Does Maimonidesâs Mishneh Torah Forbid Reading the Guide of the Perplexed?: On Platonic Punishments for Freethinkers

Yehuda Halper

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Chapter 4 Does Maimonidesâs Mishneh Torah Forbid Reading the Guide of the Perplexed?

On Platonic Punishments for Freethinkers

in Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age without Plato

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Yehuda Halper

Yehuda Halper
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Art:: Kapitel

Seiten:: 113â146

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004468764_006

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Abstract

In chapter 4, we see how Moses Maimonides (d. 1204) notes a Socratic paradoxical relationship between philosophy and the law, though in a sense, he brings philosophy under the wing of religion. The paradox emerges in the Mishneh Torah, where Maimonides, to some extent following talmudic precedent, gives a list of questions that Jews are forbidden from asking. These include whether idolatry may be correct, whether God is really one, whether prophecy is true, what is up, and what is down. At the same time, however, Maimonides himself explicitly addresses all of these questions in the Guide of the Perplexed. Indeed, the Guide seems to be organised around precisely the questions that Jews are forbidden from asking in the Mishneh Torah. Moreover, by the end of the Guide, it is clear that the highest form of worship of God and intellectual conjunction with the divine can only be achieved by one who has asked these questions. This paradox has a parallel with Platoâs Laws, where the Athenian stranger recommends building a kind of college-like prison in the middle of the city where people who ask forbidden intellectual questions can learn to become philosophers. Just as this prison resolves the Socratic paradox by creating a space for philosophical discourse that is within the city, yet outside of its laws, so, too, Maimonidesâs Guide creates a similar intellectual space for budding philosophers who follow the Jewish law.

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Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age without Plato

Permitting and Forbidding Open Inquiry in 12-15th Century Europe and North Africa

Reihe:Â Maimonides Library for Philosophy and Religion, Band: 1

Cover Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age without Plato

ISBN:: 9789004468764

Verleger:: Brill

Print-Publikationsdatum:: 14 Oct 2021

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Part 1 Socrates among Medieval Jews

Part 2 Socratic Problems without Socrates

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Chapter 4 Does Maimonidesâs Mishneh Torah Forbid Reading the Guide of the Perplexed?

On Platonic Punishments for Freethinkers

Abstract

Zitierungsangaben

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Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age without Plato

Permitting and Forbidding Open Inquiry in 12-15th Century Europe and North Africa

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Chapter 4 Does Maimonidesâs Mishneh Torah Forbid Reading the Guide of the Perplexed?