Journal of the History of Philosophy

There are some annoying aspects to this book, and the one that the reader will notice first of all is that the author tends to adopt the ponderous style of his hero, Leo Strauss. We get a lot of very long sentences bristling with abstractions of vast generality. The expression “to be sure” is often used at the start of particularly gnomic and unconvincing sentences. Green tends to proceed throughout at such a high level of abstraction that it is difficult to know what is going on; this is very much a book about philosophy rather than a philosophy book. He has an inaccurate view of the status of Maimonides as a philosopher in terms of his reception by other philosophers. Finally, this reviewer started reading the book unconvinced of the value of Strauss’s approach to Maimonides, or anyone else for that matter. Strauss as an interpreter of leading thinkers represents a star that has very much plunged below the horizon in the last few decades, and is unlikely to be revived. This book does little to rehabilitate him, despite the intentions of its author.

Despite these caveats, there are two excellent features of the book. One is that Green acknowledges that Strauss insists that Maimonides is a serious philosopher. This is quite right and the fact that he is generally regarded as only of significance within Jewish philosophy, or as primarily a theological and legal thinker does not detract from his philosophical stature. This is an important point since, if Maimonides merely counts as a minor character in the history of philosophy, then his thought will not be put on the main agenda of theoretical issues and arguments. The other point that Green thinks that Strauss makes deals with the knotty issue of Athens vs. Jerusalem, reason and its opposition to religion. Strauss argues, we are told, that Maimonides does not set out to resolve this issue, presumably because it is irresoluble, but seeks rather to posit it and explore its features. This is a plausible idea, and explains why Strauss makes such a huge fuss about the dichotomy and its implications. After all, if it can be and has been resolved, it is hardly of such persisting significance. Thinking that the dichotomy persists provides some backing for the view that philosophers need to use special measures to hide their real views from those who would persecute them for those views, and Strauss is well known for emphasizing the significance of this as a literary phenomenon. He would seem to be on firm ground where Maimonides is at issue, since the latter even refers to such techniques and the role of presenting ideas via hints and contradictions. Unfortunately for the general esoteric/exoteric thesis of how to do philosophy, there is very little evidence that Maimonides did actually try to hide any of his views from the impressionable reading public.

Now for the major problem with the book in my view, which is its inability to deal with any actual philosophical issues, such as Maimonides’s views on prophecy, say, or the afterlife. Here we could have seen how plausible Green is on Strauss on Maimonides. This all sounds a bit convoluted, and that is why it would have been useful to look at some actual topics to see how well or otherwise the discussion is going. For example, we could have had a discussion like those most commentators produce about Maimonides on perhaps the nature of immortality or morality, and we could then have seen how far we agree with that interpretation. If we do we can then go on to see how far we agree with what Maimonides actually argued. After all, if he was a serious philosopher, and Green is quite right on that, it would be good to see him associated with some serious philosophy. Green keeps on threatening to reveal some actual arguments and then changes the subject, so we never manage to find out...