Albo, Joseph [addendum]
Albo remains one of the lesser-studied philosophers of the medieval period, in part because his main work more apologetic than philosophical in nature. No full-length monograph has been written on him; rather, he is the subject of scattered articles on diverse topics. Not surprisingly, the most systematic work has been done on his dogmatics, with the place of dogma in Judaism generally arousing a measure of philosophical interest in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Albo follows Simeon ben Tzemach Duran (1361–1444) in reducing Maimonides's thirteen principles of faith to three—with eight, not seven, derivative principles: revelation yielding (1) God's knowledge; (2) prophecy; and (3) the authenticity of the divine messenger. Menachem M. Kellner, however, has argued that in his portrayal of Torah as having the axiomatic structure of a deductive science, Albo is the first to present the commandments rather than metaphysics as embodying this scientific structure. Support for this view may be found in Albo's account of the six nonessential beliefs, or branches, particular to Jewish dogmatics, which are not strictly entailed by the earlier fundamental or derivative principles, even though their denial constitutes heresy.
A further significant strand in Albo's thought in which this emphasis on practice can also be found is the shift from the intellectualism of the Aristotelians—for whom intellectual apprehension was the path to perfection—to an act-based theology in which acts are even at one point referred to as knowledge.
The particular scientific topic of time has been subject to detailed analysis by Warren Zev Harvey. Whereas Albo follows his teacher Crescas in asserting that time is independent of motion and therefore of the physical world, Harvey argues that Albo is the first to state that time is an imagined duration rather than one that is intellectually cognized. This is significant for Albo as a foundation for one of his derivative principles—that God is independent of time—though Harvey argues that the links here are not demonstrated. As with all of the above, Albo's remarks here are suggestive, but left underdeveloped.
Aristotelianism; Crescas, Hasdai; Dogma; Jewish Philosophy; Maimonides.
Bibliography
Harvey, Warren Zev. "Albo's Discussion of Time." The Jewish Quarterly Review 70 (4) (1980): 210–238.
Kellner, Menachem M. "The Conception of the Torah as a Deductive Science in Medieval Jewish Thought." Revue des etudes juives 146 (1987): 265–279.
Manekin, Charles H. "Hebrew Philosophy in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: An Overview." In History of Jewish Philosophy, edited by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Shatz, David. "Freedom, Responsibility and Hardening of the Hearts: Albo vs Maimonides." Faith and Philosophy 14 (4) (1997): 478–509.
Sirat, Colette. A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 374–381. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
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