Q&A: Prophecy according to Maimonides through conjunction with the Active Intellect
Prophecy according to Maimonides through conjunction with the Active Intellect.
Question
Hello,
In the Guide for the Perplexed, Part II, it is described that prophecy is received from the influence of the Active Intellect on the imaginative faculty. Are these descriptions still valid, since from what I understand much of Maimonides’ conception of nature is mistaken? Does this also apply to Maimonides’ conception of the human soul and also to the metaphysics that includes separate intellects?
Thank you!
Answer
I have no idea. I don’t really understand these concepts, and I doubt how much Maimonides could know how prophecy works. As far as I’m concerned, all this discourse is a translation of Aristotle into Torah-Hebrew, and it is devoid of any religious or Torah value, just as Aristotle’s collection of speculations about active and separate intellects—which I myself doubt he even understood all that well—has no scientific or metaphysical value. In my view, studying these materials (including parts of the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah) is a waste of Torah study.
Discussion on Answer
How would he know that? Show me from which “sources in Judaism” (what does that even mean?) one can derive how prophecy works.
These are his own understandings, drawn from his intellectual world. As such, I don’t see them as authoritative, binding determinations, nor as determinations that are necessarily correct. I’m just as qualified for that as he is. Don’t rely on anything he said—except in Jewish law, where he has status (and even there it isn’t absolute), and that is not because he is necessarily right but because he was accepted. A mechanism of acceptance can help with regard to norms, but not with regard to facts (and matters of thought are facts). I’ve explained this here on the site several times already.
If I may add:
Maimonides included in the question of how prophecy is transmitted
his entire discussion of this matter only in order to distinguish between prophets and dreamers and diviners.
For the concept of emanation that he uses is discussed in his definition in Part II, chapter 12, and there it is emphasized that we have no way
to grasp these matters except by way of an analogy to a spring flowing out in every direction.
Thank you for the quick response,
but I want to sharpen the question a bit: why can’t Maimonides know how prophecy works? Is it really so simple that he just made these things up out of his own mind using Aristotle’s theories? Because many times he relies on sources in Judaism for his words. And if so, why should I rely on other things he said? And is there no point in distinguishing between the technical mechanism, which changes with the development of science, and the essence/message of what he writes regarding the basis of faith?