Criticism of authority in the writings of Moses Maimonides and Fakhr Al-Dīn al-Rāzī

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 255-274

  Langermann, Y Tzvi ^a  

^a BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; AUTHORITY; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; EVALUATION; HISTORY;

ARAB WORLD; AUTHORITARIANISM; EVALUATION STUDIES; HISTORY, MEDIEVAL;

EID: 1842456017     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157338202X00144     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. For the purposes of this study I have used the Judaeo-Arabic texts published by Rabbi Yosef Kafah in his Iggerot lì-Rabheinu Moshe ben Maimon (Jerusalem, 1972), 141-47
2. (introduction to the commentary on the Aphorisms) and 148-67 (extract from Fusūl Mūsā). We eagerly await the editions and translations of both texts which are currently being prepared by Gerrit Bos. An Arabic letter version of the critique of Galen was published by Joseph Schacht and Max Meyerhof, "Maimonides against Galen. On Philosophy and Cosmogony," Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, vol. 5, part 1 (Cairo, 1939).
3. See Shlomo Pines, "Rāzī critique de Galien," Actes du VIIIe Congrès international d'Histoire des Sciences (Paris, 1953), 480-87
4. reprinted in Studies in Arabic Versions of Greek Texts and. in Medieval Science [=The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, vol. 2] (Jerusalem & Leiden, 1986), 256-263.
5. The Arabic text has recently been edited by M. Mohaghghegh, Kitab al-Shukūk 'alājālīnūs (Tehran, 1993).
6. Kafah, ed., Iggerol, 155.
7. Kafah, ed., Iggerol, 4 Ibid., 152-4.
8. Maimonides' ideas about creation have been the subject of much scholarly debate; see the exhaustive discussion in Herbert A. Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation, and the Existence of God in Medieval islamic and Jewish Philosophy (New York, 1987), index s.v. Maimonides.
9. My concern here is not the elucidation of Maimo nides' own position, but rather an examination of the role played by doubt and doubting in his handling of Aristotle. All citations in English from the Guide arc from Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, tr. Shlomo Pines (Chicago & London, 1963).
10. Guide II, 15; tr. Pines, 289.
11. Guide II, 22; tr. Pines, 320.
12. Guide, tr. Pines, 321.
13. Guide I, 71, tr. Pines, 180.
14. Ibid. Maimonides' rhetorical use of the phrase "without a doubt" will be discussed below.
15. Kafah, ed., Iggerot, 163.
16. See Guide II, 16, at the very end, concerning shinā'a (translated by Pines, 295, as "disgrace").
17. Tr. Pines, 294.
18. I plan to discuss in detail the numerous connections between the Guide and Fusūl Mūsā
19. in a book now in progress, tentatively called The Composition and Reception of
20. Guide I, 5; tr. Pines, 29.
21. Guide II, 19, tr. Pines, 307.
22. Guide II, 19, tr. Pines, 308.
23. Guide II, 19. Ibid.
24. Josef 'Stern, "Maimonides on the Growth of Knowledge and the Limitations of the Intellect," to appear in a volume of studies on Maimondies edited by Tony Lévy. In another, unpublished paper, "Maimonides and the Skeptical Tradition," Stern argues that other features of Maimonides' approach align him with the classical skeptics. Where (and why precisely) Maimonides places the limits of the human intellect is, perhaps, the most thoroughly debated subject in Maimonidean studies, stimulated by the seminal essay by Shlomo Pines, "The Limitations of Human Knowledge according to al-Fārābĩ, Ibn Bāija and Maimonides," in I. Twersky (ed.), Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1979), 82-109.
