Publishes Work on Jewish Philosophy

The Harvard University Press has just announced the publication of a scholarly work in the field of the history of philosophy by Prof. Harry Austryn Wolfson, entitled “Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle,” dealing with the problems of Aristotle’s “Physics” as they appear in medieval Jewish and Arabic philosophy.

This work was completed eleven years ago and remained in manuscript form until its publication was now made possible through the munificence of Lucius N. Littauer, the founder of the chair in Jewish Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University. It consists of about 800 pages, devoted to an exhaustive research of manuscript material found in the great libraries of Europe, such as the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, the Bodleian of Oxford, the British Museum, the Vatican, Munich, Vienna, Berlin, Parma, Jews’ College of London and the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York. It is believed to be as minute a study of Hebrew philosophical texts as was ever undertaken.

In the preface the author explains that he applied to the study of philosophy the Talmudic method of reasoning which he analyzes and describes as the hypothetico-deductive method. This form of reasoning, he states, is sometimes derogatorily referred to as Talmudic quibbling or piupul, but in reality it is the application of the scientific method to the study of texts.