Gate Eleven: The Synthetic Position

From the book Two Wagons and a Hot Air Balloon by Rabbi Michael Avraham. Translated from Hebrew using gpt-5.4 (reasoning_effort=high, batch API).

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The Synthetic Alternative

This gate has three chapters:

1. Chapter One: The Fundamental Problem of Epistemology: The Distinction Between Thinking and Cognition
2. Chapter Two: Thinking and Cognition: Further Aspects
3. Chapter Three: Auditory Logic

Introduction

In this gate I will present arguments confirming the existence of a synthetic component in cognition and in the intellect, and the claim that this component is objective—that it corresponds to the world. This faculty of our thought is sometimes called intuition, and sometimes common sense. I will then present, following the Jerusalem Nazir, Rabbi David HaKohen, the auditory logic. This is a Jewish, Torah-based attempt to describe the synthetic component of thought.

Chapter One: The Fundamental Problem of Epistemology: The Distinction Between Thinking and Cognition

The Fundamental Problem of Epistemology

In note 21, and later in note 25, we saw the “proof from epistemology” for the existence of God. It was presented there in order to contrast it with the problematic nature of the analytic position, and to offer a synthetic solution to the problem of grounding epistemology. Here it will again serve as a cornerstone for the synthetic position as a whole. We will therefore briefly review the outlines of the argument.

Hume pointed to an assumption implicit in scientific thinking, and in human thought generally: that there is a correspondence between human cognition and intellect and objective reality (“the world as it is in itself,” in Kant’s terminology). Understanding the source of this correlation, and the basis for our assumption that it exists, is the fundamental problem of epistemology. This is the problem Kant called the problem of synthetic a priori judgments. Hugo Bergmann, in his book Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (in chapter 9, titled “The Rationality of the World”), points this out and surveys a wide range of philosophical explanations that were proposed for this problem. He rejects them one by one. His conclusion is that this is a wondrous phenomenon, and we have no reasonable explanation for it—that is, no justification on the “philosophical” plane. More than that: from our discussion it emerges that it is not even clear what really grounds our very belief in our cognition and in its correspondence to the world—that is, the justification on the “theological” plane.

In Chapter One of the first gate, we pointed to the only three possible a priori directions of explanation for this remarkable correspondence between the human being and the world. Schematically, they can be presented as follows (see Leibniz’s parable of the clocks discussed there):

1. The world is conformed to the human being.
2. The human being is conformed to the world.
3. The human being and the world are mutually coordinated.

Direction 2 is empiricism, which holds that a person knows the world only from experience. This is the naive direction—the stage of “dogmatic slumber,” in Kant’s terminology—which Kant and Hume rejected when they argued that the basic principles of thought and cognition, such as causality and induction, cannot arise from observation. Direction 3, proposed by Leibniz, holds that there is a coordinating factor between reason and the world. We saw that this direction was rejected out of hand—in fact, Hume and Kant did not even really raise it—because of an unwillingness to recognize its existence.¹ As a result, Hume rejected the possibility of making synthetic a priori claims, and Kant concluded that the only direction left was the first, the transcendental one.

There is no doubt that the most intuitive direction is direction 3, according to which the human being really does learn about the world out of a genuine mutual correspondence between his thought and cognition and the world as it is in itself. That, apparently, is how almost every reasonable person feels. It should be noted that even Hume himself presents his challenge as a paradox that runs against simple intuition. That is, he too was aware that simple intuition supports this direction.

The direction proposed by Kant is at best an excuse, which can barely serve someone who insists on ignoring common sense (see above, in note 21, about Taylor’s train to Scotland, and later in note 25). Beyond that, as we saw in the seventh gate, even if we accept Kant’s proposals, they do not really answer Hume’s problems. Throughout the discussion we pointed to significant problems in the analytic direction—that is, direction 1. Because of all these problems, and in order to return to common sense, it seems we have no choice but to return to the possibility these thinkers rejected—implicitly, without discussion, and therefore without any plausible justification: the certainty a person feels regarding synthetic claims about the world stems from his belief in a two-way correspondence between his cognition and the objects of his cognition, that is, the world.

For example, causality and induction are principles that do not arise from the senses but do exist in our intellect; yet we simply assume that they provide us with reliable information—though not absolute information—about the world outside us. Whenever we describe an event causally, we mean to say that there is such a causal connection also in the world as it is in itself. The cause—whatever its nature may be in itself—actively produces the effect, and does not merely appear consistently before it in time. This claim, which infers from the structure of our cognition to the world as it is in itself, leads to the conclusion—or, in the “theological-philosophical” terminology of notes 21 and 25, more accurately, to the assumption—of the existence of a coordinating factor that may be called “God.”²

Two Formulations of the Claim in the Solution Proposed Here: Thinking and Cognition

It is important to note that we are assuming here two different things. Both are necessary, and both fit the common-sense view:

1. We assume that there is a correspondence between the intellect and the world.
2. In addition, we assume that the intellect is receptive—that is, it engages in cognition, and does not merely process data by thinking. In other words, the intellect interacts with the world.

Usually, a sharp distinction is drawn between thinking and cognition. Cognition observes the world and, from that observation, extracts factual data about it. The intellect, by contrast, does not make contact with the world. Rather, it takes the data from cognition, analyzes them, and draws conclusions from them. The only possible basis for a genuinely synthetic position—not a counterfeit one, like Kant’s—is giving up this distinction. The intellect too creates interactions with the world, and it has a function that in some sense cognizes, and does not only think. Our thinking fits the world because it has direct contact with it, even without the mediation of the senses.

We can now see that this is exactly the essentialism we encountered in the second gate. We saw there that essentialism is a natural continuation of the synthetic position. Syntheticity is a characteristic of thought, whereas essentialism is the epistemic characteristic of a synthetic position. It is a necessary extension of the synthetic position into epistemology. According to this approach, the intellect “observes” abstract concepts just as the senses observe objects. It is obvious that there is no sensory way to discern concepts as they are in themselves—in their “matter.” Which sense can perceive a concept? The assumption of a correspondence between intellect and world means that such a mode of observation exists. This is an extension of epistemology beyond the senses.

In a somewhat different formulation—a pseudo-epistemological one—we may put it as follows: the intellect does indeed think, that is, it does not interact with the world but is focused on itself; yet the assumption of a correspondence between its structure and conclusions and the character of the world as it is in itself gives thought the effect of cognition. Above, we assumed that this is a genuine cognitive faculty, except that this cognition does not take place through the senses. Here we raise the possibility that this fit is inherent in thought, and is not based on processes of actual cognition, even non-sensory cognition.

The Fundamental Basis of the Synthetic Position

The only basis that can be proposed for a synthetic position, and for human thought in general—for as we saw, the analytic position offers no such basis—is the relinquishing of the distinction between thinking and cognition. This is the essence of the synthetic dimension. We have offered two formulations of such a move: an epistemological formulation and a pseudo-epistemological one.

To achieve a better understanding of the approach proposed here, and of the relation between its two formulations, we must examine it in more detail. We will do so through the two basic principles that underlie both Hume’s arguments and Kant’s explanations: causality and induction.

First Example: The Principle of Causality

The principle of causality is a principle that the intellect “observes”—and the same is true of the concept of “causality”—and it is clear that it also exists in the structure of the intellect itself. In addition, we must note that the intellect “observes” also the causal dimension in a particular concrete occurrence. In the example we gave in the first gate, involving a piece of wood that burns in fire, we discern that the wood was placed in the fire (the cause), that the wood burned (the result), and also the causal relation between these two events. All this is in addition to our discernment of the general principle of causality itself, of which this specific causal relation is a particular manifestation. In other words, contrary to yet another Kantian-Humean assumption, we do derive the causal relation between particular events from experience. Relations too—whether between objects or between events—are the result of “observations,” though here we mean intellectual observations; they are not necessarily a priori, as Hume and Kant assumed.

Thus, it is not enough to assume that the concept of cause exists within the intellect, or within human cognition. We must also assume an interaction between intellect and cognition and the world, as a result of which we infer the existence of a causal relation between two concrete events. This intellectual “observation” is an application of the idea of causality, which is embedded in us, to the world.

In light of what we saw in the second gate, we should add that when we contemplate the concept of “causality” itself, rather than some concrete causal phenomenon, then, as essentialists, we assume that it too exists, or at least has “matter.” But in the example under discussion, we are dealing with observation of a particular event in which two phenomena appear, one causing the other, and not with the concept of causality itself. In this case, causality is a relation, not an entity. The concept of causality—which also exists in some sort of reality—serves here as a relation that helps us grasp a causal connection between two concrete events.

Thus, while the concept of causality itself is indeed embedded in the structure of cognition, our assumption is that it also fits the description of occurrences in the world. A relation of causality between two concrete events is observed because there is in our cognition a structure of causality that can apprehend that relation. Already in the first and second gates we pointed out that a relation is not an entity, and therefore is not grasped by the senses. But it seems that we need not conclude from this that if it is not grasped by the senses then it is not grasped and does not exist at all, and is merely posited within the intellect, as Hume and Kant claimed. Our proposal here is that relations exist also in objective reality, but they are grasped by the cognitive part of the intellect and not by the senses.³

Let us now summarize the relation between the two formulations proposed above in the context of the principle of causality. The principle of causality itself exists and is embedded in human cognition; in that, Hume and Kant are right. But every reasonable person believes that relations of cause and effect also obtain between events in the world as it is in itself—contrary to Hume, and ultimately also contrary to Kant, who transfers this to the plane of phenomena. We therefore seem to be assuming, tacitly, that there is a correspondence between the structure of our cognition and the world—this is the second, pseudo-epistemological formulation. The correspondence between the structure of our cognition and the world enables us to know relations of cause and effect by observing the two events that stand in such a relation, and through it we know the causal relation itself and not only the events—this is the first, epistemological formulation.

