Fellows and Research Projects: 2018–19

Junior Fellow: January–September 2019

Research Project: One Truth or Two? Jewish Averroists on the Truth of the Philosophers and the Truth of the Prophets: The Case of Isaac Albalag

Bakinaz’s main interest is medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy. Her current study examines the thought of the Jewish Averroist Isaac Albalag (thirteenth century) whose view on the relationship between religion and philosophy scholars have generally read in the light of the double truth doctrine, which was advocated by Latin Averroists. In her study, Bakinaz argues that Albalag’s treatise Tiqqun ha-de‘ot contains strong sceptical motifs that sufficiently undermine the primary elements in which the double truth hypothesis is rooted. However, the sceptical trend in the Tiqqun is local and hardly suggests that Albalag turned away from rationalism. This study considers Albalag to represent a model of Jewish Averroists who, while remaining generally committed to Aristotelian metaphysics as represented in Averroes’ commentarial works, devolved a relatively independent understanding of a number of epistemological principles, and, in particular, the relationship between religion and philosophy. 

Bakinaz Abdalla earned a PhD in Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Studies Department at McGill University, Montreal (Canada). Her main research interests are medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy, in particular the school of Jewish Averroism, Sufism, and the influence of Al-Ghazali’s writing von Abraham Maimonides.

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: June–July 2019

Research Project: Salomon Maimon and the Possibility of a Contemplative Life After the End of Metaphysics

Florian Ehrensperger’s research examines Salomon Maimon’s attempt at vindicating a contemplative life after Kant’s destruction of metaphysical knowledge. Kant’s critical philosophy poses a serious threat to those philosophers and contemplators who follow the bios theoretikos propagated by Aristotle. For Maimonides, the ultimate end of human beings and the fourth kind of perfection is to acquire true knowledge 'concerning the divine things.' To gain 'knowledge of Him' is thus the true human perfection and an end in itself. Maimon, who made no secret of his admiration for Maimonides (in his Autobiography, he recounts that he regarded Maimonides 'as the ideal of a perfect human being and his doctrines as having been dictated by divine wisdom itself'), not only led a life of speculation, but also defended this way of life—the goal of philosophers for centuries—throughout his philosophical career. At the same time, Maimon also made no secret of his admiration for Kant, and he agreed with the basic tenets of his critical philosophy. The question therefore is: how could Maimon achieve a synthesis of the Maimonidean contemplative life with Kant’s critical philosophy?

Florian Ehrensperger obtained his doctorate in philosophy from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. He is currently an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Senior Fellow: July–August 2022 and April–June 2023 (DEFFERED/2019–20)

Research Project: Scepticism between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries

During the seventeenth century, thanks to the influence of René Descartes on the one hand and Robert Boyle and Joseph Glanvill on the other, the interest in the epistemological side of scepticism prevailed. Therefore, scepticism seemed to avoid the critique of religion and moral relativism and appeared to be compatible with an apologetic design. Despite these precautions, sceptics were often accused of irreligion or atheism. The refutation of modern scepticism requires the construction of a complex speech, building an intricate network of sceptical affinities which often includes authors from ancient times and authors of the modern age, and not only philosophers, but also theologians. Condemnations of scepticism actually elaborate some doxographic treatises which would evolve into histories of philosophy during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries. Anontella Del Prete aims to examine this evolution through some cases studies, especially referring to Dutch and German cultures, and  intend to establish a possible link between the refutations of scepticism found in Martin Schoock and Gijsbert Voetius’s works and the presentations of this philosophy present in Georg Morhof and Jakob Brucker, finding and analysing intermediate texts and paying particular attention to the disputes produced by Dutch and German universities.

Antonella Del Prete is an associate professor at Università degli Studi della Tuscia in Viterbo.

