Jewish philosophy () includes all
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
carried out by Jews, or in relation to the religion of
Judaism. Until modern ''
Haskalah'' (Jewish Enlightenment) and
Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of
Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and world-view. With their acceptance into modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the demands of the world in which they now found themselves.
Medieval re-discovery of
ancient Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire ...
among the
Geonim of 10th century Babylonian academies brought rationalist philosophy into
Biblical
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
-
Talmudic Judaism. The philosophy was generally in competition with
Kabbalah. Both schools would become part of classic
rabbinic literature, though the decline of scholastic
rationalism coincided with historical events which drew Jews to the Kabbalistic approach. For
Ashkenazi Jews, emancipation and encounter with secular thought from the 18th century onwards altered how philosophy was viewed.
Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
and
Sephardi communities had later more ambivalent interaction with secular culture than in Western Europe. In the varied responses to modernity, Jewish philosophical ideas were developed across the range of emerging
religious movements
Various sociological classifications of religious movements have been proposed by scholars. In the sociology of religion, the most widely used classification is the church-sect typology. The typology is differently construed by different sociologi ...
. These developments could be seen as either continuations of or breaks from the canon of
rabbinic philosophy of the Middle Ages, as well as the other historical
dialectic
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
aspects of Jewish thought, and resulted in diverse contemporary Jewish attitudes to philosophical methods.
Ancient Jewish philosophy
Philosophy in the Bible
Rabbinic literature sometimes views Abraham as a
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
. Some have suggested that
Abraham introduced a philosophy learned from
Melchizedek; further, some Jews ascribe the ''
Sefer Yetzirah
''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is the title of a book on Jewish mysticism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed ...
'' "Book of Creation" to Abraham. A
midrash describes how Abraham understood this world to have a creator and director by comparing this world to "a house with a light in it", what is now called the
argument from design.
Psalms contains invitations to admire the wisdom of God through his works; from this, some scholars suggest, Judaism harbors a Philosophical under-current.
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes (; hbo, קֹהֶלֶת, Qōheleṯ, grc, Ἐκκλησιαστής, Ekklēsiastēs) is one of the Ketuvim ("Writings") of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly use ...
is often considered to be the only genuine philosophical work in the
Hebrew Bible;
King Solomon
King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king.
*In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...
, its author, seeks to understand the place of human beings in the world and life's meaning.
Philo of Alexandria
Philo attempted to fuse and harmonize Greek and Jewish philosophy through allegory, which he learned from Jewish exegesis and
Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century Common Era, BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asser ...
. Philo attempted to make his philosophy the means of defending and justifying Jewish religious ''truths''. These ''truths'' he regarded as fixed and determinate, and philosophy was used as an aid to ''truth'', and a means of arriving at it. To this end Philo chose from philosophical tenets of Greeks, refusing those that did not harmonize with Judaism such as Aristotle's doctrine of the ''eternity and indestructibility of the world''.
Dr.
Bernard Revel, in dissertation on Karaite
halakha, points to writings of a 10th-century
Karaite,
Jacob Qirqisani
Jacob Qirqisani (c. 890 – c. 960) ( ar, ابو یوسف یعقوب القرقسانی ''ʾAbū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb al-Qirqisānī'', he, יעקב בן יצחק הקרקסאני ''Yaʿqov ben Yiṣḥaq haṢerqesi'') was a Karaite dogmatist and exe ...
, who quotes Philo, illustrating how Karaites made use of Philo's works in development of Karaite Judaism. Philo's works became important to Medieval Christian scholars who leveraged the work of Karaites to lend credence to their claims that "these are the beliefs of Jews" - a technically correct, yet deceptive, attribution.
Jewish scholarship after destruction of Second Temple
With the Roman destruction of the
Second Temple
The Second Temple (, , ), later known as Herod's Temple, was the reconstructed Temple in Jerusalem between and 70 CE. It replaced Solomon's Temple, which had been built at the same location in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited ...
in 70 CE,
Second Temple Judaism was in disarray, but Jewish traditions were preserved especially thanks to the shrewd maneuvers of
Johanan ben Zakai
:''See Yohanan for more rabbis by this name''.
Yohanan ben Zakkai ( he, יוֹחָנָן בֶּן זַכַּאי, ''Yōḥānān ben Zakkaʾy''; 1st century CE), sometimes abbreviated as Ribaz () for Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, was one of the Tan ...
, who saved the
Sanhedrin and moved it to
Yavne. Philosophical speculation was not a central part of
Rabbinic Judaism, although some have seen the
Mishnah as a philosophical work.
Rabbi Akiva has also been viewed as a philosophical figure.
His statements include:
# ''"How favored is man, for he was created after an image. For in an image, Elohim made man." ''(Gen. ix. 6)
# ''"Everything is foreseen; but freedom ''
f will
F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''.
His ...
' is given to every man."''
# ''"The world is governed by mercy... but the divine decision is made by the preponderance of the good or bad in one's actions."''
After the
Bar Kokhba revolt
The Bar Kokhba revolt ( he, , links=yes, ''Mereḏ Bar Kōḵḇāʾ''), or the 'Jewish Expedition' as the Romans named it ( la, Expeditio Judaica), was a rebellion by the Jews of the Judea (Roman province), Roman province of Judea, led b ...
, rabbinic scholars gathered in
Tiberias and
Safed
Safed (known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as Tzfat; Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardic Hebrew & Modern Hebrew: צְפַת ''Tsfat'', Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation, Ashkenazi Hebrew: ''Tzfas'', Biblical Hebrew: ''Ṣǝp̄aṯ''; ar, صفد, ''Ṣafad''), i ...
to re-assemble and re-assess Judaism, its laws, theology, liturgy, beliefs and leadership structure. In 219 CE, the
Sura Academy
Sura Academy (Hebrew: ישיבת סורא) was a Jewish yeshiva located in Sura, Babylonia. With Pumbedita Academy, it was one of the two major Jewish academies from the year 225 CE at the beginning of the era of the Amora sages until 1033 CE at ...
(from which
Jewish Kalam emerged many centuries later) was founded by
Abba Arika. For the next five centuries, Talmudic academies focused upon reconstituting Judaism and little, if any, philosophic investigation was pursued.
Who influences whom?
Rabbinic Judaism had limited philosophical activity until it was challenged by
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
, Karaite Judaism, and
Christianity—with Tanach, Mishnah, and Talmud, there was no need for a philosophic framework. From an economic viewpoint,
Radhanite
The Radhanites or Radanites (; ar, الرذنية, ''ar-Raðaniyya'') were early medieval Jewish merchants, active in the trade between Christendom and the Muslim world during roughly the 8th to 10th centuries.
Many trade routes previously esta ...
trade dominance was being usurped by coordinated Christian and Islamic forced-conversions, and torture, compelling Jewish scholars to understand nascent economic threats. These investigations triggered new ideas and intellectual exchange among Jewish and Islamic scholars in the areas of jurisprudence, mathematics, astronomy, logic and philosophy. Jewish scholars influenced Islamic scholars and Islamic scholars influenced Jewish scholars. Contemporary scholars continue to debate who was Muslim and who was Jew—some "Islamic scholars" were "Jewish scholars" prior to forced conversion to Islam, some Jewish scholars willingly converted to Islam, such as
Abdullah ibn Salam
Abdullah ibn Salam ( ar, عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ سَلَامٍ, translit=ʿAbdullāh ibn Salām, lit=God's servant, the Son of Peace, links=), born Al-Husayn ibn Salam, was a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and was a Jew ...
, while others later reverted to Judaism, and still others, born and raised as Jews, were ambiguous in their religious beliefs such as
ibn al-Rawandi
Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi ( ar, أبو الحسن أحمد بن يحيى بن إسحاق الراوندي), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi ( ar, ابن الراوندي; 827–911 CEAl-Zandaqa Wal Zanadiqa, by Moham ...
, although they lived according to the customs of their neighbors.
Around 700 CE, ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd Abu ʿUthman al-Basri introduces two streams of thought that influence Jewish, Islamic and Christian scholars:
#
Qadariyah
Qadariyyah ( ar, قدرية, Qadariyya), also Qadarites or Kadarites, from (), meaning "power"); was originally a derogatory term designating early Islamic theologians who rejected the concept of predestination in Islam, ''qadr'', and asserted t ...
#
Bahshamiyya Bahshamiyya ( ar, البهشمية, also known as "Ba Hashimiyya") was a Mu'tazili-influenced school of thought, rivaling the school of Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad, based primarily on the earlier teaching of Abu Hashim al-Jubba'i, the son of Abu 'Ali M ...
Muʿtazila
Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islamic ...
The story of the Bahshamiyya Muʿtazila and Qadariyah is as important, if not more so, as the intellectual symbiosis of Judaism and Islam in Islamic Spain.
Around 733 CE,
Mar
Mar, mar or MAR may refer to:
Culture
* Mar or Mor, an honorific in Syriac
* Earl of Mar, an earldom in Scotland
* MAA (singer) (born 1986), Japanese
* Marathi language, by ISO 639-2 language code
* March, as an abbreviation for the third month ...
Natronai ben Habibai moves to
Kairouan, then to Spain, transcribing the
Talmud ''Bavli'' for the Academy at Kairouan from memory—later taking a copy with him to Spain.
Karaism
Borrowing from the
Mutakallamin of
Basra, the Karaites were the first Jewish group to subject Judaism to ''Muʿtazila''. Rejecting the Talmud and rabbinical tradition, Karaites took liberty to reinterpret the
Tanakh. This meant abandoning foundational Jewish belief structures. Some scholars suggest that the major impetus for the formation of Karaism was a reaction to the rapid rise of Shi'i Islam, which recognized Judaism as a fellow monotheistic faith but claimed that it detracted from monotheism by deferring to rabbinic authority. Karaites absorbed certain aspects of Jewish sects such as the followers of
Abu Isa Abu Isa (also known as ''Ovadiah'', Ishaq ibn Ya'qub al-Isfahani, Isaac ibn Jacob al-Isfahani) was a self-proclaimed Prophet#Judaism, Jewish prophet sometime in the 8th century CE in Persia and the leader of a short-lived revolt. Proclaimed by some ...
(Shi'ism),
Maliki (Sunnis) and Yudghanites (Sufis), who were influenced by East-Islamic scholarship yet deferred to the
Ash'ari when contemplating the sciences.
Philosophic synthesis begins
The spread of Islam throughout the Middle East and North Africa rendered Muslim all that was once Jewish. Greek philosophy, science, medicine and mathematics was absorbed by Jewish scholars living in the Arab world due to Arabic translations of those texts; remnants of the
Library of Alexandria
The Great Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. The Library was part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, th ...
. Early Jewish converts to Islam brought with them stories from their heritage, known as ''
Isra'iliyyat'', which told of the ''Banu Isra'il'', the pious men of ancient Israel. One of the most famous early mystics of
Sufism
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...
,
Hasan of Basra, introduced numerous ''Isra'iliyyat'' legends into Islamic scholarship, stories that went on to become representative of Islamic mystical ideas of piety of Sufism.
Hai Gaon of
Pumbedita Academy begins a new phase in Jewish scholarship and investigation (''hakirah''); Hai Gaon augments Talmudic scholarship with non-Jewish studies. Hai Gaon was a savant with an exact knowledge of the theological movements of his time so much so that
Moses ibn Ezra
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ ("writer of penitential prayers") ( ar, أَبُو هَارُون مُوسَى بِن يَعْقُوب اِبْن عَزْرَا, ''Abu Harun Musa bin Ya'qub ibn 'Azra'', he, מֹשֶׁה ב ...
called him a
mutakallim. Hai was competent to argue with followers of Qadariyyah and Mutazilites, sometimes adopting their polemic methods. Through correspondence with Talmudic Academies at Kairouan, Cordoba and Lucena, Hai Gaon passes along his discoveries to Talmudic scholars therein.
The teachings of the
Brethren of Purity
The Brethren of Purity ( ar, إخوان الصفا, Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā; also The Brethren of Sincerity) were a secret society of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 9th or 10th century CE.
The structure of the organization and the ide ...
were carried to the West by the Cordovan
hadith scholar and
alchemist
Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscience, protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in Chinese alchemy, C ...
Maslama al-Qurṭubī (died 964), where they would be of central importance to the
Jewish philosophers of Islamic Spain. One of the themes emphasized by the Brethren of Purity and adopted by most Spanish Jewish philosophers is the
microcosm-macrocosm analogy. From the 10th century on, Spain became a center of philosophical learning as is reflected by the explosion of philosophical inquiry among Jews, Muslims and Christians.
Jewish philosophy before Maimonides
"Hiwi the Heretic"
According to Sa'adya Gaon, the Jewish community of
Balkh
), named for its green-tiled ''Gonbad'' ( prs, گُنبَد, dome), in July 2001
, pushpin_map=Afghanistan#Bactria#West Asia
, pushpin_relief=yes
, pushpin_label_position=bottom
, pushpin_mapsize=300
, pushpin_map_caption=Location in Afghanistan ...
(Afghanistan) was divided into two groups: "Jews" and "people that are called Jews";
Hiwi al-Balkhi was a member of the latter. Hiwi is generally considered to be the very first "Jewish" philosopher to subject the Pentateuch to critical analysis. Hiwi is viewed by some scholars as an intellectually conflicted man torn between Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Gnostic Christianity, and Manichaean thought.
