bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Buddhist philosophy, Korean
Authors: Cho Sungtaek
Published: September 2018

Buddhism was transmitted to the Korean peninsula from China in the middle of the fourth century ad. Korea at this time was divided into three kingdoms: Kokuryô, Paekche and Silla. Both Kokuryô and Paekche accepted Buddhism as a state religion immediately after it was introduced, to Kokuryô in 372 ad and to Paekche in 384 ad. However, it was not until two centuries later that Silla accepted Buddhism as a state religion. This was because Silla was the last of the three kingdoms to become established as a centralized power under the authority of one king.

It is not coincidental that Buddhism was accepted by these three states at the very same time that a strong kingship, independent of the aristocracy, was created. These newly established kingships needed a new ideology with which to rule, separate from the age-old shamanistic tradition which had been honored among the previous loose confederations of tribes. Buddhism fulfilled this need. It became a highly valued tool which kings used shrewdly, not only to provide their societies with a political ideology but to give them a foundation from which to build a viable system of ethics and philosophical thinking. Given this historical legacy, Korean Buddhism came to possess a feature which set it apart from the other East Asian traditions: it became ‘state-protection’ Buddhism. Although this was not a particularly sophisticated phenomenon on a philosophical level, this feature had a lasting influence on all aspects of Buddhist thought in Korea. In general, Korean Buddhism has followed a course of development more or less parallel to that of the greater East Asian context, although with notably closer ties to China than to Japan. There is no historical evidence which indicates any direct intellectual transmission from India, Buddhism’s birthplace; rather, most of the philosophical development of Buddhism in Korea occurred as Korean monks travelled to China to study and obtain Buddhist texts which had either been written in or translated into Chinese. Despite such close ties to China, however, Korean Buddhism has developed its own identity, distinct from that of its progenitor.

Compared to Indian and Central Asian Buddhism, which developed along clear historical lines, the development of Buddhism in China was largely dependent on the personalities of individual monks, and was thus affected by such factors as their region of origination and the particular texts which they emphasized. Thus, in the process of assimilating Indian Buddhism, the Chinese created and developed a number of widely varying schools of Buddhist thought. In Korea, however, such a diverse number of philosophical traditions was never established. Rather, one of the distinct features of Korean Buddhism has been its preference for incorporating many different perspectives into a single, cohesive body of thought.
Yi Hwang (1501–70)
Authors: Kalton Michael C.
Published: September 2018

Yi Hwang, also known by his honorific name T’oegye, is one of the two most honoured thinkers of the Korean neo-Confucian tradition. His fully balanced and integral grasp of the complex philosophical neo-Confucian synthesis spun by Zhu Xi during China’s Song dynasty marks the tradition’s arrival at full maturity in Korea. His ‘Four–Seven Debate’ with Ki Taesûng established a distinctive problematic that strongly oriented Korean neo-Confucian thought towards exacting investigation of critical issues regarding the juncture of metaphysics and their all-important application in describing the inner life of the human heart-and-mind.
Chinul (1158–1210)
Authors: Buswell Robert E.
Published: September 2018

Chinul was the founder of the Korean Chogye school of Buddhism. He sought to reconcile the bifurcation between Kyo (doctrinal) thought and Sôn (Zen) practice that rent the Korean Buddhist tradition of his time, by showing the symbiotic connection between Buddhist philosophy and meditation. He also advocated a distinctive program of soteriology that became emblematic of Korean Buddhism from that time forward: an initial sudden awakening to the nature of the mind followed by gradual cultivation of that awakening until full enlightenment was achieved.
Causality and necessity in Islamic thought
Authors: Burrell David
Published: September 2018

Discussions of causality and necessity in Islamic thought were the result of attempts to incorporate the wisdom of the Greeks into the legacy of the Qur‘‘an, and specifically to find a philosophical way of expressing faith in the free creation of the universe by one God. Moreover, that article of faith was itself a result of the revelation of God’s ways in the free bestowal of the Qur’’an on a humanity otherwise locked in ignorance, which a purportedly Aristotelian account of the necessary connection of cause and effect might be taken to rule out. Thus free creation of the universe and free gift of the Qur’an formed a logical unit. The challenge, therefore, was to compose an account of metaphysical and ethical matters which permits rational discourse about them, without obscuring their ultimate source or precluding divine action in the course of world events and human actions.

The scheme of emanation elaborated by al-Farabi sought to give ‘the First’ the place of pre-eminence which the Qur‘an demanded for the Creator, but did so by modelling creation on a logical system whereby all things emanated necessarily from this One. It was this necessity, further articulated by Ibn Sina, which al-Ghazalii took to jeopardize the freedom of God as Creator and as giver of the Qur’an. al-Ghazali’s objections were honed by a previous debate among Muslim theologians (mutakallimun), who had elaborated diverse views on human freedom in an effort to reconcile the obvious demand for free acceptance of the Qur’an with its claims regarding God’s utter sovereignty as Creator over all that is. Natural philosophy was also affected by these debates, specifically with regard to the ultimate constitution of bodies as well as accounts that could be given of their interaction. However, the primary focus was on human actions in the face of a free Creator.
Islamic theology
Authors: El-Affendi Abdelwahab
Published: September 2018

‘Ilm al-kalam (literally ‘the science of debate’) denotes a discipline of Islamic thought generally referred to as ‘theology’ or (even less accurately) as ‘scholastic theology’. The discipline, which evolved from the political and religious controversies that engulfed the Muslim community in its formative years, deals with interpretations of religious doctrine and the defence of these interpretations by means of discursive arguments.

