system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How does Leo Strauss' reading of Plato's Republic differ from the traditional / standard views?

What are the most fundamental differences in Leo Strauss reading of Plato's republic?
gpt
Strauss's most well-known and (in)famous difference is that he views *The Republic* as a work of political satire. Strauss argues that there are subtle cues in *The Republic* that Plato's Socrates is not *seriously* advocating the kind of political order he is describing, and that this, along with the dialogical structure of *The Republic*, indicates that the work is to be read as a metacritique of the project of political philosophy.

An important part of Strauss's interpretation is the role of the Guardian class - the philosophically trained people who are necessary for *Kallipolis* have, on Strauss's view, no actual interest in governing, because, being philosophically trained, they realize that the best life is one of pure contemplation, not political activity. They must therefore be *forced* to lead the city, but, for various reasons, this is incoherent (IIRC, Strauss argues, for one, that the population would only force them to lead if it recognized their wisdom, but it could only recognize their wisdom if it were itself wise in the first place).

So, at the most fundamental level, the Straussian view is that the ideal city of Plato's *Republic* is not only impractical, but theoretically incoherent. This introduces an unbridgeable divide between philosophy and politics, and leads Straussians to be broadly skeptical of the task of political philosophy.