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Wolfson's Pragmatic Crescas
Harvey, Warren Zev
Harvey, Warren Zev
Abstract
In a 1912 essay, written when he was a student of Santayana's at Harvard, a young Harry Austryn Wolfson (1887-1974) presented Hasdai Crescas as a forerunner of American Pragmatism. Wolfson emphasized Crescas' "Hebraic" focus on action, and his critique of the Aristotelian notion of the vita contemplativa as the goal of life. The scientist's pleasure is not in contemplation itself, but in problem-solving, and problem-solving presupposes a "practical interest in the world." In 1929, Wolfson wrote his monumental Crescas' Critique of Aristotle, the most important study of Crescas' philosophy and one of the most impressive works of scholarship on medieval philosophy in general. Crescas emerges from Wolfson's book as a creative philosopher whose views on science and religion are very relevant to our contemporary world.
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JTR_v13_iss01_11.pdf
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Crescas, Harry Wolfson, pragmatism, kabbalah
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https://doi.org/10.21220/9hvp-wg48