Hasdai Crescas Research Articles

Маймонид, Герсонид и Крескас о пророках и пророчестве

R. Moshe ben Maimon (1136–1204), R. Levi ben Gershom (1288–1344) and R. Hasdai Crescas (1340–1410/12) in their main philosophical works consider the phenomenon of prophecy as something that gives rise to philosophical questions and requires philosophical understanding. The definition of prophecy as an emanation from God that is emanating into the intellect of the individual, and the definition of a prophet as a person who performs miracles and conveys messages leading people to some good goal, and these miracles and messages can vary in degree, are common to all three thinkers based on ideas of peripatetic philosophy. However, despite the fact that each of these thinkers primarily focuses on the same corpus of texts (the texts of the Tanakh and Talmud), the emphasis that the philosophers make creates significant differences in their concepts. For example, the views of these philosophers differ on how the test of the truth of a prophet can be carried out, as well as whether all prophetic predictions should (and can) be fulfilled. In the paper we distinct two roles of prophetic knowledge. They are the prognostic role and the pedagogic one. We demonstrate that Crescas highlights the prognostic function of the prophecy, but for Gersonides the pedagogic one is brought to the forefront. We also demonstrate, that prophecy is a doxastic practice with overrider system.

Faith and the Question of its Certainty in the Thought of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas

This article examines the various levels of certainty in the thought of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, as expressed in his Sermon for Passover and his major philosophical work, Or Hashem. In the first part of the article, the main discussion of R. Crescas on this subject in his Sermon for Passover is analyzed. In the second part, the findings are compared to the opinion of R. Crescas in his major philosophical work. Additionally, the article seeks to explain why this topic is more developed in the sermon than in his major philosophical book. Ultimately, it concludes that R. Crescas identifies four distinct levels of certainty: (1) irrefutable proofs and experiencing prophecy; (2) reasonable logical proofs and witnessing miracles that have no earthly explanation; (3) less likely proofs and miracles of a dubious nature; and (4) accepting the plain meaning of the text of the Torah and tradition in general. It is likely that R. Crescas did not mention this subject in the Light of the Lord due to the low degree of certainty of tradition, which he chose to keep concealed.

Hasdai Crescas & Leone Ebreo on Love and Joy

Rabbi Hasdai Crescas’ discussion of God’s joy (simḥah) in his Light of the Lord, Book I, Part 3, Chapter 5, had a marked influence on the discussion of God’s joy (la delettazione) by Rabbi Judah Abrabanel, alias Leone Ebreo, in his Dialogues of Love, Dialogue III. Leone, following Crescas, holds that God’s joy is active not passive; that it is mentioned in Psalms 104:31; and that it is also mentioned in BT Kebubot 8a. Moreover, Leone, like Crescas, cites Genesis 6:6, which attests to God’s sadness. Leone’s theories concerning God’s joy and love reflect his reading of Crescas.

Hasdai Crescas, Gianfrancesco Pico, Giordano Bruno: On Infinite Space and Time

This article examines the conception of infinite space and time in Hasdai Crescas, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno. If Crescas’ presence is explicit in Gianfrancesco Pico’s Examen vanitatis (1520), the reception by Bruno, who never mentions him, was postulated by Harry A. Wolfson in 1929. More recently, David Harari and Mauro Zonta posited the intermediary role of an unknown Jewish author. However, a comparison of the critique of Aristotle by Crescas and Bruno shows that, apart from two points, Bruno was able to reach his positions, independently of Crescas, from his own critical reading of Aristotle and from his knowledge of the developments in medieval scholasticism and the Neoplatonic concept of time. Significantly, Crescas qualifies space and time as attributes of God in a purely metaphorical sense, a question that Pico leaves aside, while Bruno conceives of infinite space and duration, together with matter, as real attributes of God, who, as an indifferent unity of opposites, is both mind and intellect as well as space and matter.

Infinity, Divine Transcendence and Immanence in Or Hashem

Hasdai Crescas (1340-1411) was a philosopher, rabbi and public person, who lived in a very turbulent period for the Iberian and Provençal Jewish communities of the late Middle Ages. Crescas made a vehement critique of the Aristotelian paradigm received from falsafa, which was used by Maimonides to support and prove the existence, unity and incorporeality of God, conceptualized in the Guide of the Perplexed as the necessary being which is absolutely transcendent in relation to contingent beings, that is, to the world. In Or Hashem, Crescas elaborates an alternative concept of the necessary being, in which the two antithetical notions of divine immanence and transcendence are related to the distinction within the necessary being between its simple essence and its infinite attributes. The simple, one, ineffable essence of the necessary being is expressed in infinite attributes in the eternal and constant act of giving in the univocality of being its good and its actuality to the infinite contingent beings. Crescas advocates that the universe, though ontologically contingent, is infinite in its actuality. God is thus conceived as the eternal and constant first cause, entelechy and Place of the World.

