The world of medieval Jewish philosophy, often discussed only in the context of developments within Christendom and Islam, possessed a rich, integrated, and internally matured tradition. Isaac Husik's monumental account of its development should serve to place in perspective the role which philosophy played in the articulation of the Jewish world-view. Beginning with its seminal creators, Isaac Israeli and Saadia Gaon, Husik traces its history through the great creative figures of the Judeo-lslamic Age — Ibn Gabirol, Bahyer ibn Pakuda, Judah Halevi, and Maimonides — and closes with a presentation of the thought of.those last and transitional thinkers, Gresonides, Crescas, and Albo.
A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy is a fundamental and indispensable work for students and laymen concerned with the development of Jewish religion and the enlargement of Western tradition in which Jewish philosophy played & vital and creative role.
About the Author
Isaac Husik was born near Kiev, Russia, in 1876 and came, with his family, to the United States in 1888. After studying at the jewish Theological Seminary, Husik pursued his secular studies at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving his doctorate in 1903. The present work, first published in 1916, was followed by works of considerable importance to scholarship: his translation of the important mediaeval Jewish apologetic work, the Sefer Haikkarim of Joseph Albo, and translations of von Ihering's Law as a Means to an End, and Stammler's The Theory of Justice. After a number of years of ill-health, Husik died in 1939. In 1952, Philosopihcal Essays, his selected essays on Judaism, Jewish philosophy, jurisprudence and the philosophy of law, were published in a volume edited by Milton Nahm and Leo Strauss.
