[11] Volume IV

     For the Period of Scholasticism Plott suggests three
divisions:  the period of early scholasticism, "Monism in
Many Moods" (800-900); the middle period, "Exfoliation and
Elaboration (900-1150); and the third period, "The Great
Summas" (1150-1350).
     I did the draft chapter on Saadia (b.882 or 892, d. 942)
for Volume IV without realizing that Michael Dolin, the
managing editor, was probably wondering what to do with a
very lengthy, detailed typescript on Saadia from Plott
himself.  Saadia happened to be a philosopher whom I had
never heard of.  After my crash course of discovery about
this founder of Medieval Jewish philosophy, my submission to
the project was bound to look rather thin.  Dolin and Plott
enriched it considerably.  An explanation of the nature of
that enrichment will dramatize the challenge Editor Dolin
faced in blending the gargantuan researches of Plott with the
more limited work of a contributor such as myself.
     I was intrigued by two questions.  How truly medieval
was the first medieval Jewish philosopher?  And how did he
interpret the most Greek or Hellenistic book in the Bible?
     To assist in answering the first question I used the six
characteristics of medieval ways of thinking developed by
Nakamura in his Parallel Developments (reissued by Kegan Paul
International in 1986 as A Comparative History of Ideas).  By
that standard I concluded that Saadia was only about one-
third medieval.  Nakamura speaks of "the absolute authority
of traditional religions" in medieval thought.  For Saadia,
religious authority was the complete basis for his work, but
that did not mean it could not be questioned.  In fact, it
had to be questioned in order to discover in what sense it
was fully rational and relevant.  Incidentally, readers of
the Saadia chapter can question either the medievalness of
Saadia as measured by each of Nakamura's criteria or they can
question the validity of the criteria themselves.  In my
judgment, the criteria are helpful but need to be applied
critically, perhaps using some of the tools being developed
in Fuzzy Logic.  For ready reference the criteria are (1986,
p. 477):
          1. The absolute authority of traditional religions
          2. Dominance of religious orders
          3. Absolute sacredness of scriptures
          4. Otherworldly tendencies in thought and life
          5. Hierarchical social structure
          6. "Cultural" life an upperclass activity from
             which common people are mostly shut out

     On Saadia and Ecclesiastes, I learned that Saadia sounds
almost more like Aristotle than the doleful Preacher of "All
is vanity."  Saadia's point is that vanity attaches more to
addictive or idolatrous behavior than it does to the well-
rounded, pious life.  Quoting our chapter in Volume IV,

     Though the most prominent side of the little book of
     Ecclesiastes is its shadow side, Saadia, in his
     dependence on the more optimistic confidence of Jewish
     traditionalism and Greek rationalism, chooses to
     highlight the more hopeful aspects of wisdom.  Some of
     the seeming inconsistencies of Ecclesiastes vanish if
     we concede with Saadia that the book does not claim
     that every single act or activity is completely vain.
     Saadia hears the Preacher saying, "If you seek any one
     thing exclusively for itself, you will forever chase the
     wind."

     Saadia's principal work The Book of Beliefs and Opinions
concludes with Treatise X, "Concerning how it is most proper
for a man to conduct himself in this world."  The major
negative thesis here is that whatever is one-sided is
wanting.  The flip side of the thesis is that each of a
person's likes and dislikes has its distinctive role which
must be honored in a proper balance, since "any act practised
exclusively constitutes a distortion."  This little treatise,
then, presents a surprisingly autonomous ethic, one that is
general (if not secular), rational, humanistic and somewhat
independent of any particular religion.  In contrast, this
same Saadia usually presents a more specifically religious
ethic which is theonomous and dependent on revelation.
     My comparisons tend to be binary or at most trinary,
whereas Plott's are multivalent and multidimensional.  For
example, his part of this same chapter relates Saadia not
only to earlier and later Jewish and Islamic philosophy but
also to very specific tendencies at about the same time in
Christian and Hindu thought.  Two long sentences are
illustrative of Plott's multivalent interests:
        Saadia's situation is closely analogous to that of
     Philo of Alexandria in a different cycle of civiliza-
     tion, coming to the rescue of his community in the face
     of Caligula, and writing in Greek rather than Hebrew as
     Saadia was writing in Arabic.  There is probably no
     Jewish thinker who had greater influence since the time
     of Philo, unless it be Moses Maimonides who himself was
     much influenced by Saadia as were virtually all other
     Jewish scholastics in the intervening period. (IV, 341)
My own approach tends to limit itself to the obvious Jewish-
Greek synthesis in Saadia, although I did reach out to
mention a Buddhist parallel to the discussions of vanity.
After Plott has done his etiologies and his synchronologies,
he sometimes rewards the reader by throwing out a bridging
rope or two toward times closer to us.  He suggests that
Saadia the Jew is more like Kant the rationalist Christian,
while Erigena the Christian, who is treated in this same
volume, is more like Spinoza the Jew.
     The category of mystic is the most encompassing and
significant for Plott who nevertheless does not restrict
himself by it or impose it on his readers by coercive logic
or high-pressured persuasion.  The Indian philosopher
Ramanuja represents the monistic tendency of the ninth
century.  His highly personalistic yet panentheistic vision
of deity and the world supplies the mystical motif in
Plott's own philosophy and is a large factor motivating the
academic aspect of the Plott project.
     However, Ramanuja does not receive disproportionate
space or emphasis in Volume IV.  The average chapter length
in that volume is twelve pages.  Ramanuja receives just
nineteen pages in spite of being (as I've just recently
realized) a key to the whole project.  Plott has dedicated
The Philosophy of Devotion, a thick volume, to Ramanuja,
Bonaventure, and Marcel.  Yet in this fourth volume of Global
History of Philosophy, Ramanuja receives, as I said, nineteen
pages.   That is the same number devoted to Saadia who is not
a mystic.  Philosophers around the world tend to treat
Shankara (also discussed in this volume) as more important
than Ramanuja.  Although Plott personally disagrees with some
aspects of the near-adulation of Shankara, he recognizes that
the case for the lesser long-run importance of Shankara
relative to Ramanuja need not be argued in a general history
of ideas.  Shankara receives twenty-six pages of text, seven
more than Ramanuja.  So much for fairness and objectivity in
the sense of detachment from selfish or one-sided personal
preferences.
     From the ethical point of view, Chang Tsai (1020-1077)
may be just as important as some of the people who are more
famous.  Quite justly, it seems to me, he receives twelve
pages, the average for the volume.  For one reason alone he
deserves our notice.  He is the author of the Western
Inscription.  It is both brief and basic, as exemplified in
its opening lines:
        Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even
     such a small creature as I find an intimate place in
     their midst.
        Therefore that which fills the universe I regard as
     my body and that which directs the universe I consider
     as my nature.
        All people are my brothers and sisters, and all
     things are my companions.  (IV, 543)

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