Jewish philosophy

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term Jewish philosophy ( Hebrew פילוסופיה יהודית, Arabic الفلسفة اليهودية, Yiddish ייִדישע פֿילאָסאָפֿיע) describes the connection of philosophical studies with contents of the Jewish-religious traditions. While the concept itself is controversial, and the fundamental compatibility of religious and philosophical content is being debated, the beginning of Jewish philosophy in the history of ideas is usually set with Philo of Alexandria .

Philo of Alexandria

Philo of Alexandria, artistically represented in an engraving by André Thevet, 1584.

Philo of Alexandria (20 BC to 40 AD) was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher from Alexandria , Egypt . Philo included both the wisdom of ancient Greece and Judaism in his philosophy , and he tried to fuse and harmonize them through the art of allegory , further developing existing Jewish exegesis (interpretation of Scripture) as well as that of the Stoics .

Philon made his philosophy an instrument of defense and justification of the Jewish religious teachings. He considered these religious truths to be divinely established, but only to be found by humans, not simply identical with the already existing tradition, but through an - above all allegorical (not literal / not literal) - interpretation of the holy (Hebrew) scriptures. Philosophy should serve as an aid in this interpretation. With this aim in mind, Philo rejected those Greek teachings that could not be harmonized with the Jewish religion, e.g. B. the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity and immortality of the world.

In his ethics he ties in strongly with Aristotle and the Stoics. He advocates a virtue ethic , with ideals such as “dispassion” (for example, not being driven by anger or desire) and “general philanthropy”.

While Philo was received in the early Christian debates, he was unknown to Jewish scholars until the Renaissance .

Jewish mysticism, Kabbalah

A fundamental difference between the Kabbalists and the representatives of philosophy lies in their assessment of the power of human reason : Kabbalists reject the conclusions of reason and instead rely on tradition, inspiration and intuition . In contrast, philosophers consider reason to be the most important prerequisite for all perception and knowledge. The status of Kabbalah in the context of Jewish philosophy is debatable. In his standard work Philosophy of Judaism (1933) , for example, the influential historian of philosophy and rabbi Julius Guttmann, who was oriented towards rationalism , rejected the idea of ​​understanding Kabbalah as philosophy.

Isaac ben Solomon Israeli

Isaak ben Salomon Israeli or Jizchak ben Schlomo Jisraeli (approx. 840/850 - approx. 932) was a famous doctor and philosopher. He was the founder of the Neoplatonic current in medieval Jewish philosophy. His description of philosophy as man's self-knowledge with regard to his mental and physical constitution was often quoted. Isaac saw in philosophical self-knowledge the basis for a knowledge of the entire world reality, which is also composed of spiritual and material. His principle of perceiving the human being as an object of knowledge and at the same time as a principle of knowledge became groundbreaking for the anthropology of late medieval scholasticism.

Saadia Gaon

Saadia Gaon (882–942) is regarded as one of the most important early Jewish philosophers. His work Emunoth ve-Deoth was originally called Kitab al-Amanat wal-l'tikadat , "The Book of Articles of Faith and Dogmatic Teachings". It was the first systematic exposition and philosophical justification of Jewish dogmas, appeared in 933 and was translated into Hebrew by Yehuda ibn Tibbon in the 12th century .

In this book, Saadia Gaon postulates the rationality of the Jewish faith, with the caveat that reason must capitulate whenever it contradicts tradition. The dogma must take precedence over reason. Thus, when asked about the eternity of the world, reason has taught since Aristotle that the world has no beginning, that it was not created; in contrast, Jewish dogma claims creation out of nothing . Since the time of Aristotle it has been said that logical thinking can only prove a general form of immortality , but that there can be no individual immortality. Jewish dogmatics, on the other hand, taught the immortality of the individual. Therefore, in Saadia's view, reason must give way.

