Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in Medieval Jewish Philosophy and Thought by Racheli Haliva

Author:Racheli Haliva
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2018-10-31T16:00:00+00:00

The philosophical role of aggadic exegesis: the appropriation of Aristotelian science

What was the role of exegesis in the intellectual enterprise of our authors, if it does not come down to be a mere didactic or apologetic tool?

After all, the exegesis of biblical and rabbinic texts is indeed an extra-philosophical activity since it does not contribute in any way to the increase of philosophical knowledge. The principal objection raised against allegorical philosophical exegesis seems to stand: it appears as an artificial attempt to read in the Bible and rabbinic texts statements deriving from the Greek and Arabic philosophical sciences. Therefore, the following conclusions could be drawn: (1) the exegetical path of medieval Jewish philosophers in the Maimonidean tradition actually implied a “veiled criticism” of the biblical and rabbinic lore (to take over Gershom Scholem’s expression)357 by suggesting that it does not provide any knowledge beside what could be apprehended by human intellectual faculties; (2) these authors did not have any real interest in the actual meaning of the texts on which they commented, since they artificially forced them to express their own ideas, according to the Spinozian criticism.

These two criticisms fail to perceive that actually the philosophical interest these authors found in exegesis lies in their exegetical practice rather than in any results of that practice. A typical example of a philosophical-exegetical treatise of the post-Maimonidean period reflects the epistemological function of the practice of exegesis. Levi ben Avraham’s Livyat Ḥen, completed in 1296, is a massive treatise that cost its author constant harassment from his contemporaries in Provence.358 He was at the centre of the war declared to the study of philosophy by some conservative Provençal scholars at the beginning of the fourteenth century in Languedoc.359 Livyat Ḥen is divided into two parts, called “pillars.” The first part is an extensive scientific encyclopaedia, almost totally lost. The second part consists of an extensive series of allegorical interpretations of verses and aggadot, thematically classified, edited in the last decade in four volumes by Howard Kreisel.360 In this part, Levi ben Avraham endeavours to find the knowledge he exposed in the first part in the words of the prophets and the rabbis. It is as if the treatise was written twice but under two discursive regimes: first by using a progressive mode of exposition, starting from ignorance and progressing in knowledge by the use of scientific reasoning, and second by using a regressive mode, starting from the knowledge acquired in the first part and trying to “discover” it again in the authoritative writings.

This second discursive mode is not only a manner of confirming philosophical knowledge. Rather, it contributes, in the perspective of post-Maimonidean philosopher-exegetes, to their own acquisition of scientific knowledge. By producing an exegetical effort to repeat the discovery of Aristotelian science in the Jewish texts, they actually appropriate this knowledge. Allegorical exegesis of the Bible and aggadot is to be understood as some sort of “spiritual exercise.”361 This laborious effort to harmonize the Jewish sources with philosophical theses actually constitutes a way through which the philosopher turns these theses into his own knowledge.

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