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Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being (Monographs of the Hebrew Union College)
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson
€ 57.06
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Description for Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being (Monographs of the Hebrew Union College)
Hardcover. From Plato to the present, Western philosophers have debated the meaning of "happiness". Arranged chronologically, this study explores the development of Rabbinic thought and Jewish philiosophy, and the connections between the various perspectives. Series: Monographs of the Hebrew Union College. Num Pages: 500 pages. BIC Classification: HPC; HPM; HRJ; HRLB. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 229 x 152 x 43. Weight in Grams: 1084.
It is not common to think that Jews were interested in happiness or that Judaism has anything to say about happiness. On the contrary, the concept of happiness was a central concern of Jewish thinkers. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson shows that rabbinic Judaism regarded itself primarily as a prescription for the attainment of happiness, and that the discourse on happiness captures the evolution of Jewish intellectual history from antiquity to the seventeenth century. These claims make sense if one understands happiness as human flourishing on the basis of Aristotle's thought in the Nichomachean Ethics. Linking virtue, knowledge, and well-being, Aristotle's analysis of happiness can be traced in Jewish understanding of human flourishing as early as the Greco-Roman world, but the fusion of Greek and Judaic perspectives on happiness reached its zenith in in the Middle Ages in the thought of Moses Maimonides and his followers. Even the controversies about Maimonides' ideas could be viewed as discussions about the meaning of happiness and the way to attain it within Judaism. Much of this book, then, concerns the reception of Aristotle's Ethics in medieval Jewish philosophy. This book shows how a certain notion of happiness reflects the intellectual culture of a given period, including cultural exchanges among Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Demonstrating the discourse on happiness as a dramatic interplay between Wisdom and Torah, between philosophy and religion, between reason and faith, Hava Tirosh-Samuelson presents, to specialists and non-specialists alike, a fascinating tour of Jewish intellectual history.
Product Details
Publisher
Hebrew Union College Press
Format
Hardback
Publication date
2003
Series
Monographs of the Hebrew Union College
Condition
New
Weight
1124g
Number of Pages
608
Place of Publication
, United States
ISBN
9780878204533
SKU
V9780878204533
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 15 to 20 working days
Ref
99-2
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