Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-rdgjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-07T01:30:18.646Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Conclusion of the Guide of the Perplexed in View of the Conclusion of The Nicomachean Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2021

Assaf Malach
Assaf Malach*
Affiliation:
Shalem College Jerusalem, Israel
*
malachas1@gmail.com

Abstract

One of the well-known conundrums of the Guide of the Perplexed, found in its last chapter, pertains to Maimonides's contradictory presentation of the hierarchy of human virtues and perfections. This article draws attention to a parallel between the paradox posed by the closing paragraphs of the Guide and the contradiction found in the concluding paragraphs of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, a parallel that has never been noted by students of Maimonides. The intention here is not to make a categorical statement about Maimonides's position on the core issues of the relationship between the intellect and the moral virtues. Rather, it is to shed new light on the unexpected structure of the last chapter, and thus also provide a significant addition to the important debate about Maimonides's position on these issues.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
AJS Review , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , November 2021 , pp. 334 - 347
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2021

The Riddle of the Conclusion

The last chapter of Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed is one of the four chapters (III 51–54) in which Maimonides addresses the wise man who has studied philosophy assiduously and has achieved wisdom in all its depth. In chapter 51, Maimonides offers such a man a detailed plan for achieving oneness with the Creator through contemplation: he must “set [his] thought to work on God alone.”Footnote 1 To do so, he must distance himself from society: “Hence every excellent man stays frequently in solitude and does not meet anyone unless it is necessary.”Footnote 2 In chapter 54, Maimonides continues this theme and explains further the theoretical justification for the preference for a life of study. In the wake of “the ancient and the modern philosophers,”Footnote 3 he enumerates and ranks four different types of human perfection.Footnote 4 He praises intellectual activity as an autarkic activity that does not depend on others and is not a means to anything else: “This is in true reality the ultimate end; this is what gives the individual true perfection, a perfection belonging to him alone; and it gives him permanent perdurance; through it man is man.”Footnote 5 By contrast, political and moral perfection, physical health, and certainly wealth, are contingent on what is external to a man and cannot endow him with inner perfection.

To support this assertion, Maimonides cites a passage from Jeremiah and argues that it refers to the superiority of the intellect over all other attributes: “Thus said the LORD: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom; Let not the strong man glory in his strength; Let not the rich man glory in his riches” (Jer 9:22). Maimonides reads the first phrase, “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom” as referring to a person who is endowed with the highest moral virtues. He maintains that “Let not the strong man glory in his strength” addresses a person with physical perfection, and “Let not the rich man glory in his riches” refers to a wealthy man. Finally, “But only in this should one glory: In his earnest devotion to Me” he reads as referring to the wise man.

At this point, Maimonides has presumably proven his case and his book could have ended here. But he continues, almost incidentally, with several astonishing paragraphs in which, referring to the next verse (Jer 9:23), he emphasizes the importance of the moral virtues and political leadership: “But only in this should one glory: [that he understands and knows Me]. For I the Lord act with loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness [on earth]; For in these things I delight—declares the Lord.” He continues as follows:

As we have mentioned this verse and the wondrous notions contained in it, and as we have mentioned the saying of the Sages, may their memory be blessed, about it, we will complete the exposition of what it includes. For when explaining in this verse the noblest ends, he does not limit them only to the apprehension of Him, may He be exalted. For if this were his purpose, he would have said: But let him that glorie[s] glory in this, that he understand[s] and know[s] Me, and have stopped there; or he would have said: that he understand[s] and know[s] Me that I am One; or he would have said: that I have no figure, or that there is none like Me, or something similar. But he says that one should glory in the apprehension of Myself and in the knowledge of My attributes, by which he means His actions, as we have made clear with reference to its dictum: Show me now Thy ways, and so on. In this verse he makes it clear to us that those actions that ought to be known and imitated are loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness.

He adds another corroborative notion through saying, [on] earth—this being a pivot of the Law. For matters are not as the overbold opine who think that His providence, may He be exalted, terminates at the sphere of the moon and that the earth and that which is in it are neglected: The Lord hath forsaken the earth. Rather is it as has been made clear to us by the Master of those who know: That the earth is the Lord's. He means to say that His providence also extends over the earth in the way that corresponds to what the latter is, just as His providence extends over the heavens in the way that corresponds to what they are. This is what he says: That I am the Lord who exercise[s] loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, [on] earth.