In the systematics of his work, Saadia strictly adhered to the rules of the Mutazilites (a rationalist denomination of Islam, from which he partly also took his theses and arguments), mostly following the Mutazilitic school of al-Jubbai. He adhered to the Mutazilite Kalam , especially in the sense that in the first two chapters he discussed the metaphysical questions of creation (I) and the unity of God (II), while in the following chapters he discussed the Jewish theory of revelation ( III), as well as the doctrines based on divine justice, including questions of obedience and disobedience (IV), and also merit and guilt (V). Closely related to these chapters are those dealing with the soul and death (VI) and the resurrection from the dead (VII), which, according to the author, forms part of the theory of messianic redemption (VIII). The work closes with a chapter on the rewards and punishments in the life beyond (IX).

Solomon ben Jehuda ibn Gabirol ( Avicebron )

Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1070) was a Jewish philosopher and poet in al-Andalus , Spain. Until the 19th century he was known in the Christian scholarly world as "Avicebron" or "Avencebrol". In the Arabic language his name was Abū Ayyūb Sulaimān ibn Yaḥyā ibn Ǧebīrūl . He was thought to be an Islamic or Christian philosopher .

Ibn Gabirol was one of the representatives of the Neoplatonic current in medieval Jewish philosophy. In ibn Gabirol's works, Plato is the only philosopher named by name. The conception of a middle kingdom between God and the world, between species and individual is characteristic. Aristotle had already formulated the objection to Plato's theory of ideas that a mediating third between form and matter was missing (“ hylemorphism ”). This connection between form (ideas) and matter is, according to Philo, the logos ; according to ibn Gabirol it is the divine will.

He is quoted in Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra . He had a strong influence on Christian scholasticism . Late medieval Christian authorities such as Albertus Magnus and his pupil Thomas Aquinas often referred to him with respect.

His classic philosophical main work The Source of Life (Arabic Yanbuʾ al-ḥayya , Hebrew Sēfer M e qōr Ḥajjim ) is particularly known under the Latin title Fons vitae . It had a strong influence on Christian-Latin scholasticism, from the middle of the 12th century. The Source of Life is a Neoplatonic dialogue between a teacher and his student about the nature of creation and how an understanding of our human nature can help us to know how to live ( meaning of life ).

His book on ethics bears the title Sēfer Tiqqūn Middōt ha-Nefeš ("Book of Improvement of Soul Properties") in the Hebrew translation of the Arabic original . There was little Jewish reception, and his philosophical teachings were largely ignored by Jewish contemporaries. His influence on later Jewish thinkers was also relatively small. It was received most strongly in the field of Jewish liturgy ; its Hebrew poetry, written in Arabic meters, found its way into prayer books.

Karean philosophy

The Karaites, a Jewish movement that opposed the teachings of rabbinic Judaism , developed their own form of philosophy, a Jewish version of the Islamic kalam . The early Karaites based their philosophy on the Mutazilite Kalam; some later Karaites, such as Aaron ben Elia (14th century) in his book Etz Hayyim ("Tree of Life"), went back to the teachings of Aristotle .

Bachja ibn Pakudas

Bachja ibn Pakuda lived in Spain in the second half of the 11th century. He wrote the first Jewish system of ethics , written in Arabic in 1080 under the title Al Hidayah ila Faraid al-hulub , "Guide to the Duties of the Heart", 1161–1180 translated into Hebrew by Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon under the title Hovot ha -Levavot , “Duties of the Heart”.

Although he frequently cited Saadia Gaon's works, he did not belong to the rationalist school of the Mutazilites , which Saadia followed, but like his younger contemporary Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1070) he was a follower of Neoplatonic mysticism. He often followed the methods of the Arabic encyclopedists known as the " Brothers of Purity ". Because he was inclined to contemplative mysticism and asceticism , Bahya removed from his system all elements which he believed could obscure monotheism or conflict with Jewish law. He sought a religious system that was both sublime and pure, and in perfect harmony with reason.

Yehuda ha-Levi

The Jewish poet-philosopher Jehuda ha-Levi (12th century) argued vehemently against philosophy in his polemical book Kuzari . He thus became the Jewish al-Ghazālī , whose Destructio Philosophorum had served as a model for the Kuzari.

Human reason did not matter much to him: Inner enlightenment , emotional vision was everything to him. In the Kuzari, the representatives of different religions and philosophies discuss the merits of the systems they represent in front of the King of the Khazars - at the end the prize is awarded to Judaism.

