According to both contemporary intuitions and scholarly opinion, autonomy is something specifically modern. It is certainly taken to be incompatible with religions like Islam and Judaism, if these are invested with political power. Both religions are seen as centered on a divine Law (sharî ‘a, viz., torah) which prescribes what we may and may not do, promising reward for obedience and threatening punishment for disobedience. Not we, but God makes the rules. This picture is in important ways misleading. There is, I argue, a substantive intellectual tradition, going back to Plato’s Laws, which takes the purpose of a theocracy—a community governed by God through the intermediary of a divine Law—to be promoting rational autonomy, conceived as (1) the ability to rationally determine what is in one’s best interest and (2) having the motivation to live accordingly. Among the most important representatives of this intellectual tradition are medieval Muslim and Jewish philosophers.
Note that for the sake of consistency I often modify existing translations. References to Kant are as follows: Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? in Kants Werke: Akademie-Textausgabe (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1968), vol. 8; Eng. trans. H. B. Nisbet in Kant’s Political Writings (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1970). Religion in den Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, in ibid., vol. 6; Eng. trans. T. M. Greene and H. H. Hudson (New York: Harper and Row, 1960).
2.
A literal translation of the term Kant uses would be considerably more vulgar, since After means "anus."
3.
Jerome Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy: A History of Modern Moral Philosophy ( Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
4.
References to Strauss are as follows: Gesammelte Schriften, ed. H. Meier and W. Meier (Stuttgart, Germany: Metzler, 1996-2001); "Introduction," in Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1952), 7-21; "Persecution and the Art of Writing," in ibid., 22-37; "The Literary Character of the Guide of the Perplexed," in ibid., 38-94; "How Fârâbî read Plato’s Laws," in Leo Strauss, What is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1952), 134-54; Spinoza’s Critique of Religion (New York: Schocken, 1965); "Jerusalem and Athens," in Leo Strauss, Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, ed. Kenneth H. Green (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), 377-405; "Progress or Return?" in ibid., 87-136. According to Strauss the conflict between "Jerusalem and Athens" is "characteristic of the West . . . in the wider sense of the term, including . . . the whole Mediterranean basin," that is, including the Islamic world. "Progress or Return?" 120-21.
5.
See, e.g., Strauss’s "Preface to the English Translation," in Leo Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique, 1-31, in particular 28-29.
6.
See "Persecution," 36.
7.
For an unusually candid account of how Strauss "discovered" the esoteric content of Maimonides and of a wide range of ancient Greek authors, see his letters to Jacob Klein from 1938 to 1939, in Gesammelte Schriften, 3, 544-87. Two classical examples of Strauss’s esoteric interpretation of medieval philosophical texts are "The Literary Character" and "How Fârâbî read Plato’s Laws." Note that both studies were placed in the middle of the essay collections in which they appeared which is itself an esoteric hint regarding their key importance for Strauss.
8.
See "Introduction," 18. The Neoplatonic legacy in al-Fârâbî has been described as "Platonism for the people" by Muhsin Mahdi, a first-generation Straussian, in Alfarabi and the Foundations of Political Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 3; Joshua Parens, a second-generation Straussian, calls it "metaphysics as rhetoric" in Metaphysics as Rhetoric: Alfarabi’s "Summary of Plato’s Laws" (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).
9.
Also see Carlos Fraenkel, "Philosophy and Exegesis in al-Fârâbî, Averroes, and Maimonides," Laval Théologique et Philosophique64 (2008): 105-25.
10.