Then he completes the notion by saying: For in these things I delight, sa[ys] the Lord. He means that it is My purpose that there should come from you loving-kindness, righteousness, and judgment [on] earth in the way we have explained with regard to the thirteen attributes: namely, that the purpose should be assimilation to them and that this should be our way of life. Thus the end that he sets forth in this verse may he stated as follows:

It is clear that the perfection of man that may truly be gloried in is the one acquired by him who has achieved, in a measure corresponding to his capacity, apprehension of Him, may He be exalted, and who knows His providence extending over His creatures as manifested in the act of bringing them into being and in their governance as it is. The way of life of such an individual, after he has achieved this apprehension, will always have in view loving-kindness, righteousness, and judgment, through assimilation to His actions, may He be exalted, just as we have explained several times in this Treatise.Footnote 6

This passage, which seems to be a mere pendantFootnote 7 or homiletic conclusion, has perplexed Maimonides's commentators throughout the generations. It seems to contradict the main theme of the chapter, and, in fact, of the entire last section. The clear primacy that Maimonides assigns there to intellectual wisdom over the moral virtues, and to the reclusive sage over the wholly virtuous man who leads his fellows, gives way to a preference for knowledge that leads to the perfection of the virtues and political leadership as a sort of imitatio Dei. It is hard to provide a freestanding summary of the solutions to this riddle that commentators and scholars have offered, because the question is linked to how they understand Maimonides's general approach to a series of core issues: the theory of divinity, the theory of prophecy, the theory of divine providence, the meaning of Moses's prophecy, and the rationale of the precepts. Nevertheless, I will propose several possible ways to read these paragraphs in light of the main approaches to understanding the relationship that Maimonides sees between a life of intellectual study and the perfection of the moral virtues.

A. Maimonides's true attitude, expressed throughout the chapter, is the same as Aristotle's; namely, intellectual perfection is clearly superior to moral perfection and political leadership. The concluding paragraphs, like other passages in the Guide, are intended for the masses, in order to direct them in keeping with their own degree of perfection or to prevent them from fathoming mysteries not meant for them.Footnote 8

B. Maimonides shared Aristotle's view of the intellect as superior to the moral virtues, but held that this does not mean that a wise man deprecates the virtues and political action or sees them as of lesser value. They are essential as the first stage on the road to wisdom, but are also required afterward, because even a wise man cannot be engaged with intellectual matters at every moment in his life and must also express his wisdom on the lower levels of his personality through the perfection of the virtues and his contribution to the well-being of the state. In this explanation, the hierarchy between the intellect and the moral virtues is quite clear, but greater importance is attached to the necessity and importance of the virtues, even though they are not the highest perfection.Footnote 9

C. Here and elsewhere (e.g., I 54, which presents the thirteen divine attributes revealed to Moses as the basis of political leadership; Maimonides refers or alludes to that chapter three times in the concluding paragraphs), the higher rank assigned to the intellect over perfection of the virtues and political leadership relates only to an intermediate stage of the wise man's pursuit of knowledge. After he has achieved intellectual perfection, he is in a new condition in which he resembles God and clings to Him through the lineaments of the actions by which He manages the world. That is, moral perfection is inferior to intellectual perfection only when it derives from the emotions or some spontaneous psychological movement; but when it stems from perfect intellectual knowledge it is of equal excellence and perhaps even more exalted than philosophical wisdom per se.Footnote 10

In what follows I would like to draw attention to a parallel between the paradox posed by the closing paragraphs of the Guide and the contradiction found in the concluding paragraphs of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, a parallel that (as far as I know) has never been noted by students of Maimonides. My intention here is not to make a categorical statement about Maimonides's position on the core issues of the relationship between the intellect and the moral virtues. Rather, I hope to shed new light on the unexpected structure of the last chapter, and thus also to provide a significant addition to the important debate about Maimonides's position on these issues.

The Conclusion of the Nicomachean Ethics

Greek philosophy was always aware of the tension between the philosopher and the politician and pondered whether it befits a philosopher to be involved in governing the state.Footnote 11 Aristotle, too, addresses this tension, sharpening the dichotomy and hierarchy between the wise man who occupies himself with intellectual ideas and the righteous man of exceptional moral virtues. According to Aristotle, the archetype of the righteous man who seeks the betterment of world is the statesman or military commander, because “among excellent actions political and military actions are distinguished by nobility and greatness” (1177b16).Footnote 12 Nevertheless, and despite the leader's salient contribution to society, the wise man's life of contemplation is the highest form of life.

