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Updated: May 10, 2025
The only one of his extant works which is philosophical in content is the small treatise "Hegyon ha-Nefesh," Meditation of the Soul. It is a popular work, written with a practical purpose, ethical and homiletic in tone and style.
This is due to the fact that the "Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh" is a popular work, dealing with morals, and does not go into metaphysical questions. It is full of Biblical citations, which stamps it as Jewish; and there are also in it quotations from Arabic writers serving to illustrate the argument and lending variety and interest to the style.
And yet the most distinctive doctrine of Plotinus and the later Neo-Platonists among the Arabs, the series of emanating hypostases, Intellect, Universal Soul, Nature, Matter, and so on, is wanting in the "Hegyon ha-Nefesh."
To this they owe in a measure their popularity, which, however, cannot be said for Abraham bar Hiyya, whose "Hegyon ha-Nefesh" was not printed until the second half of last century. The "Microcosm" of Ibn Zaddik is the first compendium of science, philosophy and theology in Jewish literature.
His chief work, which entitles him to brief notice here, is the "Tagmule ha-Nefesh" just mentioned. He does not offer us a system of philosophy, but only a treatment of certain questions relating to the nature of the soul, its immortality and the manner of its existence after the death of the body, questions which Maimonides passes over lightly.
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