Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Hebrew Philosophical Manuscripts as Sites of Engagement

Project description

Decoding the hidden history of Jewish philosophy

Medieval philosophical manuscripts in Hebrew are highly varied – there rarely is one copy like another. This comes as philosophical activity was not institutionalised but limited to exchanges within small circles of scholars, and the acquisition of texts was often a great challenge. This resulted in a wealth of manuscripts full of annotations, comments and observations that go far beyond a mere copy of an original text. In the context of this, the EU-funded HEPMASITE project will seek to enhance our understanding of medieval Jewish philosophy and study how it was practised in the real world. To do this, the project will employ narrative philology and historiography of engagement.

Objective

In the Middle Ages, philosophical activity undertaken in Hebrew was not conducted within an institutionalized environment. There were no universities, regulated curricula, or professors, but only small circles of scholars, most of whom we know nothing about. These scholars had to obtain their own copies of the works they wished to explore, sometimes even copying them themselves or with the help of others. Heavily involved in the production of the materials they were using, they often interfered with the texts they were studying, offering corrections, working notes, glosses, comparisons, and observations. As a result, the corpus of philosophical writings in Hebrew is incredibly diverse, and rarely is one copy similar to another. In this challenging landscape, the individual copy is our main entry point for understanding how Hebrew philosophy took place in the real world. The Hebrew philosophical manuscript is not a mere container of text; more than anything else, it is a site of engagement.

Aside from a few notable exceptions, scholarship of philosophy in Hebrew is still focused on a relatively small number of major thinkers and works. Manuscripts are often stripped of their particularity and employed only for the sake of producing critical editions. The story of the silent, nameless majority - who enabled philosophical activity by tirelessly editing, studying, translating, revising, and producing the material Hebrew philosophical corpus we have today - has yet to be told.

HEPMASITE is the first project to tackle the corpus of medieval Hebrew philosophical manuscripts in order to unravel the hidden history of Jewish philosophy enveloped within them. By employing narrative philology and a historiography of engagement - novel research methodologies that embrace textual particularity and fluidity - HEPMASITE will revolutionize the understanding of Jewish philosophy as it took place in the real world and as it was studied by actual people.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been validated by the project's team.

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2021-STG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 495 013,00
Address
MITTELWEG 177
20148 Hamburg
Germany

See on map

Region
Hamburg Hamburg Hamburg
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 495 013,00

Beneficiaries (1)

My booklet 0 0