The rise of kalam came to be closely associated with the Mu‘tazila, a rationalist school that emerged at the beginning of the second century AH (seventh century ad) and rose to prominence in the following century. The failure of the Mu‘tazila to follow up their initial intellectual and political ascendancy by imposing their views as official state doctrine seriously discredited rationalism, leading to a resurgence of traditionalism and later to the emergence of the Ash‘ariyya school, which attempted to present itself as a compromise between the two opposing extremes. The Ash‘arite school gained acceptability within mainstream (Sunni) Islam. However, kalam continued to be condemned, even in this ‘orthodox’ garb, by the dominant traditionally-inclined schools.

In its later stages, kalam attempted to assimilate philosophical themes and questions, but the subtle shift in this direction was not completely successful. The decline of kalam appeared to be irreversible, shunned as it was by traditionalists and rationalists alike. Although kalam texts continued to be discussed and even taught in some form, kalam ceased to be a living science as early as the ninth century AH (fifteenth century ad). Attempts by reformers to revive it, beginning in the nineteenth century, have yet to bear fruit.
Greek philosophy: impact on Islamic philosophy
Authors: Fakhry Majid
Published: September 2018

During the Hellenistic period (323–43 bc), classical Greek philosophy underwent a radical transformation. From being an essentially Greek product, it developed into a cosmopolitan and eclectic cultural movement in which Greek, Egyptian, Phoenician and other Near Eastern religious and ethical elements coalesced. This transformation is best symbolized by the role Alexandria played as the hub of diverse currents of thought making up the new philosophy.

When the Abbasid Caliphate was founded in Baghdad in 750 ad, the centre of learning gradually moved to the Abbasid capital, which became in due course the heir of Athens and Alexandria as the new cultural metropolis of the medieval world. About two centuries later Cordoba, capital of Muslim Spain, began to vie with Baghdad as the centre of ‘ancient learning’. From Cordoba, Greek–Arabic philosophy and science were transmitted across the Pyrenees to Paris, Bologna and Oxford in the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries.

The initial reception of Greek–Hellenistic philosophy in the Islamic world was mixed. It was frowned upon at first as being suspiciously foreign or pagan, and was dismissed by conservative theologians, legal scholars and grammarians as pernicious or superfluous. By the middle of the eighth century ad the picture had changed somewhat, with the appearance of the rationalist theologians of Islam known as the Mu‘tazilites, who were thoroughly influenced by the methods of discourse or dialectic favoured by the Muslim philosophers. Of those philosophers, the two outstanding figures of the ninth and tenth centuries were al-Kindi and al-Razi, who hailed Greek philosophy as a form of liberation from the shackles of dogma or blind imitation (taqlid). For al-Kindi, the goals of philosophy are perfectly compatible with those of religion, and, for al-Razi, philosophy was the highest expression of man’s intellectual ambitions and the noblest achievement of that noble people, the Greeks, who were unsurpassed in their quest for wisdom (hikma).
Meaning in Islamic philosophy
Authors: Leaman Oliver
Published: September 2018

The discussion of the notion of meaning in Islamic philosophy is heavily influenced by theological and legal debates about the interpretation of Islam, and about who has the right to pronounce on interpretation. The introduction of Greek philosophy into the Islamic world produced a new set of authorities on how to interpret texts, and this led to arguments over the potential benefits of the new approaches as compared with the traditional Islamic sciences. The discussion came to centre on the nature of ambiguity, equivocation and analogy, with different philosophers adopting diverse theories and thus attaining a variety of conclusions about how to interpret meaning. These variations have powerful implications for the understanding of their thought. Not only do the different approaches result in different conclusions, they also represent different approaches to the whole philosophical enterprise. The topic of meaning is not so much an aspect of Islamic philosophy as an interpretation of how to do Islamic philosophy itself. The main issues focus on identifying the people best qualified to interpret texts, valid interpretations of the texts, and the notion of meaning that should be employed in our understanding of the texts.
Orientalism and Islamic philosophy
Authors: Nooruddin Ubai
Published: September 2018

Orientalism is the concept that there is something very special and different about the thought of those living in the East, which can be discovered through the methods of scholarship current in the West. It is a reflection of the relationship of imperial and intellectual domination of a West which feels it is superior to an ‘inferior’ East. This often results in an understanding of Islamic philosophy which sees the latter as essentially unoriginal, derivative and of only historical interest. While orientalists have produced interesting and important work, most fail to appreciate the independent status of the material which they analyse.
Epistemology in Islamic philosophy
Authors: Inati Shams C.
Published: September 2018

