Fellows and Research Projects: 2017–18

Senior Fellow: January–June 2018

Research Project: Jewish Scepticism and Jewish Political Tradition within the Christian Debate on the King during the Seventeenth Century

This project intends to explore Jewish scepticism as a methodology of investigation within the Jewish political tradition, and, in particular, within the Jewish reflection on monarchy. Within Judaism, in fact, we can find a broad and articulate discussion on the issue of authority in all its aspects, including the political one. The debate on monarchy, amongst other topics, particularly reveals the articulation of this tradition, which, in proposing a multiplicity of different interpretations (for and against the institution of a king) according to the sceptical method, actually serves to threaten its authority. This Jewish political tradition (and its texts), however, did not remain confined to the Jewish world, but it was widely spread within Christian political thought in the Early Modern period. We can identify the sixteenth century as the age when the interest in Jewish political history grew exponentially. Scholars today agree that Calvinism played a central role in the development and spread of the Jewish political tradition within the Christian world. It would be interesting to reconsider the contribution that Jewish thought made to the Christian world, analysing within these works the role played by the Jewish sceptical method in investigating political authority. The main purpose is to show how the Jewish debate about kingship contributes to re-enforcing the desacralisation of the figure of the king, which began with the English revolution.

Guido Bartolucci is assistant professor of early modern history at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Calabria.

Senior Fellow: June–July 2018 and June–July 2019

Research Project: The Community of the Question: Negative Theology in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Thought

Aryeh Botwinick is working on a two-volume work entitled The Community of the Question: Negative Theology in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Thought. The book will consist of discussions of a wide range of texts and thinkers from the Hebrew Bible to Maimonides, Nahmanides, Ibn Ezra, Hasdai Crescas, Judah Halevi, Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Emmanuel Levinas, Joseph Soloveitchik, Giorgio Agamben, and Jacques Derrida, and a comparative assessment of the role of negative theology in Christian and Islamic thought through an examination of writings by St. Paul, St. Anselm of Canterbury, Meister Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa, as well as the Qu’ran and Avicenna.
The Community of the Question will attempt, through an examination of these sources, to trace how the most significant theoretical result of negative theology – just as in many respects the most significant theoretical result of scepticism itself – is to expose the limitations of reason preoccupied with exposing the limitations of reason, and to establish the lineaments of a way of life that is post-rational. In the case of negative theology, this means clearing the ground for the emergence and flourishing of mysticism.

Aryeh Botwinick is professor of political science and Jewish studies at Temple University, Philadelphia/USA.

Senior Fellow: May–August 2018 and June–August 2019

Research Project: Talmudic Scepticism?

In two very distinct earlier projects, I identified a significant aspect of scepticism in the Babylonian Talmud that is specific to the Babylonian Talmud and was perhaps generated in the latest redactional levels of that signature and foundational text. The first was carried out a couple of decades ago on the endless dialectic of that Talmud (as opposed to the Palestinian Talmud’s habitus of deciding who is right and wrong in a given discussion). Although this has seemingly (and sentimentally) been read as an openness to different views, I tried to show that it was actually a closing down of the possibility of rational decision-making between oppositional opinions. There is, therefore, a strong element of scepticism involved vis-à-vis rationalism, or even rationality.
The second project that identified scepticism in the same level of the text was the much more recent project published as Socrates and the Fat Rabbis, in which I attempted to show that there is a collection of legendary rabbinic biographies in the Talmud that exposes the rabbis as grotesques closely related (at least typologically) to such genres as Menippean satire in Hellenistic/Second Sophistic writing. I argued there that, once again, and as in Menippean satire, intellectuals are both advancing their programme of rationality and amelioration while at the same time (unsystematically) expressing their deep doubt of its success, or even possibility of success.
In the current project, I wish to look for these strands in much less obvious places: in an extended passage, an entire chapter, of the Babylonian Talmud, namely the second chapter of the Tractate Pesahim. I plan a critical edition of and commentary on this chapter emphasising the redactorial activity and layers that make up its tightly edited style (it is itself a masterpiece of the redactor’s art in the Bavli). As an important part of identifying this late layer of editing that actually consisted of making the Talmud, I will be looking to see whether my former hypotheses of scepticism at work in this latest layer of the production of the Talmud holds up over an extended single redacted text (as opposed to pulling raisins out of a cake). I am looking for positive results, but am prepared for negative ones as well. Either would be telling.

