Intentional obscurity of philosophy: Neo-Platonic and Farabian themes in Maimonides

Maimonides often refers to Plato's works and to the writings of other Ancient Greek authors as obscure and difficult to understand. In most cases, these statements have been interpreted on the basis of Maimonides' choice of an esoteric language to communicate his doctrines. Nevertheless, the theme of the enigmatic language of the Ancients is not a specific Maimonidean contribution; it was a widespread topos in the Arabic and Alexandrian Neoplatonic tradition, where it was a tool the interpreter used in order to emphasize the difficulties of the doctrine of this master. The present work traces the presence of this theme in some of Maimonides' sources and analyses his function and significance. After having examined the assertions of Maimonides concerning the enigmatic language of the philosophers, I will discuss their relation with similar statements in al-Farabi and in the Pseudo-Theology of Aristotle, in turn inspired by the hermeneutical model of the Neoplatonic cursus studiorum in the schools of Alexandria in the 5th and 6th cent. By tracing the context of Maimonides' observations about the obscurity of the Ancients, and relating them to a Neoplatonic tradition, I provide some new elements for assessing Maimonide's own philosophical project.