Second Example: The Principle of Induction

In the previous section we dealt with the relation between the two formulations of the synthetic assumption in the context of the principle of causality. We now turn to the principle of induction.⁴ Unlike causality, this principle guides only our thinking about the world, and does not itself contain claims about the world. To determine a causal relation between two events is not to make a claim about us and about our mode of inference. It is a claim about the world itself: there is a causal connection between the two events under discussion. Induction, by contrast, is only a human form of inference, not a claim about the world. The truths acquired by induction existed in the world even before anyone inferred them. A person uses induction in order to learn them, that is, to infer the general from a number of particulars. Induction is a tool of thought, not a concept, and not even an abstract concept that exists in the world.

Induction, unlike causality, is not a relation between objects or events in the world. It is a human method for arriving at general truths from particular facts. The problem arises because it is the results of inductive inference—not induction as such—that stand in a relation of correspondence to the world as it is in itself. When a person reaches a conclusion by induction, he expects that conclusion to correspond to the way the world actually behaves. Thus, the principle of induction too conceals an assumption of correspondence between human being and world, simply by virtue of being a tool for discovering truths about the world.

The similar treatment that Kant and Hume gave these two principles stems from their assumption that the principle of causality does not exist in the world, and should be regarded as a rule of thought that guides—necessarily, according to Kant—our observations and our thinking. But it should be noted that even according to the synthetic position, as presented here, the use of induction is possible only if we assume the existence of a correspondence between human thought and the world, even though it is true that the inductive process is not cognition but thinking—and perhaps precisely because of that.

Here too—and perhaps especially with respect to induction—there is no full agreement between us and the approaches of Hume and Kant. We claim that induction is a logical and rational way to infer conclusions about the world itself, and not merely a way of arranging our impressions. With respect to induction, this is even clearer than with respect to causality. It is a principle whose character is one of thought, and yet we relate to its conclusions as true claims about the world itself, as though some cognition were involved here. Here one clearly sees the need to give up the distinction between thinking and cognition.

Even if we accept that causality is dictated to the world by virtue of its transcendentality—that is, by being a condition of cognition—with respect to induction it is difficult to understand how Kant can explain the fact that the conclusions of an inductive process turn out to be correct merely because they are imposed on us transcendentally. He grounds this only in the assumption that the structure of our cognition is inductive—that it contains the principle of induction—and nothing more.

Kant’s transcendental argument implies that the cognitive fact that we are compelled to generalize in certain forms from particulars to the general does indeed constrain our thinking. But why should that also constrain the further particulars that will come to our knowledge in the future, so that they too will appear in a way that fits the results of the generalization we performed in the inductive process?

For example, from a collection of particular items of knowledge that we have accumulated about several massive objects that were seen falling toward the earth, we infer the general conclusion that every two masses attract one another—Newton’s law of gravitation. According to Kant, we are compelled to make such a generalization because of the structure of our cognition. If so, how are we to understand the fact that this generalization also works with respect to objects that will appear before our eyes in the future? Does Kant mean to claim that all future bodies we observe are compelled to appear to us as falling toward the earth, or as attracting one another, even though in reality they do not do so?

Put differently: are we really incapable of perceiving a body with mass that does not fall toward the earth? It is obvious that if there were such a body, hanging in the air, there is no reason we could not observe it. As far as is known, there is no obstacle, from the structure of our cognition, to seeing a body with mass that does not fall toward the earth.

As we already saw in the seventh gate, Kant relies on a speculative and plainly implausible link between the logical constraints within which we operate and our cognitive constraints. Even if there are logical constraints that compel our thought to operate according to the law of induction, how can one base on that the claim that there are epistemological constraints that compel us not to see bodies that behave differently from the results of the induction we performed?

But if induction in fact compels and dictates only our thinking, and not the world as it is in itself, then how are we to explain the fact that the law we reached works in reality fairly well—not always, admittedly, but certainly not with the probability that would suit a mechanism of merely random reliability? What is the mysterious link between thinking—the use of induction—and perception—the impossibility of observing bodies that fly upward against gravity? The Kantian approach appears to be a collection of wondrous mystical assertions. Astonishingly, this collection is regarded as a paradigm of rational, systematic philosophical thought.⁵ As already mentioned, Bergmann, in chapter 9 of his Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, rejects all the other possibilities for grounding the fit between intellect and world. Kant’s teaching is regarded as the only philosophical attempt to offer a solution to this problem.

To summarize: the principle of induction is not a rule whose purpose is to describe relations between events in the world, as causality does. It is a logical-epistemological rule, in addition to the rules of ordinary logic. The fact that the rule of induction does in fact work—that inductive inferences lead us to general laws with fairly good reliability—is a crushing blow to the Kantian understanding and clear support for the synthetic position presented here.

But how does this wonder actually occur? Induction is nothing but a form of our thinking. How does it lead us to correct conclusions about the world as it is in itself? Clearly there is a wondrous correspondence here, and someone sees to it that it exists. Put differently: when we perform induction, we see the general law through the particular phenomena (see the brief discussion of Husserl’s phenomenology above, at the end of Chapter Three of the second gate, and below as well). If so, induction too is a tool of observation and cognition, and not only a tool of thought. Through the particulars we discern the general law that governs them, and thus we generalize them.

Here we see in full force the synthetic claim that there are additional rational ways of acquiring true knowledge about the world. We saw that analyticity is founded on deduction, whereas these ways are founded on analogy and induction. After we use our tool of induction, we discover, in wondrous fashion, that it “works.” That is, the phenomena we have not yet observed generally obey the rule that we inferred in the inductive argument.

The clear conclusion is that induction is a tool with a cognitive character, and not merely a thinking tool. Here again we encounter the cancellation of the distinction between thinking and cognition as the only reasonable basis for rational and scientific thought.

Summary of the Solution Proposed Here to the Fundamental Problem of Epistemology: Thinking and Cognition

Let us summarize the argument up to this point. Of the three possibilities for the fit between human being and world, only the possibility of mutual correspondence remains. In notes 21 and 25 we grounded this in the existence of a coordinating factor. The only possible justification for the belief in the reliability of our cognition of concepts, such as causality, is that we are in fact equipped with a cognitive mechanism that is part of the intellect. This is how we understand relations such as causality and the like.

It is important to remember that there is no other way out of this problem. Anyone who does not accept the Kantian position, and does not accept naive empiricism, is compelled to accept the position presented here—which is itself empiricist in a certain sense, since intellectual cognition of concepts may also be considered “observation” in some broad sense.

In the terminology of the three possibilities mentioned above concerning the fit between the human being and the world, we tend toward the third possibility—the existence of a coordinating factor—but we also remain partly within an empiricist approach, that is, possibility 2. The empirical data are not given to us only by the five ordinary senses; the intellect, which is responsible for gathering the rest of the data, also functions as a “sixth sense.” That is, it contains a cognitive element and not only elements concerned with thinking. It discerns abstract entities and universal ideas. The laws of nature are not the product of thought analyzing particulars transmitted by our cognition, but the product of direct observation.

In fact, we are challenging here, more fundamentally, the very claim that these three possibilities really are sharply distinct alternatives. This is another aspect of the repeated challenge throughout this work to the distinction—which appears self-evident in our thinking—between thinking and cognition.

Thus, every rational person who assumes the existence of a correspondence between the human being and the world must choose one of the three lines of argument above. The first was ruled out by Kant and Hume. The problematic nature of the second—the Kantian direction—we showed in the previous unit. Thus, only the third direction remains. There is no other reasonable philosophical option, apart from complete skepticism, which we have already seen is the true foundation of the analytic position.

At this point in the discussion, the reader is invited to examine his own position on the issue of correspondence, and to decide whether he agrees with the conclusion we have reached—namely, that the common distinction between cognition and thinking does not fit the foundation underlying the accepted human modes of thought and cognition.

What Is a “Feeling”?

We will conclude this chapter with a discussion of a very common concept in our language: “feeling.” I will point out that this concept has two different meanings, and it is very important to distinguish between them.

The basic claim of this chapter is that in human intellect and cognition there are two parts: an analytic part and a synthetic part. The analytic part contains the analytical-mathematical thinking familiar to all of us, and it operates detached from the world. It receives data from cognition and processes them, but it has no direct relation to the world. By contrast, the synthetic part operates according to a correspondence that exists between it and the world that it is trying to know, both with regard to the world of abstract concepts and with regard to the world of natural objects.⁶ This is the part that makes possible recognition of the validity of synthetic a priori judgments, which lie at the foundation of all intellectual progress, as we saw especially in the first gate. Our fundamental claim is—as we already saw in Chapter Three of the second gate—that this part of the intellect engages also in cognition, and not only in thinking. That is, here too—as in sensory cognition—there is a passivity of the knower in relation to the world outside him.

It is customary to assume that the cognizing person is a fairly passive receiver of the world outside him, whereas the thinking person is active. Cognition merely receives data from outside, but thought acts upon the objects of thought and processes them. Kant understood thinking as taking place only within reason itself, but according to what we are saying here, the intellect operates also in passive modes—modes of cognition—and not only in active modes—modes of thinking.

Kant thought that the structure of cognition is arbitrary, that is, that it has no built-in connection to the world, and he proposed a very problematic way of explaining how such a structure nevertheless dictates the operation of thought, and thereby explains its correspondence to the world. Our claim is that this part is coordinated with the world outside it, and this is the basis of our trust in the human system of cognition, and the most reasonable grounding of the success that follows from it.

To illustrate the existence of these two parts, and to sharpen the distinction between this conception and the analytic conception, let us briefly examine the term “emotion.”

