Perspectives on Political Science, 42:15–20, 2013Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1045-7097 print / 1930-5478 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10457097.2013.738987

Mark Blitz and Platonic PoliticalPhilosophy

MARK KREMER

Abstract: Blitz argues for the necessity and possibility ofpolitical philosophy by uncovering its origins in the thoughtof Plato. By tracing its emergence from the political andmoral, Blitz explains the nature of philosophy.

Keywords: Plato, Socrates, political philosophy, Strauss,justice, laws, the Republic, morality

Plato’s Political Philosophy has as its themethe relation between philosophy and politicsor what Blitz calls political philosophy. Thisis of course not only Plato’s theme but that ofLeo Strauss, whom Blitz follows at least withrespect to his intention of defending the pos-

sibility and necessity of political philosophy and of Plato’spolitical philosophy in particular. Like Strauss, Blitz wishesto discover or recover a Plato that is fresh and compelling,one who speaks to the deepest and most permanent questionsof man as man including contemporary man. Plato’s ownwords describe Blitz’s intention, to depict a Socrates “beau-tiful and new.” The recovery of a life-giving Plato beginswith a recovery of the origins of Platonic political philos-ophy in the “co-philosophic” world from which it emergesand on which it acts, or what Blitz also calls “the everydayworld.” Only by understanding its beginnings can one graspthe necessity of Platonic political philosophy. One might saythat Blitz goes to the beginning of the beginning because heseeks to explain the origin or emergence of Platonic politicalphilosophy, which is the origin of the tradition of politicalphilosophy.

Although Blitz follows Strauss’s intention, he does nottake the exact same path. The most recognizable difference

Mark Kremer is Associate Professor of Political Sci-ence at Kennesaw State University. E-mail: mkremer@kennesaw.edu

is the introductory stage. Strauss establishes the necessityfor the study of Plato in a Platonic fashion: he begins witha doubt about a dominant convention or tradition—the tradi-tion of political philosophy and the idea of natural right. Inthis way he is able to make Plato speak to the modern readerthrough self-doubt. Blitz does not give any compelling rea-son for the study of Plato. He does say that he will not readPlato’s thought through the lenses of historicism, naturalscience, pragmatism, public opinion, nihilism, and faith(1–2). In other words, he alludes to the dominant beliefsthat stand in the way of recovering Platonic political philos-ophy as outlined in Strauss’s work. In addition, he alludes tothe inadequacy of the modern Enlightenment and to Chris-tian interpretations of Platonic thought. He seeks to discovera Plato that is not metaphysical but literary, and for whomphilosophy begins with the “everyday world.” The difficultyis that Blitz mentions all these alternatives in passing with-out establishing their deficiencies and deriving from themthe necessity for a return to the origins of the tradition. Onecould perhaps say that he takes too much for granted, be-cause he is writing for friends rather than potential friends.Consequently, his book has an academic character despiteits attempt to be vital. And although it claims to be a bookfor both beginners and advanced scholars, it does not beginwhere beginners begin.

A few words about Strauss’s justifications for a returnto classical political philosophy in Natural Right and His-tory and the City and Man are in order because they throwlight on Blitz’s intention to return to the origins of the tra-dition of political philosophy. It is also appropriate to lookat Strauss because Blitz’s book owes much to him, and theirdifferences are telling. In Natural Right and History, Straussreturns to the ancients after having shown the problems withthe relativism of social science and of history, that is to sayWeber and Heidegger. He undertakes a genesis of histori-cism to show that it is not a genuine experience—that it isa reaction to modern philosophy and a radicalization of it.

