Philosopher
Hasdai Crescas
c. 1340 – c. 1410
Also known as Hasdai ben Judah Crescas
Rabbi and leader of Aragon's Jews whose Light of the Lord attacks Aristotle's physics, arguing for an actual infinite and an infinite void, and whose ideas reached Spinoza.
Crescas was born into a family of merchants and rabbis in Barcelona in about 1340 and studied at the yeshiva of Nissim of Gerona, learning Talmud alongside Kabbalah, science and philosophy. By 1370 he was a judge in Barcelona, and after Nissim’s death he and Isaac bar Sheshet became the leading Jewish authorities of Aragon. In 1389 he became rabbi of Saragossa, and the king and queen soon made him the highest judge of the Jews of the crown of Aragon.
The riots of 1391 killed thousands of Spanish Jews and led many more to convert; Crescas’s son died in Barcelona. As the community’s leader in the aftermath, Crescas wrote against Christianity and, in Light of the Lord, against the Aristotelianism of Maimonides and his followers. The book was not fully translated into a Western language until recently, but Pico della Mirandola translated some of its criticisms of Aristotle, and Spinoza, who probably read it as a young student, quotes Crescas with sympathy; his influence on Spinoza’s views of God and of determinism is thought likely.
Key ideas
- Against Aristotle’s science
- Crescas held that Aristotle’s views, as Maimonides and his heirs took them up, contradict not only Jewish tradition but a true rational and empirical understanding of the world. His critique helped spur the new science of the modern period.
- Infinities and the void
- Aristotle denied that an actual infinite exists. Crescas argued that one infinite can be larger than another and that something can be added to an infinite. Place is the part of an infinite expanse that a body occupies, and the universe is an infinite void holding infinitely many worlds.
- Divine attributes
- Human beings can speak of God’s essence only negatively, as Maimonides said. But some attributes always accompany that essence and can be known; they are like human attributes in kind but infinite in number and strength.
- Determined choice
- Every decision is fully determined by its causes, such as upbringing and society, yet people still choose voluntarily: we are like bronze, which can become a ball or a sword but is shaped from outside. Reward and punishment belong to the realm of our feelings and self-judgement.
- Tradition
- Jewish
- Region
- Aragon
- Period
- Provence and Spain
Influences
Influenced by
- Aristotle384–322 BCEcriticised
- Maimonides1138–1204criticised
- John Duns Scotusc. 1265 – 1308
- Gersonides1288–1344criticised
Hasdai Crescasc. 1340 – c. 1410
Influenced
Influenced by
- Aristotle384–322 BCEcriticised
- Maimonides1138–1204criticised
- John Duns Scotusc. 1265 – 1308
- Gersonides1288–1344criticised
Hasdai Crescasc. 1340 – c. 1410
Influenced
Where these links come from
- Hasdai Crescas argued against Aristotle. Source: Shalom Sadik, Hasdai Crescas, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Hasdai Crescas drew on and argued against Maimonides. Source: Shalom Sadik, Hasdai Crescas, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Hasdai Crescas drew on John Duns Scotus. Source: Shalom Sadik, Hasdai Crescas, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Hasdai Crescas drew on and argued against Gersonides. Source: Shalom Sadik, Hasdai Crescas, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Baruch Spinoza drew on Hasdai Crescas. Source: Shalom Sadik, Hasdai Crescas, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- The Light of the Lord (Or Hashem)
- Read free at Wikisource (in Hebrew)
- Refutation of Christian Principles
Sources
- Shalom Sadik, Hasdai Crescas, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy