Download or read book The Creation of the World According to Gersonides written by Jacob J. Staub and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gersonides Afterlife written by Ofer Elior and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-06-29 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gersonides’ Afterlife is the first full-scale treatment of the reception of one of the greatest scientific minds of medieval Judaism: Gersonides (1288–1344). An outstanding representative of the Hebrew Jewish culture that then flourished in southern France, Gersonides wrote on mathematics, logic, astronomy, astrology, physical science, metaphysics and theology, and commented on almost the entire bible. His strong-minded attempt to integrate these different areas of study into a unitary system of thought was deeply rooted in the Aristotelian tradition and yet innovative in many respects, and thus elicited diverse and often impassionate reactions. For the first time, the twenty-one papers collected here describe Gersonides’ impact in all fields of his activity and the reactions from his contemporaries up to present-day religious Zionism.
Download or read book Gersonides written by Seymour Feldman and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosopher, astronomer, and biblical exegete known both as Gersonides and Ralbag (1288-1344) wrote a veritable library of works that testify not only to the breadth of his intellectual concerns but to his attempt to forge a synthesis between the secular sciences and Judaism. This is the first English-language study to assess his place and significance for Jewish thought, and it offers a comprehensive picture of his philosophy that is both descriptive and evaluative.
Download or read book Gersonides written by Seymour Feldman and published by . This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gersonides (1288-1344), known also as Ralbag, was a philosopher of the first rank as well as an astronomer and biblical exegete, yet this is the first English-language study of the significance of his work for Jewish thought. Seymour Feldman, the acclaimed translator of Gersonides' most important work, The Wars of the Lord - a complete philosophical system and astronomical encyclopedia - has written a comprehensive picture of Gersonides' philosophy that is both descriptive and evaluative. Unusually for a Jewish scholar, Gersonides had contacts with several Christian notables and scholars. It is known that these related to mathematical and astronomical matters; the extent to which these contacts also influenced his philosophical thought is a matter of some controversy. Unquestionably, however, he wrote a veritable library of philosophical, scientific, and exegetical works that testify not only to the range of his intellectual concerns but also to his attempt to forge a philosophical-scientific synthesis between these secular sciences and Judaism. Unlike many modern scientists or philosophers, who either scorn religion or compartmentalize it, he did not see any fundamental discrepancy between the pursuit of truth via reason and its attainment through divine revelation: there is only one truth, with which both reason and revelation must agree. As a philosopher-scientist and biblical exegete Gersonides sought to make this agreement robustly evident. While philosophical and scientific ideas have progressed since Gersonides' time, his work is still relevant today because his attempt to make prophecy and miracles understandable in terms of some commonly held philosophical or scientific theory is paradigmatic of a religion that is not afraid of reason. His general principle that reason should function as a 'control' of what we believe has interesting and important implications for the modern reader. Indeed, some of his basic arguments are favoured by many contemporary thinkers who attempt to incorporate modern science into their religious belief system. He was not afraid to make religious beliefs philosophically and scientifically credible; one could say that he pursued an 'ethics of belief' in that he held that there are constraints to what is believable, especially in religion. In this respect he was a precursor of Kant and Hermann Cohen: Judaism is or should be a religion of reason.
Download or read book Gersonides written by Ruth Glasner and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gersonides was a highly original Jewish philosopher, scientist and biblical exegete, active in Provence in the first half of the fourteenth century. Ruth Glasner explores his impressive achievements, and argues that the key to understanding his originality is his perspective as an applied mathematical scientist. It was this perspective that led him to examine Aristotelianism from directions different from those usually adopted by contemporary scholastic scholars. Gersonides started on his way, as he himself claims, as a 'mathematician, natural scientist, and philosopher', who believed in his power to solve the main problems of medieval science. He ended up concentrating on his work as a mathematical astronomer, developing techniques of observation and computation, and somewhat less optimistic about the prospect of scientific knowledge.
Download or read book Gersonides on Providence Covenant and the Chosen People written by Robert Eisen and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a careful examination of the doctrine of Jewish chosenness in the light of Gersonides's thought on providential suffering and on inherited providence. Gersonides is one of the most interesting and important philosophers of the later Jewish Middle Ages.
