Platonism – Lesson 30

Table of Contents

• The two planes of Platonism and the personal position
• The move to justify Platonism: debates and changes in concepts
• The debate over democracy and the judicial reform
• Debates over “Who is a Jew?” and “What is Zionism?” and the turn to a psychology of pathos
• Rejecting the sentimental explanation and the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification
• The Aristotelian interpretation: concepts as plasticine and convention
• The Platonic interpretation: debate as proof of the existence of an objective and binding concept
• Concept as an entity and a critique of identifying a concept with a set of characteristics: Leibniz, “the third man,” Rabinovitch, and a map of Israel
• Morality as the clearest model of binding force, and the difference between arguing about concepts and arguing about outcomes
• Applying the claim to Judaism, Zionism, and democracy, and the distinction between a plurality of views and the very existence of a debate
• The principle of interpretive charity and preferring a Platonic reading over “everyone is stupid”
• The question of “these and those” and a concluding distinction between pluralism and harmonism

Summary

General overview

The text presents Platonism on two planes, philosophical and psychological-ideological, and places the speaker as a Platonist on both, while qualifying the dogmatism that Popper identifies in Platonism and preferring a “soft Platonism” that holds onto utopia but takes constraints into account. The speaker seeks to justify his inclination toward Platonism by examining debates over concepts and changes in concepts, and shows how arguments over “democracy,” “Who is a Jew,” “Zionism,” and “morality” raise two questions: whether there is a correct meaning to a concept, and whether finding such a meaning is binding. The central claim is that the very existence of heated debates over concepts is evidence for Platonism and not for Aristotelianism, because a debate takes place only when both sides assume there is “one thing” they are talking about and that there is a correct answer that binds, whereas the Aristotelian interpretation turns the debates into semantic or psychological disputes devoid of substance.

The two planes of Platonism and the personal position

The text distinguishes between philosophical Platonism, regarding the question of the existence of ideas and the status of concepts, and psychological-ideological Platonism, which describes striving to realize an idea in the world and can become violent, intolerant, and dogmatic. The text also presents “Platonic love” as connected to the psychological plane. The speaker argues that on the philosophical plane he tends toward Platonism and sees concepts as something objective and not merely a convention of a community of speakers, while on the psychological plane he rejects the call to “throw out” utopias entirely, as may be implied by Popper, but accepts the criticism of those who take utopias “too hard” and prefers a soft Platonism that tries to take reality into account and not impose by force.

The move to justify Platonism: debates and changes in concepts

The speaker states that the next step is to explain why he tends toward Platonism by pointing to the implications of the dispute between Platonism and Aristotelianism. He wants to examine whether concepts are agreement and convention or a description of entities in the objective world, even if that “sounds mystical,” and he proposes two prisms: debates over concepts and changes in concepts. The speaker defines “debates over concepts” as disagreements over the content of a given concept, and “changes in concepts” as changes in the definition over time, and locates the present discussion mainly in the first prism.

The debate over democracy and the judicial reform

The text presents the debate over the judicial reform as an example of how both sides are fighting “in the name of democracy” out of different definitions: opponents identify democracy with separation of powers, while supporters identify democracy with majority rule. The speaker adds that in practice democracy includes both majority rule and separation of powers, as well as mechanisms against the tyranny of the majority, and therefore there is a sense that both sides “are probably also right” in part. From here he formulates two questions: whether there is any correct answer at all to the question “What is democracy,” or whether this is only a semantic argument; and even if there is a correct answer, what is the point of looking for it, and what is binding in the concept itself.

Debates over “Who is a Jew?” and “What is Zionism?” and the turn to a psychology of pathos

The speaker argues that the structure of the debate over “Who is a Jew?” and over “What is Zionism?” is similar to the structure of the debate over democracy, where one side defines Judaism through loyalty to the state, morality, openness, and tolerance, while another side defines Judaism through commitment to Jewish law and definitions like “someone born to a Jewish mother who converted according to Jewish law.” He describes conferences about Zionism in which each organizer presents “my Zionism” according to his own positions, and raises the suspicion that the more the pathos rises, the more the content declines, to the point of describing an attempt to fill an identity “vacuum” through an emotional definition. The speaker declares that shifting the discussion to explanations in terms of psychological needs interests him less than the essential question of whether the debates are justified and whether the concepts have a correct and binding meaning.

