This book examines central themes in the thought of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas (c. 1340-1410/11), the great Catalan Jewish philosopher who contributed to the revolution of modern science and profoundly influenced Spinoza. Part I treats of Crescas' radical critique of the Aristotelian concepts of space, time, and the vacuum, and analyzes his vision of an infinite universe; it discusses his criticisms of Maimonides' proofs of God, and expounds his own proof; and it concludes with a discussion of his concept of God (...) as infinite Love. Part II contains three essays on Crescas' strictly deterministic theory of human choice. (shrink)

Maimonides requires the multitude to observe many ceremonial commandments, while Spinoza makes no such demand. This chapter focuses on some of the main points of agreement between Maimonides and Spinoza on true religion, the religion of reason, or philosophic religion. True religion includes also piety, that is, moral conduct, which follows from the rational life. The piety of the philosopher and the non‐philosopher both consist in doing good to others. Maimonides’ approach to true religion adumbrates Spinoza's. Spinoza's concept of amor (...) Dei intellectualis echoes Maimonides’ concept of the passionate intellectual love of God. Spinoza's concept of piety is adumbrated in Maimonides. The Maimonidean thrust of Spinoza's concept of true religion is evident in his discussion of “the divine Law” or, more precisely, “the natural divine Law” and the summum bonum in TTP4. In Maimonides’ language, true religion is based on the intelligibilia and popular religion on generally accepted opinions. (shrink)

The life, works, and philosophy of rabbi Hasdai Crescas.

Martin Buber’s essay “False Prophets” was written in Hebrew in Jerusalem two years after he fled Nazi Germany and assumed a professorship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The essay offers a political analysis of the dramatic confrontation between the prophets Jeremiah and Hananiah. It speaks about the dangers of nationalism in Jeremiah’s biblical Jerusalem and in Buber’s own modern Jerusalem, eight years before the proclamation of the State of Israel. Who is the real lover of the homeland, Buber asks, (...) the patriot who cares not about human beings, or the concerned individual who is willing to compromise in order to avoid destruction and save lives? When does nationalism become malignant? What is the difference between a true prophet and a false one? (shrink)

In the course of his studies on Kabbalah, Moshe Idel has written on the influence of Kabbalists on philosophy. He suggests that Spinoza was influenced by the Kabbalah regarding his expressions “Deus sive Natura“ and “amor Dei intellectualis.” The 13th-century ecstatic Kabbalist Rabbi Abraham Abulafia and many authors after him cited the numerical equivalence of the Hebrew words for God and Nature: elohim = ha-teba` = 86. This striking numerical equivalence may be one of the sources of Spinoza’s expression “Deus (...) sive Natura.” The same Kabbalist used the Hebrew expression “ahabah elohit sikhlit“ (“divine intellectual love”), which may underlie Spinoza’s expression “amor Dei intellectualis.” Abulafia’s expression “ahabah elohit sikhlit“ is repeated by the popular 15th-century Maimonidean philosopher, Rabbi Abraham Shalom. (shrink)

In his “Spinoza’s TTP , Maimonides, and Kant” (1968), Pines compared Spinoza’s dogmas of universal faith ( TTP , 14) with Kant’s postulates of practical reason ( Critique of Practical Reason , part 1). According to him, Spinoza’s dogmas, like Maimonides’ “necessary beliefs” ( Guide 3:28), are postulates necessary for political welfare, and do not fall under the jurisdiction of theoretical reason. They define the faith of the common person, not that of the philosopher. Kant, in his remarks about Spinoza (...) as an “upright skeptic,” mistakenly thought his dogmas were true beliefs, not necessary ones; and his notion of postulates of practical reason seems to have been in part influenced by his mistaken view of Spinoza’s dogmas. The transformation of Maimonides’ “necessary beliefs” into Kant’s “postulates of practical reason,” as narrated by Pines, recalls the similar transformation of “Averroism” into “Christian Averroism” in the thirteenth century. In essays written from the late 1970s until his death in 1990, Pines returned to the theme of Maimonides and Kant, and argued convincingly that Maimonides’ epistemology was “critical” in the Kantian sense. However, his related argument that Maimonides’ religious sensibility was similar to Kant’s is less convincing. Unlike Kant, Maimonides did not think that critical epistemology made room for faith, but held that it caused one to tremble in awe. Like Spinoza, he identified true faith with intellectual knowledge, not something beyond it. His distinctiveness as a philosopher is that he was a God-intoxicated Knower like Spinoza, but a critical epistemologist like Kant. (shrink)