Conceptual Analysis – Lesson 1

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[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not entirely clear to what extent one can call this authority, but I use the term because in this context it always comes up. Substantive authority is authority given to someone because he is right. That is authority that does require, or is based on, some kind of examination. It can be an examination of the authority-holder, and it can be an examination of the things he says. I can check, for example, say a doctor writes me a prescription for some medication. So I can check whether he is licensed to practice medicine, whether he has medical training and has a medical diploma hanging on the wall, for instance. That’s a check of the person. I can also check what he prescribed for me, search online and see whether it in fact treats the symptoms I’m feeling. Both of those checks are aimed at seeing whether he is right. And if I make my obligation to obey, or my obedience to what he says, to his instruction, depend on checks of that kind—whether checks about the person himself or checks about the subject matter, about the claim itself—then this still is not formal authority. Because formal authority requires no checking at all; it exists even without checking, and even against the results of checking. Substantive authority is really not truly authority. When I obey a doctor, it’s not because he has authority, because I am required to obey him, but because it makes sense to obey him. Why? Because he’s a doctor and he understands this and I don’t. That’s all. In the end, I obey him as a result of the examination; it’s hard even to call it obedience. I’m not really obeying him. He simply revealed the truth to me, and now I do what appears true to me. True, on my own I couldn’t have known this because I’m not a doctor, so I went to an expert to tell me what medicine says, how to treat this kind of illness. But here he serves as an instrumental tool, meaning he is a means for clarifying the truth, and therefore the obedience to him is hard even to describe as obedience to authority. It’s not obedience to authority. He isn’t really authority; rather, he knows more than I do, and I accept what he says because I reached the conclusion that he is right—or at least that he is more likely to be right than I am. That’s why I listen to him. Many times this sounds like obedience to authority, and that’s why I also call this authority—substantive authority, as distinct from formal authority—but the truth is that it’s not clear how correct it is to put this under the term authority at all. Okay, so these are two concepts of authority. Now that we’re equipped with that distinction, which is a purely conceptual distinction—notice, I didn’t use any book, precedent, source, nothing—I’m simply trying to analyze the concept of authority, and I discover that hidden under it are two sub-concepts, or one concept and another that resembles it, which may or may not really belong inside it. Two concepts of authority. So this is conceptual analysis.

Good. Now let’s continue. Now I ask: when I ask whether there is authority in factual fields or in intellectual fields, as opposed to halakhic fields—because in halakhic fields it is accepted that there is authority, it even says in the Torah, “Do not deviate,” and so on—well, “accepted”; even there it has to be checked, because the fact that it is accepted is still no guarantee that it is correct. But in intellectual and factual fields this is an open question, and that is exactly what we are asking here: is there authority in those fields as well or not? And then I ask myself: which of the two kinds of authority does the questioner mean—that is, I mean? When I try to clarify this question, I first have to ask myself: the first concept I need to clarify is the concept of authority. So I did an analysis and reached the conclusion that under it there are really two different concepts. Now I ask myself which of those two concepts is the one that interests me. In other words: in factual and intellectual fields and the like, is there formal authority? Or is there substantive authority? You can ask both questions, so let’s ask both. Let’s keep moving forward. We already understand the question a bit better; we’ve become a little wiser through this conceptual analysis.

Now I ask myself: what is authority in the factual realm? To ask that, I ask myself: what is a fact? What is a fact? It seems to me that the accepted definitions of a fact are basically something that has some kind of objective existence, such that claims about it—when someone makes a claim about a fact—can be true or false. That’s what’s called a fact in the usual definitions. Say if I now say, “It is dark outside,” that’s a fact, right? Why? Because the claim “It is dark outside right now” is either a true claim—in this case it is true—or a false claim. It asserts something; it describes something in the world. How do I know whether the claim is true or false? I make a comparison, a comparison between the content of the claim and the state of affairs in the world that the claim describes. That comparison tells me whether the claim is false or true. If there is a fit between the state of affairs in the world and the content of the claim, then the claim is true. If there isn’t, then it is a false claim. Okay? So basically, a fact means some sort of reality in the world that claims describing it can be true or false about.

For example, in this context one can discuss the question—say, I said that it is now dark outside. That is obviously a factual claim. And to say that it is dark outside is a fact. The claim “It is dark outside right now” is a factual claim. Okay? A claim of the sort of—I don’t know—“there are currently ten thousand clouds around the earth.” That too is a factual claim, right? Because it describes some kind of reality, and the claim that describes that reality is either true or false. In this particular case it is probably a claim that I won’t be able to know whether it’s true or false. Because it’s very hard for me to make the comparison—that is, to check the state of affairs in order to compare it to the content of the claim. It’s very difficult for me to count all the clouds around the earth at a given moment. To the extent that “number of clouds” is even a well-defined thing, because they can also blend into one another—what exactly defines the end of one cloud? You can raise questions here; there are problems beyond the technical ones. But never mind, let’s assume for the moment that it is perfectly well-defined. The point is that here we have a claim which, on the one hand, is a factual claim, and on the other hand, it is hard to know whether it is correct or not. Because you can’t count the clouds. Or how many grains of sand there are on some beach. You can’t count that. Therefore the claim that there are such-and-such a number of grains of sand there may be a factual claim, assuming I have clearly delimited the area I’m talking about. But it is a factual claim that I don’t know how to test. To test whether that claim is true or false—if I say that the number of grains of sand is ten to the thirtieth power—how would I check that? I have no way to check it. But it is still a factual claim. It is a factual claim because it says something about a real fact, about reality—that is, about something in the world. Therefore it is either true or false. Even if I can’t know whether it is true or false, it is still either true or false.

Now, there are claims that are not factual claims in the simple sense—for example, that murder is forbidden. “Murder is forbidden” is not a factual claim. It doesn’t describe something that exists in reality, in the world, in the universe, whatever—in reality. Therefore I have no way to check that claim by comparison. I have nothing to compare it to. Because when I want to check whether murder is forbidden, what exactly am I comparing that to? Of course, if I say “Murder is forbidden in Jewish law,” no problem. I can check whatever I accept as a book of Jewish law—Shulchan Arukh, Maimonides, the Written Torah, whatever you like—and see whether there is a prohibition on murder there or not. That is a factual claim. The claim that murder is forbidden under Israeli law is also a factual claim. You can check it: you open the law book and see whether there is a law that forbids murder. But the claim “Murder is forbidden” as such—not “forbidden according to the law” or “forbidden according to Jewish law,” but simply “Murder is forbidden,” period—that is not a factual claim. I have nothing to open up in order to make the comparison and see whether it is true or false. So from the straightforward point of view, that is not a factual claim. Why? Because it does not describe something in the world.

