So I got in the mail today a very fine book by Michael and Catherine Zuckert — Leo Strauss and the Problem of Political Philosophy.

As is the case in every book that shows up, I went right to the index to see if there’s anything about me. There is! I’m classed among the faith-based Straussians, although the evidence for that classification comes from a single article I wrote quickly sometime ago.

The interesting thing is that Michael and Catherine think that Strauss refuted the faith-based position when he refuted Pascal.

Here are the steps:

1. Pascal says man is miserable without the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

2. But philosophers say they’re not, and they, especially Socrates, seems to have lived as if they weren’t. The evidence here, according to the Zuckerts, “is the testimony of those who have lived and observed that [philosophic] life.”

3. The life by nature is that of the philosopher. All other lives are mutilated, not by sin, but by their orientation by something other than the philosopher’s passionate desire for wisdom.

For what it’s worth, I can’t help but think Pascal and Strauss share a certain extremism here. It amount to this: They seem to agree in 99+ percent of all cases. For Strauss, philosophers are exceedingly rare, and yet they’re the only refutation of Pascal’s blanket statement concerning the human condition. And for nonphilosophers, the claim for “the completeness and fullness of the philosophic life” amounts to hearsay evidence, insofar as they don’t share that philosophic experience. Even in the case of Socrates, we rely mainly on what Plato told us about his thoughts and deeds.

I learned a huge amount from both Strauss and Pascal, but I don’t think that every human experience but philosophy is a diversion, just as I think it’s not enough to say, as St. Augustine did, that even the best philosophers have been blinded by pride. Both Strauss and Pascal, finally, seem somewhat weak on relational love. There’s something or more than something in the dissident thought that living in the truth is given to us all.