This is how many medieval Muslim scholars understood Aristotle. Ibn Bajja, in The Governance of the Solitary, describes the perfect sage as a man whose inner life is wholly isolated from the common folk. Although he lives within society, he does so like an alien in the state, intent on intellectual matters and completely detached from affairs of state and society.Footnote 13 Ibn Tufail gives this position literary expression in his Alive, Son of Awake, which describes a man who had lived on a desert island from his youth and was deeply immersed in the higher sciences, until he had an opportunity to travel as an emissary to a nearby Muslim city and govern its people. A short experience there sufficed for him to realize that most people are not capable of leading a true life of contemplation. He concluded that while popular Islam is suited for the governance and improvement of a society of common folk, a noble individual who wishes to acquire truths is better off returning to the desert island.Footnote 14

Aristotle expounds his position on this matter in the Nicomachean Ethics, especially in book 10, where he devotes a long discussion to the superiority of intellectual perfection over all other forms of human perfection. In order to understand his complex position, though, we need to consider the overall framework of the Ethics and the inner problematic that runs through it.Footnote 15

The book inquires into the good that is the goal of all actions and that is supposed to serve as a compass to guide all human activity. Aristotle declares at the outset that his topic is “politics,” which addresses the path for constructing a well-functioning human society. He adds the following explanation:

Now, since politics uses the rest of the sciences, and since, again, it legislates as to what we are to do and what we are to abstain from, the end of this science must include those of the others, so that this end must be the good for man. For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete whether to attain or to preserve; though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states. (1094b6)Footnote 16

He adds that “the end aimed at is not knowledge but action” (1095a4); or, to put it another way: “Since, then, the present inquiry does not aim at theoretical knowledge like the others (for we are inquiring not in order to know what excellence is, but in order to become good, since otherwise our inquiry would have been of no use), we must examine the nature of actions, namely how we ought to do them; for these determine also the nature of the states that are produced, as we have said” (1103b27). But the declared practical purpose of his inquiry runs into complications when Aristotle launches a detailed consideration of what is the best type of excellence and how it leads to the higher ends of the good and happiness. He starts by distinguishing two sorts of excellence: intellectual excellence, attained through study, and moral excellence, attained through the practice of proper actions, primarily justice (1103a14). In the first books of the Ethics he analyzes and describes moral excellence; in the sixth book he presents various forms of intellectual excellence. After digressions about friendship and pleasure, Aristotle concludes the Ethics with the four last sections of book 10. There, in sections 6, 7, and 8, he compares the different types of excellence and advances a series of explanations of why the best type of excellence, which leads to happiness, “the end of human nature” (1176a30), is philosophical contemplation. Here he goes so far as to contrast it to the amusements of the powerful and underscores that “excellence and thought, from which good activities flow, do not depend on despotic position” (1176b18).

We might well expect the discussion to end here, because Aristotle has arrived at the best type of excellence to which one should aspire. But to keep the promise he made at the start of the Ethics, Aristotle cannot wind up his inquiry with a recommendation of a life of study that does not lead to action. This is why he changes course and ends the book by insisting on the need to impart excellence to all citizens, and the means of doing so, notably contemplation. He begins the last section as follows: “If these matters and the excellences, and also friendship and pleasure, have been dealt with sufficiently in outline, are we to suppose that our program has reached its end? Surely, as is said, where there are things to be done the end is not to survey and recognize the various things, but rather to do them; with regard to excellence, then, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it, or try any other way there may be of becoming good” (1179a33). Aristotle then begins a long discussion of how to spread excellence in a society, and of the wise man's role in doing so, both to the masses who are not suited for a life of contemplation and to the few individuals who are. He asserts that in order for students to live the contemplative life, their “soul … must first have been cultivated by means of habits for noble joy” (1179b24). But “it is difficult to get from youth up a right training for excellence if one has not been brought up under right laws” (117b32). The law of the state “has compulsive power” (italics in original). On the other hand, “the law in its ordaining of what is good is not burdensome” (1180a21–24), and is thus the best tool for instilling virtues in a character that “must somehow be there already with a kinship to excellence, loving what is noble and hating what is base” (1179b29) and for forging an environment to cultivate those who possess excellence, both of moral character and of intellect.

However, because the state frequently neglects its obligation to educate and to enact legislation that trains its citizens to be virtuous, every individual bears a responsibility to educate his immediate environment to excellence: “But if they are neglected by the community it would seem right for each man to help his children and friends towards excellence, and that they should be able or at least choose, to do this. It would seem from what has been said that he can do this better if he makes himself capable of legislating” (1180a31). Moreover, to implement this task in the best way, he must acquire expertise in legislating in general: “And surely he who wants to make men, whether many or few, better by his care must try to become capable of legislating, if it is through laws that we can become good” (1180b24). According to Aristotle, this skill is attained not only by means of theoretical study but also from experience. Nor is it enough to study the laws enacted in the past, if one does not acquire the critical skills to distinguish good laws from bad. Aristotle ends this section with the statement that this field has not been adequately studied in the past and that he intends to do so in the Politics, where he will conduct a critical study of the various types of regimes and the appropriate nature of legislation (1181a–1181b).Footnote 17

In other words, at the conclusion of the Ethics, Aristotle states that the contemplative life he prescribes does not require seclusion, but in fact demands that the philosopher engage in politics in order to make excellence the common possession of all men. From a literary perspective, there is a clear break between sections 6, 7, and 8 of book 10, which praise the contemplative life as the highest form of excellence, and section 9, which advances the demand that every person, and especially the philosopher, study the craft of legislation and apply it to influence the entire state, or at least his immediate environment.