Let me begin with a typical situation. A student once came to me and asked how one can decide when there is a conflict between reason and emotion. I asked him what kind of conflict he meant. Did he mean the case where he loves a young woman and wants to marry her, while his reason tells him that it would not be good for him to marry her? Is that the conflict between reason and emotion he has in mind? I pressed him further, on a more fundamental plane: who, after all, is supposed to determine the criterion that will decide whether reason or emotion should take precedence? Will that very determination be made by reason or by emotion?

A conflict of the kind exemplified by love for a young woman is a false conflict. In principle, reason is supposed to decide whether to marry her or not. Part of the data that it must take into account are emotional data—love, sympathy, and so on. Reason, by definition, is what is meant to determine a person’s course of action, though of course it must take all relevant factors into account. In problems of this kind, unlike scientific or mathematical problems, emotion provides part of the relevant data for the decision. Reason is the part of the human being charged with making decisions. If one does not act in accordance with reason, that is a failure, and not merely a “choice to follow emotion.”

But there is another kind of conflict between reason and emotion—and that was probably what the student meant. This is a situation in which there is a proof, or significant intellectual support, for a certain conclusion, and nevertheless there is a clear feeling that this is the wrong direction of decision. This too is often referred to as a conflict between emotion and reason. A person often says things like: “I feel that socialism is a correct system,” or conversely: “Intellectually I know that this is a correct system, even though a feeling keeps nagging at me that it is not.”

The expression “I feel,” or “I sense,” and other inflections of the term “emotion” in this context are only borrowed uses. Here we are not speaking of emotion in the sense of feelings or passions. “Feelings” in this context are intellectual discernments for which we have no proof—that is, discernments that are not derivable by a step-by-step procedure. This is another part of the intellect, which I will call here, for reasons that will become clear later, the auditory part. The conflict described here is a conflict between the auditory part and the logical part of the intellect. It is not a conflict between reason and emotion, but between two parts of reason. Precisely for that reason, this is a genuine conflict.

It should be noted that the use of the term “emotion” in this context itself derives from an analytic conception. The analytic thinker assumes that “reason” is only the part that operates by proofs, that is, only the analyzing—analytic—part. A form of thinking that is not of that kind, although everyone understands that it has nothing to do with emotions, is called “emotion.” The reason for this misleading terminology lies in the analytic assumption itself: since this mode of thought is unrelated to the analytic part, which the analytic thinker regards as the exclusive meaning of “reason,” we are forced to classify it as emotion.

By contrast, we saw that according to the synthetic conception, the intellect also has another part, an auditory one. This part does not operate analytically and by proofs, but through “hearing,” or intuition. We will elaborate on this later. This is a part of reason, and using the term “emotion” in this context contributes only unnecessary confusion, rooted in implicit analyticity. Once this semantic distinction is made, the distinction between the analytic and synthetic approaches generally can also become clearer.

As for the student’s dilemma, it seems that a conflict of this kind is, on the face of it, much harder to resolve. Here too one may ask what kind of reason can decide this very conflict, that is, determine whether the synthetic part or the analytic part is preferable. But in light of what we saw in the seventh and eighth gates, even the analytic part of the intellect is based on the synthetic part. To be convinced by a proof, one needs the feeling of certainty that is created after the proof, and also the certainty and trust in the axioms.

Thus, the basis of analytic certainty is itself synthetic. Therefore the conflict described here is located entirely within the synthetic domain: is the feeling of certainty aroused in me by the proof stronger, or does intuition arouse in me a stronger certainty? The criterion for deciding should be determined by the question: where does the feeling of certainty incline? If, after examining the proof, I still have a clear feeling of certainty in the opposite direction, that feeling should be preferred over the proof. Again we see that the synthetic part of intellect and cognition is the more significant of the two parts of thought. It is the foundation and basis of thought as a whole, in both of its parts.

An Important Interim Note

The argument presented in this chapter is circular in a certain sense: it makes use of common sense and reaches the conclusion that there is a correspondence between the intellect and the world, which in turn justifies the assumption that it is worthwhile, possible, and justified to use common sense. This is a logical loop that appears rather problematic. Anyone who finds this difficult should be aware that every reflexive examination of our cognition and thought suffers from a similar circularity. The analysis of our modes of logical thought also uses our own rules of logic—that is, those very same modes of thought.

For methodological purposes, one may say that every person prefers common sense even before the various justifications. Here we have seen that this use is also retrospectively justified. Common sense justifies and grounds itself.⁷ True, a person sometimes has to act against common sense, but that is always a second-order option—and it is itself the result of common-sense considerations that tend to trust proofs. The conclusion of the argument is that the use of common sense is philosophically justified, and there is certainly no justification for neglecting it.

Thus, even the dilemma between emotion and reason in its second sense is illusory. It is a dilemma that lies wholly within the synthetic-auditory part of the intellect. True, it is sometimes hard to resolve, but this is not because of a conflict between two different cognitive faculties, or between cognition and something else.

Chapter Two: Thinking and Cognition: Further Aspects

Introduction

We saw in the previous chapter that anyone who assumes the existence of a fit between the human intellect and the world tacitly assumes some blurring of the distinction between cognition and thinking. In other words, he assumes that there is in the intellect a “cognizing” part and not only “thinking” parts. In this chapter I want to add several important aspects to this claim. The first two will bring proofs, from additional angles, for the existence of a correspondence between intellect and cognition and the objective world. After that we will review several of the problems that arose in the analytic position, and see how the synthetic position relates to them.

Chomsky and Wittgenstein

Two thinkers—the linguist Noam Chomsky and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, both regarded by many as the most important thinkers in their fields—presented arguments that lead to conclusions similar to those we saw in the previous chapter. Here I want to present, briefly and with the necessary superficiality, their conclusions, and also point to the connection between them.

From Chomsky’s research on the human capacity to use language, there emerges a rejection of the position that sees the human being as born a “blank page,” writing on the “tablet of his heart” the impressions he accumulates from the experience of life. According to Chomsky, a person must be born equipped with very specific innate patterns in order to be able to learn to use any language at all. Without such basic tools, he has no ability to receive what his parents, teachers, or society in general try to teach him. If a person has no innate tools whatsoever, then he also has no basic work tools with which other tools can be acquired. That is what the Sages said: “Tongs are made with tongs.”⁸ In order to make one work tool, one must already be equipped with another.

Here we see the same correspondence between human being and world that we discussed earlier. As was argued above, in order for a person to learn about the world, he must be equipped with tools of thought and cognition whose structure fits the structure of the world. These rules themselves cannot be learned from the world, and in that Hume and Kant were right. But with the help of the coordinating factor, the human being is nonetheless able to do so. This takes place on the two planes that we pointed to above:

1. The pseudo-epistemological plane, at whose basis lies a system of ideas embedded in the person from birth.
2. The epistemological plane, which is based on a faculty—intuition—through which one can continue to know further generalizations and abstractions that cannot be transmitted by means of the senses.

Language too, the subject of Chomsky’s research, is acquired by means of such primordial rules.⁹ A person born with concepts such as “object” and “subject,” and the like, can discern concrete instances of them and apply them in concrete cases. Similar to what was described above with respect to causality, what is innate is the system of ideas—for example, the idea of “cause” and “causality”—and non-sensory cognition discerns these structures in sentences of language, and connects those specific understandings to the innate ideas embedded in it, just as one discerns a concrete causal relation in a particular context that appears before us.

Wittgenstein argues something that leads to a similar conclusion, though from a different direction. His claim is that we have no way to explain how a person follows rules or instructions if he does not already know them in advance. In other words, a person seemingly cannot learn a new rule of behavior or thought and follow it successfully unless he already knows it in some sense beforehand.¹⁰ Wittgenstein’s argument about rule-following is more basic, simpler, and wider in significance, and so we will expand on it somewhat.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was not a scientist but an analytic philosopher. In his book Philosophical Investigations,¹¹ he presents the following situation: a teacher tries to teach his student the sequence of natural numbers, and writes on the board the series 1, 2, 3 … 9. After the student repeats that successfully, he continues and writes the numbers up to 100, showing him that the tens digit advances every ten numbers just as the units digit advances anew within each decade. He continues in this way up to the number 1000. If the student continues successfully until that point, the teacher concludes that he has understood the idea of the natural numbers. Now let us imagine that afterward the teacher sees the student begin writing larger numbers in the wrong order, or in an incorrect way. For example, after 1000 he writes 1100, and so on—either because he does not know that this is 1100, or because he thinks this is the correct way to write 1001. The teacher does not understand why the student deviates from the order he was taught, and the student explains that this is exactly the order he learned. He thinks that beginning with 1000, one must add 1 in the hundreds place.

The teacher continues to explain patiently, and again notices that the student makes mistakes starting at 10,000. Such a teacher must understand that the student is equipped with a different cognitive template in his head. This teacher has no way of deciding up to what number he must teach the student in order to ensure that from that point on he already knows the system of natural numbers.

Wittgenstein gives another example there, in a different context. The teacher writes the series: … 1, 5, 11, 19, 29. The student may think that the numbers differ by gaps that always increase by 2, and thus continue the series by writing 41. He may also think in terms of the formula (a_n = n^2 + n – 1). That formula too gives the next number in the series, 41. But if the student thinks in formulas, he may also choose another formula that gives a different continuation—and one can find infinitely many formulas that fit this series.¹²

If that is so, it is not clear why every examinee on a psychometric exam is expected to write 41 as the continuation of this series. The other continuations have a justification that appears no less compelling. In the previous example too, one may ask: why does the teacher assume that the natural or simple continuation of the series 1, 2, 3 … is the natural numbers? In essence, this is the question of why these numbers are “natural.” The assumption is that every intelligent person will continue such series “correctly.” But there are very many meanings of “correct” in this context, and all of them are consistent. It follows that there may be many different, and even contradictory, measures of intelligence.

