Maimonides for Moderns, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2017 A Statement of Contemporary Jewish Philosophy

This book aims to construct a contemporary Jewish philosophy that accounts for virtue ethics or, rather, to give Jewish virtue ethics a contemporary language for its expression. Ira Bedzow draws significantly on the work of Moses Maimonides and his religio-philosophical explanation of Jewish ethics. However, Bedzow moves away from various aspects of Maimonides?s Aristotelian biology, physics, metaphysics, and psychology. The objective of the volume is to integrate the normative principles of the Jewish tradition into everyday life. While the book translates Jewish ethics from a medieval, Aristotelian framework into a contemporary one, it also serves as a means for Judaism to continue as a living tradition.  

Introduction          

1. Teleology – One of Aspiration and not Actualization            

2. Telos – To Be a Servant of God      

3. Entelechy – Shlemut          

4. The Law

5. A Contemporary Explanation of the Law’s Construction of Reality                

6. Practical Reason   

7. The Virtues            

8. Moral Motivation & Shlemut          

 

Appendix I: Lifnim Mishurat Hadin   

Appendix II: A Genealogy of the Expression Moshe emet v’Torato emet