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Shem-Tov ben Joseph ibn Falaquera, also spelled Palquera (Hebrew: שם טוב בן יוסף אבן פלקירה; 1225 – c. 1290) was a Spanish Jewish philosopher and poet and commentator. A vast body of work is attributed to Falaquera, including encyclopedias of Arabic and Greek philosophies, maqamas, some 20,000 poetic verses, and commentaries on Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed.[1] The common theme in Falaquera’s writing was to encourage observant Jews to study philosophy and to appreciate the harmony that existed between Torah and rational truth learned in philosophy.[1] While Falaquera did not advocate teaching the secrets of science and divine sciences to every man, he did advocate the teaching of these truths to a broader range of educated Jewish males than previous proponents of rationalist thinking. [2] He authored a Medieval Hebrew philosophical-scientific encyclopedia, De'ot ha-Filosofim (The Opinions of the Philosophers) (ca. 1270), which consists of a detailed theoretical, and not merely descriptive, treatment of zoology, botany and mineralogy, comparable to that of Albertus Magnus.[3]
- ^ a b Jospe, Raphael (2007). "Falaquera, Shem Tov ben Joseph ibn". Encyclopaedia Judaica. 6: 679–683. Retrieved 2011-03-27.
- ^ Harvey, Steven (1987). Falaquera's Epistle of the Debate: An Introduction to Jewish Philosophy. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-674-29173-7.
- ^ Zonta, Mauro (September 1996). "Mineralogy, Botany and Zoology in Medieval Hebrew Encyclopaedias: "Descriptive" and "theoretical" approaches to Arabic sources". Arabic Sciences and Philosophy. 6 (2): 263–315. doi:10.1017/S0957423900002216. ISSN 1474-0524.