11. Juni 2025, 18.00 Uhr: Thomas von Aquin und Maimonides über Religion und den Staat. Öffentlicher Abend im Rahmen der Konferenz Illuminations from Aquinas and Maimonides and Meanings Today. In englischer Sprache mit deutscher Simultandolmetschung. Katholische Akademie in Berlin, Hannoversche Straße 5, 10115 Berlin

Der 800. Geburtstag von Thomas von Aquin ist Anlass, um ein Gespräch zwischen den beiden herausragenden Gestalten jüdischen und katholischen Denkens, Thomas von Aquin und Moses Maimonides, anzustoßen.

Podiumsgespräch mit Prof. Barbara Hallensleben (Fribourg), Prof. Josef Stern (Chicago) und Prof. Marcia Pally (New York/Berlin).

Eine Simultanübersetzung ins Deutsche wird angeboten.

Prof. Joseph Stern’s talk „Maimonides on the state, divine law, and individual perfection“ explores Maimonides’s notion of the state as arising from an antinomy: between necessary social relations (to satisfy individuals’ bodily needs) and the inevitable instability arising from conflicting human personalities. To address this instability, political associations emerge, governed by rulers who promulgate a variety of laws. Laws aiming only at citizens’ security and material/social welfare arise out of natural conditions but are a human artifact. Laws that also seek to develop citizens’ rational faculties—teaching “correct” beliefs and instilling “correct” values—empower capable individuals to strive for intellectual perfection. Maimonides calls this law “divine,” the best of which is the Mosaic Law. This talk addresses questions arising out of Maimonides’ conception of divine law. Why is a law that cultivates human rational faculties called divine?  How should we conceptualize the relation between communal welfare and individual perfection—and are there tensions here that hint at deeper incompatibilities between community/state and the individual? 

Josef Stern is the William H. Colvin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Chicago and served as the Inaugural Director of the Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies.  He works in both medieval Jewish and Arabic philosophy and contemporary philosophy of language. Among his recent publications are Metaphor in Context (2000); Quotations and Pictures (2022); and The Matter and Form of Maimonides’ Guide (2013), which was awarded the 2014 Book Prize by the Journal of the History of Philosophy for the best book in the history of philosophy published in 2013.  He is presently at work on a book on Maimonides’ epistemology of prophecy.

In Kooperation mit der Hochschule für Philosophie in München versammelt die Konferenz einen internationalen Kreis von führenden Maimonides- und Thomas von Aquin-Gelehrten aus Europa, Israel und den USA. Der Austausch findet in englischer Sprache statt.

The two-day conference will include a public lecture and several panels, each with contributions from scholars with expertise in Maimonides and Aquinas to engender as much cross-illumination as possible. All scholars are free to develop their own topics in a 20-minute presentation with an eye to a subject that would engage participants from both traditions. Topics may draw from philosophy, theology, metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology, ethics, etc. and the scholarly methodologies and debates employed in interpreting these thinkers.

Some examples include: the nature of God, God’s relationship to world and ordering of the cosmos, God and science, creation/emanation, the nature of nature and of humanity, how humanity knows (or doesn’t know) of God’s existence, via negativa/apophasis, the summum bonum, the ordering of personal and community/political living, theodicy, reward/punishment, providence, the meaning and purpose of revelation, of prayer, ritual, morality, commandments, prophecy, miracles, redemption, salvation, and notions of the messianic era. In addition: past and present debates about any of the above and discussion of the methods appropriate to studying and interpreting Aquinas and Maimonides.