A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy — John Shaqi
A History of Mediaeval Jewish PhilosophyHusik, Isaac
ReligionJewish
A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy
Husik, Isaac
Philosophy, Jewish; Philosophy, Medieval
The Jews did not get all this in its purity for various reasons. In the
first place it was only gradually that the Jews became acquainted with
the wealth of Aristotelian material. We are sure that Abraham Ibn Daud,
the forerunner of Maimonides, had a thorough familiarity with the ideas
of Aristotle; and those who came after him, for example Maimonides,
Gersonides, Hasdai Crescas, show clearly that they were deep students of
the ideas represented in the writings of the Stagirite. But there is not
the same evidence in the earlier writings of Isaac Israeli, Saadia,
Joseph Ibn Zaddik, Gabirol, Bahya Ibn Pakuda, Judah Halevi. They had
picked up Aristotelian ideas and principles, but they had also absorbed
ideas and concepts from other schools, Greek as well as Arabian, and
unconsciously combined the two.
Another explanation for the rarity of the complete and unadulterated
Aristotle among the Jewish thinkers of the middle ages is that people in
those days were very uncritical in the matter of historical facts and
relations. Historical and literary criticism was altogether unknown, and
a number of works were ascribed to Aristotle which did not belong to
him, and which were foreign in spirit to his mode of thinking. They
emanated from a different school of thought with different
presuppositions. I am referring to the treatise called the "Theology of
Aristotle,"[6] and that known as the "Liber de Causis."[7] Both were
attributed to Aristotle in the middle ages by Jews and Arabs alike, but
it has been shown recently[8] that the former represents extracts from
the works of Plotinus, the head of the Neo-Platonic school of
philosophy, while the latter is derived from a treatise of Proclus, a
Neo-Platonist of later date.
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