3. PHILO AND PHILOSOPHY
Robert M. Berchman Dowling College
Traduttore,traditore
- Nietzsche -
Studies in Philo have a checkered history. Philo himself was a Pro tean figure and the study of his writings has attracted more than its fair share of scholars. On the whole, Philo has been well served by modem scholarship, but perhaps never more so than in the last twenty years, where it has been fashionable to deny one of the more obvious and distinctive features of his thought. Recently a number of scholars have reminded us about the marginal (and problematic) role of philosophy in Philo's writings. I say "reminded us" because the denial of this reading of Philo appears driven by a late-modem (post modern) concern for the problematic role of narratives for historical and philosophical inquiry. This claim may strike many as ironical or metaphorical given the stolidly "historicist" agenda of contemporary Philo studies. Nonethe less, the consequences of the judgment of an absence of philosophical narrative in Philo has led contemporary scholars to abandon the notion that Philo was a philosopher tout court.His writings are only philosophically valuable as background material for reconstructing the origins and sources of Middle Platonism, Pythagoreanism, and the Middle Stoa. 1 His philosophical ideas are only valuable as back ground material to his "exegetical intention," which is not philo sophical in content. In nuce, Philo is judged to stand outside the "totalizing" agenda of philosophical narrative and discourse. 2
1 This view was initially proposed by E.R. Dodds, "The Parmenidesof Plato and the Origins of the Neoplatonic One" in CQ22 [1928), p. 132, n. l; W. Theiler, Di.e Vorbereitungdes Neuplatonismus(Berlin, 1930), p. 30; and AJ. Festugiere, w Revelation d'HermesTrismegiste (Paris, 1945-1954), vol. 2, p. 534. Its most recent proponent isj. Dillon, The Middleplatonists(Ithaca, 1977), pp. 135-183, esp. pp. 182-183. 2 This view was initially proposed by D.T. Runia and his school. See Exegesisand Philosophy(Aldershot, 1990). 50 ROBERT BERCHMAN
Narrative has always been important for scholars. Students of Philo generally situate their work by telling a story of what happened before they came along-a story that has its own heroes and villains. This is the way in which scholars are always creating and recreating their own traditions and canons. The stories they tell are systemati cally interwoven with what they think are their distinctive contribu tions. Consider Wolfson's studies about the insights of his predeces sors in grasping the multidimensional character of Philo's religious philosophy. 3 Or-to leap to the contemporary scene-think of the story that Runia tells us about the confusions and blunders of many of his predecessors. Each had a few bright moments that anticipate his own interpretation of Philo. 4 In brief, scholars tells stories of anticipations, setbacks, and trials that culminate in the progressive realization of truth and reason, which is identified with what these scholars now see clearly-a "truth" that their predecessors saw only through a glass darkly. It is not my intention to develop a typology of narrative patterns in Philo studies although it would be extremely illuminating. Rather a context needs to be set for what is attempted in this essay. I want to outline a narrative-or, more accurately and modestly, a narrative sketch. Although schematic, this sketch is complex for several reasons: First, it is a narrative about narratives, specifically about recent devel opments in Philo studies, which itself relates judgments about Philo's thought, or what thinkers such as Weber and Habermas call "ration alization" processes. 5 Second, it is a narrative that isolates a specific story line. Third, it is not one of those narratives in which all the loose threads are neatly tied together at the end in a grand Aujhebung. The reason is that this is essentially an unfinished story. My aim is to confront some deeply troubling contemporary ques tions in Philo studies. Why today are there so many voices against Philo and "'philosophia"? Why is it when philosophy is mentioned with Philo the association is summarily dismissed? These questions are especially poignant and perplexing when we realize that not so
3 H.A. Wolfson, Philo, Foundationsef Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity,and Islam (Cambridge, 1947, 1968[ 4 ]). 4 Runia, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 185-198. 5 The term "rationalization" is misleading, because in the Anglo-American con text it suggests a false, misleading, and distortive justification. The expression influ enced by this German sociological tradition does not have such associations. It refers to a process by which a type of rationality increases over time.