ביקורת המדע האריסטוטלי של ר' חסדאי קרשקש וספרו האבוד של אבנר מבורגוס

Rabbi Ḫasdai Crescas is known as the first Jewish philosopher to criticize Aristotelian science systematically. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that Abner of Burgos greatly influenced Crescas' criticism of Aristotelian science. Abner stated that it is possible to distinguish between a body and the characteristics attributed to it in Aristotelian physics. Crescas also posits a body with none of the traits that Aristotle attributes to bodies, with the exception, however, of having dimensions and being present in a place. William of Ockham, one of the earliest critics of Aristotelian science regarding the essence of matter, maintains that matter (not a body, because it does not have any form) exists in actuality and lacks all the attributes that Aristotle ascribed to bodies, with the exception of being dimensional. I argue that Crescas's method is mostly influenced by Abner and slightly by Ockham, who probably did not influence Abner (since he was at least eighteen years older than Ockham). The significance of this conclusion is that criticism of Aristotelian science in Judaism began at least eighty years before Crescas, approximately at the time that Ockham composed his sharp criticism of Aristotelian science within the context of Christian philosophy.