In and Around Maimonides presents eight highly focused studies on Moses Maimonides and those around him. “In Maimonides” refers to close readings of passages from Maimonides’ writings; “around Maimonides” refers to concentric circles, beginning with his own family (his father R. Maimon and his son R. Abraham), with whom Maimonides’ views are in conversation; medieval Yemen, where Maimonides’ writings were studied and glossed in their original language; Judah Halevi, a major figure in Andalusian Judaeo-Arabic culture with whom Maimonides is often contrasted; and, finally a wide range of Judaeo-Arabic figures, all of whom engaged with the vocabularies of religion. These studies offer new and important insights into the thought of Maimonides on a variety of issues, such as the capacity of humans to better themselves morally, the political nature of prophecy, and the proper way to approach God.
Table of Contents (v)
Preface (vii)
Chapter One. Against whom is Maimonides arguing in Guide I, 68? (1)
Chapter Two. Configuring the Soul: Maimonides on the Improvement of Moral Character (33)
Chapter Three. Why is there no discussion of the equivocal term ʾor (‘light’) in The Guide of the Perplexed? (71)
Chapter Four. The Face of God in the Thought of Moses Maimonides and the Arabophone Maimonideans (91)
Chapter Five. An Extensive Marginalium on the Expression, ‘Humans are social by nature’, in a Yemeni commentary to Maimonides’ Guide (113)
Chapter Six. ‘The Most Difficult of all the Premises’: A Yemeni Commentary to Maimonides’ Guide, Book II, Proposition 16 (129)
Chapter Seven. In Search of Ancient Authority: The Appeal to Plato at Critical Junctures in Halevi’s Cuzari and Maimonides’ Guide (143)
Chapter Eight. The Vocabularies of ‘Religion’ in the writings of Halevi and Maimonides (167)
Bibliography (199)
Index (217)
