Jewish, Christian and Islamic Philisophy Notes

Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy

Learning Objectives

• Describe Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosophy.
• Outline the historical path of classical ideas up to the early modern era.
• Identify key philosophers in Africa and Europe.

Introduction

• Greek and Roman imperialism brought Jews and Christians into Hellenism.
• Jewish and Christian scholars incorporated Greek and Roman philosophy into theology.
• The Muslim world adopted and advanced classical philosophy and natural sciences.
• Religious centers developed their own philosophies of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.
• Deep debates occurred about the nature of humans, the world, and being.
• Epistemological debates focused on the boundaries of knowledge.
• Ethical systems were developed and practiced.
• Philosophers balanced theological revelation with intellectual exploration.

Defining Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy

• Philosophy is described as a transition from mythos (myths) to logos (rational system of ideas).
• It is difficult to untangle theology from philosophy.
• Eliezer Berkowitz questioned what constitutes Jewish philosophy and who is a Jewish philosopher.
• Is a Jewish philosopher anyone who is both a Jew and a philosopher?
• Baruch Spinoza, a Sephardic Jew, challenged religious orthodoxy and established a moral philosophy independent of scripture.
• Spinoza's work laid the foundation for a rational, democratic society but was excommunicated.
• Berkowitz argued that Jewish philosophers work with religious events and facts, unlike Descartes, who created a new philosophy from scratch.
• Monotheistic religions have foundational texts that claim God created the world, which is a metaphysical starting point that runs counter to Aristotle's view of an eternal universe.
• Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinkers carried the Greek philosophical tradition into the early modern age, often in partnership with their own traditions.

Early Jewish Philosophy

• Alexander the Great spread Greek culture and ideas, Hellenizing territories after conquering Persia.
• Wealthier Jews were exposed to Greek classics.
• Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE - 50 CE) used Plato's ideas to explain and justify Jewish scripture.
• Philo served as ambassador to Emperor Gaius Caligula on behalf of the Jews in Egypt.
• Philo of Alexandria attempted to reconcile Jewish scripture with Greek philosophy.
• Philo identified Plato's forms as logos, or the thoughts of God.
• Logos serves as the mediator between God and the physical world, inspired by Aristotle's unmoved mover.
• Philo's synthesis of Greek and Jewish philosophy laid the foundation for early Christian doctrine.
• Philo's scholarship was preserved by the Christian community and rediscovered by the Jewish community in the 16th century.

Early Jewish Ethics and Metaphysics

• The Jewish Bible consisted of the Pentateuch, the prophets, and later books (Tanakh).
• Much of Jewish thought was passed down orally.
• After the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the Sanhedrin began transcribing the oral tradition into the Talmud.
• Among these writings is the text Ethics of Our Fathers, which provides a moral guide to everyday life.
• Jewish scholars explored metaphysics, culminating in the Kabbalah, which examines the relationship between God (the infinite, unchanging, and eternal) and the finite world.
• The brutal repression of Jews led to the collapse of Hellenized Jewish communities.
• The continuation of Philo's work fell to a subgroup of Jews whose new religion, Christianity, would be adopted by Rome.

Early Christian Philosophy

• Late antiquity saw the demise of the Roman Empire and social turmoil.
• The Catholic Church filled the political and cultural void, seeking to become the heir of Roman power.
• Philosophy reflects this transformation, with uncertainty and turmoil reflected in the work of philosophers like Augustine and Boethius.
• The triumph of Christianity is seen in scholasticism, reflected in the writings of Thomas Aquinas.

Augustine

• Augustine (354-430 CE) was an influential philosopher and theologian.
• In his Confessions, Augustine used his life story as an allegory for understanding God's universe and humanity's place within it.
• His narrative included his struggles with faith and sexual desire.
• Augustine explored the nature of time, positing that we experience the present in three ways: anticipating the future, bleeding into the recent past.
• Augustine wrote against the Pelagian heresy, which stated that humans could achieve salvation without divine grace.
• He also opposed the Manichean heresy, which viewed the universe as a battlefield between good and evil forces of equal power.
• Augustine believed that all creation was good because God created it.
• Things that appeared evil were part of God's providential plan.
• Even Satan's rebellion was part of God's plan.
• Augustine addressed the issue of free will, reconciling human freedom with an all-powerful, all-knowing God.
• He opposed the strict determinism of the Manicheans.
• Humans have the power to choose the good, despite the original sin of Adam and Eve.
• Augustine saw conflict as one between two rival wills, one that wills the good and one that desires sinfulness.
• Only divine grace can resolve this conflict.
• Augustine articulated Christian doctrine and raised questions about time, temporality, agency, and free will that remain relevant today.