Rejecting the sentimental explanation and the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification

In response to the suggestion that concepts are created in order to give names to emotions and create a shared language, the speaker says that such an explanation is historical-psychological and does not answer the question of whether the debate is justified. He uses the analogy of “the context of discovery and the context of justification” in philosophy of science, and argues that the way people arrived at their concept or sentiment is irrelevant to the justification of the claim about the concept. The speaker says that a debate over “the right to use the word” or over a dictionary does not interest him; he is looking for the meaning of the very insistence on arguing over the content of the concept and not only over practical outcomes.

The Aristotelian interpretation: concepts as plasticine and convention

The text presents a position according to which the plurality of opinions surrounding concepts indicates that they have no objective meaning, but are rather “plasticine” serving ideology and demagoguery, and when there is no agreement one should “synchronize” usages and give each side a different term in order to stop arguing. It gives the example of morality as a convention that changes from one society to another, even illustrating different norms regarding the elderly, and concludes that under this interpretation there is no correct answer and therefore no point in clinging to the concept or asking how binding it is. The speaker clarifies that within this framework the two fundamental questions are answered negatively: there is no correct answer for the concept, and therefore there is nothing that can bind.

The Platonic interpretation: debate as proof of the existence of an objective and binding concept

The speaker argues that the existence of debates about morality is evidence for Platonism and not for Aristotelianism, because if there were no truth, or if there were no “such thing,” there would be no point in arguing, at most just in replacing words. He formulates a principle according to which a debate exists only when both sides relate to the same thing and offer different interpretations of it, whereas if these are two different things, then there is no debate. The speaker concludes that anyone who interprets these debates as stupidity or as mere psychology must bring proof for that, because he is claiming that the whole world is acting irrationally, and he prefers an interpretation that presents the conduct as reflecting a shared assumption that there is an objective concept that binds and whose content remains to be clarified.

Concept as an entity and a critique of identifying a concept with a set of characteristics: Leibniz, “the third man,” Rabinovitch, and a map of Israel

The text uses Leibniz’s principle of “the identity of indiscernibles” to sharpen the dispute, and explains that the Platonist sees the concept as an entity that has characteristics, whereas for Aristotle “the set of characteristics is the concept.” The speaker compares this to a person who has traits but is not identical to the collection of those traits, and explains that debates are about the characteristics of something that exists beyond its characteristics. He mentions “the paradox of the third man” and the example of the psychologist Aharon Rabinovitch, who looks for “where the self is” on a psychoanalytic map, and argues that the self is what possesses the characteristics and the map is its map, just as it makes no sense to look for the State of Israel on a map of Israel, because the map is a map of the State of Israel.

Morality as the clearest model of binding force, and the difference between arguing about concepts and arguing about outcomes

The speaker distinguishes between someone who claims there is no “binding morality” but only a desire for good or convenient results, and someone who debates the question “what morality says,” and states that he is dealing with the second type. He argues that conceptual debates in morality assume that morality is binding, and therefore when one clarifies what morality requires, one cannot say that the answer is correct but “not binding,” because binding force is part of the meaning of “morality.” He explains that a person may choose not to act in accordance with what he is obligated to do, but one cannot disconnect the meaning of the concept from its binding validity within the debate itself.

Applying the claim to Judaism, Zionism, and democracy, and the distinction between a plurality of views and the very existence of a debate

The speaker argues that the Platonic conclusion also applies to “Who is a Jew?” even though that is less intuitive, because the insistence on arguing testifies to the assumption that there is a concept of Judaism and to a desire to belong to it, and that this also includes a binding view that “a Jew should behave in a Jewish way.” He emphasizes that the evidence is not the plurality of opinions but the fact that there is a debate in which sides try to persuade and refute one another, and explains that plurality of opinions by itself might sound like an Aristotelian argument, but an active debate is a sign that both sides assume there is one truth and aspire to it. He suggests that concepts, too, may exist even if they are not historically realized, just as the prohibition “You shall not murder” exists even without human beings, and just as “the idea of horseness” can exist even without horses, and he connects this to the question of how such entities are “born” and to the possibility that they exist “with the creation of the world.”