Senior Fellow: April–August 2020

Research Project: Truth and Scepticism. Pierre Bayle’s Dictionnaire historique et critique in the Tension between Confessional Commitment and Early Enlightenment Scepticism

The French philosopher Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) is considered one of the great pioneers of the Enlightenment in Europe. His main work, the four-volume Dictionnaire historique et critique (1696/97), experienced an unexpectedly wide distribution. It laid the basis for Bayle’s reputation as a great sceptic and atheist, whose positions revealed an ambivalent attitude towards Christianity. He himself seemed – in view of the Huguenot persecution in France under Louis XIV – to oscillate between a faith rooted in the Calvinist tradition and doubting rationalism. This ambiguity is reflected in Bayle’s Dictionnaire, whose articles covertly suggest that readers should open up those areas that were previously comprehended only by faith and confession to the “light of reason.” The aim of this research project is to shed light on this paradigm shift that Bayle initiated, which appears in the abandonment of an understanding of reality that rests on religiously founded truth and leads to the development of a rationally grounded doubt. Bayle’s integration into the confessionality of his time will play a role in the project, as will the reception of his Dictionnaire in the German-speaking world, where the thought of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz mitigated Bayle’s critique.

Irene Dingel is the director of the Leibniz Institute of European History in Mainz (Department of European Religious History).

Senior Fellow: April–August 2020

Research Project: Staging Doubt, Transforming Identities: Buddhism and Performing Arts in Early Modern Japan (in cooperation with Eike Grossmann)

In late medieval and early modern Japan, it is first and foremost Nō theatre—including its performance, scripts, and theoretical treatises—that radically questions commonplace naturalist worldviews from a sceptic perspective. Nō theatre stages moments of crisis during which reality is questioned, and it does so by relying heavily on aspects of illusion, disguise, transformation, and revelation. The ambiguity of words, appearances, and emotions creates a transcendental space where collective and individual identities are negotiated and an awareness emerges which corresponds to ideas about karma and memory. The audience is suspended in a state of uncertainty in which doubt is the only certainty left. Thus, Nō is the performance of scepticism; it is, in fact, the staging of the Buddhist sceptic project itself.

This project proposes to investigate the interrelation of Buddhist scepticism and Nō theatre by focusing on:

(1) modes of specifically sceptic enquiry and multiform expressions of systematic doubt;

(2)  their role in the intellectual currents of their time; and

(3) the interwoven relationship between critical religio-philosophical speculation and its Sitz im Leben as expressed in the performing arts.

Steffen Döll is Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhism and co-director of the Numata Center for Buddhist Studies at the Asia-Africa-Institute at the Universität Hamburg

Junior Fellow: April–September 2020

Research Project: Scepticism and Infinitism in Sextus and Maimon

This project aims to explore the relationship between scepticism and a commitment to ongoing or even infinite inquiry in the work of a number of significant thinkers in the history of epistemology, although without the expectation that this will lead to the discovery of one significant, shared position or common thread. The focus of this fellowship will be the work of Sextus Empiricus and Solomon Maimon.

In the case of Sextus, the project will contribute to the ongoing debate concerning the nature of the Sceptic’s investigation as it is presented in Sextus’s works and its relationship to the claim that a state of tranquillity follows from the Sceptic’s suspension of judgement. The primary goal is to offer a new account of why the Sceptic should be committed to a project of ongoing inquiry. In the case of Maimon, rather than focusing (as is often the case) on the validity or invalidity of his criticisms of Kant, the aim is to examine whether or not Maimon’s rehabilitation of Humean scepticism is compatible with his positive picture of the development towards the goal of a systematically organised body of knowledge. The likely conclusion will be that it is not.

 Robert Dunphy studied at the University of Warwick (BA and MA) and the University of Sussex (PhD).