Wittgenstein argued that this question is valid for every rule we try to pass on to a student, or to any listener, in any field. Every action according to a rule, and therefore all learning, is based on acquaintance with certain examples and the “natural” generalization of that acquaintance. But every generalization presupposes a certain form of thought, and that form defines what counts as a “natural continuation.” There are different possibilities for generalizing from particular examples to the general. How can we assume that the student, or the listener, will generalize in the way we want him to? Without the assumption that shared templates exist, it would be impossible to teach anything to anyone.

We assume that there is a shared structure, and there is no doubt that it is innate—not acquired—for all human beings of all cultures, though of course there are also differences.¹³ This structure makes it possible to learn various rules, and it also makes communication possible between human beings. In the scientific context, this structure makes it possible for us to generalize from certain examples we encounter in nature to rules that we call laws of nature. As we saw earlier, that same innate structure—induction—which is shared by all human beings, also fits, remarkably, the structure of the world. This is the common-sense justification for scientific thought. It is what defines the accepted “natural” way of thinking as an objective measure of intelligence. The “natural” is what fits the world—that is, what is “correct.”

Many generalizations are possible for any given set of phenomena. Although one can generalize consistently in quite a number of different ways, the intuitive form of generalization—the one that science also uses—usually succeeds in hitting the mark and producing correct predictions about future phenomena or events. Does this not clearly point to a correspondence between human being and world? We see that these templates are not the product of chance or of some arbitrary convention,¹⁴ but point to a fit with the world. This is true in science, true in the use of language, and true of every action or understanding of any rule whatsoever. This correspondence between human cognition and thought and the world as it is in itself is exactly what we pointed to following Hume’s argument.¹⁵

The conclusion that emerges from all this is that a person cannot learn anything that is wholly new for him. A person must always already have some basic tools in order to be able to understand anything further. At the very least, the ideas themselves must already be embedded in him, and so too the tools for applying them. In certain senses, there is here a small measure of analyticity. The analytic approach argues that a person cannot know anything beyond what he already knows from the moment of his creation. Here we only refine the matter, and say that the basic tools for learning all things are already present in the human being from the outset. With these tools he looks at the world and learns new things. Clearly, such a formulation describes a synthetic process rather than an analytic one, since the person learns from the world and about the world, and does not merely analyze himself and his thought. Yet in essence one may say that there really is a kind of analysis here.

This may be compared to a well-known dilemma regarding the immune system in the human body. Some approaches hold that a healthy body possesses all the antibodies against all diseases. When an illness attacks the body, it “pulls out” the relevant immunological defense from its storehouse and eliminates the threat. The question, of course, is how it can know in advance, before it ever became ill—and perhaps even before such a disease existed in the world—about all types of disease.

The alternative is that the body has a “learning” immune system. This is a system that contains the basic components of all possible kinds of immunity. The system is also equipped with a part that knows how to “take apart”—that is, to analyze “intellectually”—any virus it encounters, and to construct the appropriate immunity against it. Here the learning takes place on viruses that have already entered the body. It is clear that even according to this approach the question still arises: how can all the relevant tools of learning and analysis be determined in advance, before one knows all the kinds of diseases or viruses? Each of these two possibilities assumes that there is a factor that equips the body with a learning kit that “fits” the world it encounters, and therefore can analyze it and learn it. Human intellect and cognition too are equipped with a mechanism that knows how to analyze anything they encounter. This is what creates the fit between cognition and reason and the world, and our ability to know and understand the world.¹⁶

This idea is expressed in the Babylonian Talmud, Niddah 30b, in that well-known narrative passage about the infant who is taught the entire Torah in its mother’s womb:

…A lamp burns above its head, and it gazes and looks from one end of the world to the other, as it is said: “When His lamp shone over my head, by His light I walked through darkness.” And do not be astonished, for a person sleeps here and sees a dream in Spain. There are no days in which a person dwells in greater happiness than those days, as it is said: “Would that I were as in months past, as in the days when God watched over me.” And what are the days that have months but not years? You must say: these are the months of gestation. And they teach it the entire Torah, as it is said: “And He taught me and said to me: Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and live.” And it also says: “When the counsel of God was over my tent.” Why the additional verse? Lest you say that this refers only to a prophet, come and hear: “When the counsel of God was over my tent.” And once it comes out into the air of the world, an angel comes and strikes it upon its mouth, and causes it to forget the entire Torah, as it is said: “Sin crouches at the door.” …

This talmudic narrative tells us that before every baby is born, while still in its mother’s womb, an angel comes and teaches it the entire Torah. And when the fetus emerges into the air of the world, the angel strikes it on its mouth, and by this it forgets everything it learned.

The obvious question is why teach it everything, if before it emerges it is made to forget everything. The commentators explain that the idea is precisely this: a person cannot learn something unless it is already familiar to him, in a certain sense, before the learning itself. Therefore the infant is taught the entire Torah, and thus even after it forgets everything, the principles of the learning remain familiar to it. These are the basic templates that make it possible throughout life to learn Torah, as well as any other subject. This is the Chomskyan idea that also emerges from Wittgenstein’s arguments, as we saw above. The source of the conception of learning as recollection in general philosophy is Plato.¹⁷

In Kabbalah, it is described that before every creation of a new world, there is a first emanation of light from a higher world—which already existed beforehand—and afterward that light departs. Then it returns in a second emanation, in order to depart again and create the new world in the space left behind, the vacant space created by contraction. The first emanation is intended to create the fundamental concepts that will be used in the lower world. Only afterward can the second emanation come and create the new world itself.

Each world uses a new conceptual system, and therefore a preliminary conceptual infrastructure must first be created before such a world is created. Even a world of concepts acquired through learning requires prior conceptual preparation. This prior “programming” is what implants in the human being the system of thought and cognition suited to the world he observes. The tale of the fetus, and likewise the first emanation of light in the kabbalistic creation of worlds, describe the formation of the fit between human reason and the objects it observes—the world. Thus the principles of causality and induction, among other things, were embedded in the human being, and through them he knows the world.

Let us now turn to another argument for the necessity of a correspondence between intellect and world.

Inner Certainty

Postmodern discourse assumes that every statement, or work, must be understood only against the background in which it was made or occurs, and not judged objectively. At first glance, this claim seems to assume absolute relativism. Yet contrary to the initial impression it produces, this approach too is based on the understanding that a person can indeed enter into the cultural-spiritual world of another. Otherwise, how could he judge that other person even on postmodern terms? Such entry is impossible without the existence of a common foundational layer that precedes the entire relative postmodern layer. Thus only the outer layer changes from one culture and society to another. The very fact that a person from a certain culture can bring me into the atmosphere and some understanding of his statements, even when they were made in a different cultural climate, points to the existence of a very broad common layer shared by all societies and cultures.

In the seventh gate I pointed to the necessity of the claim that reason corresponds to the world, at least for someone who is not committed to radical skepticism. In note 20 there, I pointed to the correspondence between mathematical structure—which ostensibly describes only the structure of reason itself—and the world as it is in itself, at least in its scientific description. This example shows that even the analytic part of the intellect in fact reveals an impressive correlation with the structure of the world outside it.

As I argued in the previous gates, even proofs and formal logical structures—deductive ones—cannot be justified except by an infinite logical regress, and therefore they cannot be regarded as better justified than the synthetic parts of thought—induction and analogy. The grounding of these parts likewise lies in the correspondence that exists between them and the world. That is, our feeling that logical rules can be relied upon with certainty can itself be regarded as a baseless illusion. The only reason we nevertheless feel that such rules, and the like, are reliable is the feeling of inner certainty—self-evidence, in Cartesian terminology. If this really is the fundamental basis even of logical thought, then clearly such a feeling can also ground other modes of thought. In other words, a feeling of certainty with respect to induction or analogy is no less worthy of trust than the feeling of confidence we have regarding logical inference. This feeling is the supreme criterion of certainty. It underlies both forms of thought, deduction and induction, as well as the two parts of the intellect discussed above, the analytic and the synthetic.

It follows, then, that this intuitive feeling, and not the proof, is the supreme test of certainty.¹⁸ Therefore, if that same feeling gives us certainty with regard to induction and analogy, it is absurd to object that they are not deductive. Deduction itself is only one particular case among those to which we grant legitimacy by virtue of that very feeling of certainty.

In contrast to the analytic-conventionalist claim that “truth” is a term describing the use of an arbitrary set of logical rules, we argue here that this term denotes a feeling of certainty present in human cognition. This feeling is aroused, among other things, by the use of logical tools, but not only by them. The foundation of this feeling of certainty lies in the correspondence between the observing cognition and the world of phenomena—objects and concepts—that appears “before its eyes.” God, who is the coordinating factor between reason and the world, provides the reasonable basis for our confidence in that correspondence.

It seems that here too lies the basis for the feeling, even among those who hold the analytic position, regarding the data of the senses, which they regard as admissible—that is, as correctly reflecting the external world. Even in their view, sight is an immediate criterion of truth. But according to the synthetic conception, the cognition of concepts likewise uses “spiritual senses,” that is, the synthetic part of the intellect. If God provides a basis for trust in the five bodily senses, as we saw in the example of the train to Scotland, He can equally well ground the “synthetic sense”—that is, intuition. There is no need to wander into speculative regions far removed from common sense, as Kant or his analytic successors did, in order to ground the use of this sense.

The Formation of Concepts

The necessity of a conception involving fixed thought templates and conceptual systems can be seen from another angle as well. Let us again take Hume’s problem concerning causality. Hume argued that there can be no experiential, or any other, source for the law stating that every event has a cause, and therefore he denied the concept of cause altogether. He claimed that the concept of “a cause that causes” is an intellectual fiction, and that there is only “cause” in the sense of a term marking regular temporal precedence. Only a “cause” in that sense can be discerned through the senses.

