Prof. Yehuda Halper

MONOGRAPHS

1. Averroes on Pathways to Divine Knowledge (Boston: Academic Studies Press, forthcoming 2025)
2. Jewish Socratic Questions in an Age Without Plato: Permitting and Forbidding Open-Inquiry in 12-15th century Europe and North Africa. Leiden: Brill, Maimonides Library of Philosophy and Religion 1, 2021

EDITED BOOKS

1. Logica Graeco-Arabico-Hebraica, special issue of Studia Graeco-Arabica 11/2 (2021)
2. The Pursuit of Happiness in Medieval Jewish and Islamic Thought. Ed. Yehuda Halper. Turnhout: Brepols Press, Philosophy in the Abrahamic Traditions of the Middle Ages 1, 2021.
3. Judah Moscato Sermons: Edition and Translation, Volume Three.  Ed. G. Milletto and G. Veltri in conjunction with Yehuda Halper and G. Corazzol. Brill Press, 2012.
4. Philosophy and the Jewish Tradition, by Aryeh Leo Motzkin (d. 2006), edited by Yehuda Halper. Brill Press, 2012.
5. Judah Moscato Sermons: Edition and Translation, Volume Two.  Ed. G. Milletto and G. Veltri in conjunction with Yehuda Halper and G. Corazzol. E. J. Brill Press, 2011.

ARTICLES (Journal Articles and Book Chapters) 

