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In 1952 Strauss published Persecution and the Art of Writing, commonly understood to advance the argument that some philosophers write in such a way as to avoid persecution by political or religious authorities.
Some of Strauss's students ( most notably Mansfield and Benardete ) have read their teacher as interested in a philosophical " esotericism " aimed primarily at protecting politics from philosophy – the reasoning of which might negatively affect opinions undergirding the political order.
Taking his bearings from his study of Maimonides and Al Farabi, and pointing further back to Plato's discussion of writing as contained in the Phaedrus, Strauss proposed that the classical and medieval art of exoteric writing is the proper medium for philosophic learning: rather than displaying philosophers ' thoughts superficially, classical and medieval philosophical texts guide their readers in thinking and learning independently of imparted knowledge.
Thus, Strauss agrees with the Socrates of the Phaedrus, where the Greek indicates that, insofar as writing does not respond when questioned, good writing provokes questions in the reader — questions that orient the reader towards an understanding of problems the author thought about with utmost seriousness.
Both for Strauss and for Plato, genuinely philosophical writing does not impart special knowledge to its reader, but helps its reader deepen his own understanding of the problems underlying all special knowledge: those readers who seek special knowledge in Platonic dialogues hanker to apply fragments of philosophical discourse to political life — a superficial move — thereby betraying the cause of genuinely philosophical writers.
The case of the trial of Socrates is paradigmatic.

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