Download PDF | Marieke Abram (editor), Steven Harvey (editor), Lukas Muehlethaler (editor) - The Popularization of Philosophy in Medieval Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, Brepols 2022.
468 Pages
General Introduction
Once upon a time, a wise man, learned in philosophy, who dwelled in an ivory tower, attained knowledge of a truth that brought him to a level to which he had never been and to a happiness he had never known. Of course, he shared this truth with his students, one by one and via hints and allusions, but he determined that he would not reveal it to the hoi polloi, for their own good, and swore his students to do the same. Yet one day — no one to this day knows how — the truth reached the agora of the village. It is here where our story breaks into a host of different endings, as different from each other as light from darkness, health from illness, and wealth from poverty. It is, thus, fruitless for us to try to reconstruct the actual ending and the lessons that may be drawn from it. Regrettably, we do not know the answers to the questions that follow, nor do we know anyone who does. What happened when the truth reached the agora? Were the people interested in it? Did they comprehend it? Did it put them on the path to happiness?
Or did it lead to confusion, sadness, or indifference? How did the wise man and his students react when they saw how the many reacted to this important truth? What did they learn about sharing truths with the vulgar? Is it the wise course of action for those who truly love wisdom? Or is it, for one reason or another, folly and, perhaps, a danger not only to the vulgar, but to the community as a whole?
Background and Aim The present volume is the outcome of a most pleasant and memorable conference on the medieval popularization of philosophy that was held at Freie Universität Berlin in early July 2016. This conference was intended as the first of its kind to bring together specialists in medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian thought to discuss the medieval popularization of philosophy in these three religious traditions of philosophy. By design, it featured an equal number of renowned senior scholars and promising junior ones. The book you hold in your hands is not simply a conference proceedings, for changes have been made to the structure, and new subjects have been added. The aim, however, remains the same. This volume explores attempts at the popularization of philosophy and natural science in medieval Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. Medieval philosophers usually wrote their philosophical books for philosophers, so the desire to convey psychological, cosmological, metaphysical, or even physical teachings to the vulgus may seem surprising. This disdain for the multitude and their weak intellectual capabilities is expressed most clearly in the medieval Islamic and Jewish Aristotelian traditions of philosophy, but it is certainly found among the scholastics as well.
Yet philosophy was taught to non-philosophers and via a variety of literary genres. Indeed, scholars have argued that philosophy most influenced medieval society through popular forms of transmission. Among the questions this volume addresses are the following: Which philosophers or theologians sought to direct their philosophical writings to the many? For what purposes did they seek to popularize philosophy? Was the goal to teach philosophical truths? Were certain teachings not transmitted? Which teachings were transmitted most often? For whom exactly were these popularized texts written? Were the authors of popularized philosophy always aware they were writing for non-philosophers? How did they go about teaching philosophy to a wide audience? How successful were these attempts? In what ways did popularized philosophy impact upon society? To what extent were the considerations and problems in the medieval popularization of philosophy the same or different in the various religious traditions of philosophy? How philosophical was the popularized philosophy? In other words, the same kinds of questions that arise (and remain unanswered) in the story of the wise man and the truth.
