Ibn Gabirol's theology of desire : matter and method in Jewish medieval Neoplatonism /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Pessin, Sarah.
Imprint:	New York : Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Description:	xiii, 269 pages ; 24 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Ibn Gabirol, -- active 11th century. -- Yanbūʻ al-ḥayāh. Yanbūʻ al-ḥayāh (Ibn Gabirol) Neoplatonism. Jewish philosophy. Philosophy, Medieval. Islamic philosophy. Islamic philosophy. Jewish philosophy. Neoplatonism. Philosophy, Medieval.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/9289203

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ISBN:	9781107032217 (hardback) 1107032210 (hardback)
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:	"Drawing on Arabic passages from Ibn Gabirol's original Fons Vitae text, and highlighting philosophical insights from his Hebrew poetry, Sarah Pessin develops a "Theology of Desire" at the heart of Ibn Gabirol's eleventh-century cosmo-ontology. She challenges centuries of received scholarship on his work, including his so-called Doctrine of Divine Will. Pessin rejects voluntarist readings of the Fons Vitae as opposing divine emanation. She also emphasizes Pseudo-Empedoclean notions of "Divine Desire" and "Grounding Element" alongside Ibn Gabirol's use of a particularly Neoplatonic method with apophatic (and what she terms "doubly apophatic") implications. In this way, Pessin reads claims about matter and God as insights about love, desire, and the receptive, dependent, and fragile nature of human being. Pessin reenvisions the entire spirit of Ibn Gabirol's philosophy, moving us from a set of doctrines to a fluid inquiry into the nature of God and human being - and the bond between God and human being in desire"--

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Text in context
3. From human being to discourse on matter?: the three-fold quest for wisdom, goodness, and God - and the root of life in desire
4. Root desire and the Empedoclean grounding element as love
5. From Divine Will to Divine Irada: on the mistaken scholarly rejection of Ibn Gabirol's emanation
6. Iradic unfoldings: Ibn Gabirol's hylomorphic emanationism and the Neoplatonic tripart analysis
7. Matter revisited
8. Neoplatonic cosmo-ontology as apophatic response and as prescription for human living (methodological reappraisal, 1)
9. Transcendental grounding, mytho-poetic and symbolic transformation, and the creation of new worlds with words (methodological reappraisal, 2)
10. Embroidering the hidden

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