Daniel Boyarin is Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture at the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, University of California at Berkeley/USA.

Senior Fellow: November 2017–February 2018

Research Project: The Dialectics of Critical Jewish Scholarship. Rabbi Abraham Geiger, Jewish Theology, and the Quest for Metaphysical Knowledge

During my fellowship at the Maimonides Centre, I plan to dedicate my research to Rabbi Abraham Geiger (1810–74), both an intellectual spearhead of liberal Judaism and an iconic figure of critical Jewish scholarship in Germany during the era of Verbürgerlichung. Geiger’s theological agenda reveals a twofold scepticism (in an extended rather than specific sense) that historians of the Jewish religion seem to have neglected thus far. I wish to present Geiger as a theological pioneer who chose to deconstruct the orthodox belief system without, however, feeling the desire to offer some clear guidance on the essential affirmations of Judaism himself. Geiger was a sceptic insofar as he applied historical-critical methods to the Written as well as to the Oral Torah, which, as God’s creation, he sought to deconstruct which he sought to deconstruct as God’s creation. However, his scepticism also shaped his own restraint in re-formulating a Jewish creed for the nineteenth century. Although he could not avoid references to metaphysical aspects of Judaism altogether, he generally chose to avoid such contemplations in his writings. The project aims to investigate this reluctance and to explain it in its historical context of internal Jewish confessionalisation.

Andreas Brämer is associate director at the Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden in Hamburg.

Senior Fellow: May–August 2018

Research Project: Scepticism as Habitus. Halakhic Authority Constructed and Contested in an Early Modern Port Community

In the Jewish context, the development of scepticism can be traced not only in systematic works of philosophy and theology, but also in the strengthening or loosening of the bonds of public and private halakhic observance. In the twin Jewish communities of Pisa and Livorno, we find rabbinic and lay intellectuals striving to establish behavioural norms and social hierarchies in the face of complex and contradictory pressures characteristic of the cultural ambience of former conversos. The task was complicated by their geographic and commercial location within the Mediterranean world and by their close ties to the Jewish cultural life of North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Cultural frictions were inevitable in such an atmosphere, and the ample communal records show us both the repeated efforts to create religious discipline and the reaction such efforts inspired. My work will focus on the efforts of one particular figure, Raphael Meldola, to articulate a rationalised and systematic rhetoric of halakhic normativity. Scepticism, I assume, was articulated in sets of daily practices that formed a habitus rather than a systematised ideology of change. The sceptic did not so much undermine an existing order as participate in a cultural debate that would be rationalised only slowly as part of a continuing discourse over proper cultural norms.

Bernard Cooperman holds the Louis L. Kaplan Chair of Jewish History at the University of Maryland.

Senior Fellow: April–September 2018

Research Project: Scepticism in Islamic Theological Manuals of the Ash’ari School

 Heidrun Eichner’s project investigates the presence of elements of sceptical thought in the context of Islamic religious thinking. The focus is on the Ash’ari theological school, more precisely on how authors of systematic theological treatises rework the material at their disposal and on how their individual approaches shape Ash’arism into a system which has a dynamic historical development. Emphasis will be placed on identifying how specific elements that may be labelled as “sceptic” operate within the context of the system of Ash’ari theology and how they are modified in the course of doing so. This includes the context of classical scholastic manuals written by Muslim theologians between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, e.g. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Bayḍāwī, and ʿAḍud al-Dīn al-Īǧī. Topics traced and investigated will include the four types of a generic denial of a source of knowledge which were first discussed by S. Horvitz, and how authors deal with the claim that “it is the first obligation of a believer to have doubts about God.” In addition, she will work on an annotated translation of ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī’s “Chapter on Knowledge” from his K. al-Uṣūl.