Now take, for example, the question: “There are ten thousand fairies in the world.” Okay? In reality, in the universe, I don’t know—“in the world,” again, what does that mean exactly? In what sense do fairies exist in the world? Never mind. In reality, in some sense, there exist ten thousand fairies. Is that a factual claim? I think so. In this case, it seems to me to be a false factual claim, but it is still a factual claim. It says something about the world, and it can be true or false. One would have to make the comparison and check. In this case I can’t make the comparison. But it’s not only that I can’t make the comparison—if I don’t make the comparison, I still tend to think it is false because there are no fairies in the world. That’s what I think. I have no proof of that; I haven’t seen fairies, I can’t see fairies. Who knows? There could always be some. But here it’s not just that I can’t check it; it’s not merely a question of technical impossibility, as with clouds or grains of sand. Here it isn’t even clear how one checks such things at all. With grains of sand, I know: you just take them one by one and count. It’s just that doing it is a crazy task. Okay? Here I don’t even have the algorithm. What exactly am I supposed to do in order to check it? So that’s much deeper. Right? And still I claim that it is a factual claim. A factual claim because it says something about reality. And if one person says there are ten thousand fairies and someone else says the number is different, or that there are no fairies at all, one of them is right and the other is wrong. They cannot both be right. That too is a characteristic of a factual claim. A factual claim is characterized by the fact that it is either true or false. If someone thinks it is true, then someone who says the opposite is, in his eyes, saying something false. Okay? That is a characteristic of a factual claim. So that’s the definition of a factual claim.

Now I ask myself: let’s connect the conceptual analysis we did of the concept of fact and the concept of authority, and now ask whether authority can exist with respect to facts. Right—I did a conceptual analysis, and now I come back and ask the question again and try to see what it means. The conclusion that comes out is an interesting one. And look: I reach the conclusion without opening a book. I reach the conclusion from the very fact that I analyzed the concepts involved. And what I want to argue is that there cannot be formal authority with respect to facts. I didn’t open a book, and here is the conclusion. I have a conclusion. Right? Armchair scientist—that is, I do research without getting up from the armchair. I don’t open a book and I reach conclusions from a priori reflections. But there are things—sometimes “armchair scientist” is a pejorative, because when you need to get up and check, then you need to get up and check; it’s not enough to think from the armchair. But there are questions where, if we do proper conceptual analysis, it turns out we don’t need to get up from the armchair to answer them. And this is one of the claims I want to demonstrate through this example.

So let’s try to think what formal authority over facts would mean. Formal authority over facts would mean that if someone comes and says that a certain fact about reality is true, I would be obligated to adopt that. Right? I’m now translating what came out of my conceptual analysis of these two concepts—authority and fact—into the statement that if some agent, institution, or person tells me that fact X is true, that reality is X, then I must accept it without checking whether it is true or not. It binds me. That is the meaning of authority. And you can already see that what I just said is simply an oxymoron. There cannot be formal authority with respect to facts. Why? Because assuming the person said something—the whole point of formal authority is that it is authority not dependent on facts, like the Knesset, right? Say I examine a law passed by the Knesset and reach the conclusion that it is a mistaken law, an improper law—not “false,” because it isn’t asserting something about reality—but an improper law. Okay? I’m still obligated to obey it, because that’s what the Knesset enacted; that’s the law. In our system, what the Knesset determines is what determines. Okay? So I have to obey it. The Knesset has formal authority. What would happen if the Knesset legislated that it is now light outside? Then I’d say, fine, I checked and I see that it is not true; it is now dark outside. And all right, when the Knesset legislated, say, that supermarkets may not open on the Sabbath, that also seems wrong to me, let’s say for the sake of discussion. And still, if it is Knesset legislation, I have to obey. In other words, the fact that I checked and it turned out to me that it is improper or wrong does not in itself say anything. If there is formal authority, I still have to obey.

What I want to argue is that with respect to facts, when I check and discover that the authority-holder told me an untrue fact, that by itself is not enough to say that he has no authority, because that can also happen in contexts where there is authority, like the authority of the Knesset. But my claim is that this concept of authority cannot be implemented. Suppose I checked and saw that it is light outside. And then they tell me, yes, but the legislator determined that it is dark outside. Sorry—I now see that it is dark outside, and the legislator determined that it is light outside. The legislator determined a factual claim, and I have to obey him because he has formal authority. I say: even if I desperately wanted to obey him, I can’t. I can’t obey him, because obeying him would mean thinking that it is now light outside. But the fact is that I think it is now dark outside. I cannot think what I do not think, even if I really want to. Even if I came to the conclusion that there is authority in factual matters, it would be an authority that cannot be implemented in terms of obedience. I said that obedience is the other side of authority. I cannot obey such an authority, even if theoretically the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself came out and informed me that the Knesset has authority in factual matters. I would say to Him: listen, Holy One, blessed be He, I very much want to obey the Knesset in these matters—I just don’t know how to do it. After all, I reached the conclusion that it is now dark outside. And the Knesset determined that I must think that it is now light outside. So what exactly am I supposed to do? I’m supposed now to think that it is light outside—but I think it is dark outside. Change what I think? I can’t change what I think, because that is what I think.

If I were convinced that the Knesset understands this better than I do, and that I might be mistaken in my perception that it is dark outside, no problem. Then I would say: the Knesset sees this reality of light and darkness much better than I do, and so it convinces me that I was probably mistaken. Then no problem. I would truly say: okay, then it is light outside now; although I thought it was dark, I was mistaken. But that is not the concept of formal authority. That is substantive authority, because I reached the conclusion that I was mistaken; I was persuaded. That is the result of examination. But when I speak about formal authority, formal authority is authority detached from the results of examination. Even if I checked and it turned out to me that the authority-holder was wrong, I still must obey him—that is the meaning of formal authority. That cannot be done in the factual realm.

