History of Jewish Philosophy

Routledge History of World Philosophies Volume II

EDITED BY Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman

~ l Routledge ~ ~ Taylor &Francis Croup LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1997 by Routledge 29 West 3 5.th Street, New York, NY 10001

Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge l l New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

First published in paperback 200J

Routledge is an imprint ofthe Taylor & Francis Group

Typeset in Garamond by Refinecatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

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 History of Jewish Philosophy I Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, [editors]. 934p. 24cm. - (Routledge history of world philosophies; v.2) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0-415-080649 (hbk) l. Philosophy, Jewish-History 2. Judaism -History I. Frank, Daniel H., 1950- II. Leaman, Oliver, 1950- LC95026075 Br54.H57 1997 DC181/ .06 20

ISBN 0-41 5--08064-9 (hbk) ISBN 0-41 5-32469-6 (pbk) Contents

Notes on contributors 1X Preface Xl

I What is Jewish philosophy? I Daniel H. Frank

I Foundations and first principles

2 The Bible as a source for philosophical reflection 13 Shalom Carmy and David Shatz

3 Hellenistic Jewish philosophy David Winston

4 The Talmud as a source for philosophical reflection 62 David Novak

II Medieval Jewish philosophy 5 The nature of medieval Jcwish philosophy Alexander Broadie

6 The Islamic social and cultural context 93 Steven M. Wass.erstrom

7 Kalam in medieval Jewish philosophy Haggai Ben-Shammai

8 Medieval Jewish N eoplatonism 149 T. M. Rudavsky

v CONTENTS

9 Judah Halevi 188 Lenn E. Goodman

10 Medieval Jewish Aristotelianism: an introduction 228 Norbert M. Samuelson

II Moses Maimonides 245 Howard Kreisel

12 Maimonides and Aquinas 281 Alexander Broadie

13 The social and cultural context: thirteenth to fifteenth centuries 294 Marc Saperstein r4 The Maimonidean controversy 331 I dit Dobbs-Weinstein

15 Hebrew philosophy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: an overview 350 Charles H. Manekin

16 Levi ben Gershom (Ge~sonides) 379 Seymour Feldman

17 Chasdai Crescas 399 Daniel]. Lasker

18 Medieval and Renaissance Jewish political philosophy 415 Abraham Melamed

19 Jewish mysticism: a philosophical overview 450 Elliot R. Wolfson

20 Jewish philosophy on the eve of modernity 499 Rava Tirosh-Rothschild

III Modern Jewish philosophy 21 The nature of modern Jewish philosophy 577 Ze'ev Levy

Vi CONTENTS

22 The social and cultural context: seventeenth-century Europe 589 Elisheva Carlebach

23 The Jewish community of Amster~in 600 Richard H. Popkin

24 Spinoza 612 Seymour Feldman

25 The social and cultural context: eighteenth-century Enlightenment 636 Lois C. Dubin

26 Mendelssohn 660 Michael L. Morgan

27 Nineteenth-century German Reform philosophy 682 Mordecai Finley

28 The ideology of Wissenschaft des J udentums 706 DavidN. Myers

29 Samson Raphael Hirsch 721 Harry Lesser

30 Traditional reactions to modern Jewish Reform: the paradigm of German Orthodoxy 732 David Ellenson

IV Contemporary Jewish philosophy 31 Jewish nationalism 76r Ze'ev Levy

32 Zionism 776 Ze'ev Levy

33 Jewish neo-Kantianism: Hermann Cohen 786 Kenneth Seeskin

34 Jewish existentialism: Rosenzweig, Buber, and Soloveitchik 799 Oliver Leaman

Vll CONTENTS

35 Leo Strauss 820 Kenneth Hart Green

36 The Shoah 854 Steven T. Katz

37 Postmodern Jewish philosophy 875 Richard A. Cohen

38 Jewish feminist thought 885 Judith Plaskow

39 The future of Jewish philosophy 895 Oliver Leaman

Index of names 908

Index of terms 925

Vlll