Philosophy-RAG-demo/transcriptions/HoP 309 - Hooked on Classics - Italos and the Debate over Pagan Learning.txt

 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich. Online at historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, Hooked on Classics, Italos and the Debate Over Pagan Learning. Suppose you meet someone at a party who recommends a new restaurant that has just opened in your neighborhood. You make a mental note to go there next time you get a chance. As your chat continues, this same party guest begins to argue that the 1969 moon landing was faked by the government. In addition to excusing yourself to go freshen your drink, you would probably also tear up that mental note about the restaurant. This might be a mistake, given that partisans of wacky conspiracy theories are probably able to appreciate good food just as well as the rest of us. Yet it's almost irresistible to downgrade the value of testimony in this way. We want to take advice from people who are reliable, and when someone makes a dramatic lapse in judgment, we are apt to dismiss that person's other beliefs. Which raises the question, why would the Byzantines have been interested in anything that pagan philosophers had to say? As deeply committed Christians, they were convinced that Plato, Aristotle and other Hellenic thinkers were wrong about the most important beliefs of all. They were mistaken about the true nature of God and knew nothing of the salvation offered by Christ. So why treat them as philosophical authorities, having their works laboriously copied out by hand and made the subject of extensive study and commentary? Why not start from scratch, or rather exclusively from the late ancient church fathers whose works offered an acceptably Christian basis for doing philosophy and theology? As we know, the same dilemma confronted thinkers of Latin Christendom and to some extent, the solutions devised there were also echoed in Byzantium. One strategy was to compartmentalize. Aristotle may not have understood God properly, but he was reliable on logic and natural philosophy. This would be rather like discovering that the moon landing conspiracy theorist happens to be a respected food critic, which would encourage you to take that advice about the restaurant seriously after all. Another strategy was to give the Hellenic thinkers credit for achieving everything, or almost everything, that can be achieved with natural powers of reasoning. Being deprived of revelation, they were hardly at fault for being ignorant of Christ or the Trinity. Occasionally, pagans were even credited with having discerned something of God's Trinitarian nature using nothing but their natural wit. Like members of the 12th century school of Chartres, in 11th century Constantinople, Michael Pselos proposed that Plato's Timaeus gestures at a threefold divine source of all things. There were also special reasons for the Byzantines to be open to pagan literature. As we've discussed in previous episodes, a great premium was placed on stylistically excellent Greek, such as could be found in Plato's dialogues. This is certainly a big part of the explanation for the choice to preserve and transmit Greek philosophy and other literature, but it obviously implies no attachment to the ideas found in the texts. Indeed, one modern-day scholar has rather grumpily remarked that this was an age of uncreative erudition, sterile good taste when form was more important than content. But there was another factor at play. The works of those Church Fathers explicitly instructed a Christian readership to make use of the so-called outside philosophy. Especially important here were the three theologians we call the Cappadocians, the two brothers Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, along with Gregory of Nazianzus. In one representative passage, Basil wrote that it is good to start one's studies with pagan material because our eyes must first get used to seeing the brilliance of the sun when it is reflected on the water and then look at the real light. Even if the Hellenic material is false, this will do no harm, since the Christian truth will look all the better alongside it. Which is not to say that the Fathers recommended the indiscriminate use of authors like Aristotle. To the contrary, they warned that the application of logic to the exalted matters of theology can lead astray, and they accused some of their opponents of falling into just this trap. Their stance then was a version of the compartmentalization strategy already mentioned. Pagan material is to be used regarding certain topics, but always with caution and while having in mind the superiority of Christian truth. In applying this strategy to Aristotle, especially his logic and natural philosophy, the Fathers were in a way echoing the approach of late ancient pagan Neoplatonists. They had likewise seen Aristotle's works as a good introduction to philosophy, something for students to read before graduating to higher truths, though for them the higher truths were to be found in the works of Plato, rather than the Bible. The Church Fathers could also be moved to harsh criticism of even the greatest pagan thinkers. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote in one passage, Strike against Aristotle's uncharitable providence his artificiality, his perishable arguments about the soul, and the humanity of his doctrines. This may sound inconsistent, but it's just the flip side of the compartmentalization strategy. Where Aristotle strayed into matters beyond his ken, he was unreliable, even pernicious, and Gregory was not afraid to say so. All of which left the Byzantines to perform a delicate balancing act as they sought to apply Hellenic philosophy in the support of Christian theology while making sure never to endorse the philosophy where it might come into conflict with the theology. Each intellectual had to decide where to draw this line in full knowledge that they might live to regret drawing the line in the wrong place. We already found that the bibliophile and scholiast Arethas, a student of Photeus, was charged with impious teachings in the year 900 and that this may have had something to do with his literary tastes, but the most notorious case of persecution against philosophy in Byzantium involved John Italos, who was put on trial in 1082. He was forced publicly to denounce his own teachings, or at least certain teachings that he had supposedly adopted. We can read the list of anathematized positions in the Synodicon, an authoritative document setting out orthodox belief. The anathema was in fact the first addition to the synodicon made since the defeat of iconoclasm. The list makes explicit mention of the pagan tradition and its excessive use, referring to, Those who offer courses on Hellenic subjects and do not teach these subjects solely for the sake of education, but follow the vain opinions of the Hellenes and believe in them as being true and thus, considering them to be correct, induce others to follow them. The document also sets out specific doctrines that were found objectionable. Anathema upon those who, of their own accord, invent an account of our creation along with other myths, who accept the Platonic forms as true, who say that matter possesses independent substance and is shaped by the forms, who openly question the power of the Creator to bring all things from non-existence to existence. Alongside these characteristically philosophical points, Italos was also deemed to have fallen into a range of heresies on theological matters, including Arianism and Sibelianism. The accusations thrown at him were almost absurd in their inconsistency. He supposedly went too far by saying that icons should be worshipped, not only venerated, yet he was also denounced as an iconoclast. In a letter that has come down to us, Italos unsurprisingly complains that his words were twisted to create a false impression of unorthodoxy. In due course, the ban on him was apparently lifted, but his name was lastingly associated with an undue attachment to Hellenic culture, as we can see from a legendary anecdote about his death, which has Italos leaping suicidally from a cliff while shouting, Receive me Poseidon! Who then was John Italos to cause so much fuss? As his name indicates, he was an Italian who came to Constantinople as a young man and became a student of Michael Psellos. One of the more informative texts about Italos is an encomium written about him by Psellos, who saw Italos as his intellectual son and Italos' own students as his intellectual grandchildren. Psellos admits that Italos, who was after all a non-native user of Greek, was no great stylist, but he made up for that with his acute mind. To quote from Psellos, For the inattentive listener his discourse is distasteful. It merely consists of syllogistic theses. He does not entice with style, nor does he attract with sweetness, but he conquers and subdues his listener with the content of his arguments. And he was indeed an argumentative character who would get into heated debates with Psellos' other students. A less favourable report about Italos is found in the Alexiad of Anna Komnene. She also complains about his awkward Greek and equally awkward temperament, but even she grudgingly admits that he was outstanding in logic. It's no wonder that Anna is unfriendly towards Italos, because it was her father, Alexios Komnenos, who was emperor when Italos was put on trial. Much speculation has been devoted to the motivations behind this act of persecution. One factor may have been Italos' origins, since at this time there was a Norman invasion from Italy threatening the Byzantine position. Italos was also a high-profile personage so that it was worth making an example of him. Both Italos and Psellos address some of their works to members of the powerful Doukas family, including the recent emperor Michael VII. Another factor may have been that the new emperor Alexios was a military man bent on humbling the civil aristocracy, the class to which men like Psellos and Italos belonged. In light of such factors, scholars tend to agree that this was a show trial with largely political motivations and that the charges had little or no basis in Italos' genuine teachings. Certainly, this imperial intervention in the intellectual affairs of the capital does not seem to have been intended to promote any one approach to pagan philosophy. As Michel Etrizio has written, the charge sheet was, Indeed, if we turn to Italos' actual writings, we find that he was pretty far from being a radical Aristotelian, Platonist or supporter of potentially heretical views. Regarding some of his productions, the worst you can say is that they are terribly derivative. A preserved commentary by Italos on parts of Aristotle's topics proves to be made up of nearly verbatim quotations from a much earlier commentary by Alexander of Aphrodisias. Rather more interesting are the short treatises he wrote for patrons and students on a variety of philosophical topics. In one treatise, Italos takes up the problem of universals, a mainstay of philosophical reflection in Byzantium, just as in Late Antiquity and Latin Christendom. His remarks here make an interesting contrast to those of Photius, who in a short treatise of his own had been critical of Aristotle's treatment of universals. Photius complained that in the categories, Aristotle recognises universals as a kind of substance, which is however secondary in comparison to the concrete particular substances we encounter in everyday life. Thus, the species giraffe is for Aristotle a kind of second-class substance, whereas the particular giraffe Hiawatha is a sterling example of a primary substance. Photius objects that on this Aristotelian view, two very different sorts of thing, universals and particulars, are being jammed together into a single class of entity both dignified with the title of substance. Besides, Aristotle himself recognises that something is either a substance or not. Substantiality does not admit of degrees. So how can Aristotle speak of substances that are more and less primary? Instead, Photius argues, we should adopt the understanding of substance we find in the Cappadocian Fathers. According to their terminology, which often features in discussions of Christology, substance is the same as nature. It should be identified with the species kind that belongs to each particular thing, for instance giraffe or human. Italos is much more inclined to follow the lead of pagan Greek philosophy here. Taking up a classificatory scheme found in late ancient commentaries on Aristotle, Italos recognises three kinds of universal or common natures, namely those before the many, in the many, and after the many. The universals before the many are paradigms in the mind of God, the models used in divine creation. The universals after the many are