My article is based on the hermeneutic hypothesis (formulated in § 1) that in the “Notes on
Carl Schmitt” (1932), Leo Strauss’s way of interpreting undergoes a “change” in its method.
From the historicistic “orientation” that characterizes the first two sections of the text, Strauss
moves in the third section to a phenomenological interpretation aimed at discovering the genesis
and moral basis of Schmitt’s “concept of the political”. This hermeneutic hypothesis allows
me to explain: (§ 2) the reason why Strauss denies what seems most obvious, namely that
Schmitt’s Bejahung (“affirmation” or “approval”) of “the political” is itself of a “political” character;
(§ 3) what Strauss means, in this context, by “the moral”, which, according to him, is at
the root of Schmitt’s conceptualization of “the political”; (§ 4) what the “intention” is of
Strauss’s interpretation of Schmitt.
