Spinoza en Philo van Alexandrië (ca. 30 vC – ca. 40 nC)

Philo van Alexandrië [wiki] is bekend vanwege zijn poging om het joodse geloofsweten a.h.w. te verzoenen met het Griekse rationele weten. En hij staat vooral bekend als de uitvinder van de aanpassingstactiek w.b. het interpreteren van joodse geloofsverhalen (de Bijbel): n.l. door ze allegorisch te duiden, als ze niet strookten met de rationele kennis.
En ja, “There is a somewhat complicated relationship between Philo's love of Greek thought and culture and his conviction of the superiority of Judaism and the Jews.” [
Cf.]

In dit blog breng ik geen eigen studie (van Philo heb ik niets gelezen, alleen over hem), maar ik geef kort iets weer van achtereenvolgens vijf scholars die iets gevonden hebben over Spinoza in relatie tot Philo.

[1] Norman Bentwich, Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria, 1910 – cf. gutenberg.org

Bentwich is de eerste die ik tegenkwam en die zowel over Philo als over Spinoza schreef. Z’n boek gaat over Philo, maar menigmaal maakt hij even een uitstapje en geeft hij een vergelijking met Spinoza, zoals al blijkt uit de openingszinnen van het Voorwoord van zijn boek:

“It is a melancholy reflection upon the history of the Jews that they have failed to pay due honor to their two greatest philosophers. Spinoza was rejected by his contemporaries from the congregation of Israel; Philo-Judæus was neglected by the generations that followed him. Maimonides, our third philosopher, was in danger of meeting the same fate, and his philosophical work was for long viewed with suspicion by a large part of the community. Philosophers, by the very excellence of their thought, have in all races towered above the comprehension of the people, and aroused the suspicion of the religious teachers.”

[2] Harry Wolfson schreef over zowel Spinoza als Philo monografieën in twee delen.

Ÿ Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, [two volumes] in 1947 (21948, 31962).

Maar eerder schreef hij

Ÿ The Philosophy of Spinoza: Unfolding the Latent Processes of His Reasoning, Harvard University Press (1934).

Philo, door Wolfson in de eerste plaats als toch vooral filosoof beschouwd, stond voor hem centraal in het scholastieke denken totdat Spinoza hem overwon. Hij zag als hét accent van de geschiedenis van de filosofie de relatie tussen rede en religie. In de antieke periode waren rede en religie gescheiden van elkaar, in de middeleeuwse periode, die hij zag beginnen bij Philo, werden rede en religie met elkaar in harmonie gebracht, en in de moderne periode die met Spinoza begon, werd de rede de religie de baas. Bekend is de uitspraak van Wolfson: Spinoza was "the last of the medievals and the first of the moderns."

Philo had until then been considered an eclectic or a philosophic preacher, but Wolfson undertook to show that behind the philosophic utterances scattered throughout Philo's writings there lay a philosophic system. More than that, he held that Philo was the founder of religious philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and that "Philonic" philosophy dominated European thought for 17 centuries until it was destroyed by Spinoza, "the last of the medievals and the first of the moderns." [Cf. hier]  

[3]  In een eerder blog vermeldde ik meerdere titels van David S. Winston die een Philo-scholar bleek te zijn. Wellicht z’n hoofdwerk is:
David Winston, Philo of Alexandria. The Contemplative Life, The giants, and Selections. 
Paulist Press International, New York, 1981 reprint 1988 -

Volgens Winston zou Philo’s kijk op de wereld verbazingwekkend sterk overeenkomen met die van Spinoza, maar dat die overeenkomstigheid moeilijk zichtbaar is daar die van Philo geformuleerd werd in het verzoenende idioom van het Platoonse mysticisme - wat een bewuste vermomming zou zijn om z'n meer radicale rationale dimensie te camoufleren. Zo vat David T. Runia hem samen en hij stelt vast dat goedbeschouwd Winston de these van Wolfson omkeert, in die zin dat Spinoza de lijn van Philo juist zou doorzetten. [Cf. David T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and The "Timaeus" of Plato. BRILL, 1986 – books.google, waarin een uitgebreide vergelijking tussen Winston en Wolfson en diverse andere Philo-scholars]

[4] Helemaal lyrisch over Philo, Spinoza en Bergson is

Ÿ Richard A. Cohen, Ethics, Exegesis and Philosophy: Interpretation after Levinas. Cambridge University Press, 2001 – books.google

