Drawing on Arabic passages from Ibn Gabirol's original Fons Vitae text, and highlighting philosophical insights from his Hebrew poetry, in this book I develop a “Theology of Desire” at the heart of Ibn Gabirol's eleventh-century cosmo-ontology. I challenge centuries of received scholarship on his work, including his so-called Doctrine of Divine Will. I reject voluntarist readings of the Fons Vitae as opposing divine emanation. I also emphasize Pseudo-Empedoclean notions of “Divine Desire” and “Grounding Element” alongside Ibn Gabirol's use of a particularly Neoplatonic method with apophatic (and what I term “doubly apophatic”) implications. In this way, I read claims about matter and God as insights about love, desire, and the receptive, dependent, and fragile nature of human being. I reenvision the
entire spirit of Ibn Gabirol's philosophy, moving us from a set of doctrines to a fluid inquiry into the nature of God and human being – and the bond between God and human being in desire.

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/philosophy/medieval-philosophy/ibn-gabirols-theology-desire-matter-and-method-jewish-medieval-neoplatonism

Ibn Gabirols Theology Desire Matter And Method Jewish Medieval Neoplatonism | Medieval philosophy | Cambridge University Press

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/philosophy/medieval-philosophy/ibn-gabirols-theology-desire-matter-and-method-jewish-medieval-neoplatonism

http://newbooksinphilosophy.com/2014/02/15/sarah-pessin-ibn-gabirols-theology-of-desire-matter-and-method-in-jewish-medieval-neoplatonism-cambridge-up-2013/

Sarah Pessin, “Ibn Gabirol’s Theology of Desire: Matter and Method in Jewish Medieval Neoplatonism” (Cambridge UP, 2013)

http://newbooksinphilosophy.com/2014/02/15/sarah-pessin-ibn-gabirols-theology-of-desire-matter-and-method-in-jewish-medieval-neoplatonism-cambridge-up-2013/

http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2013/08/invisible-kansases-how-not-to-read-old-cosmologies/

Invisible Kansases: How Not to Read Old Cosmologies | fifteeneightyfour

http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2013/08/invisible-kansases-how-not-to-read-old-cosmologies/