Heidrun Eichner holds a chair of Islamic studies at the Universität Tübingen.

Senior Fellow: May–June 2018 and June–July 2019

Research Project: Legal Indeterminacy and the Limits of Knowledge in Medieval Rabbinic Writings of Islamic Lands

Informed by the Aristotelian tradition and by the writings of Muslim scholars such as Al-Farabi and Ibn Bajja, medieval Jewish philosophers in Islamicate lands were discussing the limits of human knowledge at the very same time that halakhists of these lands were explaining the presence of mahloqot [unresolved controversies] in the Babylonian Talmud. However, Jewish philosophical writings on epistemology have not been brought into conversation with the theories of legal controversy that were developed by rabbinic scholars of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The case of Maimonides, both philosopher and halakhist, argues eloquently for the need to do so.
Bridging the realms of philosophy/theology on the one hand and law on the other, I will explore the ways in which Rabbanite Jews of the medieval Islamicate world addressed topics such as the taxonomy of Jewish law, questions of certainty vs. probability, and the existence of divergent legal perspectives and practices. These issues were very much alive for them, given the Qaraites’ rejection of Oral Torah and rabbinic authority and the systematisation, by hadith scholars, of epistemological criteria for authenticating traditions.

Talya Fishman is an associate professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations and of Jewish studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Junior Fellow: April 2018–March 2019

Research Project: A Critical Reconstruction of the Philosophy of Solomon Maimon

Maimon is known as a powerful but obscure post-Kantian sceptic. To “critically reconstruct” his philosophy means to interpret it with respect to his own intention: “to uncover the given defects and holes in the critical philosophy, and to set up a new theory of thinking according to the demands of my own criticism.” Maimon, in contrast with his usual portrayal as a sceptical empiricist where strict rationalism fails, developed this “new theory of thinking” as a substantiation (rather than stultification) of Kantian critique. Accordingly, thinking, in order to be critical and determine the criteria for objectivity, must generate, objectify, and validate itself: it must be reflective.

The claim is that the derivation of practical and theoretical consequences from reflective thinking sets Maimon uniquely apart; and while he prefigured neo-Kantian philosophy (Lotze's validity logic, Cohen's emphasis on genesis rather than synthesis, Cassirer's functional relations), he receives truer fulfilment in the work of more recent “post-neo-Kantians” such as Hans Wagner and Kurt Zeidler. The value of the project should not lie merely in attention paid to “neglected” texts, but in working out the nature and consequence of reflection.

Timothy Franz is a PhD candidate at the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Senior Fellow: July–August 2018 and August 2019

Research Project: Open Inquiry in Jewish Thought

This project will address a basic question of medieval Jewish thought: to what extent are Jews permitted to ask truly open questions about metaphysical matters? Examples of such questions are: does God exist? Is God One? Does He know particulars? An attitude of open questioning – i.e. inquiry without predetermined conclusions—is a precursor to any serious philosophy. Nevertheless, it is generally difficult to tell whether any medieval thinker truly adopted such an open attitude, since all of the major medieval philosophers pledged allegiance to religious doctrines of one sort or another. Indeed, I have yet to identify a single rabbi of the medieval or Renaissance periods who permitted pure free-thinking or free-questioning. This is not to say that there were no rabbis or Jewish scholars of those periods who engaged in pure open questioning. What is striking though is that every Jewish scholar who adopted an approach of open inquiry did so in an entirely different way; that is, the religious justification for each approach was radically different for each thinker. Indeed, the thinkers who asked open questions constantly struggled with their own recognition that the very asking of these questions was in a sense contrary to religious law.

Yehuda Halper is a senior lecturer in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University Ramat-Gan.