You can obey a holder of substantive authority in factual matters, like a doctor. The doctor tells me, look, this pill lowers fever. Now, I don’t know, and he has no formal authority, but I believe he understands this because he studied medicine, so I’ll obey him; I’ll take the pill because it will lower my fever. But I obeyed him because he understands it, because I was convinced that this is really the correct thing to do—not because he is an authority and I must listen to him. That is an example of substantive authority, not formal authority. Formal authority regarding facts is irrelevant. It is irrelevant because it cannot be carried out. Even if I reached the conclusion that there is such authority, one cannot obey such authority. And therefore, of course, there is no such authority either. An authority that cannot be realized, or cannot be obeyed, is obviously empty of content. There is no such authority.

This reminds me of the well-known story about two students of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk. One was his son, the Brisker Rav—Rabbi of Brisk, what is called the Griz—and the other was Rabbi Baruch Ber, the author of Birkat Shmuel, Rabbi Baruch Ber Leibowitz, head of the Kamenitz yeshiva. Both were like this: the son was of course an outstanding student of his father, and Rabbi Baruch Ber was also a student. And the yeshiva joke says: what is the difference between Rabbi Baruch Ber and the Rabbi of Brisk? The difference is this: if Rabbi Chaim pointed to the table in front of me and said it was a cow, then the Brisker Rav would say: well, it seems to me that it’s a table, not a cow, but if father said so, he probably knows better than I do, so it’s probably a cow. He looks right and left and he won’t see Rabbi Baruch Ber—Rabbi Baruch Ber is already running to bring the bucket to milk the table. Meaning, the difference between them is that the Rabbi of Brisk was convinced that his father was right, even though it sounded illogical to him, because he was a greater scholar, so he understood that if his father says otherwise then he is probably the one who is mistaken. Entirely legitimate, by the way. A person thinks that the one standing before him is very wise, or very expert, or has special abilities, and therefore even if I think he is mistaken, I assume that I am the one who is mistaken because I don’t understand, because I am not enough of an expert in this field, and therefore I obey him anyway even though I think he is wrong—because really I don’t think he is wrong. It seems to me that he is wrong, but I myself reached the conclusion that he is probably right, because I myself was convinced that he is wise or understands or has skill and knowledge in this field. Okay?

Rabbi Baruch Ber—you can interpret it in two ways, when he runs to bring the bucket. You can say that it is automatic authority: he doesn’t even check, doesn’t even hesitate. Why? Because there is formal authority here. In other words, if Rabbi Chaim said it, then he said it. It’s not even a dilemma; I don’t even hesitate and say, wait, I think otherwise but he is right. No, that isn’t even the discussion. If he said it, I run to get the bucket. That is one possibility. But I think the better explanation is that he too says this is substantive authority, only he has such great trust in Rabbi Chaim that he doesn’t even hesitate. Rabbi Chaim’s son still hesitates; Rabbi Baruch Ber doesn’t hesitate at all. Okay, but both of them are clearly speaking about authority—or relying on authority—in the substantive sense, not the formal sense. Because if the truth is that this table is a table, no authoritative factor that rules it is a cow will change that reality. If to me it is a table, I can recite with my lips that this thing is a cow, but I cannot think it is a cow, because in fact I think it is a table and not a cow.

What’s the difference—and to sharpen this I’ll explain the difference between that and authority in the realm of Jewish law. And this again brings us back to the analysis of what a fact is. What distinguishes the factual or intellectual realm—well, let’s stay with the factual realm for now—from the halakhic realm? The factual realm deals with facts, as I said earlier. The halakhic realm does not deal with facts. The halakhic realm deals with norms. Or when the Knesset legislates, it legislates a law. The law establishes a norm. A norm means: it is forbidden to do this, it is permitted to do this, one must do this. Forbidden, permitted, obligatory—that is the terminology that goes with a norm. The terminology that goes with facts is true or false. When someone makes a factual determination, it can be true or false. When someone makes a normative determination, that normative determination can be proper, improper, forbidden. Okay? That is the terminology that goes with norms. Jewish law and civil law are norms; they are not facts. And that is the root of the difference.

Why? Because let’s think, for example, of a situation in which the Knesset legislates—yes, using the example I gave earlier—that it is forbidden to open supermarkets on the Sabbath. Okay? And suppose I think it is permitted and proper to open them on the Sabbath, or to allow opening them on the Sabbath. When I say that I must obey the Knesset because it has formal authority, what is actually not being demanded of me is to think that it is proper or improper to open supermarkets on the Sabbath. No one is asking that of me. What is required of me is simply not to open them. What is required of me is behavior. What the Knesset legislates is a norm. But what that norm demands from me is behavior, not agreement. Okay? Therefore I can think that the Knesset is wrong, and at the same time, if I think it has authority, there is no problem in demanding that I obey. I can obey through clenched teeth and think that this step is improper and wrong, that one should not act this way, but if the Knesset determined it, then it is binding. You can argue about that or not, but it is well-defined. The concept of formal authority in the context of norms is well-defined. In the factual realm, the concept of formal authority is not defined. So this is not a matter of opinions—one person thinks there is authority in the factual realm and another thinks there isn’t. It simply is not defined. There is no formal authority with respect to facts.

Why? Because if the Knesset legislates that it is now daytime, what is demanded of me is not to behave. If some behavior were demanded of me, I could act as though it were daytime even though I am certain it is now night. That would be a well-defined demand. If they tell me: put on tefillin now even though it is night, because that is what we determined—then I have not been convinced that it is day. I know that it is night. But if there is authority to demand that I now put on tefillin, then I will put on tefillin. But if I am required to think that it is now day—not to behave, but what to think; I am required to agree with the factual claim—that cannot be done. If you convince me that you are right, then of course I will agree. But then I agree because I think you are right, not by virtue of your authority. But if I was not convinced that you are right—and formal authority comes into play precisely in situations where I was not convinced that you are right, and therefore I nevertheless must obey you because you have formal authority—then if I was not convinced that you are right, what does it mean to obey you and think that it is day? The truth is that I think it is night. I cannot obey you. I can’t—not because it is psychologically difficult, but because I simply am not there. I do not think that. That’s all. The demand with respect to facts is a demand to agree about a fact. If I do not agree with it, you cannot demand that I agree with it, because the fact is that I do not agree with it.

