Description
Book SynopsisBased on several years of research on Jewish intellectual life in the Renaissance, this book tries to distinguish the coordinates of “modernity” as premises of Jewish philosophy, and vice versa. In the first part, it is concerned with the foundations of Jewish philosophy, its nature as philosophical science and as wisdom. The second part is devoted to certain elements and challenges of the humanist and Renaissance period as reflected in Judaism: historical consciousness and the sciences, utopian tradition, the legal status of the Jews in Christian political tradition and in Jewish political thought, aesthetic concepts of the body and conversion.
Table of ContentsCONTENTS Introduction In Search of a Jewish Renaissance Chapter One Jewish Philosophy: Humanist Roots of a Contradiction in Terms Chapter Two The Prophetic-Poetic Dimension of Philosophy: The Ars Poetica and Immanuel of Rome Chapter Three Leone Ebreo’s Concept of Jewish Philosophy Chapter Four Conceptions of History: Azariah de’ Rossi Chapter Five Scientific Thought and the Exegetical Mind, with an Essay on the Life and Works of Rabbi Judah Loew Chapter Six Mathematical and Biblical Exegesis: Jewish Sources of Athanasius Kircher’s Musical Theory Chapter Seven Creating Geographical and Political Utopias: The Ten Lost Tribes and the East Chapter Eight Ceremonial Law: History of a Philosophical-Political Concept Chapter Nine The City and the Ghetto: Simone Luzzatto and the Development of Jewish Political Thought Chapter Ten Body of Conversion and Immortality of the Soul: Sara Copio Sullam, the “Beautiful Jewess”