Senior Fellow: October 2017–March 2018

Research Project: Theology of the Old Testament

It is a matter of debate between Christian and Jewish theologians whether a “theology of the Old Testament” should be written, since this is necessarily not only a historical but also a subjective hermeneutical venture. However, while being aware of the possibility of different approaches, it is a promising challenge to attempt a fresh comprehensive survey of the concepts of God, Israel, and humankind in the Hebrew Bible in the light of modern exegesis, the history of religions, and cultural studies. The monograph to be finished at the Maimonides Centre will present the ancient Jewish writings collected in the Masoretic canon in a systematic manner and as the outcome of the emergence of monotheism, with a special focus on the concept of creation. The project assesses specific problems of thought in the arena of creation theology which have remained unsolved. This is where scepticism comes into view as a specific way of questioning traditional truths, e.g. in texts of critical wisdom such as Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Psalter, and as a formative principle for discourses that increasingly realise how the very fabric of the problems of evil, justice, and truth prevents definitive answers. In this respect, the hermeneutical value of the image ban, as well as that of the poetics of transcendence in biblical traditions, will be further explored and emphasised.

Since 2010, Friedhelm Hartenstein has been chair of the Institute of Old Testament Studies II at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Senior Fellow: January–March 2018 and January–February 2019

Research Project: Seeking Knowledge in a Seemingly Uncertain World

Leading scholars (several of whom are fellows at the Maimonides Centre) have adopted increasingly radical views on the limitations of knowledge for Maimonides and certain later Jewish thinkers. From this perspective, one wonders whether pure bookish learning and demonstrative reasoning were considered sufficient for attaining true knowledge and perfection. This question has recently led me to reconsider the role of observation, oral reports, and experience for late medieval Jewish thinkers in the study of physics, astronomy, meteorology, zoology, medicine, dreams, and prophecy. For example, to what extent did Maimonides consider experience (tajriba) to have epistemological relevance outside of medicine? How did thirteenth-century Hebrew encyclopaedists use experience to counter Averroes’ argument that theoretical knowledge cannot be acquired in dreams? Did the growing scepticism of medieval Jewry’s leading scientist, Gersonides, lead him to abandon the search for truth in natural sciences and instead devote his energies to observation and mathematical calculation in his attempt to solve problems associated with astronomy? My proposed research project for the MCAS focuses on such questions. It concerns the limitations of human knowledge and the turn towards experience and observation in the search for certainty.

Steven Harvey is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan.

Senior Fellow: February–March 2017, February–March 2018, and October–November 2018

Research Project: Hasdai Crescas’ Sceptical Critique of Maimonides

In his Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides (1138–1204) anchored Jewish religion in Aristotelian science and philosophy. Rabbi Ḥasdai Crescas (c. 1340–1410 or 1411), in his Light of the Lord, pre­sented a radical critique of Aristotelian physics and metaphysics and rejected Maimonides’ ap­proach. According to him, human reason can prove the existence of a first cause, but cannot prove God’s unity or goodness, that is, it cannot prove the personal God of the Bible. Religion, he argues, is based on prophecy, not philosophy. Crescas’ critique is analysed in H. A. Wolfson’s Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle (1929). Crescas argues against Aristotle’s theories of space, time, the impossibility of a vacuum, and the impossibility of actual infinity. His sceptical arguments are based on a critical exam­ination of Aristotle, Averroes (1126–98), Maimonides (1138–1204), and Gersonides (1288–1344). They show an affinity with Nicole Oresme (1320–82). Instead of Aristotle’s closed universe, Crescas conceived a universe infinite in space and time. His sceptical views left an impact on Spinoza.

Warren Zev Harvey is professor emeritus in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he has taught since 1977.