Pragmatism and Theology: Between Hasdai Crescas and Charles Peirce

AbstractThe noted Jewish scholar Harry Wolfson (d. 1929) claimed in youthful writings that the fifteenth‐century rabbinic thinker and physicist, Hasdai Crescas, was a pragmatist. This essay introduces evidence that there are, indeed, significant analogies between elements of Hasdai Crescas’s critique of Aristotle and elements of Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. The essay concludes that Crescas’s primary work, Light of the Lord (Or Hashem), displays a unique analogue to classical American pragmatism, which analogue I label “rabbinic pragmatism” and classify as a subtype of “Jewish pragmatism.” The essay’s central hypothesis is that Crescas’s scientific reasoning is correlative to his Torah‐based reasoning. A second hypothesis is that the enabling conditions of this correlativity are the inquirer’s relation to God as author of Creation and of the Commandments (mitzvah). I argue that Crescas’s non‐finite mathematics (a potential source for Galileo) is correlative to his account of the non‐finite meanings of each Commandment so that each command displays fresh meanings in each new context of life.

The Role of the Intellect in Spinoza’s Definition of Attribute and Its Similarities to R. Hasdai Crescas’s Conception of Essential Attributes

The Role of the Intellect in Spinoza’s Definition of Attribute and Its Similarities to R. Hasdai Crescas’s Conception of Essential Attributes

Or Ha-Shem from Spain. The Life, Works, and Philosophy of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, edited by Esti Eisenmann and Warren Zev Harvey

Or Ha-Shem from Spain. The Life, Works, and Philosophy of Rabbi Hasdai Crescas, edited by Esti Eisenmann and Warren Zev Harvey

Полемика о концепциях зла и провидения в средневековой еврейской философии: Герсонид и Крескас

This paper is devoted to the analysis and to the comparison of concepts on theodicy and on the nature of evil that was developed by two medieval Jewish philosophers. They are Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides or Ralbag, 1288-1344) and Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410/12). The sources of the analysis are the third chapter of the fourth book of the “Wars of the Lord” (1329) by Gersonides and the second chapter of the second book of the “Light of the Lord” (1410) by Crescas. Both philosophers assert that evil essentially cannot come from God. The causes of evil are the sinfulness of human beings, or the celestial bodies, or the breaking of the connection between human and God. The problem of evil and injustice in this world are closely related for Gersonides and Crescas to other problems, such as divine knowledge of future events, free will, reasons for reward and punishment. Gersonides and Crescas differ considerably on these issues. Gersonides demonstrates that God is not an essential source of evil. He proceeded to build on this statement with the fallacy of the opinion that divine providence extends to individuals. After all, said Gersonides, retribution would make God a source of evil. And in this case, righteous men would always be rewarded, and sinners would always be punished for their sins. But obviously this is not the case. Crescas, in contrast to Gersonides, claims that God knows individuals. This does not prevent him from agreeing with Ralbagh that God is not the source of evil. According to Crescas, any punishment or suffering (even for the righteous) always leads to good. It is obvious therefore that Crescas adheres to a more traditional position, trying, inter alia, to bring his thoughts as close as possible to the ideas expressed in the Torah. Gersonides adheres to a position close to the ideas of Maimonides. Gersonides, in the author’s opinion, created a philosophical concept that is more consistent in comparison with Crescas’ conception, however more distant from the Jewish teaching.

GIORDANO BRUNO AND JEWISH THOUGHT: RECEPTION AND REINTERPRETATION

This article is focused on the philosopher Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) and the references to Jewish culture in his oeuvre. We discuss about Bruno’s reception of Jewish thought and describe this subject in a comprehensive way. We highlight Bruno’s view on the Jews and their religion, also explaining the reasons behind his polemic against the Jewish people. Furthermore, we underline the influence of the Kabbalistic tradition and Jewish philosophy on various aspects of Brunian thought. Specifically, we discuss about the use of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet in Bruno’s works on the art of memory, the relation between Brunian infinitist cosmology and Kabbalistic concepts such as ensoph and the ten sephirot, the relation between Brunian thought and the philosophical theories of Avicebron, Moses Maimonides, Hasdai Crescas and Leo the Hebrew.

