Etica Aristotelis  – ספר המידות לאריסטוטליס

Isaac Satanow, ספר המידות לאריסטוטליס – Etica Aristotelis, Berlin 1790. Hebrew. | Call Number: 17/6268 Bd. 1-2 | Digital copy via Frankfurt's Digital Judaica Collections.

Isaac Satanow (1732-1804) immigrated to Berlin from Galicia, where he was introduced to the Haskalah. He became the director of the printing house Orientalische Buchdruckerey and published dozens of Masckilic books. A significant part of Satanow's work was pseudo-epigraphic. In the book Etica Aristotelis, Satanow translated Aristotle's best-known works on ethics – Nicomachean Ethics – into Hebrew and added a commentary. For the Masckilim, Aristotle was a flowing source of knowledge, intellectual insights, and morals. Moreover, Aristotle was seen as the primary and definitive model for rationalism. Satanow's book, Sefer Ha'Midot, and other moral books of Maskilim harmonized rational thinking with the commitment to Torah and Mitzvot. The Maskilic moral literature was founded in one's duties to God and the Torah. The Haskalah expanded those duties to include 'worldly' matters and universal values.