Download or read book Judaism and the Doctrine of Creation written by Norbert M. Samuelson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-11-24 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The topic of this book is 'creation'. It breaks down into discussions of two distinct, but interrelated, questions: what does the universe look like, and what is its origin? The opinions about creation considered by Norbert Samuelson come from the Hebrew scriptures, Greek philosophy, Jewish philosophy and contemporary physics. His perspective is Jewish, liberal and philosophical. It is 'Jewish' because the foundation of the discussion is biblical texts interpreted in the light of traditional rabbinic texts. It is 'philosophical' because the subject matter is important in both past and present philosophical texts, and to Jewish philosophy in particular. Finally, it is 'liberal' because the authorities consulted include heterodox as well as orthodox Jewish sources. The ensuing discussion leads to original conclusions about a diversity of topics, including the limits of human reason and religious faith, and the relevance of scientific models to religious doctrine.
Download or read book The Virtue Ethics of Levi Gersonides written by Alexander Green and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-29 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that Levi Gersonides articulates a unique model of virtue ethics among medieval Jewish thinkers. Gersonides is recognized by scholars as one of the most innovative Jewish philosophers of the medieval period. His first model of virtue is a response to the seemingly capricious forces of luck through training in endeavor, diligence, and cunning aimed at physical self-preservation. His second model of virtue is altruistic in nature. It is based on the human imitation of God as creator of the laws of the universe for no self-interested benefit, leading humans to imitate God through the virtues of loving-kindness, grace, and beneficence. Both these models are amplified through the institutions of the kingship and the priesthood, which serve to actualize physical preservation and beneficence on a larger scale, amounting to recognition of the political necessity for a division of powers.
Download or read book The Astronomy of Levi ben Gerson 1288 1344 written by Bernard R. Goldstein and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It would seem that S. Munk was the first modern scholar to draw attention to the significance of Levi ben Gerson's Astronomy, surely the most original work on astronomy written in Hebrew in the Middle Ages. Munk (1859, p. 500) called for a specialist to undertake a serious study of this work, but there was little response to his plea in the succeeding century. Indeed, this is the first edition of the Hebrew text of any part of Levi's Astronomy but for the table of contents (Renan, 1893, pp. 624-32), and the poems celebrating the invention of the Jacob Staff that appear in chapter 9 (Carlebach, 191Oa, pp. 152-53). The text of Levi's Astronomy is written in a ponderous Hebrew style but the content sparkles with originality. The Ptolemaic tradition is subjected to a profound critique based on the idea that the planetary models must conform both to Levi's own observations as well as those of the ancients, and the claim that astronomical theory must be philosophically sound. The enduring vigor of the Ptolemaic tradition has been characterized by O. Neugebauer as fol lows: "There is no better way to convince oneself of the inner coherence of ancient and medieval astronomy than to place side by side the Almagest, al BaWini's Opus astronomicum and Copernicus's De Revolutionibus. Chapter by chapter, theorem by theorem, table by table, these works run parallel" (1957, pp. 205-6).
Download or read book Fifty Key Jewish Thinkers written by Dan Cohn-Sherbok and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This popular Key Guide provides an overview of the broader intellectual currents of Jewish philosophy. It includes a chronological table and maps.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy written by Henrik Lagerlund and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-12-07 with total page 1448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first reference ever devoted to medieval philosophy. It covers all areas of the field from 500-1500 including philosophers, philosophies, key terms and concepts. It also provides analyses of particular theories plus cultural and social contexts.
Download or read book Time A Bibliographic Guide written by Samuel L. Macey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-10 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1991. A multidisciplinary guide in the form of a bibliography of selected time-related books and articles divided into 25 existing academic disciplines and about 100 subdisciplines which have a wide application to time studies.
Download or read book Philosophy in the Islamic World written by Peter Adamson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-27 with total page 711 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest in the series based on the popular History of Philosophy podcast, this volume presents the first full history of philosophy in the Islamic world for a broad readership. It takes an approach unprecedented among introductions to this subject, by providing full coverage of Jewish and Christian thinkers as well as Muslims, and by taking the story of philosophy from its beginnings in the world of early Islam all the way through to the twentieth century. Major figures like Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides are covered in great detail, but the book also looks at less familiar thinkers, including women philosophers. Attention is also given to the philosophical relevance of Islamic theology (kalam) and mysticism--the Sufi tradition within Islam, and Kabbalah among Jews--and to science, with chapters on disciplines like optics and astronomy. The book is divided into three sections, with the first looking at the first blossoming of Islamic theology and responses to the Greek philosophical tradition in the world of Arabic learning. This 'formative period' culminates with the work of Avicenna, the pivotal figure to whom most later thinkers feel they must respond. The second part of the book discusses philosophy in Muslim Spain (Andalusia), where Jewish philosophers come to the fore, though this is also the setting for such thinkers as Averroes and Ibn Arabi. Finally, a third section looks in unusual detail at later developments, touching on philosophy in the Ottoman, Mughal, and Safavid empires and showing how thinkers in the nineteenth to the twentieth century were still concerned to respond to the ideas that had animated philosophy in the Islamic world for centuries, while also responding to political and intellectual challenges from the European colonial powers.
