L'écriture réticente, condition de possibilité de la philosophie. Quatre études italiennes récentes sur Leo Strauss

I discuss four recent contributions on Leo Strauss written by Italian scholars: M. Farnesi Camellone (§ 1), M. Menon (§ 2), A. Ghibellini, and myself (§ 3). I aimed to clarify the reasons why, in several Italian studies of the last two decades, L. Strauss has been studied more as a philosopher than as a political thinker in the strict sense. The main reason lies, in my opinion, in the relationship that Strauss himself establishes between the "problem of the possibility of philosophy", due to the separation of episteme from doxa, and the necessity of "reticent writing". Contrary to what is often believed (especially after the uproar caused by the American controversy over his alleged "neo-conservatism"), for L. Strauss "reticence" does not play the role of an instrumentum regni aimed at deceiving the masses in order to better control them. The reticent writing is certainly a means of exercising control, but over philosophy itself. It is, more precisely, the methodical tool to control the conflict generated by the philosophical question of justice, a conflict with potentially destructive consequences for philosophy as a way of life.