The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture

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Organizer 1: Charles H. Manekin
Affiliation: Professor of Philosophy, University of Maryland
Email: [email protected]
Phone Number: 13,014,054,734
Organizer 2: Yehuda Halper
Affiliation: Senior Lecturer of Jewish Thought, Bar Ilan University
Email: [email protected]
Phone Number: 972528224606
Proposal Title: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval
Jewish Cultures
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IIAS Proposal for 2018-2019

Full Title: The Reception and Impact of Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Cultures

Abridged Title: Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Cultures

Sub-discipline: History of Philosophy, Jewish Philosophy, Medieval Jewish Cultures

Organizers: Charles H. Manekin, Professor of Philosophy, University of Maryland USA
Yehuda Halper, Senior Lecturer of Jewish Thought, Bar Ilan University

Period of Residency: September 1, 2018 – June 30, 2019 (but would be willing to be in
residence for a five-month period.)

Abstract: The purpose of the research group will be 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.

Keywords: Philosophy, Medieval Jewry, Transmission of Knowledge

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Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Cultures
Proposal for a Research Group at the IIAS, 2018-2019
Charles H. Manekin and Yehuda Halper

II.1 Statement of Purpose
The purpose of the research group will be to investigate: (i) the reception, followed by the
naturalization of Aristotelian logic into medieval Jewish cultures in Europe; and (ii) 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 research group will be affiliated with the international “Europe of
Logic” project of the PSL [= Paris Sciences et Lettres] Research University, which is exploring the
impact of Aristotelian logic on pre-modern and early modern European culture and society. (For more on
the “Europe of Logic” research project, and ties between it and our proposed research group, see below.)
We employ the phrase “Aristotelian logic” to refer to all logical production, more or less directly
derived from Aristotle’s logic as it developed in late antiquity and the Middle Ages; in other words, we
have in mind the subjects treated in the Aristotelian corpus known as the extended Organon (covering
Porphyry’s Isagoge, Aristotle’s Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior and Posterior Analytics, Topics,
Sophistics, Rhetoric and Poetics). These works include theories of inference, semantics, predication,
argumentation and proof, in addition to modes of rhetoric and poetical theory. Versions of all the works
of the Organon were studied by medieval Jewish intellectuals and had an impact in a variety of fields
outside the area of logic itself (Steinschneider 1893 [= Steinschneider 2018]; Manekin 2011a). (We do
not wish to enter into the historiographical controversy of how much of medieval logic should be
identified with what Aristotle himself taught (Bocheński 1961, Łukasiewicz 1957)).
The above may strike the reader unfamiliar with the Jewish study of “Aristotelian logic” as odd.
If logic can be characterized as the discipline studying the (supposedly) universal rules of correct
thinking, abstracted from any particular subject matter, how did it come about that Jewish cultures, whose
very identity depend on an inter-generationally transmitted particularistic tradition, embraced logic,
which is universalist by its very nature? Moreover, once logic was received and naturalized, what
possible use could Jewish scholars make of it in their discussions, shaped as they were by particularistic
concerns? These are quintessentially the issues we wish to study. And they are strikingly analogous to
questions that arose within medieval Muslim and Christian societies.
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. We strive to cover our problématique as
broadly as possible, as part of the contemporary widening of the field of the history of logic beyond the
search for “precedents” and “antecedents” of modern formal logic (cf. the classic works of Bocheński
1961 and William Kneale and Martha Kneale 1962.) The “precedent” model yielded some important
studies in the history of medieval logic, including Hebrew logic, when the analytical history of
philosophy was in it its heyday. But at present we (like others) take a different angle and ask how
medieval logic affected a variety of fields outside logic and how it played a role in the intellectual’s
curriculum. We thus believe that the time has come to open up the history of Jewish logic beyond the
narrow audience of specialists in logic. We have made a special effort to enlarge our group by inviting
young scholars in order to introduce them to the topic we find so important and, hopefully, win them over
to its study.