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: April–September 2019

Research Project: Literary Scepticism: Strategies of Unsettling and Disconcertment. On the Process of Sending and Receiving Information in Roman Historiography

The “Literary Scepticism” project, comprised of two complementary parts, addresses the extent to which pre-modern authors had the knowledge and means at their disposal to produce disconcertment, uncertainty, doubt, and confusion in their texts. Disconcertment, or the intention to cause it, can, in the production of literature and art, be considered the signatory feature of the modern era. The project is based on the premise that such an approach in ancient literature presupposes a distinct rhetorical and poetic practice and can be brought to light by a textual analysis focussed specifically on these features. Its objects are the processes or moments (moventia or triggers) that produce scepticism or sceptical reserve as understood in philosophically reflected scepticism.
At the centre of the first part stands the examination of literary techniques and strategies to which the potential to disconcert the reader is already ascribed in the text, or which can be recognised and defined as potentially disconcerting. The second part concentrates on a further focal point of the project, namely Roman historiographical texts (Sallust and Tacitus). These are examined with respect to what degree the process of “sending and receiving information” itself offers possibilities for structuring the facts and contents in such a way that the reliable knowledge expected is at once cast into doubt or fundamentally called into question, i.e. to what degree the process of conveying factual knowledge can produce uncertainty and disconcertment.

Therese Fuhrer has held chairs in Latin at the Universität Trier, the Universität Zürich, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, the Freie Universität Berlin, and, since 2013, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Senior Fellow: July–August 2019

Research Project: Doubt and Certainty in Late Modern Kabbalah

Although there are notable studies of the development of scepticism in early modern Jewish thought, no sustained discussion of the place of doubt in the vast literature of modern Kabbalah exists, and there is certainly no differentiation between its various sub-periods. However, the terms safek (doubt) and vaday (for certain) are keywords of modern Kabbalistic rhetoric and phraseology. I shall focus on two later schools, founded by R. Mordekhai Yosef Leiner of Izbiche and R. Avraham Itzhak H. Kook. The significance of Leiner’s writing is that he presented constant doubt as a legitimate and even central type of religious personality. I hope to place this innovative move in the context of the development of typology in general and religious typology in particular, in late. R. Kook’s already well-recognised importance lies in his explicit, often containing engagement with the cultural manifestations of secularisation. I hope to demonstrate that relatively exhaustive studies of two extensive corpuses can lead to new insights as to the role played by doubt in both cultural and political processes.

Jonathan Garb, Gershom Scholem Professor of Kabbalah, is chair of the department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Senior Fellow: July–August 2019

Research Project: Neo-Orthodoxy and Religious Liberty: Decoding the Puzzle of Samson Raphael Hirsch

Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–88) is often considered the founder of German Jewish Neo-Orthodoxy. From his earliest writings, Hirsch sought to combat the religious scepticism he saw taking root among German Jews. However, Hirsch’s conflicting commitments have perplexed many. Jacob Katz called Hirsch a man both “to the left and to the right.” On the left, Hirsch embraced the best of Western thought, opposed religious coercion, critiqued religious superstition, and rejected blind submission to rabbinic authority. But he also espoused right-wing commitments, including rejecting the academic study of Judaism, criticising Jewish reformers as heretical, and advocating Orthodox Jewish separatism from the larger Jewish community. I will argue that the unifying thread of Hirsch’s thought is his commitment to liberty. These commitments are not only evident in his “left-wing” positions, but also in his “right-wing” ones. For Hirsch, the problem with the academic study of Judaism is that it unjustly asserts that it is the sole legitimate means of interpreting sacred Jewish texts. Intellectual liberty demands a pluralistic approach to knowledge wherein Orthodox approaches to sacred texts are deemed equally legitimate. Hirsch’s advocacy of Orthodox Jewish separatism similarly reflects his view that forcing Orthodox Jews to financially support Jewish communal institutions that they deem heretical constitutes coercion of religious conscience.

Michah Gottlieb is an associate professor of Jewish thought and philosophy in the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU.

