Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies 2019 Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies Chief Editor Giuseppe Veltri Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies 2019 Volume Editor Yoav Meyrav The Yearbook is published on behalf of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies ISBN 978-3-11-060332-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-061883-9 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-060737-6 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 Licence. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Library of Congress Control Number: XXX Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Ms Cod. Levy 115, fol. 158r: Maimonides, More Nevukhim, Beginn von Teil III. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com In Memoriam Roi Benbassat Contents Editorial IX Part I: Articles Aryeh Botwinick The Simultaneous GenesisofMonotheism andScepticism in the Jewish Religion 3 MichelaTorbidoni Socratic Impulse, Secular Tendency,and Jewish Emancipation:AComparison between Simone Luzzattoand Moses Mendelssohn 11 Behnam Zolghadr The TheoryofAḥwāland Argumentsagainst the Law of Non-Contradiction 31 Máté Veres The Causes of Epochē: ANoteonStromateis 8.22.1–4 53 Ze’ev Strauss Meister Eckhart Reading Ibn Gabirol’s Fons vitae 65 Giada Coppola ObadiahSforno and the Individual Human Soul 101 José María Sánchez de León Serrano Arnold Geulincx: Scepticism and Mental Holism 125 Avraham Rot Spinoza’sAffective Scepticism 145 Timothy Franz What wasMaimon After? His Metaphysical Foundations of NaturalSciencein 1790 173 Michah Gottlieb Does Judaism Have Dogma? Moses Mendelssohn and aPivotal Nineteenth- Century Debate 219 VIII Contents Anne Fiebig From Scepticism to Toleranceof“the Other”:The Example of Yeshayahu Leibowitz 243 GiuseppeVeltri Jesuit Strategic Scepticism toward Religious Self-Consciousness and Commonalities: Chinese Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the Eyes of Matteo Ricci(1552–1610) and His “Translator” NicolasTrigault (1557–1628) 265 Part II: Reports Activities and Events 281 compiled by Maria Wazinski SilkeSchaeper Report on the LibraryofJewish Scepticism 303 Editorial The Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies2019 is the fourth vol- ume of articles stemmingfrom research conducted by MCAS’sfellows and affiliates. It also includes asection with an overviewofthe activities and events conductedat the centre duringits fourth academic year and areport on its library. The twelve articles contained in the present volume exhibit the extent to which MCAS scholarship advances the understanding of Judaism and scepticism, both in- dividuallyand together,among different thinkers and within different areas of study. Whether ashortnote or afull-fledged analysis,each paper has something fresh to offer and something new to say, opening new directions of research and inviting the scholarlycommunity to jointhe discussion. Aryeh Botwinick’sopeningessayoutlinesanew and thought-provoking ap- proach to Western thought and religion’sperception of itself. Instead of anarrative of conflict,Botwinick’shistoriosophyraises the notion of God’sunknowability as the mediating thread thatrenders monotheism and scepticism fundamentallyinter- twined. Michela Torbidoni’sstudy adds an important chapter to the as-yetunderstudied history of the persona and function of Socrateswithin the Jewish tradition. Focusing on the cases of Moses Mendelssohn and Simone Luzzatto, who operated at different times and in different contexts, she tantalisingly argues that the figure of Socrates can be considered as avehicle for Jewishemancipation. The comparative discussion adds evidence to the thesis that modern Jewish Italian culturewas part of the intel- lectualbasis of the programme to reform the statusofEuropean Jews in the late eighteenthcentury. BehnamZolghadr tackles one of the cornerstonesofAristotelianlogic—namely, the principle of non-contradiction—by presentingcritiques of it as reported by the Muslim theologian Faḫral-Dīnal-Rāzī (d. 1210). Zolghadr argues thatthese critiques, which can be traced back to the Muʿtazilite mutakallimūn,function as part of its con- solidation of the theory of states(aḥwāl), which can consequentlyberegarded as a dialetheic theory.Assuch, Zolghadr devises the first steps in modelling it logically using tools of paraconsistent logic developed in the late twentieth century,more than athousand years after the theory’sinception. Máté Veres enrichesthe understanding of ancientscepticism by exploring Clem- ent of Alexandria’sdiscussion of epochē (suspension of