This is sharpened if we recall the statement at the beginning of the Ethics that the lectures on political science are not intended for the young or for those motivated by their appetites, but for the wise and experienced, who can effect the practical implementation of this knowledge (1095a2). This assertion reinforces the link between wise men and those who engage in politics.

How, then, are we to explain this inconsistency? Is the perfect philosopher supposed to follow the principles of sections 6 to 8, which relate exclusively to contemplation, while a person on a lower level of wisdom only meant to follow section 9, which deals with legislation? Aristotle does not suggest this. It seems, rather, that he directs the perfect philosopher to also be a legislator who leads his immediate environment, or the entire state, to excellence.

Modern students of Aristotle are divided about how to resolve the tension and contradictions in the Ethics between the recommendation of a life of pure contemplation and the directive that one's life should integrate practical wisdom, moral perfection, and legislating and leading the state.Footnote 18 What matters for our purposes is the contradictory structure of book 10 and the transition from the carefully argued demonstration of the primacy of the intellect to the idea that the philosopher must also be a legislator so as to spread excellence in the state.

Maimonides and Aristotle

We have already pointed out that the four types of perfection identified by Maimonides in the last chapter of the Guide, and the criteria by which he ranks them, follow Aristotle's discussion in book 10 of the Ethics.Footnote 19 In light of what we have seen above, it is possible that the resemblance between the final sections of the two works goes much deeper than their hierarchy of the types of perfection. Can it be pure coincidence that Maimonides, at the end of his magnum opus, adopted the rhetorical device Aristotle employed at the end of the Ethics, which moves from a carefully argued demonstration of the primacy of intellectual perfection to the importance of legislation as a key to both moral and intellectual excellence? We may conjecture that Maimonides intentionally imitated the structure of the conclusion of the Ethics, but reframed the discussion in scriptural terms and grounded Aristotle's ideas on the verses in Jeremiah. He reads them as indicating the primacy of intellectual perfection over the other types, on the one hand, but also as stating that intellectual perfection requires and is intertwined with a return to moral excellence and legislation.

Scholars have concluded that the Ethics was the only political treatise by Aristotle that Maimonides knew; like other Jewish and Muslim scholars of the early Middle Ages, he did not have access to the Politics.Footnote 20 This adds weight to the theory that at the end of the Guide Maimonides was hinting that he believed he had resolved the Aristotelian tension between contemplation and action. Even if we do not go so far as to assert that the similarity between the conclusions of their respective books solves the problem of the two thinkers’ approaches to the core question of the relationship between a life of contemplation and a life of moral perfection, it does provide an interesting perspective on the source of this literary format.

It seems, however, that when Maimonides adopted the same structure he intended more than an allusion to Aristotle. To appreciate this, we must again look at the series of arguments for the primacy of intellectual perfection at the end of the Ethics:

  1. 1. Intellectual activity (contemplation) is a perfect activity because it is autarkic—self-sufficient: we engage in it for its own sake, and not as a means to anything else; it does not require the involvement of other people; we are not dependent on external means for it; and “nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating” (1177b2).

  2. 2. Intellectual activity is most exalted because it derives from the most excellent human powers, and because it deals with the most exalted things that a man can know (1177a20).

  3. 3. Every man is identical to his intellectual element, which is the sovereign and most excellent part of him; hence life according to the intellect corresponds to his human nature. It would be bizarre for a person to choose “not the life of himself but that of something else” (another species) (1178a2).

  4. 4. Many other characteristics of contemplative activity make it the best activity for producing happiness: “it is the most continuous” (1177a22); it is “the pleasantest of excellent activities” (1177a23); it “is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure” (1177b3); it accompanies leisure; and it “needs no such thing” (no external means or circumstances) (1178b3).

  5. 5. By the nature of the gods, no acts of justice, bravery, generosity, or temperance can be attributed to them, but only contemplation. “Therefore the activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative; and of human activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most of the nature of happiness” (1178b20–23).

  6. 6. A person who exercises and cultivates his intellect is “most dear to the gods.” They are pleased that he honors that which is “most akin to them … so that in this way too the wise man will more than any other be happy” (1179a23–32).