Philosophy Is for the Few It would seem, at first thought, that the medieval philosophers had little interest in popularizing philosophy. For al-Fārābī (c. 870–950), the inaugurator of the tradition of Aristotelian philosophy in the Islamic world, there was a clear distinction between how and what one teaches the few and how and what one teaches the many. The lesson was learned from the fate of Socrates, who, according to al-Fārābī, did not understand that one must employ one method of instruction with the elect, and a very different method with the youth and the multitude.1 He explained: When one acquires knowledge of the beings or receives instruction in them, if he perceives their ideas themselves with his intellect, and his assent to them is by means of certain demonstration, then the science that comprises these cognitions is philosophy. But if they are known by imagining them through similitudes that imitate them, and assent to what is imagined of them is caused by persuasive methods, then the ancients call what comprises these cognitions religion. […] It imitates the classes of true happiness by means of the ones that are believed to be happiness. […] And it attempts to bring the similitudes of these things as close as possible to their essences.2 Avicenna (c. 970 or 980–1037), following al-Fārābī’s lead, understood the political importance of concealing philosophy from the multitude.3
The prophet must teach them the basic truths of existence, but ‘he ought not to involve them with anything [doctrinal] pertaining to the knowledge of God, exalted be He, beyond the knowledge that He is One, the Truth, and has nothing similar to Him’. To go beyond that and attempt to teach them the philosophical meaning of such verities would be beyond their intellectual capabilities and would likely lead them astray, confused about the similitudes of truth they had previously believed, and perhaps lead them to abandon their religion altogether. Indeed, Avicenna adds, it is not ‘proper for any human to reveal that he possesses knowledge he is hiding from the commonality (al-ʿāmma)’.4 Similar teachings may be found in the writings of other Islamic falāsifa who followed in al-Fārābī’s tradition, such as Ibn Bājja (c. 1085–1138/39), Ibn Ṭufayl (c. 1110–1185), and Averroes (1126–1198), and all of them seem to have adopted, at least at times, a kind of obscure or esoteric style of writing to conceal their philosophical teachings from the multitude. Such an esoteric writing style is clearly seen in medieval Jewish philosophy in Maimonides (1138–1204), one of the first Jewish representatives of the tradition of Aristotelian philosophy founded by al-Fārābī. Maimonides explicitly stated in the introduction to his Guide of the Perplexed that this work is not intended for the masses, and that it intentionally contains riddles and parables and contradictions that will only be understood by the few. He famously wrote that he is the man who when ‘he could find no other device by which to teach a demonstrated truth other than by giving satisfaction to a single virtuous man while displeasing ten thousand ignoramuses […] prefers to address that single man by himself ’.5 How seriously is he to be taken here? Ralph Lerner, who has shown that Maimonides was deeply concerned with educating the many and that he ‘is a rare case, perhaps unique among individuals of his rank, in attempting to bring some basic notions of philosophy within the ken of ordinary men and women’, is perfectly clear that Maimonides is ‘in no way to be mistaken for a vendor of popular science’.6 Lerner explains that ‘Maimonides understands from the outset that he cannot teach the people philosophy’.
He continues that for Maimonides ‘that is altogether out of the question, but he can impart a few of the conclusions that philosophy or science has reached’.7 In fact, Maimonides lists those causes that prevent even beginning to teach divine science (metaphysics) to the multitude: (1) the ‘difficulty, subtlety, and obscurity of the matter in itself ’; (2) the ‘insufficiency of the minds of all men at their beginnings’; (3) the ‘length of the preliminaries’ and the need to study all the sciences in the ‘proper order’; (4) the natural aptitudes of man; and (5) the preoccupations of man. He concludes in light of these causes, which he explains in some detail, that these matters (that is, those of divine science) ‘are only for a few solitary individuals of a special sort, not for the multitude (al-jumhūr)’ and they should be hidden from them.8 Lest one mistakenly think that it is only the language and method of philosophy that are not appropriate to the multitude, not its teachings, Maimonides makes clear at the outset of the following chapter that it is the philosophical teachings that must be withheld from them. There is one major exception for him: the philosophical teaching of the denial of the corporeality of God. With regard to this teaching, the multitude — including ‘children, women, stupid ones, and those of a defective natural disposition’ — should be ‘made to accept on traditional authority the belief that God is not a body, and that there is absolutely no likeness in any respect whatever between Him and the things created by Him’.9
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), citing early Christian thinkers, also appreciated the dangers inherent in the written word and that certain sacred teachings ought not to be made accessible to the many, but taught in obscure language. Aquinas wrote: There are certain things which on being heard harm no one, as are the truths which all are held responsible to know: and such ought not to be hidden but openly proposed to all. But there are others which, if openly presented, cause harm in those hearing them. […] If any subtleties are proposed to uncultivated people, these folk may find in the imperfect comprehension of them matter for error. […] Those truths, therefore, ought to be hidden from those to whom they might do harm; but a distinction can be made as regards speaking, since these same truths may be privately revealed to the wise, though publicly silence is kept regarding them. Thus Augustine, iv De doctrina Christiana, says: […] ‘But in writing, the same distinction cannot be adhered to, because a book, once published, can fall into the hands of any one at all, and therefore some truths should be shielded by obscuring words so that they may profit those who will understand them and be hidden from the simple who will not comprehend them’.10 Given this attitude of these medieval Aristotelians, one could well conclude that philosophy cannot and should not be taught to the many.