1. "Continuity, Limits, and Quantity in Al-Fārābī's Paraphrase of Aristotle's Categories," British Journal of the History of Philosophy (2024): 1-15 https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2024.2404449
2. "Is there a Doctor in the House of Jacob? Jacob Anatoli and the Foundations of Philosophical Study in Hebrew," Jewish Quarterly Review (2025), ~24 pages.
3. “All about that Res: From intentio to res in Mantino's Translation of Averroes' Middle Commentary on Aristotle's De Interpretatione 16a3-8," Materia Giudaica (2024): 67-78.
4. "Literary Dialectic and its Discontents: Humor and Physics in Immanuel of Rome and Jedaiah Bedersi," Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medieval 35 (2024): 217-231.
5. "Averroes' 'Epistle on Divine Knowledge' as a Dialectical Work: between Forbidden Interpretation and Philosophical Training," Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 34 (2024), 119-137.
6. "Dichotomies of Understanding Religious Law in Leo Strauss' Lecture, 'Abraham And Maimonides.'" In Leo Strauss on Religion, ed. Rasoul Namazi and Svetozar Minkov (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2024), forthcoming.
7. "Jacob Anatoli and Moses Ibn Tibbon: On the Uses and Misuses οf Logical Arguments in Interpreting Scripture," Revue des études juives 183 (2024): 29-46.
8. "Truth in Translation: Examples of Certainty, Truth, Verification, and Confirmation in Hebrew Translations of Averroes." In Reimund Leicht, Michael Engel, Daniel Davies and Giuseppe Veltri (eds.), Officina Philosophica Hebraica II (Leiden: Brill, 2024, forthcoming).
9. "Prophecy in the Image of Philosophy: The Case of Abraham Bibago." In Philosophie transformieren. Quellen für die Verwandlung des spätmittelalterlichen Wissens, ed. Karsten Engel and Ueli Zahnd (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
10. "Judaism: Signifying God According to Maimonides." In Signs and Signification in a Global Comparative Perspective: A Reader, edited by Glenn Most and Maria Avxentevskaya (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming), 20 pages.
11. "Hebrew Disputations and Dialectics from Barcelona to the Midi and Back? from Nahmanides to Crescas." In Revisiting Medieval Dialectics, ed. Ana Maria Mora Marquez (Dordrecht: Springer, 2023), ~20 pages.
12. "Standardization and Tibbonization: From the Pre-Tibbonide Hebrew Translation of Al-Fārābī's Dialectic to its Tibbonizing Commentary and Ṭodros Ṭodrosi's Tibbonide Partial Translation," Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism (forthcoming).
13. "Are Zeno's Paradoxes of Motion Fallacies? Evidence from the Hebrew Aristotelian Logical Tradition," Ad Argumenta 4 (2024): 249-269.
14. "Aristotelian Philosophical Programs in the Middle Ages," In Oxford Handbook of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Yitzhak Melamed and Paul Franks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
15. "Choking on Water, the Stratification of Society, and the Death of Socrates in the Hebrew Averroes." In Averroes and Averroism in Medieval Jewish Thought, ed. Yoav Meyrav, Racheli Haliva, and Dan Davies (Leiden: Brill, 2023), pp. 383-396.
16. "Expelling Dialectics from the Ideal State: Making the World Safe for Philosophy in Averroes' Commentary on Plato's Republic." In Plato's Republic in the Islamic Context: New Perspectives on Averroes' Commentary, ed. Alexander Orwin (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2022), pp. 69-86.
17. "Dialectic and Metaphysical Skepticism in Jacob Anatoli," Theoria 88 (2022): 143-163.
18. "Can the Results of Experience be the Premises of Demonstrations? 400 Years of Debate on a Single Line of Maimonides' Treatise on the Art of Logic", in Premodern Experience of the Natural World in Translation, ed. Katja Krause, Maria Auxent, and Dror Weil (London: Routledge, 2022), pp. 171-187.
19. "Debate by the Book, about the Book, in a Book: Shem Tob Falaquera's Epistle of the Debate, Al-Fārābī’s Book of Dialectic, and Aristotle's Topics on Philosophy and the Holy Writ," Studia Graeco-Arabica 11.2 (2021): 93-106.
20. "Happiness, Eros, and the Active Intellect: Understanding Erotic Desire in Averroes’ Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Λ in light of the Middle Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics", in The Pursuit of Happiness in Medieval Jewish Thought, ed. Y. Halper (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), 195-214.
21. “Is Silence Praise to Thee? On the Remarkable Near-Absence of Hebrew Averroist Metaphysical Speculation about God in the 15th-16^th Centuries” in Averroism between the 15th and 17th century, ed. Jozef Matula (Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2020), 225-244.
22. “The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Philosophers: The Ladder of Knowledge in Immanuel of Rome’s Hell and Heaven." In Philosophy for All? The Medieval Popularization of Philosophy in Medieval Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, Ed. Marieke Abram, Steven Harvey, and Lukas Muelthaler (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022), pp. 351-362.
23. "In One Sense Easy, in Another Difficult: Reverberations of the Opening of Aristotle's Metaphysics α ἔλαττον in Medieval and Renaissance Hebrew Literature," Revue des études juives 179.1-2 (2020): 133-160.