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Similarly in the City and Man, Strauss introduces his bookby discussing the crisis of the West—the crisis of modernrationalism and the politics on which it is based. He arguesthat modern political philosophy must be abandoned becauseit depends upon modern natural science and history, and nei-ther can support modern natural right. It is this crisis thatStrauss refers to as the crisis of liberal democracy. The crisisof liberal democracy does not necessitate the abandonmentof modern politics for history or culture. Strauss seeks analternative to the historicist understanding of culture in theancient understanding of politics. Again he argues that cul-ture is just a reaction to the modern understanding of nature(i.e., a reaction to an idea). He undertakes a study of ancientpolitical science, ancient political philosophy, and ancientpolitical history to recover not just politics but nonhistoricalthought or thought that does not consider itself essentiallyhistorical and is not a reaction to the attempt to rational-ize politics. Ancient political philosophy appears superior toancient political history (Thucydides) and ancient politicalscience (Aristotle), and once again Strauss has reservationsabout history and science even in their classical political ar-ticulations. Blitz wishes to establish political philosophy’snecessity, but he does not clarify its accusers and the “every-day world” seems like a rather indistinct beginning especiallygiven the monumental uniqueness of the Platonic dialoguecompared to the likes of Homer, Hesiod, Thucydides, andthe pre-Socratics.

Blitz’s beginning, the “everyday world,” is an innovationon Strauss’s City and Man, where Strauss returns to the com-monsense articulation of politics in Aristotle’s political sci-ence, not Plato’s political philosophy. This commonsenseunderstanding is a beginning that is meant as an alternativeto the modern scientific understanding. The term “commonsense” is chosen with care to describe what is prescientificand what is common in the sense of open to all men andnot depending upon convention though requiring education.Blitz uses the term “everyday world” as distinct from philos-ophy but it is not clear what it means in relation to religionand politics, and its ultimate noetic status is equally unclear.

The “everyday world” is uncovered “by exploring whatSocrates’ interlocutors want from him” (10). In the chapter“The World of the Dialogues,” Blitz outlines the different dia-logues according to the expectations that are had of Socratesby other human beings. Thus there are fathers concernedabout the education of their sons; there is political ambi-tion; love; legality and piety; pleasure and friendship. Thisconstitutes the “everyday world” and brings us to those whoalso claim to offer answers about these subjects: the sophists.The contest between Socrates and the sophists opens up thewhole question of knowledge and whether education can bean art. The “everyday world” appears to be the “moral” and“ethical” world or what one might call the life of the polisand its citizens, including the private lives of citizens. It is,therefore, not surprising that in each of his chapters leadingup to Plato’s respective political work, Blitz introduces thepolitical study with a dialogue on rhetoric.

A close look needs to be taken at the order of Blitz’sbook since its divisions give us a clue as to how he viewsthe relation of the “everyday world” to philosophy. Blitz

divides his book into three parts: (1) Virtue and Politics,(2) Philosophy and Politics, and (3) Knowledge and Politics.In each section Blitz devotes the greater part of each chapterto one of Plato’s three most political works—the three worksthat have political titles. In the first chapter he writes onthe Laws, in the second on the Republic, and in the thirdhe writes on the Statesman. Those familiar with these threeworks know that they examine politics within different limits.The Laws considers the best possible regime with actuallegislators. The Republic examines the best regime in speechculminating in philosophy, and the Statesman examines thekingly art with mathematicians in search of the meaning ofknowledge or science. Blitz’s division of chapters reflects thepeculiar relation of the respective dialogues to politics. It isonly by understanding these peculiar perspectives on politicsand how they are related that one can grasp Platonic politicalphilosophy.

Although each chapter is devoted primarily to the dia-logues that have politics as their explicit theme, Blitz alsointroduces those dialogues with the discussion of other dia-logues. In the case of the Laws, Blitz writes on the dialoguesdevoted to the particular virtues (Theages on wisdom, Euthy-phro on piety, Laches on courage, Charmides on moderation,and Gorgias on justice). Then, once having discussed thesedialogues about the particular virtues, he turns to the Menoand the Protagoras to discuss virtue in general before dis-cussing the Laws. In this sense, he undertakes the work ofthe Nocturnal Council in its quest for virtue. In the chap-ter on philosophy and politics he introduces the Republicwith the Hippias Major because it is about the beautiful andthe Republic examines politics in light of a concern withthe beautiful or at least the kallipolis or beautiful city. Healso introduces the Republic with a discussion of laughter,wonder, perplexity, and nature because he believes that theyreveal something of the philosophic awareness and philo-sophic life. In the final chapter of his book, he introducesthe Statesman with the Theatetus and Sophist, which are ob-vious introductions because they are the first two parts ofthe trilogy on knowledge, but Blitz also introduces the tril-ogy itself with a discussion of the Philebus because it triesto assimilate pleasure to thought and, therefore, stands asan introduction to the theme of the life devoted to knowl-edge. Just as in the first chapter he moves from particularvirtues to virtue as a whole, to the laws that are necessary forvirtue, so too the chapters themselves move from the moreparticular to the more abstract—from virtue to philosophy toknowledge or science. Philosophy would thus seem to be amiddle ground between virtues that are too contingent uponthe city and knowledge that is too general to account forman.

But Blitz never thematically discusses the distinctions andone wonders if not all the dialogues are about philosophyand politics in one way or another. Blitz himself asserts thatall roads lead to Socrates, which is to say philosophy rightlyunderstood. The life of Socrates, therefore, seems to be theanswer to all of Plato’s paradoxes. Philosophy is couragerightly understood, and piety rightly understood, and justicerightly understood, and beauty rightly understood, and loverightly understood, etc. For example, in the Laches, Blitz

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shows that Laches and Nicias are foils. The former overem-phasizes the spirited part of virtue, which overcomes fear,whereas the latter overemphasizes the knowledge of what isto be feared. Both views are insufficient and, as Blitz sug-gests, their insufficiencies point to philosophy as the rightdisposition toward man’s fears (62).

But if this is the case, the dialogues have a certain whole-ness of their own and are capable of revealing the philosophicnature in their own peculiar way. It might, therefore, havebeen sensible not to discuss so many dialogues. A thoroughand thematic comparison between the Laws, the Republic,and the Statesman would have brought to light the differ-ent aspects of politics and how philosophy can and cannotaccommodate itself to them. This would have been indispen-sible for political science students studying Plato. Instead,these dialogues are lost among others. In addition, an attemptat interpreting fewer dialogues might have encouraged moreconsistency of style. There are times when Blitz follows thetext carefully. At other times he summarizes. At others he dis-cusses subjects thematically without following a text. Somedialogues receive extensive treatment and others hardly any.There is neither a clear and consistent sense of thoroughnessof interpretation, nor is there a sense of sustained thematicdevelopment.

The order of the chapters naturally raises the question ofthe relation of virtue to knowledge and to philosophy. Isvirtue not knowledge for Plato and vice ignorance, and isthat not his formula for the philosophic life and all otherlives? That is to say, virtue and knowledge ultimately culmi-nate in philosophy (even if only knowledge of ignorance) asdistinct from politics, the arts and mathematics and the sci-ences. Blitz resists this famous Socratic equation. He speaksof the “everyday world” as the “moral” and “ethical” un-derstanding of virtue as distinct from the philosophic under-standing of virtue, and he distinguishes “moral virtue” from“intellectual virtue.” Blitz holds the opinion, sometimes moreand sometimes less, that the “everyday” understanding, de-spite its conundrums need not be understood as ignorance.“We need knowledge to tell us if ethical virtue, or a par-ticular act, is good, but knowledge alone does not make itgood” (80). “Virtue is indeed knowledge, and, thus, teach-able and fully voluntary, but it is so only philosophically, weshould say: Virtue is knowledge only when the soul turnsfully to truth” (105). But does that mean there is virtue that isnot knowledge, namely, ethical and moral virtue? Blitz sug-gests that “moral virtue” can be equated with political virtue.He presents the Laws as a culmination of the dialogues onvirtue and argues that the Laws has two ends: “moral virtue”and philosophy. “Socrates suggests that philosophical activ-ity perfects political virtue or more fully reflects its aims”(115). Here Blitz calls the ethical and the moral the polit-ical, and although he says that it needs to be perfected byphilosophy, he does not deny that it is real or genuine.

