2. Principles of Jewish Skeptical Thought. the Case of Judah Moscato and Simone Luzzatto

2. PRINCIPLES OF JEWISH SKEPTICAL THOUGHT. THE CASE OF JUDAH MOSCATO AND SIMONE LUZZATTO Giuseppe Veltri In the last century, the study of skepticism enjoyed a spirited academic interest and enthusiastic popularity. Ancient Eastern and West- ern schools of skeptical thought and philosophy have been the subjects of numerous tractates, books, articles, and prises de position; nor is there any doubt that not only were the historical Pyrrhonian philosophy and the classical academies analyzed and described, but the currents of skeptical method in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period were also the objects of substantial investigation. Moreover, much secondary interest has been devoted to the study of ancient, medieval, and early modern Jewish skepticism. The entry of Alvin J. Reines in the old and new editions of the Encyclopaedia Judaica refers only to the fideist question of the unreliability of reason, and he quotes Judah Halevy and asdai Crescas on the inadequacy of neo-Platonic and Aristotelian physics and metaphysics as naturally acquired knowledge.1 However,—he comments—“in their refutations of Neoplatonic Aristotelianism, Judah Halevy and Crescas relied on reason and assumed the validity of empirical knowledge.”2 Skepticism is seen here, consequently, only as an argument to reinforce divine revelation. Reines mentions no other movement for the entire history of Jewish philosophy. 1 Alvin J. Reines, “Skeptics and Skepticism,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed., vol. 18 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 657–658. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 9 June 2010. 2 Ibidem. 16 giuseppe veltri With some rare exceptions3 concerned mainly with Uriel da Costa,4 Aaron d’Antan,5 Salomon Maimon,6 or the everlasting question of whether and how the biblical book of Qohelet should be included in the history of skepticism,7 there is little on Jewish skeptical thought on academic shelves. In a very learned book on skepticism and irreligion, edited in 1997 by Richard Popkin, the famous specialist in the history of skepticism, there is no contribution on Jewish thinking at all,8 as though the question had never been dealt with by Jewish academies or scholarship. To the best of my knowledge, only Aryeh Botwinik has dealt with the topic, by overemphasizing the role of negative theology on the development of skeptical thought.9 In his book, Botwinik presents an ideal line that links the negative theology of Maimonides with the negative vision of the godhead in Nietzsche. He interprets monotheism as criticism and as a skeptical attitude to knowledge based on the negative process of understanding. That is nothing but an apo- phatic theology aimed at sharpening the skeptical sense of the phi- 3 On Francisco Sánchez and whether he was a Jewish convert to Christianity, see Elain Limbrick’s introduction to Francisco Sánchez, That Nothing is Known, ed. Elaine Limbrick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 6 ff. See also José Faur, “Sánchez’ Critique of Authoritas: Converso Skepticism and the Emergence of Radical Hermeneutics,” in The Return to Scripture in Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Postcritical Scriptural Interpretation, ed. Peter Ochs (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 256–276. 4 Sanford Shepard, “The background of Uriel Da Costa’s Heresy: Marranism, Skepticism, Karaism,” Judaism 20 (1971): 341–350. 5 Martin Mulsow, “Cartesianism, Skepticism and Conversion to Judaism: the Case of Aaron d’Antan,” in Secret Conversions to Judaism in Early Modern Europe, ed. Martin Mulsow and Richard H. Popkin (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 123–181. 6 Nathan Rotenstreich, “The problem of the ‘Critique of Judgment’ and Solomon Maimon’s Skepticism, in Harry A. Wolfson Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His Seventy- Fifth Birthday, 2 vols. ( Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1965), vol. 2: 577–702. 7 See for example James Lee Crenshaw, “The Birth of Skepticism in Ancient Israel,” in The Divine Helmsman. Studies on God’s Control of Human Events, Presented to Lou H. Silberman, ed. James L. Crenshaw and Samuel Sandmel (New York: KTAV Publishing House 1980), 1–19; Bernon Lee, “Towards a Rhetoric of Contradiction in the Book of Ecclesiastes” (Ph.D. University of Calgary, 1997), passim; William H. U. Anderson, “What is Skepticism and Can it Be Found in the Hebrew Bible?” Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 13,2 (1999): 225–257. 8 Skepticism and Irreligion in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Richard H. Pop- kin and Arjo Vanderjagt (Leiden: Brill, 1993); but see Richard H. Popkin, The History of Skepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2003), passim, where he refers to some Jewish skeptical thinkers such as Halewy and Crescas without going into the question of Jewish skepticism. 9 Aryeh Botwinick, Skepticism, Belief, and the Modern: Maimonides to Nietzsche (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), Questia, Web, 24 July 2010..

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