24. “Abraham Bibago on the Logic of Divine Science: Metaphysics α and the Legend of the Pardes,” in The Origin and Nature of Language and Logic: Perspectives in Medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian Thought, ed. Nadja Germann and Steven Harvey (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 323-346.
25. “King Solomon's Phaedran Madness in Johanan Alemanno's Hebrew Symposium,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 26 (2019): 309-337.
26. "Are there Second Intentions in De Interpretatione 16a3-8? The Hebrew Aristotelian Commentary Tradition in the 13^th-15^th centuries," Studia Graeco-Arabica 9 (2019): 243-269.
27. "Averroes’ Rewrite of Aristotle's Metaphysics Δ: Establishing The Plain Meaning of The Text in The Middle Commentary," Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 86.2 (2019): 259-281.
28. "God, Δαιμόνιον, and 'The Absent Philosopher': Constructing a Socratic Dialogue between Halevi and his Readers according to Leo Strauss’ 'The Law of Reason in the Kuzari,'" DAAT: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah 88 (2019): 191-204.
29. “The Only Extant, Complete, and Original Hebrew Commentary on the Entire Metaphysics of Aristotle: Eli Habilio and the Influence of Scotism,” Vivarium: A Journal for Medieval and Early-Modern Philosophy and Intellectual Life 57 (2019): 182-205.
30. "'For the Earth shall be Filled with De‘ah': Terminological Ambiguities and the Connection between Knowledge and Actions in Maimonides' Commentary on the Mishnah and Mishneh Torah?" In Reimund Leicht and Giuseppe Veltri (eds.), Officina Philosophica Hebraica I: Studies in the Formation of Medieval Hebrew Philosophical Terminology (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 76-103.
31. “Jewish Ritual as Trial in the Guide of the Perplexed.” In Interpreting Maimonides: Critical Essays, ed. Daniel Davies and Charles Manekin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 114-132.
32.  “Philosophical Commentary and Supercommentary: The Hebrew Aristotelean Commentaries of the 14^th through 16^th Centuries.” In Medieval Jewish Philosophy and its Literary Forms, ed. Aaron Hughes and James Robinson (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2019), 104-132.
33. “Does Maimonides' Mishneh Torah Forbid Reading the Guide of the Perplexed? On Platonic Punishments for Free Thinkers” AJS Review 42.2 (2018): 351-379.
34. “Socrates and Socratic Philosophy according to Judah Halevi’s Kuzari." Jewish Quarterly Review 107: 4 (2017): 447-475.
35. “The Sex Life of a Metaphysical Sceptic: Platonic Themes in Gersonides’ Commentary on Song of Songs” – in Scepticism and Anti-Scepticism in Medieval Jewish Thought, ed. Racheli Haliva (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 146-166.
36. 'בית אם מפולג לא יעמוד: הערה על דת ומדינה בתקופת הבית השני על פי ברוך שפינוזה' (“A House Divided cannot Stand: A Note on Religion and State in the Second Temple Period according to Benedict Spinoza”). In מנחה לחנה: עיונים לכבוד חנה כשר (“Tribute to Hannah: Studies in Honor of Hannah Kasher”), ed. Avraham Elqayam and Ariel Malachi (Tel Aviv: Idra Academic Press, 2018), 475-499.
37. 'בין דעת הרמב"ם לדעת שמואל אבן תיבון: תרגומי המונח 'דעת' ויחסם לשאלות המרכזיות של משנה התורה ומורה נבוכים' (“Daᶜat HaRambam and Daᶜat Samuel Ibn Tibbon: On the Meanings of the Hebrew Term, Daᶜat, and Central Questions of the Mishneh Torah and the Guide of the Perplexed”), DAAT: A Journal of Jewish Philosophy & Kabbalah 83 (2017): 47-67.
38. “Dialecticians and Dialectics in Averroes’ Long Commentary on Gamma 2 of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 26.1 (2016): 161-184.
39. “Intellect, Platonic Imagery and the Limitations of Aristotelian Science in Judah Moscato’s Nefuṣot Yehudah.” In Studies in Jewish History and Culture, Judah Moscato Sermons, vol. iv. Leiden: Brill, 2015. pp. 327-346.
40. “Abraham Bibago on Intellectual Conjunction and Human Happiness: Faith and Metaphysics according to a 15th Century Jewish Averroist.” Quaestio: Yearbook of the History of Metaphysics 15 (2015): 309-318.
41. “Averroes on Intentionality and the Human Experience of the Natural World.” In Aristotle and the Arabic Tradition, edited by Ahmed Alwishah and Josh Hayes. Cambridge University Press, 2015. pp. 164-176.
42. “Philosophical Allegory in Bibago: Exegetical Duplicity for the sake of Open Inquiry.” Jewish Studies Quarterly 21: 3 (2014): 261-276.
43. “Bibago’s Introduction to his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.” Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture 10 (2013): 1-15.
44. “Revision and Standardization of Hebrew Philosophical Terminology in the Fourteenth Century: the Example of Averroes’ Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Δ and the Development of Hebrew Scientific Terms.” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 13 (2013): 95-138.
45. “Introduction: Jewish and Philosophical Works of Aryeh Leo Motzkin” and “The Intellectual Development of Aryeh Leo Motzkin.” Pp. xi-xxi. In Philosophy and the Jewish Tradition, by Aryeh Leo Motzkin (d. 2006), edited by Yehuda Halper. E. J. Brill Press, 2012.
46. “Prayers to the God of Aristotle's Metaphysics: Tefillot Siyyum for Chapters of Book Δ of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.” Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture 8 (2011): 15-29.

