Author : Sarah Pessin
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107245052
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (72 download)
Book Synopsis Ibn Gabirol's Theology of Desire by : Sarah Pessin
Download or read book Ibn Gabirol's Theology of Desire written by Sarah Pessin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-08 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on Arabic passages from Ibn Gabirol's original Fons Vitae text, and highlighting philosophical insights from his Hebrew poetry, Sarah Pessin develops a 'theology of desire' at the heart of Ibn Gabirol's eleventh-century cosmo-ontology. She challenges centuries of received scholarship on his work, including his so-called Doctrine of Divine Will. Pessin rejects voluntarist readings of the Fons Vitae as opposing divine emanation. She also emphasizes pseudo-Empedoclean notions of 'divine desire' and 'grounding element' alongside Ibn Gabirol's use of a particularly Neoplatonic method with apophatic (and what she terms 'doubly apophatic') implications. In this way, Pessin reads claims about matter and God as insights about love, desire, and the receptive, dependent and fragile nature of human beings. Pessin reenvisions the entire spirit of Ibn Gabirol's philosophy, moving us from a set of doctrines to a fluid inquiry into the nature of God and human being – and the bond between God and human being in desire.