This somewhat reminds me of Pascal’s wager. Pascal wanted to argue that the rational decision for every person is to observe commandments, to believe in God and observe commandments—the Christian commandments, yes, he was Christian. Why? As a result of a calculation of expected payoff. He says: let’s say there is a God. If there is a God, then if you observe the commandments you have eternal reward in the world to come, something wonderful. If you do not observe the commandments, you have a terrible punishment in hell, awful. Okay? That’s the side where God exists. On the side where God does not exist, if you observe the commandments even though there is no God, nothing terrible happened; okay, you observed commandments, you wasted a little time, but it’s not a huge disaster. If you didn’t observe the commandments, then you gained a little time because you didn’t waste time on commandments on the assumption that there is no God. Fine, you gained a little time, it’s no big deal. Now if you calculate expected value, you’ll see that in the dilemma whether to observe commandments or not, the expected payoff is much greater when you observe them than when you do not. Because if you observe the commandments, then on the assumption that there is a God I get tremendous reward, and on the assumption that there is no God I incur a small loss. Tremendous reward minus a small loss gives a very, very positive expected value. Suppose I do not observe the commandments. Then on the assumption that there is a God I get a terrible punishment—that is, a payoff of minus infinity, okay?—and on the assumption that there is no God I gained a little time or comfort or something like that by not observing commandments. So minus infinity plus a little something. You understand that the expected-value calculation leads to the conclusion that one must observe commandments, or that it is right to observe them. That is Pascal’s wager.

I’ve explained in the past why I think he is wrong, even statistically. By the way, he is one of the fathers of statistics, which makes it even more surprising. The error here is statistical, but beyond the statistical error there are other errors as well. I have to say, I wrote about the statistical error in my book, but I haven’t ever seen anyone really raise it. What people usually raise against Pascal’s argument is that you cannot decide that there is a God because there is a great payoff to acting as if there is a God. And that is exactly the gap I’m talking about here. The claim that there is a God is a factual claim. You can demand of a person to behave—a normative demand—how to behave and how not to behave. You cannot demand of a person to believe, certainly not by the force of that kind of consideration. If you convince him that there is a God, then he will believe that there is a God. But if he reached the conclusion that there is no God, then the fact that observing commandments will bring him a very great expected payoff cannot lead him to believe in God. At most it can lead him to observe commandments. That is exactly the gap I am talking about between a normative demand—do this or do not do that—and a factual demand, meaning what to think or what to agree with. Those are two completely different things. There are other arguments too, of course—what is the value of observing commandments if you don’t believe in God? It has no value at all; so even if you observe commandments on the assumption that there is no God, it is valueless—or all kinds of arguments of that sort. But I used it here only to illustrate the relation between authority with respect to facts and authority with respect to norms.

What this means is that whenever we—I return now to our question—whenever we speak about formal authority, we can apply it only in normative domains. Only in normative domains. Formal authority cannot be defined with respect to facts. Substantive authority, authority of expertise—here the situation is somewhat different, because substantive authority certainly does exist with respect to facts. Like a doctor: he understands this better than I do. If he says that this pill lowers fever, then I accept it, I’ll take the pill. So here, in that context, I will indeed both become convinced that the pill lowers fever and act accordingly. I’ll do both things. Why? Because I was convinced that the doctor is right. That is substantive authority because he is an expert.

Can there be substantive authority with respect to norms? We’ve reached the following conclusion: there can be formal authority with respect to norms; there cannot be formal authority with respect to facts. There can be substantive authority with respect to facts. And now I ask: can there be substantive authority with respect to norms? Here the question is not simple, and it depends very much on your worldview. Each person has to decide for himself. Because the question is whether there is such a thing as expertise regarding norms. Expertise regarding what is moral and what is not moral? If you think there is someone who is an expert with respect to those determinations of what is moral and what is not, then there is room for substantive authority also with respect to norms. If the normative expert says that abortion is immoral, then you will accept what he says even though you are inclined to think otherwise, because you say: if he is an expert, then it probably really is immoral. But that is, of course, if you assume there is expertise in normative domains. Other people can come and say that there is no expertise in such domains; in matters of morality we are all experts to the same degree, either because you are a moral relativist or because even if you are not a relativist, you don’t believe in expertise in this field, for whatever reason. In that case too, if there is no expert, then there will be no substantive authority with respect to that field.

Think, for example, to make this perhaps more intuitive, about the field of law. In the field of law, which is ostensibly a normative field, it is accepted that there are experts. There are experts in law, right? There are legal laymen and legal experts. So although the field is normative, there are experts. But there it is a bit tricky. It is tricky because in law there is also, ostensibly, some factual basis. You have to know what the law says, what the precedents say, and in that sense the legal expert knows even the legal facts better than I do. Therefore there is some basis for the claim that there can be an expert in the legal field. But when we get to interpretations of the law—more plausible or less plausible interpretation, how to interpret the law—here it is already less clear whether an expert has added value. He interprets it one way, I interpret it another way. After all, he has no proofs. It isn’t that he can quote something from the statute book that shows his interpretation is correct, because if he can do that, then we’ve gone back to facts. Then this isn’t interpretation, it’s fact. And then again his advantage over me lies in knowledge. His advantage over me lies in knowledge of the legal facts. But if the question truly is a purely legal-interpretive question, it is very doubtful whether one can speak of expertise in that field. And why? Because here it really is a purely normative field. It is not connected to facts at all—not even legal facts, what is written in the law books, and not only to facts in the world, but to no facts whatsoever. Rather, it is just a matter of opinion, of an attitude. Who says there are experts in this more than me or less than me? Who says there is expertise in this field? It may be that I do not accept the very concept of expertise in such fields.

So where are we standing at the moment? The conceptual analysis basically leads me to the following conclusions. Look—I still haven’t opened any book, I haven’t searched for any sources or anything, and all in all the map is already coming out pretty clear. There are still some more shaded areas in it, but overall the map is quite clear. Look how much we gained from the conceptual analysis. Because I’m basically saying this: formal authority cannot exist with respect to facts, period, categorically. It cannot exist; there is no such authority. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself—if He tells me that it is now daytime, I will not accept it unless I become convinced that I am not seeing correctly and that He is right. But then I accept it because He is right, not because He has authority in the formal sense. To accept it because of authority—not even from the Holy One, blessed be He. Why? Because authority cannot be defined in this context. It’s not a matter of how much authority you have. The concept of authority is not relevant with respect to facts; it doesn’t matter who the authoritative factor is, the concept of authority is simply not defined. Okay? So I’ve already arrived at a significant answer to the question: with respect to facts there is no formal authority. There certainly is substantive authority; there is substantive authority with respect to facts. Whoever is an expert—one can definitely speak of them as authorities in that sense.