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II.2 Justification for the Subject
The last half-century has witnessed a boom in the study of medieval logic in Europe and the US,
with histories, encyclopedias, handbooks, as well as international workshops and colloquia devoted to the
subject of logic. Just recently, the highly innovative PSL Research University decided to fund the already
mentioned “Europe of Logic” project. This thriving activity bears on the logical traditions in Greek,
Arabic, and Latin, while the study of the rich Hebrew tradition in logic lags behind. In the multi-volume
Handbook of the History of Logic, edited by Dov Gabbay and others, there is one reference, in a footnote,
to a Hebrew logical work. (Gabbay 2004-2014). According to the recently-published, Cambridge
Companion to Medieval Logic, current scholarship in Hebrew logic is “still incipient” (Novaes and Read,
2016). In fact, most Hebrew logical texts are still in manuscript and await publication in reliable editions,
a conditio sine qua non for their study.
But the time seems ripe now for a new departure in the study of logic in medieval Jewish cultures
and our group holds the promise of being innovative on several levels. A number of recent textual
discoveries support the notion that the introduction of Aristotelian logic into Hebrew had origins and
reverberations well beyond medieval Maimonideans. For example, it is now clear that Arabic logical texts
were translated much earlier than previously thought and indeed were among the very first
philosophical/scientific texts to be translated into Hebrew (Zonta 1996). That is, logical works pre-date
the translations and studies that came in the wake of the Hebrew translation of Maimonides’s Guide of the
Perplexed and accordingly the reasons for their translation and impact must be reassessed. Moreover,
translations of logical works into Hebrew were among the most studied philosophical/scientific texts in
Hebrew for at least four centuries. (For example: more manuscripts are extant of the Hebrew version of
Averroes’s presentation of Porphyry’s Isagoge (Introduction) than of any other work by a non-Jewish
author (Manekin, forthcoming). Logic was studied in Hebrew for longer, more widely, and in more
contexts than has been previously acknowledged.
These (little-known) historical-cultural facts raise the obvious question: Why? What importance
did the medieval scholars and their environment (patrons, students, readers) ascribe to logic, making its
study into a constant desideratum? This interdisciplinary question has never been addressed before.
Part of the answer is obvious. The study of logic played an essential role in scientific and
philosophical curricula. Since Hellenistic times, students began their studies of philosophy with logic.
Maimonides himself urged the study of logic in his Guide of the Perplexed and has traditionally been
considered to be the author of a primer on logic. Accordingly, scholars have attributed the interest of 12th
and 13th century Hebrew-literate Provençal Jews in logic to an effort to follow a scientific curriculum
outlined by Maimonides that required mastery of logic and its very specialized terminology, in order to
access scientific works in every discipline composed in the Greco-Arabic philosophical tradition. But this
is only a part of the answer, for it does not account for the fact that logical texts were translated long
before philosophy could be studied in Hebrew, nor for the fact that logic was apparently more widely
studied than any of the sciences for which Maimonides said it was to be an introduction. Further, the
diversity of non-scientific contexts in which logical terms and expressions occur, and in which logical
works are referred to, suggests that the early, great and continuous interest in logic is not only due to the
concerns of Jewish scientists. A broader perspective is needed.
Our group takes its cue from the observation that logic was not the key to science alone: it was
considered as the indispensable organon (tool) structuring any rational discourse as such, so that it
underlay—crucially, albeit implicitly—a number of intellectual enterprises. A particularly significant case
in point is religious polemic. Especially in the 12th century, Jews often engaged in religious polemic with
Christians, who had internalized the principles of the emerging rationalist theology. These Jews quickly
became aware that to carry the argument they could not appeal to scriptural exegesis alone, but had to
bolster their reasoning with an appeal (explicitly or implicitly) to logic, i.e. to structure their reasoning so
it obeys formal rules of logical argumentation. This may have been one important factor for Jewish
