Maimonides and St. Thomas on the Limits of Reason

This book shows that Maimonides and St. Thomas reached strikingly similar conclusions regarding the limits of reason and that these limits, in turn, show the dimensions of philosophical understanding.

Through a comparative philosophical examination of the diverse aporiae constituting the question of “providence,” the author seeks to determine the degree of philosophical compatibility between Maimonides and St. Thomas Aquinas, and where disagreement is evident, its origin, nature and philosophical consequences. Dobbs-Weinstein retrieves some occluded aspects of their thought that render a better understanding of each thinker and provide a richer philosophical vocabulary for discussions of the limits of “reason,” the consequent inevitable limits of language and interpretation and, above all, the relation between knowing and acting.

This study also shows how and why, despite the fact that they adopt some radically different ontological principles, Maimonides and Aquinas reach strikingly similar conclusions concerning the existential dimensions of human life, especially the possibilities and modes of knowledge and the actions consequent upon them.