Jewish Philosophy - Alexander Altmann 

Part III

Crescas’ attack is not confined to Gersonides but makes a valiant and successful attempt to demolish, on logical grounds, the whole edifice of Aristotelian metaphysics. His critique of Aristotle is destructive of such basic Aristotelian notions as Matter, Space and Time, and foreshadows the approaching Renaissance. Pico della Mirandola quotes him extensively, and Spinoza, possibly also Giordano Bruno, are indebted to him. Crescas’ demonstration of the infinity of Space and Time renders Aristotle’s proof for the existence of God (that of the "Prime Mover") invalid. But even an infinite world requires as its ground a necessary Being. Creation need not be interpretated as an act in Time, but must be understood as Creatio ex nihilo.

In Crescas, mediaeval Jewish Philosophy reaches its climax and turning-point. It had inherited from the Hellenistic period—through the mediation of Islam—the legacy of Neoplatonic Aristotelianism. In a gradual process, it had shed first Neoplatonism and eventually radical Aristotelianism as well. It was hard to see which philosophy, if any, was to replace the old and well-worn system of thought. For some time to come, one simply pretended that the crisis did not exist. Crescas’ successors in the field continued more or less the Aristotelian tradition. Simon ben Zemah Duran (1361-1444) reverts essentially to the position of Maimonides. Joseph Albo (d. 1444) seeks to harmonize Maimonides and Crescas. Don Isaac Abarbanel (1437-1509), the last Jewish thinker on Spanish soil, who shared with his people the tragic fate of the expulsion from Spain in 1492, is a lucid commentator of Maimonides. But mediaeval Jewish Philosophy was on its last legs. This is nowhere more patent than in the strained discussions which were carried on in an effort to mark off against each other the respective spheres of Reason and Revelation. 

© "History of Philosophy Eastern and Western" by Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, published by George Allen & Unwin Limited, Ruskin House, Museum Street, London. Part II of this article appeared in Splendour, October 2003 issue.

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