Download e-book The eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics (Shemonah perakim)

Free download. Book file PDF easily for everyone and every device. You can download and read online The eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics (Shemonah perakim) file PDF Book only if you are registered here. And also you can download or read online all Book PDF file that related with The eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics (Shemonah perakim) book. Happy reading The eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics (Shemonah perakim) Bookeveryone. Download file Free Book PDF The eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics (Shemonah perakim) at Complete PDF Library. This Book have some digital formats such us :paperbook, ebook, kindle, epub, fb2 and another formats. Here is The CompletePDF Book Library. It's free to register here to get Book file PDF The eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics (Shemonah perakim) Pocket Guide.
Excerpt from The Eight Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics (Shemonah Perakim): A Psychological and Ethical Treatise, Edited, Annotated, and Translated, With.
Table of contents

Further, I deem it fit to preface the commentary on the re- spective Haldkot 1 proper by some useful chapters, from which the reader may learn certain basic principles which may later serve as a key to what I am going to say in the commentary.

Commentary on Tractate Avot with an Introduction (Shemona perakim)

Know, however, that the ideas presented in these chapters and in the following commentary are not of my own invention; neither did I think out the explanations contained therein, 2 but I have gleaned them from the words of the wise occurring in the Midrashim, in the Talmud, and in other of their works, as well as from the words of the philosophers, ancient and recent, and also from the works of various authors, 3 as one 1 I. By the "recent" philosophers M. The "works of various authors" refers to the ethical writings of M. Sometimes, too, the mentioning of the name of the authority drawn upon might lead one who lacks insight to believe that the statement quoted is faulty, and wrong in itself, because he does not understand it.

File:Rambam-Shemonah-Perakim-Gorfinkle.pdf

Therefore, I prefer not to mention the authority, for my intention is only to be of service to the reader, and to elucidate for him the thoughts hidden in this tractate. I shall now begin the chapters, which, in accordance with my intention, are to serve here as an introduction, which is to consist of eight chapters.

Malter, Ibid. Some of these activities have, indeed, been called souls, which has given rise to the opinion that man has many souls, as was the belief of the physicians, with the result that the most distinguished of them 3 states in the introduction of his book that there are three souls, the physical, the vital, and the psychical.

I; Jaraczewski, ZPhKr. Aristotle, De Anima, c. Hicks, pp. See Rosin, Ethik, p. In Moreh, III, 12, he points to the threefold division of the faculties, where he says, "all physical, psychical, and vital forces and organs that are possessed by one individual are found also in the other individuals. Bahya, Ibn Gabirol, and Ibn Zaddik seem to have believed in the existence of three souls in man.

See I.

Sample Product

Broyde in JE. Abraham ibn Daud, in Emunah Ramah, I, 6 ed. Weil, , also, opposed the belief of the physicians, supporting the Aristotelian view of the unity of the soul, as did M.

Shemonah Perakim Chapter 2

Consult Scheyer, Psychol. By the word "parts", how- ever, they do not intend to imply that the soul is divided into parts as are bodies, but they merely enumerate the different activities of the soul as being parts of a whole, the union of which makes up the soul. Thou knowest that the improvement of the moral qualities is brought about by the healing of the soul and its activities.

Rosin, Ethik, pp. Therefore, the science of curing the soul is to him as practical as is that of healing the body. What Aristotle says in Eth. Man is sustained by the nutritive faculty of the human soul, the ass thrives by means of the nutritive faculty of its soul, and the palm-tree 2 flourishes by the nutritive faculty peculiar to its soul. Although we apply the same term nutrition to all of them indiscriminately, nevertheless, its signification is by no means the same. In the same way, the term sensation is used homonymously 3 for man and beast; not with the idea, however, 1 M.

De Anima, II, 3, ed. See Scheyer, Psychol. Al-Farabi niKSwn m!? In making his division, M. By adding the nutritive faculty jtn , which Aristotle includes in his list, to the list of al-Farabi we have M. In Millot ha-Higgayon, c. XII, M. The common or appelative noun see Munk, Guide, I, Introd. It is possible, however, that an activity of one soul may seem to be similar to that of another, in consequence of which one might think that both belong to the same class, and thus consider them to be alike; but such is not the case. By way of elucidation, let us imagine that three dark places are illumined, one lit up by the sun shining upon it, the second by the moon, and the third by a flame.