Senior Fellow: October 2017–March 2018

Exhibition Project: Visual Scepticism. How Images Doubt

Images as media of knowledge production play a more prominent role today than ever before. Because of its specific technical preconditions, the photographic image is especially associated with a high degree of authenticity and the capability to depict the truth. In the digital era, these rather problematic predicates, as the indexical promise of truth, persist. Against this background, the question of how images are able to make an issue of their own status as media of knowledge production gains greater importance; they exhibit this status on the one side and doubt it on the other.
Until now, the analysis of positions of scepticism in art history has been made by connecting philosophical movements to iconographies of images. The few publications which have dealt with scepticism ask above all how philosophical texts were reflected in works of art. The exhibition project here chooses a different approach. It explores only visual discourses which do not depend on previous texts. It will ask how images, because of their particular medial structure, were sites of performative processes which can be compared to dialogical strategies of scepticism. The main thesis of the project is that, in this case, contradictions and negations arise which have the character of medial self-interrogation.

Margit Kern is a professor of art history at the Universität Hamburg.

Senior Fellow: April–September 2018

Research Project: Malachi—Questioning the Un-Questionable. Developing Tradition through Discussion

Part of Jewish scepticism is a specific culture of debate. Malachi represents an important step in the Second Temple Period between the literary production of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible literature and the further development of tradition through debate. Since the nineteenth century, it has been disputed whether the book is based on oral admonitions or rather a dialogical-didactic form of speech that must be compared to the didactics of the early Synagogue.
The commentators’ point of departure was the distinction between oral and written debate, ranking oral debate first. Today it seems that we need to go in the other direction, coming from literature to examine its influence on oral debates.
Following these lines, other aspects must be taken into account: Malachi places his argument on the horizon of protology and eschatology, in the perspective of the Torah of Moses and the final ratification of prophecy by Elijah. The thesis of the research project is that the Book of Malachi presents a debate with God himself, questioning the deepest ties between him and his people, and the awareness that this kind of debate will come to an end. However, it finally functioned as a model for further development of tradition by discussion – a specific culture of debate.

Corinna Körting is a professor of Old Testament studies and history of ancient Near Eastern religion at the Universität Hamburg.

Junior Fellow: October 2017–September 2018

Research Project: The Anti-Sceptical Potential of Thomas Reid's Common Sense Philosophy

One promising strategy for dealing with scepticism is to appeal to common sense. Thomas Reid (1710–1796) developed a theory of common sense that validates this appeal, if successful. By rejecting the theory of ideas and by putting his own theory of perception in its place, Reid's theory of common sense is far superior to those of Moore, Wittgenstein, and contemporary philosophers. However, the fruitfulness of Reid's philosophy depends in part on just what role common sense plays. It is arguable that it is common sense that shields his theory of perception, but this theory of perception makes the role played by common sense in his broader theory much more plausible. So, there is a question of whether common sense sits at the very fundament of his theory, or whether it is dependent on his other views. Thus, this project aims (i) to explore the relationship between Reid's common sense philosophy and his other views, especially his theory of perception, and (ii) to argue that Reid, who is mostly seen as fighting Humean scepticism, has in fact enough material to argue against other forms of scepticism as well.

Lukas Lang is currently working on his PhD under the supervision of Professor Stephan Schmid. His project explores the anti-sceptical potential of Thomas Reid's common sense philosophy and contrasts it with the theories of Moore and contemporary philosophers.

Senior Fellow: October 2017–March 2018

Research Project: Scepticism in Medieval Ashkenaz and the Tosafists as Masterminds—The Glosses in MS Vienna Cod. hebr. 220 and their Critical Discourse Against Traditional Exegesis

Hanna Liss will contribute to the question of scepticism by writing a case study on the dissemination and transmission of sceptical thought in Medieval Ashkenaz by investigating the exegetical glosses to a Rashi recension in MS Vienna Cod. hebr. 220, a great many of which are very similar to the Torah commentary attributed to Rashbam. These Tosafists’ glosses portray a sceptical view of the Midrashic tradition of the so-called Rishonim (in particular Rashi) by focusing on the plot of the biblical narrative and its storyline, the psychology of the biblical characters, or on contemporary profane lore and knowledge.
However, the fact that the glosses with their external mise-en-texte represent the consensus magistri shows that notwithstanding their new exegetical approach, they aim to appear to be attempting to integrate older traditions. Liss’s study will demonstrate that the intellectual elite in Ashkenaz and Northern French developed a sceptical approach towards rabbinic tradition that differed from its Oriental and Sefardic counterparts not only as regards the subjects to be dealt with, but also regarding the external form of the writings (mise-en-texte; layout).

