USD $210.00
Averroes and Averroism in Medieval Jewish Thought
Series:
The Andalusian Muslim philosopher Averroes (1126–1198) is known for his authoritative commentaries on Aristotle and for his challenging ideas about the relationship between philosophy and religion, and the place of religion in society. Among Jewish authors, he found many admirers and just as many harsh critics. This volume brings together, for the first time, essays investigating Averroes’s complex reception, in different philosophical topics and among several Jewish authors, with special attention to its relation to the reception of Maimonides.
Pablo Dreizik, Professor of Philosophy at the University in Buenos Aires, has featured this volume in a radio presentation on Radio Sefarad, which represents the voice of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain. The presentation is available here for all interested: Radio Sefarad
Pablo Dreizik, Professor of Philosophy at the University in Buenos Aires, has featured this volume in a radio presentation on Radio Sefarad, which represents the voice of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain. The presentation is available here for all interested: Radio Sefarad
Racheli Haliva (PhD 2016, McGill) is associate professor of Jewish studies at Shandong University’s Center for Judaic and Inter-Religious Studies and a former co-director of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies at Universität Hamburg. She works on the history of medieval Jewish philosophy and the relationship between Jews and Jewish converts in the Middle Ages.
Yoav Meyrav (PhD 2017, Tel Aviv) is the principal investigator of the ERC-funded HEPMASITE (Hebrew Philosophical Manuscripts as Sites of Engagement) project at Universität Hamburg and a former research associate at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies. He has published on ancient, Arabic, and Jewish philosophy, Hebrew philology, and the history of metaphysics.
Daniel Davies (PhD 2007, Cambridge) has worked for the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at the Cambridge University Library and on the “PESHAT in Context” project at Universität Hamburg. He focuses on medieval philosophy and philosophy of religion. His publications include Method and Metaphysics in Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, which received an honourable mention from the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards. His second book on Maimonides will be published by Polity in 2023.
Yoav Meyrav (PhD 2017, Tel Aviv) is the principal investigator of the ERC-funded HEPMASITE (Hebrew Philosophical Manuscripts as Sites of Engagement) project at Universität Hamburg and a former research associate at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies. He has published on ancient, Arabic, and Jewish philosophy, Hebrew philology, and the history of metaphysics.
Daniel Davies (PhD 2007, Cambridge) has worked for the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at the Cambridge University Library and on the “PESHAT in Context” project at Universität Hamburg. He focuses on medieval philosophy and philosophy of religion. His publications include Method and Metaphysics in Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed, which received an honourable mention from the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards. His second book on Maimonides will be published by Polity in 2023.
Contents
Foreword
Racheli Haliva, Daniel Davies and Yoav Meyrav
Notes on Contributors
1 Was al-Ġazālī an Avicennist? Some Provocative Reflections on Jewish Averroism
Steven Harvey
2 How a Rehabilitated Notion of Latin Averroism Could Help in Understanding Jewish Averroism
Giovanni Licata
3 Is Maimonides’s Biblical Exegesis Averroistic?
Mercedes Rubio
4 Averroes and Ğābir ibn Aflaḥ among the Jews: New Interpretations for Joseph ben Judah ibn Simon’s Allegorical Correspondence with Maimonides
Reimund Leicht
5 The Garden of Eden and the Scope of Human Knowledge: Maimonides, Falaquera and Nissim of Marseille
David Lemler
6 The Role of Averroes’s Tahāfut in Narboni’s Commentary on the Guide
Yonatan Shemesh
7 Averroism, the Jewish-Christian Debate, and Mass Conversions in Iberia
Daniel J. Lasker
8 Double Truth in the Writings of Medieval Jewish Averroists: An Esoteric Way of Appealing to Both Sceptics and Non-sceptics
