1 Storing, Herbert J., ed., Essays on the Scientific Study of Polities (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962). Pp. vii, 333. $5.50Google Scholar.

2 Runciman, Steven, The Medieval Manichee. A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy (New York: Compass book, n.d.), p. 13 Google Scholar.

3 Gulick, Luther and Urwick, L., eds., Papers on the Science of Administration (2d ed., New York, 1947), p. 191 Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., pp. 191–192. In reference to Strauss's gibe at the “social engineering” fad in political science (p. 317), note that one of the papers in the Gulick volume carries the title “The Need for the Development of Political Science Engineering.”

5 The main outlines of this argument, as well as most of the arguments in the remainder of the book, were laid down in the first book that Strauss published in English. See The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, 1st ed. (Oxford, 1936)Google Scholar, especially the last chapter, “The New Political Science.”

6 The Straussian position on this question is most exhaustively discussed in Natural Right and History (Chicago, 1953)Google Scholar, ch. 2.

7 The “psychological approach” in American Voting Behavior, ed. Burdick, E. and Brodbeck, A. J., New York, 1959 Google Scholar, is lauded as “more forthright and more sophisticated” (p. 22) than either The Voter Decides or Voting, although only ludicrous assertions are quoted from it.

8 Granting that voters do not reply with sociological abstractions, it is still difficult to see that this criticism goes to the core of the problem. One of the aims of voting studies is to attempt to formulate a more inclusive category (e.g., class identification) that will connect a wide number of instances and expose their common element. We might suggest that this procedure is very similar to Plato's way of proceeding, i.e., to seek a comprehensive conception or definition which will expose the common element in scattered instances.

9 It is instructive to note how Berns “proves” that the new political science rejects the conception of a common good. He quotes a passage from Dahl which occurs in a book review where it is not at all clear whether Dahl espouses the view or is merely categorizing what Dahl calls “rigorous analysis in a positivistic spirit.” This does not prevent Berns from associating Dahl with this position (p. 43)—apparently without examining Dahl's main writings—or from assigning it to the authors of voting studies. A genuinely scholarly approach might have established an important distinction between those studies which deny the value of the conception and those which conclude that it is not operative. Dahl's review may be consulted in World Politics, 10, 1958, p. 91 Google Scholar.

10 Strauss, Leo, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Glencoe, Illinois, 1958), p. 9, 261 Google Scholar.

11 Oceana, Liljigren, ed., pp. 34, 56, 185 Google Scholar.

12 Letter 51 and see also 57.

13 The examples (pp. 128–129) which Storing quotes from Simon do not at all assert a rejection of common sense, but only a demand that common-sense notions be rigorously formulated so that they may be tested by evidence. One of the oddities of the present volume is that none of the contributors addresses the problem of evidence in relation to political science inquiry, common-sense beliefs, or “philosophy.” This suggests a belief that evidence is irrelevant or of minor importance.

14 Administrative Behavior, 2d ed. (New York, 1957), pp. 35–36, 44 Google Scholar. In this connection, as in others, Storing refuses to take Simon at his word. Thus (p. 124) he quotes Simon to the effect that the “proverbs” of public administration frequently contradict each other, but he interprets this as an assertion on Simon's part that any proverb is “illogical.”

15 March, James G. and Simon, Herbert A., Organizations (New York, 1958), pp. 5–6 Google Scholar.

16 This quotation is a fair sample of the logical reasoning employed in this volume: what the individual “deserves to be called” is wholly irrelevant. Likewise it is impossible to detect the “implicit” belief that rationality of means is subordiate to rationality of ends.

11 Simon, Herbert A., Smithburg, Donald W. and Thompson, Victor A., Public Administration (New York, 1950), pp. 58–59 Google Scholar; Administrative Behavior, pp. 5, 49, 52 Google Scholar.

18 This reference, incidentally, gives some insight into Storing's obduracy: “In Administrative Behavior [Simon] asserts that human wants are insatiable (p. 213), and nowhere in the later writings is that retracted. In this essay [Models of Man] he assumes limited wants or needs.” Storing will not even entertain the possibility that Simon may have wished to modify his original position, or that the original position may have been put forward for a special purpose or in a particular context.

19 Simon, , Administrative Behavior, p. 213 Google Scholar.

20 In form this sentence is identical with the passage in Storing's essay, but to avoid the cumbersome appearance of double quotation marks and to indicate what Storing is quoting from Simon we have resorted to this form.

21 “These four sets of givens define the situation as it appears to the rational actor. In predicting his behavior, we need this specification and not merely a specification of the situation as it ‘really’ is, or, more precisely, as it appears to an outside observer.” (Organizations, p. 151.)

22 On the last page (p. 150) Storing praises Simon for displaying a surer and more sophisticated grasp of scientific method than his predecessors, yet this is merely the blandishment that precedes the thrashing: “But for these very reasons his failure which is at bottom the same as theirs [i.e., Simon's predecessors], is all the more emphatic.” Taken seriously, this can only mean that the scientific approach was doomed from the beginning, and that in proportion as it gains sophistication it reveals its inherent defects.

23 The Process of Government (Evanston, Illinois, 1935), pp. 202–3, 210–211, 258–271 Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 258.

