Leon Craig has written another whale of a book. The author of substantial and thought-provoking studies of Plato's Republic and Shakespeare's political dramas, Craig's latest effort interprets Leviathan as an exercise in Platonic political philosophy. According to Craig, penetrating to the center of Hobbes's design requires getting beyond “the somewhat perplexing veneer” within which Hobbes has concealed his radical intentions. The same is true of this book, whose complex apparatus of prelude and postlude, overture and intermezzo, coda, and negative and positive parts challenges the reader to grasp its main design.

The book is divided into two unequal parts, which detail the unresolved (and unresolvable) problems on the surface of Leviathan and then reveal what lies below its waterline. The auxiliary chapters on Melville's Moby Dick (from whence the odd term “Platonian Leviathan” derives) and Conrad's Heart of Darkness contain many fine insights into works of undeniable philosophical as well as literary importance; whether they are necessary to the elucidation of Hobbes's doctrine is another matter. Does Hobbes really need assistance from Conrad in portraying the perils of the state of nature? Is Melville's insight about Hobbes's esotericism crucial given Craig's later demonstration of the exoteric character of Leviathan by reference to the myriad contradictions in the text itself? However that may be, Craig rightly commends the novels for their educative effect on the reader's entire soul (xxi); indeed, it seems to be his own intention to achieve a periagōgē, forcing the reader to look in the right direction, which is at Hobbes's text rather than its context. Craig quotes extensively from Leviathan, too often perhaps at the expense of the clear exposition of his own argument. Still, reviewing substantial portions of Leviathan with the benefit of Craig's hawk-eyed attention to detail (and periodic flights of fancy) gives the reader the experience of participating in an exuberant but deadly serious seminar where nothing less than the character and fate of philosophy is in question.

The book begins and ends, however, with the practical crisis of the liberal democratic regime that has arisen on the basis of Hobbes's understanding of political life. Unleashing a withering indictment of the moral decay of a society that has subordinated logos to technē, Craig seriously broaches the necessity of regime change. The contemporary crisis is traceable to democracy's unregulated freedom of religion and “expression,” toleration of which Hobbes explicitly excluded as incompatible with a stable and prosperous society (xviii–xix). The techno-commercial republic is threatened internally by an insipid intellectual and civic life and externally by spirited adversaries determined to exploit its openness. Managing the dangerous consequences of our departures from Hobbes's prescription requires us to recover its original rationale, but confronting Leviathan's arguments also involves reconsidering the metaphysical views that have shaped modernity, and Craig's bold thesis is that Hobbes does not seriously maintain the views conventionally attributed to him (616n10). Leviathan's materialist determinism is “almost laughable” (558n19), and no attentive reader could fall for the manifest implausibility of his egoistic account of human behavior, no matter how apparently insistent the text is about it (270–73).

Part 1 is devoted to the negative task of demonstrating that every so-called Hobbesian principle is problematical and that Hobbes was, consequently, no “Hobbesian.” Craig assumes the stance of an ideal reader “who will settle for nothing less than a rationally convincing account” (163), and then finds Hobbes's ostensible arguments for materialism, causality, determinism, nominalism, hedonism, egoism, legal positivism, and calculative reason to be patently unconvincing. For example, were strict egoism true, political life would be impossible, a conclusion the reader can verify by appeal to “his own experience and introspection” (270). The notion of law entirely divorced from justice is similarly inconceivable (290–91). Because Hobbes was surely aware of the philosophical deficiencies of his (nonetheless amazingly successful) political prescription, the burning question concerns the explanation of Hobbes's colossal irony. Why does Hobbes encourage his readers to embrace an implausibly egoistic account of their own behavior and reject the idea of natural justice on which the case for sovereignty actually depends? Craig explains the exoteric character of Leviathan as a response to the theological-political problem confronting Hobbes (and political philosophy generally). Hobbes chose to convey his teaching about the right way of life and the good society in terms of materialism, hedonism, egoism, and other principles consistent with scientific rationalism in the hope that the scientific façade would negate the pernicious claims to rule by religious authorities. Hobbes thus sides with naturalism against any and all supernaturalism, but “Hobbesian” naturalism is deficient when measured against the ancient naturalism it purports to overthrow, and while it may succeed in keeping religious authority at bay, political hedonism is incapable of supporting any decent political life. Hobbes's actual political prescription derives from a realistic understanding of human nature (as opposed to the faux realism of “Hobbesian” principles) and notably requires a class of spirited, honor-loving citizens who cannot be accounted for within the confines of political hedonism. At this point Craig raises the question that has been on the reader's mind for some time: “Why is Hobbes not explicit about all this?” (219). The answer requires a new beginning, a second effort to see Hobbes's political intention from a perspective that has broken free of the inadequacies of a reductionist science.