Blitz discusses the relation of moral virtue to politics andreligion in the Laws. Plato attempts to perfect a Spartan typetimocracy. Moral virtue is connected to shame and honor orblame and praise and therefore depends upon the opinionsof others, including the gods. It is created by habit throughconditioned behavior and right opinion, and it is enforced

through penal laws. Through moral virtue man performs hispolitical duties, which of course require military duties, butthe Athenian stranger moderates the Spartan dedication towar by introducing peace and pleasure. Accompanying thiscivilizing of the Spartan regime is the introduction of reasoninto political life in so far as political life will allow. The lawscontain preambles appealing to reason, punishments againstatheism are moderated, and the members of the NocturnalCouncil can travel to different countries in search of waysto improve the laws and to discover virtue. There is even aproof of god rather than an insistence on his existence andauthority, and, as Blitz points out, the proof is not a very goodone. So although the proof might be reassuring to believers,it could also sharpen the edge of doubters. Blitz goes so faras to say that Plato’s proof is ironic and he, Blitz, gives apsychological account of the city’s need for god. While theLaws do not replace the gods with the good, it nonethelessmakes a place for philosophy, leaving the reader wonder-ing if the “moral virtues” serve philosophy and if the Lawsis more concerned with the toleration of philosophy withinthe demands of politics than with “moral virtue.” Certainlythe need for law, right opinion, punishments and rewards,praise and blame calls into the question the genuineness of“moral virtue.” Is it an unsatisfactory halfway house betweenpreservation and philosophy? Must the moral virtues be ei-ther reduced to passions, as did Hobbes, or must they beperfected in philosophy as Blitz says Socrates suggests?

Blitz’s discussion of the Laws does have a sustained com-parison between Plato’s best regime and the modern lib-eral politics effected by Hobbes, Locke, and the Federalists.Throughout that comparison Blitz makes clear that Plato wasmore aristocratic and less democratic, relied more on edu-cation than institutions, had greater concern for beauty andmoral virtue than utility and self-preservation, and that reli-gion although reformed was a public and not a private matter.These comparisons constitute the clearest part of the book,and one could only wish that Blitz would have provided moredirect reflections on why Plato does not take the path of themoderns despite his ironic distance on the city and the “moralvirtues.” He does state, at various places, that for Plato bothspiritedness and eros are irreducible elements of nature andthat they therefore require education. Plato, therefore, doesnot separate the church from the state because the freedomof religion would require that god be made relative. In theRepublic he replaces god with the good, and in the Lawshe gives reasons for god. In other words, he never destroysthe possibility of rational discourse about eternity. Hobbesreduced moral virtue to passions and in particular orderedman around the most powerful passion—the fear of violentdeath—to make philosophy more effectual (238). But the pe-culiar relation he created between science and natural rights,as well as calculation and passions destroyed the relation ofreason to the human situation. By directing man toward themeans toward preventing death, Hobbes forgets the neces-sity of mortality, and by directing reason toward power heloses sight of man’s end. Plato marries wisdom and courageto moderation, which means he believed that the life of themind needed natural support—a fulfillment and pleasure inknowing. He never thought it could either conquer nature, or

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rule, and therefore every dialogue is a work of moderationrecognizing the limits of wisdom and courage.

Blitz’s discussion of the Statesman also reflects theambiguities of “moral virtue.” The Statesman recognizesthe limits of law and the need for judgment. Sometimesthe Statesman looks to the end of the kingly art and pointsto philosopher-kings and at others it is limited by the needfor ruling herds and the prudence to recognize the possible.Once again it is not clear if prudence is the most intellectualof the “moral virtues” or if it is a habit connected to the cityand the preservation and prosperity of herds that needs to beperfected in philosophy. The incoherence of “moral virtue”could not be felt so powerfully if man were not exposed toSocratic questioning, that is to say if men were simply leftto their beliefs. The questioning itself realizes the possibilityof doubt and the need for a more coherent and reasonedaccount of man. The Platonic dialogue speaks to that needand for Blitz the Republic in particular.