References to al-Fârâbî are as follows: Falsafat Aflatûn [The philosophy of Plato], ed. F. Rosenthal and R. Walzer (London: Warburg Institute, 1943); Eng. trans. M. Mahdi in Al-Farabi’s Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1962); Falsafat Aristûtâlîs [The philosophy of Aristotle], ed. M. Mahdi (Beirut, 1961); Eng. trans. M. Mahdi in Al-Farabi’s Philosophy; Fusûl muntaza‘a [Selected aphorisms], ed. F. Najjar (Beirut: Dâr al-Mashriq, 1986); Eng. trans. C. Butterworth in The Political Writings: Selected Aphorisms and Other Texts (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001); Jawâmi‘ kitâb alnawâmîs li-Aflatûn [Epitome of Plato’s Laws], ed. T.-A. Druart, Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 50 (1998); Kitâb al-hurûf [The book of letters], ed. M. Mahdi (Beirut: Dâr al-Mashriq, 1969); Eng. trans. of book 2 in Medieval Islamic Philosophical Writings, ed. Muhammad Khalidi (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Kitâb al-milla [Book of religion], ed. M. Mahdi (Beirut, 1968); Eng. trans. C. Butterworth in The Political Writings; Kitâb al-siyâsa al-madaniyya [The political regime], ed. F. Najjar (Beirut, 1964); partial Eng. trans. F. Najjar in Medieval Political Philosophy, ed. R. Lerner and M. Mahdi (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1972); Mabâdi’ arâ’ ahl al-madîna al-fâdila [The principles of the opinions of the citizens of the virtuous city], ed. and Eng. trans. R. Walzer, Al-Farabi on the Perfect State (Oxford, UK: Clarendon, 1985); Tahsîl al-sa‘âda [The attainment of happiness], in Al-a mâl al-falsafîya, ed. J. Al-Yasin (Beirut, 1992), 119-225; Eng. trans. M. Mahdi in Al-Farabi’s Philosophy.
11.
On Maimonides’s philosophical interpretation of Judaism, see Carlos Fraenkel, From Maimonides to Samuel ibn Tibbon: The Transformation of the Dalâlat al-Hâ’irîn into the Moreh ha-Nevukhim [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 2007), in particular chap. 2. References to Maimonides are as follows: Maimonides, Dalâlat al-hâ’irîn [Guide of the perplexed], ed. S. Munk and Y. Yoel (Jerusalem, 1931); Eng. trans. S. Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963); Eight Chapters in Mishnah ‘im perush rabbenu Mosheh ben Maimon, ed. J. Kafih (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1963-68); Eng. trans. C. Butterworth and R. Weiss in Ethical Writings of Maimonides (New York: Dover, 1975); Sefer ha-madda‘ [Book of knowledge] (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1993); Eng. trans. M. Hyamson (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1974).
12.
References to Averroes are as follows: Commentary on Plato’s Republic, Hebrew trans. S. b. Judah of Marseilles, ed. E. I. J. Rosenthal (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1969); Eng. trans. Ralph Lerner, Averroes on Plato’s Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974); Fasl al-maqâl [Decisive treatise], ed. George Hourani with corrections by Muhsin Mahdi; Eng. trans. Charles Butterworth (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2001); Kitâb al-kashf [The book of exposition], ed. M. Qasim (Cairo, 1964); Eng. trans. I. Najjar, in Faith and Reason in Islam (Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2001); Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Hebrew trans. Samuel b. Judah of Marseilles, ed. Lawrence Berman (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of the Sciences and Humanities, 2000); Tafsîr mâ ba‘da al-tabî‘a [Long commentary on Aristotle’s metaphysics], ed. M. Bouyges (Beirut: Dâr al-Mashriq, 1938-48); Tahâfut al-tahâfut [The incoherence of the incoherence], 3rd ed., ed. M. Bouyges (Beirut: Dâr al-Mashriq, 1992); Eng. trans. S. Van den Bergh, 2 vols. (E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series, 1954). The three philosophical-theological treatises are Fasl, Kashf, and Tahâfut. For Averroes’s reluctance to respond to al-Ghazâlî, see, e.g., Fasl, Ar. and Eng. 23; Kashf, Ar. 184-85; Eng. 70-71.
13.
Note that this concept of divine reason is a normative concept: Something is not divinely ordered just in virtue of being efficiently organized. Thus a human life or a political community may be efficiently organized in view to attaining an apparent good such as wealth or honor. In this case the efficient order would be a means to an irrational end. For something to be ordered by divine Reason both means and ends must reflect the choice of a rational agent.
14.
I will, therefore, use "perfection" in the sense of both the objectively and subjectively best condition, that is, in the sense of aretê in Greek or kamâl in Arabic, which denote the objectively best condition, and in the sense of eudaimonia in Greek or sa‘âda in Arabic, which denote the subjectively best condition.
15.
See, e.g., Plato’s description of the soul’s rational part as its human element in Republic 9, 588b-590c; cf. Aristotle’s account of the defining feature of human beings as reason in Nicomachean Ethics 9.3 1166a17; 23-24; 9.8 1168b35; 10.8 1178a1-4. For the falâsifa, see, e.g., Maimonides, Guide 1.1.