Hiwi espoused the belief that miraculous acts, described in the Pentateuch, are simply examples of people using their skills of reasoning to undertake, and perform, seemingly miraculous acts. As examples of this position, he argued that the parting of the Red Sea was a natural phenomenon, and that Moses' claim to greatness lay merely in his ability to calculate the right moment for the crossing. He also emphasized that the Egyptian magicians were able to reproduce several of Moses' "miracles," proving that they could not have been so unique. According to scholars, Hiwi's gravest mistake was having the Pentateuch redacted to reflect his own views - then had those redacted texts, which became popular, distributed to children. Since his views contradicted the views of both Rabbanite and Karaite scholars, Hiwi was declared a heretic. In this context, however, we can also regard Hiwi, while flawed, as the very first critical biblical commentator; zealous rationalistic views of Hiwi parallel those of
Ibn al-Rawandi
Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi ( ar, أبو الحسن أحمد بن يحيى بن إسحاق الراوندي), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi ( ar, ابن الراوندي; 827–911 CEAl-Zandaqa Wal Zanadiqa, by Moham ...
.
Saʿadya Gaon dedicated an entire treatise, written in rhyming Hebrew, to a refutation of Ḥīwī's arguments, two fragments of which, preserved in the
Cairo Geniza, have been published (Davidson, 1915; Schirmann, 1965). Ḥīwī's criticisms are also noted in Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Pentateuch. Sa'adya Gaon denounced Hiwi as an extreme rationalist, a "Mulhidun", or atheist/deviator. Abraham Ibn Daud described HIwi as a sectarian who "denied the Torah, yet used it to formulate a new Torah of his liking".
Sa'adya Gaon
Saadia Gaon, son of a
proselyte, is considered the greatest early Jewish philosopher after Solomon. During his early years in
Tulunid Egypt, the
Fatimid Caliphate
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Isma'ilism, Ismaili Shia Islam, Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the ea ...
ruled Egypt; the leaders of the
Tulunids were Ismaili Imams. Their influence upon the Jewish academies of Egypt resonate in the works of Sa'adya. Sa'adya's ''
Emunoth ve-Deoth'' ("Beliefs and Opinions") was originally called ''Kitab al-Amanat wal-l'tikadat'' ("Book of the Articles of Faith and Doctrines of Dogma"); it was the first systematic presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism, completed at Sura Academy in 933 CE.
Little known is that Saadia traveled to
Tiberias in 915CE to study with Abū 'l-Kathīr Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Katib al-Tabari (Tiberias), a Jewish theologian and Bible translator from Tiberias whose main claim to fame is the fact that Saadia Gaon studied with him at some point. He is not mentioned in any Jewish source, and apart from the Andalusian heresiographer and polemicist
Ibn Hazm, who mentions him as a Jewish mutakallim (rational theologian), our main source of information is the ''Kitāb al-Tanbīh'' by the Muslim historian
al-Masʿūdī
Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Historiography of early Islam, Arab historian, geographer and Explorer, traveler. He is ...
(d. 956). In his brief survey of Arabic translations of the Bible, al-Masʿūdī states that the Israelites rely for exegesis and translation of the Hebrew books—i.e., the Torah, Prophets, and Psalms, twenty-four books in all, he says—on a number of Israelites whom they praise highly, almost all of whom he has met in person. He mentions Abū ʾl-Kathīr as one of them, and also Saadia ("Saʿīd ibn Yaʿqūb al-Fayyūmī"). Regardless of what we do not know, Saadia traveled to Tiberias (home of the learned scribes and exegetes) to learn and he chose Abū 'l-Kathīr Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Katib al-Tabariya. The extent of Abū ʾl-Kathīr's influence on Saadia's thought cannot be established, however.
Abū ʾl-Kathīr's profession is also unclear. al-Masʿūdī calls him a ''kātib'', which has been variously interpreted as secretary, government official, (biblical) scribe, Masorete, and book copyist. For lack of further information, some scholars have tried to identify Abū ʾl-Kathīr with the Hebrew grammarian Abū ʿAlī Judah ben ʿAllān, likewise of Tiberias, who seems to have been a Karaite Jew. However, al-Masūdī unequivocally describes Abu ʾl-Kathīr (as well as his student Saadia) as an ashmaʿthī (Rabbanite).
In "Book of the Articles of Faith and Doctrines of Dogma" Saadia declares the rationality of the Jewish religion with the caveat that reason must capitulate wherever it contradicts tradition. Dogma takes precedence over reason. Saadia closely followed the rules of the
Muʿtazila
Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islamic ...
school of Abu Ali al-Jubba'i in composing his works. It was Saadia who laid foundations for Jewish rationalist theology which built upon the work of the Muʿtazila, thereby shifting Rabbinic Judaism from mythical explanations of the rabbis to reasoned explanations of the intellect. Saadia advanced the criticisms of Muʿtazila by
Ibn al-Rawandi
Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi ( ar, أبو الحسن أحمد بن يحيى بن إسحاق الراوندي), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi ( ar, ابن الراوندي; 827–911 CEAl-Zandaqa Wal Zanadiqa, by Moham ...
.
David ibn Merwan al-Mukkamas
David ibn Merwan al-Mukkamas
David (abu Sulaiman) ibn Merwan al-Mukkamas al-Rakki ( ar, داود إبن مروان المقمص translit.: ''Dawud ibn Marwan al-Muqamis''; died c. 937) was a philosopher and controversialist, the author of the earliest known Jewish philosophi ...
was author of the earliest known Jewish philosophical work of the
Middle Ages, a commentary on the ''
Sefer Yetzirah
''Sefer Yetzirah'' ( ''Sēp̄er Yəṣīrā'', ''Book of Formation'', or ''Book of Creation'') is the title of a book on Jewish mysticism, although some early commentators treated it as a treatise on mathematical and linguistic theory as opposed ...
''; he is regarded as the father of Jewish medieval philosophy. Sl-Mukkamas was first to introduce the ''methods'' of
Kalam into Judaism and the first Jew to mention Aristotle in his writings. He was a
proselyte of Rabbinic Judaism (not
Karaite Judaism, as some argue); al-Mukkamas was a student of physician, and renowned Christian philosopher, Hana. His close interaction with Hana, and his familial affiliation with Islam gave al-Mukkamas a unique view of religious belief and theology.
In 1898
Abraham Harkavy
Abraham (Albert) Harkavy (, russian: Авраа́м Я́ковлевич Гарка́ви, translit=Avraám Yákovlevich Garkávi; 17 October 1835 – 15 March 1919) was a Russian historian and orientalist.
Biography
Harkavy was born in 1835 ...
discovered, in Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, fifteen of the twenty chapters of David's philosophical work entitled ''Ishrun Maḳalat'' (Twenty Chapters) of which 15 survive. One of the oldest surviving witnesses to early Kalām, it begins with epistemological investigations, turns to proofs of the creation of the world and the subsequent existence of a Creator, discusses the unity of the Creator (including the divine attributes), and concludes with theodicy (humanity and revelation) and a refutation of other religions (mostly lost).
In 915 CE, Sa'adya Gaon left for Palestine, where, according to al-Masʿūdī (Tanbīh, 113), he perfected his education at the feet of Abū 'l-Kathīr Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyyāʾ al-Katib al-Tabari (d. 320/932). The latter is also mentioned by Ibn Ḥazm in his K. al-Fiṣlal wa 'l-niḥal, iii, 171, as being, together with Dāwūd ibn Marwān al-Muqammiṣ and Sa'adya himself, one of the mutakallimūn of the Jews.
Since al-Muqammiṣ made few references to specifically Jewish issues and very little of his work was translated from Arabic into Hebrew, he was largely forgotten by Jewish tradition. Nonetheless, he had a significant impact on subsequent Jewish philosophical followers of the Kalām, such as Saʿadya Gaon.
Samuel ibn Naghrillah
Samuel ibn Naghrillah
Samuel ibn Naghrillah (, ''Sh'muel HaLevi ben Yosef HaNagid''; ''ʾAbū ʾIsḥāq ʾIsmāʿīl bin an-Naghrīlah''), also known as Samuel HaNagid (, ''Shmuel HaNagid'', lit. ''Samuel the Prince'') and Isma’il ibn Naghrilla (born 993; died 1056 ...
, born in
Mérida, Spain
Mérida () is a city and municipality of Spain, part of the Province of Badajoz, and capital of the autonomous community of Extremadura. Located in the western-central part of the Iberian Peninsula at 217 metres above sea level, the city is crosse ...
, lived in
Córdoba and was a child prodigy and student of Hanoch ben Moshe. Samuel ibn Naghrillah,
Hasdai ibn Shaprut, and Moshe ben Hanoch founded the Lucena Yeshiva that produced such brilliant scholars as
Isaac ibn Ghiyyat
Isaac ben Judah ibn Ghiyyat (or Ghayyat) ( he, יצחק בן יהודה אבן גיאת, ar, ﺇﺑﻦ ﻏﻴﺎث ''ibn Ghayyath'') (1030/1038–1089) was a Spanish rabbi, Biblical commentator, codifier of Jewish law, philosopher, and liturgical ...
and Maimon ben Yosef, the father of
Maimonides. Ibn Naghrillah's son, Yosef, provided refuge for two sons of
Hezekiah Gaon; Daud Ibn Chizkiya Gaon Ha-Nasi and Yitzhak Ibn Chizkiya Gaon Ha-Nasi. Though not a philosopher, he did build the infrastructure to allow philosophers to thrive. In 1070 the gaon Isaac ben Moses ibn Sakri of Denia, Spain traveled to the East and acted as ''rosh yeshivah'' of the Baghdad Academy.
Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol
Solomon ibn Gabirol or Solomon ben Judah ( he, ר׳ שְׁלֹמֹה בֶּן יְהוּדָה אִבְּן גָּבִּירוֹל, Shlomo Ben Yehuda ibn Gabirol, ; ar, أبو أيوب سليمان بن يحيى بن جبيرول, ’Abū ’Ayy ...
was born in
Málaga
Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia after Seville and the sixth most pop ...
then moved to
Valencia. Ibn Gabirol was one of the first teachers of
Neoplatonism in Europe. His role has been compared to that of Philo. Ibn Gabirol occidentalized Greco-Arabic philosophy and restored it to Europe. The philosophical teachings of Philo and ibn Gabirol were largely ignored by fellow Jews; the parallel may be extended by adding that Philo and ibn Gabirol both exercised considerable influence in secular circles; Philo upon early Christianity and Ibn Gabirol upon the scholars of medieval Christianity. Christian scholars, including
Albertus Magnus and
Thomas Aquinas, defer to him frequently.
Abraham bar-Hiyya Ha-Nasi
Abraham bar Hiyya, of
Barcelona and later
Arles-
Provence, was a student of his father
Hiyya al-Daudi and one of the most important figures in the scientific movement which made the Jews of Provence, Spain and Italy the intermediaries between
Averroism
Averroism refers to a school of medieval philosophy based on the application of the works of 12th-century Al-Andalus, Andalusian Islamic philosophy, philosopher Averroes, (known in his time in Arabic as ابن رشد, ibn Rushd, 1126–1198) a co ...
, Muʿtazila and Christian Europe. He aided this scientific movement by original works, translations and as interpreter for another translator,
Plato Tiburtinus. Bar-Hiyya's best student was
v. His philosophical works are "Meditation of the Soul", an ethical work written from a rationalistic religious viewpoint, and an apologetic epistle addressed to
Judah ben Barzillai.
Hibat Allah
Originally known by his Hebrew name Nethanel Baruch ben Melech al-Balad,
Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī, known as ''Hibat Allah'', was a Jewish philosopher and physicist and father-in-law of Maimonides who converted to Islam in his twilight years - once head of the Baghdad Yeshiva and considered the leading philosopher of Iraq.
Historians differ over the motive for his conversion to Islam. Some suggest it was a reaction to a social slight inflicted upon him because he was a Jew, while others suggest he was forcibly converted at the edge of a sword (which prompted Maimonides to comment upon
Anusim). Despite his conversion to Islam, his works continued to be studied at the Jewish Baghdad Academy, a well-known academy, into the thirteenth century. He was a follower of Avicenna's teaching, who proposed an explanation of the acceleration of falling bodies by the accumulation of successive increments of power with successive increments of velocity.
His writings include ''Kitāb al-Muʿtabar'' ("The Book of What Has Been Established by Personal Reflection"); a philosophical commentary on the Kohelet, written in Arabic using Hebrew aleph bet; and the treatise "On the Reason Why the Stars Are Visible at Night and Hidden in Daytime." According to Hibat Allah, ''Kitāb al-Muʿtabar'' consists in the main of critical remarks jotted down by him over the years while reading philosophical text, and published at the insistence of his friends, in the form of a philosophical work.
Nethan'el al-Fayyumi
Natan'el al-Fayyumi of Yemen, was the twelfth-century author of ''Bustan al-Uqul'' ("Garden of Intellects"), a Jewish version of
Ismaili
Isma'ilism ( ar, الإسماعيلية, al-ʾIsmāʿīlīyah) is a branch or sub-sect of Shia Islam. The Isma'ili () get their name from their acceptance of Imam Isma'il ibn Jafar as the appointed spiritual successor (imām) to Ja'far al-Sa ...
