ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on some of the major sources of the Jewish philosophical tradition. Premodern Jewish philosophy was primarily the Jewish response to the works of the great Greek philosophers as interpreted by way of Arab rationalists. The latter included Alfarabi, Avicenna, Alghazali, and Averroes. The first modern Jewish philosopher is generally considered to be Moses Mendelssohn, and his most important work is Jerusalem or on Religious Power and Judaism. The work argues, among other things, that Judaism is a religion founded upon reason. Traditional religious authorities in places such as Provence accused these commentators of undermining Judaism and/or translating it into Greek philosophical categories. Two thinkers influenced by the work of Rosenzweig take us into the present: Emmanuel Levinas and later Jacques Derrida. Although Levinas was born in Lithuania and Derrida in Algeria, both went on to live in Paris and to write in French.