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: July–August 2016, July–August 2017, and July–August 2019

Research Project: Dream Enquiry: Theory and Praxis of Dreaming in Medieval and Early Modern Judaism

Yuval Harari will work on a chapter of his planned book about a branch of Jewish magic dealing with practices for manipulating dreams. The primary sources for his research are Jewish manuscripts of magic and practical Kabbalah, in which practices of dream magic are ex­plicit and abundant. He will also consider and include Halakhic, Kabbalistic, and narrative sources. Both dreams and magic undermine the borderlines of nature and society and are in conflict with ‘rational’ interpretations of the human expe­rience. Despite engendering scepticism and ridicule, they re­tained a strong hold on Jewish communities, both East and West. ‘Dream enquiry,’ which seems to have been a prevalent practice in the medieval and early modern periods, is an especially interesting test case for this debate. Dream request, or better, dream enquiry, is the most common pattern of magic dream divination in Jewish cul­ture. The most significant source for understanding this practice, the worldview in which it was anchored, and the criticism and disdain it raised, are the dozens of recipes for dream enquiry scattered in the broad and yet unexplored corpus of Jewish manuscripts of magic and practical Kabbalah from the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Yuval Harari’s research will focus first and foremost on this corpus, aiming at a comprehen­sive survey of the phenomenon and its place in Jewish thought and action.

Yuval Harari teaches Jewish thought and folklore at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

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: January–February 2019

Research Project: Between Fideistic Scepticism and Aristotelian Philosophy: The Role of Ethics and the Commandments in Hasdai Crescas's approach to Human Perfection

Hasdai Crescas is famous for his philosophical critique of Aristotelian philosophy, mainly as posed by Averroes. Crescas demolishes the foundation of Aristotelian philosophy, the proofs for the existence of God, by negating many of the premises upon which these proofs are based. His motivation is to defend traditional Judaism by showing that the Aristotelian philosophy does not pass the test of reason. His scepticism of Aristotelianism then is the philosophic scepticism of the religious believer, or "fideistic scepticism."
The rejection of Aristotelian philosophy followed by the subsequent acceptance of many of its ideas is nicely exemplified by his approach to the human being's final goal, as well as the final goal of existence in its entirety. While for the Aristotelian philosophers intellection characterizes the final goal, for Crescas love characterizes it. He attempts to show how ethics and the commandments lead to this state. Yet at the same time Crescas ascribes a crucial role to intellection in attaining this goal.
A careful study of Crescas's approach to ethics and law will show the subtlety of his thought and the place scepticism has in it, at the same time that it remains heavily influenced by the very philosophy it seeks to negate. Crecas's approach to this topic will be contrasted to that of his Jewish predecessors, particularly the approach of Judah Halevi, Maimonides, and Gersonides.

 Haim Kreisel holds the Miriam Martha Hubert Chair in Jewish Thought an the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva. 

Senior Fellow: March–August 2019

Research Project: The Parisian Bans on Aristotelian Philosophy 1210–77 and the Maimonidean Controversy – Comparative Studies of Two Alleged Turning Points in Medieval Intellectual History

One of the major motivating forces for change in medieval intellectual history was the reception of Aristotelian philosophy. However, theological opposition to the adoption of Aristotle provoked repeated bans at European universities during the thirteenth century. During almost exactly the same period of time, the Jewish communities were shaken by the so-called Maimonidean Controversy. Although undoubtedly carried out in different forms and partly on different topics, this controversy can be considered in many respects as more than an “analogous” phenomenon to the history of scholastic Aristotelianism and anti-Aristotelianism which should be studied from a comparative perspective.
The comparative research project will consist of two interconnected aspects: (1) the collection of the relevant bibliographical data for all the primary sources (manuscripts and editions) relevant to the different phases of the Maimonidean Controversy; and (2) the elaboration of the programmatic outline of the profile of the Maimonidean Controversy within the general intellectual and cultural history of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Special attention will be paid to the question of how sceptical and non-sceptical arguments in the Maimonidean Controversy paved the way for new ways of thinking among Jewish intellectual elites.

Reimund Leicht (PhD 2004, Freie Universität Berlin) is the Ethel Backenroth Senior Lecturer for Jewish Thought and History and the head of the programme for the history and philosophy of science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Senior Fellow: February–April 2019

Research Project: Philo and Scepticism

In papers about ancient philosophy, few concepts are as frequently commented on as that of scepticism. But in many cases, scepticism is reduced to the work of Sextus Empiricus or used to qualify thinkers who, like Cicero, had never heard about Aenesidemus, the founder of neo-Pyrrhonism, i.e. the most formalised structure of sceptic thought. Although Philo is the first to give testimony about Aenesidemus’s tropes, he is in most cases rejected because he is said to have little interest in philosophy, or to subordinate philosophy to theological themes. The book I am preparing has four main purposes:

• To demonstrate that Philo is a reliable witness of the appearance of neo-Pyrrhonism and thus to reconnect with H. von Arnim’s seminal paper;
• To establish the corpus of sceptic themes, concepts, and words in Philo’s work;

To tackle the presence of many strategies in Philo’s corpus aiming to include scepticism in a reflection about God and faith. In our opinion, Philo is one of the creators of fideism. While he stresses the extreme fallibility of the human mind and the oudeneia of created beings, he asserts that faith is the only possible means for a subject to have a kind of existence;
To investigate the apparition of what will become a major theme in Jewish philosophy (recently Levinas), i.e. the idea that for a Jew, ethics is the best way towards the absolute.

Carlos Lévy was a professor of Roman philosophy and literature at the Sorbonne until 2015 and is now a professor emeritus and fellow of the Israel Institute of Advanced Studies. 

Senior Fellow: January–June 2019

Research Project: Scepticism in the Educational Philosophy of the Berlin Haskalah. The Example of Joel Bril Löwe

One of the most important Berlin maskilim was Joel Bril, also known as Joel Löwe (1760–1802). He had connections to some intellectual protagonists of the Haskalah, such as Moses Mendelssohn, Aaron Wolfssohn, and David Friedländer, in whose home he was employed as a teacher. Löwe edited Mendelssohn’s translation of the book of Psalms and the Song of Songs, and he himself translated the book of Jonah (all with commentaries) and wrote an introduction to the sceptical book of Kohelet. He also published numerous works on German linguistics. Moreover, he was a member of several of the Berlin Haskalah’s social associations, a contributor and at times the co-editor of the journal Ha-Meassef, and among the founders of the Königliche Wilhelmsschule in Breslau. This research project intends to put this largely forgotten representative of the Berlin Haskalah centre stage. The aim is to relate Löwe’s sceptical attitude to the Haskalah’s central thoughts on human’s purpose of perfection (Bestimmung des Menschen zur Vervollkommnung), and to search for modes of sceptical strategies in his pedagogical concepts, linguistic approaches, translation method and throughout his educational philosophy (Bildungsphilosophie).

Uta Lohmann wrote her PhD on the biography of the Jewish enlightener David Friedländer. Since 2012, she has headed her own DFG project at the Universität Hamburg, which aims at the study of the Haskalah’s programme of education (Bildungskonzept) and the interaction between the Berlin Jewish enlightenment and the neo-humanistic theory of education (Bildungstheorie).

Junior Fellow: September 2018–February 2019

Research Project: The Deconstruction of the Philosophical Doctrine of True Knowledge: The Case of “The Magnificent Pearl” by ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān al-Ǧāmī (d. 1492)

For a long time, scholars assumed that there was a rivalry between theologians and philosophers in the history of the Islamicate world. Only recently, and due to development both inside and outside Islamic studies, a third player entered the stage, taking into account the vast tradition of Sufi literature that was inspired by the turn initiated by Muḥyī d-dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 1240). From the thirteenth century onwards, the Sufis developed their own school of thought. They criticised the philosophers for—among other things—the contested question of acquiring knowledge. Generally speaking, it can be asserted that they provided a different explanation regarding the nature of reason (ʿaql).

In the relatively short work “The Magnificent Pearl” (ad-durra al-fāẖira), ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān al-Ǧāmī (d. 1492) summarises the positions of the philosophers, the mutakallimun and the Sufis, favouring that of the Sufis. The aim of Florian Lützen's research is to explore the criticism al-Ǧāmī directs at the philosophers. Al-Ǧāmī’s scepticism towards the philosophers stems from his tradition, which goes back to the teachings of Ibn ʿArabī. Lützen hypothesises that although he finds overlapping methodological aspects with the philosophers—especially with regard to the technical terms—he deconstructs their arguments with particular attention to the concept of knowledge.