human ideas. We form them in our own minds by abstracting a general notion from our encounters with many particular instances of a given kind. As for the natures that are in the many, Italos says that these are actually particular and individual. By this he probably means that outside God's mind and human minds there is no such thing as giraffe apart from individual giraffes, the actual ones that lope across the savannah and nibble leaves off trees. While none of this is radically new, it does show Italos' familiarity with the late ancient tradition and his willingness to adopt a broadly Neoplatonic metaphysics. Particularly significant is his insistence on universals that are divine ideas. Ultimately, it is these paradigms that the philosopher wishes to know, and in knowing them, we can ourselves become divine. Italos also applied a Neoplatonic approach when discussing classical Greek literature. We have comments from him on some lines from Homer's Odyssey, which speak of two gates through which our dreams pass, one of horn and one of ivory. For Italos, Homer here refers to the way that our dreams have their origin in either the intelligible or the sensory realm, with our imaginative powers in the middle receiving messages from both sides. He rejects a different reading that glosses the passage in terms of diet, that is, the way that the foods we eat affect the dreams we have, deeming this interpretation low class. But we should not leap to the assumption that Italos' accusers had a point after all, that he, and possibly his teacher Psilos, were happy to follow the Neoplatonists wherever they might lead. Italos was forthright in rejecting standard Platonic doctrines such as the existence of the world soul, an animating principle that makes the entire cosmos into a single organism. And in some of his treatises, he surveys pagan philosophical views on a given topic expressly for the purpose of rejecting those views. Two good examples are short treatises by Italos on matter and on nature. In these works, he argues that if we consult ancient pagans, we could conclude that neither matter nor nature exist, because the pagan discussions of these topics are rife with contradictions. Echoing what we just saw in Photius, Italos says that we should prefer the patristic view of nature as that which embraces the individuals. This is the nature that is common to many things like giraffe or human. As for matter, Italos attacks an idea found in Plotinus that was very influential in Latin Christendom thanks to its adoption by Augustine. According to this account, matter is the source of evil, or even identical with evil. Italos thinks that another Neoplatonist, namely Proclus, was right to criticize this theory. After all, matter is part of the divine creation, so it cannot be intrinsically evil. Rather, it should turn back towards, or revert upon, its source and strive for goodness. On the other hand, Italos isn't happy with Proclus' theory of matter either. For Proclus, matter is simple because it underlies all form and differentiation, yet he also thinks that matter is furthest away from the One that is the source of all things. So it should not be simple, but multiple and differentiated to the highest degree. In this treatise, Italos' objectives seem to be entirely critical. He is content to set up a dialectical refutation of the Hellenic theories, hardly what we'd expect from a man who was anathematized for blindly following the vain opinions of the Hellenes. If we ask ourselves why Italos singled out this topic of matter for special attention, we may suspect that it had something to do with his rejection of another notorious thesis of pagan philosophy, that the world has always existed and will continue to exist forever. Italos denied this in part on the grounds that, in an everlasting world, there could never be a resurrection of bodies because the available matter would always be in use. His stance on the eternity question fits well with his rejection of real universals outside the mind, too. Italos considers and rejects an argument according to which universals are indestructible, so there must always be a universe in which they are instantiated. His answer is simply that real things are always particular, so there are no permanent universals or forms out there at all, never mind permanent universals that demand a permanent universe to house them. These treatises by Italos hardly represent a sustained attempt to set out a personal philosophy or system, or even to take a stance one way or another on the validity and utility of pagan thought. But they do suggest that he was not a particularly radical thinker. His keen interest in pagan literature and philosophy was tempered, at least by prudent caution and, to all appearances, by a sincere conviction that the doctrines of Aristotle and the Platonists need to be corrected in light of Christian belief. Of course, he was not as severe with the pagans as some of his contemporaries, for instance Nikita Sethatos, who wrote that all right thinking is guided by the Holy Spirit and who polemicized against those who, as he put it, teach matters different from what the divinely inspired Fathers teach. Then too, Italos was identifiable as something like a professional philosopher, a man who devoted his energies to the exposition and teaching of the Hellenic legacy rather than to, say, the Bible. This may help to explain why he was politically vulnerable. But he was hardly alone in pursuing philosophy as an intellectual specialty. As we'll see soon enough, his harsh critic Anna Komnina was herself deeply involved in the promotion of that same Hellenic legacy, and she supported a group of scholars who produced commentaries on Aristotle. The fact that John Italos in particular was anathematized may show simply that he occupied the right place intellectually speaking, but at the wrong time politically speaking. And as it happens, speaking politically is exactly what we'll be up to next time. As we saw in the interview with Dominic O'Mara, the works of Michael Svelos made a significant contribution to political philosophy, and he was not the only Byzantine thinker to make such a contribution, something we'll discover by casting our historical net a bit wider to take in ideas about political authority from the time of Justinian onward. That will be our imperial ambition next time here on The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.