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On the status of the astronomy and physics in Maimonides' Mishneh Torah and Guide of the Perplexed: a chapter in the history of science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Menachem Kellner
Menachem Kellner
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Mt Carmel, Haifa 31999, Israel.
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Extract

An interesting question arises in the context of the typically medieval description of the universe presented at the beginning of Maimonides' (1138–1204) great law code, the Mishneh Torah. What was Maimonides' own attitude towards that account? Was it meant only as a statement of the best description of nature available at the time (and thus radically distinct from the halakhic (i.e. Jewish legal) matters which make up the bulk of the Mishneh Torah) or was it meant to be a description of the true nature of the universe as it really is, not subject to revision in the light of new paradigms or new models (and thus essentially similar to the halakhic matters in the text)? Answering this question will lead us to a better understanding of Maimonides' understanding of the nature of science and of what I shall call, for lack of a better term, scientific progress. Maimonides will be shown to hold that while sublunar science can reach perfection and completion such is not possible for superlunar science and that to the extent that the scientific matters in the Mishneh Torah deal with the latter they could not have been presented as the final description of the universe as it truly is.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , December 1991 , pp. 453 - 463
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1991

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References

1 Kellner, M., ‘Maimonides on the science of the Mishneh Torah – provisional or permanent?’ forthcoming.Google Scholar

2 Maimonides asserts that he was living on the eve of the messianic era and may have even meant it. For details, see my ‘A suggestion concerning Maimonides's “Thirteen Principles” and the status of non-Jews in the messianic era’, in Ayali, Meir (ed.), Tura – Oranim Studies in Jewish Thought: Simon Greenberg Jubilee Volume, Tel Aviv, Ha-Kibbutz ha-Meuhad, 1986, pp. 249–60Google Scholar, note 35 (p. 259) (Hebrew).

3 Maimonides, , Guide of the Perplexed, II.19 (tr. Pines, Shlomo), Chicago, 1963, p. 319.Google Scholar

4 Op. cit. (3), II.24, pp. 325–6.

5 Op. cit. (3), II.23, p. 322.

6 Op. cit. (3), II.24, p. 322.

7 On Maimonides' astronomy see Goldstein, Bernard R., The Astronomy of Levi Ben Gerson (1288–1344): A Critical Edition of Chapters 1–20 with Translation and Commentary, New York, 1985, pp. 5–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, briefly, in connection with II.24, Goldstein, , ‘Levi ben Gerson's theory of planetary distances’, Centaurus, (1986), 29, pp. 272–313CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. p. 277. Further on the Guide, II.24, see Nutkiewicz, Michael, ‘Maimonides on the Ptolemaic system: the limits of our knowledge’, Comitatus, (1978), 9, pp. 63–72Google Scholar; Neugebauer, Otto's study, ‘The astronomy of Maimonides and its sources’, Hebrew Union College Annual, (1949), 22, pp. 322–63Google Scholar, deals almost exclusively with Maimonides, ' halakhicGoogle Scholar treatise on the sanctification of the new Moon; pp. 334–7 deal briefly with the texts under study here. For the treatise on the new Moon itself, see The Code of Maimonides, Book Three, Treatise Eight: The Sanctification of the New Moon (tr. Gandz, Solomon, introduction by Julian Obermann, and astronomical commentary by Otto Neugebauer), New Haven, 1956.Google Scholar

8 Op. cit. (3), II.24, pp. 325–6.

9 i.e. in direct conversation.

10 Op. cit. (3), II.24, p. 326.

11 Duhem, Pierre, To Save the Phenomena: An Essay on the Idea of Physical Theory from Plato to Galileo (tr. Doland, Edmund and Maschler, Chaninah), Chicago, 1969.Google Scholar My attention was drawn to this issue by Freudenthal, Gad, ‘Human felicity and astronomy: Gersonides' revolt against Ptolemy’, Da'at, (1989), 22, pp. 55–72Google Scholar (Hebrew). My indebtedness to Freudenthal's sophisticated and fascinating discussion is considerable. Duhem's account of the status of astronomical hypothesis in the classical world has been called into question by G. Lloyd, E. R., ‘Saving the Appearances’, Classical Quarterly, (1978), 28, pp. 202–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For further reservations, see the next two notes.

12 Or so Duhem thought; he was apparently wrong about Ptolemy. See Goldstein, Bernard R., ‘The Arabic version of Ptolemy's Planetary Hypotheses’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (NS), (1967), 57, pp. 1–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 As we shall see immediately, Duhem's distinction is very helpful for understanding Maimonides; that does not mean that he is necessarily correct in the way in which he applies it across the board through the entire history of medieval science. For criticism of Duhera's understanding of astronomy in the sixteenth century see Jardine, N., The Birth of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, 1984, pp. 225–57.Google Scholar

14 For a discussion of this issue, see Bechler, Z., ‘The methodological basis of Maimonides' attack on Aristotelian physics’, Iyyun, (1966), 17, pp. 34–41Google Scholar (Hebrew). I am not convinced by Bechler's claim that Maimonides' main intent here was to undermine the authority of Aristotle generally so as to make the conflict between Aristotelian philosophy and Judaism less severe. See further Pines, Shlomo, ‘Philosophy, mathematics, and the concepts of space in the Middle Ages’, in Elkana, Y. (ed.), The Interaction Between Science and Philosophy, Highlands, NJ, 1974, pp. 165–74Google Scholar; reprinted in Pines, , Studies in Arabic Versions of Greek Texts and in Mediaeval Science (The Collected Works of Shlomo Pines, Vol. II) (Jerusalem, 1986): 359–74, pp. 80–1Google Scholar (original), pp. 364–5 (reprint).

