Maimonides’s Guide on Obstacles to Knowledge, Being, and Action

Maimonides’s GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED (ca. 1191 CE) is among the most important and elusive works in the history of Judaism and philosophy. Among the greatest difficulties has been determining what genre of writing it belongs to. Leo Strauss challenged the contemporary consensus that it is a work of ＂Jewish philosophy.＂ Rather, the GUIDE is first and foremost a defense of the Law, or what his predecessor, Alfarabi identified as the art of kalam or dialectical theology. Since Shlomo Pines’s 1979 article on the limits of knowledge in Maimonides, much scholarship has centered on these limits. In his 2013 book, Josef Stern identified two extremes on the limits of knowledge--the dogmatic and the skeptical. Here, Parens provides a middle ground between these two extremes and argues that the limits are intentionally vague, thereby making possible not only a defense of the Law but also a defense of philosophy. Parens argues that obstacles or privation are a key to the GUIDE as a whole.

Joshua Parens is professor of Philosophy and Politics, and former dean of the Braniff Graduate School at the University of Dallas. He received his BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College and MA and PhD degrees in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Along with many articles, Parens has published two monographs on Alfarabi, one on Maimonides and Spinoza, and one on Leo Strauss. He has served as president of the Association for Core Texts and Courses.