Since 2003, Hanna Liss has been chair of the Department of Bible and Jewish Exegesis at the Center for Jewish Studies Heidelberg and the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Her main research interests are medieval Jewish exegesis, Masorah, and Jewish hermeneutics.

Senior Fellow: February–July 2018

Research Project: Socinianism and Scepticism: Theological, Moral, Legal, and Political Thought in Sceptical Terms from Socinus to Locke

 Diego Lucci’s research project focuses on the sceptical elements of Socinian theology, moral philosophy, legal theory, and political thought from Socinus to Locke. The Socinians’ moralist soteriology, their views on the superiority of God’s revealed word over the law of nature, and their endorsement of pacifism and toleration resulted from their scepticism about the human ability to recognise salvation by grace alone, to fully comprehend and respect the law of nature, and to define unquestionable dogmas. Socinianism influenced Dutch Remonstrantism and English Arminianism, particularly the Great Tew Circle, in matters of salvation, morality, the primacy of divine revelation, and “comprehension” of different beliefs within the community of Christians. However, it was John Locke who, in his religious writings of the 1690s, complemented Socinian doctrines with an essentially sceptical epistemology based on his way of ideas and historical biblical criticism. Thus, this project aims to reassess the impact of Socinian scepticism on Locke, as well as Locke’s contributions to the development of Socinian and sceptical methods and theories.

 Diego Lucci is a professor of philosophy and history at the American University in Bulgaria.

Junior Fellow: August 2017, August 2018, and August 2019

Research Project: Reason and Revelation: Sceptical Aspects in Judah Halevi's Kuzari

Ariel Malachi's project deals with Aristotelian logic and epistemology, their sceptical use by religious thinkers to criticise philosophy, and their impact on the thinker's religious standpoints. At this stage, the study focuses on Judah Halevi's sceptical criticism of Aristotelian philosophy and its function within his defence of Judaism as presented in his Book of The Kuzari. At the heart of the research is the suggestion that for Halevi, the same logical, epistemological, and sceptical philosophy-criticising approach brings one to rule rationally in favour of Jewish revelation. This innovative suggestion, based on careful and critical reading of the original Judeo-Arabic text, attempts to reconstruct Halevi's attitude towards philosophy and rationalism, as well as its impact on the exegesis of revelation from a new perspective. Ariel Malachi's general plans are to expand his research and to explore the functions of logic and epistemology in the writings of other medieval Jewish thinkers, such as Abraham Ibn-Daud and Maimonides.

Ariel Malachi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He is also a jurist, holding a Bachelor of Laws degree (LLB.) from Bar-Ilan University. He is a member of the Israel Bar Association and is licensed to practice as a lawyer.

Senior Fellow: April–June 2017 and October–December 2017

Research Project: Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss on “Jewish Scepticism”

There is a standard narrative about Hannah Arendt. She was a sceptic regarding human rights: from the early 1940s on, she insisted in her writings that universalised human rights ignored the difference between humanity and humankind, and that because of this ignorance, human rights were defending an abstract idea of human beings. As a consequence, Arendt invoked the formulation ‘the right to have rights” as the one true human right. “The right to have rights” has become part of the standard repertoire of current debates about refugees, statelessness, and the struggles of modern democracies.
However, nobody has defined the meaning of “sceptic” or “scepticism” here, or explored it in greater detail. It is at this crucial point that my research project begins. If Arendt was indeed a sceptic, what made her philosophically sceptical? Answers to these questions will form the foundation for three inquiries that are essential to my research project:

1. To what degree is Arendt’s “scepticism” a response to the Holocaust and its consequences?

2. Can similarly sceptical reactions to the Holocaust and its consequences be found in other Jewish thinkers of her generation?