With respect to norms: formal authority is well-defined and can certainly exist. Substantive authority—that depends on worldview. Decide whether you really think there is such a thing as an expert in matters of morality, normative matters, legal interpretation, or whatever. Okay? If yes, then yes; if not, then not. But that is a matter of worldview. And on that very question itself—whether there is expertise in normative fields—on that question itself you will apparently have to decide on your own. You won’t be able to refer that one to an expert either. Okay? Because that itself is the question: whether there is expertise in that field. So that one you certainly will have to decide yourself.

So what comes out is this: now look where we stand after the conceptual analysis. As to the question of authority in the realm of facts, the question has been solved before we opened a book at all. It is not defined. The conceptual analysis brought us to a contradiction. Once we reached a contradiction, it does not exist—there is no authority with respect to facts. We answered the question without opening a book and without getting up from the armchair. There are other questions that still remain. Formal authority with respect to norms can in principle exist. The question whether it does exist, and with respect to which norms—here conceptual analysis will no longer help. Here it really is a matter of looking in the sources. Why? Because, for example, if there is formal authority that derives from the Torah, from “do not deviate from all that they instruct you,” then one has to examine the meaning of the verse “do not deviate.” To which norms does it apply? Are there norms to which it does not apply? So here one has to examine the Torah, the interpretations, the relevant authoritative sources, yes or no. Here it really is a question that requires sources or precedents or something of the sort. Here it definitely makes sense to go in and look at different views and also at sources beyond the views, simply to see whether there is a source for such authority or not.

So in places where something is impossible, conceptual analysis solves the question. In places where conceptual analysis says it is possible, we still have not solved the question. Rather, conceptual analysis has told me: now go to the sources. But now when I go to the sources, I already know what I’m looking for. First, I need to check carefully whether the source is speaking about substantive authority or formal authority. Second, I need to check whether it is speaking about norms or facts, or what exactly it is speaking about. So not only did the conceptual analysis remove part of the question from the table because it answered it; even regarding the part that remains, I’m left with a much clearer picture. I can now much more easily extract the answer from the precedents, or approach them critically and think they are wrong or whatever. I’m simply in a much better position when I approach the precedents.

The same applies to substantive authority. Substantive authority with respect to facts certainly exists, because that’s what expertise is. But here you really only need to check who is an expert and in what field. There isn’t much room here for clarification. In principle there is such a concept of authority, but of course each case has to be checked on its own merits: is this really an expert, and do I accept his expertise, do I recognize his expertise, or not? As for substantive authority in the normative field, here we first have to make a decision ourselves, a priori, not from sources: is there expertise in this field at all? If we conclude that yes, then certainly we can go and see what Maimonides says in this intellectual field or that factual field and ask ourselves—and then say that if Maimonides says it, then I accept it; then it is probably correct. Because I accept that he is an expert, if indeed I do accept that. But if I do not accept the existence of expertise with respect to norms, then there is no point in going to Maimonides. I can go in order to be enriched by his ideas and arguments, but not in order to receive an answer to the question. Even if he says something, I will not necessarily accept it, because there is no authority in that field.

You see that breaking the question down into its components by means of conceptual analysis—what I did here was separate two categories in the domain of authority and two categories in the domain of facts: facts versus norms, and substantive authority versus formal authority. Two categories in the domain of authority and two categories in the domain of facts, or content, basically generate four categories: formal authority over facts, formal authority over norms, substantive authority over facts, substantive authority over norms. Four different questions. For each of those questions there is conceptual analysis. Some of them it eliminates: formal authority with respect to facts does not exist. So we are left with three questions. Substantive authority with respect to facts does exist, but there is nothing to investigate. Just check who is an expert, and whoever is an expert, listen to him. There is nothing further to clarify here; there is no need to open books to check whether substantive authority with respect to facts exists. Obviously it does. If you are an expert in this factual field, then I will accept what you say. Here it is so simple that there is, that there is no need to check books. In the first case it was simply that there is not, and again there is no need to check books.

What remains are the two diagonal cases: substantive authority with respect to norms—experts in norms—which depends on my personal decision. If I think there is expertise, then there is certainly room to open books and see what the books say, and if not, then not. And formal authority with respect to norms—obviously there can be such a thing—and there too one has to open books and see what the scope of the formal authority is, say in the halakhic context, with respect to halakhic norms and which halakhic norms. It seems to me that this example nicely clarifies the value of conceptual analysis.

Now here I want to go one step further, still within the example, and say that Jewish thought—if I enter into the definition of the concept of fact, we earlier analyzed the concept of fact—then I asked whether there is authority in the factual domain and whether there is authority in the normative domain. Now I ask the less well-defined question: is there authority in intellectual domains? Regarding intellectual claims? In the field of Jewish thought, which is not Jewish law—but the question is whether it is facts or non-facts. Maybe it is something third. How should we relate to that? Here again we already have tools to answer this. Why? Because basically it will be mapped onto one of the four previous categories. I will have to ask myself whether I am speaking about formal or substantive authority—that is, are there experts in Jewish thought, or are there formally authorized figures in Jewish thought? Two different things. Experts correspond to substantive authority; formally authorized figures correspond to formal authority. I need to ask myself whether the field of Jewish thought concerns facts or norms, or perhaps a third kind of claim. Let’s check through examples. Again, this is still somewhat connected to the conceptual analysis; this itself is also part of the conceptual analysis, only now I’m doing a conceptual analysis of the concept of Jewish thought.

Notice again: I’m not running straight to the books. If you ask this question—whether there is authority in the field of Jewish thought—whoever you ask, I promise you, you’ll get a list of sources. That will be the answer. No one will begin with the conceptual clarifications I presented here. They’ll bring you Maimonides in his Commentary to the Mishnah, who says in three places that there is no halakhic ruling in areas not related to practice, in intellectual or aggadic areas and the like. There are statements from the Geonim, all sorts of such statements. There are opposite statements. They’ll bring you opinions in this direction and opinions in that direction, and maybe the more meticulous ones will even tell you that the Jewish people reached some conclusion, formed some sort of position, that there is authority also in the field of Jewish thought. I’ve already heard that silly statement dozens of times, so I promise you that you too will hear it if you ask enough people.

