Abstract

MAIMONIDES the great systematizer of Jewish Law, left no systematic philosophy for later generations. His philosophical legacy consists mainly of his Guide of the Perplexed and a few lesser philosophical tracts. The Guide is notoriously informal and unsystematic, moving from topic to topic in a manner that appears at times to have no inner logic. The lesser tracts yield only fragments of a whole. In addition, for whatever reasons, Maimonides felt obliged to conceal at least some of his true philosophical positions, displaying to the untrained eye one position, while hinting to the more discerning reader a "true" position lying behind the official one. There is nothing in Maimonides' writings that even begins to approach the monumental architectonic of Aquinas' Summa Theologiae.