Moses b. Joseph Halevi’s Place in the History of Jewish Thought

Moses b. Joseph Halevi, an enigmatic medieval Andalusian philosopher about whom nearly nothing is known, was one of the strongest adherents of Avicenna’s philosophy among the Jews in the West, and it is plausible that he was a contemporary of Maimonides. Everything about Moses seems “out of place”: he exhibits no interest in religious issues, he positions himself against mainstream Arabic philosophy, and our most important source for him is a Judaeo-Arabic Kabbalistic text (Joseph ibn Waqar’s Reconciliation between Philosophy and the Revealed Law). Retracing Moses’s persona and the reception of his ideas in Jewish thought offers us a glimpse at an as-yet underexplored fringe element within it, with historiographic ramifications that go far beyond his own philosophical agenda.

In the proposed talk, I will explore three very different realms in which Moses’s impact can be shown: (1) the theoretical foundation for Ibn Waqar’s synthesis between philosophy and Kabbalah; (2) the revival of Avicennian tendencies in late 14th century Jewish Neoplatonic circles; (3) the ambivalent analysis of metaphysical argumentation in Hasdai Crescas and his school.

I will argue for two overarching points: (1) there is a considerable difference between what Moses set out to achieve and the realms in which his thought were eventually influential; (2) Moses’s place in the historiography of medieval Jewish philosophy should be seriously reconsidered. Although he did not enjoy a wide readership, his thought was instrumental in key moments in the Jewish philosophical landscape.