Veröffentlicht von De Gruyter

Studies and Texts in Scepticism

Herausgegeben von: Giuseppe Veltri
In Gemeinschaft mit: Heidrun Eichner, Talya Fishman, Racheli Haliva, Henrik Lagerlund, Reimund Leicht, Stephan Schmid, Carsten Wilke und Irene Zwiep

ISSN: 2568-9614

e-ISSN 2569-0523

Übersicht
Bände

The series Studies and Texts in Scepticism contains monographs, translations, and collected essays exploring scepticism in its dual manifestation as a purely philosophical tradition and as a set of sceptical strategies, concepts, and attitudes in the cultural field - especially in religions, perhaps most notably in Judaism. In such cultural contexts scepticism manifests as a critical attitude towards different dimensions and systems of secular or revealed knowledge and towards religious and political authorities. It is not merely an intellectual or theoretical worldview, but a critical form of life that expresses itself in such diverse phenomena as religion, literature, and society.

Further book series of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies are Jewish Thought, Philosophy, and Religion and the Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advances Studies.

Fachgebiete

Buch Open Access 2021

Expressions of Sceptical Topoi in (Late) Antique Judaism

Reuven Kiperwasser, Geoffrey Herman, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Band 12 in dieser Reihe

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Scepticism has been the driving force in the development of Greco-Roman culture in the past, and the impetus for far-reaching scientific achievements and philosophical investigation. Early Jewish culture, in contrast, avoided creating consistent representations of its philosophical doctrines. Sceptical notions can nevertheless be found in some early Jewish literature such as the Book of Ecclesiastes. One encounters there expressions of doubt with respect to Divine justice or even Divine involvement in earthly affairs. During the first centuries of the common era, however, Jewish thought, as reflected in rabbinic works, was engaged in persistent intellectual activity devoted to the laws, norms, regulations, exegesis and other traditional areas of Jewish religious knowledge. An effort to detect sceptical ideas in ancient Judaism, therefore, requires a closer analysis of this literary heritage and its cultural context.
This volume of collected essays seeks to tackle the question of scepticism in an Early Jewish context, including Ecclesiastes and other Jewish Second Temple works, rabbinic midrashic and talmudic literature, and reflections of Jewish thought in early Christian and patristic writings. Contributors are: Tali Artman, Geoffrey Herman, Reuven Kiperwasser, Serge Ruzer, Cana Werman, and Carsten Wilke.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110671483
ISBN:: 9783110671483
ISBN:: 9783110671544
ISBN:: 9783110671445
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2020

Judah Halevi’s Fideistic Scepticism in the Kuzari

Ehud Krinis, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Band 11 in dieser Reihe

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As scepticism has rarely been studied in the context of the Arabic culture and its Judeo-Arabic sub-culture, it is small wonder that sceptical motifs of Judah Halevi’s classic theological The Kuzari (written ca. 1140) received very little scholarly attention so far. Thus, the present study seeks to shed light on Halevi’s wrestling with the dogmatic-rationalistic trends of his period from an angle of this much less studied perspective. As a by-product, this study is a contribution to the mainly uncultivated field of traces of scepticism in the Arabic culture.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664744
ISBN:: 9783110664744
ISBN:: 9783110661019
ISBN:: 9783110664843
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Sprachen
Fachgebiet:: Judeo-Arabisch
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Noch nicht erschienen 2024

Bruce Nauman

Performative Skepticism and the Aporia of Sense

Adi Louria-Hayon

Band 10 in dieser Reihe

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To date, scholars explored Bruce Nauman’s oeuvre through various perspectives, concepts and premises, including linguistics, performance, power and knowledge, sound, the political and more. Amidst this vast and rich field, Nauman’s pieces have been regarded by critics in terms of systematic skepticism, tragic skepticism, skepticism of the medium, and linguistic doubt. This book methodically analyzes the notion of performative skepticism and its relevance to various dimensions of Bruce Nauman’s post-minimalist artistic practice. It is argued that Nauman performs the perpetual failure of perception, hence, demonstrating its doubtful validity to produce certain knowledge without allowing a resolution. This kind of skepticism, here called performative skepticism, exposes the impossibility of epistemological equipment to produce knowledge, and the impossibility of attaining certainty in bridging the gap between knowledge and the real.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783110664133
ISBN:: 9783110664133
ISBN:: 9783110659306
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Kultur
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Kunst
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Neuzeit
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2021

A Touch of Doubt

On Haptic Scepticism

Rachel Aumiller, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Band 9 in dieser Reihe

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What can we know about ourselves and the world through the sense of touch and what are the epistemic limits of touch? Scepticism claims that there is always something that slips through the epistemologist’s grasp. A Touch of Doubt explores the significance of touch for the history of philosophical scepticism as well as for scepticism as an embodied form of subversive political, religious, and artistic practice.