The question that arises here is this: from where and how, then, did the concept itself arise at all—the concept of “cause,” in its pre-Humean meaning, which on his view is fictitious? How do we understand one another at all when we speak of the “cause” of a given event? Why is the simple understanding of all human beings that the cause is an event that acts, or produces, the effect—and where did that understanding come from? Why is it not as Hume suggested, namely, that the cause is only regular temporal priority? Who told us that our fellow human beings understand the concept of “cause” exactly as we do? There is no doubt that Hume himself understood that he was challenging the accepted concept of cause, for that was the entire point of his inquiry. He too understood the concept of cause in the same way all of us understand it, and therefore he tried to undermine it. In the end, he proposed an understanding that contradicts common sense as the result of a philosophical argument.

It seems that this itself forced Kant to formulate Hume’s difficulty differently, in a way that appears to beg the question. He asked, as we recall: how is causal cognition possible—not whether it is possible. Kant answered this by presenting his transcendental form of argument, which assumes that this is a structure embedded in human cognition and therefore inescapable.

The problems with this method have already been discussed at length above, and therefore I will mention them here only briefly: why assume that all human cognitions are equipped with the same a priori tools? And why assume that these principles and concepts really do fit reality? We rejected the claim that there is in truth no such correspondence, and that this is merely an arbitrary form of perception from which we have no escape. Therefore we are again forced to conclude that someone implanted within every human cognition the concept of “causality” and the principle of causality, and that it really does correspond to the world as it is in itself. From this angle too, we become aware that there is a coordinating factor between reason and the world.

A similar argument can be raised against various philosophical approaches that undermine different basic concepts. Anyone who claims that some concept is fictitious, that its definition is inconsistent, or that it does not exist at all, will have to explain the very formation of the fictitious concept, and the universal human ability to understand and communicate with respect to it. The best-known example is the concept of “God.” One of Descartes’ proofs for the existence of God is also based on the claim that if there really is no such concept, then the denier must explain how such a strange concept arose—this is what he calls the “anthropological proof.” It is a concept that, by definition, cannot be drawn from experience or from any other source, and therefore if God does not exist, the concept itself could not have arisen either. What lies behind this is the view that a person cannot create concepts and understandings out of nothing, exactly as we saw above in Chomsky and Wittgenstein.¹⁹

Similarly, one may challenge those who think morality is a fiction created for utilitarian needs, or other such needs: how did the concept of “good” arise and become understood in its simple moral sense, which on their view is mistaken? If its source is a utilitarian agreement, how do we understand it with the connotation of values possessing autonomous standing? There appears to be no source from which a person could have drawn such a concept. How does the same inner feeling arise in all of us when we describe something as “good”? That cannot be the result of agreement alone. It is only the attempts to provide philosophical foundations for ethics, and for concepts of moral obligation—which are usually sterile—that created this strange fiction.¹⁹

A similar question arises with respect to every concept. If it is indeed fictitious, and even contradictory, how did it come into being? Clearly, one cannot encounter it in experience, since it does not really exist—just like the concepts of “God” and “good” that we have just discussed.

This argument yields a far-reaching conclusion: no concept that is understood by a significant group of human beings can be completely meaningless and wholly fictitious. One may criticize the way it is used, and correct mistaken understandings, but one cannot claim that it is entirely without foundation. Anyone who makes such a claim will have to give an account of how such a conceptual mutation came into being. This is a kind of ontological—or anthropological—proof for the existence of concepts.²⁰

On the Objective Meaning of Concepts

At the end of Chapter Three of the second gate, we brought a discussion—see note 8 there—of the objective meaning of the concept “good.” We argued there that this concept has one meaning—this is the “matter” of the concept—in all cultures, and that the only possible dispute concerns the form the concept takes in each place. We saw that the relativity of moral rules, surprisingly enough, presupposes the objectivity of the concept of “morality” itself. The same is true of the other evaluative concepts, such as “beautiful” and “correct.” These three evaluative concepts function in three different philosophical domains: “good” in ethics, “beautiful” in aesthetics, and “correct” in logic.²¹ With respect to all three there are parallel disputes about whether their meaning is uniform or relative to different cultures and societies. In all three cases, the same claim is true: even a relative conception of aesthetics or logic presupposes an objective meaning of the concept “beautiful” or “correct” itself.²²

In the eighth gate, Chapter Three, we saw that Einstein’s theory of relativity is often presented as an example of relativism in various domains. Bringing this example again shows the same mistake that we pointed to here. The aim of relativity theory is to connect all forms of observation so that it will be clear that the same phenomenon is under discussion. The constitutive principle of the relativistic equations is the principle of invariance, which states that all laws of nature must be identical in every frame of reference or observation. From this principle it follows that, in order to achieve this uniformity, one must alter the concepts of time and space in a very specific and rigid way—the Lorentz transformation. Thus, the aim of relativity theory is not to make the natural world relative, and certainly not to change it arbitrarily at will, but precisely to keep it absolute. The laws of nature are fixed and rigid; it is only that from different frames of reference they may appear differently. If the same law of nature were not at issue, there would be no point in saying that it appears differently. When one says that a certain law of nature is different in frame of reference A than in frame of reference B, one clearly assumes that it is the same law of nature, only appearing differently. This is the same situation as in the disputes mentioned above regarding the various evaluative concepts.

This universal objective meaning of concepts is an inner feeling that accompanies cognition when it senses something as “correct,” “beautiful,” or “good.” That feeling is precisely the understanding of the concept. We spoke above of such a feeling as grounding the “correct.” The same argument can be repeated with respect to the “beautiful” and the “good.” The objects or phenomena that produce this feeling may differ greatly from one person to another. The matter of the concept is universal, and its form is relative. As we saw in the second gate, the form of a concept is determined also by the “observer” of it. Our ability to sense the objective meaning that accompanies these concepts is the ability to make contact with the concept as it is in itself—the matter of the concept—before we “see” its form.²³

This feeling appears to originate from within, but it is shared by all human beings, and therefore it clearly has objective meaning. This phenomenon can be explained in one of two ways: either someone implanted the same basic structure in all human beings—an intersubjective explanation—or all human beings were given tools by means of which they grasp the concept as it is in itself, outside them, and therefore the results, that is, the definitions of the concept, are similar—an objective explanation. Just as we assume with respect to objects that they are perceived in the same way by all of us, so too must we say with respect to concepts. These two possibilities parallel the two approaches described above regarding the structure of the immune system. This is another facet of the correspondence between the human being and the world that we discussed above.

In Kabbalah too one can see two such forms of approach. Some study it as a doctrine of the soul of the individual person—especially in the interpretation of Chabad Hasidism—and others see it as a doctrine describing spiritual reality, objective in nature, that underlies physical reality, which is likewise objective. These two approaches do not contradict one another, because the two structures are parallel. The human being has the same structure—though on a smaller scale—as the totality of the world.

The conclusion is that Kant is indeed right in saying that synthetic a priori judgments and the basic concepts are derived from the structure of human reason. But that is only the first step, and only part of the truth. One must go on and say that this structure corresponds to the world, and also corresponds across different human beings; therefore it has objective meaning—and not merely intersubjective meaning, as Kant claimed—in the description and understanding of the world. For this reason, different people can communicate with one another even if they belong to different cultural worlds.

Skeptical analyticity, which locks the human being inside himself and does not allow him to enter the world itself—or the world of another person—is only a very superficial layer of human existence. When a person observes an event in which a cause produces an effect, he can discern by means of his synthetic tools the cause-effect relations between the events. This is not a transcendental eidetic vision in which cognition imposes itself on reality, as Husserl proposed following Kant—see the end of Chapter Three of the second gate. It is simply observation of an abstract part of reality—such as relations between objects or between events—using the “eyes of the intellect.”

Chapter Three: Auditory Logic

Introduction

In the previous two chapters we presented different arguments in favor of the position that there is a correspondence between the human being and the world. The arguments were based on the claims of Chomsky and Wittgenstein about the existence of an innate component in human cognition, thought, and speech—a component present in the human being from the beginning. We also saw that we place full trust in this component, and we formulated the “proof from epistemology” (see notes 21 and 25), which, through elimination of the possible explanations of the fit between human being and world, leaves us only with the possibility of mutual correspondence—a possibility that rests on a belief, sometimes implicit, in a coordinating factor. Our proposal was that the way we become aware of synthetic a priori claims is based on a kind of cognition that Maimonides, at the beginning of The Guide of the Perplexed, describes as seeing with the “eyes of the intellect.” In Husserl, this cognition is called “eidetic vision,” that is, contemplation of ideas. This cognition is carried out by the synthetic part of the intellect, which is responsible for learning synthetic a priori judgments. As noted, this part of the intellect operates as cognition—a sixth sense—and not as mere thinking.

We saw from the “anthropological argument” concerning the formation of concepts that the synthetic part of the intellect is shared by all human beings, and from the argument from epistemology we saw that it also corresponds to reality. Our conclusion is that this part is not merely intersubjective, as Kant thought, but objective.

In this chapter we will discuss a Torah-based description of the cognitive ability to discern relations and abstract concepts in the world. We will describe here the auditory logic, which is in effect the Jewish form of eidetic vision—though not a phenomenological one, as we saw in the previous unit in the discussion of Husserl. Part of the difference lies in the very terminology: Husserl uses the metaphor of sight—eidetic vision—whereas the Nazir uses specifically hearing—auditory logic. We will begin by explaining the meaning of this metaphorical difference.

Hearing and Sight

Rabbi David HaKohen—the Jerusalem Nazir, a disciple of Rabbi Kook; hereafter, briefly: the Nazir—in his book The Voice of Prophecy – The Auditory Hebrew Logic,²⁴ distinguishes between formal logic, which is Greek logic based on deduction and which he calls “visual Greek logic,” and Hebrew logic, which is based on analogy, and also induction, and which he calls “auditory Hebrew logic.” The Nazir’s terminology distinguishes between these two kinds of logic both with respect to their source—Greek versus Hebrew—and with respect to the sensory metaphor that describes them—sight versus hearing. This description arises from various expressions in Torah sources, which we will examine below, but its root lies in the distinction between the sense of sight and the sense of hearing.