For the Jewish Aristotelians, Maimonides and his followers, this determination to conceal philosophical teachings from the multitude derived from the Farabian tradition of philosophy, but also from the Talmudic injunction that the ‘Account of the Beginning [identified with natural science] ought not to be taught in the presence of two men; the Account of the Chariot [identified with metaphysics] ought not to be taught to even one man, except if he be wise and able to understand by himself, in which case only the chapter heading may be transmitted to him’.11 Any attempt to do so could be dangerous for the philosopher himself, philosophers in general, the masses who would try to understand what they are incapable of understanding (and be led astray), and consequently, the well-being of societies. For Avicenna, as well, similar lessons were learned from the ancient Greek philosophers, al-Fārābī, and Islamic culture.12 Similarly, for scholastics like Aquinas, the need to withhold certain truths from the vulgar may be learned from Scripture. For example, in the ninth article of the first question of the Summa theologiae, Aquinas asks, ‘Whether Holy Scripture should use metaphors’? His answer is yes, ‘because [for one reason] thereby divine truths are the better hidden from the unworthy (indignīs)’.13
This attitude of such philosophers is illustrated by Ibn Ṭufayl in his philosophical novella, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān, where Ḥayy, an autodidact who has spent his whole life on a deserted island, learns of the existence of a religious community in a nearby island and wishes to teach them the philosophical truths veiled by their religious imagery. He travels to the island and speaks with a small group of the most intelligent and understanding people in the city, but learns that even though these courteous people yearned for Truth, whenever he tried to teach them anything beyond the literal meaning of their religious teachings, they became upset. He soon despaired and realized he could not teach them philosophical truths. Ḥayy now understood the human condition. He saw that most men are no better than unreasoning animals, and realized that all wisdom and guidance, all that could possibly help them was contained already in the words of the prophets and the religious traditions. […] There was nothing to be added.14 One could easily imagine that the last thing al-Fārābī and his followers would ever want to do would be to compose a short Philosophy for Dummies that would present philosophical truths in simple language.
Presenting Philosophy to the Multitude Yet Ibn Ṭufayl’s hero’s seemingly inevitable failure to teach philosophical truths to non-philosophers takes place within an entertaining novella. Why would a philosopher possibly try to teach philosophy in a novella, if he were not himself trying to convey philosophical truths to a wider audience? Significantly, the men Ḥayy tried to teach were a level above the lowly multitude. We are told that if ‘Ḥayy were unable to teach them, it would be all the more impossible for him to teach the masses (al-jumhūr)’.15 But who, one may wonder, was Ibn Ṭufayl’s intended audience? Could Ibn Ṭufayl’s novella itself have been an attempt to popularize philosophy? In any case, even philosophers like al-Fārābī, Averroes, and — as we have seen — Maimonides wrote popular and/or dialectical works for non-philosophers. Indeed, Maimonides began his Mishneh Torah, his great code of Jewish law, with a concise Aristotelian foundation, and included in his Commentary on the Mishnah a separate treatise, rooted in Aristotelian ethics. As Isadore Twersky has written: ‘Maimonides was not only unshakably convinced of the indispensability of philosophy for religion and the general nobility of intellectual perfection, but was also deeply concerned about the essential relationship or constant intersection of philosophy and halakhah’.16 What were they trying to teach in such works? And whom were they trying to convince?