But first we need to check what Jewish thought is. So let’s see. Jewish thought, for example, deals with the question—I don’t know—whether the messiah will come, and when, and under what circumstances, or what will happen when the messiah comes. There will be no wars, the Temple will be rebuilt, sacrifices will be brought, sacrifices won’t be brought—I don’t know, all kinds of such questions. Jewish thought deals with the question whether the Holy One, blessed be He, supervises the world and in what way, over what in the world. All these questions, if you think about them, fall under the definitions of facts, as I described earlier. And that is why, when I defined the concept of facts, I took care to speak not only about facts like “there is currently a table in front of me”—that is obviously a fact, simple enough—but also about facts like “there are ten thousand fairies in the universe.” That too is a fact; it can be a correct fact or an incorrect one.

And therefore Jewish thought can take a position about demons: are there demons or are there no demons? Now I ask myself: I think there are no demons, but I also see in the Talmud and in the medieval authorities (Rishonim) loads of this—except for Maimonides, who allowed himself not to accept it—but in the Talmud and in the medieval authorities they say there are demons, they even met them. Right? “I sat on his grave,” as the Talmud says about the stubborn and rebellious son. So I say there are no demons, and an amora tells me: I sat on the demons’ grave, I saw them, I spoke to them. Okay? Now the question is whether I am supposed to accept that. Here, you see, you have to divide it in two. If I believe the amora that he spoke with the demon, then I will simply retract my position because I will be convinced that I was mistaken. That’s not authority, not formal authority. It is simply that I become convinced that I was mistaken; apparently I missed something and he is right, and therefore I accept what he says. That is not called formal authority. To accept what he says by force of formal authority would mean not to become convinced that there are demons, but rather: if it is written in the Talmud then I must believe there are. There is no such animal. Why? Because if I think there are no demons, I cannot tell myself that there are demons. I can say to myself that there are demons, but I cannot think that there are demons, because I think there are not. As long as I have not been convinced, that is what I think. So one cannot require me to think what I do not think.

And therefore the claim whether there are demons or not falls under the definition of fact, exactly like the fairies I spoke about earlier. So the conceptual analysis of the concept of fact now helps me in the conceptual analysis of the concept of Jewish thought, because I ask myself what the relation is between the two concepts: are claims of Jewish thought factual claims? And I reach the conclusion that at least most of them are factual claims. Even a claim like “there is a unique spiritual quality to the Jewish people”—that a Jew is somehow built in a more elevated, spiritually loftier way than a gentile. In my view that’s nonsense, but there is such a claim in the field of Jewish thought. Okay— is that a factual claim? Of course it is. It is a factual claim, because you want to claim that something in the structure—even the psychic structure, it doesn’t matter, the psychic or spiritual structure—of a Jew differs from the psychic or spiritual structure of a gentile. Now I could go on at length about the fact that this thing isn’t even well-defined, but let’s assume for the sake of discussion that it is well-defined, okay? Because there are differences between any two human beings, so which difference are you talking about? But never mind. Suppose for the moment that it is well-defined. Then we are dealing with a factual claim. And if we are dealing with a factual claim, it will not help even if you tell me a hundred times that Moses and the Holy One, blessed be He, all say that there is this unique Jewish spiritual quality. If I think there isn’t, then I cannot obey—unless I become convinced that I was mistaken. But then I obey because I was convinced I was mistaken, not because they have authority. By force of authority, one cannot require me to change my position with respect to facts.

And the conclusion that arises from this is a conclusion that usually requires long inquiries of hundreds of pages and citations from books in Jewish thought and so on—the question whether there is or is not authority in Jewish thought. I’ve finished the inquiry. The answer is no. There isn’t. Why? Because Jewish thought consists of factual claims, and we reached the conclusion in the conceptual analysis that there is no formal authority with respect to factual claims. Put those two things together, and that means there is no formal authority in the field of Jewish thought. That’s it, proved what had to be proved. I didn’t open a book; there is no need to open a book. Now I can open a hundred books that tell me there is authority in this field, and if someone said that the messiah will come, then everyone has to believe the messiah will come, then I’ll say one of two things: either he is talking nonsense—even if he is Maimonides or Moses—because it simply cannot be. He cannot say that a triangle is round or that darkness is light. Either he is speaking nonsense, or he means to say: accept my position because I have some superior source of information that is not available to you. I am an expert in this field. In other words, he is addressing me as a substantive authority, not as a formal authority. That’s fine. If I become convinced that he is an expert, then I am convinced, no problem.

But if I find a book in which I discover—and it is actually very difficult, by the way, because books, even when they talk about authority, do not clarify whether they mean substantive authority or formal authority. So you have to decide yourself what they mean, and that is why conceptual analysis is so important. Even when you examine the sources, you need to come to them after your own conceptual analysis in order to understand what they are saying. If I discover that he is speaking of formal authority, I close the book and throw it in the trash. Because he is simply speaking nonsense. And it doesn’t matter if it is written in Rashi script and Joshua son of Nun wrote it. There is simply nonsense written in that book. And as the Talmud says, “If Joshua son of Nun had said it, I would not obey him.” Meaning, there are things I do not accept even from Joshua son of Nun because they simply cannot be correct. The other possibility is to interpret the book as probably intending—if that interpretation is possible—substantive authority rather than formal authority. And then fine, one can discuss whether he has substantive authority or not, and that is certainly a claim worth discussing.

So here we see an implication of the conceptual clarification I did earlier. Now it is no longer authority with respect to facts, but authority with respect to Jewish thought—which is precisely a question about which quite a bit has been written and discussed in books and articles and also in oral conversations between people. Of course, there is no yeshiva student who doesn’t ask his rabbi whether there is authority in intellectual fields or not. And all in all, you see that conceptual analysis closed the discussion. Closed the discussion. There is nothing more to continue. No need to open a book, no need to do anything. I can tell him no and go home. That’s all. No need to sit for hours and open books and write learned articles and check what this one says and what that one says and organize the zoo, each one in his cage. The answer is no. That’s all.