Boethius

• Boethius (c. 480-524/525 CE) was a philosopher who straddled the late Roman and Christian worlds.
• He was an important intermediary between these two worlds.
• A Roman statesman and Christian theologian, Boethius is best known for The Consolation of Philosophy.
• Boethius was imprisoned on conspiracy charges and executed by Theodoric the Great.
• He translated and wrote commentaries on Aristotle's work, logic, music theory, astronomy, and mathematics.
• While imprisoned, he wrote The Consolation of Philosophy as a dialogue between himself and Philosophy personified.
• Lady Philosophy consoles Boethius by showing that happiness remains possible even in suffering.
• True happiness is not found in material possessions but in family, virtuous actions, and wisdom.
• True good and happiness is found in God.
• The Consolation does not mention Christianity; Boethius turns to Plato in facing death.
• Boethius' work exemplifies how Catholicism incorporated classical philosophy into its worldview.

Think Like a Philosopher

• Lady Philosophy equated true goodness with God, referring to Plato's idea about the form of goodness.
• Plato's The Republic discusses how we see beauty, which led to a discussion of goodness.
• Plato believed that the form of the good gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower.
• The good is the cause of knowledge and truth and is more beautiful than them.

Anselm

• Anselm (1033-1109) was Bishop of Canterbury and sought to extend Christianity into the British Isles.
• He is known for his proof of the existence of God, elaborated in The Proslogion.
• Anselm is an early proponent of Scholasticism.
• Anselm believed that a rational system of thought reflects the rationality inherent in the universe and that reason and logic can lead people to God.

Islamic Philosophy

• The rise of Islam is linked to the decline of the Roman and Persian Empires.
• Wars between the two caused weakness to both empires.
• The prophet Muhammed led his followers out of Mecca to Medina, signaling the birth of Islam as a political power.
• Early Islamic theologians prohibited the teaching of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers.
• This restriction began to give way in the 8th century CE, leading to a flourishing of philosophy in the Islamic world.
• The Muslim world safeguarded ancient Greek and Latin texts through major centers of learning in Alexandria, Baghdad, and Cordova.
• Islamic Philosophers published major works in metaphysics, and Al Ghazali.
• IBN Sena is considered pivotal, inaugurating the shift from consolidating Greek learning to philosophical and scientific innovation.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

• Ibn Sina (c. 980-1037) was a Persian polymath who published works in philosophy, medicine, astronomy, alchemy, geography, mathematics, Islamic theology, and poetry.

• He is considered the linchpin between Islamic philosophy's formative and creative phases during the Golden Age of Islam (8th-13th centuries).

• Taking his cue from Aristotle, ibn Sina sought to present a complete philosophy that would address both theoretical and practical philosophy.

• Ibn Sina published an estimated 450 works.

• Ibn Sina's work was highly influential within both the Muslim and the Christian world.

• His proof of the existence of God, called the proof of the truthful, proposed that existence requires a necessary entity (God).

• Elements of the material world are contingent and come and go.

• There must be a non-material entity (God) that causes the material world to exist.

• Ibn Sina believed that the rational order of the universe was comprehensible by human minds.

• His The Canon was a five-volume medical encyclopedia that became the textbook for medicine in European universities from the 12th to the 17th century.

• Ibn Sineh's epistemology, developed empiricism that advanced beyond the Epicureans and is comparable to that of John Locke, has received less attention.

• Similar to Locke, Ibn Sina proposed that humans are born with a rational soul that is a blank slate.

• The child possesses the five external senses associated with the animal soul, sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch and two internal senses of the human rational soul memory and imagination.

• The child gathers and stores information from the senses and abstracts intelligible concepts about the world and rationality through reflection.

• A child might drop food and observe it falls, observing a causal relationship.

• For IBN Sina, gravity exists both in the material realm of the senses and in the cognitive realm of the mind or soul.

• Like gravity, numbers exist in both realms (the abstract concept and concrete pairs).

• The child's mind organizes information, making generalizations, separating the essential from the nonessential, and affirming or negating relationships.

• The child forms definitions and propositions that reflect logical and mathematical modes of rational thought.

• IBN Sinna stated that all knowledge is a result either of forming concepts or acknowledging the truth of propositions.

• He distinguished different types of propositions, each of which have different sources and ways to prove or disprove them.

  Type of proposition	Example
  Sense data	Grass is green
  Data of reflection	Humans think
  Tested data	Fire burns flesh
  Propositions with middle term	Six is an even number
  Data provided by multiple reports	The US constitution was written in 1787

• Some types of propositions, such as sense data and data based on reflection, are knowledge based on the external or internal senses.

• Tested data can be accepted as true after repeated observation and attribution to a cause.

• The truth of data provided by multiple reports can be confirmed if reported by many sources, making falsehood unlikely.

• Building on Aristotle's idea of induction, IBN Sineh developed a scientific methodology of experimentation.

• Experimentation provides the basis of certain knowledge, unlike untested induction.

• IBN Sina used the example of consuming the plant scammoni and purging, stating that the lack of a negative correlation provides stronger evidence.

• IBN Sina's experimentation involved a search for falsification, like the scientific method used today.

• IBN Sina insisted that a causal term be inserted into the observed relationship.

• It is not Scamoni that causes purging but a property that Scamoni has that requires further investigation.

• IBN Sinna stated the argument as: 1. Scamoni has the power to purge. 2. Scamoni causes purging. 3. A power to purge causes purging. (Exactly what the power to purge is remains uncertain until further investigation)

• In the first example above, the cause is established. 1. Fire burns flesh. 2, fire is hot. 3, heat burns flesh.

• Debate emerged over how to reconcile faith and science as advancement of experimental knowledge challenged Islamic theology.

Ibn Rushd (Averroes)

• Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), known as Averroes, was born in Cordova in Muslim-ruled Spain.
• Like Ibn Sina, his philosophy took inspiration from Aristotle.
• His work ranged across metaphysics, logic, medicine, and natural philosophy.
• Much of his work took the form of commentaries on Aristotle.
• He sought a return to Aristotle's original works and thought that Neoplatonic interpretations had distorted Aristotle's meaning.
• Ibn Rushd was pivotal to the revival of Aristotle in Europe.
• Commentaries on Aristotle's works developed his thought and kept Aristotle scholarship alive.
• Ibn Rushd saw demonstration as the key to logic and the condition for philosophical certainty and scientific reasoning.
• This led to confrontations with theologians who believed philosophy was at odds with the Muslim faith.
• He sought to demonstrate the existence of God by showing that his creation was fine-tuned for humans, not a matter of chance.
• He advanced an argument that it is not possible to explain the complexity of living beings without a creator.
• Even as philosophy gained ground, theological traditionalists denied that reason could bring one closer to God.
• Ibn Rushd opposed this traditionalism and sought to show the compatibility of faith and reason.
• He cited Quranic scripture to show that religion required philosophical reflection (e.g., verses commanding intellectual reflection upon God and his creation).

Al-Ghazali

• Al-Ghazali (c. 1056-1111) was a prominent Sunni Muslim theologian and philosopher.
• He sought to refute challenges to Sunni teachings from Shi'ite scholars and philosophers.
• In The Incoherence of the Philosophers, al-Ghazali sought to strengthen the theological basis for Sunnism.
• IBN Rushd wrote a refutation of al-Ghazali's work, arguing against his claim that philosophical reflection must remain distinct from the Muslim faith and that mystical union with Allah is the only true path to religious enlightenment.
• This dispute represents the conflict between faith and reason in mediaeval Islam, which remains relevant today.

