Maimonides's Thirteen Principles and the Structure of the Guide of the Perplexed

76 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY the heavens and, hence, of the whole universe is supported. But, Aristotle hastens to add, in the case of animal motion not only must there be an external unmoved bodily support, but also there must be within the animal something against which the moved part supports itself when it moves, as he has argued earlier. With this claim he returns to the topic of animal motion for the remainder of the treatise. CONCLUDING SUMMARY Aristotle's views on the separability of the sciences, enunciated in the Organon , do not preclude the employment of cross-disciplinary material in zetetic contexts nor the use of one science to provide necessary conditions for the other. Aristotle's use of cosmological claims in the study of the physiology of animal motion is at most heuristic and thus permissible by the Organon's standards. Arguments for the necessity of eternal motion and an unmoved mover are not seen by Aristotle either in the Physics or in the De Motu as requiring (nor, were they successful, would they require) premises from the science of animal motion. I conclude that Aristotle does not depart significantly from his earlier views on the separability of the sciences in the De Motu Animalium. JOAN KUNG Marquette University MAIMONIDES'S THIRTEEN PRINCIPLES AND THE STRUCTURE OF THE "GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED" Among the many enigmas associated with Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed there are two that, I argue here, ought to be seen as related. First, why did Maimonides divide the Guide into three parts? Second, why did Maimonides not mention in the Guide his "Thirteen Principles of Faith" he had promulgated in his earliest major work, the Commentary on the Mishnah? Why did Maimonides divide the Guide into three parts? He himself never addresses this question directly, although he insists that he wrote the work with great care and that "nothing has been mentioned out of its place, save I wouldliketo thankDr. WarrenZe'evHarveyfor his manyhelpfulcommentsand suggestionson this paper. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 77 with a view to explaining some matter in its proper place.'" It may be assumed, therefore, that Maimonides's tripartite division of his book was not accidental. The question of the structure of the Guide is complicated by the fact that Maimonides informs his readers that he wrote his book in such a fashion as to confuse the vulgar and hide his true opinions from them? Maimonides intimates that one of the keys to the understanding of these true opinions is the understanding of the interconnection of the chapters in the Guide: "If you wish to grasp the totality of what this treatise contains you must connect its chapters one with another. ''3 A number of modern scholars have sought to connect the Guide's chapters one with another, and mention ought to be made of the studies of Rawidowicz, Strauss, and Berman. On the question of the tripartite division of the Guide Rawidowicz concluded that Part 1 contains a critique of erroneous views and serves to introduce Part 2, concerning theory, and Part 3, concerning practice. 4 Strauss divides the work into seven sections, ignoring Maimonides's own division of three parts. 5 Berman, following Rawidowicz and to some extent Strauss, argues that Part 1 deals with "the imagination and its perils," Part 2 with "the domain of the theoretical intellect," and Part 3 with "the relationship between theory and practice. ''6 In my view, the analyses of Rawidowicz, Strauss, and Berman, while clarifying many aspects of the Guide's structure, do not succeed in fully accounting for its tripartite division. Why did Maimonides fail to mention the Thirteen Principles in the Guide? 7 First put forward in the Commentary on the Mishnah, 8 these principles ' Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed,trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, x963), introduction, p. 15. 2 Guide, introduction. Several schools of Maimonidean interpretation, each claiming to understand the philosopher's true opinions, have arisen. Arthur Hyman describes them in "Interpreting Maimonides," Gesher5(1976): 46-59. 3 Guide, introduction, p. 15. 4 See Simon Rawidowicz,"The Structure of the Guideof the Perplexed,"lyyunim Be~.hevet Yisrael, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Rubin Mass, 1969), pp. 237...