Shi'i doctrines. Like the Ismailis, Natan'el al-Fayyumi argued that God sent different prophets to various nations of the world, containing legislations suited to the particular temperament of each individual nation. Ismaili doctrine holds that a single universal religious truth lies at the root of the different religions. Some Jews accepted this model of religious pluralism, leading them to view
Muhammad as a legitimate prophet, though not Jewish, sent to preach to the
Arabs, just as the Hebrew prophets had been sent to deliver their messages to Israel; others refused this notion in entirety.
Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda
Bahye ben Yosef Ibn Paquda, of Zaragoza, was author of the first Jewish system of ethics ''Al Hidayah ila Faraid al-hulub'', ("Guide to the Duties of the Heart"). Bahya often followed the method of the Arabian encyclopedists known as "the
Brethren of Purity
The Brethren of Purity ( ar, إخوان الصفا, Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā; also The Brethren of Sincerity) were a secret society of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 9th or 10th century CE.
The structure of the organization and the ide ...
" but adopts some of Sufi tenets rather than Ismaili. According to Bahya, the Torah appeals to reason and knowledge as proofs of God's existence. It is therefore a duty incumbent upon every one to make God an object of speculative reason and knowledge, in order to arrive at true faith. Baḥya borrows from
Sufism
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...
and
Jewish Kalam integrating them into Neoplatonism. Proof that Bahya borrowed from Sufism is underscored by the fact that the title of his eighth gate, ''Muḥasabat al-Nafs'' ("Self-Examination"), is reminiscent of the Sufi ''Abu Abd Allah Ḥarith Ibn-Asad'', who has been surnamed ''El Muḥasib'' ("the self-examiner"), because—say his biographers—"he was always immersed in introspection"
Yehuda Ha-Levi and the Kuzari
Judah Halevi of
Toledo, Spain defended Rabbinic Judaism against Islam, Christianity and Karaite Judaism. He was a student of
Moses ibn Ezra
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ ("writer of penitential prayers") ( ar, أَبُو هَارُون مُوسَى بِن يَعْقُوب اِبْن عَزْرَا, ''Abu Harun Musa bin Ya'qub ibn 'Azra'', he, מֹשֶׁה ב ...
whose education came from
Isaac ibn Ghiyyat
Isaac ben Judah ibn Ghiyyat (or Ghayyat) ( he, יצחק בן יהודה אבן גיאת, ar, ﺇﺑﻦ ﻏﻴﺎث ''ibn Ghayyath'') (1030/1038–1089) was a Spanish rabbi, Biblical commentator, codifier of Jewish law, philosopher, and liturgical ...
; trained as a Rationalist, he shed it in favor of Neoplatonism. Like
al-Ghazali, Judah Halevi attempted to liberate religion from the bondage of philosophical systems. In particular, in a work written in
Arabic ''Kitab al-Ḥujjah wal-Dalil fi Nuṣr al-Din al-Dhalil'', translated by
Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon
Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon (1120 – after 1190) was a translator and physician.
Born in Granada, he left Spain in 1150, probably on account of persecution by the Almohades, and went to Lunel in southern France. Benjamin of Tudela mentions him as ...
, by the title ''
Kuzari'' he elaborates upon his views of Judaism relative to other religions of the time.
Abraham ibn Daud
Abraham ibn Daud was a student of Rabbi Baruch ben Yitzhak Ibn Albalia, his maternal uncle. Ibn Daud's philosophical work written in Arabic, ''Al-'akidah al-Rafiyah'' ("The Sublime Faith"), has been preserved in Hebrew by the title ''Emunah Ramah''. Ibn Daud did not introduce a new philosophy, but he was the first to introduce a more thorough systematic form derived from
Aristotle. Accordingly,
Hasdai Crescas mentions Ibn Daud as the only Jewish philosopher among the predecessors of Maimonides. Overshadowed by Maimonides, ibn Daud's ''Emunah Ramah'', a work to which Maimonides was indebted, received little notice from later philosophers. "True philosophy", according to Ibn Daud, "does not entice us from religion; it tends rather to strengthen and solidify it. Moreover, it is the duty of every thinking Jew to become acquainted with the harmony existing between the fundamental doctrines of Judaism and those of philosophy, and, wherever they seem to contradict one another, to seek a mode of reconciling them".
Other notable Jewish philosophers pre-Maimonides
*
Abraham ibn Ezra
*
Isaac ibn Ghiyyat
Isaac ben Judah ibn Ghiyyat (or Ghayyat) ( he, יצחק בן יהודה אבן גיאת, ar, ﺇﺑﻦ ﻏﻴﺎث ''ibn Ghayyath'') (1030/1038–1089) was a Spanish rabbi, Biblical commentator, codifier of Jewish law, philosopher, and liturgical ...
*
Moses ibn Ezra
Rabbi Moses ben Jacob ibn Ezra, known as Ha-Sallaḥ ("writer of penitential prayers") ( ar, أَبُو هَارُون مُوسَى بِن يَعْقُوب اِبْن عَزْرَا, ''Abu Harun Musa bin Ya'qub ibn 'Azra'', he, מֹשֶׁה ב ...
*
Yehuda Alharizi
Yehuda Alharizi, also Judah ben Solomon Harizi or al-Harizi ( he, יהודה בן שלמה אלחריזי, ''Yehudah ben Shelomo al-Harizi'', ar, يحيا بن سليمان بن شاؤل أبو زكريا الحريزي اليهودي من أه ...
*
Joseph ibn Tzaddik
*
Samuel ibn Tibbon
Maimonides
Maimonides wrote ''
The Guide for the Perplexed'' — his most influential philosophic work. He was a student of his father, Rabbi Maimon ben Yosef (a student of
Joseph ibn Migash) in Cordoba, Spain. When his family fled Spain, for Fez, Maimonides enrolled in the Academy of Fez and studied under Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Kohen Ibn Soussan — a student of
Isaac Alfasi. Maimonides strove to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy and science with the teachings of Torah. In some ways his position was parallel to that of
Averroes; in reaction to the attacks on Avicennian Aristotelism, Maimonides embraced and defended a stricter Aristotelism without Neoplatonic additions. The principles which inspired all of Maimonides' philosophical activity was identical those of
Abraham Ibn Daud: there can be no contradiction between the truths which God has revealed and the findings of the human intellect in science and philosophy. Maimonides departed from the teachings of Aristotle by suggesting that the world is not eternal, as Aristotle taught, but was created ''
ex nihilo''. In "Guide for the Perplexed" (1:17 & 2:11)" Maimonides explains that Israel lost its
Mesorah in exile, and with it "we lost our science and philosophy — only to be rejuvenated in Al Andalus within the context of interaction and intellectual investigation of Jewish, Christian and Muslim texts.
Medieval Jewish philosophy after Maimonides
Maimonides writings almost immediately came under attack from Karaites, Dominican Christians,
Tosafists of Provence,
Ashkenaz and
Al Andalus
Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the M ...
. Scholars suggest that Maimonides instigated the
Maimonidean Controversy when he verbally attacked
Samuel ben Ali
Samuel ben Ali (also Samuel ben Ali ibn al-Dastur; died 1194) was the most noteworthy of the twelfth-century Babylonian scholars and the only one of his era whose written works have survived in any significant number.
Biography
Samuel served a ...
("Gaon of Baghdad") as "one whom people accustom from his youth to believe that there is none like him in his generation," and he sharply attacked the "monetary demands" of the academies. Samuel ben Ali was an anti-Maimonidean operating in Babylon to undermine the works of Maimonides and those of Maimonides' patrons (the
Al-Constantini family from North Africa). To illustrate the reach of the Maimonidean Controversy, Samuel ben Ali, the chief opponent of Maimonides in the East, was excommunicated by Daud Ibn Hodaya al Daudi (Exilarch of Mosul). Maimonides' attacks on Samuel ben Ali may not have been entirely altruistic given the position of Maimonides' in-laws in competing Yeshivas.
In Western Europe, the controversy was halted by the burning of Maimonides' works by Christian Dominicans in 1232.
Avraham son of Rambam, continued fighting for his father's beliefs in the East; desecration of Maimonides' tomb, at
Tiberias by Jews, was a profound shock to Jews throughout the Diaspora and caused all to pause and reflect upon what was being done to the fabric of Jewish culture. This compelled many anti-Maimonideans to recant their assertions and realize what cooperation with Christians meant to them, their texts and their communities.
Maimonidean controversy flared up again at the beginning of the fourteenth century when Rabbi
Shlomo ben Aderet, under influence from
Asher ben Jehiel
Asher ben Jehiel ( he, אשר בן יחיאל, or Asher ben Yechiel, sometimes Asheri) (1250 or 1259 – 1327) was an eminent rabbi and Talmudist best known for his abstract of Talmudic law. He is often referred to as Rabbenu Asher, “our Rabb ...
, issued a
cherem on "any member of the community who, being under twenty-five years, shall study the works of the Greeks on natural science and metaphysics."
Contemporary Kabbalists, Tosafists and Rationalists continue to engage in lively, sometimes caustic, debate in support of their positions and influence in the Jewish world. At the center of many of these debates are "Guide for the Perplexed", "13 Principles of Faith", "Mishnah Torah", and his commentary on
Anusim.
Yosef ben Yehuda of Ceuta
Joseph ben Judah of Ceuta was the son of Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Kohen Ibn Soussan and a student of Maimonides for whom the ''Guide for the Perplexed'' is written. Yosef traveled from
Alexandria to
Fustat to study logic, mathematics, and astronomy under Maimonides. Philosophically, Yosef's dissertation, in Arabic, on the problem of "Creation" is suspected to have been written before contact with Maimonides. It is entitled ''Ma'amar bimehuyav ha-metsiut ve'eykhut sidur ha-devarim mimenu vehidush ha'olam'' ("A Treatise as to (1) Necessary Existence (2) The Procedure of Things from the Necessary Existence and (3) The Creation of the World").
Jacob Anatoli
Jacob Anatoli
Jacob ben Abba Mari ben Simson Anatoli (c. 1194 – 1256) was a translator of Arabic texts to Hebrew. He was invited to Naples by Frederick II. Under this royal patronage, and in association with Michael Scot, Anatoli made Arabic learning acce ...
is generally regarded as a pioneer in the application of the Maimonidean Rationalism to the study of Jewish texts. He was the son-in-law of
Samuel ibn Tibbon, translator of Maimonides. Due to these family ties Anatoli was introduced to the philosophy of Maimonides, the study of which was such a great revelation to him that he, in later days, referred to it as the beginning of his intelligent and true comprehension of the Scriptures, while he frequently alluded to Ibn Tibbon as one of the two masters who had instructed and inspired him. Anatoli wrote the ''Malmad'' exhibiting his broad knowledge of classic Jewish exegetes, as well as Plato, Aristotle, Averroes, and the Vulgate, as well as with a large number of Christian institutions, some of which he ventures to criticize, such as celibacy and monastic castigation, as well as certain heretics and he repeatedly appeals to his readers for a broader cultivation of the classic languages and the non-Jewish branches of learning. To Anatoli all men are, in truth, formed in the image of God, although the Jews stand under a particular obligation to further the true cognition of God simply by reason of their election, "the Greeks had chosen wisdom as their pursuit; the Romans, power; and the Jews, religiousness"
Hillel ben Samuel
Firstly,
Hillel ben Samuel's importance in the history of medieval Jewish philosophy lies in his attempt to deal, systematically, with the question of the immortality of the soul. Secondly, Hillel played a major role in the controversies of 1289–90 concerning the philosophical works of Maimonides. Thirdly, Hillel was the first devotee of Jewish learning and Philosophy in Italy, bringing a close to a period of relative ignorance of Hakira in Verona (Italy). And finally, Hillel is one of the early Latin translators of "the wise men of the nations" (non-Jewish scholars).
Defending Maimonides, Hillel addressed a letter to his friend Maestro Gaio asking him to use his influence with the Jews of Rome against Maimonides' opponents (Solomon Petit). He also advanced the bold idea of gathering together Maimonides' defenders and opponents in Alexandria, in order to bring the controversy before a court of Babylonian rabbis, whose decision would be binding on both factions. Hillel was certain the verdict would favor Maimonides.
Hillel wrote a commentary on the 25 propositions appearing at the beginning of the second part of the Guide of the Perplexed, and three philosophical treatises, which were appended to Tagmulei ha-Nefesh: the first on knowledge and free will; the second on the question of why mortality resulted from the sin of Adam; the third on whether or not the belief in the fallen angels is a true belief.
Shemtob Ben Joseph Ibn Falaquera
Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera was a Spanish-born philosopher who pursued reconciliation between Jewish dogma and philosophy. Scholars speculate he was a student of Rabbi
David Kimhi whose family fled Spain to Narbonne. Ibn Falaquera lived an ascetic live of solitude. Ibn Falaquera's two leading philosophic authorities were Averroes and Maimonides. Ibn Falaquera defended the ''"Guide for the Perplexed"'' against attacks of anti-Maimonideans. He knew the works of the Islamic philosophers better than any Jewish scholar of his time, and made many of them available to other Jewish scholars – often without attribution (''Reshit Hokhmah''). Ibn Falaquera did not hesitate to modify Islamic philosophic texts when it suited his purposes. For example, Ibn Falaquera turned Alfarabi's account of the origin of philosophic religion into a discussion of the origin of the "virtuous city". Ibn Falaquera's other works include, but are not limited to Iggeret Hanhagat ha-Guf we ha-Nefesh, a treatise in verse on the control of the body and the soul.