Drawing on the tradition of scepticism within nineteenth- and twentieth-century continental philosophy and psychoanalysis, this volume discusses how the sense of touch uncovers contradictions within our knowledge of ourselves and the world. It questions 1) what we can know through touch, 2) what we can know about touch itself, and 3) how our experience of touching the other and ourselves throws us into a state of doubt.

This volume is intended for students and scholars who wish to reconsider the experience of touching in intersections of philosophy, religion, art, and social and political practice.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110627176
ISBN:: 9783110627176
ISBN:: 9783110624335
ISBN:: 9783110623956
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Fachgebiet:: Religionsphilosophie
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2019

Socrates, or on Human Knowledge

Bilingual Edition

Simone Luzzatto, Giuseppe Veltri, Michela Torbidoni, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Band 8 in dieser Reihe

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Socrates, Or On Human Knowledge, published in Venice in 1651, is the only work written by a Jew that contains so far the promise of a genuinely sceptical investigation into the validity of human certainties. Simone Luzzatto masterly developed this book as a pièce of theatre where Socrates, as main actor, has the task to demonstrate the limits and weaknesses of the human capacity to acquire knowledge without being guided by revelation. He achieved this goal by offering an overview of the various and contradictory gnosiological opinions disseminated since ancient times: the divergence of views, to which he addressed the most attention, prevented him from giving a fixed definition of the nature of the cognitive process. This obliged him to come to the audacious conclusion of neither affirming nor denying anything concerning human knowledge, and finally of suspending his judgement altogether.
This work unfortunately had little success in Luzzatto’s lifetime, and was subsequently almost forgotten. The absence of substantial evidence from his contemporaries and that of his epistolary have thus increased the difficulty of tracing not only its legacy in the history of philosophical though, but also of understanding the circumstances surrounding the writing of his Socrates.
The present edition will be a preliminary study aiming to shed some light on the philosophical and historical value of this work’s translation, indeed it will provide a broader readership with the opportunity to access this immensely complicated work and also to grasp some aspects of the composite intellectual framework and admirable modernity of Venetian Jewish culture in the ghetto.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110557602
ISBN:: 9783110557602
ISBN:: 9783110558357
ISBN:: 9783110557534
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2019

Discourse on the State of the Jews

Bilingual Edition

Simone Luzzatto, Giuseppe Veltri, Anna Lissa, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Band 7 in dieser Reihe

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In 1638, a small book of no more than 92 pages in octavo was published “appresso Gioanne Calleoni” under the title “Discourse on the State of the Jews and in particular those dwelling in the illustrious city of Venice.” It was dedicated to the Doge of Venice and his counsellors, who are labelled “lovers of Truth.” The author of the book was a certain Simone (Simḥa) Luzzatto, a native of Venice, where he lived and died, serving as rabbi for over fifty years during the course of the seventeenth century.
Luzzatto’s political thesis is simple and, at the same time, temerarious, if not revolutionary: Venice can put an end to its political decline, he argues, by offering the Jews a monopoly on overseas commercial activity. This plan is highly recommendable because the Jews are “wellsuited for trade,” much more so than others (such as “foreigners,” for example). The rabbi opens his argument by recalling that trade and usury are the only occupations permitted to Jews. Within the confines of their historical situation, the Venetian Jews became particularly skilled at trade with partners from the Eastern Mediterranean countries. Luzzatto’s argument is that this talent could be put at the service of the Venetian government in order to maintain – or, more accurately, recover – its political importance as an intermediary between East and West. He was the first to define the role of the Jews on the basis of their economic and social functions, disregarding the classic categorisation of Judaism’s alleged privileged religious status in world history.
Nonetheless, going beyond the socio-economic arguments of the book, it is essential to point out Luzzatto’s resort to sceptical strategies in order to plead in defence of the Venetian Jews. It is precisely his philosophical and political scepticism that makes Luzzatto’s texts so unique.
This edition aims to grant access to his works and thought to English-speaking readers and scholars. By approaching his texts from this point of view, the editors hope to open a new path in research into Jewish culture and philosophy that will enable other scholars to develop new directions and new perspectives, stressing the interpenetration between Jews and the surrounding Christian and secular cultures.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110527988
ISBN:: 9783110527988
ISBN:: 9783110528237
ISBN:: 9783110487336
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Allgemeine jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2019