When we look back at Maimonides's presentation in III 54, we encounter propositions that closely resemble Aristotle's first, second, and third arguments. Maimonides omits Aristotle's fourth argument, because he places perfection, rather than happiness, at the center.

Maimonides also skips Aristotle's fifth and sixth arguments. But rather than simply ignoring them, he presents a clear and almost explicit rationale against their validity, setting the verses from Jeremiah as a clear alternative to these claims.Footnote 21

To counter Aristotle's fifth argument, that the gods cannot engage in virtuous actions, but only contemplation, Maimonides quotes Jeremiah 9:23: “For I the Lord act with loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness [on earth],” which he interprets to mean that “one should glory in the apprehension of Myself and in the knowledge of My attributes, by which he means His actions…. In this verse he makes it clear to us that those actions that ought to be known and imitated are loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness.”Footnote 22

To counter Aristotle's sixth argument, that the gods love those who resemble them in their attributes, Maimonides brings the conclusion of the verse, in which the Lord proclaims, “in these things I delight”: “He means that it is My purpose that there should come from you loving-kindness, righteousness, and judgment [on] earth …: namely, that the purpose should be assimilation to them and that this should be our way of life.”Footnote 23

What do these statements mean in the context of the complex presentation of Maimonides's core position on the relationship between the intellect and the virtues? The reading proposed here certainly undercuts the frequent assertion that the end of the Guide was intended for the masses but that Maimonides did not accept this position for himself. The clear parallel to Aristotle's mode of presentation, and the clever hidden refutation of Aristotle's arguments for the primacy of the intellect, which reflects acceptance of some of Aristotle's arguments and rejection of others, seem to indicate that this was not an exposition meant exclusively for the masses.

Moreover, Maimonides's emulation of the logical structure of the last part of the Ethics, on the one hand, and his rebuttal of specific arguments by Aristotle, on the other hand, strengthen the impression that, as on most issues, Maimonides here too saw Aristotle's approach as a starting point from which he deviated only where he felt it to be imperative. This has important implications for the validity of the well-known assertion by Leo Strauss, and the many who have followed his approach, that Maimonides's embrace of the Aristotelian approach did not include politics and that, like al-Farabi before him, he took Plato as his model in that domain.Footnote 24 This assertion has been disputed regarding both al-Farabi and Maimonides, but remains common in the academy.Footnote 25 While not the only possible reading, it is plausible to interpret the Ethics, as some contemporary studies do, as recommending that the philosopher be involved in politics. Because this reading can blur the difference between Aristotle and Plato as to the philosopher's political role,Footnote 26 it obviates the need to claim that Maimonides abandoned Aristotle regarding politics.

To supplement my reading of the conclusion, I would like to offer an analysis of another section of the Guide that, as far as I know, has never been linked to Aristotle. This reading strengthens the assertion that Maimonides's arguments about the wise man's political involvement were in fact based on Aristotle.

In Guide III 51, Maimonides discusses the ascetic lifestyle of the wise men who lead a reclusive life, have acquired intellectual truth, and dedicate every possible moment “to set their thought to work on God alone” (p. 620). At the end of this chapter, Maimonides asks why, given the supreme value of a life of ascetic contemplation, Moses and the patriarchs assumed positions of public leadership and engaged in earthly pursuits such as herding sheep and amassing money and property. He gives two answers. First, these unique individuals were on such a high plane that even when they engaged in mundane affairs their thoughts were focused on God. This answer fits Maimonides's hierarchy of intellectual and earthly matters and portrays the patriarchs’ public leadership as constrained by their situation. In his second answer, however, Maimonides appears to take precisely the opposite position: “It also seems to me that the fact that these four were in a permanent state of extreme perfection in the eyes of God … was necessarily brought about by the circumstance that in all these actions their end was to come near to Him, may He be exalted; and how near! For the end of their efforts during their life was to bring into being a religious community that would know and worship God…. Therefore this rank befitted them, for these actions were pure worship of great import.”Footnote 27 This answer may astonish those who would reconcile Maimonides's view with Aristotelianism and the assumption that Aristotle maintained that philosophers must not be involved in politics.Footnote 28 In fact, at the beginning of the Ethics there is a clear source for this passage in the Guide: “Now,… the end of this science [politics] must … be the good for man. For even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete both to attain and to preserve; for though it is worth while to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states” (1094b6). Without pretending to determine just where this passage fits in Aristotle's overall doctrine, it is very clear that Maimonides's lines about the patriarchs and Moses can be seen as adhering to it, especially if we also consider the remark at the end of the Ethics about the need to create a state whose laws foster the development of philosophers. We need not see Maimonides as deviating from Aristotle when he asserts the importance of a nation that knows God.Footnote 29 In fact, this statement actually follows Aristotle.