Light of the Lord (Or Hashem) by Hasdai Crescas

Light of the Lord (Or Hashem) by Hasdai Crescas

Kabbalah and Philosophy in the Early Works of Salomon Maimon

Until recent times, the collection of Salomon Maimons early works written in Hebrew, Hesheq Shelomo , was not included into the scientific circulation. An article of professor Gideon Freudenthal on the formation of the young Maimon, filled this lacuna, proving the importance of the analysis of philosophers early works for the comprehension of his literary heritage in general. Freudenthal had studied and published Maimons introduction to Hesheq Shelomo , and then one of the collections treatises, Maаse Livnat ha-Sаppir , consecrated to the ideas and notions of kabbalah (published at the end of 2019). In his analysis Freudenthal had focused on Maimons rational interpretation of kabbalah. The present article represents an attempt to expand Freudenthals research, adding an analysis of another aspect of young Maimons thought. We will try to show that kabbalah, generally understood by early Maimon as ancient Jewish knowledge, had, according to the thinker, to complete philosophy and mitigate arising in it problems. In his early works Maimon was not only criticizing widely occurring profane kabbalah, but also Maimonides philosophy. According to Maimon, it is not possible to understand the true kabbalah without philosophy, but philosophical knowledge is not complete and often erroneous without kabbalah: the true kabbalah rectifies and adjusts it. The critic of Aristotelianism and its derivate, proposed by Maimon in his early works (probably under the influence of Hasdai Crescas), can add clarity to the understanding of the development of his philosophical thought in the late period.

O Infinito Atual em Or Hashem de Hasdai Crescas (1340 -1411)

Este artigo enfoca a concepção de infinito atual do filósofo judeu medieval Hasdai Crescas (1340–1411), formuladas no livro Or Hashem (1410) às três primeiras proposições de Maimônides, tal como são enunciadas na segunda parte do Guia dos Perplexos. As teses de Maimônides têm como objetivo negar a possibilidade do infinito atual como magnitude imaterial ou material, como conjunto infinito de seres finitos e como série infinita de causa e efeito. Após uma breve exposição da trajetória dos conceitos de infinito nas diversas tradições sapienciais judaicas recebidas na Idade Média, indicamos como a argumentação em prol da ideia de infinito atual em Crescas dialoga com elas. Desse diálogo, emerge o conceito de infinito como singularidade atualizada paralelamente no real como vácuo infinito, lugar de coexistência de infinitos universos, e como infinito atual divino como Kavod, Glória, que preenche o universo infinito e como causa imanente da série infinita de causa e efeito que constitui a existência eterna dos seres contingentes. Na crítica à terceira proposição maimonidiana, a causa primeira é descrita como causa ontológica e imanente da série infinita de causas e efeitos. Nessa discussão, Crescas aponta para uma ideia de Deus muito diferente daquela elaborada por Maimônides. Temos aqui o debate judaico medieval entre os defensores da transcendência divina e os defensores da imanência. Esse tema é importante para a compreensão da recepção da obra de Hasdai Crescas por Picco Della Mirandolla, Bruno e Espinosa.

Хасдай Крескас о божественном всеведении и человеческом выборе: из компаративной метафизики

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the parallels between the ideas of the Western scholastics and Jewish philosophers of the XIV–XV centuries. Hasdai Crescas was one of the famous Jewish philosophers. Until the 60s of the XX century researchers considered the philosophy of Judaism in the framework of the Arab-Muslim philosophical tradition. However, with the release of the significant Sh. Pines’ paper this trend has changed. Indeed, it would be much more methodologically more accurate to consider the philosophical ideas of Jewish thinkers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries also in the light of the interaction of the latter with European scholastic thought. The key issues raised in the main Crescas’ work, The Light of the Lord, are close to the questions formulated and decided by the scholastics. The ideas of Creskas on the divine knowledge of future events, freedom of human will, reward and punishment for actions are parallels with the ideas of different representatives of scholastic philosophy.

ПОНЯТИЯ ВОЗМОЖНОГО И НЕОБХОДИМОГО ВО ВТОРОЙ КНИГЕ "СВЕТА ГОСПОДНЯ" Х. КРЕСКАСА

This paper analyzes the concepts of “possible” and “necessary” in the philosophy of the medieval Jewish-Catalan philosopher and theologian Hasdai Crescas. The main work of Crescas is named “Light of the Lord” (“Or-ha-Shem”). It is still not translated into Russian. The ideas of Crescas are not spread widely in the Russian philosophy of religion and in the Russian history of philosophy. Meanwhile, Crescas is one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages, who proposed, in particular, his own concept of combining divine omniscience and human free will. He developed this concept in the fifth section of the second book of “Or-a-Shem”. It is obvious, that this concept cannot be understood without a detailed analysis of Crescas’ understanding of the categories of “possible” and “necessary”. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that within the framework of the concept proposed by Crescas both categories are coexisting. Crescas demonstrated this proposition by both philosophical and exegetical arguments...

