The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Isaac Albalag

fl. 1250–1300

Among the most rigorous of the Jewish Averroists, who set out to restore Aristotle, as Averroes read him, and is remembered for a 'double truth' view of religion and philosophy.

Almost nothing is known of Isaac Albalag except that he was active in Catalonia or Provence in the later 1200s. He wrote only one treatise. Fifteenth-century Spanish writers linked his name with heresy, accusing him of false views on the soul’s fate after death and on the motion of the heavens.

His younger contemporary Isaac Polqar, however, thought highly of him and cited him with approval. Albalag belongs to the school of Jewish Averroism, which ran from the thirteenth century to the Renaissance and treated Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle as the main source for science and philosophy.

Key ideas

Restoring Aristotle
Albalag admired Aristotle without reserve and took his teachings, as Averroes interpreted them, to be the truth. Re-establishing that philosophy among Jewish students was central to his project.
Eternal origination
Philosophy shows the world has no beginning in time, Albalag held, yet the world is not self-sufficient: it depends at every moment on a cause. So it has always been coming into being, an ‘eternal origination’ that joins Aristotle’s eternity to the idea of creation.
Double truth
He openly admitted that philosophy and Scripture sometimes conflict, and is associated with the view that a truth of prophecy and a truth of philosophy can contradict each other yet both be true, though some scholars read this as rhetoric rather than doctrine.
Tradition
Jewish
Region
Catalonia or Provence

Influences

Influenced by

Isaac Albalagfl. 1250–1300

Influenced

Influenced by

Isaac Albalagfl. 1250–1300

Influenced

Where these links come from
  • Isaac Albalag drew on Aristotle. Source: Bakinaz Abdalla, Isaac Albalag, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Isaac Albalag drew on Averroes. Source: Bakinaz Abdalla, Isaac Albalag, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Isaac Polqar drew on Isaac Albalag. Source: Bakinaz Abdalla, Isaac Albalag, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Key works

  • The Emendation of the Opinions (Sefer Tiqqun ha-De'ot)

Sources

  1. Bakinaz Abdalla, Isaac Albalag, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy