Mysticism and Western Thought
Michael Morgan
Philosophy
Mysticism – the aspiration to unify with the Divine, often through ascetic practices and a detached life – has been a constant since antiquity in Western culture and even has resonances today in various efforts to enhance the spiritual dimension of daily life. In the West, I believe, mystical thought and theosophy (doctrines about the nature of God) often go back to Platonism and Pythagoreanism. In this course, we shall explore one strand in the history of how Platonism and Pythagoreanism influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Western philosophy through the emergence and career of Kabbalah (the Jewish mystical tradition). Modern Kabbalah emerged in the 13th century and reached a highpoint with the writing of the Zohar. This was a response to the philosophical interpretation of the ancient esoteric tradition in the Bible that dealt with God, creation, the nature of the world, and the ultimate goals of human life. Then, in the 16th century, Kabbalah was given its most exciting interpretation by Isaac Luria, and it was his version that came to influence Italian Platonists and Christian cabalists. With the scientific revolution and the importance of figures like Galileo, Descartes, and Leibniz, themes and ideas from the Kabbalah were appropriated as part of the reaction to the philosophy that was the foundation for the new science.
In order to appreciate the themes from ancient Platonism that were important to the emergence of the Kabbalistic cosmology, we shall read selections from Plato’s Republic and other Platonic dialogues (e.g., the Timaeus, Parmenides). We shall then consider selections from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, treating Aristotle as an early and uniquely influential Platonist. We will look at a few figures from the ancient Platonist tradition – Philo of Alexandria and Plotinus (and the development of Neoplatonism) and finally Augustine, looking at selections from his Confessions. We shall then look briefly at Pseudo-Dionysius as a crucial avenue by which Christianity appropriated Neoplatonism.
Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism were conveyed to the West and to philosophy and religious thought in the Middle Ages by the Muslim philosophers. We consider briefly the Arabic translation movement of the 8th to 10th centuries and especially Avicenna, who influenced everyone after him. After a brief look at passages from Moses Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, we will then read a few selections from the early 13th century Kabbalah and then focus on the Lurianic system that became dominant in the modern period. We shall then examine Descartes’s Discourse on the Method, to introduce the new scientific worldview, and finish the course with a look at two 17th century works that were responses to these developments: the philosophical interpretation of the Kabbalah by Abraham Herrera (in his book Gate of Heaven)_ _and finally the use of the Kabbalah (and in particular Herrera’s ideas) by Ann Conway, an associate of the Cambridge Platonists and a critic of Descartes (in her work The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy).
Among the themes we shall focus on are the nature of God and the divine, whether the world is eternal or created, matter and evil, free will and human responsibility, the role of reason and its relation to the soul, and ethics and the meaning of the good life. There will be no exams. Students will be evaluated on the basis of several written assignments and class participation.
Catalog Information: HHC-H 211 CLASSIC AUTHORS & QUESTIONS I