Moses Maimonides

1. Moses Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed

2. Old synagogue, Cordoba 1314-5 Saladin court physician M’s Synagogue, Cairo http://bokertov.typepad.com/btb/2005/week17/ Israeli Banknote http://www.jr.co.il/pictures/israel/currency/ Maimonides 1135-1204ce Cordoba, Fez, Cairo

3. For human happiness, do we need both reason and revelation? • Note that this is written in Arabic • Harmonizing Jewish religious tradition with the philosophy of the day • This is a question about true prophecy and the relation of this prophecy to reason

4. Preliminaries • PP. 223-224. • All prophets except Moses receive prophecy through an angel • There will never be another prophet who perceives or acts as Moses did

5. What is prophecy? • P. 225 • An emanation sent forth by the Divine Being through the medium of the Active Intellect, in the first instance to man’s rational faculty, and then to his imaginative faculty.

6. What does it take to be a prophet? • Look at p. 226 and make a list

7. Excellence or virtue of the faculties • Mental perfection is acquired by training • Imaginative faculty—must not be burdened and must be informed by the mental • Moral perfection requires the suppression of bodily pleasures

8. Divine influence results in three classes of people • Wise—in whom logic is perfected • Prophets—in whom logic and imaginative faculties are perfected • Statesmen, lawgivers, diviners, dreamers—in whom only the imaginative faculty is influenced • These may believe they are prophets, but fall into error

9. Perfecting others • Both the wise and prophets can do this • But some in each category only perfect themselves, not others. • A true prophet possesses wisdom