25. References to this literature, as well as my own views on the matter (always in flux, as they should be), are found in the essay, "Maimonides and Astronomy: Some Further Reflections," included in Y. Tzvi Langermann, The ferns and the Sciences in the Middle Ages (Aldershot, 1999).
26. Guide II, 15, tr. Pines, 292.
27. Guide II, 19, tr. Pines, 308-9.
28. Guide, tr. Pines, 322.
29. Levi ben Gerson, Wars of the Lord, bk. 4, pt. 1, ch. 9.
30. An English translation is available in Levi ben Gershom, The Wars of the Lord, translated and annotated by Seymour Feldman, vol. 3 (Philadelphia-New York-Jerusalem, 1999), 63-78.
31. I discuss these explanations in my essay, "Gersonides and Astrology," ap pended to Feldman's translation of Levi ben Gerson (cf. note 24), 510-12.
32. Guide II, 24, tr. Pines, 325.
33. Guide, tr. Pines, 197.
34. Guide II, 15, tr. Pines, 292.
35. Guide, tr. Pines, 292.
36. Guide II, 19, tr. Pines, 307.
37. My translation is based on the Hebrew translation of Samuel Beneviste, published by S. Muntner (Jerusalem, 1965), reprinted in vol. 4 of Rambam: Ketavim Refu'iyim (Jerusalem, n.d.), 108-9. This treatise, too, is soon to appear in an edition and translation by Gerrit Bos.
38. Some 119 works are listed by Fathalla Kholeif, A Study on Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī and his Controversies in Transoxiana (Beirut, 1966), 190-203.
39. The biobibliographer al-Safadi reports a commentary to the Shifā' as well. However, as far as I know, that item is not extant. See Kholeif, Study, 201, no. 94.
40. With the exception of one passage from a commentary by Ibn al-Nafis, in which the latter purportedly anticipated Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, this literature has not been studied. The best survey I have found is in A.Z. Iskandar, Catalogue of Arabic Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London, 1967), 26-64.
41. My own study of this commentary is based on the MS. Paris, BNF héb 1208 (Arabic in Hebrew letters). The passage cited here is on f. 2a.
42. Cited by S. Pines, "Nouvelles etudes sur Awhad al-Zamān Abū '1-Barakāt al-Baghdādī," Mémoires de la , at 7
43. reprinted in The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, vol. 1: Studies in Abu'l-Barahat al-Baghdadi. Physics and Metaphysics (Jerusalem and Leiden, 1979), at 96
44. M.E. Marmura, "Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzĩ's Critique of an Avicennian Tanbih," Historia philosophiae medii avei 2 (1991), 627-641
45. N. Heer, "Al-Rāzĩ and al-Tūsī on Ibn Sīnā's Theory of Emanation," in P. Morewedge (ed.), Neoplatonìsm and Islamic Thought (Albany, 1992), 111-125.
46. I have consulted the edition of S. Dunya, third printing (Cairo, n.d.), 112.
47. A.R. Badawi consulted the commentary in preparing his edition of the 'Uyūn (Cairo, 1964). However, the praise of Ibn Sīnā, cited by Badawi from Fakhr al-Dĩn's introduction is quite misleading, as we shall
48. see the enconomia are translated by Jean Michot, "L'eschatologie d'Avicenne selon F.D. al-Rāzī (I)," Revue phihsophique de. Louvain 87 (1989), 235-263, at 236.
49. Pines, "Nouvelles etudes," 65-66 [reprint, 151-152J.
50. Ibid. Fakhr al-Dīn's thoughts on time in his various writings have been assembled by Farhat Hani, Masā'il al-khilāf bayna Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī wa-Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (Beirut, 1997), 260-274
51. the exchanges between Fakhr al-Dīn and Nasr Naşīr al-Dǐn on this subject in their commentaries to al-Ishārāt are summarized by Max Horlen, Phihsophische Ansichten von Razi und Tusi (Bonn, 1910), 62-67.
52. For the purposes of this study I have used the edition of Sharh al-'Uyūn by Ahmad Hijāzī (Teheran, 1410 A.H.), pt. 2, 119-150.
53. Michot, "L'eschatologie d'Avicenne," 235-38.