Drawing attention to a series of “Platonic intimations,” part 2 reinterprets Leviathan from a Platonic perspective. Craig likens Hobbes's treatment of the relation of “man and state” to Plato's analogy of “soul and city,” and observes that Hobbes's plan for political unity depends on a “useful lie” (about human equality). Craig concludes that the veritable Hobbesian regime is as consistent with Platonic justice as modern conditions permit (444) and that Hobbes agrees with Plato on the character of the philosophic enterprise, especially concerning the relation of the philosopher to the political community (463). For Hobbes as well as Plato the primary purpose of political life is the promotion of philosophy. This remarkable claim is bolstered by Hobbes's avowal that political disorders will not end “till sovereigns be philosophers” which occurs uncannily at the dead center of Leviathan (31/41), just as Plato's reference to “philosopher-kings” occurs at the center of the Republic. The “paramount” evidence for a Platonic Leviathan is, however, Hobbes's surprising declaration that “Plato … was the best philosopher of the Greeks” (462; Leviathan 46/11). Craig can think of no other explanation for this unusual endorsement than that Hobbes “agreed with Plato” (463, emphasis in original).

Whereas Craig successfully demonstrates Hobbes's engagement of Platonic themes, there is reason to doubt that Hobbes agreed with Plato. The “endorsement” of Plato cited above occurs in the course of a condemnation of the uselessness of ancient philosophy as a whole. Hobbes's precise point seems to be that we are not indebted to Plato or any of the other Greek philosophical schools for the only ancient gift of real value: geometry. Plato made geometry a prerequisite for admission to his Academy, but the schools themselves did not promote it with any seriousness, or to any effect. In this light, Plato appears as the best of a bad bunch. Craig may have similarly misinterpreted the “crucial paragraph” (Leviathan 31/41) on the philosopher-sovereign as an affirmation of the Platonic prescription for the best imaginable (if not actual) polity. While noting that Hobbes seems to immediately retract the identification with the Platonic model by emphasizing the ready availability of “the science of natural justice,” Craig assumes that the latter term evokes the Platonic paradox of the philosopher-king and the complex consideration of the best alternative to the direct rule of philosophy (334–36). In what is perhaps the most complicated argument of this supremely subtle book, Craig construes Hobbes's reference to the science of natural justice as the one thing needful as an allusion to the superiority of Platonic justice since “natural justice” is an oxymoron by the standards of the “Hobbesian” Leviathan.

Craig shows convincingly that scholars can no longer neglect the question of Hobbes's relationship to Plato; the fundamental issue, however, is whether “Hobbes's conceptions of ‘philosophy’ and ‘philosopher’ differ profoundly from Plato's” (354). Craig is certain they do not, but he fails to consider the larger context of the “crucial paragraph,” which might suggest a different conclusion. The preceding chapter (Leviathan 30/30) explained that the good sovereign is the one who follows natural justice, which is nothing other than the dictate of “conscience” in the state of nature. In other words, Hobbes associates natural justice with absolute liberty rather than philosophy; the activity of reason arises in response to, or is motivated by, the strongest passion: the fear of death. Could it be that Hobbes is more sanguine about the educability of the sovereign precisely because the actualization of the just regime does not require that the good ruler undergo the transformation envisioned by Plato? And could the distinctive feature of Hobbes's modern rationalism be its stopping short of the fundamental questions posed by ancient rationalism, and Platonic philosophy in particular? To the extent that Hobbes accepts peace as self-evidently the greatest good, his concern is less with inquiry about the nature of the good than with its actualization. As Leo Strauss argued, it is precisely the fact that the Hobbesian philosopher does not freely or radically pose the question about the right way of life and the right society that separates him from the Socratic philosopher (The Political Philosophy of Hobbes [Clarendon, 1936], 150–55).

Craig's “Melvillian Coda” seems to acknowledge this point. The Baconian project that unleashed the power of instrumental rationality now serves the passions and the interests of individuals who have lost curiosity about their own being and its relation to the whole. Where does that leave the issue of the character of Hobbes's philosophy itself? Craig establishes Leviathan's “relationship” to the Republic, but not the kinship of the Hobbesian and Platonic philosopher. Given Hobbes's portrayal of the natural condition of the human mind as an epistemological anarchy requiring the politic intervention of artificial reason, it is not surprising that his philosophy abandons inquiry into the intelligibility of nature for the foundations of peace or civilization. Although Hobbes's political thinking may not be the effect of his natural science, the direction of his philosophizing remains toward natural science and away from the human things, reversing the Socratic turn and reinforcing the sense that Hobbes stands against Plato rather than with him. Craig's book both summons scholars to return to the permanent questions about the right way of life and challenges them to match their readings of Hobbes and Plato against his own. Intrepid readers (and Craig, who associates philosophy with “the warrior spirit,” seeks no others) will benefit from the dialectical experience that The Platonian Leviathan makes possible.