judgment) in his Stromateis. He examines and refines arguments thatsupport the claim thatClement is present- ing avariety of scepticism thatpredates the well-known version expounded by Sex- tus Empiricusand considers different explanations as to whyaChristian theologian of Clement’sstandingwould express interestinsceptical arguments, let alone recog- nise theirpotential legitimacy. OpenAccess. ©2020, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110618839-001 X Editorial Ze’ev Strauss offers the first comprehensive scholarlywork in English on Meister Eckhart’semployment of IbnGabirol’s Fons vitae. He shows the vast extent to which Eckhart drawsonthis work, explicitlyand also implicitly,inorder to account for his own Christian philosophy, primarilygravitating towards IbnGabirol’smetaphysics of the One. Strauss shows that manyofthe provocative and unusual elements of Eck- hart’sChristian thoughtcorrespond to Eckhart’sfavourable view of Fons vitae. Giada Coppola elucidates Obadiah Sforno’s(?1475–1550) philosophicalinterpre- tation of the individual human soul in his Lightofthe Nations,with emphasis on his defence of its immortality.Coppola shows how exegetical interpretation and the text’sphilosophical background are intrinsically connected, identifies Sforno’ssour- ces common to the Hebrew and Latin traditions, and displays the interesting dynam- ics between Sforno’sphilosophical composition and his biblical commentaries. José MaríaSánchez de León Serrano offers anew reading of the Flemish thinker Arnold Geulincx (1624–69)based on an audacious interpretation of his epistemolog- ical views. By tracing the central tenetsofGeulincx’sthought back to his method of self-inspection, SánchezdeLeónSerrano illuminatesthe unity and systematic char- acter of this multifaceted philosopher—who at first glanceseems to offer an incoher- ent blend of scepticism and metaphysics—and opens up new vistas in the studyof this stillwidelyoverlooked thinker. Avraham Rot’spaper offers an original and challenging interpretation of Spi- noza’sphilosophical project,arguing that if one shifts the focus of analysis from his theory of knowledge to his theory of affects, Spinoza emergesasaphilosopher whose scepticism is significantlymoreradical than its Cartesian counterpart.Rot claims that for Spinoza, the doubt that matters is not doubt as amethodological de- vice employed to attain certainty,but rather the doubt that human beingsconstantly experience insofarasthey are finite, embodied, and uncertain of their future. TimothyFranz offers ahighlydetailed, in-depth analysis of Solomon Maimon’s seldom-studied Weltseele (1790), which he describes as aproto-dialectical metaphy- sics of the absolute. Beyond exploring the Weltseele on its own terms, Franz identi- fies it as akey stageinMaimon’sphilosophical development and argues that it func- tions as an attempt to overcome the self-conceivedfailure of Maimon’swell-known Essay on Transcendental Philosophy. In turn, the ideas in the Weltseele wereaban- doned,although not before they exposed the need to construct alogic of the abso- lute, which was ultimatelyexpressed in Maimon’s Logik (1794). Michah Gottlieb’scontribution does much to clarify the debate surroundingJu- daism and dogma as reflected in German-speaking Jewishauthors in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, showing thatitisnot merelyatheoretical question, but also has much to do with concrete considerations concerning Jewish society.Hebe- gins with athorough analysis of Moses Mendelssohn’sview of Judaism, explaining in what sense it should be understood as anti-dogmatic and also how it reflects Men- delssohn’saspiration for aself-conception of Judaism thatisdistinct from Christian- ity.Gottlieb then turns to discuss leading nineteenth-century German-speakingJew- ish thinkers and shows how they transform the problem from an intrareligious one to Postscript XI an interreligious one. Each response is informed by aconcept of Judaism that is in- timatelyconnected to the problem of Jewishcommunal unity. Anne Fiebig’sarticle is the first to offer asystematic account of the concept of tolerance in the thought of Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–94), one of the most impor- tant—and certainlymost controversial—Israeli philosophers, as it emergesfrom his religious scepticism. AnalysingLeibowitz’sepistemology,Fiebigpresents Leibowitz as amodel against religious dogmatism, which Leibowitz regardsascorruptive to agenuinelyfaithful position. Finally, through an analysis of an earlyseventeenth-century Jesuit report about religious minorities in China,Giuseppe