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The Matter and Form of Maimonides' Guide by Josef Stern (Hardcover, 2013)

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Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed has traditionally been read as an attempt to harmonize reason and revelation. Another, more recent interpretation takes the contradiction between philosophy and religion to be irreconcilable, and concludes that the Guide prescribes religion for the masses and philosophy for the elite. Moving beyond these familiar debates, Josef Stern argues that the perplexity addressed in this famously enigmatic work is not the conflict between Athens and Jerusalem but the tension between human matter and form, between the body and the intellect. Maimonides' philosophical tradition takes the perfect life to be intellectual: pure, undivided contemplation of all possible truths, from physics and cosmology to metaphysics and God. According to the Guide, this ideal cannot be realized by humans. Their embodied minds cannot achieve scientific knowledge of metaphysics, and their bodily impulses interfere with exclusive contemplation. Closely analyzing the arguments in the Guide and its original use of the parable as a medium of philosophical writing, Stern articulates Maimonides' skepticism about human knowledge of metaphysics and his heterodox interpretations of scriptural and rabbinic parables. Stern shows how, in order to accommodate the conflicting demands of the intellect and the body, Maimonides creates a repertoire of spiritual exercises, reconceiving the Mosaic commandments as training for the life of the embodied mind. By focusing on the philosophical notions of matter and form, and the interplay between its literary form and subject matter, Stern succeeds in developing a unified, novel interpretation of the Guide.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
Harvard University Press
ISBN-13
9780674051607
eBay Product ID (ePID)
148770612

Product Key Features

Book Title
The Matter and Form of Maimonides' Guide
Author
Josef Stern
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Topic
Popular Philosophy, Judaism
Publication Year
2013
Number of Pages
448 Pages

Dimensions

Item Height
235mm
Item Width
156mm

Additional Product Features

Title_Author
Josef Stern
Country/Region of Manufacture
United States

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The Matter and Form of Maimonides' Guide by Josef Stern (Hardcover, 2013)

About this product

Product Information

Product Identifiers

Product Key Features

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Best Selling in Books

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Become What You Are: Expanded Edition by Alan W. Watts (Paperback, 2003)

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