3. If there are such similarities, would it not be necessary to address this particular scepticism as a new form of Jewish scepticism and to define it more precisely?

Thomas Meyer obtained his doctorate (2003) and completed his Habilitation (2009) at LMU, Munich. After that, he received several fellowships and visiting- and guest-professorships at the University of Graz, the ETH Zurich, the University of Chicago, Vanderbilt University, Wake Forest University, Boston University, Erlangen University, and the University of Hamburg.

Junior Fellow: November 2017–October 2018

Research Project: Scepticism and Use of Sceptical Methods for Theological Purposes

Beside the classical scepticism for the sake of scepticism, sceptical methods have been used throughout history for other reasons as well. This happened as philosophers and theologians used sceptical arguments to doubt the ability of reason to recognise the world, when their true purpose was not scepticism per se, but rather the establishment of alternative, irrational ways of knowing reality. It can be said that in such cases, scepticism is used cynically, but it is still important to investigate this special use of scepticism and to understand its connections to classical scepticism.
One of the common cases of the tendentious use of scepticism occurs when science and religion clash. In such cases, several apologetic theologians attempt to beat rationality at its own game by using sceptical methods as a tool to challenge the scientific worldview. Historically, the first widespread use of such scepticism was made, beginning in the eighth century, by the Islamic Kalam. This approach continues to this day and is heard, for example, during debates between evolutionists and their religious opponents.
In this context, I would like to explore the historical use of scepticism and sceptical methods as part of Jewish rabbis' and theologians' confrontations with the contradictions between reality as described by science and the reality described in Halachic literature.

Israel Netanel Rubin received his PhD from the Hebrew University, in which he discussed the limitation of God’s omnipotence and the problem of God’s subordination to laws of logic and mathematics in Jewish philosophy and theology.

Senior Fellow: February 2016–March 2016, Februay 2018–March 2018, and February 2019

Research Project: The London Missionary Alexander McCaul and his Assault on the Talmud

David Ruderman’s research will focus on the London missionary Alexander McCaul, one of the primary leaders of the famous London Society for the Promotion of Christianity amongst the Jews, his assault on the Talmud, the very interesting converts he attracted, and the debate he engendered in the mid-nineteenth century with Jewish thinkers, especially Eastern-European maskilim. The topic of scepticism insinuates itself into the project in the revival of the Jewish-Christian debate engendered by McCaul‘s attack on the Talmud and rabbis. Both sides use sceptical arguments to undermine the certainty of their opponent‘s positions. This of course is standard in all Jewish-Christian debates, but the present debate applies methods of modern scholarship in highly innovative ways, particularly by using historical arguments about ancient history and culture. After winning the loyalty of several Jewish intellectuals to his cause, several of them change their positions vis-à-vis the missionary of the London Society and offer a sceptical critique of the very foundations of Christianity, and its need to save the souls of Jews, by obliging them to relinquish Rabbinic Judaism. Their arguments are highly revealing when defining and redefining the implications of being a Christian and how Jews and Christians could co-exist.

David Ruderman is Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Senior Fellow: November 2018–September 2019

Research Project: Scepticism and Dogmatism in Spinoza's Thought

The geometrical method that Spinoza adopts in his Ethics is usually considered an example of conceptual rigour, insofar as it aims to deduce its propositions from first principles with logical necessity. Yet despite its rigour, this kind of exposition does not show how the first principles themselves are found. The geometrical method conceals the actual process through which the human mind, starting from its particular lived experience, attains knowledge of the first notions. As a consequence, the otherwise imposing edifice of the Ethics might appear to be a dogmatic construction based on arbitrary assumptions. This semblance of dogmatism increases when we consider the main concept on which this edifice is based. God, the starting point of the Ethics, has traditionally been taken to be the least self-evident and least clear of all notions. However, Spinoza seems to assume that the human mind already possesses clear knowledge of God’s essence before knowing anything else. Spinoza’s procedure in this regard still perplexes scholars, especially when considered vis-à-vis the sceptical worries that were common in European thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

