Im Sinn der Philosophie ist es durchaus Pflicht, die falschen Ansichten zu missbilligen, zu verwerfen. Freilich muss man auch den Falschen, verwerflichen Ansichten gerecht werden.

–Strauss, GS 2: 409

Strauss discussed Rousseau from first to last, and he devoted two important and influential studies to him in close succession: “On the Intention of Rousseau,” and the first part of the concluding section of Natural Right and History, entitled “The Crisis of Modern Natural Right.” Both studies consider the whole of Rousseau’s thought. “The Intention” does so primarily in the light of the First Discourse; the NRH section does so primarily in the light of the Second Discourse. Both studies play a pivotal role in Strauss’s account of modern political philosophy: Rousseau’s thought is where, Strauss argues, the crisis of modern political philosophy became a crisis of philosophy as such (“Intention,” 143f.; NRH 252, 273f.; 34). Both studies are what, in a different context, Strauss calls an “explanation,” an “attempt to ascertain the implications of … [an author’s] statements of which he was unaware”(PAW 143). They seek to understand their author better than he understood himself. Still, “The Intention” ends by speaking of Rousseau’s “amazingly lucid vision” (“Intention,” 146).