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JEWISH PHILOSOPHY |
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Select: Gersonides -- Hasdai Crescas -- Joseph Albo -- Isaac Abravanel -- Judah Abravanel Main Ideas:
Important Work:
Levi ben Gershon, called Gersonides, was an astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher. He is considered the greatest astronomer of his time. Born in Bagnols, France, in 1288, Gersonides was a controversial commentator on Aristotelian philosophy, the Bible, and parts of the Talmud. His most important mathematical work dealt with trigonometry. His most important astronomical work reveals Gersonides as an independent and critical follower of the Ptolemaic tradition. He devised an instrument for measuring the angular separation between any two astronomical bodies, the "Jacob's staff," which was much used in navigation, especially in the sixteenth century. In regard to philosophy, Gersonides was the most radical of medieval Jewish Aristotelians. Returning under the influence of Averroes to a more genuine version of Aristotelianism, he makes God the highest Form, insisting that positive attributes may be ascribed to Him without impairing His unity. To think otherwise is to confuse secondary beings -- which possess their attributes derivatively -- with God who possesses His attributes primo et per se. Gersonides was of the Averroist school in his interpretations and commentaries on Aristotle. His major philosophic work, Milhamot Adonai (The Wars of the Lord), treats many of the critical philosophic problems of his time in the light of a systematic position found in his commentaries on commentaries by Averroes on Aristotle. Unlike Maimonides, who, when faced with an unresolvable contradiction between Aristotle and the Bible, accepted the biblical word as primary, Gersonides tried to accommodate biblical ideas to those of Aristotle. Because of this he stirred up a great deal of opposition and was suspected of heresy. Gersonides rejects emanationism and is thus forced to admit the existence of uncreated prime matter. But he plays down its importance as the barest potentiality; moreover, he derives all forms from God and interprets the formation of matter as a free and creative, not a necessary, process. Divine knowledge, too, must stop short of matter. God can exert providence over the species only, and over the individual only in so far as it is a member of the species. The individual human being can as such become subject to providence only by acquiring a share in the intelligible world. Gersonides follows philosophical exigencies much more closely and with much less autonomy than Maimonides. For instead of confronting religion and philosophy in their principles, he attempts to achieve the reconciliations needed by the minute analysis of specific doctrines. A large part of Gersonides' writings is either lost or still unpublished. In The Radical Academy
Hasdai Crescas - (1340 - 1410) Main Ideas:
Important Works:
Like almost all Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages, Crescas developed his philosophy in the face of persecution and imminent personal danger. He was born in Barcelona and was denounced and victimized there, imprisoned and fined, despite the recognition of his innocence. He moved and settled in Saragossa, where he declined appointment as rabbi of the congregation. He then became an authority on Jewish law and ritual tradition, and often intervened diplomatically on behalf of his co-religionists in Aragon and neighboring kingdoms. In a letter from him to the Jews of Avignon, he described the personal pain he and other Jews endured during the prosecution of Jews in Spain. It was during this Inquisition period (1391), that he lost his only son. Crescas did not content himself with bemoaning the fate of the Jews. He endeavored to defend the spirit and doctrines of Judaism against its religious and philosophical opponents. His criticism of Christianity, written in Spanish, is lost, except for those fragments which were translated into Hebrew by Joseph ibn Shemtob in 1451. Crescas' principal work, Or Adonai ( The Light of God), completed in 1410, the year of his death, was of great consequence. This work refuted neo-Platonism and Aristotle, and implied a sharp criticism of Gersonides and Maimonides because of their efforts to reconcile Judaism with Greek philosophy. Crescas rejected Aristotle's physics, metaphysics, and axiology. Like Gersonides, Crescas ascribes positive attributes to God, subjecting the doctrine of negative attributes to subtle criticism. But unlike the former he rejects the positive attributes of the Aristotelians. These are product of a false intellectualism. If God is highest Thought, His creative activity cannot be made intelligible as flowing from His nature; He then perforce dwells above unmoved, indifferent to the creation. God is primarily Goodness and Love, not Thought; and His Love is directed on the world, not Himself. Philosophic ethics, too, suffers from a false intellectualism. The highest goal of man is not intellectual self-perfection but the love of God. To make that goal a reality is the deepest purpose of the revealed Law, and with it the highest human goal, is accessible to all who earnestly concern themselves with it. For only a few may possess the intellectual capacity for philosophic knowledge; but all have the emotional capacity for the love of God. Immortality does not depend on the intellect; the soul -- much more than mere intellect -- is essentially immortal. Like Mainmonides, Crescas reaffirms biblical voluntarianism against the necessitarianism of the philosophers. But Maimonides is concerned with reconciling philosophically the principles of the Laws with those of philosophy, prepared to assimilate in detail a great deal of philosophical intellectualism. Crescas primarily attacks the intellectualist values of the philosophers, concerned with upholding the voluntaristic values of Jewish tradition. The importance of Crescas' thinking was by no means confined to the history of Jewish philosophy. His rejection of Aristotle, by stating that "there are no other worlds" than the one system in which the earth is situated, inspired such Christian thinkers as Nicholas Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Marsilio Facino, and Pico della Mirandola. There is little doubt that Spinoza was indebted to Crescas for his concept of the universe. And lastly, Crescas defended the cause of Judaism with a spiritual originality, radicalism, and courage uncommon in the history of the Middle Ages.