So I think this topic is an excellent example of the importance of conceptual analysis. And here we see the whole range of benefits that come from prior conceptual analysis. The first benefit is that there are answers that conceptual analysis itself will provide. There are questions to which conceptual analysis itself will give the answer. For example, is there formal authority with respect to facts? The answer is no. There are questions for which conceptual analysis shows that they can be asked. Then fine. With those I can now go to the sources and examine things. But even when I go to the sources, I already come equipped with the results of the conceptual analysis, and I know what to accept and what not to accept and how to interpret the sources, because I already know there is substantive authority, formal authority, facts, and norms, and every source now has to be examined through that prism. And there are questions for which conceptual analysis says the answer is positive in principle, and there is no need to go to books. Not negative and therefore no need to go to books, but positive and no need to go to books. For example, expertise with respect to facts—substantive authority with respect to facts. Obviously there is. Now one only needs to check who is an expert and who is not an expert, but that is not a matter for studying books. Decide for yourselves whether there is expertise in this matter or not, and who the expert is. Okay? So this illustrates everything I said at the beginning about the importance of conceptual analysis—that very often it makes recourse to sources unnecessary, and no less often it makes recourse to sources more efficient, because I know which sources to approach and I know how to relate to what I find written there.

Now on this point, maybe I’ll continue a bit more and say that this actually reminds me of a concept that perhaps I’ll get to later, and it is a concept from the halakhic field. In the halakhic field I distinguished between two types of halakhic decisors, even though of course it is too sharp a distinction. Every decisor is somewhere in the middle. There are first-order decisors and second-order decisors. Second-order decisors are decisors who, when you ask them a halakhic question, check the different sources and answer you according to the sources. I don’t know, if there is a dispute then the laws of doubt—they check the sources and from that derive the answer. Okay? First-order decision-making is decision-making that does not run straight to the sources. First of all, it does conceptual analysis. After it does conceptual analysis, it checks which sources—for example, if we are dealing with formal authority because this is a halakhic question—it asks itself which sources have formal authority. And that too is a discussion. Because after I know there is a difference between substantive and formal authority, I ask myself, among all our sources in our halakhic history, do all of them have it? Because there, in interpretations, you can do whatever you want. All post-Talmudic authorities—sages after the Talmud—have at most substantive authority as experts in Jewish law. They do not have formal authority. Formal authority is given only to the Great Court. “Do not deviate from all that they instruct you” was said about the Great Court. Therefore I also know which books to go to when I ask the halakhic question, assuming I want to go to books at all.

Because when I approach books of medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim), I need to relate to them as statements of experts, not as binding statements. And the implication is that wherever I am convinced they are mistaken, I will not obey. Because that is not formal authority. I do not have to accept it even if I think it is not correct. In formal authority I obey even if I think it is not correct. But in substantive authority, if I am persuaded that they are right, then they are right. But if in my judgment I say they are not right, then even if Maimonides wrote otherwise, I will not obey. Why? Because his authority is substantive and not formal. I need to think about how likely it is that even though I am sure Maimonides is mistaken, he is nevertheless right. Is he such a great genius? Is the gap between him and me so great? Maybe yes. It is legitimate to think that, and then I will obey. But it is also legitimate to conclude otherwise, and then I will not obey.

You see that this analysis projects onto every step we take, and it can also be used in the halakhic field—where authority is in principle well-defined. But even there the distinction between substantive and formal authority is a very important, foundational, and fruitful distinction. Because we must know how to relate to each source, and we do this on the map of substantive authority versus formal authority. And we know that the Talmud is formal authority, but Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh are substantive authority. Or other medieval and later authorities—it doesn’t matter at the moment. And this has a direct effect on how we issue halakhic rulings. When I approach a question, do I issue a ruling by immediately going to the sources? Or do I first of all do conceptual analysis? After I do conceptual analysis, I go to the sources, but even to them I go according to some hierarchy. And even after I have seen them, I choose how to relate to each source based on whether it is substantive or formal authority. And if it is substantive authority, how great is its expertise? How confident am I that what it says is certainly right? Only then will I accept what is written there.

Second-order decisors do not do all that. There are of course different degrees of this, but say a second-order decisor, a pure second-order decisor, basically receives a question, does not do conceptual analysis, goes straight to the sources: here it says this, he says that, he says that, therefore this is forbidden because according to most opinions it is forbidden. Why should I care that according to most opinions it is forbidden? Do I have to obey opinions? Why? He doesn’t ask himself those questions; he jumps straight there. That is why I call him a second-order decisor: he does not ask the first-order questions, the foundational questions. Okay? He goes straight to the second order.

The example I once gave in Makor Rishon—that was when the coin first dropped for me, when I first made the conceptual distinction between first-order and second-order decision-making—was in an article in Makor Rishon in the Sabbath supplement, where there was a ruling by the rabbis, male and female, of Beit Hillel about a woman reciting the mourner’s Kaddish. They were asked there whether a woman may say the mourner’s Kaddish in the synagogue. Then they brought: in this responsum it says such-and-such, and there he wrote such-and-such, and there the questioner asked such-and-such, and here we see that women did this in practice. They brought all kinds of incidental proofs suggesting that women somehow, by the way, used to do this, and so on. There are arguments this way and arguments that way. But in that responsum there was no initial analysis of what the problems are that we need to deal with. What is the conceptual analysis? In other words, what could possibly be problematic about a woman saying Kaddish? Is it that a woman’s voice is sexually provocative? Modesty? I don’t know—what are the problems? The answer is: there are none. There are no problems, and therefore there is nothing to investigate. So why are you going to the medieval and later authorities? What question are you clarifying? Before you answer the question, first check whether there is a question. You bring me all kinds of proofs that women said Kaddish. Why shouldn’t they say Kaddish? Is there some problem? Why do I need proofs that they may say Kaddish? Do I also need proofs that a woman may breathe? If there is a description of Rashi’s daughters having reached a certain age, I don’t know, then they probably breathed. Because if they had not been breathing, they would have died at age zero. So here is proof that a woman may breathe. Would anyone imagine such a thing? No, because there is no question. I don’t need proofs of that. Obviously a woman may breathe—why not? Okay. Likewise, a woman may say Kaddish because there is no problem with it at all. So now I do not need sources telling me there is a problem or there isn’t a problem, and he thinks this and he thinks that. That characterizes second-order decisors: they skip the conceptual analysis, they skip the definition of the clauses or issues that stand to be clarified within the framework of the problem, and only afterward can you conduct the clarifications. The conceptual analysis, the halakhic sub-issues that stand for clarification, and only then to clarify each issue and reach conclusions. But a great many decisors go straight to the final step. And sometimes it becomes a real farce, because there is nothing to clarify; you are conducting an inquiry where there is nothing to inquire into. You yourself cannot define what it is that even needs clarification here. Okay? That is an example from the halakhic realm. But in the intellectual realm, it is what I described before.

