Jedaiah Ben Abraham Bedersi - Philosophical Works

Philosophical Works

Bedersi also wrote a large number of treatises on philosophy, several of which are quoted by Moses ibn Ḥabib in the introduction to his commentary on the Beḥinat ha-'Olam. Seven of these works are still extant in manuscript:

1. Annotations on the Physics of Averroes (De Rossi MS. No. 1398)
2. Annotations on the Canon of Avicenna (MSS. Oxford, Nos. 2100, 2107, and 2121, 6)
3. Ketab ha-Da'at" (Treatise on the Intellect), a modification of the Hebrew version (entitled Sefer ha-Sekel we ha-Muskalat) of Alfarabi's Arabic work, Kitab al-'Akl we al-Ma'akulat
4. Ha-De'ot be-Sekel ha-Ḥomri (The Theories Concerning the Material Intellect), in which Bedersi gives the diverse opinions on the Passive Intellect as expounded by Aristotle in De Anima (compare Alexander of Aphrodisias)
5. Ha-Ma'amar be-Hafoke ha-Meḥallek (Treatise on the Opposites in the Motions of the Spheres), explaining a passage in the commentary of Averroes on Aristotle's De Cœlo, i. 4
6. Ketab ha-Hit'aẓmut (Book of Consolidation), in which Bedersi answers the objections made by a friend of his to the theories expounded in the preceding work
7. a dissertation, bearing no title, on the question whether (in Aristotelean philosophy) individuals of the same species, diverse in their "accidents," differ also in their essential form; or whether form is inherent in the species and embraces it entirely, so that individuals differ solely by reason of their "accidents." In Bedersi's opinion there are two forms: a general one embracing the whole species; and a special individual form which is essential and can not be considered as an "accident." In this dissertation is quoted another work of Bedersi's, his Midbar Ḳadmut (The Desert of Antiquity), containing a commentary—no longer in existence—on the twenty-five premises given by Maimonides in his introduction to the second volume of the Guide of the Perplexed. It is probable that Bedersi wrote a supercommentary on the commentary on Genesis by Abraham ibn Ezra (compare Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1283), and that he was the author of the philosophical poem on the thirteen articles of belief of Maimonides (compare Luzzatto, Ḥotam Toknit, p. 2).