Shalom Sadik
9 Averroes’s Influence upon Theological Responses to Scepticism in Late Medieval Jewish Philosophy
Shira Weiss
10 Love and Hate May Lead Astray: Moses Halevi’s Rejection of Averroes
Yoav Meyrav
11 Averroism in Judah ha-Cohen’s Midraš ha-ḥokhmah?
Resianne Fontaine
12 Falaquera the Averroist
Yair Shiffman
13 The Necessary Existent, Simplicity, and Incorporeality: An Anti-Avicennian-Averroist Approach
Bakinaz Abdalla
14 Gersonides and Kaspi on the Uncertainty of the Future and the Practical Intellect
Alexander Green
15 Rabbi Moses ben Judah (Rambi) as an Averroist
Esti Eisenmann
16 Crescas’s Attitude toward Averroes
Warren Zev Harvey
17 Matter and Elements: Al-Ġazālī and Averroes as a Source of Isaac Abravanel’s “The Forms of the Elements”
Elisa Coda
18 Choking on Water, the Stratification of Society, and the Death of Socrates in the Hebrew Averroes
Yehuda Halper
19 Ṭodros Ṭodrosi’s accessus ad auctorem: A Hebrew “Aristotelian Prologue” to Averroes’s Middle Commentaries on Rhetoric and Poetics
Francesca Gorgoni
20 Jacob Mantino and the Alleged Second Latin Translation of Averroes’s Long Commentary on On the Soul 3.5 and 3.36
Michael Engel
Index
Foreword
Racheli Haliva, Daniel Davies and Yoav Meyrav
Notes on Contributors
Part 1: What Is Jewish Averroism?
1 Was al-Ġazālī an Avicennist? Some Provocative Reflections on Jewish Averroism
Steven Harvey
2 How a Rehabilitated Notion of Latin Averroism Could Help in Understanding Jewish Averroism
Giovanni Licata
Part 2: The Maimonides/Averroes Complex
3 Is Maimonides’s Biblical Exegesis Averroistic?
Mercedes Rubio
4 Averroes and Ğābir ibn Aflaḥ among the Jews: New Interpretations for Joseph ben Judah ibn Simon’s Allegorical Correspondence with Maimonides
Reimund Leicht
5 The Garden of Eden and the Scope of Human Knowledge: Maimonides, Falaquera and Nissim of Marseille
David Lemler
6 The Role of Averroes’s Tahāfut in Narboni’s Commentary on the Guide
Yonatan Shemesh
Part 3: Averroes in Jewish Religious Discourse
7 Averroism, the Jewish-Christian Debate, and Mass Conversions in Iberia
Daniel J. Lasker
8 Double Truth in the Writings of Medieval Jewish Averroists: An Esoteric Way of Appealing to Both Sceptics and Non-sceptics
Shalom Sadik
9 Averroes’s Influence upon Theological Responses to Scepticism in Late Medieval Jewish Philosophy
Shira Weiss
Part 4: Jewish Authors Doing Philosophy with (and about) Averroes
10 Love and Hate May Lead Astray: Moses Halevi’s Rejection of Averroes
Yoav Meyrav
11 Averroism in Judah ha-Cohen’s Midraš ha-ḥokhmah?
Resianne Fontaine
12 Falaquera the Averroist
Yair Shiffman
13 The Necessary Existent, Simplicity, and Incorporeality: An Anti-Avicennian-Averroist Approach
Bakinaz Abdalla
14 Gersonides and Kaspi on the Uncertainty of the Future and the Practical Intellect
Alexander Green
15 Rabbi Moses ben Judah (Rambi) as an Averroist
Esti Eisenmann
16 Crescas’s Attitude toward Averroes
Warren Zev Harvey
17 Matter and Elements: Al-Ġazālī and Averroes as a Source of Isaac Abravanel’s “The Forms of the Elements”
Elisa Coda
Part 5: Averroes in Hebrew and from Hebrew
18 Choking on Water, the Stratification of Society, and the Death of Socrates in the Hebrew Averroes
Yehuda Halper
19 Ṭodros Ṭodrosi’s accessus ad auctorem: A Hebrew “Aristotelian Prologue” to Averroes’s Middle Commentaries on Rhetoric and Poetics
Francesca Gorgoni
20 Jacob Mantino and the Alleged Second Latin Translation of Averroes’s Long Commentary on On the Soul 3.5 and 3.36
Michael Engel
Index
Anyone interested in Jewish and Islamic philosophy, medieval Latin philosophy, and the history of Aristotelianism.