Abstract

An interesting question arises in the context of the typically medieval description of the universe presented at the beginning of Maimonides' great law code, the Mishneh Torah. What was Maimonides' own attitude towards that account? Was it meant only as a statement of the best description of nature available at the time matters which make up the bulk of the Mishneh Torah) or was it meant to be a description of the true nature of the universe as it really is, not subject to revision in the light of new paradigms or new models ? Answering this question will lead us to a better understanding of Maimonides' understanding of the nature of science and of what I shall call, for lack of a better term, scientific progress. Maimonides will be shown to hold that while sublunar science can reach perfection and completion such is not possible for superlunar science and that to the extent that the scientific matters in the Mishneh Torah deal with the latter they could not have been presented as the final description of the universe as it truly is