Affiliation:
1. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Abstract
ABSTRACT
This article reconsiders a specific mishnah—Avot 5:16—which praises a disinterested love, while denouncing expressions of interested love. By referring to the alleged “love” of Amnon and Tamar, Avot 5:16 equates sexuality and interestedness with incest and rape. This exegetical choice is surprising, given the pro-natal and “carnal” trajectory of biblical and talmudic traditions, which can be described as proto-pragmatist in this regard. The paper opens by defining pragmatic interestedness vis-à-vis disinterestedness, while reviewing the prevalence of disinterestedness in modern philosophy. Section 2 examines mishnah Avot 5:16 and its advocacy of disinterested ethic, while suggesting its ideational affiliation with Platonic love and with the Christian Agape. Section 3 argues that within normative-laden Jewish tradition, as well as in classical American pragmatism, we find an embodied and integrative philosophical anthropology (or pragmatic interestedness), which deeply challenges the disinterestedness paradigm of Avot 5:16. Section 4 concludes with some reflections on the relevance of this study for the research of Jewish thought and the Humanities.
Publisher
The Pennsylvania State University Press
Subject
Philosophy,Religious studies
Reference190 articles.
1. Allington, R., et al2019. “Love of Enemies,”Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (available online at https://www.degruyter.com/database/EBR/entry).
2. “Ha’im Kiddushin hem Haḥalat Ba‘alut?” [in Heb.];Akdamot,2019