School · 20 BCE–1344 CE
Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy is philosophical reflection in Jewish traditions on scripture, law, creation, reason, ethics, and communal life.
Shared questions
- How can philosophical reason and revealed law illuminate one another?
Internal disagreements
- Whether scripture should be read allegorically, rationally, mystically, or through the authority of legal tradition.
Key texts
- The Book of Beliefs and Opinions · 933 — Saadia's Judaeo-Arabic work is the first systematic Jewish philosophy, built on kalām argument.
- The Kuzari — Halevi's dialogue defends revelation against the philosophers through the frame of a king's conversion.
- Guide of the Perplexed — Maimonides wrote in Arabic for a single reader and warned that the book conceals as much as it states.