Aspects of Maimonides’ Epistemology: Halakah and Science

Abstract

In contradistinction to the epistemology of classical philosophers or, more precisely, in a carefully premeditated expansion of the classical epistemological doctrine which recognized sense perception, primary premises (axioms), and scientific data (derivative knowledge) as sources of knowledge, the epistemology of medieval religious philosophers recognized not only these three but also tradition, true reliable tradition (received from the prophets or the wise men), as a supplementary source of knowledge. Maimonides writes in the Letter on Astrology — a document of particular importance for understanding the significance of science and philosophy in his thought and in which, as he himself emphasizes, statements elaborated elsewhere are reflected — as follows: Know, my masters, that it is not proper for a man to accept as trustworthy anything other than one of these three things. The first is a thing for which there is a clear proof deriving from man’s reasoning such as arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. The second is a thing that a man perceives through one of the five senses such as when he knows with certainty that this is red and this is black. The third is a thing that man receives from the prophets or from the righteous.2