Blitz turns to the Republic to discuss the relation of “moralvirtue” to philosophy or to put “moral virtue” in its properlight. Here, more than any other dialogue, Plato examines“morality” and subordinates it to the ends of philosophy.But here Blitz offers very little in the way of examiningmorality and tracing its “perfection” in philosophy. Despiteinsisting upon the literary character of the Platonic dialoguesand the need to treat them as dramas, he loosely summarizesthe definitions of justice given by Cephalus, Polemarchus,and Thrasymachus and does not even give an account of thedemands made upon justice by Glaucon and Adiemantus,which give the rest of the dialogue its direction and whichare meant to be satisfied.

Cephalus’s understanding of justice is telling the truth andgiving back what is owed. This proves insufficient becauseone would not give back a mad man his knife. For Blitz,the refutation shows that “honesty might lead to bad re-sults” (167). But the example is also a reflection on claims toproperty. It points to the need to go beyond private propertytoward what can be used well, or the need to go beyond one’sown, which brings us to the whole problem of Cephalus.Cephalus’s opinion belongs to the order of the family. De-spite being rich, he is like most human beings. When hewas young he was sex crazed; then when he became mid-dle aged his life was devoted to property and family, andnow that he is old he fears the tales of the afterlife andmakes sure that he is in the good graces of the gods. In otherwords, his life follows the growth and decay of the bodyfrom sex to procreation to death. His soul is defined by thecondition of the organism. He felt the need to restore thefortune his grandfather made and his father lost because helooks at property as something bequeathed for which thereare duties. In fact, it is difficult to know if his fortune is forhis son or his son for his fortune. The section on Cephalusis a beautiful example of the beliefs and problems of thefamily that constitute life for the vast majority of humanbeings.

Of the first three opinions about justice in Book I, Blitzonly elaborates upon that of Polemarchus because he believesthat it is the key to uncovering Plato’s intention in Book I(167). But his interpretation is ad hoc serving as a segue to the

question of the best regime. Polemarchus defines justice asdoing good to friends and harm to enemies. Blitz then arguesthat the failure of the definition depends upon the example ofmedicine. To do good to friends, one must have knowledge ofthe good, but knowledge itself is “morally” neutral. For ex-ample, knowledge of medicine can be used to kill the patientas well as to heal him. Justice, therefore, requires knowl-edge of ends, “because the order of our purposes and goalsis central to our happiness” (168). This treatment of Pole-marchus is a simplification that abstracts from the drama andthe argument. Polemarchus’s name means warlord, and hisdefinition is the most patriotic of all the definitions. Unlikehis father, who is not a citizen, Polemarchus wants some-thing more noble in life than family and property. He definesfriends as fellow countrymen, and he defines friendship asfellowship in arms against the enemy. His problem is thatwar is for the sake of peace, which means that the warrior isjust in the service of civilian life, which Polemarchus takesto be ignoble. In peace, he can find no goods other than thoseof his father. Peace is about property—contracts and gold.Socrates equates justice to the arts and uses the example ofthe art of medicine to reveal the problem of patriotism. Thedoctor can use his art to harm the patient as the guardiancan use knowledge to harm his own country. Socrates crit-icizes Polemarchus’s understanding of nobility to make itmore amenable to philosophy. He first degrades it as a meanstoward protecting money and then he treats it as a morallyambiguous art, so that the guardian is also a robber. Socrateseven goes so far as to call Odysseus, a revered hero, a thief.He tries to show Polemarchus the irrational character of pa-triotism by looking at it from the universality of the arts. Tothe enemy, Polemarchus would be a thief. The arts do notfavor one’s own. Consequently, Socrates must redefine themeaning of friend from those to whom one is born to thosewho are good. The good and one’s own cannot be the samefor if we are to love the good and the good are those loyalto one’s own, then we must love the enemy who is loyal tohis own. Patriotism, if it is to be coherent, must insist uponthe uniqueness of one’s own—that it descended from and isconnected to the divine.

