Rabbi David Sedley

A repository of written, audio and video Torah classes given by Rabbi David Sedley

Shem Tov ibn Falaquera

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This shiur is about Shem Tov ibn Falaquera (though there are many different ways of spelling his last name).

Here is what Jewish Virtual Library says about ibn Falaquera:

Shem Tov b. Joseph ibn Falaquera (c. 1225–c. 1295), translator and author of many works devoted largely to ethics and psychology, also wrote Moreh ha-Moreh, a commentary on Maimonides’ Guide. In this commentary he corrects Ibn Tibbon’s translation of the Guide on the basis of the Arabic original, and he cites parallel passages from the works of Islamic philosophers, particularly from Averroes. In his Iggeret ha-Vikku’aḥ, a dialogue between a philosopher and an opponent of philosophy, he justifies the study of philosophy. In his Sefer ha-Nefesh he follows Avicenna, but in his encyclopedic work De’ot ha-Pilosofim he follows Averroes. He translated and condensed Ibn Gabirol’s Mekor Ḥayyim from Arabic into Hebrew.

If you want to hear what I have to say about him, click on the links.

Here is the shiur:
Here is the audio shiur (and the pdf sheets to download if you want).
Shem Tov ibn Falaquera
(Right click and then ‘download as’)
Shem Tov ibn Falaquera Source Sheets

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2 responses to “Shem Tov ibn Falaquera”

  1. I want to reframe the whole Torah vs Philosophy thing…

    How do we resolve the contradictions between Quantum Mechanics and Relativity? (See Aspaqlaria post.) Do we try to come up with a rule about each magesteria, and say that "whenever the study of the very small provides conclusions that conflict with the study of the very large, we…"? Of course not.

    We admit that we have two sources of information that each have proven valuable and reliable in the past, and we assume there is a forthcoming answer. We don't assert that we must already know enough to answer the question, that some system of inquiry must have betrayed us.

    So why are we doing the same when one of those sources is the mesorah, rather than another subdivision of science or philosophy?