Florian Lützen received his doctorate from Universität Hamburg. His thesis deals with the concept of religion in the works of the scholar and Sufi Aḥmad Ibn ʿAǧība (d. 1809).”

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.

Junior Fellow: October 2018–September 2019

Research Project: Reconsidering Epistemic Contextualism as an Answer to the Problem of Philosophical Scepticism

The main focus of my research is epistemic contextualism, a view that has played a central role in contemporary discussions of scepticism. Epistemic contextualism holds that knowledge attribution sentences of the form ‘S knows that p’ are context-sensitive, meaning that their truth conditions can vary from one context to another. By claiming that the same sentence can have different truth-conditions in different contexts, epistemic contextualism argues that sceptical arguments pose no threat to our claims of knowing many things in ordinary and scientific contexts, where sceptical conclusions are regarded as invalid. Many philosophers praised this view as an intuitive and elegant solution to the problem of philosophical scepticism until it was severely criticised because it does not offer an adequate semantic model to explain the context-sensitivity of knowledge attribution sentences.
The aim of this project is to address this criticism to pave the way for a reconsideration of epistemic contextualism as a solution to the problem of philosophical scepticism. To achieve this aim, I will argue that epistemic contextualism does not have to offer a semantic model because the context-sensitivity of knowledge attribution sentences can be explained by appealing to a relevance theory account.

Nancy Abigail Nuñez Hernández holds a PhD in philosophy from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), an MA in philosophy of science from UNAM, and an MA in philosophy, science and values from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in Spain.

Junior Fellow: September 2018–August 2019

Research Project: From Anxiety to Boredom: Affective Scepticism and the Process of Secularisation

This project is a study of scepticism and secularisation which highlights their graded, intersubjective, emotional, and historical nature. It puts forth the argument that secularisation is an ongoing process involving an increase of scepticism and that this process has recently found expression in a transition, only observable from a broad interdisciplinary perspective, from anxiety to boredom, from one sceptical emotion to another which is more radical. Framed as a study of comparative secularity (rather than comparative religion), this project brings the writings of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, the relationship between which has often been understood in terms of secularisation, to bear on the interpretation of Spinoza’s philosophy, which has barely been systematically analysed from a Kierkegaardian perspective and even more rarely from a Heideggerian one. Bringing together the work of such apparently disparate thinkers, however, this project’s purpose is not only to contribute to the historical study of the relationship between religion and philosophy, but also to explore, in light of this comparative analysis, the theological foundations of our contemporary conceptions of emotions and mental health.

Avraham Rot has a PhD in intellectual history from Johns Hopkins University. He has been a junior visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and at the Freie Universität Berlin. He currently teaches philosophy and intellectual history at Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University.

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: September–October 2018 and May–June 2019

Research Project: Scepticism and History in Simone Luzzatto’s Thought

The goal of this project is to explore the trajectories of scepticism construed as a specific constellation of ideas emanating from the ancient heritage of philosophical scepticism. The project will also engage with the second strand of MCAS’s mandate, i.e. the exploration of scepticism in a broader sense, conceived as an ensemble of concepts, strategies, and modes of thinking enshrined in reflection about the various forces operative in human history and the reliability of historical knowledge. Early modern debates on the study of the past took place not only in the context of traditional vehicles, such as biblical narratives and historical examples, but also in connection with the Jewish experience of exile and the expulsion of Iberian Jewry. My research will demonstrate that these themes of learning are a key motif of Simone Luzzatto’s works, in particular the Socrate. Prior academic literature has examined intersections between Luzzatto’s thinking and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century political discourse. However, Luzzatto’s engagement with debates about the certainty of historical learning as a guide for good government has received scant scholarly attention. The project will remedy this lacuna and relate Luzzatto’s ideas to early modern debates on the scope and ramifications of historical learning. 

Vasileios Syros is the director of the “Political Power in the European and Islamic Worlds” research programme at the Academy of Finland.

