Kabbalah

By Leaman, Oliver

Kabbalah is the body of Jewish mystical writings which became important at the end of the twelfth century in Provence and has been taken up with varying degrees ...

Messer Leon, Judah (c.1425–c.1495)

By Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava

Messer Leon was a philosopher, physician, jurist, communal leader, poet and orator. Ordained as a rabbi by 1450, Messer Leon was qualified to adjudicate legal cases among Jews ...

Herrera, Abraham Cohen de (c.1562–c.1635)

By Yosha, Nissim

Herrera was a philosophically oriented Kabbalist who combined Neoplatonism and Kabbalistic knowledge learned from Israel Sarug, a disciple of Isaac Luria. In his Spanish works Puerta del Cielo ...

Shem Tov family

By Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava

The ibn Shem Tov family included four Jewish intellectuals of fifteenth century Spain whose philosophical, theological, homiletical and polemical works followed the persecution of 1391 and the ensuing ...

Universal language

By Rutherford, Donald

Most often associated with attempts to establish an international language such as Esperanto, the idea of a universal language is rooted in the biblical claim of an original ...

Universal language

Most often associated with attempts to establish an international language such as Esperanto, the idea of a universal language is rooted in the biblical claim of an original ...

Bar Hayya, Abraham (c.1016–c.1136)

By Wigoder, Geoffrey

Abraham bar Hayya (also called bar Hiyya) sought to reconcile Jewish tradition with contemporary philosophical thought, in his case that received from Arabic sources. Generally considered to be ...

Magic

By Kassell, Lauren

Magic is the art of influencing the workings of nature through occult powers. It can be found in most societies throughout history. It is often defined by contrast ...

Alemanno, Yohanan ben Isaac (1433/4–after 1503/4)

By Melamed, Abraham

An outstanding Jewish thinker of the Italian Renaissance, Alemanno combined an eclectic Jewish philosophic rationalism, steeped in the medieval sources – Maimonidean, Averroist and Kabbalistic – with Renaissance ...

Mysticism, history of

By Payne, Steven

Contemporary authors generally associate mysticism with a form of consciousness involving an apparent encounter or union with an ultimate order of reality, however this is understood. Mysticism in ...

Renaissance philosophy

By Ashworth, E.J.

The term ‘Renaissance’ means rebirth, and was originally used to designate a rebirth of the arts and literature that began in mid-fourteenth century Italy (see Humanism, Renaissance). Here ...

Voluntarism, Jewish

By Lazaroff, Allan

Voluntarism with respect to humanity and divinity became a powerful current in medieval Jewish philosophy, partly in response to the Neoplatonic doctrine of eternal and necessary emanation, which ...

Israeli, Isaac ben Solomon (c.855–955)

By Lasker, Daniel J.

A pioneering Jewish philosopher and a physician, Isaac Israeli was among the very first medieval Jewish writers to formulate a philosophy employing Greek sources. He based his metaphysics ...

Hasidism

By Elior, Rachel

Its name literally meaning pietism, Hasidism is a mystical renewal movement that originated in eastern Europe in the mid-eighteenth century. It has become one of the most important ...

Heschel, Abraham Joshua (1907–72)

By Novak, David

Born in Warsaw and educated there and in Berlin, Abraham Joshua Heschel moved to the USA in 1940, where he lived and taught for the rest of his ...

Halakhah

By Zohar, Noam J.

The central ideal of rabbinic Judaism is that of living by the Torah, that is, God’s teachings. These teachings are mediated by a detailed normative system called ...

Political philosophy, Jewish

By Zohar, Noam J.; Walzer, Michael

Jewish ideas about politics are embedded in the traditional genres of Judaic discourse, more often legal or homiletic than systematically philosophical. A defining feature of this tradition is ...

Scepticism, Renaissance

By Popkin, Richard H.

Ancient Greek scepticism was revived during the Renaissance, and played an important role in the religious and philosophical controversies of the time. There is little evidence that ancient ...

Ibn Daud, Abraham (c.1110–c.1180)

By Samuelson, Norbert M.

Ibn Daud was born in Cordoba and died in Toledo. In Jewish texts he is known as Rabad, an acronym of his Hebrew name, Rabbi Abraham ben David. ...

Ibn Ezra, Moses ben Jacob (fl. 1055–1135)

By Fenton, Paul B.

Ibn Ezra was an exegete, Jewish scholar and one of the foremost Hebrew poets of medieval Spain. Although none of his systematic biblical commentaries have been preserved, two ...

Averroism, Jewish

By Leaman, Oliver

Averroism was enthusiastically taken up by many Jewish philosophers and adapted in a number of ways that extended its scope beyond mere repetition of Averroes’ own arguments. Jewish ...

Nahmanides, Moses (1194–1270)

By Stern, Josef

One of the most influential medieval Jewish thinkers to engage with the philosophical tradition, Nahmanides was also a leading Talmudist, biblical exegete, and a founding figure of the ...

Solov’ëv, Vladimir Sergeevich (1853–1900)

By Walicki, Andrzej

It has been widely acknowledged that Vladimir Solov’ëv is the greatest Russian philosopher of the nineteenth century; his significance for Russian philosophy is often compared to the significance ...

Fludd, Robert (1574–1637)

By Gaukroger, Stephen

Fludd is a marginal figure in the mainstream development of philosophy in seventeenth-century England, but of some importance in the development of an esoteric and mystical philosophy which ...

Jewish philosophy

By Goodman, L.E.

Jewish philosophy is philosophical inquiry informed by the texts, traditions and experiences of the Jewish people. Its concerns range from the farthest reaches of cosmological speculation to the ...