| Project Detail |
Decoding the hidden history of Jewish philosophy
Medieval philosophical manuscripts in Hebrew are highly varied – there rarely is one copy like another. This comes as philosophical activity was not institutionalised but limited to exchanges within small circles of scholars, and the acquisition of texts was often a great challenge. This resulted in a wealth of manuscripts full of annotations, comments and observations that go far beyond a mere copy of an original text. In the context of this, the EU-funded HEPMASITE project will seek to enhance our understanding of medieval Jewish philosophy and study how it was practised in the real world. To do this, the project will employ narrative philology and historiography of engagement.
In the Middle Ages, philosophical activity undertaken in Hebrew was not conducted within an institutionalized environment. There were no universities, regulated curricula, or professors, but only small circles of scholars, most of whom we know nothing about. These scholars had to obtain their own copies of the works they wished to explore, sometimes even copying them themselves or with the help of others. Heavily involved in the production of the materials they were using, they often interfered with the texts they were studying, offering corrections, working notes, glosses, comparisons, and observations. As a result, the corpus of philosophical writings in Hebrew is incredibly diverse, and rarely is one copy similar to another. In this challenging landscape, the individual copy is our main entry point for understanding how Hebrew philosophy took place in the real world. The Hebrew philosophical manuscript is not a mere container of text; more than anything else, it is a site of engagement.
Aside from a few notable exceptions, scholarship of philosophy in Hebrew is still focused on a relatively small number of major thinkers and works. Manuscripts are often stripped of their particularity and employed only for the sake of producing critical editions. The story of the silent, nameless majority - who enabled philosophical activity by tirelessly editing, studying, translating, revising, and producing the material Hebrew philosophical corpus we have today - has yet to be told.
HEPMASITE is the first project to tackle the corpus of medieval Hebrew philosophical manuscripts in order to unravel the hidden history of Jewish philosophy enveloped within them. By employing narrative philology and a historiography of engagement - novel research methodologies that embrace textual particularity and fluidity - HEPMASITE will revolutionize the understanding of Jewish philosophy as it took place in the real world and as it was studied by actual people. |
