Abraham Ibn Daud - Philosophy

Philosophy

Ibn Daud was by no means an original thinker, nor did he produce a new philosophy; but he was the first to introduce that phase of Jewish philosophy which is generally attributed to Maimonides and which differs from former systems of philosophy mainly in its more thorough systematic form derived from Aristotle. Accordingly, Hasdai Crescas mentions Ibn Daud as the only Jewish philosopher among the predecessors of Maimonides (Or Adonai, ch. i.). But having been completely overshadowed by Maimonides' classical work, the Moreh Nebukim, Abraham ibn Daud's Emunah Ramah ("Sublime Faith"), a work to which Maimonides himself was indebted for many valuable suggestions, received scant notice from later philosophers.

The only Jewish philosophical works that Ibn Daud had before him, according to his own statement ("Emunah Ramah," p. 2, or in German trans., p. 3), were Saadia's Emunot we-De'ot, and "The Fountain of Life" by Solomon ibn Gabirol. On the one hand, he fully recognizes the merits of Saadia Gaon, although he does not adopt his views on the freedom of the will, notwithstanding that the solution of this problem was to be the chief aim and purpose of his whole system ("Emunah Ramah," p. 98; German trans., p. 125). On the other hand, his attitude toward Gabirol is entirely antagonistic, and even in the preface to his "Emunah Ramah" he pitilessly condemns Gabirol's "Fountain of Life." See Kaufmann, "Studien über Solomon ibn Gabirol," Budapest, 1899.

Being the first strict Aristotelian among the Jews—who considered Aristotle and his Arabic commentators, Alfarabi and Ibn Sina, to be the only true philosophers (ib. pp. 23, 50, 62; German trans., pp. 30, 65, 78)—Ibn Daud feels himself provoked to constant opposition by the doctrines of Gabirol, who represents the Neoplatonic philosophy. Impartial enough to accord to childlike faith its full rights, Ibn Daud desires also to defend the rights of reason, and, consequently, resists with the utmost energy any attempt to set bounds to science; regarding this as a culpable encroachment upon the plan of the Divine Ruler, who did not endow man with the faculty of thought without intent.

True philosophy, according to Ibn Daud, does not entice us from religion; it tends rather to strengthen and solidify it. Moreover, it is the duty of every thinking Jew to become acquainted with the harmony existing between the fundamental doctrines of Judaism and those of philosophy, and, wherever they seem to contradict one another, to seek a mode of reconciling them. Ibn Daud insists that, however highly philosophy may be valued, the religion of Judaism is preferable. Knowledge, which had been acquired by philosophers through the evolution of several thousands of years, and after overcoming the gravest errors, had been bestowed upon Judaism from the beginning through revelation (ib. p. 62; German trans., p. 79). As to moral truths, it may be even assumed as probable that the philosophers did not attain to them through independent study, but rather under the influence of the doctrines of Holy Scripture (ib. p. 101; German trans., p. 130).