At the revelation at Mount Sinai, the Torah says that the children of Israel were “seeing the sounds.” This is a strange expression that has received various interpretations over the generations. The interpretation proposed here, following the Nazir, is based on the fact that the sense of sight is a very sharp and clear sense. Sight serves to describe a certain reality. One cannot deny what one has seen. On the other hand, it is also a very superficial sense, discerning only what lies on the surface. Any screen, even the slightest, separates one from sight. By contrast, hearing is much harder to block by barriers. When there is a barrier that prevents one from seeing something, one can usually still hear it. Hearing is a somewhat dimmer sense, and it does not provide a clear picture of what is happening. But hearing represents a deeper understanding of perceived reality. That is why the discernment of inner and hidden things is described metaphorically as “hearing.”

Each of these two senses has both an advantage and a disadvantage, and this is no accident. There is a connection between the advantage and the disadvantage of each of them. What is deep is usually more obscure, and what is superficial is usually clearer. It is easier to discern, understand, and define. As we saw, this is also the difference between analytic and synthetic thinking. Analytic thought is easier to understand, easier to use, and easier to be convinced by; it is sharper and more precise. It relates to what lies on the surface, and therefore it is described by the sense of sight. But we also saw that this is its weakness. As in the joke of the hot-air balloon: anything that is exactly true says nothing. The purely analytic is empty. In contrast, the synthetic, auditory logic is indeed more obscure, but it is deeper, more meaningful, and more useful.

This is what we called above—see Chapter One of the ninth gate—the “philosophical uncertainty principle”: the more necessarily true a statement is, the less knowledge it adds for us. The difference between sight and hearing is the epistemological reflection of the joke of the hot-air balloon.

In the third gate we noted that the Greeks—the Greek archetype as seen through the eyes of the Sages—demanded a definition for everything, and did not recognize things that cannot be observed through the senses, or reached by the analytic part of thought. The Greeks are the heralds of visual, analytic thought. Judaism, by contrast, as the representative of auditory thought, is prepared to recognize and believe also in things that cannot be observed superficially. See the words of Nahmanides in his commentary on the Torah portion of Aharei Mot, cited in Chapter Four of the fifth gate.

According to this interpretation, one can understand the deeper reason for the strong emphasis that Greek culture placed on visuality in all its forms: from cultivation of the body, through plastic art, to idolatry, the worship of physical idols, which are nothing but “divine” objects that can be concretized and seen.²⁵ Greek culture holds that everything—including spiritual and divine forces—must be tangible and clear. Judaism, by contrast, is fundamentally repelled by visual things, and therefore art, and especially plastic art, never found a significant place in the Jewish world. The God in whom Jews believe cannot be seen by the senses. This is the root of the war against idolatry, and in that sense it exists today no less than in the past. That was the mistake of the worshipers of the calf after the revelation at Sinai: they wanted a concrete representation of the monotheistic God, who is obscure and not visually graspable. See note 14 in the second gate.

We already pointed out that in the Western world art fills an important need—the longing for spiritual experiences and attainments. There we saw that in an analytic world such attainments are not legitimate on the intellectual plane, and therefore they find release in art. There we noted that this is a substitute for genuine spiritual experiences and attainments, which exist only on the religious plane. Here we should add that the way of producing such experiences in the two cultures is itself different. The analytic culture creates them through visual means, whereas the synthetic culture uses deeper tools.

In Judaism, it is the intellect that undergoes spiritual experiences, and not the “imaginative faculty,” that is, imagination. Imagination is a visual faculty. A person who imagines sees images before his mind’s eye, even though they have no root in the object or event in reality. The intellect, according to the Nazir, is a hearing faculty, a listening one.

When English speakers want to express understanding, they say, “I see.” That is, sight represents understanding in Anglo-American culture, more so in America.²⁶ By contrast, in the Talmud, when one wants to say that one does not understand, this is often expressed as “I have not heard it.” Every talmudic passage is called a “reported teaching.” When someone is invited to address a certain passage, the expression is “Come and hear.” And there are many more examples in the Talmud of terminology that uses hearing rather than sight.

Heavenly Echo

The use of hearing as a metaphor for the grasp of depth appears in the talmudic concept of the heavenly echo. In the literature of the Sages, this source is called a “heavenly echo” and not simply a “voice,” because it is something that emerges out of the voice; from within the revealed thing there comes forth something that had been hidden within it.

In 1 Kings 19:11–12, God commands the prophet Elijah:

And He said: “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and mighty wind rent the mountains and shattered rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, fire; but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice.

Rashi writes there:

“A still, small voice”—a voice of those who praise quietly, and so forth. What I heard was a sound that comes out of the silence, a kind of faint resonance, and it is not heard like an actual voice.

Scripture comes to remove from our minds the assumption that God is revealed through those things that are visible, conspicuous, and loud. The entire content of Jewish faith is belief in what lies behind the visible and tangible. This is the antithesis of Greek idolatry, which concretizes the divine, as well as all the other components of its world.

First, one should note that God appears in a voice, not in an image. The voice is the more abstract. Beyond that, Rashi explains the specific content of these verses in a similar way. The voice of God is heard behind the loud and visible things. It is a voice that emerges from silence. It is not heard like an actual voice—a heavenly echo, not a voice—and it does not require an actual voice to accompany it. The voice that emerges from silence is the heavenly echo that comes out from within the voice.

The concept of the heavenly echo is sometimes understood as a transcendental event in which a voice issues from heaven and is heard throughout the world, but that is not its only meaning. In the Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat, chapter 6, halakha 9, and in parallel passages, cases of listening to a heavenly echo are described as cases in which a person infers conclusions from real events happening near him. For example, there is a case of two amoraim who wanted to leave the Land of Israel and go down to Babylonia in order to meet a Babylonian sage named Samuel. As they passed next to a schoolhouse for children, they heard them studying the verses in 1 Samuel 28, dealing with the death of the prophet Samuel, and from this they concluded that they should not go down to Babylonia. The Talmud presents this as an example of listening to a heavenly echo.

What we have here is a grasp, or cognition, of what lies behind the reality apprehended by the senses. A heavenly echo is a voice that is not heard by everyone, but only by one who knows how to listen—a voice that comes out of the silence. We saw that the Talmud also uses the term “heavenly echo” for an insight drawn from the speech of a person in one’s surroundings. There are several more examples of this kind in that passage and in parallel ones.²⁷

One may see a root of this understanding in the difference between the metaphors of hearing and sight. When one sees an object, it does not address us. It stands there where it is, and we simply see it. By contrast, a meaningful sound—especially speech—is usually uttered in relation to us. Therefore, listening to a heavenly echo, as described above, is expressed specifically in terms of “voice.” It is the perception of the situation around us as though it were addressing us. “Sight,” with respect to that same situation, means relating to it as neutral and indifferent. To understand what the situation contains in terms of its meaning for us—that is listening to the heavenly echo, the “hearing.”

Sight and Hearing: The Thing in Itself

To conclude the present discussion, let us examine a bit the hierarchical relation between sight and hearing. In a superficial and mistaken understanding—at first glance—sight is perceived as an apprehension of the thing itself, whereas hearing about something is only an apprehension of some representation of the thing. Seeing an erupting volcano is not like hearing that it is erupting, nor even like hearing the eruption itself. The terms “sight” and “hearing” express here metaphors for direct sensory apprehension—sight—and indirect, non-sensory apprehension—hearing.²⁸

This hierarchical conception, according to which sight touches the thing in itself while hearing touches only its representation, itself arises from a Greek-visual conception. In the “auditory” conception, sensory data are precisely an apprehension of the representation of the thing—the phenomenon—whereas non-sensory apprehension is precisely the way to reach the thing in itself. That is, for one who espouses an auditory conception, the hierarchy between the auditory and the visual is itself reversed.²⁹

Interim Summary

Up to this point we have been dealing with the metaphorical plane of sight and hearing. We explained that sight relates to the thing as it is revealed before our eyes—the phenomenon—whereas hearing extracts from it references to the thing as it is in itself—the noumenon. Sight is sharp, clear, and superficial; hearing is vague and deeper. We now move from the sensory metaphors to the actual plane under discussion: the distinction between two kinds of logic and thought.

Greek Logic and Hebrew Logic

“Sight” and “hearing,” as noted above, are metaphors that the Nazir uses to describe two types of logic: “the auditory Hebrew logic” and “the visual Greek logic.” After examining the sensory metaphors, we can better understand the relation between these two kinds of logic, and we will do so below. But first we must examine the second component of the distinction between them—the difference that refers to their origin: one is Greek, while the other is Hebrew.

We already saw in the third gate that Greek logic is the familiar formal, scholastic logic. There we pointed out that ancient Greece is the root of Western analyticity. By contrast, Hebrew logic, as presented there, is based on ways of thinking by analogy and induction.

Hebrew logic, according to the Nazir, finds expression in the “principles by which the Torah is expounded.” These principles are the rules of interpretation and exposition of the Written Torah, and they are listed in various forms in several tannaitic midrashim (rabbinic exegetical collections). According to the Nazir, their origin lies in early periods in which this logic was used intuitively, and at that time it was clear to all students. In a later period it underwent canonization and took on the form of formal interpretive rules, and that is the form in which it came down to us.

To the contemporary eye, the principles of Torah interpretation appear very strange and unclear, because of the transition from synthetic thought to analytic thought, which, as we saw, occurred even within the world of Torah, in the study hall. See Gate Three, Chapter Two. The foundation of this logic lies in the prophetic faculty that existed in Israel in those periods. When prophecy exists in the world, Torah study too has a different character. See more on this in the final gate.³⁰

The Nazir’s main innovation in understanding the role of the thirteen principles is not understood by many readers of his writings. Usually they are captivated by the terminology he himself gave to his conception when he wrote that these principles contain an “alternative logic”—an auditory logic.

