The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Philosophy

by Franks, Paul W.; Melamed, Yitzhak Y.

• ISBN13: 9780190455460
• ISBN10: 0190455462
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2026-03-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This Handbook provides an examined and nuanced overview of the history and devlopment of Jewish philosophy, from antiquity up to current trends in the field. Editors Paul W. Franks and Yitzhak Y. Melamed have brought together an international team of philosophers and scholars to tackle a complex and multi-layered literary corpus that stretches over two millennia. This volume is comprised of six divisions, each telling the story of Jewish philosophy from a distinctive vantage point: an introductory section addressing the place and historiography of Jewish philosophy within broader academia; the history of Jewish philosophy with an eye towards major schools and periods; interactions between Jewish philosophy and other branches of the Jewish literarary tradition; interactions with non-Jewish philosophy; key topics in Jewish philosophy; and new directions in the field. The result is a uniquely comprehensive and multi-layered survey of this incredibly important intellectual tradition. Drawing from thinkers at the top of their field and edited by two of the most important philosophers working today, this Handbook is the authoritative guide to the history, development, and trajectory of Jewish philosophy.

Author Biography

Paul W. Franks is the Robert F. and Patricia Weis Professor of Philosophy and Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University. He is the author of All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism, and the editor of Franz Rosenzweig: Philosophical and Theological Writings.
Yitzhak Y. Melamed is the Charlotte Bloomberg Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He is the editor of Modality: A History, and Eternity: A History, and is the author of The Young Spinoza and Spinoza's Metaphysics, among other book projects.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors
Editors Introduction

PART I: Introductory Chapters

1. Jewish Philosophy as Minority Philosophy
Yitzhak Y. Melamed

2. Jewish Philosophy within Jewish Studies
Paul W. Franks

3. The Historiography of Jewish Philosophy
Warren Zev Harvey

4. Linguistic Aspects of Philosophical Writing in Hebrew
Reimund Leicht

PART II: Major Schools and Periods

5. Hellenistic Jewish Philosophy
Carlos Lévy

6. Kalám and Jewish Philosophy
Gyongyi Hegedus

7. Jewish Medieval Emanationisms
Sarah Pessin

8. Aristotelian Philosophical Programs in the Middle Ages
Yehuda Halper

9. Maimonides and the Maimonidean Controversies
Gregg Stern

10. Post-Maimonidean Jewish Philosophy in the West
Shalom Sadik

11. Ashkenazic Jews and Medieval Jewish Philosophy
Joseph M. Davis

12. Spinoza and Jewish Philosophy
Jason Maurice Yonover

13. The Berlin Haskalah and Philosophy
Paul W. Franks

14. Jewish Kantianism and Idealism
Myriam Bienenstock

15. Jewish Idealism
Michael L. Morgan

16. Twentieth-Century French Jewish Thought
Annabel Herzog

17. Mizrahi Jewish Thought
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite

18. Jewish Philosophy in the State of Israel
Noam Oren

PART III: Interaction with Other Jewish Literary Corpora

19. Early Rabbinic Engagements with Greco-Roman Philosophy
Maren R. Niehoff

20. Karaite Philosophy
Daniel J. Lasker

21. Interactions between Jewish philosophy and Hebrew literature during the Middle Ages
James Theodore Robinson

22. Kabbalah, Philosophy and Pan(en)theism
Cristina Ciucu

23. East-European Hasidism and Philosophy
Gadi Sagiv

24. The attitude of Ashkenazi Rabbinic culture to philosophy during the past two centuries
Benjamin Brown


PART IV: Interaction with Non-Jewish philosophy

25. Impact of Islam on Medieval Jewish Philosophical Theology
Y. Tzvi Langermann

26. Interaction Between Jewish and Christian Philosophers
Mercedes Rubio

PART V: Key Topics

27. Free Will
Charles Manekin

28. Jewish Philosophy and Law
Yonatan Y. Brafman

29. Jewish Philosophical Conceptions of God
Gabriel citron

30. Religious Responsiveness
Howard Wettstein


31. Ideal Society and State
Leora Batnitzky

32. The Other
Menachem Kellner

33. Gender
Sarah Zager

PART VI: New Directions

34. Philosophia Rabbinica
Eli Hirsch