Novak and Medieval Jewish Philosophy

• In Event: The Moral Hermeneutics of David Novak

Abstract

David Novak’s thought is unique in reconstructing a natural law ethics from the sources of the Jewish tradition, while also containing a new approach to studying medieval Jewish philosophy. I will begin by laying out three dominant narratives for how to read medieval Jewish philosophy, that of Harry Wolfson, Shlomo Pines and Leo Strauss, and show how Novak’s approach differs from the three. Novak, as a post-Kantian, argues that modern science has disproven Aristotelian physics and metaphysics, thus defending the priority of practical reason over theoretical reason. But Novak argues that medieval Jewish philosophy has a deeper understanding than modern philosophy of human nature and its ethical implications. In other words, modern science has disproven the existence of a natural teleology, but not the existence of a human teleology. Thus, the part of medieval Jewish philosophy that can still make an argument in contemporary discourses is its ethics, since its ethics is based on a teleological idea of the human person that modern science cannot disprove. However, it is not a single dogma, but a debate between two competing schools, which I term a “low” and a “high” theory of natural law. The low theory of natural law is articulated first by Saadya and Halevi and developed in greater detail by Nachmanides and Albo as articulating basing moral norms, that are the minimal standard of any society, but not specific enough to function as the content of any real legal system. The high theory of natural law is articulated by Maimonides and argues that moral norms (ex. Noachide laws) are metaphysically grounded and are specific enough to function as the basis of a real legal system, such as the MISHNEH TORAH. The MISHNEH TORAH should be studied, over the GUIDE, as the model of a moral/political project, for how to ground an entire legal system in a metaphysical teleology, even though we would reject the details of the metaphysics today. I will conclude by looking at some cases where Novak draws on this medieval philosophical and legal debate for contemporary issues such as Jewish-Christian dialogue, medical ethics and Zionism.

Author

• Alexander Green, SUNY, University at Buffalo