Friday, February 21, 2014

A few more reasons Maimonides ought to be every crime fiction reader's favorite medieval Jewish sage:

  1.  Samuel Ibn Tibbon, who translated Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed from Arabic into Hebrew (and quite a translator he seems to have been), called Maimonides: "a wise artisan with an understanding of mysteries."
  2. He carried out his philosophical work by means of deduction.
  3. He believed the goal of religious law is to know, and he "went so far as to make rationality into a religious obligation."
© Peter Rozovsky 2014

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2 Comments:

Blogger adrian mckinty said...

One of the things I hate most in the world is when "pundits" joke and boast on TV of their mathematical incompetence. They would never boast about their illiteracy but somehow only geeks and weirdos know about math. It should be a badge of shame but it isnt.

February 23, 2014  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

They think they're being delightfully self-effacing, I suppose. On the other hand, I am feeling optimistic about the state of the world because this week I talked to a reporter who understood that a contract that calls for annual raises of, say, 5, 5, 5, 5, and 5 percent does not add up to "raises totaling 25 percent." American journalism may one day attain basic mathematical knowledge/

February 23, 2014  

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