Sceptical Paths

Enquiry and Doubt from Antiquity to the Present

Giuseppe Veltri, Racheli Haliva, Stephan Schmid, Emidio Spinelli, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Band 6 in dieser Reihe

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Sceptical Paths offers a fresh look at key junctions in the history of scepticism. Throughout this collection, key figures are reinterpreted, key arguments are reassessed, lesser-known figures are reintroduced, accepted distinctions are challenged, and new ideas are explored.

The historiography of scepticism is usually based on a distinction between ancient and modern. The former is understood as a way of life which focuses on enquiry, whereas the latter is taken to be an epistemological approach which focuses on doubt. The studies in Sceptical Paths not only deepen the understanding of these approaches, but also show how ancient sceptical ideas find their way into modern thought, and modern sceptical ideas are anticipated in ancient thought. Within this state of affairs, the presence of sceptical arguments within Medieval philosophy is reflected in full force, not only enriching the historical narrative, but also introducing another layer to the sceptical discourse, namely its employment within theological settings.

The various studies in this book exhibit the rich variety of expression in which scepticism manifests itself within various context and set against various philosophical and religious doctrines, schools, and approaches.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110591040
ISBN:: 9783110591040
ISBN:: 9783110591118
ISBN:: 9783110589603
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Hellenistisch-römische Zeit
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2018

Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in Medieval Jewish Philosophy and Thought

Racheli Haliva

Band 5 in dieser Reihe

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The tension between reason and revelation has occupied Jewish philosophers for centuries, who were committed, on the one hand, to defending Judaism, and, on the other hand, to remaining loyal to philosophical principles.

Maimonides is considered the most prominent Jewish religious philosopher, whose aim was to reconcile philosophy, in particular Aristotelian philosophy, with the fundamental principles of Judaism. But many other Jewish thinkers, before and after him, also struggled with this task, raising the question whether it is possible to attain this reconciliation.

The connection between philosophy and religion was often not an obvious one. As a consequence, it could serve in some cases as grounds for supporting Maimonides’ project, while in others it could lead to rejection.
Scepticism and Anti septicism in Medieval Jewish Thought focuses on sceptical questions, methods, strategies, and approaches raised by Jewish thinkers in the Middle Ages. In a series of lectures, we examine the variety of attitudes presented by these thinkers, as well as the latest readings of contemporary scholars concerning those attitudes.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110553321
ISBN:: 9783110553321
ISBN:: 9783110551686
ISBN:: 9783110552911
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2020

Abraham Abulafia’s Esotericism

Secrets and Doubts

Moshe Idel

Band 4 in dieser Reihe

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The book focuses on Abraham Abulafia's esoteric thought in relation to Maimonides, Maimonideans, and Islamic thought in the line of Leo Strauss' theory of the history of philosophy. The book surveys Abulafia's sources and concentrates on the esoteric meaning on the famous parable of the three rings, as well as Abulafia's universalistic understanding of the nature of the Bible, the Hebrew language, the people of Israel or the Sinatic revelation.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110599978
ISBN:: 9783110599978
ISBN:: 9783110600858
ISBN:: 9783110598773
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Allgemeines und Rezeptionsgeschichte der Bibel
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch 2018

Alienated Wisdom

Enquiry into Jewish Philosophy and Scepticism

Giuseppe Veltri

Band 3 in dieser Reihe

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The present study addresses problems of an epistemological nature which hinge on the question of how to define Jewish thought. It will take its start in an ancient question, that of the relationship between Jewish culture, Greek philosophy, and then Greco-Roman (and Christian) thought in connection with the query into the history and genealogy of wisdom and knowledge.

