable to the original” by producing the 1963 English-language edition. Although a precise translation might produce an inelegant and, at times, slightly cryptic text, Strauss and Pines nevertheless resisted the temptation to translate the text freely—poetically— as they wrote: “As far as was compatible with intelligibility, every Arabic technical term has been rendered by one and the same English term. Wherever the original is ambiguous or obscure, the translation has preserved or attempted to preserve that very ambiguity or obscurity.”4 Two points should be made in this context. First, Strauss stressed the importance of precise translations in his lecture “How to Study Medieval Philosophy.” When translating a medieval philosophical text, “terminology is of paramount importance. Every term designating an important subject implies a whole philosophy.”5 The problem with a free translation of technical terms is that by varying the translation in order to avoid seemingly tiresome repetition, the translator is liable to mislead the reader. When every technical term is not “rendered by one and the same English term,” the reader will inevitably miss the text’s philosophic intention. In addition, Strauss and Pines’s commitment to preserving the intentional ambiguity or obscurity of an author should be seen in light of Strauss’s comments on ambiguous terms in his writings on both Maimonides and Machiavelli. As mentioned in the concluding chapter, in “The Literary Character of the Guide for the Perplexed” Strauss characterized an ambiguous term as “a word fitly spoken.”6 Ambiguous words, he says, are a fitting place to hide secrets, which is why...