Better Living through Political Science: On Claudia Hauer's Strategic Humanism

When my students and I spend a class or two on the Federalist toward the end of a year-long course on the history of political philosophy that began with Plato's Republic, a few passages elicit chuckles or smirks. One is Hamilton's remark in no. 9 that "the science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement." The other is Madison's mention in no. 37 of "the greatest adepts in political science."¹ Hamilton's optimism could be what causes the smirk. But besides that, it would seem odd, say, to read an article in the science section of the New York Times reporting from the cutting edge of political science. The findings of political scientists fall closer in the space of discourse to the "takes" of pundits than to discoveries in the hard sciences. Madison's "adepts" are just as obscure as Hamilton's "improvement." If an adept in a science is someone with a distinct aptitude for it, do people ever talk about anyone as having an aptitude for political science? A precocious youngster might bring about an advance in computing in her garage; has this ever happened in the study of politics? Even in areas like the prediction of election results, where there have arguably been improvements, improvement seems to owe more to someone's facility with statistics than understanding of politics. But that is enough of explaining jokes where none were meant.

If the humor of these passages wasn't the point, then they should lose nothing by being explained. The bulk of this essay will grapple with the consequences of this off-beat humor for teachers and students in the liberal arts. In the main, I want anyone else who is unsettled by a joke about improvements and adepts in political science to know that we may take heart from Claudia Hauer's Strategic Humanism: Lessons on Leadership from the Ancient Greeks. The very slipperiness of improvement and aptitude in political science are what make "strategic humanism" so necessary, and Hauer's essays on it so refreshing. A tutor at St. John's College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and professor in the Lyon Chair in Professional Ethics at the United States Air Force Academy, Hauer has written a book that aims in particular to broaden the perspective of people whose jobs require them to formulate military strategy and foreign policy, but which should be known more generally to students and teachers of classics and the liberal arts who are concerned with the public relevance of our disciplines.

If I wanted to say that political science cannot really improve, I would say, with Hauer, that this is because human beings are complex wholes for whom theory and practice can never be the same. Theories may develop, but as human activity remains free, it will always get out ahead of theory. In the hard sciences, the matter to be theorized might lie beyond our understanding, but it doesn't get out ahead of it. Newtonian physics missed a great deal about the universe, and awaited improvement until the twentieth century, but its failure to describe the movements of the universe had nothing to do with anybody's decision to act differently. As long as practical reason remains, the human sciences should be on guard against the mindset of the hard sciences where improvements to theory are not liable to get tripped up by the unpredictability of action.

In an era when political prognostications are taken with a block of salt but enthusiastically discussed all the same, the "adept in political science" might be a figure both absurd and ridiculous. Aptitude for practical politics is serious, even if the success it brings can be difficult to maintain. If the rewards of political talent are fickle and controversial, those with an aptitude for thinking or speaking about politics are even more dubious. This dramatic picture applies more to the pundit than the actual political scientist, who may not win even pyrrhic victories. Neither of them is like the practitioner of the hard sciences for...