The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera

c. 1225 – c. 1295

Also known as Shem-Tov ben Joseph ibn Falaquera

Poet and philosopher who tried to win his fellow Jews over to philosophy and the sciences, making the Greek and Islamic philosophers available in Hebrew, often reshaping them as he went.

Little is known of Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera’s life beyond his writings. Most scholars think he lived in Spain. His birth is reckoned from a remark in The Seeker, written in late 1263, that he was nearing forty, and his death from his last known work, a letter defending Maimonides’ Guide.

Long dismissed as an unoriginal compiler, he is now seen as an industrious and remarkably well-read scholar. Few medieval Jewish thinkers knew the Islamic philosophers as well as he did. Through paraphrase, encyclopedia, commentary and exegesis he made their teachings, and those of the Greeks, available to Hebrew readers.

Key ideas

Law and wisdom agree
His Epistle of the Debate argues that Torah and philosophy agree, so that studying the true sciences is not forbidden to those whom God has given the intellect for it.
Originality in compiling
Falaquera claimed only to gather the words of leading philosophers, but he quietly altered his sources when it suited him: he turned al-Farabi’s account of how philosophical religion arises into an account of how the virtuous city arises.
An open-minded Aristotelian
Like most Jewish Aristotelians after Maimonides, he took Averroes and Maimonides as his leading authorities, but he also prepared Hebrew versions of Ibn Gabirol’s Fons vitae and drew on other Neoplatonic writings.
Tradition
Jewish
Region
Spain

Influences

Influenced by

Shem Tov Ibn Falaquerac. 1225 – c. 1295

Influenced by

Shem Tov Ibn Falaquerac. 1225 – c. 1295

Where these links come from
  • Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera drew on al-Farabi. Source: Steve Harvey, Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera drew on Solomon ibn Gabirol. Source: Steve Harvey, Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera drew on Averroes. Source: Steve Harvey, Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera drew on Maimonides. Source: Steve Harvey, Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Key works

  • The Epistle of the Debate (Iggeret ha-Vikkuah)
  • The Seeker (Sefer ha-Mevaqqesh), 1263
  • Guide to the Guide (Moreh ha-Moreh)

Sources

  1. Steve Harvey, Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy