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Philo of Alexandria Vs. Descartes 13 Carlos Lévy Philo of Alexandria vs.Descartes: An Ignored JewishPremonitoryCritic of the Cogito The starting-point of this paper is adouble statement of fact.First,inthe transmis- sion of the sorts of tablets of the sceptic lawthat are the tropes of Aenesidemus, our initial witness is neither aphilosopher in the narrow sense, nor adoxographer,nor an encyclopaedist,but someone who was and remains an atypical character in the world of philosophy: aJew born in Alexandria, raised in the paideia,who never abandoned the principles of his faith. Philo thoughtthat there could exist akind of complex compatibility between the Jewish Torahand Greek philosophy. Nowa- days,scholars generallydismiss the Philonian version of the tropes.¹ In my opin- ion—but it seems that Iamalmostthe onlyone to think so currently—it is an error,since Philo was, from achronological, geographical, historical, and linguistic point of view,the closest to Aenesidemus. H. vonArnim expressedthe same opinion at the beginning of the twentieth century that was, but it was shaken by Janáček’s(to my mind) unconvincing criticism, whose authority playedanimportant role in de- valuing Philo’sversion of the tropes.² Certainlytherewould be much to sayabout this question, but the main fact is thatPhilo, who livedinacity brimming with phi- losophers, quicklyidentified Aenesidemus’stropes as something very important to his own reflections on Jewish law. On this matter,thereisasharp contrast between the attitudes of Ciceroand Philo. Cicerowas himself adisciple of the sceptic Academyand agood friend of Tu- bero, to whom Aenesidemus dedicated his Pyrrhonian books, yetCiceronever men- tions Aenesidemus.³ In his opinion the tradition of doubt was represented by the AcademyofArcesilaus and Carneades. Scepticism, aterm that had no precise equiv- alent in his vocabulary,was for Ciceroessentiallyanaspect of Platonism. UnlikeAe- On this question, see Carlos Lévy, “Philon d’Alexandrie est-il inutilisable pour connaître Éné- sidème? Étude méthodologique,” Philosophie antique 15 (2015): 7‒26. Hans vonArnim, Quellenstudien zu Philo von Alexandria (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1889); KarelJanáček, “Philon vonAlexandreia und skeptische Tropen,” Eirene (1982):83‒97. Photius says that Aenesidemus’sbook was dedicated to Lucius Tubero, who was his sunairesiōtēs (“classmate”)inthe Academy. This Tuberoiscommonlyidentified with Lucius Aelius Tubero, who was alegateofQuintus Cicero duringhis pro-consulate in Asiafrom63to58BCE. On Tubero, see John Glucker, Antiochus and the Late Academy (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht,1978), 118. On the debateabout the Academic identity of Aenesidemus,see the contradictory positions of Fernanda DeclevaCaizzi, “Aenesidemus and the Academy,” Classical Quarterly 42 (1992):176‒89,who denies that Aenesidemus was astudent in the Academy, and Jaap Mansfeld, “Aenesidemus and the Academ- ics,” in Thepassionate intellect. Essaysonthe transformation of Classical Literature, ed. Lewis Ayres (New Brunswick-London: Transactions, 1996), 235‒48, whoaffirmsthat he was. OpenAccess. ©2019 Carlos Lévy,published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110591040-002 6 Carlos Lévy nesidemus, he never intended to removescepticism from the familyofthe Socratic doctrines. Forhim Pyrrho was adogmatic indifferentist.⁴ Further in this paper,inacomparative perspective,weshall deal with Augus- tine’sintellectual and spiritual itinerary.Itiswell-known that,after avery long and complex evolution, he had an illumination in the garden of Milan, in July 386.Itwas acrucial moment for his conversion.⁵ One could think that,atthis time of his life, he would have isolated himself in order to write some fresh theolog- ical meditation. But it was not the case. He retired with his mother and some friends in Cassiciacum, in order to tackle agreat number of philosophicalthemes, the first of which was the refutation of the New Academy.Thisseems even stranger as in Con- fessions 5.25,⁶ when he speaks about his own sceptical crisis (in 384‒85), he seems to consider it as aminor episode, in the context of his liberation from along-lasting Manichaean influence. In the case of Augustine, as in thatofPhilo, dealingwith scepticism seems to have been more thananintellectual challenge, but an actual kind of emergency. Hereagain, the contrast with Ciceroistelling. Cicerowrote his Academica when he was sixty,anage roughlyequivalent to today’seighty,given differences in life ex- pectancy.One would perhaps object that the link between Philo and Augustine is mere coincidence. But the paradoxical relation between faith and scepticism is a line which runs through the history of Western thought.The namesofMontaigne and Pascal can be mentioned here, among so many others, as carefullystudied by Charles Schmitt.⁷ The presenceofthis relation, however,does not meanthat it would be unidimensional. By exploring the cases of Philo and Augustine, we will try to determine what,ifanything,they have in common. In principle, thingslook quite simple; Philo adopts and adapts the tropes of Ae- nesidemus, while Augustine wants to triumph over the scepticism of the New Acad- emy. In fact,this contrast between the former,who seems to feel some attraction to- wards scepticism, and the latter,who treats it as an adversary,isfallacious. In both See Carlos Lévy, “Un problème doxographique chez Cicéron, les indifférentistes,” Revue des Études Latines 58 (1980): 238‒51. On the Augustinian intellectual and spiritual itinerary,see Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo:ABi- ography,rev.ed. (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress,2000). Augustine, Confessions 5.25: “Accordingly,after the manner of the Academics,aspopularlyunder- stood, Idoubted everything, and in the fluctuatingstateoftotal suspense of judgement Idecided I must leave the Manichees, thinkingatthat period of my scepticism that Ishould not remainamem- ber of asect to which Iwas now preferringcertain philosophers. But to these philosophers, whowere without Christ’ssavingname, Ialtogether refused to entrust the healingofmysoul’ssickness” (ita- que Academicorum more, sicut existimantur,dubitans de omnibus atque inter omnia fluctuans, mani- chaeos quidem relinquendos esse decrevi, non arbitrans eo ipso temporedubitationis meae in illa secta mihi permanendum esse cui iam nonnullos philosophos praeponebam. quibus tamen philosophis,quod sine salutari nomine Christi essent, curationem languoris animae meae committereomnino recusabam). Henry Chadwick, trans., Saint Augustine: Confessions (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1991). Charles B. Schmitt, Cicero Scepticus (Leiden: Brill, 1972). Philo of Alexandria vs.Descartes 7 cases, thingsare far morecomplex. In the background of both cases is aquestion to which Descartesgaveananswer he considered to be definitive:isthere something that Ican know with absolute certainty?Iwill try to demonstrate that Philo had fore- seen and refuted the Cartesian solution, while Augustine in acertain sense anticipat- ed it. 1Prolegomena Before dealing with Philo, Iwillsay something about the pagan attitude towards re- ligion, and more specificallythat of the Hellenistic schools. In the Pyrrhonian tradi- tion, passive observance of the religious tradition of the city is recommended in order to avoid the disturbance of religious dissension.⁸ We find something quiteopposite to this indifferentism in Cicero’streatise On the Natureofthe Gods (De naturadeorum). The main purpose of this treatise, in the tradition of the New Academy,istodemon- strate that the dogmatic explanations of the natureofthe gods offered by Stoics and Epicureans weredisappointingand contradictory.Ishall not insist on the arguments used by Cotta against his dogmatic adversaries, since they have been explored at length.⁹ HereIprefer to evoke apassageofthe third book, rarelyanalysed in com- mentariesonthis treatise.Atsections 11‒12 of the third book, Cotta, the exponent of the Academic refutation of Stoicism, refuses to grant that gods or dead heroes could appear among mortals and be seen in some exceptional occasions,let us sayinmiracles. He adds that he prefers to believesomething more probable, namely that the souls of the great men are divine and immortal.¹⁰ In the case of Cotta, the See Carlos Lévy, “La question du pouvoir dans le pyrrhonisme,” in Fondements et crises du pouvoir, eds.Sylvie Franchet d’Esperey,Valérie Fromentin, Sophie Gotteland, and Jean-Michel Roddaz (Bor- deaux: Ausonius,2003), 47‒56;RichardBett, Pyrrho:his Antecedents and his Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2000), esp. chap. 2; Emidio Spinelli, “Sextus Empiricus,l’expérience sceptique et l’horizon de l’éthique,” Cahiers philosophiques 115,no. 3(2008): 29‒45. See Daniel Babut, La religion des philosophes grecs,2nd ed. (Paris:Les Belles Lettres,2019); Jean- Louis Girard, “Probabilisme, théologie et religion: le cataloguedes dieux homonymes dans le De na- turadeorum de Cicéron (3,42et53‒60),” in Hommages àR.Schilling,eds.Hubert Zehnacker and Gus- tave Hentz (Paris:Les Belles Lettres,1983), 117‒26;JaapMansfeld, “Aspects of Epicurean Theology,” Mnemosyne 46 (1993): 172‒210; JordiPia, “De la Naturedes dieux de Cicéron àl’abrégédeCornutus: une nouvelle représentation des élites dans la réflexion théologique,” Camenae 10 (February 2012), http://saprat.ephe.sorbonne.fr/media/282f1da6517e2ba6025880dd887c8682/camenae-10-varia-jordi- pia-derniere.pdf. Cicero, De Naturadeorum 3.12: “Would younot prefer to believethe perfectlycredible
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