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scholars’ early and constant need for logic (Funkenstein 1965; Freudenthal 2016). Less surprisingly,
Jewish physicians in Europe, like their non-Jewish counterparts, had to master logic in order to be able to
follow the arguments in canonic medical texts. They also had to master logic in order to be able to engage
in the required “disputations” and be licensed. (Shatzmiller 1994; Freudenthal, forthcoming).
Even in classically Jewish scholarly pursuits like biblical and Talmudic exegesis one can find
echoes and repercussions of Aristotelian logic. In the early 13th century, Samuel Ibn Tibbon inserted a
summary of Aristotle’s syllogistic and theory of demonstration into his commentary on Ecclesiastes, so
that readers could understand the point of the book. A century later, Shemariah of Negroponte composed
a textbook on logic (by translating into Hebrew parts of Peter of Spain’s textbook, Summulae Logicales)
so that his students would understand his scriptural commentaries. And Joseph Ibn Kaspi wrote that it is
impossible to understand Scripture without prior knowledge of grammar and logic, summaries of which
he wrote. Both works of Shemariah and Kaspi are extant in manuscript and certainly deserve close
scrutiny.
Some medieval Jewish intellectuals viewed Aristotelian logic as the key to understanding
Talmudic reasoning. Some analyzed the traditional hermeneutical principles that relate the Oral Law to
the Written Law, as propounded in the baraita de-Rabbi Ishmael, in light of Aristotle’s rules of inference.
Thus the early 14th-century Portuguese scholar David Ibn Bilia wrote a commentary that identifies each
of the Talmudic principles with a corresponding Aristotelian one. Ibn Bilia also attempted to demonstrate,
on the basis of various passages in the Talmud, that the rabbis pronounced their rulings according to the
art of logic. A somewhat different approach was taken by his contemporary, Isaac Polgar, who conceded
that the hermeneutical principles are not to be identified with the methods of (scientific) demonstration
but defended them against the criticisms of the pseudo-philosophers (ha-mitpalsefim) who slander the
Torah and belittle the rabbinic explanations, stories, legends, and riddles. (Ravitsky 2009)
Other philosophers, such as Moses of Narbonne and Gersonides in the 14th-century, commented
on the epistemic status of the hermeneutical rules; the latter claimed that they were never intended by the
rabbis as rules of inference but only as mnemonic devices by which the rabbinic law could be associated
with the scriptural verse. To replace them, Gersonides claimed to have discovered topical rules of
inferences (meqomot) by which the Oral Law is derived from the Written Law. There were talmudists
whose own books of principles and commentaries on the hermeneutical principles show the influence of
logic, most notably in the school of Isaac b. Jacob Canpanton (1360–1463) (Boyarin 1989).
Surprisingly, perhaps, the study of logic was also part of the training of students of Kabbalah in
some Italian kabbalistic circles. For example, Johanan Alemanno, who taught Hebrew and Kabbalah to
Pico della Mirandola, recommends his students dedicate seven years to studying logic (Idel 1979). Later
kabbalists, like Abraham Cohen de Herrera and Moses Hayyim Luzzatto, wrote works on logic (Cohen de
Herrea 2002, Manekin 2011).
Logic, in sum, was far from being one scientific discipline among many; rather, it was the
indispensable organon for research and study in almost every domain, be it rationalist or traditional. The
study of its history is thus an important desideratum for the study of medieval Jewish intellectual life.
Inasmuch as the history of logic is inextricably intertwined with that of many other fields, from medicine
to religious polemics, its study must necessarily be contextualized in a multi-dimensional field.
Thus we shall address questions such as the following:
 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)?
 What were the social and intellectual factors responsible for the exceptionally early and
rapid spread of the study of logic among medieval Jews in southern Europe?
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 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)?
 Was there an opposition to the study of logic among the traditionalists? Where was
Aristotelian logic seen as incongruous with traditional accounts of reasoning? Or was it
considered as a neutral organon for assessing the validity of reasoning?
 Granted that a rudimentary knowledge of logic was necessary for most medieval Jewish
students, for what purpose and for what audiences did Jewish scholars compose advanced
treatises and commentaries?

