ABSTRACT
When our host invited me to give a paper on “Jewish Aristotelianism,” he wisely suggested that it carry the subtitle “trends from the 12th through the 14th centuries.” To be sure, historians of Jewish philosophy are in the habit of speaking of “Jewish Aristotelianism,” but this term of classification should not be interpreted to imply that there existed an Aristotelian movement whose adherents subscribed to a uniform, common set of doctrines. Even the superficial student of Jewish philosophy is well aware that the so-called Aristotelians differ on a number of central philosophic points, that they critically evaluate one another’s views, that there appear Aristotelian elements in works written prior to the “Aristotelian” period, and that even anti-Aristotelians, Crescas for example, use “Aristotelian” arguments to refute their opponents. Nor should one be misled by elaborate praises of Aristotle—often going back to the Hellenistic commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias—of which the following, found in Moses of Narbonne’s Hebrew commentary on Averroes’ Ma’amar be’eṣem hagalgal (De Substantia Orbis), is typical: 1
How wonderfully did Alexander of Aphrodisias speak when he said of Aristotle that ‘it is he on whom we are to rely in the sciences.’ By this he meant that, just as all proofs go back to first principles that do not have to be investigated, so the sciences in their entirety…go back to the fundamental principles of Aristotle. Thus it is said: ‘Aristotle has said this and there can be no dispute about it.’…And…when we, in our investigations and disputations, come to a statement that Aristotle has made, it is not necessary to inquire if it is true, for Aristotle’s understanding contained such reliable truth that it could not even conceive anything false.