Натурфилософские взгляды Хасдая Крескаса в IV части трактата «Ор hа-Шем» («Свет Господень»)

Натурфилософские взгляды Хасдая Крескаса в IV части трактата «Ор hа-Шем» («Свет Господень»)

A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean Reconsidered

Warren Zev Harvey wrote a bold and now famous paper over thirty years ago entitled “A Portrait of Spinoza as a Maimonidean,” defending the dominant influence of the philosophy of the medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides on the thought of Baruch Spinoza. However, since then, he further developed his thesis by publishing numerous articles showing that Spinoza was not only developing the ideas of Maimonides, but also was unique in synthesizing many different competing strands within medieval Jewish philosophy more generally, including those of Abraham Ibn Ezra, Levi Gersonides, and Hasdai Crescas. In other words, one can even be a Maimonidean by adapting the views of Maimonides’s critics who nonetheless continued his philosophic legacy within the discourse that he began. While the thought and character of Baruch Spinoza has been continually scrutinized and reinterpreted in every generation since his death, I argue that Harvey’s emphasis on the diversity of Jewish sources within Spinoza’s thought aims to be a model for a political liberalism that is rooted within the texts of the Jewish tradition, while also one that advocates an intellectual pluralism.

Free Choice in the Responsum of Joseph Albo: The Case of the Katlanit

Joseph Albo’s sole surviving responsum reflects the interplay of philosophy and halakha in the late medieval era. Albo demonstrates innovation as he uses broader theological concepts, such as human free will, to impact his halakhic ruling. The article explores the reasoning behind Albo's ruling on the halakhic status of the katlanit ("murderous wife"), the twice widowed woman who seeks remarriage, a highly debated topic in the Middle Ages. According to the Talmud, such a widow was prohibited to remarry due to the assumption that she was in some way responsible for the deaths of her two late husbands, either due to her fortune (mazal) or health (ma‘ayan). The high mortality rate in the wake of the Black Death and intensified religious persecution in the fourteenth century increased the number of katlaniot. As a result, significant rabbinic leaders, (including Albo's teacher, Hasdai Crescas, whose responsum is no longer extant), applied innovation to their Talmudic interpretation and demonstrated leniency in their legal ruling in order to prevent such widows from being relegated to lives of solitude or from being forced to violate halakhic norms in order to procreate. Albo's responsum reflects the impact of philosophy upon halakha as he highlights the fundamental nature of free will as a Jewish value. He rules that a woman whose husband's death was not due to personal fate, but rather to mass martyrdom, the cause of which is free choice in contrast to mazal -- does not constitute the katlanit that the Talmud prohibited from remarrying, since the widow's mazal cannot be blamed.

CONSIDERAÇÕES SOBRE A PROVA DA EXISTÊNCIA DE DEUS ELABORADA POR HASDAI CRESCAS (1340-1411)

Neste artigo,é exposto e discutido o caminho percorrido por Hasdai Crescas (1340-1411), filósofo judeu medieval que viveu em Barcelona, na elaboração de sua prova para a existência de Deus, formulada com base em sua crítica às provas apresentadas por Maimônides (1138-1204) no "Guia dos Perplexos". A crítica de Crescas parte da formulação de um conceito geral de existência aplicável tanto ao ser necessário quanto aos seres contingentes. Outro aspecto interessante em seu caminho para a elaboração da prova da existência de Deus é a distinção que ele faz entre quididade e existência no ser necessário, posição única entre os medievais e que introduz um importante aspecto de imanência em sua ideia de Deus, distinguindo-a radicalmente daquela defendida por Maimônides.

Criticism of Aristotelian science in fourteenth-century Jewish thought

Modern scholarship has observed that the New Science did not emerge ex nihilo , but had its roots in the scholastics’ criticism of Aristotelian science in the fourteenth century. Until about a decade ago, the dominant view in the literature was that the Jewish philosophers did not participate in this scholastic trend until Hasdai Crescas (1340–1410), who was the first Hispano-Jewish philosopher to elaborate a basic and systematic criticism of Aristotelian physics and propose an alternative to it. The present article demonstrates that Jewish criticism of Aristotelian science was more widespread than has been thought and touched on much broader issues. We will look at two fourteenth-century Spanish thinkers, Abner of Burgos (1260/70–1348) and Moses ben Judah (mid-fourteenth century), and their critiques of two elements of Aristotelian physics: (1) the status of prime matter, and (2) natural place and its relations to motion.