II.3 Justification of the Research Group
From the above it becomes clear that a serious, contextualized study of the fortunes of logic in
Hebrew cultures between the 12th and 15th centuries must be truly interdisciplinary. Such a study requires
scholars who are capable of undertaking a thorough and technical investigation of the logical texts, both
translated and original. Yet an entirely internalist study of the history of logic in Hebrew is not sufficient;
this project also requires scholars who are capable of examining the impact of Aristotelian logic on all
facets of medieval Jewish cultures. This group will bring together a group of scholars who are able to
examine the available historical evidence in different areas and produce, for the first time, a portrait of the
naturalization of logic in medieval Jewish cultures, including its impact on various peripheries of the
intellectual system.
While our perspective is inherently interdisciplinary, in composing the group we have also
emphasized its intellectual cohesion, a necessary condition for a fruitful conversation among all
participants. This is the reason for the following choices: (i) we have decided to invite mostly scholars
working within the Hebrew tradition; (ii) we opted to limit ourselves to European Jewish cultures, i.e.
cultures that were Hebrew-literate (we accordingly have no direct focus on logic by Jews in Arabic-
Islamic contexts). Still, since Hebrew logic and philosophy are so dependent on Arabic logic and
philosophy, one of fellows will be an expert in the latter.

II.4 Impact of the Research Group
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. First, we hope to bring to the attention of scholars of Jewish
intellectual history just how widespread the study of logic by Jews in the Middle Ages was, and how it
impacted their other intellectual endeavors. We also wish to interest students of medieval Jewish
philosophy to produce editions and texts of these materials, so that this impact can be more carefully
assessed. This impact is an important chapter in the general cultural attitude to logic and philosophy in the
Middle Ages whose full effects have not yet been assessed. Further, we expect that scholars of Jewish-
Christian relations will be interested in the role of logic both as a cross-cultural barrier breaker, a topic of
inter-transmission of knowledge between Jews and Christians, and as a cultural divider in the context of
religious polemics. Moreover, our group will bring to the attention of historians of European logic in
context the rich tradition of Hebrew logic. This will be of interest to them in its own right, but it will also
be of interest to scholars of Arabic and Latin philosophy, since the texts of Hebrew logic are often
translations of works in these other languages, and therefore bear important testimony to both textual
tradition and influence of their works. In light of the importance of logic in medieval medical curricula,
we expect to generate interest among historians of medicine regarding the development and role of such
curricula and the position of the doctor, whether Jew or Christian, in medieval society. Additionally, this
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group will provide materials and methods for scholars of the kabbalah to assess more fully the importance
of logic for mystical activity. Indeed, because logic played such a central role in medieval thought and
because its role outside of philosophy has hitherto not been fully understood, we may generate results that
are of interest to a still wider range of scholars.

II.5 Proposed Activities of the Research Group
In addition to the weekly seminar for the fellows, the research group will invite Israeli doctoral
and postdoctoral students to present work relevant to the subject matter and to the fellows’ areas of
expertise. The group will sponsor reading groups in text study and will consider what texts of Hebrew
logic in manuscript should be critically edited and translated, by what methods, and in what order of
priority. There will be an international conference on “Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Cultures,”
with sessions devoted to those areas in which Aristotelian logic has its greatest impact, and we plan to
publish the longer versions of the papers, together with other papers, in a volume on Hebrew logic and its
cultural impact in medieval and renaissance Europe.

II.6 Interaction with the International “Europe of Logic” Project

The PSL Research University, an association of French universities and higher education
institutions (ComUE) and three national research organizations, was recently awarded a three-year grant
for an international project: The Europe of Logic: the Medieval and Early Modern Aristotelian Traditions
in Context (the “Euro-logic” project).

According to the project’s initiator, Dr. Julie Brumberg-Chaumont of the CNRS, the “Euro-logic”
project “wishes to develop a historical approach to Aristotelian logic as an investigation about logic itself
through time and spaces in medieval and early modern Europe. The final output will be a collective book
entitled ‘The Europe of Logic’ that will also provide a provisory catalogue of the bestsellers of the history
of logic in Middle Ages and early modern times.”