The rise of Aristotelian thought

Yehuda ha-Levi could not stop the spread of Aristotelian thought among the Jews who wrote Arabic. Just like the Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes , among the Jewish thinkers Abraham ibn Daud and Maimonides borrowed more and more from Aristotle.

Rabbi Levi ben Gershon, also known as Gersonides or the Ralbag (1288-1345) is best known for his book Milhamot HaShem (or simply Milhamot ), "Wars of the Lord". Among the scholastics, Gersonides was perhaps the most advanced; he put reason above tradition. Milhamot HaShem is modeled on the leader of the indecisive of Maimonides. From a philosophical (especially Averroistic) point of view, the syncretism of Aristotelianism and Jewish orthodoxy, as found in Maimonides, is criticized.

Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410) is the author of the book Or Hashem ("Light of the Lord"). Crescas' declared aim was to free Judaism from the fetters of Aristotelianism, which in his view threatened to dilute the authenticity of the Jewish faith through the influences of Ibn Sina on Maimonides and Ibn Roshd on Gersonides because it threatened to water down the doctrinal content of Judaism reduced to surrogates of Aristotelian terms. His book Or Hashem consists of four parts ( ma'amar ), divided into kelalim and chapter ( perakim ): the first deals with the basis of all belief - the existence of God ; the second, the basic tenets of faith; the third further tenets, which are binding for all adherents of Judaism; the fourth tenets which are traditional but not binding and therefore open to philosophical reflection.

Josef Albo was a Spanish rabbi and theologian of the 15th century, best known as the author of the book on the Jewish principles of belief ( Seher ha-Ikkarim ). Albo limited the number of fundamental Jewish beliefs to three: 1) Belief in the existence of God; 2) to the revelation; 3) to divine justice linked to the idea of ​​immortality. Albo criticizes the views of his predecessors, but he does not mean to accuse them of heresy . A remarkable range of interpretations is allowed, so much so that, according to Albo's theories, it would be difficult to challenge the orthodoxy of even the most liberal Jews. Albo rejects the thesis that creation ex nihilo is an essential implication of belief in God. He frankly criticizes Maimonides ' thirteen doctrinal principles and Crescas' six principles.

Maimonides

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (1138–1204), רבי משה בן מיימון, commonly known by the Greek form of the name Maimonides, was a Jewish rabbi, doctor and philosopher.

Maimonides taught that God could not be described with positive attributes (see also Negative Theology ). The number of attributes of God would affect the oneness of God. In order to maintain the doctrine of the oneness of God, all anthropomorphic attributes such as existence, life, power, will, knowledge - the common positive attributes of God in the Kalâm - must be avoided when speaking of God. There is no similarity between the attributes of God and the attributes of man, except that of the concept ( homonymy ), there is no correspondence in essence ( Führer of the Indecisive , I 35, 56). The negative attributes imply that nothing can be known about the true nature of God.

Maimonides formulated thirteen Articles of Faith , which he said all Jews were obliged to believe. The first five deal with the knowledge of the Creator God, the following four deal with prophecy and the divine origin of the Torah , and the last four deal with questions of reward, punishment and salvation in the afterlife.

The principle that influenced Maimonides' entire philosophical activity corresponded to the fundamental principle of scholasticism: there can be no contradiction between the truths God revealed and the discoveries of the human mind in science and philosophy. By science and philosophy he understood the science and philosophy of Aristotle . In some important points, however, he also deviated from the Aristotelian teachings. He said, for example, that the world is not eternal, as Aristotle said, but created out of nothing, as it is in the Bible . He also rejected the teaching of Aristotle that God's care only extends to mankind and not to the individual. While Maimonides anticipated and influenced the views of later scholastics on these important points, his admiration for the Neoplatonic commentators and his attachment to Jewish tradition tended to advocate views unacceptable to Christian scholastics.

Renaissance philosophers

During the Renaissance a new branch of Jewish philosophy developed based on the teachings of Torah mysticism , which in turn arose from the esoteric teachings of The Zohar and the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria . This philosophy can be found above all in the extensive work of Rabbi Judah Löw , also known as Maharal of Prague.

