Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies 2018 Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies Edited by Giuseppe Veltri Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies 2018 Volume Editor Bill Rebiger The Yearbook is published on behalf of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies ISBN 978-3-11-057560-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-057768-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-057624-5 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover: 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 Contents Editorial VII Part I: Articles Dirk Westerkamp Quaestio sceptica disputatadephilosophia judaeorum: Is thereaJewish Philosophy? 3 Hanna Liss Scepticism, Critique, and the ArtofWriting: PreliminaryConsiderations on the Question of Textual Authority in Medieval Peshaṭ Exegesis 15 Bill Rebiger Sceptical Elements in aDogmatic Stance: Isaac Polqar against Kabbalah 47 GiuseppeVeltri Apologetic, Empiricism, and Sceptical Strategies in Simone Luzzatto 67 Oded Schechter Spinoza’sMiracles: Scepticism, Dogmatism, and Critical Hermeneutics 89 Diego Lucci Political Scepticism, MoralScepticism, and the Scope and LimitsofToleration in John Locke 109 Guido Bartolucci Jewish Scepticism in Christian Eyes: Jacob F. Reimmann and the Transformation of Jewish Philosophy 145 LukasLang Reidian Common Sense: An Antidote to Scepticism? 165 Ze’ev Strauss The Ground Floor of Judaism: Scepticismand Certainty in Moses Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem 179 VI Contents Andreas Brämer Abraham Geiger—skeptischer Pionier einer Glaubenslehre des Reformjudentums? 207 Asher Salah Are Karaites Sceptics? The Jewish Perception of Karaism in Nineteenth Century Italy 231 Libera Pisano Anarchic Scepticism: Language, Mysticismand Revolution in Gustav Landauer 251 Part II Reports Activities and Events 275 Yoav Meyrav Report on the International Conference on Abraham Abulafiaand the Early Maimonideans: Trends, Approaches, and Sceptical Strategies (March 12–15, 2018) 307 SilkeSchaeper Report on the LibraryofJewish Scepticism 319 Editorial The Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies 2018 is alreadythe third volume containing articles resulting from the research done by fellows and research associates in the first section as well as reports on the events which took place at the Maimonides Centre in the second section. In the first section, articles dealing with avariety of topics related to scepticism are chronologicallystructured from the Middle Ages to the earlytwentieth century. All articles have been subject to adouble-blind peer review.Inaprogrammatic way, Dirk Westerkamp’sarticle opensthis section, posing the question, ‘Is therea Jewishphilosophy.’ As his contribution wasfirst presented in aDialectical Evening at the MaimonidesCentre, the form of his article discussingthe pros and cons is rem- iniscent of amediaeval scholastic quaestio. In her article on textual authority in medieval peshaṭ exegesis, Hanna Liss exam- ines exegetical glosses in Ms Vienna,Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. hebr. 220. She focusses on the question whether,and in what manner,the gloss’scom- ments conveynegative criticism of RashiʼsTorah commentary,and how and in which waythey challengethe authority of this sage. With regard to her topic, Liss concludes that an extension of the term ‘scepticism’ beyond its epistemological meaning,actuallycauses more problems than it solves. Bill Rebiger analyses apassageattacking the Kabbalah from ʽEzer ha-Dat (‘In Support of the Religion’)written by the Jewish Averroist Isaac Polqar in the first half of the fourteenth century.Rebiger provides the reader with the first translation of the entire passageinto English and acommentary exposing the sceptical elements detected therein. GiuseppeVeltri presents some subtle sceptical strategies implemented by the Venetian Rabbi Simone Luzzatto in his Discorso to substantiate the right of existence of the Jews despite and because of their differencesinthe face of the Venetian society and government.Inthe sameway,Veltri studies Luzzatto’s Socrate which is the first existing treatise on scepticism written by aJew. The starting point of Oded Schechter’sarticle is the riddle first formulated by Leo Strauss: Is Spinoza’sinterpretationofmiracles consistent with his literal-sense her- meneutics?Incontrast to Strauss’ view,Schechter suggests that closer readingofSpi- noza’scritique of both sceptic and dogmatic hermeneutics clears the path for solving