Muslim philosophers agree that knowledge is possible. Knowledge is the intellect’s grasp of the immaterial forms, the pure essences or universals that constitute the natures of things, and human happiness is achieved only through the intellect’s grasp of such universals. They stress that for knowledge of the immaterial forms, the human intellect generally relies on the senses. Some philosophers, such as Ibn Rushd and occasionally Ibn Sina, assert that it is the material forms themselves, which the senses provide, that are grasped by the intellect after being stripped of their materiality with the help of the divine world. However, the general view as expressed by al-Farabi and Ibn Sina seems to be that the material forms only prepare the way for the reception of the immaterial forms, which are then provided by the divine world. They also state that on rare occasions the divine world simply bestows the immaterial forms on the human intellect without any help from the senses. This occurrence is known as prophecy. While all Muslim philosophers agree that grasping eternal entities ensures happiness, they differ as to whether such grasping is also necessary for eternal existence.
Ibn Rushd, Abu’l Walid Muhammad (1126–98)
Authors: Leaman Oliver
Published: September 2018

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) is regarded by many as the most important of the Islamic philosophers. A product of twelfth-century Islamic Spain, he set out to integrate Aristotelian philosophy with Islamic thought. A common theme throughout his writings is that there is no incompatibility between religion and philosophy when both are properly understood. His contributions to philosophy took many forms, ranging from his detailed commentaries on Aristotle, his defence of philosophy against the attacks of those who condemned it as contrary to Islam and his construction of a form of Aristotelianism which cleansed it, as far as was possible at the time, of Neoplatonic influences.

His thought is genuinely creative and highly controversial, producing powerful arguments that were to puzzle his philosophical successors in the Jewish and Christian worlds. He seems to argue that there are two forms of truth, a religious form and a philosophical form, and that it does not matter if they point in different directions. He also appears to be doubtful about the possibility of personal immortality or of God’s being able to know that particular events have taken place. There is much in his work also which suggests that religion is inferior to philosophy as a means of attaining knowledge, and that the understanding of religion which ordinary believers can have is very different and impoverished when compared with that available to the philosopher.

When discussing political philosophy he advocates a leading role in the state for philosophers, and is generally disparaging of the qualities of theologians as political figures. Ibn Rushd’s philosophy is seen to be based upon a complex and original philosophy of languages which expresses his critique of the accepted methods of argument in Islamic philosophy up to his time.
al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid (1058–1111)
Authors: Nakamura Kojiro
Published: September 2018

Al-Ghazali is one of the greatest Islamic jurists, theologians and mystical thinkers. He learned various branches of the traditional Islamic religious sciences in his home town of Tus, Gurgan and Nishapur in the northern part of Iran. He was also involved in Sufi practices from an early age. Being recognized by Nizam al-Mulk, the vizir of the Seljuq sultans, he was appointed head of the Nizamiyyah College at Baghdad in AH 484/ad 1091. As the intellectual head of the Islamic community, he was busy lecturing on Islamic jurisprudence at the College, and also refuting heresies and responding to questions from all segments of the community. Four years later, however, al-Ghazali fell into a serious spiritual crisis and finally left Baghdad, renouncing his career and the world. After wandering in Syria and Palestine for about two years and finishing the pilgrimage to Mecca, he returned to Tus, where he was engaged in writing, Sufi practices and teaching his disciples until his death. In the meantime he resumed teaching for a few years at the Nizamiyyah College in Nishapur.

Al-Ghazali explained in his autobiography why he renounced his brilliant career and turned to Sufism. It was, he says, due to his realization that there was no way to certain knowledge or the conviction of revelatory truth except through Sufism. (This means that the traditional form of Islamic faith was in a very critical condition at the time.) This realization is possibly related to his criticism of Islamic philosophy. In fact, his refutation of philosophy is not a mere criticism from a certain (orthodox) theological viewpoint. First of all, his attitude towards philosophy was ambivalent; it was both an object of criticism and an object of learning (for example, logic and the natural sciences). He mastered philosophy and then criticized it in order to Islamicize it. The importance of his criticism lies in his philosophical demonstration that the philosophers’ metaphysical arguments cannot stand the test of reason. However, he was also forced to admit that the certainty of revelatory truth, for which he was so desperately searching, cannot be obtained by reason. It was only later that he finally attained to that truth in the ecstatic state (fana’) of the Sufi. Through his own religious experience, he worked to revive the faith of Islam by reconstructing the religious sciences upon the basis of Sufism, and to give a theoretical foundation to the latter under the influence of philosophy. Thus Sufism came to be generally recognized in the Islamic community. Though Islamic philosophy did not long survive al-Ghazali’s criticism, he contributed greatly to the subsequent philosophization of Islamic theology and Sufism.
Ibn Tufayl, Abu Bakr Muhammad (before 1110–85)
Authors: Inati Shams C.
Published: September 2018