It is clear that this is not what he means in the literal sense. No one, including the Nazir himself, disputes the rules of classical scholastic logic. The Nazir does not mean to argue that the law of the excluded middle, or the law of contradiction, or any other deduction, is invalid.³¹ His intent was to argue that there are additional laws for inferring truths, beyond deductive logic. These rules, as he himself notes more than once, are analogical rules—“parabolic,” in his language—which use induction and analogy no less than deduction.³² This is exactly the synthetic approach, which does not deny the ordinary rules of logic, but only their status as the exclusive tools of thought.

This understanding of the Nazir’s words also includes a claim against the opposite approaches, typical of medieval Jewish philosophers, who understood the thirteen principles as a collection of rules for interpreting the Torah.³³ These rules were treated as something like an arbitrary axiomatic system, one that could just as well have been replaced by another, according to the will of the author. According to this approach, the “principles” are a kind of code whose sole role is to encode ideas, and which has no meaning in itself. The author of the Torah chose this form in order to encode the laws through the code of the thirteen principles, but he could have chosen any other code. They have no philosophical importance, just as no coding system has philosophical importance, for such a system is arbitrary in its essence.³⁴ The key to a cipher is nothing but a set of arbitrary rules chosen in order to encode information, and nothing more.

The Nazir’s thesis stands between these two extreme conceptions. On the one hand, the thirteen principles are not merely arbitrary decoding rules; but on the other hand, they are not an alternative logic in the full sense—a logic meant to replace the accepted, “Greek,” logic. These principles are the foundations of Hebrew additions to Greek logic, which is correct in itself, but insufficient, and certainly not exclusive. They are the ways of analogy, which must be added to the rules of deduction as further logical tools of inference. In effect, we have here a description of synthetic additions to formal logic, which are required if we are to add knowledge about the world.

Auditory and Visual Logic

We now have a distinction between the senses of sight and hearing, and also a distinction between Hebrew logic, which is analogical at its root, and Greek logic, which is deductive at its root. As stated above, the Nazir adds to Hebrew logic the adjective “auditory,” and to Greek logic the adjective “visual.” Let us try to understand these additions.

From the terminology itself, it appears that although the Nazir is dealing with logic and forms of inference, he chooses sensory metaphors. That is, he seems, at least apparently, to blur logic—thinking—with epistemology—cognition. According to the interpretation proposed here, the Nazir’s intent is connected to the claims raised in the previous chapters. As we saw in the second gate, an analytic position is usually accompanied by a conventionalist epistemology, and by a Kantian approach according to which the thing in itself cannot be known. By contrast, a synthetic position is accompanied by an essentialist epistemology, and by an approach that recognizes the human ability to touch the thing as it is in itself through the features by which it is outwardly revealed—one may “listen” to it behind the partitions.

If “Greek logic” is indeed what we call here the analytic position, and “Hebrew logic” is the synthetic position, then such a blending of the epistemological plane into the picture is exactly what one should expect. According to this, Greek logic is accompanied by a “visual” epistemology, that is, a conventionalist one, which discerns an unbridgeable gap between phenomenon and noumenon. It is a visual epistemology because it relates to things as they are perceived by us, just like the sense of sight. Analyticity relates to the outer form of things, and that is precisely their visual aspect.

According to the same line of thought, Hebrew logic—the synthetic position in our terminology—is accompanied by an “auditory” epistemology, that is, an essentialist one, which holds that the gap between phenomenon and noumenon can be bridged. Through the characteristics of the object or the concept, one can know the thing as it is in itself. It is “heard” by one who listens to what exists behind the external visual form.³⁵

In the second gate we saw, following Kant, that the thing in itself cannot be known. The assumption underlying that determination is a narrow empiricist assumption according to which epistemology exists only through the senses, and the senses have access only to “form” and not to “matter.” That is indeed what Hume and Kant thought. The Nazir proposes another cognitive path that can bypass the physical structures of cognition. Since this is not visual cognition, it deals with ideas or abstract concepts, and therefore it is not limited to the human manner of perception, nor to description in the terminology of human cognition—terms such as color, geometric shape, and the like. Such a mode of apprehension does not “color” the thing or the idea that is apprehended, and therefore it can grasp it as it is in itself.

In the second gate we saw that there are characteristics that exist in the thing itself. The proof we brought for this was that two objects which are identical in themselves cannot be perceived by our cognition as different from one another. A green table and a blue table are, apparently, different from one another also in their reality as they are in themselves. It is the auditory logic that grasps these characteristics, which exist in the reality of the noumenon.

This is the meaning of the identification the Nazir makes between the forms of thought—Hebrew and Greek logic—and the sensory metaphors—hearing and sight—when he says that Hebrew logic is “auditory” and Greek logic is “visual.”

The Failure of the Sharp Distinction Between Epistemology and Logic

It should be noted that in the Nazir’s teaching there is not only an addition to the theory of knowledge, or a different epistemology. As I already pointed out earlier, there is here a challenge to the very traditional separation between epistemology and thinking—logic, or philosophy in general. In the Nazir’s teaching, thinking too is a listening to what is happening outside. Parallel processes occur within the soul or cognition of the person, but the two are synchronous structures and processes. One can indeed learn from this listening about the world outside. Our thinking is based on cognition of the external world—on “hearing.”

It should also be noted that this challenge to the distinction was made by us, albeit implicitly, already in the second gate. There we pointed out that the two forms of thought, analytic and synthetic, are attached to two different modes of cognition: the essentialist and the conventionalist. Already there the conclusion was hidden—though brought into the open only here—that thinking and cognition cannot be sharply and clearly separated, and that the boundary between them is blurred.

This mistaken and misleading dichotomous distinction between epistemology and logic creates several paradoxes born of attempts to determine which of the two domains is more basic. At first glance, thinking precedes epistemology and shapes it, just as it shapes every other human activity. On the other hand, it is obvious that in order to know our intellect and cognition, we must observe them, and that is an epistemological process.³⁶

This distinction is another aspect of the Western assumption of a distinction between subject and object. As is well known, in various Eastern conceptions this distinction is not so sharp, and perhaps does not exist at all, in varying degrees. Clearly, if the subject—the observer—is not a thing separate from the object—the world—then there is no room for a distinction between epistemology and thought. Here too one can see the affinity between the various synthetic conceptions.³⁷

The Source of the Auditory Faculty

We have found in the Nazir’s teaching confirmation of our claim that synthetic thought—the auditory mode—constitutes a necessary addition to analytic logic—the visual mode, that is, formal logic. We can now identify that part of logic, that is, of thought, with the innate synthetic part of the intellect that we discussed in the first two chapters of this gate. The Nazir gives us a description of that synthetic part, which, as we have already seen, really is composed of a mixture of thinking and cognition.

The question we must examine is: what is the source of the power to make contact with the world as it is in itself? How can we really discern the thing as it is in itself through its appearances—how can we “listen” to it?

On the plane of general philosophy, we explained the ability to learn about the world through the correspondence between our powers of thought and cognition and the objective world. This correspondence was created by a “coordinating factor,” which created both sides of the equation, the world and the human being. See also notes 21 and 25. This is the being we call “God.”

At the level of the present discussion, we will say, correspondingly, that the existence and mode of operation of the synthetic part of the intellect—the auditory logic—can likewise be explained only on the basis of the intervention of that same factor. This is an expansion of what we called there the “proof from epistemology.” Now, after abolishing the sharp boundary between thinking and cognition, we should call it “the proof from the synthetic dimension.” The synthetic ability, both as thought and as cognition, points to the existence of a coordinating factor—that is, to the existence of God.

The Nazir’s claim is that the foundation of this logic lies in the prophetic faculty. In Chapter Two of the third gate we saw that when prophecy rests upon Israel, learning and thought too take place in a different way. After prophecy ceased, it seems as though the auditory logic was replaced, and we are all forced to make do with the visual logic.³⁸ This is why Torah study too is now perceived as closer to the general world of thought, and we apparently use the same thinking tools in order to study Torah. See there. The question is what difference remains today between Hebrew thought and Greek thought. Is there still any difference between them after the age of prophecy has ended?

The Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9b, says:

As it was taught in a baraita: When the last prophets—Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi—died, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel, yet they still made use of a heavenly echo.

The concept of the heavenly echo, as we saw above, is used in several ways. First, it indicates listening—one listens to a voice—that is, the use of the auditory part of thought. The Talmud is teaching us that even today, after the cessation of prophecy, this kind of thinking is still possible. The heavenly echo is a remnant of the prophetic power that once existed in Israel. In other words, listening to the heavenly echo remains a possibility even today, after the end of the age of prophecy, although its root lies in the prophetic power that has already ceased.

It should be noted that, unlike prophecy, the heavenly echo is a form of thought open to every student. One need not be a prophet in order to use it, but one certainly must be aware of its existence and trust it. In other words, the main requirement for using the heavenly echo is that one not hold an analytic position. One must trust intuition and one’s capacity for inward listening. The analytic position denies the certainty granted by the heavenly echo to one who listens to it, and claims that it is only a subjective illusion.

The interpretation proposed here for the heavenly echo is this listening itself—the use of the auditory logic. Whoever finds within himself something that corresponds to the reality outside can discern in that reality things that are not on the revealed level—he can “hear” them. He must trust those insights, and not listen to the analytic impulse that tries to persuade him to classify them as illusion.

This is not to say that there is no place for intuition and deep insight in “external” fields of knowledge and wisdom other than Torah. It is only that the source of intuition in all those fields is that same prophetic power. Prophecy is also the source of wisdom. It is no accident that prophecy is sometimes described by various sages as a form of cognition, and sometimes as a form of thought and higher wisdom. Prophecy is the root of the non-distinction between thinking and cognition—that is, the basis of the synthetic capacity that serves us in all domains.