Hij volgt Wolfson in diens stelling dat dé twee grote keerpunten in de geschiedenis van de filosofie w.b. de relatie rede-religie Philo en Spinoza waren, en voegt daar een derde joodse denker aan toe die als zo’n derde fundamenteel keerpunt zou moeten worden gezien: n.l. Bergson. Zijn beschouwing daarover is te lezen vanaf p. 31 van zijn boek (cf. books.google rechtsreeks daarheen]

[5] Als laatste vermeld ik de tamelijk nuchtere visie van

Steven Nadler, “Spinoza and Philo: The Alleged Mysticism in the Ethics,” in: Jon Miller & Brad Inwood, Hellenistic and Early Modern Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2003, p 232 – 250 – books.google

In D.T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria: An Annotated Bibliography 1997-2006 [ BRILL, 2011 – books.google] wordt Nadler’s tekst aldus samengevat:

The author, who is Spinoza's biographer and a leading exponent of his thought, is strongly opposed to the view that the Dutch—Jewish philosopher's metaphysics can be seen as a mystically inclined pantheism (or pan-entheism) which was ultimately, if unconsciously, derived from the Kabbalah. One way of illustrating the issues involved is to make a comparison between Spinoza and his distant Jewish predecessor Philo. The main body of the article consists of insightful analyses of the main lines of theological thought espoused by the two thinkers. Philo is a mystic in Nadler's use of the term for three reasons. The human being requires either divine revelation or an act of divine grace to obtain a true knowledge of God's existence, but even so the full knowledge of God's essence simply remains beyond reach. Spinoza on the other hand sees the intellectual love of God as central to the human quest for happiness, but unlike Philo he is supremely confident in the ability of the human being to achieve full understanding of God's nature without receiving any kind of divine aid. No other philosopher had such optimism in the cognitive powers of the human being. Thus the approaches that the two thinkers develop on the subject of human knowledge of God are diametrically opposed. (DTR) (p. 265)

Nuttig om hier te citeren vind ik Nadlers 13e eindnoot: “Comparative studies of Philo and Spinoza are few and far between, and as far as I know there are none that offer an analytical and systematic treatment of their views on particular philosophical questions. Stanislaus von Dunin-Borkowski remarks on similarities between Philo and Spinoza in his (1920), 222-3, but nonetheless remains cautious: "That [Spinoza] knew Philo is clear from the theological-political treatise. But one cannot speak of a penetrating influence" (222). In The Philosophy of Spinoza (1934), Wolfson indicates a number of similarities of thought and parallels between arguments or theses in Philo and Spinoza; for example, see vol. I,109-110, 316-17, and 243. He clearly believes that there was some degree of influence here. But elsewhere he argues that on the whole, the philosophy of Philo (for whom revelation is of central importance) stands in contrast to that of Spinoza (who, according to Wolfson, denies every form of revelation); see "The Philonic God of Revelation and His Latter-Day Deniers," in Wolfson (1961). In his two volume Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (1962), he insists that it was Spinoza "who for the first time launched a grand assault upon [the Philonic philosophy]" (II.457). See also; Serouya (1969) and Seymour Feldman (1982).”

Tot slot citeer ik graag zijn conclusie:

“The project that Spinoza prescribes for human beings, at least as the key to achieving an ideal and lasting happiness, is clearly a strictly rational and intellectual one. There is no mysticism here. The call for an intellectual love of God—and especially of a God who is, metaphysically speaking, immanent in the world just because that God is the underlying nature of things —may strike one as similar in spirit to what is found in certain Jewish mysticist writings, and especially in kabbalah. But there can be no question that what for Spinoza constitutes both the goal and the mechanism of one's "ascent" to God is diametrically opposed to that of a true mysticist such as Philo. Whereas Philo requires divine revelation or supernatural aid for the human being's approach to the knowledge that constitutes his true good, Spinoza has nothing but unfailing confidence in a human being's natural, unaided reason —reason acting rationally, in other words —to achieve understanding. And where Philo saw an irremediable human incapacity for knowledge of God's essence, Spinoza sees a perfect human fitness for a complete and total rational knowledge of God. Spinoza has no qualms about asserting that the human being, through his own natural cognitive faculties — and especially the rational intellect — and without any supernatural, divine aid, can come to a complete and adequate understanding not only of all of nature, but of God itself.” [p. 247-48]

 

Mijn conclusie n.a.v. deze korte ‘studie’: er zullen altijd wel weer vergelijkende studies van Spinoza met Philo gemaakt blijven worden, maar daar hoeven we ons niet al te veel van aan te trekken. De verschillen lijken vooral terug te voeren op de voorafgaande oordelen (om niet te zeggen vooroordelen) van de resp. scholars. De meest nuchtere visie lijkt mij dan de verstandigste.