Ibn Gabirol's Theology of Desire: Matter and Method in Jewish Medieval NeoplatonismDrawing on Arabic passages from Ibn Gabirol's original Fons Vitae text, and highlighting philosophical insights from his Hebrew poetry, Sarah Pessin develops a "Theology of Desire" at the heart of Ibn Gabirol's eleventh-century cosmo-ontology. She challenges centuries of received scholarship on his work, including his so-called Doctrine of Divine Will. Pessin rejects voluntarist readings of the Fons Vitae as opposing divine emanation. She also emphasizes Pseudo-Empedoclean notions of "Divine Desire" and "Grounding Element" alongside Ibn Gabirol's use of a particularly Neoplatonic method with apophatic (and what she terms "doubly apophatic") implications. In this way, Pessin reads claims about matter and God as insights about love, desire, and the receptive, dependent, and fragile nature of human being. Pessin reenvisions the entire spirit of Ibn Gabirol's philosophy, moving us from a set of doctrines to a fluid inquiry into the nature of God and human being - and the bond between God and human being in desire. |
Contents
Text in Context | 9 |
From Human Being to Discourse on Matter? The Threefold | 28 |
Root Desire and the PseudoEmpedoclean Grounding Element | 41 |
On the Mistaken Scholarly | 53 |
Ibn Gabirols Hylomorphic Emanationism | 66 |
Matter Revisited | 91 |
Neoplatonic CosmoOntology as Apophatic Response and | 118 |
Transcendental Grounding Mythopoetic and Symbolic | 140 |
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Ibn Gabirol's Theology of Desire: Matter and Method in Jewish Medieval ... Sarah Pessin Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
al-awwal apophasis Aquinas Arabic Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle’s Avicebron Avicenna Chain ofBeing Chapter claim core cosmic cosmos creation critique described desire-to-be divine emanation Divine Essence Divine Irada Divine Unity Divine Wisdom emanationism emanationist Empedoclean tradition Empedocles emphasize existence find first flow Fons Vitae Gevirol God’s own Essence Hebrew higher cause highlights human hypostases Iamblichus Ibn Gabirol’s Theology Ibn Gabirol’s unique idea identified Intellect Islamic Jewish Kabbalistic Keter Latin lower effect Maimonides material Grounding Element matter and form matter—l—form Medieval Metaphysics Neoplatonic context Neoplatonic cosmo-ontology Neoplatonic Tripart Analysis Neoplatonist notion ofDesire ofDivine ofIbn ofmatter ofthe Paradox of Divine perspective Philosophy Pines Platonic Plotinian Plotinus poem prime matter Pseudo-Empedoclean pure material Grounding reading reality refer reflection relation role root Schlanger Section seen sense Shlomo Solomon Ibn Gabirol spirit substance Theology of Desire Theology ofAristotle things translation unfolding Universal Hylomorphism University Press Wolfson World Soul Zohar