One of the ideas of this blog was that scholars in the field should use it as a space to test-run new ideas and new work. So, I’m going to be brave and share a half-written, and incomplete draft of … Continue reading
Rabbi Soloveitchik isolates a variety of types of repentance that emerge from the classical Jewish texts. In this paper, I reflect upon three of them, their inter-relationship and their philosophical significance – concentrating especially on the following question, in what … Continue reading
The Talmud debates whether there is such a thing as ‘breira’ or not. ‘Breira’ literally means clarification, but in the Talmudic debate that I’m talking about, it would better be translated as retroactive clarification…. or something like that. If a … Continue reading
I was recently asked to write an article of philosophical interest for a Jewish publication. The content is aimed at the lay-person, but perhaps people here will find it interesting. I’d be grateful, as ever, for your comments. As a … Continue reading
The symposium on Eleonore Stump’s paper, “Saadia Gaon on The Problem of Evil” (Faith and Philosophy 1997, Vol. 14, No. 4: 523-49), is now underway. Prof. Stump has kindly agreed to participate in the Symposium. In what follows, I replicate the … Continue reading
There is an argument known as the Kuzari Principle.It tries to justify belief in whole swathes of the Biblical narrative,especially in the revelation at Mount Sinai. In this blog post, I hope to showthat the argument is much stronger than … Continue reading
Since the foundation of this blog, I have slowly come round to the following questions. These questions are not posted here because I have something by way of an answer to them; something that I’d wish to share. I don’t … Continue reading
Having spent some time thinking about medieval approaches to the freewill problem – the apparent contradiction between God’s foreknowledge and our freedom – Rabbi Herzl Hefter introduced me to the work of the Chassidic Rebbe, R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner, otherwise … Continue reading
When we established this blog, I wrote to the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, Lord Sacks. He is surely one of the greatest living rabbis and one of the greatest living Jewish philosophers/thinkers/leaders, so, I … Continue reading
It strikes me that the solution proposed by Maimonides to the freewill problem has been wrongly equated with the solution put forward by Boethius. In what follows, I try to explain how the two proposals differ. I’d love to hear … Continue reading