16.
See Plato’s arguments for the philosophical life in Republic 9; cf. Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics 7.15 in fine; Nicomachean Ethics, 6. 13 in fine; 10.7-8. For the falâsifa, see, e.g., al-Fârâbî, Mabâdi’ 13.5-6 and 15.11; also see the coordinated use of "perfection" and "pleasure" in Falsafat Aristûtâlîs, Ar. 61; Eng. 73 and my discussion of this passage below; Averroes, Commentary on the NE 10.7-8; Maimonides, Guide 1.1-2; 3.27; 51; 54.
17.
See Stephen Menn, Plato on God as Nous ( Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1995).
18.
Note that the term theocracy was first used by Flavius Josephus in Contra Apionem 2.165-66. But the concept is Platonic.
19.
For the interpretation of nous as referring to God in this passage, see already Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio Evangelica 12.16.
20.
My contention that Plato, Aristotle, and the falâsifa are committed to a concept of God as reason is not meant to suggest that their philosophical theologies are the same in every respect. Although it is perfectly defensible to describe the Greek philosophers as monotheists as Michael Frede has persuasively argued ("Monotheism and Pagan Philosophy in Late Antiquity" in Pagan Monotheism in Later Antiquity, ed. P. Athanassiadi and M. Frede [Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999], 41-68), nothing in my argument depends on this. For my purpose it is sufficient that all philosophers under discussion agree that God as reason is a prominent divine principle that is the cause and the goal of things ordered in view to what is best-be they natural, political, or moral.
21.
For politics as an imitation of God, see, e.g., al-Fârâbî, Milla, sec. 27; Maimonides, Guide 3.54.
22.
I have discussed the falâsifa’s portrait of the founders of the religious community as accomplished philosophers in Carlos Fraenkel, "On the Concept and History of Philosophical Religions," in Nature and Scripture in the Abrahamic Religions, ed. Scott Mandelbrote and Jitse van der Meer ( Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2008 ), 35-82.
23.
Here I can only offer a sketch of my interpretation of Plato. For a detailed account, see chap. 1 of my forthcoming book: Philosophical Religions from Plato to Spinoza: Reason, Religion and Autonomy (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).
24.
Cf. Francis Cornford, "Plato’s Commonwealth," Greece and Rome 4 (1935): 92-108. The means for achieving the goal of this project is philosophical debate, that is, the Socratic elenchus (see, e.g., Apology 38a). On Socrates’s assumption that knowledge of the good is a necessary and sufficient condition for doing the good, the elenchus is the key to fulfilling both conditions of autonomy described above: rationally determining what contributes to one’s perfection and being motivated to do it.
25.
See, e.g., Plato’s claim that the "entire politeia" set out in the Laws is an "imitation [mimêsis] of the finest and noblest life" (Laws 817b). By this he arguably means the life of the philosopher.
26.
The religious character of the Laws has often been noted by scholars. See most recently André Laks who describes it as "le premier traité théologico-politique" in Médiation et coercition. Pour une lecture des Lois de Platon (Villeneuve d’Ascq, France: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2005), 22.
27.
See the discussion of the structure of the human soul and its virtues in book 4 of the Republic.
28.
The moral psychology of the falâsifa is, of course, primarily based on Aristotle. But Aristotle agrees with Plato on the division of the soul into a rational and an irrational part and on the ethical implications of this division. See Hendrik Lorenz, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006). For the natural inequality of human beings, see, e.g., al-Fârâbî, Siyâsa, Ar. 89-91; Eng. 44. For their division into philosophers and nonphilosophers, see idem, Tah sîl, Ar. 177-78; Eng. 41.
29.
Whether al-Fârâbî, in fact, read the Laws or only a summary by Galen is debated among scholars. Steven Harvey, the most recent contributor to the debate, argues that he did not read the dialogue itself. See his "Can a Tenth-Century Islamic Aristotelian help us understand Plato’s Laws?" in Plato’s Laws: From Theory to Practice, ed. S. Scolnicov and L. Brisson (Sankt Augustin, Germany: Academia Verlag, 2003), 320-30.
30.
See, e.g., Plato, Laws, 719e-720e; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.13; al-Fârâbî, Fusûl, sec. 1-5; Averroes, Fas l, Ar. and Eng. 27-28; Maimonides, Eight Chapters, chap. 1.