Socrates does not apply the corrosiveness of reason topatriotism in order to lacerate his fellows. Such hatred wouldshow an equal lack of freedom of mind as that of patriotism.He is no modern cosmopolitan. He argues that one mustconsider one’s friends to be those who are good and thatthe good do no harm to anyone. The example of medicineprepares this definition of justice because the just man is likea doctor of the soul. The dialogue with Polemarchus is anexample of philosophy working its reason upon a patriot.

Blitz also skips over the section on Thrasymachus. I cannotgo into all the details of that amazing discussion, but sufficeit to say that by ignoring it, the order of opinions is ruinedand, therewith, much of the sense of the beginning of thebook upon which the rest is built. Thrasymachus’s opinionis more intellectual and has an understanding of the endsof government. He says that justice is obedience to law andthe law is the advantage of the stronger. In a democracy, thepeople are stronger. In an oligarchy, the rich are stronger. Henot only grasps the idea of country but he also grasps the

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idea of regime or of the ruling element of society and seesthat the regime colors patriotism. Through a father, a patriot,and a sophist, Plato is able to show the city in its elementsfrom what is most bodily and immediate to what is mostcomprehensive (the ruling class and its laws, which give thecity its ends or way of life).

A few words are necessary about the demands made uponjustice by Glaucon and Adiemantus. The founding of thekallipolis that leads to the idea of the good and the philosophiclife are a response to these needs and cannot be understoodwithout continually returning to them. Their demands are es-pecially important for understanding the problem of moralityas they reveal its hypocrisies and low motives. That is notto say that they do not want to believe in justice, but thatthey want it to be worth believing in. They divide up theircomplaints about justice: Glaucon reflects upon the politicaland Adiemantus the religious. Glaucon says that justice ismade by the weak to protect themselves from suffering in-justice from the stronger, but if the weak had the power to doinjustice, they would for if they could overcome their fears,they would choose the life of tyranny. Glaucon wants justiceto be choice worthy for itself and not for its reputation orrewards, and he certainly wants it to be chosen from strengthof soul rather than from fear and weakness. He would wanta man to suffer and die for it.

Adiemantus criticizes what is said of the gods by the poets.There are divine punishments and rewards for justice, but thegods can be bribed so that punishment can be avoided whilethey make justice hard. It is even said that they are indif-ferent to justice and that consequently the world is ruled bychance. He, like his brother, wants to see the power of justicein the soul alone without the influence of reputation and re-ward. For justice to make sense for him, it must accompanyhappiness.

The criticisms of justice are forceful. Justice as they knowit, does not satisfy their longing for immortality, honor, hap-piness, and truth. To turn them away from tyranny and toinstill in them a love of justice, Socrates turns to idealism.He has them found a city in speech that will prove to be thepath to philosophy.

The first city proposed by Socrates is called the healthycity, which Socrates also calls the true city. Strauss interpretsthis to mean that the city is rooted in the basic needs of thebody, and it never reaches a truth beyond that despite itsclaims to virtue. Blitz denies this account of the healthy city,but he never makes sense of why Socrates calls it the truecity. He says that “moral virtue” and public spiritedness arenecessary even in the healthy city because there is no naturallimit on what one needs for survival. Furthermore, the healthycity would still need someone to rule to determine the rankof goods because there are still a variety of trades producinga variety of goods. In other words, the healthy city is notself-sufficient and does not reflect nature. This is a forcedinterpretation that does not recognize the obvious harmonybetween man’s basic needs and the arts that Socrates is callinghealthy. Just because the healthy city does not satisfy man’shighest nature and just because it is not possible does notmean that the healthy city does not reflect the true characterof the city’s virtues.