25 Ibid., p. 204.

26 See The Process of Government, pp. 220, 221.

27 Ibid., p. 222.

28 Ibid., p. 117.

29 Throughout this volume Marxism is used solely as a term of reproach. It is assumed to be sufficient proof of error or evil if a writer can be shown to have been tainted by it. The unmistakable inference is that Marxism can only corrupt, never illuminate.

30 Ibid., pp. 108, 206.

31 Ibid., p. 208.

32 Ibid., p. 209.

33 Ibid., pp. 465, 467, 468.

34 Ibid., pp. 468–479.

35 Ibid., p. 180.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid., pp. 166–167.

38 Ibid., pp. 166–167.

39 Ibid., pp. 113–114.

40 Ibid., p. 113, fn. 1.

41 Ibid., p. 209.

42 Ibid., p. 443.

43 Ibid., p. 184.

44 Ibid., p. 184.

45 Ibid., pp. 372–373, italics added.

46 Ibid., p. 377.

47 Ibid., p. 349.

48 Lasswell, Harold D. and Kaplan, Abraham, Power and Society (New Haven, 1950), pp. 16, 60, 61 Google Scholar.

49 Ibid., p. 61.

50 Psychopathology and Politics, (New York: Compass Books, 1960), p. 195 Google Scholar.

51 Propaganda Techniques in the World War (Now York, 1927), p. 53 Google Scholar.

52 See, among others, Toulmin, Stephen, The Philosophy of Science (New York: Harper Torch-books, 1960), pp. 17–18 Google Scholar; Russell, B., Human Knowledge, Its Scope and Limits (London, 1948), pp. 339 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. Strauss who, without any specific references, declares: “That reason [which informs the new political science] is a general notion of science … [that] only scientific knowledge is genuine knowledge. From this it follows immediately that all awareness of political things that is not scientific is cognitively worthless.” (pp. 313–314)

53 Knowing and the Known (Boston: Beacon paperback, 1960), pp. 6, 270 Google Scholar.

54 Critique of Pure Reason (2d ed.; 1787)Google Scholar, Introduction, I [first two paragraphs].

55 See the puzzling argument (p. 317) that although common-sense notions about witches had to be revised, this was accomplished, according to Strauss, “without the benefit of empiricism.” Strauss does not tell us how this was done or what kind of knowledge it represented.

56 It should be noted here, since it is not noted in the volume under review, that Bentley never accepted the fact-value distinction but rather argued against it: Knowing and the Known, p. 277.

57 A close examination of Strauss's conception of “Aristotelian political science” is not possible here. Strauss declares the basic principles of this political science without making a single reference to specific passages in Aristotle, much less indicating that there are serious controversies among Aristotelian scholars regarding the meaning of certain crucial concepts used by Aristotle. Strauss writes: “For Aristotle, political science is identical with political philosophy because science is identical with philosophy. Science or philosophy consists of two kinds, theoretical and practical or political; …” (pp. 308–309). Leaving aside the question of whether Aristotle at all refers to “political philosophy,” and waiving the fact that Aristotle divided the sciences into three kinds [Metaphysics 1025b 25–1026a 19.] it is not easy to state categorically what Aristotle's understanding was concerning the relation between politics and ethics or politics and “theory.” Strauss (p. 309) admits this, but only at the cost of further confusion : He says that the practical sciences, which include politics, do not “depend” on the theoretical sciences, which include philosophy.

58 Strauss seems unwilling to state unambiguously the relationship between political philosophy and common sense. The following passage is suggestive but its implications are not pursued: “Since there is of necessity a variety of citizen perspectives, the political scientist or political philosopher must become the umpire, the impartial judge; his perspective encompasses the partisan perspectives because he possesses a more comprehensive and a clearer grasp of man's natural ends and their natural order than do the partisans.” (p. 310)

59 Strauss has employed an odd parallelism in his argument: human non-human, political/sub-political which suggests that there is something non-human about the sub-political groupings.

60 There is a curious contradiction in the argument. Whereas we had been previously told that Aristotelian political science took its vocabulary and meanings from the market place of common sense, the “presupposition” is apparently a discovery or finding of Aristotelian political science which has been “ratified by common sense” (p. 311). One wonders if this is a recommendation for the proper procedure to be followed at all times by political science.

61 Strauss's alternative to the rat psychologist's conception of man is such a masterpiece of tautology that it deserves quotation: “The principles of action are the natural ends of man toward which man is by nature inclined and of which he has by nature some awareness.” (p. 309)

62 Politics I. iii. 1253b 1–1254b 32 [Barker translation].

63 Ibid. I. i. 1252a 1 et seq.

64 Burke, who certainly was untarred by scientism, was equally explicit about the close and continuous relationship between the “political” and the “sub-political”: “To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country, and to man-kind.” Reflections on the Revolution in France (Everyman edition), p. 44.

65 For whatever it is worth, Strauss is not prevented from saying that common sense often must be revised “because of unforeseen changes” (p. 317). Apparently this means that “unforeseen changes” can never alter the “essential character” of all political situations.

66 According to Professor Strauss, the new political science holds that “there is only a difference of degree between liberal democracy and communism in regard to coercion and freedom.” He introduces no evidence for this allegation but proceeds to his revealing conclusion: “This Is necessarily leads to an Ought, all sincere protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.” (p. 319)