Introduction

In this episode J.J. and Dr. Lenn Goodman discuss Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed, and the challenges of a brand new translation. Also: What Strauss, Pines, and the UChicago school of interpretation got wrong.

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Lenn E. Goodman is Professor of Philosophy and Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He was honored with the Baumgardt Prize of the American Philosophical Association, and with a volume in Brill Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophy. He is a rare humanities winner of the Sutherland Prize, Vanderbilt University’s highest research award. Goodman’s book-length contributions in Jewish philosophy include The Holy One of Israel (2019), Judaism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (2017), Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself, his Gifford Lectures (2008), Judaism, Human Rights & Human Values (1998), God of Abraham (1996, which won the Gratz Centennial Prize), Judaism, Human Rights & Human Values (1998), and On Justice: An Essay in Jewish Philosophy (2008). Goodman has also written extensively on Islamic philosophy, including work on Razi, Farabi, Avicenna, Ghazali, Ibn Tufayl, and Ibn Khaldun. His books in general philosophy include In Defense of Truth, Coming to Mind: The Soul and its Body (co-authored with D. Greg Caramenico), Religious Pluralism and Values in the Public Sphere, and Creation and Evolution. Goodman has lectured widely, in Oxford, Jerusalem, Taiwan, Morocco, and in many venues in the United States and Canada. His new translation/commentary of Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed (co-authored with Phillip Lieberman), and a companion volume of his own titled A Guide to Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed, will be published by Stanford University Press early in 2024. He is now at work on a new book titled God and Truth.