* ''Iggeret ha-Wikkuaḥ'', a dialogue between a religious Jew and a Jewish philosopher on the harmony of philosophy and religion.
* ''Reshit Ḥokmah'', treating of moral duties, of the sciences, and of the necessity of studying philosophy.
* ''Sefer ha-Ma'alot'', on different degrees of human perfection.
* ''Moreh ha-Moreh'', commentary on the philosophical part of Maimonides' "Guide for the Perplexed".
Joseph ben Abba Mari ibn Kaspi
Ibn Kaspi was a fierce advocate of Maimonides to such an extent that he left for Egypt in 1314 in order to hear explanations on the latter's Guide of the Perplexed from Maimonides' grandchildren. When he heard that the Guide of the Perplexed was being studied in the Muslim philosophical schools of Fez, he left for that town (in 1332) in order to observe their method of study.
Ibn Kaspi began writing when he was 17 years old on topics which included logic, linguistics, ethics, theology, biblical exegesis, and super-commentaries to Abraham Ibn Ezra and Maimonides. Philosophic systems he followed were Aristotle's and Averroes'. He defines his aim as "not to be a fool who believes in everything, but only in that which can be verified by proof...and not to be of the second unthinking category which disbelieves from the start of its inquiry," since "certain things must be accepted by tradition, because they cannot be proven." Scholars continue to debate whether ibn Kaspi was a heretic or one of Judaisms most illustrious scholars.
Gersonides
Rabbi
Levi ben Gershon
Levi ben Gershon (1288 – 20 April 1344), better known by his Graecized name as Gersonides, or by his Latinized name Magister Leo Hebraeus, or in Hebrew by the abbreviation of first letters as ''RaLBaG'', was a medieval French Jewish philosoph ...
was a student of his father
Gerson ben Solomon of Arles Gerson ben Solomon Catalan, also known as Gerson ben Solomon of Arles, was a French author who lived at Arles, France in the middle of the thirteenth century. He died, possibly at Perpignan, toward the end of the thirteenth century. According to Abr ...
, who in turn was a student of
Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera. Gersonides is best known for his work ''Milhamot HaShem'' ("Wars of the Lord"). ''Milhamot HaShem'' is modelled after the "
Guide for the Perplexed". Gersonides and his father were avid students of the works of
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotle,
Empedocles,
Galen,
Hippocrates,
Homer, Plato,
Ptolemy,
Pythagoras,
Themistius,
Theophrastus,
Ali ibn Abbas al-Magusi,
Ali ibn Ridwan
Abu'l Hassan Ali ibn Ridwan Al-Misri () (c. 988 - c. 1061) was an Arab of Egyptian origin who was a physician, astrologer and astronomer, born in Giza.
He was a commentator on ancient Greek medicine, and in particular on Galen; his commentary on ...
, Averroes,
Avicenna
Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic G ...
,
Qusta ibn Luqa
Qusta ibn Luqa (820–912) (Costa ben Luca, Constabulus) was a Syrian Melkite Christian physician, philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and translator. He was born in Baalbek. Travelling to parts of the Byzantine Empire, he brought back Greek te ...
,
Al-Farabi, Al-Fergani, Chonain, Isaac Israeli,
Ibn Tufail,
Ibn Zuhr, Isaac Alfasi, and Maimonides. Gersonides held that God does not have complete foreknowledge of human acts. "Gersonides, bothered by the old question of how God's foreknowledge is compatible with
human freedom
Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving one ...
, suggests that what God knows beforehand is all the choices open to each individual. God does not know, however, which choice the individual, in his freedom, will make."
Moses Narboni
Moses ben Joshua
Moses Narbonne, also known as Moses of Narbonne, mestre Vidal Bellshom, maestro Vidal Blasom, and Moses Narboni, was a medieval Catalan philosopher and physician. He was born at Perpignan, in the Kingdom of Majorca, at the end of the thirteenth ...
composed commentaries on Islamic philosophical works. As an admirer of Averroes, he devoted a great deal of study to his works and wrote commentaries on a number of them. His best-known work is his ''Shelemut ha-Nefesh'' ("Treatise on the Perfection of the Soul"). Moses began studying philosophy with his father when he was thirteen later studying with Moses ben David Caslari and
Abraham ben David Caslari Abraham ben David Caslari was a Catalan-Jewish physician. He lived at Besalú, Catalonia, in the first half of the fourteenth century. Caslari was considered one of the most skillful physicians of his time. He was the teacher of Moses Narboni of Pe ...
- both of whom were students of
Kalonymus ben Kalonymus Kalonymus ben Kalonymus ben Meir (Hebrew language, Hebrew: קלונימוס בן קלונימוס), also romanized as Qalonymos ben Qalonymos or Calonym ben Calonym, also known as Maestro Calo (Arles, 1286 – died after 1328) was a Jewish philo ...
. Moses believed that Judaism was a guide to the highest degree of theoretical and moral truth. He believed that the Torah had both a simple, direct meaning accessible to the average reader as well as a deeper, metaphysical meaning accessible to thinkers. Moses rejected the belief in miracles, instead believing they could be explained, and defended man's free will by philosophical arguments.
Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet
Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet, of Barcelona, studied under
Hasdai Crescas and Rabbi
Nissim ben Reuben
Nissim ben Reuven (1320 – 9th of Shevat, 1376, he, נִסִּים בֶּן רְאוּבֵן) of Girona, Catalonia was an influential talmudist and authority on Jewish law. He was one of the last of the great Spanish medieval Talmudic scholars ...
Gerondi.
Nissim ben Reuben
Nissim ben Reuven (1320 – 9th of Shevat, 1376, he, נִסִּים בֶּן רְאוּבֵן) of Girona, Catalonia was an influential talmudist and authority on Jewish law. He was one of the last of the great Spanish medieval Talmudic scholars ...
Gerondi was a steadfast Rationalist who did not hesitate to refute leading authorities, such as
Rashi,
Rabbeinu Tam,
Moses ben Nahman
Moses ben Nachman ( he, מֹשֶׁה בֶּן־נָחְמָן ''Mōše ben-Nāḥmān'', "Moses son of Nachman"; 1194–1270), commonly known as Nachmanides (; el, Ναχμανίδης ''Nakhmanídēs''), and also referred to by the acronym Ra ...
, and
Solomon ben Adret
Shlomo ben Avraham ibn Aderet ( he, שלמה בן אברהם אבן אדרת or Solomon son of Abraham son of Aderet) (1235 – 1310) was a medieval rabbi, halakhist, and Talmudist. He is widely known as the Rashba (Hebrew: ), the Hebrew acronym ...
. The pogroms of 1391, against Jews of Spain, forced Isaac to flee to Algiers - where he lived out his life. Isaac's responsa evidence a profound knowledge of the philosophical writings of his time; in one of Responsa No. 118 he explains the difference between the opinion of ''Gersonides'' and that of ''Abraham ben David of Posquières'' on free will, and gives his own views on the subject. He was an adversary of Kabbalah who never spoke of the Sefirot; he quotes another philosopher when reproaching kabbalists with "''believing in the "Ten" (Sefirot) as the Christians believe in the Trinity''".
Hasdai ben Abraham Crescas
Hasdai Crescas, of Barcelona, was a leading rationalist on issues of natural law and free-will. His views can be seen as precursors to
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, b ...
's. His work, ''
Or Adonai
Or Adonai (Hebrew: אור אֲדֹנָי), The Light of the Lord, is the primary work of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas (c. 1340 - 1410/1411), a Jewish philosopher. As some Jews prefer to not use even the respectful title ''Adonai'' (Lord) other than in pray ...
'', became a classic refutation of medieval
Aristotelianism, and harbinger of the scientific revolution in the 16th century. Hasdai Crescas was a student of
Nissim ben Reuben
Nissim ben Reuven (1320 – 9th of Shevat, 1376, he, נִסִּים בֶּן רְאוּבֵן) of Girona, Catalonia was an influential talmudist and authority on Jewish law. He was one of the last of the great Spanish medieval Talmudic scholars ...
Gerondi, who in turn was a student of Reuben ben Nissim Gerondi. Crescas was a rabbi and the head of the Jewish community of Aragon, and in some ways of all Hispanic Jewry, during one of its most critical periods. Among his fellow students and friends, his best friend was
Isaac ben Sheshet Perfet. Crescas' students won accolades as participants in the
Disputation of Tortosa.
Simeon ben Zemah Duran
Influenced by the teaching of Rabbi
Nissim of Gerona, via Ephraim Vidal's Yeshiva in Majorca, Duran's commentary ''Magen Avot'' ("The Shield of the Fathers"), which influenced
Joseph Albo, is important. He was also a student of philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, and especially of medicine, which he practiced for a number of years at Palma, in Majorca. ''Magen Avot'' deals with concepts such as the nature of God, the eternity of the Torah, the coming of the Messiah, and the Resurrection of the dead. Duran believed that Judaism has three dogmas only: the existence of God, the Torah's Divine origin, and Reward and Punishment; in this regard he was followed by Joseph Albo.
Joseph Albo
Joseph Albo, of Monreal, was a student of
Hasdai Crescas. He wrote ''Sefer ha-Ikkarim'' ("Book of Principles"), a classic work on the fundamentals of Judaism. Albo narrows the fundamental Jewish principles of faith from thirteen to three -
::::::* belief in the existence of God,
::::::* belief in revelation, and
::::::* belief in divine justice, as related to the idea of immortality.
Albo rejects the assumption that
creation ex nihilo
(Latin for "creation out of nothing") is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe comes to exist. It is in contrast to ''Ex nihilo ni ...
is essential in belief in God. Albo freely criticizes Maimonides' thirteen principles of belief and Crescas' six principles. According to Albo, "belief in the Messiah is only a 'twig' unnecessary to the soundness of the trunk"; not essential to Judaism. Nor is it true, according to Albo, that every law is binding. Although every ordinance has the power of conferring happiness in its observance, it is not true that every law must be observed, or that through the neglect of a part of the law, a Jew would violate the divine covenant or be damned. Contemporary Orthodox Jews, however, vehemently disagree with Albo's position believing that all Jews are divinely obligated to fulfill every applicable commandment.
Hoter ben Solomon
Hoter ben Shlomo
Hoter ben Shlomo (''Hoteb/Hatab ben Shlomo'', ''Manṣūr ibn Sulaymān al-Dhamārī'', ''Manṣūr ibn Sulaymān al-Ghamari'', c.1400–c.1480) was a scholar and philosopher from Yemen who was heavily influenced by the earlier works of Natan' ...
was a scholar and philosopher in Yemen heavily influenced by Nethanel ben al-Fayyumi, Maimonides, Saadia Gaon and al-Ghazali. The connection between the "Epistle of the
Brethren of Purity
The Brethren of Purity ( ar, إخوان الصفا, Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā; also The Brethren of Sincerity) were a secret society of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 9th or 10th century CE.
The structure of the organization and the ide ...
" and Ismailism suggests the adoption of this work as one of the main sources of what would become known as "Jewish Ismailism" as found in Late Medieval Yemenite Judaism. "Jewish Ismailism" consisted of adapting, to Judaism, a few Ismaili doctrines about cosmology, prophecy, and hermeneutics. There are many examples of the
Brethren of Purity
The Brethren of Purity ( ar, إخوان الصفا, Ikhwān Al-Ṣafā; also The Brethren of Sincerity) were a secret society of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 9th or 10th century CE.
The structure of the organization and the ide ...
influencing
Yemenite Jewish philosophers and authors in the period 1150–1550. Some traces of Brethren of Purity doctrines, as well as of their
numerology
Numerology (also known as arithmancy) is the belief in an occult, divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value, via an alphanumeric system, of the letters in ...
, are found in two Yemenite philosophical
midrashim
''Midrash'' (;["midrash"]
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. he, מִדְרָשׁ; ...
written in 1420–1430: ''Midrash ha-hefez'' ("The Glad Learning") by Zerahyah ha-Rofé (a/k/a Yahya al-Tabib) and the ''Siraj al-'uqul'' ("Lamp of Intellects") by Hoter ben Solomon.
Don Isaac Abravanel
Isaac Abravanel, statesman, philosopher, Bible commentator, and financier who commented on Maimonides' thirteen principles in his ''Rosh Amanah''.
Isaac Abravanel was steeped in Rationalism by the Ibn Yahya family, who had a residence immediately adjacent to the ''Great Synagogue of Lisbon'' (also built by the Ibn Yahya Family). His most important work, ''Rosh Amanah'' ("The Pinnacle of Faith"), defends Maimonides' thirteen articles of belief against attacks of Hasdai Crescas and Yosef Albo. ''Rosh Amanah'' ends with the statement that "Maimonides compiled these articles merely in accordance with the fashion of other nations, which set up axioms or fundamental principles for their science".
Isaac Abravanel was born and raised in Lisbon; a student of the Rabbi of Lisbon, ''Yosef ben Shlomo Ibn Yahya''. Rabbi Yosef was a poet, religious scholar, rebuilder of ''Ibn Yahya Synagogue of Calatayud'', well versed in rabbinic literature and in the learning of his time, devoting his early years to the study of Jewish philosophy. The Ibn Yahya family were renowned physicians, philosophers and accomplished aides to the Portuguese Monarchy for centuries.