It is fortuitous that the “Euro-logic project” will begin its work just before the commencement of
the (planned) “Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Cultures” research group. Charles Manekin, one of
the present applicants, is also one of the international scholars associated with the Euro-logic project, and
will be attending its first workshop in January, 2017. Prof. Manekin and Dr. Brumberg-Chaumont have
had thorough exchanges and are both intent on ensuring that the proposed research group at the IIAS
intensively interact with the activities of the Euro-logic project. Moreover, Dr. Brumberg-Chaumont, who
is a leading historian of medieval Latin logic in context, has accepted our invitation to be one of three
guests invited to the IIAS, should our group receive funding. We believe that our respective groups have
much to offer each other and that their overlapping in time offers a rare opportunity to create at IIAS a
group geared to an advanced European research project..

II.7 Anticipated Results of the Research Group
We fully anticipate that a volume on Aristotelian Logic in Medieval Jewish Cultures will emerge,
in part, from the planned conference. In addition, some of the participants are preparing critical editions
and/or translations of texts in Hebrew logic and metaphysics, including a book on the Hebrew versions of
Porphyry’s Isagoge (Introduction).
We also hope to create a network of scholars world wide that will be interested in medieval
Hebrew logic and its impact on other areas, and that will further its study. It is time to take the study of
medieval Hebrew logic out of its “incipience” stage.
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References
Boyarin, Daniel. 1989. Ha-‘Iyyun Ha-Sefardi (Sephardi Speculation: A Study in Methods of Talmudic
Interpretation). Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute.
Bocheński, Joseph M. 1961. A History of Formal Logic. Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame
Press.
Cohen de Herrera, Abraham. 2002. Epítome Y Compendio De La Lógica O Dialéctica. Bologna, CLUEB.
Dutilh Novaes, Catarina, and Stephen Read. 2016. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval logic.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Freudenthal, forthcoming. “The Brighter Side of Medieval Christian-Jewish Polemical Encounters:
Transfer of Medical Knowledge in The Midi (12th-14th Centuries),” forthcoming Medieval
Encounters.

Funkenstein 1965. “Changes in the Patterns of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemics in the 12th Century”
(Heb.) Zion 33: 125–44; updated English version in idem, Perceptions of Jewish History
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 172–201.
Gabbay, Dov M., John Woods, and Akihiro. Kanamori. 2004-20014. Handbook of the History of
Logic. Amsterdam: Elsevier. (Ancient and Medieval Logic are considered in vols. 1 and 2.)
Idel, Moshe. 1979. "The Study Program of Rabbi Yohanan Alemanno." Tarbiz, 48, pp. 303–30
Kneale, W. C., and Martha. Kneale. 1962. The Development of Logic. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Łukasiewicz, Jan. 1957. Aristotle's Syllogistic from the Standpoint of Modern Formal Logic.2d ed., enl.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Manekin, Charles H. 2011a. “Logic in Medieval Hebrew Culture”. In Science in Medieval Jewish
Cultures. Ed. by Gad Freudenthal. New York: Cambridge UP.
Manekin, Charles H. 2011b. “On Humanist Logic Judaized—Then and Now: Two Models for the
Appropriation of Gentile Science.” In Studies in the History of Culture and Science. Pp. 431-451.
Leiden - Boston: Brill.
Porphyry. 2003. Introduction (Isagoge). Trans. with a commentary by Jonathan Barnes. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Ravitsky, Aviram, 2009. Logiḳah Arisṭoṭelit u-metodologyah Talmudit: yissumah shel ha-logiḳah ha-
Arisṭoṭelit ba-perushim la-midot sheha-Torah nidreshet bahen (Aristotelian Logic and Talmudic
Methodology: The Application of Aristotelian Logic in the Hermeneutical Rules of the Talmud).
Jerusalem: Magnes Press.
Rosenberg, Shalom. 1973. Logiqah ve-onṭologiyah ba-filosofiyah ha-yehudit ba-me’ah ha-14. (Logic and
Ontology in 14th c. Jewish Philosophy). PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Shatzmiller, Joseph. 1994. Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Steinschneider, Moritz 1893. Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als
Dolmetscher. Berlin.
Steinschneider, Moritz. 2018. The Hebrew Translations of the Middle Ages and the Jews as Transmitters
Volume II. Generalities. Logic. Trans., ed., and rev. by Charles H. Manekin, Y. Tzvi
Langermann, and Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt. Dordrecht: Springer.
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Zonta, Mauro. 1996. La Filosofia Antica Nel Medioevo Ebraico : Le Traduzioni Ebraiche Medievali Dei
Testi Filosofici Antichi. Brescia: Paideia.