Blitz’s treatment of the Republic also skims over the musi-cal and gymnastics education of the warriors. He summarizesits point without argument as an education directed towardthe common good of the city, but this does not capture itsradical and unusual nature. Both educations are directed to-ward philosophy. The former discusses the gods and heroeswhile the latter, surprisingly, discusses medicine. Socratescensors the poetic portrayal of the gods, replacing the Home-ric gods with the philosopher’s god, which can offer neitherhope nor fear, and cannot be moved by prayer. Consistentwith the reform of the gods are the reforms of tragedy andcomedy, which are forbidden because terror, crying, pity,anger, and laughter distort the mind. Likewise, medicine dis-torts the mind. Though containing the rationality of an art,medicine distorts man’s relation to death. Whereas poetrydistorts man’s relation to death by supporting his life withcosmic meaning, medicine treats death as if it could be cured.The “everyday world” here is one of poetry and the arts of thebody and they are not cured by “moral virtue” but by philos-ophy. In the Myth of Er, it is only the philosopher who wouldnot choose tyranny, thus affirming that virtue is knowledgeand right opinion is falsehood. Blitz recognizes the problemof morality when writing on the noble lie, but he is reluctantto draw some of the harsh conclusions that Plato explicitlydoes draw.

Although Blitz states that “moral virtue” is not au-tonomous, he speaks of Plato’s “ethics” and “morality.” Fur-thermore, he resists examining the moral opinions and themost powerful criticisms made of justice, as well as the pos-sibility that moral virtue is political virtue and that the endsof the city are really those of preservation. It is Aristotlewho argues that “moral virtue” and “ethical virtue” are realand require political activity. For Plato, man is not a politicalanimal. Furthermore, the perfection of the “moral virtues”in philosophy is more ambiguous in Plato than in Aristotle.While Socrates exhorts to virtue and seems to be the trueexample of the virtues, it is equally true that his life is farremoved from anything resembling that of a citizen, legisla-tor, statesman, hero, or even a father. Certainly, knowledgeof ignorance does not appear to be perfection for men raisedon Homeric gods and heroes. Aristotle’s divine images ofphilosophy, although more abstract, have more the quality ofa perfecting of the self-sufficiency of the “moral virtues.” Itis perhaps better to say that Socrates presents to the pagans avery different idea of virtue than that he perfects their virtuesor that he only perfects their virtue by utterly destroying it.From time to time Blitz recognizes this view by speakingof the great difference between Socrates the moral preceptorand Socrates the philosopher or between the moral and theintellectual.

Blitz’s book will of course be useful to scholars who areworking on the dialogues he treats, but I think it is a book thatwill be most helpful to Straussians struggling to understandStrauss and trying to form their own opinions about Plato andthe meaning of political philosophy. Reflecting back uponBlitz’s book as a whole, I think that its greatest contributionis to the idea of Plato as a literary figure carrying out a sort ofenlightenment. Blitz has a greater appreciation for the ironyof Socratic dialectics than those who think Socrates is in

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earnest about his own doubts or has need for proofs. Blitzgrasps the comic element of the Delphic mission and is awarethat Socrates has an awareness that cannot be demonstratedand which almost no human being can share with him.

Blitz, however, does not do full justice to the literary char-acter of the dialogues. The generalizations he makes aboutthe relation of morality to philosophy are not adequatelygrounded in either the characters or their arguments. Themovement he describes from the “everyday” to philosophyhas an abstract character. And although he is aware of So-cratic irony, he underestimates it. Blitz goes so far as to makeit seem as if philosophy emerged from the city or “everyday,”but philosophy existed long before political philosophy, andphilosophy had to be compelled to turn to politics. Dialec-tics and the movement from opinion to knowledge is itself akind of irony like the irony of the scientific method. Socrates

did not need dialectics to become a philosopher anymorethan Bacon needed the scientific method. They are effectsof their respective understandings and their way of bringingphilosophy to bear upon society.

The political, as a realm free from destiny and open tothe possibility of the legislator and the statesman, who arefree to think about the ends of government without prophetsand priests, already presupposes a considerable degree of en-lightenment as Blitz recognizes. But the city is also a caveof prejudice, even the best city. Blitz’s book sees in Platothe possibility of political philosophy, and that means theawakening and cultivation of the city’s openness to philoso-phy. By trying to unravel the riddle of virtue in its relation toknowledge, Blitz has advanced our knowledge of the distinctcharacter of Platonic political philosophy while teaching thelimits of politics.

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