Isaac's grandfather, Samuel Abravanel, was forcibly converted to Christianity during the pogroms of 1391 and took the Spanish name "''Juan Sanchez de Sevilla''". Samuel fled Castile-León, Spain, in 1397 for Lisbon, Portugal, and reverted to Judaism - shedding his ''
Converso
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert", () was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of his or her descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian po ...
'' after living among Christians for six years. Conversions outside Judaism, coerced or otherwise, had a strong impact upon young Isaac, later compelling him to forfeit his immense wealth in an attempt to redeem Iberian Jewry from coercion of the
Alhambra Decree
The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: ''Decreto de la Alhambra'', ''Edicto de Granada'') was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ( Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Arag ...
. There are parallels between what he writes, and documents produced by Inquisitors, that present
conversos as ambivalent to Christianity and sometimes even ironic in their expressions regarding their new religion -
crypto-jews
Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek ''kryptos'' – , 'hidden').
The term is especially applied historically to Sp ...
.
Leone Ebreo
Judah Leon Abravanel
Judah Leon Abravanel or Abrabanel () (c. 1460 Lisbon – c. 1530 ? Naples?), otherwise known by the pen name of Leo the Hebrew (in Latin: ''Leo Hebraeus''; in Portuguese: ''Leão Hebreu''; in Italian: ''Leone Ebreo''; in Spanish: ''León Hebreo' ...
was a Portuguese physician, poet and philosopher. His work ''Dialoghi d'amore'' ("Dialogues of Love"), written in Italian, was one of the most important philosophical works of his time. In an attempt to circumvent a plot, hatched by local Catholic Bishops to kidnap his son, Judah sent his son from Castile, to Portugal with a nurse, but by order of the king, the son was seized and baptized. This was a devastating insult to Judah and his family, and was a source of bitterness throughout Judah's life and the topic of his writings years later; especially since this was not the first time the Abravanel Family was subjected to such embarrassment at the hands of the Catholic Church.
Judah's ''Dialoghi'' is regarded as the finest of Humanistic Period works. His neoplatonism is derived from the Hispanic Jewish community, especially the works of
Ibn Gabirol. Platonic notions of reaching towards a nearly impossible ideal of beauty, wisdom, and perfection encompass the whole of his work. In ''Dialoghi d'amore'', Judah defines love in philosophical terms. He structures his three dialogues as a conversation between two abstract "characters": Philo, representing love or appetite, and Sophia, representing science or wisdom, Philo+Sophia (philosophia).
Criticisms of Kabbalah
The word "Kabbalah" was used in medieval Jewish texts to mean "tradition", see
Abraham Ibn Daud's ''Sefer Ha-Qabbalah'' also known as the "Book of our Tradition". "Book of our Tradition" does not refer to mysticism of any kind - it chronicles "our tradition of scholarship and study" in two Babylonian Academies, through the Geonim, into Talmudic Yeshivas of Spain. In Talmudic times there was a mystic tradition in Judaism, known as ''Maaseh Bereshith'' (the work of creation) and ''Maaseh Merkavah'' (the work of the chariot); Maimonides interprets these texts as referring to Aristotelian physics and metaphysics as interpreted in the light of Torah.
In the 13th century, however, a mystical-esoteric system emerged which became known as "the
Kabbalah". Many of the beliefs associated with Kabbalah had long been rejected by philosophers.
Saadia Gaon had taught in his book ''Emunot v'Deot'' that Jews who believe in ''
gilgul'' have adopted a non-Jewish belief.
Maimonides rejected many texts of ''
Heichalot
The Hekhalot literature (sometimes transliterated Heichalot) from the Hebrew word for "Palaces", relating to visions of ascents into heavenly palaces. The genre overlaps with ''Merkabah'' or "Chariot" literature, concerning Ezekiel's chariot, so t ...
'', particularly ''
Shi'ur Qomah
Shi’ur Qomah ( he, שיעור קומה, lit. Dimensions of the Body) is a midrashic text that is part of the Hekhalot literature. It purports to record, in anthropomorphic terms, the secret names and precise measurements of God's corporeal limbs ...
'' whose anthropomorphic vision of God he considered heretical.
In the 13th century, Meir ben Simon of Narbonne wrote an epistle (included in ''Milhhemet Mitzvah'') against early Kabbalists, singled out ''
Sefer Bahir
''Bahir'' or ''Sefer HaBahir'' ( he, סֵפֶר הַבָּהִיר, ; "Book of Clarity" or "Book of Illumination") is an anonymous mystical work, attributed to a 1st-century rabbinic sage Nehunya ben HaKanah (a contemporary of Yochanan ben Zakai ...
'', rejecting the attribution of its authorship to the tanna R. Nehhunya ben ha-Kanah and describing some of its content:
Other notable Jewish philosophers post-Maimonides
*
Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi
*
Nissim of Gerona
*
Jacob ben Machir ibn Tibbon
Jacob ben Machir ibn Tibbon ( he, יעקב בן מכיר ׳ן תיבון), of the Ibn Tibbon family, also known as Prophatius, was a Jewish astronomer; born, probably at Marseilles, about 1236; died at Montpellier about 1304. He was a grandson o ...
*
Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus
*
Judah Messer Leon
Judah ben Jehiel, ( he, יהודה בן יחיאל, 1420 to 1425 – c. 1498), more usually called Judah Messer Leon ( he, יהודה מסר לאון), was an Italian rabbi, teacher, physician, and philosopher. Through his works, assimilating a ...
*
David ben Judah Messer Leon David ben Judah Messer Leon (c. 1470 in Venice – c. 1526 in Salonica) was an Italian rabbi, physician and writer, who defended the value of secular disciplines and the Renaissance humanities as an important part of traditional Jewish studies.
...
*
Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno
*
Judah Moscato
Judah Moscato ( 1530 – 1593) was an Italian rabbi, poet, and philosopher of the sixteenth century; born at Osimo, near Ancona; died at Mantua. As harassment of Jews in the Pontifical States worsened under Paul IV from 1555, Judah went to the ...
*
Azariah dei Rossi
Azariah ben Moses dei Rossi (Hebrew: עזריה מן האדומים) was an Italian-Jewish physician and scholar. He was born at Mantua in 1511; and died in 1578. He was descended from an old Jewish family which, according to a tradition, was b ...
*
Isaac Aboab I
Rabbi Isaac ben Abraham Aboab (Hebrew: רבי יצחק בן אברהם אבוהב; 1300) also known by his magnum opus, Menorat ha-Maor, was an early 14th century Spanish Talmudic scholar and Kabbalist. He is known for his intellectual approach ...
*
Isaac Campanton Isaac ben Jacob Canpanton (1360–1463) (Hebrew: יצחק קנפנטון) was a Spanish rabbi. He lived in the period darkened by the outrages of Ferrand Martinez and Vicente Ferrer, when intellectual life and Talmudic erudition were on the declin ...
a.k.a. "the gaon of Castile"
*
Isaac ben Moses Arama Isaac ben Moses Arama ( 1420 – 1494) was a Spanish rabbi and author. He was at first principal of a rabbinical academy at Zamora (probably his birthplace); then he received a call as rabbi and preacher from the community at Tarragona, and later ...
*
Profiat Duran
Profiat Duran (c. 1350 – c. 1415) (Hebrew: פרופייט דוראן), full Hebrew name Isaac ben Moses ha-Levi; was a Jewish apologist/polemicist, philosopher, physician, grammarian, and controversialist in the 14th century. He was later sometim ...
a
Converso
A ''converso'' (; ; feminine form ''conversa''), "convert", () was a Jew who converted to Catholicism in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries, or one of his or her descendants.
To safeguard the Old Christian po ...
, Duran wrote ''Be Not Like Your Fathers''
Renaissance Jewish philosophy and philosophers
Some of the Monarchies of Asia Minor and European welcomed expelled Jewish Merchants, scholars and theologians. Divergent Jewish philosophies evolved against the backdrop of new cultures, new languages and renewed theological exchange. Philosophic exploration continued through the
Renaissance period as the center-of-mass of Jewish Scholarship shifted to France, Germany, Italy, and Turkey.
Elias ben Moise del Medigo
Elia del Medigo
Elia del Medigo, also called Elijah Delmedigo or Elias ben Moise del Medigo and sometimes known to his contemporaries as Helias Hebreus Cretensis or in Hebrew Elijah Mi-Qandia (c. 1458 – c. 1493). According to Jacob Joshua Ross, "whil ...
was a descendant of ''
Judah ben Eliezer ha-Levi Minz
Judah ben Eliezer ha-Levi Minz (c. 1405 – 1508), also known as Mahari Minz, was the most prominent Italian rabbi of his time. As his surname suggests, he immigrated around 1462 from Mainz to Italy. He officiated as rabbi of Padua for forty-seven ...
'' and ''
Moses ben Isaac ha-Levi Minz
Moses ben Isaac ha-Levi Minz (15th century) was a German rabbi, a disciple of R. Yaakov Weil and contemporary of Israel Isserlein, whom he frequently consulted. He was successively rabbi at Mainz, Landau, Bamberg, and Posen. He is one of the fir ...
''. Eli'ezer del Medigo, of Rome, received the surname "Del Medigo" after studying medicine. The name was later changed from ''Del Medigo'' to ''Ha-rofeh''. He was the father and teacher of a long line of rationalist philosophers and scholars. Non-Jewish students of Delmedigo classified him as an "Averroist", however, he saw himself as a follower of Maimonides. Scholastic association of Maimonides and Ibn Rushd would have been a natural one; Maimonides, towards the end of his life, was impressed with the Ibn Rushd commentaries and recommended them to his students. The followers of Maimonides (Maimonideans) had therefore been, for several generations before Delmedigo, the leading users, translators and disseminators of the works of Ibn Rushd in Jewish circles, and advocates for Ibn Rushd even after Islamic rejection of his radical views. Maimonideans regarded Maimonides and Ibn Rushd as following the same general line. In his book, Delmedigo portrays himself as defender of Maimonidean Judaism, and — like many Maimonideans — he emphasized the rationality of Jewish tradition.
Moses Almosnino
Moses Almosnino
Moses ben Baruch Almosnino ( 1515 – 1580) was a distinguished rabbi; born at Thessaloniki about 1515, and died in Constantinople about 1580.
Rabbinical Work
He was elected rabbi of the Neveh Shalom community of Spanish Jews in that city in 155 ...
was born
Thessaloniki 1515 - died Constantinople abt 1580. He was a student of
Levi Ibn Habib
Levi ibn Habib (c. 1480 – c. 1545), also known by the acronym HaRaLBaCh, was Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem from 1525 until his death.
Under King Manuel of Portugal, and when about seventeen, he was compelled to submit to baptism, but at the first op ...
, who was in turn a student of
Jacob ibn Habib
Jacob ben Solomon ibn Habib (Hebrew: יעקב בן שלמה אבן חביב) (alternative transliteration: Yaakov ben Shlomo ibn Habib) (c. 1460 – 1516) was a rabbi and talmudist, best known as the author of ''Ein Yaakov'', a compilation of all t ...
, who was, in turn, a student of
Nissim ben Reuben
Nissim ben Reuven (1320 – 9th of Shevat, 1376, he, נִסִּים בֶּן רְאוּבֵן) of Girona, Catalonia was an influential talmudist and authority on Jewish law. He was one of the last of the great Spanish medieval Talmudic scholars ...
. In 1570 he wrote a commentary on the Pentateuch titled "''Yede Mosheh''" (The Hands of Moses); also an exposition of the Talmudical treatise "''Abot''" (Ethics of the Fathers), published in Salonica in 1563; and a collection of sermons delivered upon various occasions, particularly funeral orations, entitled "''Meammeẓ Koaḥ''" (Re-enforcing Strength).
al-Ghazâlî's ''Intentions of the Philosophers'' (''De'ôt ha-Fîlôsôfîm or Kavvanôt ha-Fîlôsôfîm'') was one of the most widespread philosophical texts studied among Jews in Europe having been translated in 1292 by
Isaac Albalag. Later Hebrew commentators include Moses Narboni, and Moses Almosnino.
Moses ben Jehiel Ha-Kohen Porto-Rafa (Rapaport)
Moses ben Jehiel Ha-Kohen Porto-Rafa (Rapaport), was a member of the German family "Rafa" (from whom the Delmedigo family originates) that settled in the town of Porto in the vicinity of Verona, Italy, and became the progenitors of the renowned Rapaport rabbinic family. In 1602 Moses served as rabbi of Badia Polesine in Piedmont. Moses was a friend of
Leon Modena.
Abraham ben Judah ha-Levi Minz
Abraham ben Judah ha-Levi Minz was an Italian rabbi who flourished at Padua in the first half of the 16th century, father-in-law of Meïr Katzenellenbogen. Minz studied chiefly under his father, Judah Minz, whom he succeeded as rabbi and head of the yeshiva of Padua.
Meir ben Isaac Katzellenbogen
Meir ben Isaac Katzellenbogen was born in Prague where together with
Shalom Shachna
Shalom Shachna ( 1510 – 1558) was a rabbi and Talmudist, and Rosh yeshiva of several great Acharonim including Moses Isserles, who was also his son-in-law.
Biography
Shachna was a pupil of Jacob Pollak, founder of the method of Talmudic study ...
he studied under
Jacob Pollak
Rabbi Jacob Pollak (other common spelling Yaakov Pollack), son of Rabbi Joseph, was the founder of the Polish method of halakhic and Talmudic study known as the Pilpul.
