http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Pelerin_Society
``The Mont Pelerin Society is an international organization composed of economists (including eight winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences), philosophers, historians, intellectuals, business leaders, and others committed to personal and political freedom.[1] Its founders included Friedrich Hayek, Karl Popper, Ludwig von Mises, George Stigler, and Milton Friedman.[1] The society advocates freedom of expression, free market economic policies, and the political values of an open society.''
I wanted to hear more about the exoteric and esoteric idea because I just finished studying Strauss and his book Philosophy and Law. It took a lot of reading to really get a handle on the slimy son of bitch, but the work was worth it.
I wanted to know where the fuck the idea that philosophers wrote two books instead of one got started. It comes from Averroes (1126--1198) who was part of the early recovery of Aristotle in Cordoba. Averroes in his translations and commentary decided that the method of reconcillation between Aristotle and Islam should take two roads. (see wiki):
``Averroes tried to reconcile Aristotle's system of thought with Islam. According to him, there is no conflict between religion and philosophy, rather that they are different ways of reaching the same truth... Averroes has two kinds of Knowledge of Truth. The first being his knowledge of truth of religion being based in faith and thus could not be tested, nor did it require training to understand. The second knowledge of truth is philosophy, which was reserved for an elite few who had the intellectual capacity to undertake its study.''
What this really amounted to was a theory of dual truth. Aquinas who had studied Averroes in Latin, argued against the idea of dual truth. ``if there is a genuine conflict between conclusions derived from faith and the principles of philosophy, the source of the conflict is not to be sought in the genuine principles of philosophy, but rather in the defective use of the principles of philosophy..''
http://faculty.fordham.edu/klima/ANCILLA.HTM#Heading6
Aquinas decided a first truth that of theology prevailed because it was prior to truths derived from reason, in the chain of reason back to first principles. God as the first principle trumped any other chain of reasoning otherwise.
What emerged was a combination of social and intellectual life composed of inner and outer circles or inner and outer truth, analogically Dante's cosmology. This was after all the medieval world view where reason embodied as Virgil could only guide so far.
Anyway Averroes and Maimonides are where the idea of exoteric and esoteric writing cames from in Strauss.
It is still a crime to expose the esoteric realm or inner circle to public view, e.g. NSA apparatus v. Snowden, or 1% v. 99%.
Upgraded into the neoliberal think tank world, the inner circle of experts become the fountain of wisdom who consult the first principle of the universe, The Market, and since they are the inner circle, they can read the indicators better than anyone else... Neoliberalism is a monotheistic religion where The Market has replaced God and the divine right of kings. And, where the direction of government is determined by the conscious reflection of the few for the benefit of themselves (inner truth), and for the benefit of the many (outer truth).
Clearly this sort of system has failed and neoliberalism as a foundation for society has been thoroughly discredited by events. It's a giant PR problem for the capitalist elites and their drones in public office across the western world. Meanwhile, it is a giant concrete problem for the rest of us.
We are getting dug deeper into this hole, or further into this nightmare world through the use of secret law thanks to the neocon wizards of what's good for us.
At many other times and places, all this might sound like a conspiracy theory. The trouble is it's a conspiracy alright, but not a theory.
CG