15 Op. cit. (3), II.24, p. 326.

16 Duhem, , op. cit. (11), pp. 32–5.Google Scholar

17 Op. cit. (3), II.11, pp. 273–4.

18 Op. cit. (3), II.24, p. 327. Compare Duhem's explanation: ‘The beings with which the first of these two kinds of physics deals are regarded as of a nature infinitely higher than that with which the second physics deals; hence the inference that the former is incomparably more difficult than the latter. Proclus teaches that sublunary physics is accessible to man, whereas celestial physics passes his understanding and is reserved for the Divine. Maimonides shares this view of Proclus; celestial physics, according to him, is full of mysteries the knowledge of which God has kept unto Himself; but terrestrial physics, fully worked out, is available in the work of Aristotle.’ Duhem then makes the following interesting observation, ‘Yet, contrary to what the men of antiquity and the Middle Ages thought, the celestial physics they had constructed was singularly more advanced than their terrestrial physics’ (Duhem, , op. cit. (11), p. 114).Google Scholar

19 The precise extent of those limits is a matter of scholarly debate. See Pines, Shlomo, ‘The limitations of human knowledge according to Al-Farabi, ibn Bajjah, and Maimonides’, in Twersky, Isadore (ed.), Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature, Vol.1, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 82–109Google Scholar and Altmann, Alexander, ‘Maimonides on the intellect and the scope of metaphysics’, in Altmann, 's Von der mittelalterlichen zur modernen Aufklaerung, Tuebingen, 1987, pp. 60–129.Google Scholar

20 I have explored this issue in detail in ‘Maimonides and Gersonides on astronomy and metaphysics’, in Kottek, S. and Rosner, F. (eds.), Maimonides on Medicine, Science and Philosophy, New York, Jason Aronson, 1991Google Scholar, in press.

21 ‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, I.1, as interpreted by Isaac Abravenal (1437–1508) in his Principles of faith (tr. Kellner, M.), E. Brunswick, NJ, Associated University Presses, 1982, p. 76Google Scholar (Chapter 5, 4th objection).

Maimonides, ' Mishneh TorahGoogle Scholar is divided into fourteen volumes; each volume into parts (each called ‘Laws of…’); each part into chapters; and each chapter into paragraphs. It is customary to ignore the volume and cite by part name, chapter number, and paragraph number. The discussion below will centre on Vol. 1 (called Sefer ha-Madda, or Book of Knowledge), part 1 (‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’). For an English translation readers are referred to Hyamson, Moses (ed. and tr.), Mishneh Torah: The Book of Knowledge by Maimonides, New York, Feldheim, 1974.Google Scholar

22 Op. cit. (3), II.24, p. 327.

23 Op. cit. (3), II.24.

24 ‘Laws of the Foundations of the Torah’, III.5.

25 Neugebauer, , op. cit. (7)Google Scholar, mentions this contradiction in passing on pp. 334ff. It is subjected to close examination by Langermann, Tzvi, ‘The true perplexity: the Guide of the Perplexed Part II, Chapter 24’, in Kraemer, J. (ed.), Perspectives on Maimonides: Philosophical and Historical Studies, Oxford, 1991, pp. 159–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Langermann's fine study, which I had the privilege of reading only after completing this paper, suggests ways of eliminating the contradictions. This attempt, however, does not take into account all of the issues raised in the present context and cannot be seen as wholly successful.

26 Op. cit. (24), III.1.

27 Op. cit. (3) II.9, pp. 268–9.

28 Op.cit.(3), II.10.My attention was drawn to Maimonides' discussion here by Gad Freudenthal. Dr Freudenthal was kind enough to send me a draft of his forthcoming essay, ‘Rambam's stance on astrology in context: cosmology, physics, medicine, and providence’ in which, inter alia, he provides a sensitive and sophisticated analysis of II.10.

29 Ibid., p. 270.

30 Ibid., p. 271.

31 Ibid., p. 272.

32 For details, see my Maimonides on Human Perfection, Atlanta, Scholars Press, 1990, pp. 1–5.Google Scholar

33 I do not mean to imply that Maimonides never follows Ptolemy in the Guide; he does in III.14.

34 A less likely option: Maimonides constantly corrected the Mishneh Torah and had he changed his mind about such important matters as those raised here it is more than likely that he would have corrected the text.

35 I do not believe that for Maimonides the acquisition of metaphysical insight is the final rung in the ladder of perfection open to and demanded of human beings. On this see Maimonides on Human Perfection (op. cit. (32)).Google Scholar

36 I would like to thank Gad Freudenthal, Bernard R. Goldstein, and Giora Hon for their help and suggestions. I would also like to thank Mrs Hadassah Goldberg for her assistance in obtaining some of the materials on which I relied in this study. The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture supported the research on which this study is based. I am pleased here to thank the Foundation for its support.