Joseph Albo - (c. 1380 - 1445) Main Ideas:
Important Work:
Very little is known about the life of Albo, but the few facts that are available present interesting aspects of medieval Jewish life amidst Gentile surroundings. A student of Crescas, he was well versed in mathematics, medicine, Islamic, Christian, and Jewish philosophy, and biblical and rabbinical learning. Albo was the representative of the Jewish community of Daroca, where the impact and resultant clash of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thought gave rise to a number of intellectual disputes. He participated in the great religious controversy of Tortosa (1413-14), where he vigorously defended the Jewish viewpoint of the Talmud. He attained popularity among medieval Jews because of his book Sefer-Ha-Ikkarim (Book of Principles), a defense of Judaism against philosophical criticism and Christianity. Although no new ideas are introduced, the book is important to the general philosophy of religion because it established the criterion whereby the primary fundamental doctrines of Judaism may be distinguished from those of secondary importance. Albo stated that three principles are basic to every revelational religion: a belief in God, the concept of divine revelation, and divine retributive justice. In The Radical Academy
Isaac Abravanel was a Spanish Sephardic Jew who was in the court of Alfonso V, King of Portugal, but had to flee, at great loss of personal fortune, when a new ruler ascended the throne. From Lisbon he went to the House of Castile, and when the Jews were banished from Spain, he went to Naples, once again in the service of a king, until he was banished by the French rulers. He then fled to Venice where he remained until his death. He was buried in Padua. Abravanel is generally considered the last great Aristotelian. Sometimes a philosophic eclectic, he was principally concerned with the teachings of the Bible and the modifications of doctrine expounded by the Jews. He was a believer in the Torah and considered the history of the Jews a revelation of God. His studies of the Bible are frequently used as reference by Christian scholars. In The Radical Academy Essay: The Interrupted Work, by Isaac Abravanel Elsewhere On The Internet
Judah Abravanel - (c. 1460 - 1530) Main Ideas:
Important Work:
Judah Abravanel, physician and philosopher, was born in Lisbon, Portugal. He was one of the outstanding figures of the period of transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He lived not only at the conjunction of two eras, but also in contact with three cultures -- Jewish, Spanish, and Italian. He and his father, Don Isaac Abravanel, fled in 1483 from their native Portugal to Spain, and thence to Italy in 1492. Abravanel practiced medicine, but he was mainly interested in philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy. For a time he lectured at the universities in Naples and Rome. The intellectuals of both cities requested his friendship; his was a close association with Pico della Mirandola. During his sojourn in Italy, Abravanel assumed the name of Leone, the translation of Judah, the Lion. He was also a minor poet, but his influence on the poetry of his age was felt more through his dialogues than through his verse His most famous works, Dialoghi di Amore (Dialogues about Love), composed by 1502, were first published posthumously in 1535. Probably written initially in Italian, they were later translated into Latin, French, Spanish, and Hebrew and in modern times there have been translations into English (The Philosophy of Love) and German. The Dialogues are landmarks in the history of metaphysics and ethics. The central theme of the work, akin to that of the Symposium of Plato, is that love is the major creative force in the universe, and that love of God is the ultimate goal of the human soul. Thus a circle of love leads from God's creation in love to man's return to God through love. The work promulgates love as a cosmic principle inseparable from being; its spirit, the mirror of reality. The Dialogues stressed the spiritual character of physical beauty and helped develop the field of aesthetic idealism. A portion of the work was incorporated in a rabbinical commentary on the Song of Songs. Abravanel maintained that true happiness is the "union of the human intellect with the Divine intelligence," and that it is directly connected to aesthetic enjoyment. There is a pantheistic strain in Abravanel's philosophy, but he always emphasized his orthodox Judaism, and tried to reconcile his pantheistic feelings with the Biblical concept of God. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
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