Tyron Goldschmidt

The Routledge Companion to Jewish Philosophy is a deep and broad reference that brings diverse perspectives to bear on the key topics, problems, and debates in Jewish philosophy and philosophical theology. The 37 chapters were written by an international team of experts from different traditions in philosophy and beyond and appear in print for the first time in this Companion. The chapters are divided into ten major sections: I. God II. Humanity III. From God to Us IV. From Us to God V. Jewish Mysticism VI. Faith and Reason VII. Judaism and Normativity VIII. Judaism and Politics IX. Judaism and Other Faiths X. Times and Trends A list of Related Topics at the end of each chapter and a comprehensive index at the back of the volume help readers navigate the Companion, and Further Reading sections at the end of each chapter identify the best avenues for future research. The volume is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Jewish philosophy, theology, religious studies and related subjects.

Idealism is a family of metaphysical views each of which gives priority to the mental. The best-known forms of idealism in Western philosophy are the versions developed by George Berkeley and Immanuel Kant. Although idealism was once a dominant view in Western philosophy, it has suffered almost total neglect over the last several decades. The contemporary debate has focused almost exclusively on physicalism and dualism, though the alternative views of panpsychism and neutral monism are beginning to receive more attention. This book remedies the situation by bringing together seventeen new essays by leading philosophers on idealism. They explain, attack, or defend a variety of forms of idealism—not only Berkeleyan and Kantian versions, but also Buddhist and Jewish versions, and others besides. The essays are all contributions to metaphysics, but variously focus on philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and other areas of philosophy.

This essay shows three things: first, that we cannot comply with a command from God to believe in God; second, that God cannot command us to believe in God; and, third, that the divine command theory is false. The third conclusion follows from the second, and the second follows from the first. The essay focuses on an argument from the medieval Jewish philosopher, Hasdai Crescas. It also draws from, and is something of a sequel to, an argument from Brown and Nagasawa published previously in this journal.†

This book is devoted to applied ethics. We focus on six popular and controversial topics: abortion, the environment, animals, poverty, punishment, and disability. We cover three chapters per topic, and each chapter is devoted to a famous or influential argument on the topic. After we present an influential argument, we then consider objections to the argument, and replies to the objections. The book is impartial, and set up in order to equip the reader to make up her own mind about the controversial topics covered.

This chapter formulates a version of idealism and argues for it. Sections 2 and 3 explicate this version of idealism: the world is mental through-and-through. Section 2 spells this out precisely and contrasts it with rival views. Section 3 draws a consequence from this formulation of idealism: idealism is necessarily true if true at all. Sections 4 and 5 make the case for idealism. Section 4 is defensive: it draws from the conclusion of section 3 to reply to a central, perhaps the central, anti-idealist argument. Section 5 is on the offense: it develops a new argument for idealism based on the contemporary debate in philosophy of mind. The contemporary debate in philosophy of mind has been dominated by physicalism and dualism, with idealism almost totally neglected. This chapter rectifies this situation.

The papers in this volume are largely about research ethics and cover questions of consent, reproduction, pediatric research, ethical codes, and clinical relationships. Half the papers have this common aspect: they are conservative—in the sense of supporting the standard, prevailing, or popular view—but they shift the focus—supporting the standard views in terms of moral factors generally neglected by the literature. The volume provides a diverse set of papers for the reader: variously addressing abstract and concrete problems from within different philosophical traditions.

The doctrine of reincarnation is usually associated with Buddhism, Hinduism and other Eastern religions. But it has also been developed in Druzism and Judaism. The doctrine has been used by these traditions to explain the existence of evil within a moral order. Traversing the boundaries between East and West, we explore how Jewish mysticism has employed the doctrine to help answer the problem of evil. We explore the doctrine particularly as we respond to objections against employing it in a theodicy. We show how it supplements traditional punishment, free will and soul-building theodicies, and helps these theodicies avoid various objections.

Timothy O’Connor presents a novel and powerful version of the cosmological argument from contingency. What distinguishes his argument is that it does not depend on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. This version thus avoids powerful objections facing the Principle. We present and develop the argument, strengthening it in various ways. We fill in big gaps in the argument and answer criticisms. These include the criticisms that O’Connor considers as well as new criticisms. We explain how his replies to a Kantian criticism and to the demand for contrastive explanation fail, and properly answer the criticism and the demand. We develop two new criticisms, the objection from opaqueness and the objection from constitution, and explain how these objections can be answered