Thus, last sections of Aristotle's Ethics may have served as the model for the contradictory nature of the last chapter of Guide. Although it may be only an imitation of the literary method, the similarity supports the broader claim that Maimonides followed Aristotle with regard to politics as well.Footnote 30

References

1. Maimonides, , The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Pines, S. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 620Google Scholar; all quotations from the Guide are taken from this translation, and page numbers refer to this edition.

2. Ibid., 621.

3. Ibid., 634.

4. Scholars have discussed at length the questions of which philosophers influenced Maimonides in this ranking and the differences between Maimonides's hierarchy and those of his predecessors. See: A. Altmann, “Maimonides’ Four Perfections,” Israel Oriental Studies 2 (1972): 15–24; Abraham Melamed, “Philosophical Commentaries to Jeremiah 9:22–23 in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Thought” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 4, nos. 1–2 (1984): 31–82; Lawrence V. Berman, “Maimonides on Political Leadership,” in Kinship and Consent, ed. Daniel J. Elazar (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Rubin Mass, 1991), 113–25, n. 4. These scholars noted that both Plato and Aristotle distinguish three types of perfection: external, physical, and spiritual; but in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle divides spiritual perfection into moral perfection and intellectual perfection. (Berman refers specifically to Ethics 1103a3, but this distinction is also stated explicitly in book 10 of the Ethics, which is a direct source of Maimonides's discussion in the last chapter of the Guide: Ethics 1177a18, 1178a9, 1178b33–36.) It was Ibn Bajja who, following Aristotle, created the four-part distinction, and apparently Maimonides referred to him in his remarks about later philosophers.

5. Maimonides, Guide, 635.

6. Ibid., 637–38.

7. It is obvious, however, that it is by no means an offhand remark. Consider that in III 53 Maimonides explains the meaning of “loving-kindness, righteousness, and judgment,” and concludes, “In interpreting the meaning of these terms, it was our purpose to prepare the way for the chapter that we shall bring after this one” (trans. Pines, 632).

8. Although I found no such explicit reference to the contradiction in III 54, the conjecture is plausible, considering the centrality of this approach for understanding the many contradictions in the core issues of the Guide. As is known, this approach is based on Maimonides's statement in the introduction to the Guide, where he describes the seventh reason for the contradictions in various texts and says that it lies behind the contradictions in his book. Many commentators on Maimonides, both early and modern, have understood this to mean that he intentionally inserted contradictions in order to conceal the truth from the masses, for social-political reasons. See Leo Strauss, “The Literary Character of The Guide of the Perplexed,” in Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1952), 68–70; Strauss, “How to Begin to Read The Guide of the Perplexed,” in The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. S. Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), xi–lvi; Aviezer Ravitzky, “Samuel Ibn Tibbon and the Esoteric Character of the Guide of the Perplexed” [in Hebrew], Daʿat 10 (1983): 19–46; Ravitzky, “The Secrets of the Guide of the Perplexed: Between the Thirteenth and Twentieth Centuries” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 5 (1986): 23–69; Moshe Halbertal, Concealment and Revelation: Esotericism in Jewish Thought and Its Philosophical Implications, trans. Jackie Feldman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007). See also the literature referenced in Menachem Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990), 68n1. For a contrary view, see Yair Lorberbaum, “Maimonides on the Seventh Cause of Contradictions” [in Hebrew], Tarbiz 69 (2000): 211–37, who asserts that the intent was to hide the dialectical character of the philosophical discussion rather than to hide its conclusions on specific issues. For other scholars who take the same line, see Aviezer Ravitzky, “Maimonides: Esotericism and Philosophical Education” [in Hebrew], Daʿat 53 (2004): 43–62, n. 54. For a discussion of esoteric writing in the Middle Ages, see Dov Schwartz, Contradiction and Concealment in Medieval Jewish Thought [in Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2001), esp. 11–24, 258–71.

9. For a discussion in this direction, see Steven Harvey, “Maimonides in the Sultan's Palace,” in Perspectives on Maimonides, ed. J. L. Kraemer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 47–75; W. Z. Harvey, “Between Political Philosophy and Halakhah in Maimonides’ Thought” [in Hebrew], ʿIyyun 29 (1980): 211–12. Melamed claims that here Maimonides, following al-Farabi, added a fifth level to Aristotle's hierarchy—that of imitating God's attributes in practice after recognizing them (“Philosophical Commentaries,” 45–46).