So also in the halakhic realm, where authority is well-defined—both formal and substantive—in the halakhic realm it is fairly clear that there is formal authority and there is also substantive authority. There are experts in Jewish law who know Jewish law better than others. So there is also substantive authority, and of course there is also formal authority—the Sanhedrin, the Talmud, something of that sort. There it is well-defined. And still, lack of awareness of the conceptual analysis will lead to incorrect conduct even in the halakhic field, with respect to which both types of authority are well-defined.

So I think this example clarifies very well the importance of conceptual analysis. I have dealt with it in the past; it took me more time here than I wanted, but I think that through it one can understand very well what I mean when I say that conceptual analysis is something very important on the one hand, and very lacking in most cases on the other. Many people skip over it, and that’s a shame. Okay, I’ll stop here. If anyone wants to comment or ask, then by all means. Can I ask a question?

[Speaker C] Yes. Who’s asking?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You, you, Ariel.

[Speaker C] Okay. So from the time we have a Sanhedrin, which I understand is the definition of formal authority, who gets to determine what criterion will guide us in deciding who, from then on, will count in our eyes as a formal authority, like the Talmudic text for example?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So regarding the Talmudic text, I said that this matter is a complicated one; there are lectures I gave about it in the past. But as for the Talmudic text, it’s accepted in the world that it has formal authority, but its formal authority is given to it from below. Meaning, because the public accepted the Talmudic text upon itself, now it becomes binding even if it isn’t correct, unlike the authority of the Sanhedrin, which received its authority from above—from the Holy One, blessed be He, from the verse.

[Speaker B] But who accepted it upon themselves? What does “the public” mean? What obligates the public that accepted it?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, again, I’m using these things here only as an example. You’re now pulling me into the topic itself; that’s not our topic here. I gave some lectures—I can answer that—but that’s not the point. For me, what matters is to show through this the importance of conceptual analysis and its initial conclusions. The general acceptance by the public—the view is that this is something binding. Meaning, if you accepted someone upon yourself, then you can give him formal authority over you. That’s the assumption in Jewish law; you can accept it or not, but that’s the halakhic / of Jewish law definition relevant to this matter. Okay? In order to discuss whether it’s correct or not, we’d have to get into that topic itself, but that’s not our subject here.

[Speaker D] Okay. Rabbi, can I ask a general question? It’s not really connected to the lecture.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Go ahead.

[Speaker D] Regarding Karl Popper’s principle of falsifiability, in the context of germ theory: there’s a dispute between natural medicine and conventional medicine about how diseases are caused. According to natural medicine, they understand it as kind of a bug in the body—there’s some toxicity in the body—and then when there’s something on the cell, some inflammation or whatever, then the bacterium can get inside and cause the disease. According to conventional medicine, a bacterium can also break down living tissue. That means that even if you’re completely healthy, the bacterium can get in through the cell wall and make you sick. Now, in the context of COVID, I heard all kinds of theories about how COVID gets in there. One says it gets in through the cell membrane, another says the spike of the coronavirus injures the cell, a third says it has some kind of acid on it that breaks down the cell tissue. So I’m saying, like Job: if they’re all arguing over there—this one says he was a gentile, this one says he was a Jew, this one says it was during the prophets—then nobody knows anything. Now, natural medicine claims that no bacterium has ever been observed entering a cell. It hasn’t been observed, and therefore it’s a theory. So my question in that context is about Karl Popper, who says that it has to be falsifiable, that it has to be capable of being refuted. Does he mean that it has to be refutable on the theoretical level? On the practical level? Or even just on the theoretical level? Meaning, maybe in practice it never will happen, but on the theoretical level—who knows—maybe one day it will happen, they’ll invent some microscope that can show a bacterium entering the cell?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the question. You’re asking a question that has a lot of aspects, and regarding some of them, I’ll admit it’s a little hard for me to restrain myself, because my attitude toward alternative medicine is more or less the same as toward magic. It’s just that it helps a little less than magic, but basically it’s in the same category.

[Speaker D] Not alternative—natural. Natural medicine claims that if you eat healthy and behave the way…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So that’s not—natural medicine, natural medicine is part of conventional medicine under that definition; there’s nothing—so that doesn’t matter. So what is natural medicine? An ordinary doctor will tell you that too. So here there’s no disagreement. The point is that this thing is falsifiable in principle: if you put cells there and try to infect one cell with a bacterium, if you succeed, you succeed, and if not, then not—like any scientific theory. As for the question about Karl Popper—what he thought, whether he required practical non-falsifiability or not—why should I care? Why should I care what Karl Popper thought? You decide what you want to define and define it however you want—what difference does it make right now?

[Speaker D] Because if that’s the case, then it’s not a theory at all. Natural medicine says it can’t ever be done at all.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Define whether it’s a theory or not a theory according to what’s convenient for you—why do you care whether it’s a theory or not? That’s semantics. The question is whether it’s true, not whether it’s a theory. What difference does that make right now? The concept of theory is, again, you’ve just nicely demonstrated the need to define concepts. Define for me what the concept “theory” means, and I’ll tell you whether it’s a theory or not. If your definition is something that can be falsified practically, then it may be that such a thing wouldn’t be a theory—assuming you’re right; I don’t think you are, but assuming you are. But if your definition of the concept “theory” is something that can be falsified in principle, or any factual claim is a theory—which parallels what I called earlier a factual claim—then everything is a theory, and it’s only a question of definition. Why should I care? Define it this way, it’ll be this way; define it that way, it’ll be that way. What difference does it make?

[Speaker D] Okay, thank you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Anyone else? Okay, so we’ll stop here. Good night, goodbye, have a peaceful Sabbath.