Quotation
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“The intellect is limited, and a person is not at fault for failing to know what lies beyond it.”
Maimonides · Jewish philosophy · Medieval · c. 1190
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes chapter 31 as a warning against both despair and presumption: the intellect has a range, as sight does, and failing to know what lies outside that range is not a personal defect. He also thinks many people never reach the limit they do have, because of habit and poor training. A rival reading hears a ban on inquiry, a pious stop sign, but the chapter is explaining why metaphysics is hard, not why it is forbidden. It sits in the Guide's opening movement about the fit between understanding and its objects.
Did Maimonides really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A paraphrase of the sense of Guide of the Perplexed, part one, chapter 31, where Maimonides compares the intellect's limits to the senses' limits. It is not a single canonical English sentence. Shlomo Pines's translation is the scholarly standard for the Arabic.
Where it comes from
Guide of the Perplexed I.31
Approximate date: c. 1190.
How to use it
A night class in Bradford that cannot settle whether the universe has a beginning is not, on this chapter, a room full of failures. Some questions may sit beyond the intellect's reliable reach, and some may sit beyond this term's preparation. The distinction matters; Treating every unfinished question as a moral fault produces the anxiety he thinks is misplaced; Treating every question as off limits produces the idleness he also criticises.
A mindset reading
The comfort in the sentence is limited, which is why the paraphrase should not be softer than the chapter. He is not saying effort is irrelevant. He is saying there is a difference between a mind that has not worked and a mind that has met a boundary; A rival use quotes the limit in order to protect a dogma from questions that are, on his own view, inside the range of demonstration; That use steals the modesty and leaves the argument.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is the limit of the intellect, illustrated by the way each sense has objects it cannot take in, so that not seeing a sound is not a fault in the eye. Chapter 31 of the Guide uses that analogy against people who expect demonstration on every divine question. Pines's English is the translation to consult for the Arabic. This entry gives the sense and marks itself as a paraphrase.
- knowledge
- mind
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes chapter 31 as a warning against both despair and presumption: the intellect has a range, as sight does, and failing to know what lies outside that range is not a personal defect. He also thinks many people never reach the limit they do have, because of habit and poor training. A rival reading hears a ban on inquiry, a pious stop sign, but the chapter is explaining why metaphysics is hard, not why it is forbidden. It sits in the Guide's opening movement about the fit between understanding and its objects.
Did Maimonides really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A paraphrase of the sense of Guide of the Perplexed, part one, chapter 31, where Maimonides compares the intellect's limits to the senses' limits. It is not a single canonical English sentence. Shlomo Pines's translation is the scholarly standard for the Arabic.
Which work is it in?
Guide of the Perplexed I.31 Approximate date: c. 1190.