Auditory Logic and Intuition

We can now understand the difference that still exists today, even after the end of the prophetic age in Israel, between Torah wisdom and external—Greek—wisdom. Torah wisdom contains also an auditory component, deeper in character, which consists in listening to the word of God within the text. Anyone who studies talmudic passages, even the driest and most prosaic ones, knows that when he argues with someone—and likewise when he studies disputes among sages of different generations—the matter almost never ends in a knockout. That is, the dispute almost never ends with a decisive proof against the reasoning of the opponent. The dispute usually turns on common sense, as it develops in the students through the acquisition of skill in studying the Talmud. Nahmanides, in the introduction to his commentary on Rabbi Isaac Alfasi known as The Wars of the Lord, whose purpose is to defend Alfasi against the objections of Rabbi Zerahiah HaLevi, the author of The Luminary, writes several key lines on this matter:

And you, the reader of my book, should not say in your heart that all my replies to Rabbi Zerahiah, of blessed memory, are, in my eyes, victorious and compelling answers that will force you to admit them despite your stubbornness; nor should you pride yourself on being able to cast doubt on one of them for its students, or strain your mind to pass through the eye of a needle in order to remove from yourself the force of my proofs. It is not so. For every student of our Talmud knows that in the disputes of its interpreters there are no absolute proofs, nor in most objections any final determinations; for in this wisdom there is no clear demonstration such as there is in mathematics and astronomy. Rather, we expend all our effort, and it is enough for us, in every dispute, to distance one of the opinions by weighty reasoning, to press the transmitted teachings in that direction, and to give an advantage to its proponent through the plain sense of the laws, the aptness of the passages, and the agreement of sound reason. And this is the utmost of our ability, and the intention of every sage and God-fearing person in the wisdom of the Talmud.

Nahmanides writes here what every student in the study hall knows: ordinarily, it is impossible to bring a decisive proof against one opinion or another. The rejection of a certain line of reasoning or view is done by using common sense and by giving the simplest possible interpretation to the relevant sources.

The main foundation of the auditory logic, as an alternative to analytic thought, is trust in natural intuition—what is called common sense. There are no new elements of thought here, only a restoration of the trust we in any case already place in that old and good common sense, which has suffered so much under the philosophical—analytic—attacks that continue to harass it to this very day.

Intuition also functions in other fields of knowledge and wisdom, and not only in Torah study. We have seen that there are philosophers of common sense even among analytic thinkers—I think Moore is the best known among them. Usually they rely on the unavoidable necessity of trusting the judgment of common sense. This is a kind of transcendental consideration—this is our tool, and therefore we have no choice but to use it—or an analytic consideration—after all, what is imposed upon us is only the solving of linguistic problems.

But the true justification for trusting intuition is trust in the One who implanted within us the auditory logic, that is, the synthetic capacity. Only such a basis can lead to a grounded rational—and especially rationalist—conception of the world and of our ability to know it. From within such a picture, Hume’s problems are not troubling at all. This is not because they receive a good solution, but because they do not arise in the first place. Why cast doubt on the discernment that event A is the cause of event B, if that is simply what we see clearly? This is especially true in light of the fact that we have no doubt at all about the occurrence of the events themselves. If so, for the same reason we should not cast doubt on inductive conclusions—scientific or otherwise—drawn from particular events. We “see” those conclusions too.

In other words: every rational and modernist conception of science as advancing toward the addition of knowledge about the world depends on a synthetic approach, and that approach is itself based on belief in a coordinating factor. Thus, contrary to what is commonly assumed, there is no contradiction between religion and modernity. On the contrary: faith in God is the only possible reasonable basis for modernism.³⁹

Up to this point we have seen that the synthetic position is in fact an expression of renewed trust in intuition and common sense. Yet at first glance, once we understand this, it would seem that there is no room left to distinguish between Torah wisdom and external wisdoms, for in all of them intuition plays a role, and all we need do is recognize that capacity as legitimate and useful also on the objective plane.

In the final gate we will see that, beyond the question of the source of the auditory—that is, the synthetic—power, there is also another essential difference between Torah wisdom and external wisdoms. To conclude this chapter, and as an introduction to the final gate, we will return to an issue that already arose in the first gate: the possibility of examining first assumptions.

The Ability to Examine First Assumptions: Between Synthetic and Analytic

As we saw in the first gate, according to analytic logic one cannot examine first assumptions, but only the derivation of conclusions from those assumptions. This outlook arises from a conception according to which examination can take place only on the analytic plane. Whoever recognizes the existence of a synthetic layer is aware of the possibility of examining assumptions as well—by contemplating them, by “listening” to them, and deciding in an auditory way whether they are true or not.

As stated, the grounding of assumptions is not only a process of thought but also one of cognition. This is the solution to the problem we posed above: how can one become convinced of the truth of first assumptions that have no rational reason or intellectual grounding? Essentialism enters here as a necessary component of the synthetic worldview. The analytic thinker believes that there is no way to examine first assumptions. In his view, one can examine only the consistency of the conclusions derived from them. But here we see the synthetic alternative: there is a way to examine first assumptions. True, not by means of thought, but by cognitive means. We must observe them with the “eyes of the intellect” and become convinced of their truth.

Convincing another person to change his position can sometimes look like literary discourse, and sometimes like logical discussion. It is an undefined combination of these two forms of discourse.⁴⁰ This is the openness defined in the fourth gate, as distinct from analytic “pluralism.” Someone who holds a synthetic position recognizes the possibility that a person with a different position may convince him, even though their first assumptions are different. Contrary to what many think, not every act of persuasion is brainwashing, and even if it is not carried out by purely logical means, it can still be intellectual and rational.

This is the place to recall what I already noted in the introduction to the present unit. In the thought of Henri Bergson there already appears the distinction that intuition is the opposite of analysis, or of analyticity. After our description of the auditory logic, it seems that the antithesis to mathematical-scientific analyticity really is intuition, and therefore the characterization of the auditory logic is the use of intuition. Yet not only the intuition with which one is born, but also intuition that has been developed over time. We will see this in greater detail in the final gate, in connection with Torah study—which is the main key to developing the “auditory” capacity.

What Is Faith?

What emerges from this gate is that within the intellect, in addition to the analyzing—that is, the analytic—part, there is another part, synthetic in nature, which we have called, following the Nazir, “the auditory logic.” This part is not engaged only in thought in the accepted sense, but also in cognition. The concept of a cause that truly causes—which Hume denied because it has no source in sensory cognition—we confirm by “listening” through this part of our intellect. This is another capacity for knowing the world, and especially the spiritual world, the world of abstract concepts. That world can be known only through this part of the intellect, or of cognition. Through it we came to know causality—which is also embedded in us—and also the causal relation between two concrete events.

We saw that the basis for the trust we place in this part is faith in the existence of a coordinating factor, that is, God. I would like to note here that this can also be seen from the opposite angle. By means of the synthetic, auditory part, we know God. This is the way to become aware of His existence. One can do so directly, in a “philosophical” way, by using this part of the intellect, or from the very fact that we trust the synthetic part—the “proof from the synthetic dimension.” This is the mode of proof that we called “theological.”

In light of this determination, one may say that the auditory logic, or the synthetic part of the intellect, are synonymous names for “faith.” In this sense, faith is an intellectual capacity, though many tend to ignore it. It should be emphasized that what is meant here is faith as such, and not only faith in God, which is only one expression of faith—though the most important one, and the root of all the others. Many wonder whether one can arrive at faith in the existence of God through proofs—that is, whether faith should be identified with knowledge—or whether faith is a term that describes a situation in which I do not know, but merely “believe.”

In light of the picture presented here, faith is knowledge in every respect, except that the path to that knowledge is not the path of the analyzing intellect or of the senses, but the path of the auditory logic. This itself is the faculty called “faith,” and this is the meaning of all the concrete beliefs acquired through it. As stated, faith is not only a specific content in which one believes, such as faith in God, but the very ability to arrive at that and at other kinds of cognition. It is the intellectual-cognitive faculty—not a merely thinking faculty—that we have called “the auditory logic.” The ability to know other than through the senses, the synthetic-essentialist capacity, is precisely the power of faith.

In fact, we use this power in the sciences as well, where by means of it we formulate synthetic a priori judgments, using an intuitive capacity implanted in us. As we noted, sometimes we direct this cognitive-intellectual power toward the One who implanted it within us, and then by means of it we know God.⁴¹

Summary of the Discussion in This Gate

In this gate we saw the alternative to analytic skepticism, namely, the synthetic position. We grounded the synthetic position in trust in intuition, or in common sense. As we saw, this is the only reasonable basis for the correspondence between intellect and cognition and the world.

A synthetic position does not suffer from all the “diseases” and defects that we raised in the previous unit with respect to the analytic position. Within it, and from within it, one can understand how concepts developed, how there is a correspondence between human being and world, and why we trust that such a correspondence exists.

The only reasonable basis for the trust we place in this capacity is faith—sometimes hidden and unconscious—in a coordinating factor. Therefore we identified intuition with the faculty that is sometimes called “faith.”

We identified the auditory, or synthetic, logic with intuition and common sense, and in light of this we distinguished between two meanings of the concept of feeling: “I feel” in the sense of “my intuition tells me,” and “I feel” in the sense of “some emotional activity is taking place within me.”

Finally, leaping over the Kantian barrier between phenomenon and noumenon—the leap that made possible the alternative solution to the problem of the correspondence between human being and world—was bound up with giving up the distinction, which seems self-evident to us, between thinking and cognition. This is the focal point of the synthetic alternative, and we found its source and root in the teaching of Rabbi David HaKohen, the Jerusalem Nazir.

Footnotes