Pragmatism and Theology: Between Hasdai Crescas and Charles Peirce

Abstract The noted Jewish scholar Harry Wolfson (d. 1929) claimed in youthful writings that the fifteenth‐century rabbinic thinker and physicist, Hasdai Crescas, was a pragmatist. This essay introduces evidence there are, indeed, significant analogies between elements of Crescas’s critique Aristotle Charles Peirce’s pragmatism. concludes primary work, Light Lord ( Or Hashem ), displays unique analogue to classical American pragmatism, which I label “rabbinic pragmatism” classify as subtype “Jewish pragmatism.” essay’s central hypothesis is scientific reasoning correlative his Torah‐based reasoning. A second enabling conditions this correlativity are inquirer’s relation God author Creation Commandments mitzvah ). argue non‐finite mathematics (a potential source for Galileo) account meanings each Commandment so command fresh new context life.