Enlightenment and Post-Enlightenment Jewish Philosophers

  1. Baruch Spinoza belongs to the early enlightenment Jewish philosopher (developed a form of pantheism methodologically based on the mathematical ideal of philosophy and broke with orthodox Judaism )
  2. Moses Mendelssohn was an influential philosopher who worked in Berlin and is considered a pioneer of the Haskala .
  3. Samuel Hirsch , an important representative of Reform Judaism in Germany and later as the successor to David Einhorn in the USA.
  4. Salomon Formstecher , who helped shape the Jewish reform movement in 19th century Germany.

Modern Jewish Philosophy

A major trend in modern Jewish philosophy has been the attempt to develop a theory of Judaism through existentialism . Franz Rosenzweig in particular stood out in this area . During the research for his dissertation on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel , Rosenzweig turned against Hegel's idealism and favored an existentialist approach. At times, Rosenzweig considered converting to Christianity, but in 1913 he embraced Jewish philosophy. He studied with Hermann Cohen . Rosenzweig's main work, The Star of Redemption , is an expression of his new philosophy, in which he depicts the relationship between God, humanity and the world and their connection through creation, revelation and redemption. The conservative rabbis Neil Gillman and Elliot N. Dorff should be mentioned as later Jewish existentialists .

Perhaps the most controversial form of Jewish philosophy that developed in the early 20th century was the religious naturalism of Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan . His theology was a variant of John Dewey's philosophy . Dewey's naturalism combined atheistic beliefs with religious terminology to construct a religiously satisfactory philosophy for those who have lost faith in traditional religion. In accordance with the classical Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages, Kaplan taught that God was not a person and that all anthropomorphic descriptions were inadequate metaphors at best. Kaplan's theology went even further to the thesis that God is the sum of all natural processes that allow man to live a full life. Kaplan wrote, "To believe in God means to take it for granted that man's destiny is to rise above the animal and to eliminate all forms of violence and exploitation from human society."

Among the more recent trends there is the approach of redesigning Jewish theology through the perspective of process philosophy or process theology . The process philosophy describes the fundamental elements of the universe as experiential events. As a result, what are commonly referred to as concrete things are actually sequences of experiential events. Experiential events can be grouped together; something as complex as a human being is therefore a grouping of many smaller experiences. From this point of view, everything in the universe is characterized by experience (which should not be confused with consciousness); there is no mind-body duality in this system because " mind " is simply a very sophisticated type of experience.

This philosophy also includes the assumption that all experiences are influenced by previous experiences and that they will influence all future experiences. This process of influences is never deterministic; an experiential event consists of a process of understanding other events and responding to them. This is the "process" in the process philosophy. Process philosophy gives God a specific place in the universe of experiential events. God encompasses all other experiential events, but at the same time transcends them; so the process philosophy is a form of panentheism .

The ideas of process theology were initially developed by Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000), and they influenced numerous Jewish theologians, including the British philosopher Samuel Alexander (1859-1938), as well as the rabbis Max Kaddushin, Milton Steinberg and Levi A. Olan, Harry Slominsky, and to a lesser extent Abraham Joshua Heschel. Today some rabbis, such as Donald B. Rossoff, William E. Kaufman, Harold Kushner, Anton Laytner, Gilbert S. Rosenthal, Lawrence Troster and Nahum Ward, represent a weakened form of process theology.

Perhaps the most amazing development in Jewish religious thought of the late twentieth century was the resurgent interest in Kabbalah . Many philosophers do not see this as a form of philosophy, because Kabbalah is a form of mysticism. Mysticism is generally understood as an alternative to philosophy, not a variant of philosophy.

Holocaust theology

Judaism has traditionally taught that God is omnipotent ( all-powerful ), omniscient (all-knowing) and omnibenevolent (all-good). But these claims contrast with the fact that there is much evil in the world. Perhaps the most difficult question monotheists face is how we can reconcile this view of God with the existence of evil. This is the problem of evil . In all monotheistic faiths there are attempts to solve this question ( theodicy ). Given the magnitude of the evil that became visible in the Holocaust , many people have re-examined the classical views of this problem. How can people still believe in God after the Holocaust? This problematic of Jewish philosophy is called Holocaust theology .

Modern Jewish philosophers

The following philosophers had a significant influence on the philosophy of contemporary Jews, insofar as they see themselves as such. These are authors who deliberately dealt with philosophical topics in a Jewish context.