the Straussian riddle. DiegoLucci reconsiders the impact of John Locke’smoral and soteriological con- cerns on his approach to religious toleration and, thus, on the scope and limits of Locke’sviews on toleration in their development from his ALetter concerning Toler- ation to TheReasonableness of Christianity. As aresult,hefocusses on the sceptical dimension of Locke’sthought. Guido Bartolucci’sarticle dealswith the Lutheran scholarJacob F. Reimmann who published ashortessayin1704under the provocative title “An Salomon fuerit OpenAccess. ©2018 Giuseppe Veltri and Bill Rebiger,published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/978-3-11-057768-6-001 VIII Editorial scepticus?” (“WasSolomon Sceptic?”)arguingthatthe essence of Jewish philosophy is scepticism. Actually, Reimmann’sclaim is the first evidence for this interpretation and Bartolucci studies its historicalbackground. Remaining in the eighteenth century,Lukas Lang discusses Thomas Reid’scom- mon-sense-basedversion of the well-known apraxia objection, as it appears to be im- mune to Sextus Empiricus’ replycountering it and so still has achance to succeed. The following three articles are devoted to the JewishEnlightenment in Germany and Italy. Ze’ev Strauss explores Moses Mendelssohn’sequivocal application of doubt in Jerusalem oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum (JerusalemoronReligious Power and Judaism), and demonstrates that he, despite his rather unfavourable view of scepticism as a ‘disease of the soul,’ nonetheless drawsheavilyonit. In his article on Abraham Geiger,one of the most influential rabbis in German Reform Judaism, Andreas Brämer considers him to be asceptical pioneer of atheol- ogyofthe new Jewishtrend. While Geiger was interested in contemporary outcomes of Protestant theologyasarole model on the one hand and acontrasting concept on the other,atthe end he hesitated in writingamatchingtheologysuitable for Jewish Reform concepts. Due to the manyunpublished German sources provided by the au- thor this article was not translated into English. Asher Salahsurveysthe Jewish perception of Karaism as ambivalent objects of attraction and repulsion in debates between traditionalists and reformers of nine- teenth century Italy. The selected texts the author discusses posethe leadingques- tion ‘Are Karaites Sceptics?’ In the last article of this section, LiberaPisano introduces the anarchic sceptic GustavLandauer and analyses his unique concepts concerning language, mysticism, and revolution. Pisano focusses on Landauer’splace within the German discourse of Sprachkrise at the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century. The second section of the Yearbook consists of three reports.The first presents all activities and events taking place at the MaimonidesCentre between August 2017 and August 2018. Yoav Meyrav summarises the papers delivered at the international con- ferenceonAbraham Abulafia and the earlyMaimonideans hosted at the Centre in March 12–15,2018. Finally, the Centre’slibrarian Silke Schaeper reports on the new acquisitions of the Library of JewishScepticism. We would like to thank James Rumball who worked on the languageediting of this volume. First and foremost,weowe manythanks to the Deutsche Forschungsge- meinschaft for the generous funding that maintains the Centre, to the Board of Trust- ees for their supervisory role, the advisory board for their engagement in selecting the fellows, and the President of the Universität Hamburg,Dieter Lenzen, the Chan- cellor,Martin Hecht,the Dean of the faculty,OliverHuck, and the head of the Phi- losophydepartment,Benjamin Schnieder,for all theireffortsthat have made the Maimonides Centre aunique venue in the scholarlyworld. Hamburg, August 2018 Giuseppe Veltri (Chief Editor) Bill Rebiger (Volume Editor) Part I: Articles Dirk Westerkamp Quaestio sceptica disputatadephilosophia judaeorum: Is thereaJewishPhilosophy? Listen to the truth whoever speaks it. (Maimonides,Eight Chapters) Quaestio The question reads: Is there aJewishPhilosophy(JP) or Can there be aJP? Thisques- tion evidentlyentails the question: What is JP? Videtur quod It seems thatthere is aJP. JP is taught at departments of philosophyand Jewish thoughtaround the world. JP looks back on along history and rich tradition. Some- times JP is put to use in public debates.¹ We speak of Philo, Maimonides, Mendels- sohn and Lévinas as Jewish thinkers. JP is aphilosophical tradition and we should not underestimatethattraditions are important for (the history of)philosophy.²