Moses Maimonides
1138-1204 · Jewish Thought · Renowned
Maimonides was a Jewish rabbi and a working physician. His Guide for the Perplexed reads the Torah with Aristotle in hand, squaring the revealed text with Aristotelian reason, and concludes that you can say what God is not and little more: call him wise or good and you have cut him down to the size of your own mind. He also codified the whole of Jewish law in one work, the Mishneh Torah.
Signature
The position Maimonides is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
Positions on the 14 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful (90 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- leans Collectivism (12 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (88 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable (88 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (29 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (92 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (17 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- mildly between Unity and Multiplicity (46 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (88 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (92 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Polity
- leans Illiberalism (15 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- leans Means (75 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Conviction
- mildly leans Certain (65 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
6 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Maimonides refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Epistocracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Knowledge
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Indistinct from Present
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Indirect Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God / Pure Reason / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law / Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Sacred Tradition / Natural Law
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Sacred Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Obstacle to Reason
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?