The Canon of Medieval Jewish Philosophy: a Response to Dov Schwartz

THE CANON OF MEDIEVAL JEWISH PHILOSOPHY: A RESPONSE TO DOV SCHWARTZ Daniel J. Lasker Ben-Gurion University of the Negev An obvious problem in writing a history of medieval Jewish philosophy is determining which compositions are the appropriate source mate- rial for that history. Should such a history concern itself only with a few outstanding compositions or with every treatise that could qual- ify as medieval, Jewish, and philosophical? One of Dov Schwartz’s major contributions to the study of medieval Jewish philosophy has been his locating and examining of forgotten treatises and expand- ing, thereby, the literary basis for such a history. Yet it is unclear that just because a medieval Jewish thinker penned a composition, which may barely have survived in manuscript and which is unlikely to have been read by more than a handful of people, that one is obligated to include it in a history of what we call medieval Jewish philosophy. As Schwartz points out in his article, authors of histories of Jewish philosophy have generally concentrated on only a select number of works. So we must ask: what are the criteria for choos- ing or excluding compositions? Another way of asking the question is: what is the canon of medieval Jewish philosophy? Determining the canon of medieval Jewish philosophy requires rst of all recognizing that the term “canon of medieval Jewish philosophy” applies to more than one set of books. In the Middle Ages, onecould de ne the canon as the list of books that a Jewish aspirant to philosophy would be expected to read. More likely than not, such a list would include books by non-Jews (especially Averroes’ commentaries on the Aristotelian corpus), as well as books written by Jews. 1 Many of these books would be read only by specialists in philosophy and not by the general public, and their purpose was to help readers determine scienti c and philosophical truth. In the modern period,by 1 See Steven Harvey, “Did Maimonides’ Letter to Samuel ibn Tibbon Determine which Philosophers Would Be Studied by Later Jewish Thinkers?” in Jewish Quarterly Review 83:1-2 (1992), pp. 51-70. ©Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2003 Review of Rabbinic Judaism 6.2-3 318 daniel j. lasker contrast, we can talk of other usages of this literature, usages thathave produced two distinct canons of medieval Jewish philosophy, one of the academics, who are writing histories of Jewish philosophy, and one of the traditional Jewish community, which looks to Jewish philosophy for spiritual guidance. Although there is some overlap between these canons, such as the works of Maimonides, there is a quite signi cant divergence between what scholars consider the basic building blocks of medieval Jewish philosophy and what the non-academic Jewish world does. 2 The present discussion compares these two modern canons and considers why a disparity exists between them. I The academic canon of medieval Jewish philosophy came into exist- ence in the mid-nineteenth century, with the innovation of the scienti c study of Judaism ( Wissenschafts des Judentums ). Perhaps the rst such canon was introduced by Salomon Munk, who o Vered the schol- arly world “a mixture of Jewish and Arabic philosophy” in his pio- neering book from 1857. 3 After a major discussion of Solomon ibn Gabirol’s Source of Life , the abridged medieval Hebrew translation of which Munk published as well, there is a long account of major Islamic philosophers (Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufail, and Averroes). 4 Finally, there is a rough historical sketch (“esquisse historique”) of Jewish philosophy from biblical times to the expulsion from Spain. Munk included in this history: Daud al-Muqammiß, Yusuf al-Baßir the Karaite, Saadia Gaon, Hasdai ibn Shaprut (for his promotion of Jewish philosophy), Solomon ibn Gabirol, Bahya ibn Paquda, Judah Halevy, Abraham ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Daud, Maimonides, Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera, Yedaiah Penini, Joseph ibn Caspi, Isaac Albalag, Gersonides, Moses Narbonni, Aaron ben Elijah the Karaite, Joseph Albo, Abraham Bibago, Joseph 2 Reference here is to Jewish academics or those who study speci cally Jewish philosophy; a survey of general books on medieval philosophy shows that their canon of Jewish philosophy usually consists only of Maimonides. 3 Salomon Munk, Mélanges de Philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1857 and subsequent editions); for a discussion of Munk’s contribution to the academic study of Jewish philosophy, see Alfred Ivry, “Salomon Munk and the Mélanges de Philosophie juive et arabe,” in Jewish Studies Quarterly 7 (2000), pp. 120-126. 4 Munk’s study most likely contributed, as well, to the formation of the academic canon of medieval Islamic philosophy..

Load more