LAUSR

the duties that come with their greater freedoms; like Strauss’ philosopher, they “conduct their intellectual business by whispering to each other, not by trading reasons and counterreasons” (81). The ascendancy of liberalism, positivism and postmodernism has not extinguished the human need to pursue the question of how to live through to its end. The result: we are all esotericists now. Beiner’s call for the revival of a political philosophy more directly focused on truth is complicated by the fact that he appears to privilege the continuation of a conversation of epic proportions over its actual truth content. The pursuit of the question of how to live is only meaningful if one can presume there is a single authoritative answer, Beiner maintains, but this kind of closure is unlikely if not impossible since every answer is susceptible to criticism; even if it were possible it would be undesirable, he suggests, because it would end the conversation. Moreover, the principal qualification for inclusion in the political philosophy pantheon is the epic reach of one’s questions and answers rather than their rectitude or persuasiveness; as he suggests in a discussion of Arendt and Oakeshott, “getting it wrong” does not invalidate one’s status as a political philosopher (39). The question inevitably arises whether, despite its evident anchorage in Plato and Aristotle, Beiner’s understanding of political philosophy owes more to the moderns than to the ancients in giving greater weight to splendor than to truth. Beiner’s insistence on the “fundamental chasm” (224) between theory and practice is entirely appropriate to this understanding; in view of some among the company assembled here, we might count it a great benefit. But not only is the “chasm” between theory and practice flatly contradicted by the governing tendency of Beiner’s own critical engagements, it has the unfortunate effect of deflating the value of the enterprise he has set out to elevate. If the ambitious critiques and visions which are offered by political philosophy in the epic tradition have no bearing on our citizenship, it is unclear why we would care enough about them to join the conversation in the first place. By the same token, it is difficult to imagine how our citizenship could ever be insulated from our nature as “wonder-experiencing ... and foundation-seeking animals” (226). If nature will out in the end, better it return through the front door than the back.