Similarly, in the Christian West, philosophers often embedded philosophical material in their sermons and religious writings. One very good example is Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168–1253), who is well known today for his commentaries on and translations of Aristotle’s writings, for being one of the first Christian thinkers to make extensive use of Avicenna and Averroes, and for certain scientific treatises. Yet Grosseteste included philosophical material in his religious writings, such as De cessatione legalium, De decem mandatis, and the Hexaæmeron, as well as in his later sermons, for example, his sermon Ecclesia sancta celebrat where he presents an account of human nature.17 Whom was he trying to instruct in this sermon and others with philosophical content? In contrast to this apparent willingness to convey philosophy to non-philosophers was the need to make clear to all would-be philosophers that rhetorical and dialectical arguments based on generally accepted premises do not lead to certain truth and must not be confused with demonstrative syllogisms, which do. Al-Fārābī and his followers, including Maimonides, thus took pains to degrade the popular reasoned arguments of the mutakallimūn (dialectical theologians) and emphasize their shortcomings. These same philosophers also, no doubt, felt that learned scholars such as al-Ghazālī (1058–1111) and Judah Halevi (1075–1141) had betrayed philosophy and committed an unforgiveable act when they explicitly depicted the philosophers as rejecting various fundamental religious beliefs, such as creation ex nihilo, God’s knowledge of particulars, and resurrection of the dead (in the case of al-Ghazālī) or immortality of the individual soul (in the case of Halevi). But how can one convey philosophy to non-philosophers if one must employ philosophical methods and avoid revealing seemingly heretical philosophical/theological beliefs? In truth, philosophy could and was taught to non-philosophers or not-yet philosophers in a wide variety of ways and through many genres of writings. James T. Robinson has studied many of these ways of transmitting philosophical ideas, less technical and more popular. He points to literary genres, engaged in by Jewish writers, such as poetry, rhymed prose (maqāma), animal fables, ethical testaments, collections of wisdom sayings, commentaries on the Bible, sermons, and encyclopaedias of philosophy and science. Robinson notes that ‘in the thirteenth century, the development of popular Hebrew literature is closely linked with the spread of philosophy’.18 Not all these literary types of popularization can be found in Islamic and Christian thought, but many can. Other literary forms, particularly popular among the scholastics, but found also in Islamic and Jewish thought, at times were used to popularize philosophy, include dialogue, aphorisms, and allegoresis. One important venue for the popularization of philosophy — not mentioned by Robinson, as it is not a literary form as such — are mystical writings, and this is true in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
Indeed, in Christianity, for example, many such texts were, in fact, written for nuns, priests, beguines, beghards, and the like, and might be assumed to have been intended simply to instruct and encourage them in their spiritual way of life.19 Yet a close look at some of these texts — sermons, handbooks, and popular treatises — shows that they contain philosophical discussions, extracted from more serious works of ethics, psychology, and metaphysics. In this connection, one is drawn to the writings of the theologian and philosopher, often regarded as ‘the greatest of the German mystics’, Meister Eckhart (1260–c. 1328), and his disciples, who seem to have intended to instruct pious lay groups and even wrote in the vernacular.20 These questions — whether philosophy can and should be taught to the multitude? and if so, in what ways? — are fascinating. For our purposes, an author’s simply stating the principles common to all monotheistic religions, such as God’s existence and unity, does not suggest the popularization of philosophy. What does constitute the popularization of philosophy is a question to which we will soon return again and one which is addressed directly or indirectly by virtually all contributors to this volume, along with the question of the audiences to which this popularization was directed. But one should not expect a single unified answer to either of these questions. The matter is far more complex and, we may add, delightfully more interesting.
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