Biography
He was born about 1460 or 1470 in Poland, and died at Lublin in ...
. Many rabbis, including Moses Isserles, addressed him in their responsa as the ''"av bet din of the republic of Venice."'' The great scholars of the Renaissance with whom he corresponded include ''Shmuel ben Moshe di Modena'', ''Joseph Katz'', ''
Solomon Luria'', ''
Moses Isserles'', ''
Obadiah Sforno
Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno (Obadja Sforno, Hebrew: עובדיה ספורנו) was an Italian rabbi, Jewish commentaries on the Bible, Biblical commentator, philosopher and physician. A member of the Sforno (family), Sforno family, he was born in Ce ...
'', and ''
Moses Alashkar Moses ben Isaac Alashkar (1466–1542) () was a rabbi who lived in Egypt, but subsequently resided in Jerusalem.
Moses Alashkar was prominent among contemporaneous rabbis, and his opinions were held in esteem throughout the Levant, and even in Ita ...
''.
Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm
Rabbi
Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm
Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) was, according to the Books o ...
was a student of Rabbi
Solomon Luria who was, in turn a student of Rabbi
Shalom Shachna
Shalom Shachna ( 1510 – 1558) was a rabbi and Talmudist, and Rosh yeshiva of several great Acharonim including Moses Isserles, who was also his son-in-law.
Biography
Shachna was a pupil of Jacob Pollak, founder of the method of Talmudic study ...
- father-in-law and teacher of
Moses Isserles.
Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm
Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) was, according to the Books o ...
was also a cousin of
Moses Isserles.
Eliezer ben Elijah Ashkenazi
Rabbi
Eliezer ben Elijah Ashkenazi
Eliezer (Lazer) ben Elijah Ashkenazi (1512–December 13, 1585) ( he, אליעזר בן אליהו אשכנזי) was a Talmudist, rabbi, physician, and many-sided scholar.
Biography
Though of a German family (according to some, the relative of Jos ...
Ha-rofeh Ashkenazi of Nicosia ("the physician") the author of ''Yosif Lekah'' on the Book of Esther.
Other notable Renaissance Jewish philosophers
*
Francisco Sanches
Francisco Sanches (also spelled Sánchez in contemporary sources; c. 1550 – November 16, 1623) was a skeptic, philosopher and physician of Sephardi Jewish origin, born in Tui, Spain (although he was baptized in Braga, Portugal).Elaine Limb ...
*
Miguel de Barrios Miguel Barrios (a.k.a. Daniel Levi de Barrios; c. 1625 – 1701) was a poet and historian from a converso family who joined the community of Spanish and Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam. He was born in Montilla, Spain and died in Amsterdam. Miguel was t ...
*
Uriel da Costa
Uriel da Costa (; also Acosta or d'Acosta; c. 1585 – April 1640) was a Portuguese philosopher and skeptic who was born Christian, but returned to Judaism and ended up questioning the Catholic and rabbinic institutions of his time.
Life
Many de ...
Seventeenth-century Jewish philosophy
With expulsion from Spain came the dissemination of Jewish philosophical investigation throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Northern Europe and the Western Hemisphere. The center-of-mass of Rationalism shifted to France, Italy, Germany, Crete, Sicily and Netherlands. Expulsion from Spain and the coordinated pogroms of Europe resulted in the cross-pollination of variations on Rationalism incubated within diverse communities. This period is also marked by the intellectual exchange among leaders of the Christian Reformation and Jewish scholars. Of particular note is the line of Rationalists who migrated out of Germany, and present-day Italy into Crete, and other areas of the
Ottoman Empire seeking safety and protection from the endless pogroms fomented by the
House of Habsburg and the
Roman Catholic Church against Jews.
Rationalism was incubating in places far from Spain. From stories told by Rabbi
Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm
Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) was, according to the Books o ...
, German-speaking Jews, descendants of Jews who migrated back to Jerusalem after Charlemagne's invitation was revoked in Germany many centuries earlier, who lived in Jerusalem during the 11th century, were influenced by prevailing
Mutazilite
Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islamic ...
scholars of Jerusalem. A German-speaking Palestinian Jew saved the life of a young German man surnamed "Dolberger". When the knights of the
First Crusade came to besiege Jerusalem, one of Dolberger's family members rescued German-speaking Jews in Palestine and brought them back to the safety of Worms, Germany, to repay the favor. Further evidence of German communities in the holy city comes in the form of halakic questions sent from Germany to Jerusalem during the second half of the eleventh century.
All of the foregoing resulted in an explosion of new ideas and philosophic paths.
Yosef Shlomo ben Eliyahu Dal Medigo
Joseph Solomon Delmedigo was a physician and teacher – Baruch Spinoza was a student of his works.
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, b ...
founded
Spinozism, broke with
Rabbinic Jewish
Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonian ...
tradition, and was placed in ''
herem'' by the
Beit Din of
Amsterdam. The influence in his work from
Maimonides and
Leone Ebreo is evident.
Elia del Medigo
Elia del Medigo, also called Elijah Delmedigo or Elias ben Moise del Medigo and sometimes known to his contemporaries as Helias Hebreus Cretensis or in Hebrew Elijah Mi-Qandia (c. 1458 – c. 1493). According to Jacob Joshua Ross, "whil ...
claims to be a student of the works of Spinoza. Some contemporary critics (e.g., Wachter, ''Der Spinozismus im Judenthum'') claimed to detect the influence of the
Kabbalah, while others (e.g.,
Leibniz) regarded Spinozism as a revival of
Averroism
Averroism refers to a school of medieval philosophy based on the application of the works of 12th-century Al-Andalus, Andalusian Islamic philosophy, philosopher Averroes, (known in his time in Arabic as ابن رشد, ibn Rushd, 1126–1198) a co ...
– a talmudist manner of referencing to Maimonidean Rationalism. In the centuries that have lapsed since the ''herem'' declaration, scholars have re-examined the works of Spinoza and find them to reflect a body of work and thinking that is not unlike some contemporary streams of Judaism. For instance, while Spinoza was accused of
pantheism, scholars have come to view his work as advocating
panentheism
Panentheism ("all in God", from the Greek language, Greek grc, πᾶν, pân, all, label=none, grc, ἐν, en, in, label=none and grc, Θεός, Theós, God, label=none) is the belief that the Divinity, divine intersects every part of Univers ...
, a valid contemporary view easily accommodated by contemporary Judaism.
Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi
Rabbi
Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi was a student of his father, but most notably also a student of his grandfather Rabbi
Elijah Ba'al Shem of Chelm
Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) was, according to the Books o ...
.
Jacob Emden
Rabbi
Jacob Emden was a student of his father Rabbi
Tzvi Hirsch ben Yaakov Ashkenazi a rabbi in Amsterdam. Emden, a steadfast Talmudist, was a prominent opponent of the
Sabbateans (Messianic Kabbalists who followed Sabbatai Tzvi). Although anti-Maimonidean, Emden should be noted for his critical examination of the Zohar concluding that large parts of it were forged.
Other seventeenth-century Jewish philosophers
*
Jacob Abendana Sephardic Rabbi and Philosopher
*
Isaac Cardoso
Isaac (Fernando) Cardoso was a Jewish physician, philosopher, and polemic writer. Life
He was born of Marrano parents at Trancoso, near Celorico, in the province of Beira, Portugal in 1603 or 1604 and died at Verona in 1683. He was an older br ...
*
David Nieto Sephardic Rabbi and Philosopher
*
Isaac Orobio de Castro
Balthazar (Isaac) Orobio de Castro (c.1617 in Bragança, Portugal – November 7, 1687 in Amsterdam), was a Portuguese Jewish philosopher, physician and religious apologist.
Life
While still a child, he was taken to Seville by his parents, wh ...
Sephardic Rabbi and Philosopher
Philosophical criticisms of Kabbalah
Rabbi
Leone di Modena wrote that if we were to accept the Kabbalah, then the Christian trinity would indeed be compatible with Judaism, as the Trinity closely resembles the Kabbalistic doctrine of the Sefirot.
Eighteenth and nineteenth-century Jewish philosophy
A new era began in the 18th century with the thought of
Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn has been described as the "'third Moses,' with whom begins a new era in Judaism," just as new eras began with
Moses the prophet and with
Moses Maimonides. Mendelssohn was a
German Jew
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
ish philosopher to whose ideas the renaissance of European Jews,
Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) is indebted. He has been referred to as the father of Reform Judaism, although Reform spokesmen have been "resistant to claim him as their spiritual father". Mendelssohn came to be regarded as a leading cultural figure of his time by both
Germans and Jews. His most significant book was ''
Jerusalem oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum'' (''Jerusalem''), first published in 1783.
Alongside Mendelssohn, other important Jewish philosophers of the eighteenth century included:
*
Menachem Mendel Lefin, anti-Hasidic
Haskalah philosopher
*
Salomon Maimon, Enlightenment philosopher
*
Isaac Satanow, a
Haskalah philosopher
*
Naphtali Ullman
According to the Book of Genesis, Naphtali (; ) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Bilhah (Jacob's sixth son). He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Naphtali.
Some biblical commentators have suggested that the name ''Naphtali'' ma ...
,
Haskalah philosopher
Important Jewish philosophers of the nineteenth century included:
*
Elijah Benamozegh
Elijah Benamozegh, sometimes Elia or Eliyahu, (born 1823; died 6 February 1900) was an Italian Sephardic Orthodox rabbi and renowned Kabbalist, highly respected in his day as one of Italy's most eminent Jewish scholars. He served for half a cent ...
, a
Sephardic
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
rabbi and philosopher
*
Hermann Cohen, a
neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher
*
Moses Hess
Moses (Moritz) Hess (21 January 1812 – 6 April 1875) was a German-Jewish philosopher, early communist and Zionist thinker. His socialist theories led to disagreements with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He is considered a pioneer of Labor Zion ...
, a secular Jewish philosopher and one of the founders of
socialism
*
Samson Raphael Hirsch, leader of the
Torah im Derech Eretz school of 19th century neo-Orthodoxy
*
Samuel Hirsch, a leader of
Reform Judaism
*
Nachman Krochmal,
Haskalah philosopher in
Galicia
Galicia may refer to:
Geographic regions
* Galicia (Spain), a region and autonomous community of northwestern Spain
** Gallaecia, a Roman province
** The post-Roman Kingdom of the Suebi, also called the Kingdom of Gallaecia
** The medieval King ...
*
Samuel David Luzzatto a
Sephardic
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
rabbi and philosopher
*
Karl Marx, German
economist and Jewish philosopher.
Traditionalist attitudes towards philosophy
Haredi traditionalists who emerged in reaction to the
Haskalah considered the fusion of religion and philosophy as difficult because classical philosophers start with no preconditions for which conclusions they must reach in their investigation, while classical religious believers have a set of religious principles of faith that they hold one must believe. Most Haredim contended that one cannot simultaneously be a philosopher and a true adherent of a revealed religion. In this view, all attempts at synthesis ultimately fail. Rabbi
Nachman of Breslov, for example, viewed all philosophy as untrue and heretical. In this he represents one strand of
Hasidic
Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...
thought, with creative emphasis on the emotions.
Other exponents of
Hasidism had a more positive attitude towards philosophy. In the
Chabad writings of
Schneur Zalman of Liadi
Shneur Zalman of Liadi ( he, שניאור זלמן מליאדי, September 4, 1745 – December 15, 1812 Adoption of the Gregorian calendar#Adoption in Eastern Europe, O.S. / 18 Elul 5505 – 24 Tevet 5573) was an influential Lithuanian Jews, Li ...
, Hasidut is seen as able to unite all parts of Torah thought, from the schools of philosophy to mysticism, by uncovering the illuminating Divine essence that permeates and transcends all approaches. Interpreting the verse from
Job
Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...
, "from my flesh I see
HaShem", Shneur Zalman explained the inner meaning, or "soul", of the Jewish mystical tradition in intellectual form, by means of analogies drawn from the human realm. As explained and continued by the later leaders of Chabad, this enabled the human mind to grasp concepts of Godliness, and so enable the heart to feel the love and awe of God, emphasised by all the founders of hasidism, in an internal way. This development, the culminating level of the Jewish mystical tradition, in this way bridges philosophy and mysticism, by expressing the transcendent in human terms.
20th and 21st-century Jewish philosophy
Jewish existentialism
One of the major trends in modern Jewish philosophy was the attempt to develop a theory of Judaism through
existentialism. Among the early Jewish existentialist philosophers was
Lev Shestov (Jehuda Leib Schwarzmann), a Russian-Jewish philosopher. One of the most influential Jewish existentialists in the first half of the 20th century was
Franz Rosenzweig
Franz Rosenzweig (, ; 25 December 1886 – 10 December 1929) was a German theologian, philosopher, and translator.
Early life and education
Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany, to an affluent, minimally observant Jewish family. His fa ...
. While researching his doctoral dissertation on the 19th-century German philosopher
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Rosenzweig reacted against Hegel's idealism and developed an existential approach. Rosenzweig, for a time, considered conversion to Christianity, but in 1913, he turned to Jewish philosophy. He became a philosopher and student of
Hermann Cohen. Rosenzweig's major work, ''Star of Redemption'', is his new philosophy in which he portrays the relationships between haShem, humanity and world as they are connected by creation, revelation and redemption. Orthodox rabbi
Joseph Soloveitchik
Joseph Ber Soloveitchik ( he, יוסף דב הלוי סולובייצ׳יק ''Yosef Dov ha-Levi Soloveychik''; February 27, 1903 – April 9, 1993) was a major American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and modern Jewish philosopher. He was a scion o ...