Part III: Research Group Members

A. Fellows from Outside Israel

1. Charles H. Manekin, Professor of Philosophy, University of Maryland, USA. Current Director
Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies, U of Md. (Convener 1). Manekin is a leading authority of the
history of logic among the Jews. The author of one book and many articles in this area, he is currently
writing a bio-bibliographical treatment of all extant materials in Hebrew logic to be published in 2018 by
Springer. Manekin proposes to explore the impact of Aristotelian logic, in particular, Alfarabi’s logical
writings, on the formation of a Hebrew philosophical culture in Provence. To do this he plans first to
examine the early anonymous Alfarabi translations with the hope that an examination of the 12th century
Hebrew translations of Alfarabi’s Art of Disputation and the Sophistics may shed some light on the
circumstances of its translation in Spain or Provence. He will also work with another member of the
proposed group, Tony Street, on the Hebrew translation of several of Averroes’ late essays on logic and
their influence on Hebrew logic in 14th Provence. Confirmed Participant

2. Gad Freudenthal, Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS, France. Freudenthal’s scholarly
activity has been devoted to the history and sociology of philosophy/science among the Jews. In this
domain, he has edited many collective volumes and established and edited the journal Aleph: Historical
Studies in Science and Judaism, now in its seventeenth year. He proposes to look systematically at the use
of logic in Hebrew religious polemical texts in the 12th to 15th centuries written in the Midi, Italy, and
Christian Spain: he will notably try to reveal actual appeals to logic, i.e. where an author orders his
polemical reasoning according to the canons of Aristotelian logic, whether or not he explicitly he says
that he does so. In parallel, he will look at the genesis of the Hebrew translations of logical texts, and
notably at the justifications offered by the translators: he will try to assess whether when the translators
praise logic on account of its utility to Judaism they were merely apologetic (to the intention of opponents
of the study of “Greek wisdom”) or reflect genuine beliefs and intentions. Together, so he hopes, both
parts will make a contribution to a contextualized history of the appropriation and use of logic in
medieval Hebrew cultures. Past IIAS Organizer/Fellow: Jewish Physicians in Medieval Europe (March 1,
2012- Aug. 31, 2012); Past IIAS Organizer/Fellow: “Transmission and Appropriation of the Secular
Sciences, etc.” (March 1, 2007 – Aug. 31, 2007). Confirmed Participant.

3. Joseph Stern, Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago. Stern is known both for his work in
contemporary philosophy of language, and in his studies of medieval epistemology (theory of
knowledge). His recent book on Maimonides won the annual book prize awarded by the Journal of the
History of Philosophy. He proposes to study the epistemic status of Aristotelian demonstrations
(conclusive proofs), according to the 13th and 14th-century commentaries of the Guide of the Perplexed.
Maimonides had emphasized the importance of demonstrating theological truths, when possible, and
much recent work has been done on the proper understanding of Aristotelian demonstration in its
Hellenistic and Arabic contexts. How did the medieval Jewish intellectuals understand demonstration,
and, specifically, what weight did they accord to demonstrations for the existence of God, the
creation/eternity of the world? etc. Confirmed Participant

