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Research Group: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture | Israel Institute for Advanced Studies

Research Group: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

medieval jewish

[RG # 156]  The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

Sept. 1, 2018 - July 1, 2019

Organizers:
Charles Manekin (University of Maryland),
Yehuda Halper (Bar-Ilan University)

The purpose of the research group is to investigate: the reception, followed by the naturalization, of Aristotelian logic into medieval Jewish cultures in Europe; and the repercussions of the introduction of logic into the Jewish intellectual matrix in numerous other areas of Jewish thought, beyond the field of logic itself. The proposed group will bring together scholars from various corners of medieval intellectual history: two historians of logic (specializing in the history of logic in Hebrew and Arabic); historians of medieval science, medicine, and philosophy; and scholars who study medieval religious polemic and Biblical exegesis, with an emphasis on the use of logic therein. Among the questions to be considered will be: What was the place of logic in the overall transfer of rationalist philosophical/scientific culture to European Jews in the Middle Ages (12th-15th centuries)? How did the study of logic affect intellectual activity in various areas, including traditional Jewish subjects (e.g. religious polemics; medicine; biblical exegesis; Talmud study).

By highlighting the interdisciplinary importance of medieval logic in Hebrew, we anticipate that the impact of this group will extend beyond the history of medieval philosophy, into the fields of general European medieval culture and history, Christian intellectual history, history of philosophy and logic, history of medicine, kabbalah, etc. We hope to bring to the attention of scholars of Jewish intellectual history and historians of logic just how widespread the study of logic by Jews in the Middle Ages was, and how it impacted their other intellectual endeavors.

 

Members

Gad Freudenthal

Gad Freudenthal

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CNRS

Gad Freudenthal is Senior Research Fellow Emeritus with the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris. He has written on the reception of science and philosophy in Jewish cultures, mainly in the Middle Ages and in the eighteenth century, and has focused his research on Greek philosophies of matter.

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He is the editor of the journal Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism.

2018-2019 Fellow: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

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Nadja Germann

Nadja Germann

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University of Freiburg

Professor Nadja Germann is a lecturer on philosophy in the Islamic world at the University of Freiburg.

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Her research focuses on the philosophy of language and logic in classical Arabic-Islamic thought, epistemology and metaphysics, and natural philosophy in the Latin early Middle Ages.

2018-2019 Fellow: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

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Yehuda Halper

Yehuda Halper

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Bar-Ilan University

Yehuda Halper is a senior lecturer at the Department of Jewish Thought, at Bar-Ilan University.

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His research examines topics at the intersections of philosophy and religion and of Judaism and Islam in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He is particularly interested in the philosophical background underlying Zionist thought and the intellectual movements that drew from religious and philosophical sources to form the Zionist enterprise.

2018-2019 Organizer: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

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Charles Manekin

Charles Manekin

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The University of Maryland

Charles Manekin is Professor of Philosophy at the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland.

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He specializes in the history of philosophy, specifically medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophy. He is also interested in the history of science among Muslims and Jews. The focus of Manekin's research has been Aristotelian and humanist logic in Hebrew, the philosophy of Levi Gersonides, and the free will problem in Jewish philosophy.

2018-2019 Organizer: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

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Joseph Stern

Joseph Stern

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University of Chicago

Josef Stern is William H. Colvin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago and was the Inaugural Director of the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies (2009-14).

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His research focuses on the contemporary philosophy of language and medieval philosophy, especially Jewish and Arabic philosophy.

2018-2019 Fellow: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

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