, and Conservative rabbis
Neil Gillman
Neil Gillman (September 11, 1933 – November 24, 2017) was a Canadian-American rabbi and philosopher affiliated with Conservative Judaism.
Biography
Gillman was born in Quebec City, Canada. He graduated from McGill University in 1954. He was orda ...
and
Elliot N. Dorff Elliot N. Dorff (born 24 June 1943) is an American Conservative rabbi. He is a Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Distinguished Professor of Jewish theology at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in C ...
have also been described as existentialists.
The
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
philosopher and
Talmudic commentator
Emmanuel Levinas, whose approach grew out of the
phenomenological
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
tradition in philosophy, has also been described as a Jewish existentialist.
Jewish rationalism
Rationalism has re-emerged as a popular perspective among Jews. Contemporary Jewish rationalism often draws on ideas associated with medieval philosophers such as Maimonides and modern Jewish rationalists such as
Hermann Cohen.
Cohen was a German Jewish neo-Kantian philosopher who turned to Jewish subjects at the end of his career in the early 20th century, picking up on ideas of Maimonides. In America,
Steven Schwarzschild
Steven S. Schwarzschild (1924–1989) was a rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and editor.
Biography
Schwarzschild was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany and grew up in Berlin. He escaped to the United States with his family in 1939.
He receive ...
continued Cohen's legacy. Another prominent contemporary Jewish rationalist is
Lenn Goodman
Lenn Evan Goodman (born 1944) is an American philosopher. His philosophy, particularly his constructive work, draws from classical and medieval sources as well as religious texts. Goodman is also an academic, scholar, and a historian with resea ...
, who works out of the traditions of medieval Jewish rationalist philosophy.
Conservative rabbis
Alan Mittleman of the
Jewish Theological Seminary and
Elliot N. Dorff Elliot N. Dorff (born 24 June 1943) is an American Conservative rabbi. He is a Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Distinguished Professor of Jewish theology at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in C ...
of
American Jewish University also see themselves in the rationalist tradition, as does David Novak of the
University of Toronto. Novak works in the natural law tradition, which is one version of rationalism.
Philosophers in modern-day Israel in the rationalist tradition include
David Hartman David Hartman is the name of:
*David Hartman (rabbi) (1931–2013), American-Israeli rabbi
*David Hartman (TV personality)
David Downs Hartman (born May 19, 1935) is an American journalist and media host who began his media career as an actor. He ...
and
Moshe Halbertal
Moshe Halbertal ( he, משה הלברטל; born Montevideo, Uruguay, 1958) is an Israeli philosopher, professor, and writer, a noted expert on Maimonides, and co-author of the Israeli Army Code of Ethics. He currently holds positions as the John an ...
.
Some Orthodox rationalists in Israel take a "restorationist" approach, reaching back in time for tools to simplify Rabbinic Judaism and bring all Jews, regardless of status or stream of Judaism, closer to observance of Halacha, Mitzvot, Kashrut and embrace of Maimonides' "13 Principles of Faith".
Dor Daim, and
Rambamists are two groups who reject mysticism as a "superstitious innovation" to an otherwise clear and succinct set of Laws and rules. According to these rationalists, there is shame and disgrace attached to failure to investigate matters of religious principle using the fullest powers of human reason and intellect. One cannot be considered wise, or perceptive, if one does not attempt to understand the origins, and establish the correctness, of one's beliefs.
Holocaust theology
Judaism has traditionally taught that God is
omnipotent,
omniscient
Omniscience () is the capacity to know everything. In Hinduism, Sikhism and the Abrahamic religions, this is an attribute of God. In Jainism, omniscience is an attribute that any individual can eventually attain. In Buddhism, there are diffe ...
and
omnibenevolent. Yet, these claims are in jarring
contrast with the fact that there is much evil in the world. Perhaps the most difficult question that monotheists have confronted is "how can one reconcile the existence of this view of God with the existence of evil?" or "how can there be good without bad?" "how can there be a God without a devil?" This is
the problem of evil
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encycloped ...
. Within all monotheistic faiths many answers (
theodicies
Theodicy () means vindication of God. It is to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil, thus resolving the issue of the problem of evil. Some theodicies also address the problem of evil "to make the existence of ...
) have been proposed. However, in light of the magnitude of evil seen in the
Holocaust, many people have re-examined classical views on this subject. How can people still have any kind of faith after the Holocaust? This set of Jewish philosophies is discussed in the article on
Holocaust theology
Holocaust theology is a body of theological and philosophical debate concerning the role of God in the universe in light of the Holocaust of the late 1930s and early 1940s. It is primarily found in Judaism. Jews were killed in higher proportions ...
.
Reconstructionist theology
Perhaps the most controversial form of Jewish philosophy that developed in the early 20th century was the religious naturalism of Rabbi
Mordecai Kaplan. His theology was a variant of
John Dewey
John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...
's
pragmatist philosophy. Dewey's naturalism combined atheist beliefs with religious terminology in order to construct a philosophy for those who had lost faith in traditional Judaism. In agreement with the classical medieval Jewish thinkers, Kaplan affirmed that haShem is not personal, and that all anthropomorphic descriptions of haShem are, at best, imperfect metaphors. Kaplan's theology went beyond this to claim that haShem is the sum of all natural processes that allow man to become self-fulfilled. Kaplan wrote that "to believe in haShem means to take for granted that it is man's destiny to rise above the brute and to eliminate all forms of violence and exploitation from human society."
Process theology
A recent trend has been to reframe Jewish theology through the lens of
process philosophy, more specifically
process theology
Process theology is a type of theology developed from Alfred North Whitehead's (1861–1947) process philosophy, most notably by Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000), John B. Cobb (b. 1925) and Eugene H. Peters (1929-1983). Process theology and pr ...
. Process philosophy suggests that fundamental elements of the universe are occasions of experience. According to this notion, what people commonly think of as concrete objects are actually successions of these occasions of experience. Occasions of experience can be collected into groupings; something complex such as a human being is thus a grouping of many smaller occasions of experience. In this view, everything in the universe is characterized by experience (not to be confused with consciousness); there is no mind-body duality under this system, because "mind" is simply seen as a very developed kind of experiencing entity.
Intrinsic to this worldview is the notion that all experiences are influenced by prior experiences, and will influence all future experiences. This process of influencing is never deterministic; an occasion of experience consists of a process of comprehending other experiences, and then reacting to it. This is the "process" in "process philosophy". Process philosophy gives God a special place in the universe of occasions of experience. God encompasses all the other occasions of experience but also transcends them; thus process philosophy is a form of
panentheism
Panentheism ("all in God", from the Greek language, Greek grc, πᾶν, pân, all, label=none, grc, ἐν, en, in, label=none and grc, Θεός, Theós, God, label=none) is the belief that the Divinity, divine intersects every part of Univers ...
.
The original ideas of process theology were developed by
Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000), and influenced a number of
Jewish theologians, including
British philosopher Samuel Alexander (1859–1938), and
Rabbis Max Kadushin, Milton Steinberg and Levi A. Olan, Harry Slominsky, and
Bradley Shavit Artson.
Abraham Joshua Heschel has also been linked to this tradition.
Kabbalah and philosophy
Kabbalah continued to be central to
Haredi Orthodox Judaism
Haredi Judaism ( he, ', ; also spelled ''Charedi'' in English; plural ''Haredim'' or ''Charedim'') consists of groups within Orthodox Judaism that are characterized by their strict adherence to ''halakha'' (Jewish law) and traditions, in oppos ...
, which generally rejected philosophy, although the
Chabad strain of
Chasidism showed a more positive attitude towards philosophy. Meanwhile, non-Orthodox Jewish thought in the latter 20th century saw resurgent interest in
Kabbalah. In academic studies,
Gershom Scholem began the critical investigation of Jewish mysticism, while in non-Orthodox
Jewish denominations
Jewish religious movements, sometimes called "religious denomination, denominations", include different groups within Judaism which have developed among Jews from ancient times. Today, the most prominent divisions are between traditionalist Ortho ...
,
Jewish Renewal
Jewish Renewal () is a recent movement in Judaism which endeavors to reinvigorate modern Judaism with Kabbalistic, Hasidic, and musical practices. Specifically, it seeks to reintroduce the "ancient Judaic traditions of mysticism and meditation, ...
and
Neo-Hasidism, spiritualised worship. Many philosophers do not consider this a form of philosophy, as Kabbalah is a collection of esoteric methods of textual interpretation. Mysticism is generally understood as an alternative to philosophy, not a variant of philosophy.
Among the modern critics of Kabbalah was
Yihhyah Qafahh, who wrote a book entitled ''
Milhamoth ha-Shem
''Milhamoth ha-Shem'' ( he, מלחמות השם) or ''Milhamoth Adonai'' (Wars of the Lord) is the title of several Hebrew polemical texts. The phrase is taken from the Book of the Wars of the Lord referenced in .
''Milhamoth ha-Shem'' of Salmon b ...
'', (''Wars of the Name'') against what he perceived as the false teachings of the Zohar and the false Kabbalah of Isaac Luria. He is credited with spearheading the
Dor Daim.
Yeshayahu Leibowitz publicly shared the views expressed in Rabbi
Yihhyah Qafahh's book ''Milhhamoth ha-Shem'' and elaborated upon these views in his many writings.
Contemporary Jewish philosophy
Philosophers who are associated with Orthodox Judaism
*
Eliezer Berkovits
Eliezer Berkovits (8 September 1908, Nagyvárad, Austria-Hungary – 20 August 1992, Jerusalem), was a rabbi, theologian, and educator in the tradition of Orthodox Judaism.
Life
Berkovits received his rabbinical training first under Rabbi ...
*
Monsieur Chouchani
*
Eliyahu Dessler
Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler (1892 – 31 December 1953) was an Orthodox rabbi, Talmudic scholar, and Jewish philosopher of the 20th century. He is best known for being the ''mashgiach ruchani'' ("spiritual counselor") of the Ponevezh yeshiva in Is ...
*
Israel Eldad
Israel Eldad () (11 November 1910 – 22 January 1996), was an Israeli Revisionist Zionist philosopher and member of the Jewish underground group Lehi in Mandatory Palestine.
Biography
Israel Scheib (later Eldad) was born in 1910 in Pidvoloch ...
*
Elimelech of Lizhensk
*
David Hartman David Hartman is the name of:
*David Hartman (rabbi) (1931–2013), American-Israeli rabbi
*David Hartman (TV personality)
David Downs Hartman (born May 19, 1935) is an American journalist and media host who began his media career as an actor. He ...
*
Samson Raphael Hirsch
*
Abraham Isaac Kook
Abraham Isaac Kook (; 7 September 1865 – 1 September 1935), known as Rav Kook, and also known by the acronym HaRaAYaH (), was an Orthodox rabbi, and the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine. He is considered to be one of ...
*
Yeshayahu Leibowitz
*
Menachem Mendel of Kotzk
*
Nachman of Breslov
*
Franz Rosenzweig
Franz Rosenzweig (, ; 25 December 1886 – 10 December 1929) was a German theologian, philosopher, and translator.
Early life and education
Franz Rosenzweig was born in Kassel, Germany, to an affluent, minimally observant Jewish family. His fa ...
*
Tamar Ross
Tamar Ross (Hebrew: תמר רוס) is a professor of Jewish philosophy at Bar-Ilan University and a specialist of religious feminist philosophy.
Work
Ross makes a vital contribution to philosophical questions around gender in Judaism by arguin ...
*
Daniel Rynhold
Professor Daniel Rynhold is Dean at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Yeshiva University in New York City where he has worked since August 2007.
He became the Shoshana Shier Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University ...
*
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
*
Joseph Soloveitchik
Joseph Ber Soloveitchik ( he, יוסף דב הלוי סולובייצ׳יק ''Yosef Dov ha-Levi Soloveychik''; February 27, 1903 – April 9, 1993) was a major American Orthodox rabbi, Talmudist, and modern Jewish philosopher. He was a scion o ...
*
Michael Wyschogrod
Michael Wyschogrod (September 28, 1928 – December 17, 2015) was a Jewish German-American philosopher of religion, Jewish theologian, and activist for Jewish–Christian interfaith dialogue. During his academic career he taught in philosophy and ...
*
Chaim Volozhin
*
Shneur Zalman of Liadi
Philosophers who are associated with Conservative Judaism
*
Bradley Shavit Artson
*
Elliot N. Dorff Elliot N. Dorff (born 24 June 1943) is an American Conservative rabbi. He is a Visiting Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and Distinguished Professor of Jewish theology at the American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) in C ...
*
Neil Gillman
Neil Gillman (September 11, 1933 – November 24, 2017) was a Canadian-American rabbi and philosopher affiliated with Conservative Judaism.
Biography
Gillman was born in Quebec City, Canada. He graduated from McGill University in 1954. He was orda ...
*
Abraham Joshua Heschel
*
William E. Kaufman
William E. Kaufman (born December 28, 1938) is an American Conservative rabbi, philosopher, theologian and author. His 1991 book, ''The Case for God'', was perhaps the first book written on Jewish process theology.