Orthodox Jewish philosophers

  1. Shalom Carmy
  2. Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler
  3. Samson Raphael Hirsch
  4. Yitzchok Hutner
  5. Menachem waiter
  6. Steven T. Katz
  7. Abraham Isaac Kook
  8. Norman Lamb
  9. Joseph Soloveitchik

Conservative Jewish philosophers

  1. Elliot N. Dorff
  2. Neil Gillman
  3. Abraham Joshua Heschel
  4. William E. Kaufman
  5. Harold Kushner

Liberal Jewish philosophers

  1. Hermann Cohen
  2. Kaufmann Kohler
  3. Emil Fackenheim
  4. Shalom Ben-Chorin
  5. Susannah Heschel

Reconstructionist Jewish philosophers

  1. Mordecai chaplain

Other

  1. Martin Buber
  2. Will Herberg
  3. Moses Mendelssohn
  4. Franz Rosenzweig
  5. Richard Rubenstein
  6. Jacob Taubes

Philosophers shaped by their Jewish background

  1. Theodor W. Adorno
  2. Hannah Arendt
  3. Walter benjamin
  4. Constantin Brunner
  5. Noam Chomsky
  6. Hermann Cohen
  7. Erich Fromm
  8. After some time
  9. Max Horkheimer
  10. Hans Jonas
  11. Emmanuel Levinas
  12. Thomas Nagel
  13. Karl Raimund Popper
  14. Ayn Rand
  15. Hans Reichenbach
  16. Gershom Scholem
  17. Peter Singer
  18. Leo Strauss
  19. Jacques Derrida
  20. Hilary Putnam

supporting documents

  1. ^ Steven Nadler, TM Rudavsky: Introduction. In: Steven Nadler, TM Rudavsky: The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 3.
  2. ↑ David M. Scholer, CD Yonge: The Works of Philo. Hendrickson Publishers, 1991, ISBN 0-943575-93-1 .
  3. ^ Abraham Melamed: Politics and the State. In: Steven Nadler, TM Rudavsky: The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2008, Volume 1, p. 768.
  4. ↑ Compare Ps 36,10  EU
  5. ^ Sarah Pessin: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . Ed .: Edward N. Zalta. Summer 2014. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, April 18, 2014, Solomon Ibn Gabirol [Avicebron] ( [1] [accessed October 13, 2015]).

literature

  • Daniel H. Frank (Ed.): History of Jewish philosophy. (= Routledge history of world philosophies. 2). London 1997.
  • Daniel H. Frank (Ed.): The Cambridge companion to medieval Jewish philosophy. (= Cambridge companions to philosophy). Cambridge et al. 2003, ISBN 0-521-65574-9 .
  • Julius Guttmann : The Philosophy of Judaism. Wiesbaden 1933. (Reprint: 1995, ISBN 3-921695-96-1 )
  • Maurice-Ruben Hayoun: History of Jewish Philosophy. WBG, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-10260-6 .
  • AB Kilcher, O. Fraisse, Yossef Schwartz (ed.): Metzler Lexicon of Jewish Philosophers. Philosophical thinking of Judaism from antiquity to the present. Metzler, Stuttgart 2003.
  • Charles Manekin (Ed.): Medieval Jewish Philosophical Writings. (= Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy). University Press, Cambridge 2008.
  • T. Meyer: From the end of emancipation. Jewish philosophy and theology after 1933. 2008.
  • L. Morgan, Peter Eli Gordon (Eds.): The Cambridge companion to modern Jewish philosophy. Cambridge 2007, ISBN 978-0-521-01255-3 . ( Publisher's website , review by Abraham Socher )
  • Dov Schwartz : Central problems of medieval Jewish philosophy. (= The Brill reference library of Judaism; Volume 26). Leiden et al. 2005.
  • Heinrich Simon , Marie Simon : History of Jewish Philosophy. 2nd Edition. Union, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-372-00376-4 . (TB: (= Reclams Library 1656). 1st edition. Reclam, Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-379-01656-X )
  • Colette Sirat : A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages. 2nd Edition. Cambridge 1990.

Web links

discussion

Source material