31.
For a description of the "discord" between a person’s "feelings of pleasure and pain and his rational judgment," see Laws 689a-d.
32.
See, e.g., Nicomachean Ethics 10.9 1179b31-1180a24 where Aristotle claims that the purpose of nomoi, "proceeding from a kind of wisdom [phronêsis] and reason [nous]," is to order the lives of the citizens "towards aretê from childhood on." For the falâsifa, see, e.g., al-Fârâbî, Fusûl, sec. 6-21; Maimonides, Eight Chapters 1-7; SM, Hilkhot de‘ot [Laws concerning ethical dispositions].
33.
On the significance of the "preludes" for Plato’s political project, see Christopher Bobonich, Plato’s Utopia Recast (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002), in particular chap. 2.
34.
The best reconstruction remains Sarah Stroumsa, Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rawāndī, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī and Their Impact on Islamic Thought (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 1999), esp. chap. 3.
35.
Quoted by Abû Hâtim al-Râzî in A lâm al-nubuwwa [The signs of prophecy], ed. Salah al-Sawy (Tehran, 1977), 3-5.
36.
Note, however, that Socrates’s attitude to the Delphic oracle that I described above suggests that, in contrast to Râzî, rational autonomy and religious guidance are not in conflict for him.
37.
See Stroumsa, Freethinkers , 221-38.
38.
See Guide 1.2. Note that Spinoza restates Maimonides’s portrait of Adam in the Ethics to illustrate proposition 68 of part 4, according to which "free men" (homines liberi) do not conceive the notions of good and evil as long as they are free (G ii. 261). References to Spinoza are to Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt, 4 vols. (Heidelberg, Germany: Carl Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1925).
39.
For a detailed discussion of the interpretation of the historical forms of a religious tradition as a pedagogical-political program designed by philosophers for nonphilosophers, see Fraenkel "Philosophical Religions."
40.
Maimonides interestingly does not mention this problem concerning his portrait of Adam. Spinoza, however, when restating Maimonides’s portrait, points out that the assumption that a person could be born free is wrong. See Ethics 4.68, scholium.
41.
See Statesman 259e-260c and NE 1.2; cf. Met. 1.1, 981a13-981b7.
42.
See Falsafat Aristûtâlîs, Ar. 68; Eng. 79.
43.
See Mabâdi’ and Siyâsa.
44.
Also see al-Fârâbî who suggests that one way of ranking citizens is in accordance with their increasing level of autonomy. At the bottom of the hierarchy is "the slave by nature." At the top is the completely autonomous individual, capable of conceiving a goal on his own and choosing the right means to attain it (Fusûl, sec. 60). The divine Law, in turn, is not a uniform imitation of philosophy, but composed of several levels approaching philosophy step by step, thus addressing the members of the religious community in a way suited to their intellectual rank and ability for autonomous action (Mabâdi’ 17.4).
45.
See Kashf, chap. 1.
46.
Note that Averroes is very careful in his formulation. Although the "Law makes it obligatory [awjaba] to reflect upon existing things . . . by means of intellectual syllogisms," it only "calls for [da‘â] and urges [haththa]" to do so by means "of the most complete kind of syllogism" which "is the one called demonstration [burhân]" (Fasl, Ar. and Eng. 2-3). The latter thus is the best mode of reasoning, but not a universal obligation.
47.
Com. Republic 3, Heb. 105; Eng. 148.
48.
See al-Fârâbî, Mabâdi’ 17.4; Maimonides, Guide 1.33.
49.
See SM, Laws Concerning the Study of the Torah 1.11-12.
50.
For a critique of Strauss’s position, see Zeev Harvey, "How Leo Strauss Paralyzed the Scholarship on the Guide of the Perplexed in the 20th Century" [in Hebrew], Iyyun 50 (2001): 387-96; George Tamer, Islamische Philosophie und die Krise der Moderne-Das Verhältnis von Leo Strauss zu Alfarabi, Avicenna und Averroes (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2001); Dimitri Gutas, "The Study of Arabic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 29 (2002): 5-25; Herbert Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2005).
51.
For examples, see Fraenkel "Philosophical Religions."
52.
For examples, see ibid.
53.
See Dominic O’Meara, Platonopolis-Platonic Political Philosophy in Late Antiquity (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003).