10. Several explanations have been made for this line of reasoning. One is that the perfect sage recognizes his inability to comprehend God through the intellect, and thus seeks to cling to God by the attributes of His activity. See Shlomo Pines, “The Limitation of Human Knowledge according to Al-Farabi, Ibn Bajja and Maimonides,” in Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 89–102. For an overview of the criticism of this position, see Ravitzky, “Maimonides: Esotericism and Philosophical Education,” 59–60. Goldman offers a different explanation: before intellectual knowledge is full, Creation is understood as the product of God's judgment (which is His nature); after it is complete, God is known through His autarkic Self-knowing nature. Therefore, the act of Creation becomes an act of loving-kindness, and the wise man imitates the deity by his own intellectual activity, but as an act of loving-kindness also engages in political leadership. I see this explanation as problematic, because there is no indication in Maimonides's text that imitatio Dei through acts of loving-kindness is more important than that through judgment and righteousness. Either way, Goldman presents the two forms of comprehending God as in tension, and it is not clear whether one is better than the other or merely follows it temporally. See Eliezer Goldman, “The Special Work in Apprehending Truths: Interpretive Notes on Guide for the Perplexed, III 51–54]” [in Hebrew], Sefer ha-shanah shel Universitat Bar-Ilan 6 (1968): 60–86. Aviezer Ravitzky, “Philosophy and Leadership in Maimonides” [in Hebrew], Daʿat 57–59 (2006): 31–59, offers several explanations for why the masses, and the wise man at the beginning of his path, must distance themselves from political leadership; but after the latter has achieved perfection, his life of study and his political leadership must exist in parallel and in permanent tension.

Another explanation views the last chapter as expressing Maimonides's position that, after achieving intellectual perfection, the wise man should observe the Torah precepts and Halakhah from a stance of intellectual-contemplative awareness. See Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection, especially 34–39, which clarifies (according to this explanation) the importance of the start of III 54—its discussion of the various senses in which the Torah is called wisdom. See also David Hartman, Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1986).

Some have thought that the conclusion of the Guide represents Maimonides's true position, which prefers the virtues to the intellect; e.g., Hermann Cohen, ʿIyyunim be-yahadut u-vi-beʿayot ha-dor: Perakim mitokh ketavim yehudiyim, trans. Zvi Weislevsky (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1977), 17–59. For a similar interpretation of the chapter, see Julius Guttmann, On the Philosophy of Religion (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1976), but Guttmann saw this as a deviation from Maimonides's broader approach. See also Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection, 69n3, and D. H. Frank, “The End of the Guide: Maimonides on the Best Life for Man,” Judaism 34 (1985): 485–95.

11. See, for example, the passages in Plato that emphasize the strong tension between the philosopher, on the one hand, and public leadership and politics, on the other hand, but which also make clear why Plato believes that in an ideal state the philosopher must harness his wisdom to lead the state: Republic 7.514–21; 7.540–41; 9.592; Apology 31–32. For a short discussion of this tension and the motivations behind it throughout the generations, see Ehud Luz, “Leo Strauss ke-hogeh yehudi” [Leo Strauss as a Jewish thinker], in Leo Strauss, Yerushalayim ve-ʾAtunah—Mivkhar ketavim (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 2001), 5–16.

12. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. W. D. Ross, revised by J. O. Urmson, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). All quotations from the Ethics are taken from this translation.

13. For a description of his position, see Steven Harvey, “The Place of the Philosopher in the City according to Ibn Bajja,” in The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, Essays in Honor of Muhsin S. Mahdi, ed. Charles E. Butterworth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 199–233. See also Raphael Jospe, “Negating Moral Virtue as the Ultimate Human End” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 5 (1986): 93–112; Jospe claims that Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera held this position in a more extreme manner than Maimonides. Aviezer Ravitzky makes a similar assertion regarding Ibn Tibbon in “Political Role of the Philosopher: Samuel Ibn Tibbon versus Maimonides” [in Hebrew], in Maimonides: Conservatism, Originality, Revolution, vol. 2, Thought and Innovation, ed. Aviezer Ravitzky (Jerusalem: Merkaz Zalman Shazar, 2008), 557–78.

14. Hillel Fradkin, “The Political Thought of Ibn Tufayl,” in Butterworth, Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy, 234–61.

15. A common position in the recent literature avoids taking Aristotle's statements in Ethics 10 about a life of contemplation as a summary of his position; scholars have proposed various ways of making them compatible with the rest of the Ethics. See, e.g., Richard Kraut, “Aristotle on the Human Good: An Overview,” in Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays, ed. Nancy Sherman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 79–104, esp. 86–90, 94; Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, “The Place of Contemplation in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics,” in Essays on Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 377–94; Gabriel Richardson Lear, Happy Lives and the Highest Good: An Essay on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).