Download or read book Spinoza s Heresy written by Steven Nadler and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2001-12-06 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the heart of Spinoza's Heresy is a mystery: why was Baruch Spinoza so harshly excommunicated from the Amsterdam Jewish community at the age of twenty-four? In this philosophical sequel to his acclaimed, award-winning biography of the seventeenth-century thinker, Steven Nadler argues that Spinoza's main offence was a denial of the immortality of the soul. But this only deepens the mystery. For there is no specific Jewish dogma regarding immortality: there is nothing that a Jew is required to believe about the soul and the afterlife. It was, however, for various religious, historical and political reasons, simply the wrong issue to pick on in Amsterdam in the 1650s. After considering the nature of the ban, or cherem, as a disciplinary tool in the Sephardic community, and a number of possible explanations for Spinoza's ban, Nadler turns to the variety of traditions in Jewish religious thought on the postmortem fate of a person's soul. This is followed by an examination of Spinoza's own views on the eternity of the mind and the role that that the denial of personal immortality plays in his overall philosophical project. Nadler argues that Spinoza's beliefs were not only an outgrowth of his own metaphysical principles, but also a culmination of an intellectualist trend in Jewish rationalism.
Download or read book Jewish Theology and Process Thought written by Sandra B. Lubarsky and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection constitutes the first extended discussion of the relationship between Judaism and process thought. In the last half century the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne have become important sources for contemporary theological reflection. Recently, a number of Jewish thinkers have examined process thought as a potentially valuable resource for postmodern Jewish theology. This book brings together many Jewish thinkers who have pioneered this discussion. Jewish thinkers who have found process thought to be a useful framework for contemporary Jewish thought discuss issues that are primarily theological, such as God's transcendence and immanence, the problem of evil, the idea of revelation. Also included is a dialogue between Jewish and Christian thinkers on the appropriateness of process thought for their religious traditions. Critical reflection on the continuities and discontinuities between Judaism and the process model is also covered.
Download or read book The Book of Job in Medieval Jewish Philosophy written by Robert Eisen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-16 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Jewish philosophers have been studied extensively by modern scholars, but even though their philosophical thinking was often shaped by their interpretation of the Bible, relatively little attention has been paid to them as biblical interpreters. In this study, Robert Eisen breaks new ground by analyzing how six medieval Jewish philosophers approached the Book of Job. These thinkers covered are Saadiah Gaon, Moses Maimonides, Samuel ibn Tibbon, Zerahiah Hen, Gersonides, and Simon ben Zemah Duran. Eisen explores each philosopher's reading of Job on three levels: its relationship to interpretations of Job by previous Jewish philosophers, the way in which it grapples with the major difficulties in the text, and its interaction with the author's systematic philosophical thought. Eisen also examines the resonance between the readings of Job of medieval Jewish philosophers and those of modern biblical scholars. What emerges is a portrait of a school of Joban interpretation that was creative, original, and at times surprisingly radical. Eisen thus demonstrates that medieval Jewish philosophers were serious exegetes whom scholars cannot afford to ignore. By bringing a previously-overlooked aspect of these thinkers' work to light, Eisen adds new depth to our knowledge of both Jewish philosophy and biblical interpretation.
Download or read book Time Matters written by T.M. Rudavsky and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the importance of time and cosmology to Western thought, surprisingly little attention has been paid to these issues in histories of Jewish philosophy. Focusing on how medieval philosophers constructed a philosophical theology that was sensitive to religious constraints and yet also incorporated compelling elements of science and philosophy, T. M. Rudavsky traces the development of the concepts of time, cosmology, and creation in the writings of Ibn Gabirol, Maimonides, Gersonides, Crescas, Spinoza, and others.