Early life and education
Kaufm ...
*
Max Kadushin
*
Alan Mittleman
*
David Novak
David Novak, (born August 19, 1941 in Chicago, Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro Ea ...
*
Ira F. Stone
Rabbi Ira F. Stone (born 1949) is a leading figure in the contemporary renewal of the Musar movement, a Jewish ethical movement.
Career
Stone was ordained as a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1979, and proceeded to serv ...
Philosophers who are associated with Reform and Progressive Judaism
*
Rachel Adler
Rachel Adler (born Ruthelyn Rubin; July 2, 1943) is professor of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender at Hebrew Union College, at the Los Angeles campus.
Adler was one of the first theologians to integrate feminist perspectives and conc ...
(American rabbi, author and
Feminist
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
philosopher)
*
Leo Baeck (leader in German
Liberal Judaism)
*
Eugene Borowitz
Eugene B. Borowitz (February 20, 1924 – January 22, 2016) was an American leader and philosopher in Reform Judaism, known largely for his work on Jewish theology and Jewish ethics. He also edited a Jewish journal, ''Sh'ma'', and taught at the Heb ...
(leader in American
Reform Judaism)
*
Emil Fackenheim
Emil Ludwig Fackenheim (22 June 1916 – 18 September 2003) was a Jewish philosopher and Reform rabbi.
Born in Halle, Germany, he was arrested by Nazis on the night of 9 November 1938, known as Kristallnacht. Briefly interned at the Sachsenhaus ...
(German-Canadian-Israeli philosopher)
* Avigdor Chaim Gold (German-Israeli philosopher)
Jewish philosophers whose philosophy is not necessarily focused on Jewish themes
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there have also been many philosophers who are Jewish or of Jewish descent, and whose Jewish background might influence their approach to some degree, but whose writing is not necessarily focused on issues specific to Judaism. These include:
*
Theodor W. Adorno
*
Joseph Agassi
Joseph Agassi (; he, יוסף אגסי; born May 7, 1927 in Jerusalem) is an Israeli academic with contributions in logic, scientific method, and philosophy. He studied under Karl Popper and taught at the London School of Economics.
Agassi ta ...
, an Israeli philosopher of science who developed
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the cl ...
's ideas
[As early as 1934 ]Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the cl ...
wrote of the search for truth as "one of the strongest motives for scientific discovery." Still, he describes in ''Objective Knowledge'' (1972) early concerns about the much-criticized notion of truth as correspondence. Then came the semantic theory of truth formulated by the logician Alfred Tarski and published in 1933. Popper writes of learning in 1935 of the consequences of Tarski's theory, to his intense joy. The theory met critical objections to truth as correspondence and thereby rehabilitated it. The theory also seemed, in Popper's eyes, to support metaphysical realism and the regulative idea of a search for truth. Popper coined the term critical rationalism to describe his philosophy. Contemporary Jewish philosophers who follow Popper's philosophy include Joseph Agassi
Joseph Agassi (; he, יוסף אגסי; born May 7, 1927 in Jerusalem) is an Israeli academic with contributions in logic, scientific method, and philosophy. He studied under Karl Popper and taught at the London School of Economics.
Agassi ta ...
, Adi Ophir
Adi Ophir ( he, עדי אופיר; born September 22, 1951) is an Israeli philosopher.
Early life
Adi Ophir was born on September 22, 1951. He received his BA and MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his PhD from Boston University.
...
and Yehuda Elkana.
*
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century.
Arendt was born ...
*
Raymond Aron
Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century.
Aron is best known for his 19 ...
*
Zygmunt Bauman
*
Walter Benjamin
*
Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson
*
Isaiah Berlin
Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...
*
Ernst Bloch
*
Allan Bloom
Allan David Bloom (September 14, 1930 – October 7, 1992) was an American philosopher, classicist, and academician. He studied under David Grene, Leo Strauss, Richard McKeon, and Alexandre Kojève. He subsequently taught at Cornell Universi ...
*
Harold Bloom
*
Susan Bordo
Susan is a feminine given name, from Persian "Susan" (lily flower), from Egyptian ''c:Lotus flower (hieroglyph), sšn'' and Coptic ''shoshen'' meaning "lotus flower", from Hebrew ''Shoshana'' meaning "lily" (in modern Hebrew this also means "ros ...
*
Judith Butler
Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler ...
*
Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and political activist
*
Hélène Cixous
*
Arthur Danto
*
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...
*
Hubert Dreyfus
*
Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Myles Dworkin (; December 11, 1931 – February 14, 2013) was an American philosopher, jurist, and scholar of United States constitutional law. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New Yo ...
, an American philosopher of law
*
Yehuda Elkana, an Israeli philosopher of science
*
Bracha L. Ettinger
Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger (born March 23, 1948) is an Israeli artist, painter and writer, visual analyst, psychoanalyst and philosopher, living and working in Paris and Tel Aviv. She is regarded as a major French feminist theorist and pr ...
*
Viktor Frankl
Viktor Emil Frankl (26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997)
was an Austrian psychiatrist who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's meaning as the central human motivational force. Logotherapy is part ...
*
Sigmund Freud
*
Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Fromm (; ; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the U ...
*
Tamar Gendler
*
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman (June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940) was a Russian-born anarchist political activist and writer. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the ...
*
Lewis Gordon
Lewis Ricardo Gordon (born May 12, 1962) is an American philosopher at the University of Connecticut who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, existentialism, phenomenology, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of ...
*
Jack Halberstam
Jack Halberstam (; born December 15, 1961), also known as Judith Halberstam, is an American academic. Since 2017, he has been a professor in the department of English and comparative literature and the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, an ...
*
Ágnes Heller
Ágnes Heller (12 May 1929 – 19 July 2019) was a Hungarian philosopher and lecturer. She was a core member of the Budapest School philosophical forum in the 1960s and later taught political theory for 25 years at the New School for Social Res ...
*
Max Horkheimer
*
Edmund Husserl
*
Alberto Jori
Alberto Jori (born 1965) is an Italian neo-Aristotelian philosopher.
Born in Mantua, on his father's side he is the descendant of an old noble Swiss family of barons (Freiherren) from Ticino and patricians from Zurich. On his mother's side he is ...
, an Italian-Jewish philosopher
*
Hans Jonas
Hans Jonas (; ; 10 May 1903 – 5 February 1993) was a German-born American Jewish philosopher, from 1955 to 1976 the Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
Biography
Jonas was born ...
*
Melanie Klein
*
Sarah Kofman
Sarah Kofman (; September 14, 1934 – October 15, 1994) was a French philosopher .
Biography
Kofman began her teaching career in Toulouse in 1960 at the Lycée Saint-Sernin, and worked with both Jean Hyppolite and Gilles Deleuze. Her abando ...
*
Siegfried Kracauer
*
Saul Kripke, a metaphysician and modal logician
*
Franz Leopold Neumann
Franz Leopold Neumann (23 May 1900 – 2 September 1954) was a German political activist, Western Marxist theorist and labor lawyer, who became a political scientist in exile and is best known for his theoretical analyses of National Sociali ...
*
Emmanuel Levinas
*
Claude Lévi-Strauss
*
Bernard-Henri Lévy
*
Benny Lévy
Benny Lévy (also Pierre Victor; 1945–2003) was a philosopher, political activist and author. A political figure of May 1968 in France
Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks a ...
*
Leo Löwenthal
*
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg (; ; pl, Róża Luksemburg or ; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Successively, she was a member of the Proletariat party, ...
*
György Lukács
*
Herbert Marcuse
Herbert Marcuse (; ; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979) was a German-American philosopher, social critic, and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Born in Berlin, Marcuse studied at the Humboldt University ...
*
Karl Marx
*
Thomas Nagel, a Serbia-born Jewish philosopher
*
Martha Nussbaum
Martha Craven Nussbaum (; born May 6, 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosoph ...
, an American moral and political philosopher
*
Adi Ophir
Adi Ophir ( he, עדי אופיר; born September 22, 1951) is an Israeli philosopher.
Early life
Adi Ophir was born on September 22, 1951. He received his BA and MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his PhD from Boston University.
...
, an Israeli philosopher of science and moral philosopher
*
Friedrich Pollock
*
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the cl ...
*
Moishe Postone
*
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist, and a major figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He made significant contributions ...
, an American analytic philosopher
*
Ayn Rand
Alice O'Connor (born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum;, . Most sources transliterate her given name as either ''Alisa'' or ''Alissa''. , 1905 – March 6, 1982), better known by her pen name Ayn Rand (), was a Russian-born American writer and p ...
, a Russian-American Jewish philosopher who focused upon Aristotle's reason
*
Avital Ronell
*
Murray Rothbard
*
Michael J. Sandel
Michael Joseph Sandel (; born March 5, 1953) is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government Theory at Harvard University Law School, where his course Justice was the university's first course t ...
*
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (; May 2, 1950 – April 12, 2009) was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory ( queer studies), and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered groundbreaking in the fiel ...
, an American Queer theorist
*
Lev Shestov
*
Judith N. Shklar
Judith Nisse Shklar (September 24, 1928 – September 17, 1992) was a philosopher and political theorist who studied the history of political thought, notably that of the Enlightenment period. She was appointed the John Cowles Professor of Govern ...
*
Peter Singer, a
utilitarian philosopher
*
Alan Soble
Alan Gerald Soble (; born 1947) is an American philosopher and author of several books on the philosophy of sex. He taught at the University of New Orleans from 1986 to 2006. He is currently Adjunct Professor of philosophy at Drexel University i ...
, writes in
philosophy of sex, American-born, Romanian-Russian ethnicity
*
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...
*
Sandy Stone theorist, artist and a founder of
transgender studies
*
Leo Strauss
Leo Strauss (, ; September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher who specialized in classical political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. ...
*
Alfred Tarski - Polish logician
*
Michael Walzer
Michael Laban Walzer (born 1935) is an American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of ''Dissent'', an intellectual magazine ...
*
Immanuel Wallerstein
*
Ludwig Wittgenstein
*
Irvin D. Yalom
Irvin David Yalom (; born June 13, 1931) is an American existential psychiatrist who is emeritus professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, as well as author of both fiction and nonfiction.
Early life
Yalom was born in Washington, D.C. A ...
See also
*
Hasidic philosophy
*
Jewish culture
Jewish culture is the culture of the Jewish people, from its formation in ancient times until the current age. Judaism itself is not a faith-based religion, but an orthoprax and ethnoreligion, pertaining to deed, practice, and identity. Jewi ...
*
Jewish denominations
Jewish religious movements, sometimes called "religious denomination, denominations", include different groups within Judaism which have developed among Jews from ancient times. Today, the most prominent divisions are between traditionalist Ortho ...
*
Jewish ethics
Jewish ethics is the ethics of the Jewish religion or the Jewish people. A type of normative ethics, Jewish ethics may involve issues in Jewish law as well as non-legal issues, and may involve the convergence of Judaism and the Western philosoph ...
*
Jewish existentialism Jewish existentialism is a category of work by Jewish authors dealing with existentialist themes and concepts (e.g. debate about the existence of God and the meaning of human existence), and intended to answer theological questions that are importan ...
*
Jewish feminism
*
Jewish folklore
*
Jewish history
*
Jewish literature
*
Jewish mysticism
Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged in 1 ...
*
Jewish mythology
*
Jewish principles of faith
*
Jewish religious movements
Jewish religious movements, sometimes called "religious denomination, denominations", include different groups within Judaism which have developed among Jews from ancient times. Today, the most prominent divisions are between traditionalist Ortho ...
*
Jewish thought
Jewish thought ( he, מחשבת ישראל, ''Machshevet Yisrael'', or ''machshavah''), also known as Judaic thought or Hebraic thought, is a field of Jewish studies that deals with the products of Jewish thought and culture throughout the ages, an ...
*
Judaism and politics
The relationship between Judaism and politics is a historically complex subject, and has evolved over time concurrently with both changes within Jewish society and religious practice, and changes in the general society of places where Jewish peopl ...
*
Microcosm-macrocosm analogy in Jewish philosophy
References
Further reading
Online
*
Material by topic, daat.ac.il*
*
*
From the Israeli high-school syllabus, education.gov.il*
Articles on Jewish Philosophy-Haim Lifshitz and Isaac Lifshitz*
Free will in Jewish Philosophy
*
Print Sources
* Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (eds.), ''History of Jewish Philosophy''. London: Routledge, 1997.
* Colette Sirat, ''A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages''. Cambridge University Press, 1990.
External links
Adventures in Philosophy - Jewish Philosophy Index (radicalacademy.com)*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090530082824/http://english.sadnatenosh.org/ Rabbi Haim Lifshitz-articles review Jewish PhilosophyRabbi Marc Angel's Project reflecting a fusion of Modern Orthodoxy and Sephardic JudaismJewish thought and spirituality- articles and
Shiurim
Shiur (, , lit. ''amount'', pl. shiurim ) is a lecture on any Torah topic, such as Gemara, Mishnah, Halakha (Jewish law), Tanakh (Bible), etc.
History
The Hebrew term שיעור ("designated amount") came to refer to a portion of Ju ...
in the Yeshiva site
* Joseph Isaac Lifshitz
"Towards a Modern Idea of Charity" Conversations On Philanthropy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jewish Philosophy
Jewish culture
Judaic studies
Philosophy by culture