Ibn Tufayl’s thought can be captured in his only extant work, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (The Living Son of the Vigilant), a philosophical treatise in a charming literary form. It relates the story of human knowledge, as it rises from a blank slate to a mystical or direct experience of God after passing through the necessary natural experiences. The focal point of the story is that human reason, unaided by society and its conventions or by religion, can achieve scientific knowledge, preparing the way to the mystical or highest form of human knowledge. The story also seeks to show that, while religious truth is the same as that of philosophy, the former is conveyed through symbols, which are suitable for the understanding of the multitude, and the latter is conveyed in its inner meanings apart from any symbolism. Since people have different capacities of understanding that require the use of different instruments, there is no point in trying to convey the truth to people except through means suitable for their understanding.
al-‘Amiri, Abu’l Hasan Muhammad ibn Yusuf (d. 992)
Authors: Gaskill Tom
Published: September 2018

Although al-‘Amiri had only a limited long-term impact, his extant works provide useful insights into an extremely creative period in Islamic philosophy in the tenth century ad. He attempted to reconcile philosophy with religion by showing that the genuine conclusions of philosophy could not contradict the revealed truths of Islam, and attempted to build consensus within Islam. He argued for the individual immortality and the punishment or reward of the soul. His analysis of the soul is largely Neoplatonic. The reward of the afterlife is determined by the actualization of the intellect in this life, aided primarily by right actions which moderate the physical faculties and turn the intellect toward the Divine.
al-Razi, Fakhr al-Din (1149–1209)
Authors: Cooper John
Published: September 2018

Imam Fakhr al-Din al-Razi was one of the outstanding figures in Islamic theology. Living in the second half of the sixth century AH (twelfth century ad), he also wrote on history, grammar, rhetoric, literature, law, the natural sciences and philosophy, and composed one of the major works of Qur’anic exegesis, the only remarkable gap in his output being politics. He travelled widely in the eastern lands of Islam, often engaging in heated polemical confrontations. His disputatious character, intolerant of intellectual weakness, frequently surfaces in his writings, but these are also marked by a spirit of synthesis and a profound desire to uncover the truth, whatever its source. A number of his metaphysical positions became well known in subsequent philosophical literature, being cited more often than not for the purposes of refutation. His prolixity and pedantic argumentation were often criticized, but he was widely considered the reviver of Islam in his century.
Israeli, Isaac ben Solomon (c.855–955)
Authors: Lasker Daniel J.
Published: September 2018

A pioneering Jewish philosopher and a physician, Isaac Israeli was among the very first medieval Jewish writers to formulate a philosophy employing Greek sources. He based his metaphysics chiefly on the Neoplatonic theory of emanation. However, like many later Jewish philosophers, Israeli understood God as a voluntary agent who acted through power and will. He combined a commitment to the traditional doctrine of creation ex nihilo with the idea of emanation: the first level of the ontic hierarchy was formed by divine creation but lower levels emerged by emanation. This original synthesis was Israeli’s most prominent philosophical innovation.

Israeli’s anthropology was at base largely Neoplatonic, teaching that the soul can ascend the emanatory ladder back to God. The first Jew to give a psychological account of prophecy, Israeli, unlike later Jewish thinkers, did not discuss at length the relation between his philosophical ideas and traditional sources. His pioneering work did not have a decisive impact on later generations of Jewish thinkers; he was known in Latin Europe, but mainly for his medical writings.
Ibn Tzaddik, Joseph ben Jacob (d. 1149)
Authors: Rudavsky Tamar
Published: September 2018

Joseph ibn Tzaddik was a thinker firmly within the Neoplatonic tradition of Jewish philosophy. He argued that through knowledge of our own body we understand the natural world, and through knowledge of our soul the spiritual world. He identified prophecy with philosophy and suggested that we need to employ both philosophy and the religious commandments in order to worship God. Not everyone can understand philosophy, but everyone can follow the commandments and thus approach God. Human beings will receive their deserts in the next world. The pure soul will rise to the realm of spirituality, while the evil soul will be heavy and sink into matter, never achieving repose but continually caught up in the movement of the spheres.
Ibn Daud, Abraham (c.1110–c.1180)
Authors: Samuelson Norbert M.
Published: September 2018

Ibn Daud was born in Cordoba and died in Toledo. In Jewish texts he is known as Rabad, an acronym of his Hebrew name, Rabbi Abraham ben David. He was known to medieval Christian philosophers by a variety of names, including Avendauth and possibly John of Spain as well. His Sefer ha-Kabbalah (The Book of Tradition), regarded by some scholars as the first comprehensive study of Jewish history, is an extended argument for the authority of rabbinic Judaism on the grounds that it is an unbroken tradition of authentic sources, from the Mosaic origins through the first two Jewish commonwealths, the exile, and down to the author’s time. His major work in philosophy is Al-‘Aqida al-Rafi‘a (The Exalted Faith), composed in 1160 in Judaeo-Arabic, the form of Arabic written in Hebrew characters that was commonly used by Jewish scholars and thinkers in the Muslim milieu. It survives only in two late fourteenth-century Hebrew translations, one by Samuel Motot, entitled Ha-Emunah ha-Nissa’ah, and the other, better known, by Solomon ibn Labi, entitled Ha-Emunah ha-Ramah.
Duran, Profiat (d. c.1414)
Authors: Kellner Menachem , Leaman Oliver
Published: September 2018

