Possible Topics for a Comprehensive Philosophical Approach to Qohelet’s Metaphysical Assumptions

Up to now, philosophical approaches to Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) have tended to focus mostly on how parts of the book relate to some concepts in ethics and epistemology. By contrast, metaphysical assumptions in the text have received comparatively less attention. Yet while Qohelet is not a metaphysical textbook, the language of the author invariably contains many metaphysical assumptions about issues of interest popularly associated with this philosophical discipline (especially in its analytic form) and which still have not been studied in a conceptually nuanced manner. In light of this gap, the present study aims to provide a meta-theoretical prolegomenon to future descriptive metaphysical perspectives on the book. Bracketing controversies regarding the nature and possibility of metaphysics as such, the author offers an introductory overview of those concepts discussed therein and with reference to which Qohelet could be read in a comparative-philosophical manner.