Junior Fellow: January–August 2017 and September–December 2018

Research Project: Scepticism and religion in the Hellenistic age and beyond

Ancient Greek sceptics insisted that one should not hastily accept philosophical tenets in place of customary beliefs and practices, since restructuring one’s life around philosophical dogma would lead to a deplorable life of the mind and to an unappealing way of living. Instead, one should continue to investigate in the hope of eventually getting it right, and base one’s actions, until the results are in, on the customs and laws of one’s land. In his dissertation, Máté Veres examined the role of such sceptical arguments concerning theol­ogy in selected works of Cicero and Sextus Empiricus. After providing a close reading of relevant passages, Veres situated their position in the broader context of the purpose and methodology of sceptical argumentation. In Hamburg, Veres will prepare papers based on his results, and broad­en the scope of the sources discussed. He hopes that his stay will contribute to the preparation of a monograph on the role of scepticism in Hellenistic theological debates. Furthermore, Veres will return to a topic that partly motivated him to take up his research: David Hume’s philosophy of religion and the influence of classical scepticism on his philosophical outlook. Veres aims to argue in a paper that Hume engages with, and eventually transforms, the ancient sceptical legacy.

Máté Veres is a PostDoc candidate from the Central European Univer­sity. During his studies, he was a visiting student at the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge, a Fulbright visiting graduate researcher at the Sage School of Philosophy, Cornell Uni­versity, a junior bursary recipient at the Hardt Foundation, and a junior fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

Junior Fellow: March–September 2019

Research Project: Scepticism, Self-Refutation, and First Principles

 The thorough sceptic is notoriously unwavering: no matter what their opponent may positively propose, this comprehensive doubter will try to find a way to reject it. They will put into question their opponent’s argument, the premises of their opponent’s argument, and eventually the “first principle” that may be at the foundation of the premises of their opponent’s argument. Given this, one of the most interesting and compelling strategies for the sceptic’s opponent is to motivate some such principle in an elenctic manner, that is, to show that the sceptic refutes themselves and thereby affirms a relevant first principle, allowing for an escape from any kind of global scepticism. My aim in this project is to work out exactly what is at stake in the case of two philosophers who pursue such a strategy: Aristotle (who defends the principle of non-contradiction in this manner) and Spinoza (who seems to take a very similar path in motivating the principle of sufficient reason).

Jason Yonover is a dual PhD Candidate in the German Studies and Philosophy departments of Johns Hopkins University.

Junior Fellow: September 2018–August 2019

Research Project: The Opponents of the Law of Non-Contradiction in the Islamicate World

After Avicenna, Aristotelianism became the dominant view in Islamic philosophy and theology. Before that, Islamic theologians mostly resisted accepting Aristotelian logic and philosophy. In fact, at the time, Arabic logicians and Islamic theologians constituted distinct and rival groups. The former advocated the use of Aristotelian logic, whereas the latter were against it. Among non-Aristotelian thinkers, there were some who held that there were some truth value gaps or gluts. There are two main areas where such views were involved. One is the liar paradox, which led some to hold the liar sentence to be a truth value glut and some to hold it to be a truth value gap. The other is Abū Hāshim al-Jubbāī’s theory of states, which is a reply to a problem concerning divine attributes. According to him, states are neither existent nor non-existent, and thus there are truth value gaps. In his Metaphysics of the Cure, Avicenna argues that every truth value gap entails a truth value glut. Consequently, after Avicenna, the theory of states has been notoriously considered as a theory which violates the law of non-contradiction. However, the followers of Abū Hāshim, particularly Bahshamyya, developed his theory of states and challenged the law of non-contradiction in different ways. These violations of Aristotelian bivalence are the subject of this project, though the focus is on Bahshamite theologians. I am particularly aiming at their arguments against bivalence. Exploring these arguments can have valuable results not only from a historical perspective, but also for modern dialetheism.

Behnam Zolghadr earned his PhD at Tarbiat-Modares University in 2017. During the time he was working on his dissertation, “Modal Meinongianism: the Structure of Non-Existent Objects,” he was fortunate enough to spend a while at the CUNY Graduate Center studying with Graham Priest (2015–16).