Duran, known also as Efodi, produced a wide variety of works displaying a considerable understanding of Christian culture, which he then used to criticize Christianity from a Jewish perspective. Heavily influenced by both Maimonides and Abraham ibn Ezra, he stressed the dual nature of the Torah as a system of belief and practice. His work includes Neoplatonic and astrological ideas, and sought to emphasize the salvific force of the Torah.
Shem Tov family
Authors: Tirosh-Samuelson Hava
Published: September 2018

The ibn Shem Tov family included four Jewish intellectuals of fifteenth century Spain whose philosophical, theological, homiletical and polemical works followed the persecution of 1391 and the ensuing mass apostasy of Jews. Responding to these traumatic events, the Shem Tovs rethought the place of philosophy in traditional Judaism. Although the pater familias reacted sharply to the spiritual crisis by criticizing Maimonides and endorsing Kabbalah, his offspring charted a more moderate course that enabled Jewish intellectuals to cultivate philosophy and the kindred arts and sciences while asserting the ultimate primacy of their revealed faith over philosophy, and its philosophical superiority to Christianity.
Crescas, Hasdai (c.1340–1410)
Authors: Feldman Seymour
Published: September 2018

During the most tragic period of Spanish-Jewish history (1391–1492), Hasdai Crescas wrote a philosophical-theological treatise, Or Adonai (Light of the Lord), seeking to define and fortify the Jewish faith in the face of constant Christian attack. It is a polemical book, aiming to defend a traditional version of Judaism by criticizing the Aristotelian formulations proposed by such Jewish philosophers as Moses Maimonides and Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides). Since they relied on Aristotelian physics, Crescas began his reconstruction of Jewish theology with a demolition of Aristotle’s natural philosophy. He then turned to metaphysics in general and Jewish theology in particular. His constructive work was especially novel in its treatment of human choice, divine omniscience and creation. Aiming to defend traditional Jewish ideas, Crescas in the end broached some of the most radical challenges to be found within the medieval philosophical tradition, including the proposal that there might be numerous worlds other than our own, infinite magnitudes, and a void, or vacuum.
Abravanel, Isaac (1437–1509)
Authors: Leaman Oliver
Published: September 2018

Abravanel is often seen as having a unique position in Jewish philosophy, between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. His ideas point both to the past – especially to Maimonides – and to the future, in his approach to the questions of history and of authority in the state. His defence of what he takes to be religious orthodoxy is carried out with serious attention to the arguments of his predecessors. Abravanel takes great pains to understand their reasoning. He even supplies them with additional arguments, before he presents what he takes to be a decisive objection. In particular he expounds Maimonides’ thought in considerable detail, defending him from his critics, while also insisting that Maimonides misrepresented the religious notions he analyses.

Abravanel’s most original work lies in his view of history as either natural or artificial. Most human history is artificial, since it represents life in rebellion against God. The best form of government is not a monarchy, despite the views of most Jewish philosophers. For a monarchy does not essentially replicate the relationship of God with his subjects, and other forms of government can produce relatively successful societies. The Messiah, who will eventually transform artificial into natural history, is not a king but more a judge and prophet. He will establish the perfect society through a divine miracle. As long as the state is an absolute monarchy, however, its citizens owe absolute obedience to its ruler.
Abravanel, Judah ben Isaac (c.1460/5–c.1520/5)
Authors: Dobbs-Weinstein Idit
Published: September 2018

Judah ben Isaac Abravanel was born in Lisbon. After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Leone, as he was known, and his family migrated to Naples, but fled two years later following the French invasion. After brief residences in various Italian cities, Leone returned to Naples where he served as court physician to the Spanish Viceroy. Well-versed in the sciences of his day, including physics, medicine and philosophy, whether Jewish, Islamic or Christian, he composed his major work, Dialoghi d’amore (Dialogues of Love), in 1501–2. Although the work influenced such important thinkers as Montaigne, Bruno and Spinoza, its main influence was in literature rather than philosophy. Its style resembles that of other Renaissance works in the ambit of Ficino’s commentary on Plato’s Symposium but, unlike these works, it is neither philosophical commentary nor courtly literature. Adopting the idiom of courtly love and drawing on Platonic and Neoplatonic sources, it complements them with mythological, biblical and Aristotelian sources to produce a novel synthesis of Plato and Aristotle with ideas drawn from the pagan and the revealed traditions, aiming to demonstrate that love is the animating principle of the universe and the cause of all existence, divine as well as material.

