“Intellectual Virtues and Attention to Kairos in Maimonides and Dante”

Intellectual Virtues and Attention to Kairos in Maimonides and Dante examines how Maimonides and Dante differently engage Aristotelian ethical theory in relation to prophecy, practical reasoning, and the didactic function of philosophy. The first section focuses on two questions: how Maimonides departs from Aristotle by treating prophecy—not wisdom—as the ultimate human perfection; and why he does not explicitly identify a virtue of practical reasoning analogous to Aristotle’s phronêsis. The second section turns to Dante’s recovery and revaluation of phronêsis within a poetic discourse that is both didactic and protreptic. I argue that Dante’s emphasis on practical judgment is grounded in a psychological theory that shapes the pedagogical aims of his ethical vision. Through these two case studies, the article highlights how attention to kairos, genre, and rhetorical purpose clarifies the philosophical seriousness of their respective projects. Ultimately, I suggest that both Maimonides and Dante reveal how philosophical inquiry remains inseparable from political and religious commitments, even where they draw from a shared Peripatetic tradition.

Published in: The Edinburgh Critical History of Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Richard Lee and Andrew Lazella, 234-248. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.