Late Mediaeval Philosophy in Christian Europe

• Christian philosophy during this period was influenced by the development of universities and monasteries.
• A systematic effort was made to combine philosophy and theology.
• The attempt to reconcile challenges posed to theology by philosophy is illustrated in the work of Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas.

Bonaventure

• Bonaventure, a Franciscan friar from Italy, encountered Aristotle, Islamic philosophers, and a rigorous course of logic at the University of Paris.
• Bonaventure fused Augustinian ideas with Aristotle.
• In his illumination argument, he argued that God is the source of all knowledge and that knowledge of the divine truth is impressed on every soul.
• Knowledge is acquired through reasoning, using abstract ideas, propositions, and observed correlations, but certainty is obtained through inner reflection or meditation through which we see the unchangeable divine light.

Thomas Aquinas

• Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is the quintessential Scholastic philosopher.
• His works determined the course of European philosophy for generations.
• Philosophers after Aquinas knew they would have to contend with his writings.
• Aquinas saw that Scholastic philosophy needed to be reinvigorated and introduced the work of Jewish and Islamic philosophers to mediaeval Christian thought.
• Aquinas is best known for his five ways to demonstrate the existence of God.
• The five ways are considered natural theology (not dependent on the Church's authority).
• God can be defined in five ways as an unmoved mover, first cause necessary being absolute being and grand designer.
• In order to avoid an infinite regress we must assume an unmoved mover who put all the entities into motion similarly God is the first cause of everything that exists or else we face an infinite causal regress.
• Everything that exists has contingent existence, save for God, which entails an absolute being to whom all these are relative. Finally, the evidence of design in the world implies a grand designer.
• All natural bodies act to achieve an end, such as acorn gives rise to a tree however not all natural bodies are aware of and able to direct themselves to achieve this end therefore an intelligent being must exist to guide these natural beings toward their end.
• Aristotle's influence can be seen in Aquinas's metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy.
• Aristotle defined God as the prime mover and thought thinking itself.
• Aquinas adopted Aristotle's virtue ethics and adapted them to his Christian context.

Jewish Philosophers in the Christian and Islamic Worlds

• Jewish people contributed to mediaeval philosophy in both the Christian and Islamic worlds, despite unequal status.
• Moses Maimonides and Levi Ben Jersham were two notable Jewish scholars of this period.

Moses Maimonides (Maimonides)

• Moses ben Maimon (1138-1204) was a physician, Torah scholar, and astronomer, in addition to being a philosopher.
• Born in Cordova in Muslim-ruled Spain, he served as the personal physician of Saladin.
• Maimonides began his philosophical work with the question concerning the relationship between theology and philosophy.
• His The Guide for the Perplexed November, is addressed to a student deciding which field of inquiry to pursue.
• To the ancient Greek philosophers, God is the unmoved mover that sets into motion all other existence in a universe that has always existed.
• This conception of God conflicts with both the story of creation and with the idea of miracles, which necessitate intervention.
• This conflict came about because philosophers developed doctrines that do not follow from objective evidence and reason, whereas theologians erroneously interpreted religious texts literally.
• Maimonides claimed that biblical literalism was the main reason people could not get closer to God.
• Biblical texts ought to be interpreted figuratively.
• Ultimate truths remain forever true in the mind of God, which our finite minds seek to apprehend.
• Adam and Eve comprehended these truths prior to the fall.
• Literalism and a materialist conception of God are the two forces keeping us from a fuller knowledge.
• Maimonides rejected anthropomorphic religious elements, such as God in human form.
• Adherents should get over this tendency as they mature, as it obscures the true nature of the divine.
• The true nature of the divine is captured in the central prayer of Jewish faith. The Shema, hear, oh, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, God is one, unity that is expressed in the biblical reference to God is Ein Sov, without end.
• Maimonides argued that God cannot be broken into parts or assigned attributes.
• The Bible refers to God's rod and staff, but this is figurative and should not be taken literally.
• When the Bible refers to God as merciful or gracious, these are not moral attributes of God.
• God has performed actions, said into motion events, that if performed by a human, we would perceive as merciful or gracious.
• Human knowledge is finite and quantifiable, as is human power, but God's knowledge and power are infinite.
• We may perceive God as gracious, but what we see as gracious is not God but an attribute of his action.
• Every attribute that is found in the books the deity is therefore an attribute of his action and not an attribute of his essence.
• Maimonides asserted a radical negative theology, stating that human knowledge cannot conceive of what God is but only of what God is not.
• Humans can only ascribe attributes to God's actions and not God's essence.
• Revelation, as transmitted through the Jewish Bible, was not to acquaint us with knowledge of God but rather to guide us to our highest ends, bringing us as close to God as possible.
• Maimonides' negative theology was challenged, perhaps most notably, by Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides)