The three dialogues between Philo, the poetic lover, and his beloved Sophia address the relations between love and desire, the universality of love and the origin of love. Each discussion pivots on an apparent opposition between Philo’s Aristotelian and Sophia’s Platonic views. The discussion of the relations between love and desire raises fundamental questions about the relations of soul and body.
Alemanno, Yohanan ben Isaac (1433/4–after 1503/4)
Authors: Melamed Abraham
Published: September 2018

An outstanding Jewish thinker of the Italian Renaissance, Alemanno combined an eclectic Jewish philosophic rationalism, steeped in the medieval sources – Maimonidean, Averroist and Kabbalistic – with Renaissance humanism and Neoplatonism. He was an Aristotelian and Maimonidean in ethics, a Platonist and Averroist in political philosophy and a Neoplatonist and Kabbalist in metaphysics. His fusing of Aristotelian rationalism with Platonizing mysticism is striking but not atypical for the period. Influenced by Renaissance thought after he settled in Italy, he was active in Christian as well as Jewish circles in Florence, Padua and Mantua. Pico della Mirandola learned Hebrew under his instruction and relied on him for access to medieval Jewish texts in philosophy and Kabbalah. Both Christian Kabbalah and Renaissance Hebraism were products of the interactions in which Alemanno was a chief participant. His ties to the Florentine Academy of the late 1480s are evident in his adaptations to Jewish thinking of the ideas current among its members as to the unity of truth, the immortality of the soul and the dignity of man.
Herrera, Abraham Cohen de (c.1562–c.1635)
Authors: Yosha Nissim
Published: September 2018

Herrera was a philosophically oriented Kabbalist who combined Neoplatonism and Kabbalistic knowledge learned from Israel Sarug, a disciple of Isaac Luria. In his Spanish works Puerta del Cielo (The Gate of Heaven), and Casa de la Divinidad (The House of Divinity), he considered Kabbalah as the source of the ancient truth.

Herrera believed that as the intellect is the highest epistemic grade, one must rely on philosophy to reach the divine secrets. He dealt with the concept of Ensoph (his own spelling of Eyn Sof – the Infinite) in terms of its Thomistic and Renaissance definitions – the Infinite that excludes limit. Tzimtzum is the voluntary Contraction of Ensoph, which prepares space for worlds to be created. The space opened up is metaphorically called Adam Kadmon (Primordial Man), the first emanation of which is the Intelligible World and the Tetragrammaton, the principle that shapes the Chain of Being around the Pythagorean number four. Neoplatonically, Adam Kadmon is the Intelligible World. Herrera’s account incorporates further complex ideas about First and Second Causes of creation.

In 1699, Herrera drew the attention of Johan Georg Wachter, who, on the basis of Knorr von Rosenroth’s Latin translations of Herrera’s works in Kabbala Denudata, blamed him for inspiring Spinoza’s supposed pantheistic heresy.
Cohen, Hermann (1842–1918)
Authors: Zank Michael
Published: September 2018

Hermann Cohen was the founder of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism and a major influence on twentieth-century Jewish thought. Die Religion der Vernunft aus den Quellen des Judentums (Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism) (1919) is widely credited with the renewal of Jewish religious philosophy. Cohen’s philosophy of Judaism is inextricably linked with his general philosophical position. But his system of critical idealism in logic, ethics, aesthetics and psychology did not originally include a philosophy of religion. The mainly Protestant Marburg School in fact regarded Cohen’s Jewish philosophy as an insufficient solution to the philosophical problem of human existence and to that of determining the role of religion in human culture. Thinkers who favoured a new, more existentialist approach in Jewish thought, however, saw Cohen’s introduction of religion into the system as a daring departure from the confines of philosophical idealism.

Cohen identified the central Jewish contribution to human culture as the development of a religion that unites historical particularity with ethical universality. At the core of this religion of reason is the interdependence of the idea of God and that of the human being. Cohen derives this theme from the Jewish canon through a philosophical analysis based on his transcendental idealism.
Ha’am, Ahad (1856–1927)
Authors: Levy Zeev
Published: September 2018

Ahad Ha’am (Asher Hirsch Ginzberg) was one of the most remarkable Jewish thinkers and Zionist ideologists of his time. Born in the province of Kiev in the Ukraine, he moved in 1884 to Odessa, an important centre of Hebrew literary activity. In 1907 he moved on to London, and in 1922 settled in the young city of Tel Aviv. He attended the universities of Vienna, Berlin and Breslau but did not pursue any regular course of study and was primarily an autodidact. Never a systematic philosopher, Ginzberg, who wrote in Hebrew and adopted the pen name Ahad Ha’am, ‘one of the people’, became a first-rate and widely read essayist and polemicist. He engaged in controversies over the practical problems of the early Jewish settlements in Palestine, his opposition to Theodore Herzl’s drive to create a Jewish state, and numerous problems of Hebrew culture, tradition and literature. No single principle or theme stands out as the guiding idea of his thought. Indeed, his ideas are sometimes inconsistent. But his writings preserve the flavour of his values and commitments. Although his outlook never became the main road of Zionist ideology, its impact on Zionist thought was powerful, especially after the establishment of the State of Israel.
Rosenzweig, Franz (1886–1929)
Authors: Bienenstock Myriam
Published: September 2018

