To date, scholars have skilfully discussed aspects of Polqar's
thought, and yet none of the existing studies offers a
comprehensive examination that covers Polqar's thought in its
entirety. This book aims to fill this lacuna by tracing and
contextualizing both Polqar's Islamic sources (al-Farabi, Avicenna,
and Averroes) and his Jewish sources (Maimonides and Isaac
Albalag). The study brings to light three of Polqar's main
purposes; (1) seeking to defend Judaism as a true religion against
Christianity; (2) similarly to his fellow Jewish Averroists, Polqar
wishes to defend the discipline of philosophy. By philosophy,
Polqar means Averroes' interpretation of Aristotle. As a
consequence, he offers an Averroistic interpretation of Judaism and
becomes one of the main representatives of Jewish Averroism; (3)
defending his philosophical interpretation of Judaism. From a
social and political point of view, Polqar's unreserved embrace of
philosophy raised problems within the Jewish community; he had to
refute the Jewish traditionalists' charge that he was a heretic,
led astray by philosophy. The main objective guiding this study is
that Polqar advances a systematic naturalistic interpretation of
Judaism, which in many cases does not agree with traditional Jewish
views. "Haliva's lucid, learned, and incisive monograph on the
thought of Isaac Polqar is the first comprehensive study devoted to
this important, but neglected fourteenth century Jewish Averroist.
It makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of
post-Maimonidean medieval Jewish philosophy. Haliva convincingly
shows that while Polqar claims to follow Maimonides, he
consistently pushes his thought in a more radical direction,
offering a severely naturalistic interpretation of Jewish religious
principles and refusing to make any concessions to more traditional
theological modes of thought. Her study leads us to ask whether it
is possible to uphold such an uncompromising philosophical and
naturalistic reading of Judaism as that of Polqar, that is, whether
it does justice to the Jewish religious principles it purports to
interpret and enables us to maintain the authority of traditional
Halakhah." Lawrence J. Kaplan, McGill University, Montreal "Racheli
Haliva's excellent book is the first comprehensive study of the
philosophy of Isaac Polqar (late thirteenth-early fourteenth
century). Polqar emerges as a radical and creative thinker-a
fascinating link between the philosophy of Averroes and Maimonides
and that of Spinoza." Warren Zev Harvey, Hebrew University of
Jerusalem "Haliva's groundbreaking book is the first comprehensive
study of Polqar's intellectual world, forged in the crucible of the
late Middle Ages where Greco-Arabic philosophy and the Maimonidean
legacy meet inner-Jewish and anti-Christian polemics. Polqar,
Haliva demonstrates, was a formidable thinker in his own right who
critically engages with Maimonides and Averroes. At the same time,
he defends the Jewish faith as the only true religion of
reason--against Kabbalists and Jewish traditionalists and against
his former teacher, Abner of Burgos, whose conversion to
Christianity was a major intellectual shock. This is a meticulously
researched and lucidly argued scholarly contribution that fills a
crucial gap in the history of Jewish philosophy." Carlos Fraenkel,
McGill University, Montreal
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