Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed

MAIMONIDES’ GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed is a multi-layered and complex text which includes discussions of key issues for mediaeval philosophers, such as whether the world is created or exists eternally, and the possibility and nature of prophecy, miracles and divine providence. By using a contemporary philosophical approach, this study examines the doctrines of Maimonides’ Guide from the perspective of an enquiry into the question of whether or not an isolate, as epitomised in Ibn Tufail’s allegory, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, could achieve salvation with no access at all to the doctrines of revealed religion. The early work of Ludwig Wittgenstein – a philosopher not normally cited in the context of studies of Maimonides – shows that both thinkers were pessimistic about the possibility of genuine metaphysical knowledge being obtained by human beings, and advocated silence in the face of that which could not be truly known. However, Wittgenstein also believed that indirect communication of the unknowable was possible and that some things could be ‘shown’ but not ‘said’, being communicable in an indirect manner but not amenable to direct articulation. It is claimed here that Maimonides’ theory of religious language has implicit within it an element which is similar to Wittgenstein’s, and that the similarity is sufficient to justify the adoption of a Wittgensteinian perspective, not only to assist in the search for a doctrine of non-revelatory salvation in the Guide, but also to indicate the likely limitations of such a doctrine. Maimonides’Guide for the Perplexed: Silence and Salvation will be of interest, and accessible, to undergraduates interested in mediaeval thought in general, and that of Maimonides in particular, who wish to explore an issue which is perennially important in religious and philosophical thought. Donald McCallum received a PhD in philosophy from the University of Manchester. His research interests are in the areas of mediaeval philosophy, especially in the Jewish tradition, Spinoza and Schopenhauer. ROUTLEDGE JEWISH STUDIES SERIES Series Editor: Oliver Leaman University of Kentucky Studies, which are interpreted to cover the disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, culture, politics, philosophy, theology, religion, as they relate to Jewish affairs. The remit includes texts which have as their primary focus issues, ideas, personalities and events of relevance of Jews, Jewish life and the concepts which have characterised Jewish culture both in the past and today. The series is interested in receiving appropriate scripts or proposals. MEDIEVAL JEWISH JUDAISM, PHILOSOPHY, PHILOSOPHY CULTURE An introduction Selected studies by Dan Cohn-Sherbok E. I. J. Rosenthal Erwin Rosenthal FACING THE OTHER The ethics of Emmanuel Levinas PHILOSOPHY OF Edited by Seán Hand THE TALMUD Hyam Maccoby MOSES MAIMONIDES Oliver Leaman FROM SYNAGOGUE TO CHURCH: THE A USER’S GUIDE TO FRANZ TRADITIONAL DESIGN ROSENZWEIG’S STAR OF Its beginning, its definition, REDEMPTION its end Norbert M. Samuelson John Wilkinson ON LIBERTY HIDDEN PHILOSOPHY OF Jewish philosophical perspectives HANNAH ARENDT Edited by Daniel H. Frank Margaret Betz Hull REFERRING TO GOD DECONSTRUCTING THE BIBLE Jewish and Christian philosophical Abraham ibn Ezra’s introduction and theological perspectives to the Torah Edited by Paul Helm Irene Lancaster IMAGE OF THE BLACK IN HEBREW LANGUAGE JEWISH CULTURE AND JEWISH A history of the other THOUGHT Abraham Melamed David Patterson FROM FALASHAS TO CONTEMPORARY JEWISH ETHIOPIAN JEWS PHILOSOPHY Daniel Summerfield An introduction Irene Kajon PHILOSOPHY IN A TIME OF CRISIS ANTISEMITISM AND Don Isaac Abravanel: MODERNITY defender of the faith Innovation and continuity Seymour Feldman Hyam Maccoby JEWS, MUSLIMS AND JEWS AND INDIA MASS MEDIA History, image, Mediating the ‘other’ perceptions Edited by Tudor Parfitt Yulia Egorova with Yulia Egorova JEWISH MYSTICISM JEWS OF ETHIOPIA AND MAGIC The birth of an elite An anthropological Edited by Emanuela Trevisan Semi perspective and Tudor Parfitt Maureen Bloom ART IN ZION MAIMONIDES’ GUIDE The genesis of national art FOR THE PERPLEXED in Jewish Palestine Silence and salvation Dalia Manor Donald McCallum This page intentionally left blank MAIMONIDES’ GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED Silence and salvation Donald McCallum Routledge Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 Donald McCallum Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN10: 0–415–42111–X (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–96195–1 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–42111–9 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–96195–7 (ebk) FOR VAL, ALICE AND BETTY This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Preface xi Acknowledgements xiii 1 Enframing 1 2 Leo Strauss and Oliver Leaman on how to read the Guide 12 3 What we can say about God: the philosophical theology of the Guide 30 4 What we can say about creation: Marvin Fox on how to read the Guide 53 5 Using Wittgenstein’s Tractatus to approach the Guide 72 6 A reconstruction of the soteriology of the Guide 86 7 A reconstruction of the soteriology of the Guide: some further details 109 8 Showing that which cannot be said: in Tolstoy and in the Torah 122 Notes 147 Bibliography 176 Index 181 ix This page intentionally left blank PREFACE The aim of this book is to establish whether or not there is a non-revelatory doctrine of salvation from death contained within Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. The question will be contextualised by locating it against the backdrop of Ibn Tufail’s allegory, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, which shows how an isolated human being achieves salvation with no access at all to the doctrines of revealed religion, using only his reason and his senses. As with so many questions which arise from Maimonides’ text, establishing a naturalistic soteriology within it is not as straightforward as one might wish. The methodology adopted will be to show via a close reading of the Guide that his deep pessimism about the possibility of knowledge accessible to human beings concerning God and his creation notwithstanding, he simultaneously put forward a positive doctrine of salvation. In this doctrine, human beings, as created hylo- morphic beings with the concomitant ontological status of all such creatures, can survive death by perfecting their intellects to such an extent that at the point of death they leave behind, and become independent of, the matter which has hitherto individuated them, and survive death by conjoining with the Active Intellect – a metaphysical entity, the existence of which underpins all intellectual activity in the sublunary realm. This immortality is admittedly non-personal and non-individual, but it is, for Maimonides, true salvation, being synonymous with liberation from the trammels of matter – matter being the source of evil and of corruption in general, although as divinely created is not evil in itself. Thus the Guide contains both a philosophical theology, which is deeply sceptical about the possibility of demonstrative knowledge in the realms of both metaphysics and physics, with silence being the ultimate counsel of wisdom for those who seek God, and a soteriology which is based entirely on noesis. A further dimension is added to the study by the suggestion, and subsequent utilisation, of a parallel between some aspects of the Guide, and analogous aspects of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, with a benefit of this parallel being provided in the application of the distinction between saying and showing to Maimonides’ work. This parallel enables a final answer to be given to the question raised earlier. Throughout the book, the focus is very much on Maimonides the philosopher, rather than on Maimonides the Jewish theologian, codifier of post-Biblical legal xi PREFACE codes, administrator and intellectual adviser and succour of his co-religionists; and to this end little reference is made either to his writings other than The Guide of the Perplexed or to influences on him which are external to the tradition of Western philosophy which post-dates Thales. To take this hermeneutic stance is not to prescind in a misleading and artificial manner from the ‘whole’ writer – rather it is a deliberate decision to focus on the philosophy clearly and explicitly contained in the text, and to read the Guide in the tradition of which, for example, Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Descartes’ Meditations and Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason are classic examples. Certainly this entails that much of the material contained within the Guide, such as the implications of some of his comments for rabbinic debates, is set aside, but with a text as wide-ranging and rich as the Guide, one cannot have everything. There are treatments of philosophical topics in the Guide an appreciation of which does not require a grounding in rabbinic thought, any more than an appreciation of Descartes’ Meditations requires knowledge of Jesuit Catholicism, or an appreciation of Kant’s first Critique requires knowledge of Pietism, and it is with these topics that this book is predominantly concerned, although the textual support for the various arguments raised will be drawn from all parts of the Guide where relevant evidence is available.

Load more