• Like Maimonides, Jersenides (1288-1344) sought to demonstrate the compatibility between Jewish faith and reason.
• His Wars of the Lord addresses the relationship between Torah and reason.
• Jersenides made major contributions to the scientific study of astronomy, applying mathematical calculations to data he collected using self-made tools.
• Jersinides concluded that several principles advanced by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy were wrong.
• For Jersinides, reason was both mathematical and empirical.
• He built upon the work of Maimonides and Averroes, reading his work as an effort to understand Aristotle through these predecessors.

The Rise of Reason in the Early Modern Era

• The early modern era ended with the 1789 French Revolution, but its beginning is debated.
• Candidates include the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, the age of discovery, and the 1543 publication of Nicholas Copernicus's text on heliocentric theory.
• In philosophy, the early modern era is delineated by the rapid advancement of natural philosophy, sparking the Scientific Revolution.
• This relied upon scholars and clerics openly questioning religious orthodoxy and seeking answers through human reason.

Nicholas Copernicus

• Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) was born in Poland and raised by his uncle, a bishop in the Catholic Church.
• He studied mathematics, astronomy, and medicine in Italy.
• The Catholic Church espoused Ptolemy's geocentric model.
• Copernicus's analysis indicated that Earth and other planets revolved around the sun.
• He feared to publish this data for over two decades.
• He released On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543 after his colleague published Copernican ideas.
• He dedicated the manuscript to the Pope to shield himself and his work.

Zera Yacob

• Zara Jacob (1592-1692), an Ethiopian scholar, directly challenged church authority.
• Born in Aksum, Ethiopia, he studied Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thought.
• Ethiopia had adopted Christianity as the state religion in March.
• Ethiopia had appealed to Portugal for support against Islamic forces based in Turkey.
• Jesuit missionaries converted Emperor Sasanias from Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity to Catholicism.
• When Emperor Sasanias declared Catholicism the state religion in 1622, a civil war broke out.
• Jakob was forced to flee and composed Hatata (Inquiry).
• Jakob argued against the supremacy of one religion over another, relying on reason to evaluate religious tracts and traditions.
• For Jacob, God is the master of all things and understands all things and had a purpose in creating humans as intelligent beings, for humans to look for Him and to grasp Him in His wisdom in the path He has opened for them, and to worship Him as long as they live.
• The method of inquiry that Jakob proposed echoes the ideas of Augustine and Aquinas.
• He used reflection, observation, and connecting to a God-given light or reason.
• He who investigates with the pure intelligence set by the creator in the heart of each man and scrutinizes the order and laws of creation will discover the truth.
• Jakob rejected some religious doctrine, discarding beliefs that did not agree with the wisdom of the creator.
• While accepting Moses as a prophet, Jacob rejected the stories of miracles.
• Yaqab questioned Muhammad's miracles.
• In Jakob's view, God had established the laws by which the world worked, asking why He would violate His own laws with miracles.
• Jakob believed these stories arose from false human understanding.
• Jakob, Copernicus, and others challenged religious authorities in arguing for a truth based on reason, mathematical logic, and scientific observation.
• By the 18th century, governments began to embrace these methods and establish schools and institutes to expand knowledge of the natural world. This period of change is known as the enlightenment.
• This process, as well as the rapid development and implementation of new technologies and the spread of capitalism, is often referred to as modernization.
• The remainder of the text examines the ideas of thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern era.
• They laid out the foundations for scientific inquiry, laid down the arguments for government based on popular representation rather than divine rule, and proposed economic systems designed to create wealth, which freed societies from feudal bonds.
• These thinkers studied classical and mediaeval philosophy while advancing ideas about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.