The Many Faces of Maimonides

This volume offers a new reading of Maimonides’ "Guide of the Perplexed". In particular, it explores how Maimonides’ commitment to integrity led him to a critique of the Kalam, to a complex concept of immortality, and to insight into the human yearning for metaphysical knowledge. Maimonide’s search for objective truth is also analyzed in its connection with the scientific writings of his time, which neither the Kalam nor the Jewish philosophical tradition that preceded him had endorsed. Through a careful analysis of these issues, this book seeks to contribute to the understanding of the modes of thought adopted in "The Guide of the Perplexed," including the “philosophical theologian” model of Maimonide’s own design, and to the knowledge of its sources.

Dov Schwartz, a former Dean of Humanities at Bar Ilan University and head of the departments of Philosophy and of Music, currently heads its interdisciplinary unit, and holds the Natalie and Isidore Friedman Chair for Teaching Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s Thought.