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Extra info for Saadya Gaon: The Double Path of the Mystic and the Rationalist

Example text

That both require the same faculties of the soul. On this passage see also Efros, 150. two paths to knowledge 23 KAI: An Epistemological Dualism In the interests of clarity, I would like to draft a general outline of Saadya’s epistemological systems, based on two pairs of fundamental categories, (1) uniqueness and symmetry, and (2) external and internal. ”18 These two statements highlight the two basic principles of the kalām, those of the unity of God (tawḥīd) and of the divine justice (ʿadl).

7, 24. 81 KAI, 198. 83 The despair of attaining wisdom evidenced in Eccl. 87 As is obvious from the interpretations enumerated above, Saadya would like to find support for the two types of wisdom (one evident, one remote) in the Book of Ecclesiastes. ). After having established this double nature of wisdom, he emphasizes the necessity of striving for the latter type of wisdom as well, even if it does not promise the same concrete results as the first type. In the KAI, philosophy is represented as the sophisticated and subtle thinking procedures of the antique philosophers, whereas in the TSY Saadya identifies it with the activity of the author of the Ṣefer Yeẓirah, who intends to discover the first principle of all beings.

The chapters which are based on ‘symmetry’ are: (III) About divine commandments and prohibitions, (IV) About obedience and disobedience, (V) About good and evil deeds, and (IX) About reward and punishment. Treatise VI (About the soul and the state of death and the hereafter) falls into both groups. Its first part treating the notion of the soul as a ‘unique’ phenomenon belongs to the first group, while the second part dealing with reward and punishment is based on ‘symmetry’. Treatises (I) and (X) fall outside of this scheme altogether as the first chapter is a purely epistemological introduction, whereas the tenth concerns ethics.

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