God, Δαιμόνιον, and “The Absent Philosopher”: Constructing a Socratic Dialogue between Halevi and his Readers according to Leo Strauss' “The Law of Reason in the Kuzari”

Leo Strauss' “The Law of Reason in the Kuzari” may be the most scholarly of Strauss' works and the most indebted to a scientific study of Judaism. The 142 footnotes are rife with detailed references to academic scholarship of the 19th and early 20th centuries, e.g., Moritz Steinschneider, Salo Baron, Julius Guttmann, H. A. Wolfson, Isaak Heinemann, Paul Kraus, and Moïse Ventura. Nevertheless, Strauss' Kuzari article departs from all previous literature in emphasizing the role of “absent philosopher.” Strauss reads Halevi as opening up the possibility of an extra-textual dialogue between the reader and the “absent philosopher,” a dialogue that, ideally, leads to the reader's rejection of religion and “conversion” to philosophy. This extra-textual dialogue is at odds with the textual dialogue of the Kuzari, in which the Khazzar King rejects religion and converts to philosophy. Rather, the dialogue between reader and the “absent philosopher” is parallel, in Strauss' view, to the action of Plato's Apology where “Socrates discovered the secret of the oracle” – i.e., that the religious accounts are not true – “be examining the representatives of various types of knowledge.” It is not the converting king who like Socrates in the dialogue of the Kuzari, but the reader, spurred not by an oracle or even by an angelic dream, but by Halevi's account of the angelic dream and the subsequent dialogue. Halevi himself thus plays the part of the Δαιμόνιον to the Socratic reader. Whether or not this account accurately reflects Halevi's intention in the Kuzari, it exemplifies a view of the philosophical author as both Δαιμόνιον and philosopher. It displays a view of theologico-philosophical authorship that begins with contemplating the divine and ends with contemplating the human. To what extent did this view characterize Strauss' own scholarly intentions?