An outstanding Hegel scholar – his Hegel und der Staat (Hegel and the State) (1920) remains a standard work on Hegel’s political philosophy – Franz Rosenzweig elaborated, in Der Stern der Erlösung (The Star of Redemption) (1921) and several articles – notably, his 1925 article ‘Das neue Denken’ (’The New Thinking’) – a philosophy of revelation that breaks with the systematic and rationalistic premises of German Idealism. The nisus of Rosenzweig’s New Thinking was formulated as early as 1917, in a letter containing the germ (Urzelle) of Der Stern: ‘after reason, ‘‘philosophical reason’’, has absorbed everything in itself’, Rosenzweig writes, ‘after it has proclaimed its sole existence, man suddenly discovers that he is still here, although he was digested long ago…. I am still here, I – plain, private subject, with first and last name, I – dust and ashes…. Individuum ineffabile triumphans’. How can this be? The human being, Rosenzweig explains, can acquire personal identity as an individual only through the call, that is, the revelation of the Other: God – but also, some other human being. Dialogue, communication in language, comes to the fore in this philosophy, developed around the same time as Martin Buber’s Ich und Du (I and Thou) (1923). Often treated as a common ground and basis for understanding between Jews and Christians, Der Stern der Erlösung is a major source of inspiration for such contemporary philosophers as Lévinas and is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Jewish philosophy.
Kaplan, Mordecai (1881–1983)
Authors: Ellenson David
Published: September 2018

Kaplan argued that Judaism was the evolving religious civilization of the Jewish people. He attempted to recast an inherited faith in rational and natural terms. His advocacy of Jewish communalism, Jewish cultural expression in literature and art, and creativity and experimentation in liturgy had a pronounced impact on wide circles of US Jews. He took seriously the challenge to the traditional interpretation of religious values from science and modernity, and sought to establish a form of religion that was both intellectually respectable and communally responsible. Kaplan’s distinctive analysis of Jewish peoplehood and the Jewish religion responsed to a wide variety of philosophical and theological perspectives and challenges.
Bible, Hebrew
Authors: Cohn-Sherbok Dan
Published: September 2018

Although the Bible is not a work of systematic philosophy, it none the less contains a wide variety of philosophical and theological ideas which have served as the framework for rabbinic speculation through the centuries. Although these views about the nature and activity of God are not presented systematically, they do provide an overview of the ancient Israelite understanding of the Godhead, creation, divine providence and human destiny. Throughout rabbinic literature these notions served as the bedrock for theological speculation, and with the emergence of systematic Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages, they came to preoccupy a variety of thinkers. Similarly, in the post-Enlightenment period until the present, scriptural teaching has served as the starting point for philosophical and theological reflection.

Foremost among scriptural beliefs is the conviction that one God has created the cosmos. As the transcendent creator of the universe, he reigns supreme throughout nature and is intimately involved in earthly life. God is both omnipotent and omniscient and exercises divine providence over all creatures – from on high he oversees all the inhabitants of the earth. In exercising his providential care, Scripture repeatedly asserts, God is a benevolent ruler who shows compassion and mercy to all. Furthermore, as lord of history, he has chosen Israel to be his special people and has revealed the Torah to them on Mount Sinai. The Jewish people are to be a light to the nations, and from their midst will come a Messianic redeemer who will inaugurate a period of divine deliverance and eventually usher in the world to come. Israel thus plays a central role in the unfolding of God’s plan for all human beings.
Kabbalah
Authors: Leaman Oliver
Published: September 2018

Kabbalah is the body of Jewish mystical writings which became important at the end of the twelfth century in Provence and has been taken up with varying degrees of enthusiasm in an attempt to explore the esoteric side of Judaism. There are two main forms of Kabbalah: one which concentrates on gaining knowledge of God through study of his name, and a theosophical tradition that approaches God through his impact on creation. On both accounts God is linked to the world through ten Sefirot, hypostatic numbers which mediate between the Infinite and this world and thus (among other functions) help to explain how a being who is entirely ineffable can produce so much variety as is observed in nature. God’s willingness to relate to the world gives his creatures the possibility of personal knowledge of him, although this can be acquired only through difficult and strenuous spiritual exercises. The variety of works which the Kabbalists produced are a blend of philosophical and mystical ideas which attempt to explore the inner meaning of faith and represent a creative and influential stream that both draws upon and contributes to Jewish philosophy.
Enlightenment, Jewish
Authors: Harris Jay M.
Published: September 2018

The eighteenth century in Europe saw the beginnings of Jewish emancipation, and this led to an intellectual development which came to be known as the Jewish Enlightenment or Haskalah. This movement emphasized the rational individual, the notion of natural law, natural religion and toleration, and natural rights. The effect of this form of thought was to provide a justification for the equality of the Jews with other citizens of national entities. The most important exponent of this movement was Moses Mendelssohn, who dominated the debate on the role Jews should play in the state and the rationality of Judaism as a religion. Ultimately the Jewish Enlightenment moved east and became connected with such movements as Zionism. In Germany it led to the development of the Reform movement. The Jewish Enlightenment very much set the agenda for the next two centuries of debate about Jewish ideas by seeking to analyse the links between religion and reason in Judaism.
Soloveitchik, Joseph B. (1903–93)
Authors: Hartman D.
Published: September 2018

Joseph B. Soloveitchik was a Jewish philosopher in the fullest sense. For such thinkers, the task of building intellectual and spiritual bridges between their particular traditions and other cultures permeates and shapes all their philosophic commitments and endeavours.

