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New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. 476p
HUC Library
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French & Hebrew 2nd edition published
in 1989/90 |
Return to Jewish Thought |
This is a complete single authored history of Medieval Jewish Philosophy.
This is a comprehensive survey of Sephardic Jewry from a range of subjects:
philology, philosophy of language, political philosophy and theology. The
time period covered is 9th-15th centuries and the geography is the near
east to north Africa including Spain, France, Italy and Greece. "isms" and
individual philosophies with close to 150 thinkers presented.
Strengths:
- Range of thinkers examined, not just the "greats", good background material
and authors, important topics are summarized.
- Reproduces large sections of primary texts, basically reliable translations
and not just situated with Sephardic history generally.
- Philosophy as activity (analysis and critique) not systems of thought
Examples:
- Halevy-fits into philosophy but he is an critique, informed and sophisticated
- Crescas-follows Halevy
- Geronidies-systematizer
- Rambam-Analyzer, avoids system. Yesod presents philosophy as religious
imperative whereas in the Guide you become a philosopher because you
are a detective. You try to find what is hidden
Summary: Collette Sirat nicely discusses Rambam and big names as well
as names we have not heard of. Like Joshua Lorki, 15th Century Spain who credit
Solomon HaLevey of Burcos. There is an acknowledgement of justice of G-d, shows
limitation of philosophy. Reason has its own canons, you can not justify your
own faith. There is much to learn from this, post-moderism is post-rationalism,
the medieval model plays out a dialectic that is still with us. This starts with
Spanish Jewsy and spreads to France and Italy. It puts down language of philosopher.
Plato in the cave is a jumping offpoint, Sa'adia Emunot Deot and Rambam
along side.
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