Now, in each of these places there is light, but the efficient cause in the one case is the sun, in the other the moon, and in the third the fire. So it is with sensation and its causes. In man it is the human soul, in the ass it is the soul of the ass, and in the eagle, the soul of the eagle. These sensations have, moreover, nothing in common, except the homonymous term which is applied to them. Mark well this point, for it is very important, as many so-called philosophers have fallen into error regarding it, in consequence of which they have been driven to absurdities and fallacies.

Returning to our subject of the faculties of the soul, let me say that the nutritive faculty consists of 1 the power of at- tracting nourishment to the body, 2 the retention of the same, 3 its digestion assimilation , 4 the repulsion of superfluities, 5 growth, 6 procreation, and 7 the differentiation of the nutritive juices that are necessary for sustenance from those which are to be expelled. The faculty of sensation consists of the five well-known senses sensation tf'ilfi are homonyms. See Munk, Guide, I, Introd.

See Munk, Guide, I, p.

The Eight Chapters of Maimonides on Ethics (Shemonah Perakim)

The imagination is that faculty which retains impressions of things perceptible to the mind, after they have ceased to affect directly, the senses which conceived them. This faculty, com- bining some of these impressions and separating others from one another, thus constructs out of originally perceived ideas some of which it has never received any impression, and which it could not possibly have perceived. For instance, one may imagine an iron ship floating in the air, or a man whose head reaches the heaven and whose feet rest on the earth, or an animal with a thousand eyes, and many other similar impossi- bilties which the imagination may construct and endow with an existence that is fanciful.

It is the opposite of the intellect which "analyzes and divides the component parts of things, it forms abstract ideas of them, represents them in their true form as well as in their causal relations, derives from one object a great many facts, which for the intellect totally differ from each other, just as two human individuals appear different to the imagination; it distinguishes that which is the property of the genus from that which is peculiar to the individual, and no proof is correct unless founded on the former; the intellect further determines whether certain qualities of a thing are essential or non-essential.

Imagination has none of these functions. It only perceives the individual, the compound in that aggregate condition in which it presents itself to the senses; or it combines things which exist separately, joins some of them together, and represents them all as one body or as a force of the body. Hence it is that some imagine a man with a horse's head, or with wings, etc. This is called a fiction, a phantasm; it is a thing to which nothing in the actual world corresponds.

Nor can imagination in any way obtain a purely immaterial image of an object, however abstract the form of the image may be. Imagination yields, therefore, no test for the reality of a thing. II, 36 it is stated that part of the functions of the imagination is to retain im- pressions by the senses, to combine them, and chiefly to form images. The most perfect developement of the imaginative faculty results in prophecy. See infra, p.

De Boer says of their system of philo- sophy, "An assertion, expressed in logical or dialectic fashion, whether verbal or written, was called by the Arabs, generally, but more particularly in religious teaching Kalam A6yoj , and those who advanced such assertions were called Mutakallimun. The name was transferred from the individual assertion to the entire system, and it covered also the intro- ductory, elementary observations on Method, and so on.

Our best de- signation for the science of the Kalam is 'Theological Dialectics' or simply 'Dialectics', and in what follows we may translate Mutakallimun by 'Dialecticians'," Geschichte der Philosophic im Islam, Stuttgart, , p. He is vehemently opposed to them, not because of the views they held in regard to the universe and God, many of which coincided with his own, but on account of the method they pursued in arriving at their conclusions.

V; Munk, Melanges, pp. Saadia Gaon, p. Gut- mann, Das Religionsphil. Horo- vitz, in ZDMG, 57, p. Goldziher, Vorlesungen uber den Islam, Heidelberg, , p. Moreh, I, 73, Tenth Proposition, in which M. Everything conceived by the imagination, they maintain, is ad- mitted as possible. Similarily, the other members of the body, whether external or internal, are instruments of the appetitive faculty. By means of the spe- culative power, man knows things as they really are, and which, by their nature, are not subject to change.

These are called the sciences 4 in general. Moreh, I, Fourth Proposition.


  • Navigation menu.
  • The Phenomenon of Donald J. Trump: The GOP Nominee!
  • US Girls;

With M. T na w ton m-njnsm nsnvn ,na'm wnm ,nanm n:n IT. All the organs of the body are employed in the various actions of the soul.