Medieval philosophers sought to integrate the competing knowledge claims of natural reason and authoritative revelation. Soloveitchik, by contrast, ignored metaphysics and epistemology, focusing instead on refuting the alleged incompatibility between Judaism and the active, human-centred ethos of modernity. His major concern was not the truth of religion but the relevance and significance of religious human types and ideals in modern Western culture.
Duran, Simeon ben Tzemach (1361–1444)
Authors: Kellner Menachem
Published: September 2018

Simeon Duran was chiefly a religious thinker who incorporated a variety of philosophical traditions into his thought. He argues that revelation is the only certain route to knowledge. Following this principle, he criticizes those who argued that some of the principles of religion are more important or basic than others. To reject any aspect of religious law is to abandon the whole, and on this point Duran sets himself against Maimonides.
Agnosticism
Authors: Rowe William L.
Published: September 2018

In the popular sense, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in God, whereas an atheist disbelieves in God. In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist. In so far as one holds that our beliefs are rational only if they are sufficiently supported by human reason, the person who accepts the philosophical position of agnosticism will hold that neither the belief that God exists nor the belief that God does not exist is rational. In the modern period, agnostics have appealed largely to the philosophies of Hume and Kant as providing the justification for agnosticism as a philosophical position.
Atonement
Authors: Gunton Colin
Published: September 2018

As a theological concept, atonement articulates the acts by which relations between God and creatures, disrupted by human offence, can be restored. Although other cultures show an awareness of the need for atonement, the Christian tradition understands it as provided by God’s particular historical action in Jesus Christ. At its centre is the notion of reconciliation between God and his alienated creatures, which is achieved particularly by the death of Jesus. The distinctive philosophical and other problems of atonement theology derive from two features in particular: its claiming of universal significance for the historical life and death of Jesus of Nazareth (the problem of universality); and the moral difficulties, especially in the realm of human freedom and responsibility, which arise from the claim that he is the vehicle of atonement with God (the problem of human autonomy).

Although there were many theologies of atonement before Anselm of Canterbury’s, his systematic treatment is the fountainhead of much modern discussion, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Centring on the concept of satisfaction, it understands Christ as the God-man, satisfying both divine justice and human need by a free gift of his life. Criticisms of the formulation have centred on its understanding of sin and its tendency to understand atonement in external, transactional terms. Subsequent discussion of the concept has also raised questions about Christ’s substitutionary and representative roles and about the relation between the justice and the love of God. A significant proportion of modern thinkers have rejected the need for any concept of atonement at all. They have preferred instead to understand Jesus as an example to be followed (‘exemplarism’) or to concentrate upon the effect his behaviour and example have on the believer (‘subjectivism’) – or to adopt a combination of both.
Bultmann, Rudolf (1884–1976)
Authors: Seban Jean-Loup
Published: September 2018

Rudolf Bultmann was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the period that immediately followed the Second World War. A founding member of the school of dialectical theology in the 1920s, he was a major New Testament scholar, who refined the method of form criticism. He argued that the Synoptic Gospels reveal not the historical Jesus, but the Christ of faith, the Christ-myth developed by the early church. The existentialist philosophy of Martin Heidegger was a major influence, and he adapted it to the needs of Christian theology, devising an existential access to faith. He contrasted Historie – objective, factual accounts of historical events – with Geschichte – the meaning that people choose to give to those events. One must demythologize the New Testament – strip it of its prescientific imagery – before one can interpret its significance for oneself. Bultmann defined biblical hermeneutics as an inquiry into the reality of human existence and proposed a new understanding of the person and teaching of Christ. Central to this is the concept of the kerygma, the proclamation of the salvation-event focused on Christ. It is in response to the kerygma that a human being can actively opt for faith. Bultmann reinterpreted the Lutheran doctrine of justification and the theology of the cross in the light of this.
Eliade, Mircea (1907–86)
Authors: Rennie Bryan Stephenson
Published: September 2018

Eliade was educated as a philosopher. He published extensively in the history of religions and acted as editor-in-chief of Macmillan’s Encyclopedia of Religion (1987). The influence of his thought, through these works and through thirty years as director of the history of religions department at Chicago University, is considerable.

Eliade’s analysis of religion assumes the existence of ‘the sacred’ as the object of worship of religious humanity. It appears as the source of power, significance and value. Humanity apprehends ‘hierophanies’ – physical manifestations or revelations of the sacred – often, but not only, in the form of symbols, myths and rituals. Any phenomenal entity is a potential hierophany and can give access to nonhistorical time, what Eliade calls illud tempus (‘that time’). The apprehension of this sacred time is a constitutive feature of the religious aspect of humanity.