16. See also 1282b14: “In all sciences and arts the end is a good, and the greatest good and in the highest degree a good in the most authoritative of all—this is the political science of which the good is justice, in other words, the common interest.”

17. In the Politics itself (book 3), Aristotle holds that the wise man will occupy a key position in the ideal state. Although he believes that “we maintain that the true forms of government are three” (with the common denominator being action of behalf of the state rather than on behalf of the rulers), he concludes that “the best must be that which is administered by the best, and in which there is one man, or a whole family, or many persons, excelling all the others together in excellence,” and thus “the excellence of the good man is necessarily the same as the excellence of the citizen of the perfect state,” and “the same education and the same habits will be found to make a good man and a man fit to be a statesman or king” (1288a–b, trans. Jowett). See also Ethics 8.10, 1160a35, and the description of the three types of constitution, of which the “best of these is monarchy.” These passages made it clear that Aristotle accepted Plato's position that the philosopher-king is the ideal regime, even while viewing other forms as legitimate.

18. See above.

19. Goldman, “Ha-‘avodah ha-meyuḥedet,” 70–71; Altmann, “Maimonides’ Four Perfections.”

20. See Melamed, Abraham, “Ha-politikah le-Aristo be-maḥshavah ha-yehudit bimei ha-benayim u-vi-tekufat ha-renesans” [Aristotle's Politics in Jewish thought in the Middle Ages and Renaissance], Peʿamim (1992): 30–32Google Scholar; Harvey, Steven, “The Sources of the Quotations from Aristotle's Ethics in the Guide of the Perplexed and the Guide to the Guide” [in Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 14 (1998): 99–101Google Scholar.

21. For a discussion of the principle of imitatio Dei in philosophy, and the attempt to explain Maimonides's conclusion in the context of his deviation from Aristotle on this matter, see Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection, 41–45, 54–60, and the literature cited there (81nn2, 4). For an attempt to explain this principle in Maimonides's writings through the concept of shefaʾ (afflux), see Kreisel, Howard, “Imitatio Dei in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed,” AJS Review 19, no. 2 (1994): 169–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar. These scholars did not consider the contradiction addressed between the last chapter of the Guide and Ethics 10.

22. Maimonides, Guide, 637.

23. Ibid.

24. For many sources for this assertion, in reference to both al-Farabi and Maimonides, see Melamed, “Ha-politikah le-Aristo,” n. 1; Harvey, “Sources of the Quotations,” n. 1. It is worth noting that scholars have pointed out a specific similarity between Plato's cave parable and the conclusion of the Guide where the sage is required to return to earthly politics. In my opinion, the evidence I brought for the literary similarity of the chapter to Aristotle's text, and Maimonides's general position favoring Aristotle over Plato, are decisive supports for my interpretation.

25. See an overview of these criticisms in Melamed, “Ha-politikah le-Aristo,” n. 4. Melamed does not accept these criticisms, but this is because he assumes that Aristotle placed a greater weight on the wise man's need to withdraw from political affairs. However, as we have seen above, it is far from obvious that this was Aristotle's position. On the other hand, we have also seen the clear tension in Plato between the philosopher and engagement in politics.

26. This confusion is based on the sources above. It is also part of a much broader issue that goes beyond the topic of this article and pertains to the history of the understanding of the differences between Plato and Aristotle regarding politics and other issues.

27. Maimonides, Guide, III 51, p. 624.

28. For previous scholarly discussions of this passage, see Ravitzky, “Philosophy and Leadership,” 48; Ravitzky, “Political Role of the Philosopher,” 560–63. This discussion does not refer to the Aristotelian source of Maimonides's statement about the importance of concern for the nation.

29. For a similar formulation of Maimonides's statement here, see Mishneh Torah, Book of Knowledge, Avodah Zarah 1:3.

30. This does not contradict an additional aspect of an explicit disagreement about Aristotle expressed in the conclusion, regarding divine providence, which goes beyond the scope of the present article. For Maimonides (III 54, p. 637): “This [is] a pivot of the Law. For matters are not as the overbold opine who think that His providence, may He be exalted, terminates at the sphere of the moon and that the earth and that which is in it are neglected: The Lord hath forsaken the earth [Ezek 9:9]. Rather is it as has been made clear to us by the Master of those who know: That the earth is the Lord's [Exod 9:29]. He means to say that His providence also extends over the earth in the way that corresponds to what the latter is, just as His providence extends over the heavens in the way that corresponds to what they are. This is what he says: That I am the Lord who exercises loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth [Jer 9:23].” For a discussion of the meaning of this section according to his approach, see Kellner, Maimonides on Human Perfection.