Two Models of Jewish Philosophy Justifying One's Practices

In a work that illustrates how Jewish philosophy can make a genuine contribution to general philosophical debate, Daniel Rynhold attempts to formulate a model for the justification of practices by applying the methods of modern analytic philosophy to approaches to the rationalization of thecommandments from the history of Jewish philosophy. Through critical analysis of the methods of Moses Maimonides and Joseph Soloveitchik, Rynhold argues against propositional approaches to justifying practices that he terms Priority of Theory approaches and offers instead his own method, termed thePriority of Practice, which emphasizes the need for a more pragmatic take on this whole issue.

Daniel Rynhold is Lecturer in Judaism, King's College London.