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Alfred L. Ivry . Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed: A Philosophical Guide . Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press , 2016. 307 pp.
Book Reviews: Medieval and Early Modern Eras
Alfred L. Ivry's book presents the reader with two guides to Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed: a paraphrase of the Guide's chapters and an analysis that includes extended critiques of some of the larger issues that have vexed scholars. Although the author intends the paraphrases "to allow the reader to engage with the Guide directly" and "to present Maimonides' text objectively," they often reveal the author's interpretations and should be compared carefully with the text of Maimonides. The author refers to other interpretations in the notes. If one adds to these the author's learned textual comments on Shlomo Pines's 1963 English translation, we have a multifaceted commentary on the Guide by a scholar who has spent much of his life studying it.
After some preliminary chapters, chapter 4 takes the reader through Guide 1-68, the chapters interpreting first how Scripture, then the philosophers, describe God. The author does not find Maimonides's theory of negative attributes philosophically compelling, and on one occasion he suggests that Maimonides "would appear to be accommodating the traditional reader" (69). Chapter 5 presents the principles and claims of the Kalam theologians, together with Maimonides's criticisms. Here and elsewhere, where the material is technical, the paraphrases are quite helpful for readers unfamiliar with the philosophical background, as are the references to recent scholarship on Kalam thought, which present a different picture from the one portrayed by Maimonides. Chapter 6 begins with the philosophical premises underlying the Aristotelian proofs for the existence, unity, and incorporeality of God. The author says that Maimonides "begs the question" in tacitly assuming the eternity of the world in his presentation of the third proof for God's existence, but Maimonides himself claims that the philosophers' proofs (including, presumably, the third one) assume the eternity of the world.