    47. “The Convergence of Religious and Metaphysical Concepts: Mofet and Devequt in the Hebrew Translation of Averroes' Long Commentary on Aristotle's                Metaphysics” Studia Neoaristotelica 8: 2 (December, 2011): 163-177.

REVIEWS:

1. Review of Andalus and Sefarad: On Philosophy and Its History in Islamic Spain, by Sarah Stroumsa, Bulletin of SOAS 83/3 (2020), 518-520
2. Review of Dāwūd ibn Marwān al-Muqammaṣ, Twenty Chapters, ed. and trans. Sarah Stroumsa. Iyyun: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly 67 (January, 2018), 70-77.
3. Review of Reading Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, by David Gillis. AJS Review 41:1 (2017): 18-20.
4. Review of Maimonides & Spinoza: Their Conflicting Views of Human Nature, by Joshua Parens. Journal of the History of Philosophy 51: 2 (April, 2013), pp. 319-320.
5. Review of Il Commento medio di Averroe alla Metafisica di Aristotele nella tradizione ebraica, by Mauro Zonta, Philosophy East and West 63: 1 (January, 2013), pp. 96-99.

DIGITAL CRITICAL EDITIONS:

1. Anonymous, On the Causes of Contradictions in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed, ed. Yehuda Halper, Mahadurot: Modular Hebrew Digitally Rendered Texts, URL= http://mahadurot.com/CausesContradiction/
2. Judah Al-Ḥarizi, Explanation of Every Foreign Term in Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, ed. Yehuda Halper and Katharina Hillmann, Mahadurot: Modular Hebrew Digitally Rendered Texts, URL=http://mahadurot.com/HariziGuideTerms
3. Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Explanation of Some Terms in Maimonides' Treatise on Resurrection, ed. Yehuda Halper and Katharina Hillmann, Mahadurot: Modular Hebrew Digitally Rendered Texts, URL=http://mahadurot.com/IbnTibbon/EST
4. Samuel Ibn Tibbon, Explanation of Unusual Terms in Moses Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, ed. Rebecca Kneller-Rowe and Yehuda Halper, Mahadurot: Modular Hebrew Digitally Rendered Texts, URL=http://mahadurot.com/IbnTibbon/PMZ
5. Anonymous, "A Prayer of Socrates," ed. Yehuda Halper, Mahadurot: Modular Hebrew Digitally Rendered Texts, URL= http://mahadurot.com/SocratesPrayer

ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLES

1. “Maimonides," Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, ed. Mortimer Sellers, Stephan Kirste, section ed. Gianfrancesco Zanetti, Springer, 2022.
2. “Judah Messer Leon," Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Marco Sgarbi. Springer, 2018.
3. “Abraham Bibago,” Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Marco Sgarbi. Springer, 2015.
4. “Judah Moscato, Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Marco Sgarbi. Springer, 2015.

INTERNET PUBLICATIONS

1. “Introduction,” “Biography,” and “Bibliography” for the Great Thinkers’ Project on Moses Maimonides, Department of Government, Harvard University. http://thegreatthinkers.org/maimonides/
2. “Introduction,” “Biography,” and “Bibliography” for the Great Thinkers’ Project on Averroes, Department of Government, Harvard University. http://thegreatthinkers.org/averroes/ (forthcoming).
3. “Translating Being, Essence and Substance into Hebrew: Complexities and Ambiguities” Peshat website: http://peshat.dev.cmg.co.il/uploads/media_items/halper-being-essence-and-substance.original.pdf.