José María Sánchez de León Serrano earned his PhD in philosophy at the Universität Heidelberg. Before coming to Hamburg, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Senior Fellow: April–September 2018

Research Project: Miracles and Scepticism in the Fifteenth-Century Empire

Fifteenth-century spirituality was already extremely individual, often focused on acquiring as many indulgences as possible for the salvation of one's soul. Thus, the relationship with saints and miracles was a very personal one, and people expected that saints would respond to their gifts. In consequence, saints and miracles could be put to the test, which did not always end in a positive result.
The project aims to collect and analyse late medieval examples for this kind of scepticism, starting from three cases from the Holy Roman Empire and Prussia: (1) the canonisation process of Dorothea of Montau in Prussia, which failed even though many testimonies were heard; (2) the discussions of the "holy blood" of Wilsnack, focusing on the spiritual value of two hosts consecrated before a fire which afterwards turned red and finally lost their physical appearance; (3) the critical attitude of pilgrims such as Arnold von Harff when they encountered the same relics at different sanctuaries. In each case, there will be an analysis of the basic arguments, how they were substantiated, and their consequences. The final aim is a tentative evaluation of the role of scepticism in late medieval popular beliefs.

Jürgen Sarnowsky has been a professor of medieval history at the Universität Hamburg since 1996.

Junior Fellow: October 2017–September 2018

Research Project: Scepticism and Hermeneutics—Spinoza’s New Hermeneutics

Part of a larger research project, this project plays a fundamental role in explicating the significance of literal sense reading in modern hermeneutics; the larger project examines different aspects of literal sense reading, among them metaphysical commitments, its ethical and political implications, and the new role hermeneutics plays in modernity, secularism, and the Bible.
Spinoza’s new method is tightly connected to Cartesian doubt. Within that context, the role of scepticism in Spinoza’s new method of reading is of crucial importance for the examination of modern hermeneutics in general as much as for the understanding of Spinoza’s political philosophy.

The examination of this issue is divided into three parts: The first part of this project is focused on the importance of Cartesian doubt to Spinoza’s new hermeneutics. The second part is focused on the apparent difference between Spinoza’s TTP and his Ethics concerning the Cartesian epoché. The third part is focused on the appropriation of the distinction between spirit and letter into Spinoza’s new method.

Before coming to Hamburg, Oded Schechter was affiliated with different universities, among these are the University of Chicago, Universität Potsdam, Princeton University, and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

Senior Fellow: February –August 2018

Research Project: Saadiah’s Tafsīr in the Context of Scriptural Scepticism in Geonic Times

The Classic Geonic period (850–1100 CE) marks a period of transition in the intellectual history of Judaism, a caesura no less cutting than that between the Second Temple and Rabbinic times. In Iraq, the old centres of learning and religious governance, the academies of Sura and Pumbedita—the yeshivot—flourished, and by the turn of the ninth century had moved to the political capital of the ʿAbbasid Empire, Baghdad. Palestine had its own competing Gaonate.
In Geonic times, the Written Torah moved back into focus in its own right. Some voices from the fringes of the Geonic establishment (such as some proto-Qaraites) go as far as calling for a complete rejection of the Oral Torah, yet also the Geonim themselves, to a certain extent, began to question the reliability of its transmission. My research project concentrates on one prominent figure: Saadiah Gaon (882–942). His Judaeo-Arabic Bible translation is one of the most influential texts produced in that language. He oscillates here between partial rejection and necessary (as well as expected) approval in refuting indiscriminate Qaraite scepticism.
The most powerful instrument for implementing his complex understanding of the acceptance of tradition and its rejection for a broad audience was his Arabic translation of the Torah, the Tafsīr, which was widely disseminated and which I propose to investigate with particular focus on the context sketched above.

Ronny Vollandt is a professor of Jewish studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.