4. Tony Street, Hartwell Assistant Director of Research in Islamic Studies, Divinity, Cambridge;
Fellow, Clare Hall, Cambridge. Street is a historian of Arabic logic who is concerned above all with the
ultimate cultural significance of Aristotelian logic in Islamic intellectual history. Street has recently begun
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work on Averroes's late essays on logic; these essays provide a critical analysis of Avicenna's work
instructively different from those of the eastern logicians, and virtually all of them are extant in Hebrew
translations, a critical point for establishing the text. Tony Street proposes to finalize an annotated
translation of Averroes’ Essay on Hypothetical Syllogisms (With a Critique of Avicenna’s Connective
Syllogisms), which survives in a unique Arabic manuscript and a Latin translation done by way of a
Hebrew intermediary. The Essay is, among other things, a major contribution to the discussion of
Avicenna’s alternative proposals for how to conceive and divide the syllogistic, and may help cast new
light on the decisions taken on these matters by logicians writing in Hebrew, including Levi Gersonides.
He looks forward to examining the development of the Arabic logical tradition in the medieval Jewish
context. Confirmed Participant.

B. Fellows from Israel

5. Yehuda Halper, Senior Lecturer in Jewish Thought, Bar-Ilan University (Convener 2). Halper,
recently awarded the Alon Prize, specializes in late medieval Jewish thought, especially in Spain. Yehuda
Halper will explore the relative demarcation of logic and metaphysics in the thought of medieval Jews.
Medieval Jewish philosophers in the Aristotelian tradition saw a critical distinction between logic and
metaphysics. Logic was held to lay the groundwork for rational discourse, while metaphysics is itself was
viewed as the highest form of discourse involving the study of being in all its form, including its highest
form, God. However, at the same time, according to Aristotle, the principles of all rational inquiry are
determined by a metaphysical understanding of the structure of being. How then did medieval Jewish
philosophers maintain strict distinctions between logic and metaphysics? To what extent did they see
philosophical understanding of being and God as part of the groundwork of all rational discourse? Also,
given the ubiquitous declarations of the importance of metaphysics and preliminary character of logic,
why do we find many more original Hebrew writings on logic than on metaphysics? Confirmed
Participant.

6. Daniel J. Lasker, Norbert Blechner Professor of Jewish Values in the Goldstein-Goren
Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Lasker’s fields of expertise
include medieval Jewish-Christian philosophical polemic and Karaite Jewish thought. Daniel Lasker
proposes to study the place of Aristotelian logic in the Jewish-Christian Debate. Interreligious polemic
was a major genre of medieval literature and is characterized by attempts of partisan thinkers to prove the
truth of their positions. As such, questions of epistemology are paramount in these debates. In their search
for decisive arguments, polemicists on both side enlisted ideas that had their origin in Aristotelian logic.
In addition, some arguments were framed specifically as Aristotelian syllogisms. The purpose of the study
is to evaluate the extent of the use of Aristotelian logic in the medieval Jewish-Christian debate.
Confirmed Participation. Past IIAS Fellow: Guest Fellow, 1992-1993: Interreligious Polemic (Hava
Lazarus-Yafeh); 1995: Saadia Gaon (Menachem Ben-Sasson, Robert Brody). Confirmed Participant

7. Hagar Kahana-Smilansky Instructor in the Program for the History, Philosophy, and Sociology
of Science at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Kahana-Smilansky specializes in the history of
science and medicine and has published numerous articles in these areas. She proposes to study the place
of logic in medical textbooks translated into Hebrew, as well as the curricular requirements of Jewish
medical students. She is particularly interested in tracing the appropriation of Galenic logic by the Jews
through the translation of medical texts. Confirmed Participant.

8. Hannah Kasher, Professor of Jewish Thought, Bar Ilan University. Kasher has written several
books in the area of medieval Jewish philosophy and specializes inter alia in the thought of Joseph Ibn
Kaspi, a well-known 14th-century intellectual and Biblical exegete and has notably co-authored a study of
one of his commentaries on logic. Kasher will scrutinize the actual use \of logic in Kaspi’s Biblical
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