Our journey into the history of the denomination ‘Jewish philosophy’ will include a leg that will lead us to certain declarations of political, moral, and scientific principles, and then on to the birth of what is called philosophia perennis or, in Christian circles, prisca theologia. Our subject of inquiry will thus be the birth of the concept of Jewish philosophy, Jewish theology and Jewish philosophy of religion.

A special emphasis will fall on the topic treated in the last part of this study: Jewish scepticism, a theme that involves a philosophical attitude founded on dialectical "enquiry", as the etymology of the Greek word skepsis properly means.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110604498
ISBN:: 9783110604498
ISBN:: 9783110710540
ISBN:: 9783110603392
ISBN:: 9783110603682
Fachgebiet:: Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Themen der Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Geschichte
Fachgebiet:: Jüdisches Denken
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2018

Isaac Orobio

The Jewish Argument with Dogma and Doubt

Carsten Wilke, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Band 2 in dieser Reihe

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In this volume, six historians explore new approaches to Isaac Orobio de Castro (1617–1687), an Amsterdam physician who was the most widely-read among the early modern defenders of Judaism against Christian proselytizing. He was also the major author who rebutted Benedict Spinoza’s Freethought from inside his own Sephardic community. Reflecting on the developments in early modern studies that have appeared since the publication of Yosef Kaplan’s seminal monograph in 1982, the authors revisit Orobio’s intellectual personality with a focus on transcultural processes, clandestine book culture, philosophical rhetoric, and literary reception. Born in Portugal to Christian parents of Jewish ancestry, Orobio left behind a brilliant career as a court physician in Spain and France when he publicly embraced Judaism. With academic erudition, he translated Jewish religious positions into the eclectic philosophy of the day, using both rationalist and sceptic arguments. His work leaked out into the non-Jewish world and armed Enlightenment philosophers for their attacks on Christianity, showing the impact of Jewish criticism on the early modern quest for philosophical certainty and religious pluralism.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110576191
ISBN:: 9783110576191
ISBN:: 9783110577266
ISBN:: 9783110575613
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Philosophie
Verlag:: De Gruyter

Buch Open Access 2017

Converts of Conviction

Faith and Scepticism in Nineteenth Century European Jewish Society

David B. Ruderman, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Band 1 in dieser Reihe

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The study of Jewish converts to Christianity in the modern era has long been marginalized in Jewish historiography. Labeled disparagingly in the Jewish tradition as meshumadim (apostates), many earlier Jewish scholars treated these individuals in a negative light or generally ignored them as not properly belonging any longer to the community and its historical legacy. This situation has radically changed in recent years with an outpouring of new studies on converts in variegated times and places, culminating perhaps in the most recent synthesis of modern Jewish converts by Todd Endelman in 2015.

While Endelman argues that most modern converts left the Jewish fold for economic, social, or political reasons, he does acknowledge the presence of those who chose to convert for ideological and spiritual motives. The purpose of this volume is to consider more fully the latter group, perhaps the most interesting from the perspective of Jewish intellectual history: those who moved from Judaism to Christianity out of a conviction that they were choosing a superior religion, and out of doubt or lack of confidence in the religious principles and practices of their former one. Their spiritual journeys often led them to suspect their newly adopted beliefs as well, and some even returned to Judaism or adopted a hybrid faith consisting of elements of both religions. Their intellectual itineraries between Judaism and Christianity offer a unique perspective on the formation of modern Jewish identities, Jewish-Christian relations, and the history of Jewish skeptical postures.

The approach of the authors of this book is to avoid broad generalizations about the modern convert in favor of detailed case studies of specific converts in four distinct localities: Germany, Russia, Poland, and England, all living in the nineteenth- century. In so doing, it underscores the individuality of each convert’s life experience and self-reflection and the need to examine more intensely this relatively neglected dimension of Jewish and Christian cultural and intellectual history.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110530797
ISBN:: 9783110530797
ISBN:: 9783110530858
ISBN:: 9783110487145
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Studien
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Kultur
Fachgebiet:: Jüdische Kultur, andere
Fachgebiet:: Theologie und Religion
Fachgebiet:: Judaistik
Fachgebiet:: Neuzeit
Fachgebiet:: Religionsausübung
Verlag:: De Gruyter