The principle of interpretive charity and preferring a Platonic reading over “everyone is stupid”

The speaker concludes that there are two interpretive possibilities for debates: an Aristotelian one, which explains them as being swept along by sentiments and psychology and therefore as stupidity, and a Platonic one, which explains them as a genuine confrontation with a single conceptual object that has a correct answer. He argues that the principle of interpretive charity requires us to interpret debates in a way that assumes rationality and not collective stupidity, and therefore the very social phenomenon of heated debates supports Platonism. He adds a preference for the intuition of “speaking innocently” over strained arguments, and illustrates this with a story about alternative medicine, where the theoretical explanations sound like nonsense while the relevant question is whether it works.

The question of “these and those” and a concluding distinction between pluralism and harmonism

The text raises a question about “these and those are the words of the living God, and the Torah has seventy faces,” and proposes a pluralist reading as against a harmonistic one. The speaker states that he reads this in the harmonistic way, according to which each opinion grasps one “facet” of a single truth, and the truth is the collection of its facets, and he notes that he has spoken about this in other lectures and is willing to send links. The text closes with a question about the relation between morality and values, and with the answer that the question is “semantic”: values are usually moral values, but there are also other values, including “halakhic values,” which, according to the speaker, are not moral, and then the speaker ends by saying that he has to leave.

Okay. So, I was just giving a kind of big-picture view in order to move forward, because we’re at the next stage of the discussion. We’ve basically seen Platonism in two different senses, broadly speaking. There are shades and nuances, but still, two different senses on two different planes. There’s the philosophical plane, which is the original debate between Plato and Aristotle: the question whether ideas really exist, whether concepts are our own definitions or whether they are things that exist in some objective sense, as Plato claims. That’s the first plane. And the second plane is the, let’s call it, psychological, ideological, practical plane. Meaning: how I relate to ideologies or models that I have. Platonism— and we talked about soft and hard and so on— but Platonism, once it sees an ideal before its eyes, which is what belongs to the first philosophical plane, you see an ideal before your eyes and you strive toward it, you strive to build the world in its image and likeness, then that can become very violent, intolerant, destructive, dogmatic. And that is Platonism of the second type, the psychological type. Besides that, we also talked about platonic love, which is also connected to the psychological plane. In any case, I said that at least regarding the ideological-psychological plane— or let’s even start with the philosophical one. On the philosophical plane, I tend to be a Platonist; that is, to claim that concepts are something objective and not something subjective, or merely a definition, a convention agreed upon within a community of speakers. In the psychological-ideological context too, I said that I think it would be a mistake to throw out Platonism completely, as Popper seems to imply— meaning, to give up on utopias altogether. On the other hand, he is right in his criticism of those who take utopias too hard, too rigidly, and that’s why I spoke about soft Platonism. Right? A Platonism that says: I have a utopia before my eyes, but I’m also attentive to the environment and I try to take practical constraints into account, and not force the utopia onto reality by sheer power. But one way or another, on both planes I personally tend toward Platonism. And now I’m coming to the next stage of the discussion, which is to try to explain why I tend toward Platonism. That is, why— or to point to the implications of the dispute between Platonism and Aristotelianism, and through them try to argue in favor of Platonism. So here I want to speak on two levels. One level: I want to return to Platonism in its philosophical sense, and I want us now to ask whether concepts really are conventions, an agreement of the community, or whether they are descriptions of some entities, right? Things that exist in the objective world— which sounds a bit mystical, right? This Platonism sounds a bit mystical. But I still want to argue in its favor. For me, yes, it’s mystical, but I still want to argue in its favor. And I want to do that on two levels. One level is to talk about disputes over concepts, and on a second level I want to talk about changes in concepts. By disputes over concepts I mean when there are different views regarding a certain concept, and by change I mean that the definition of the concept changes over time. So both of these are a good prism through which to look at the question of Platonism in general, as I now want to show. So I’ll begin with disputes. There’s, for example— right? what more do we need than a dispute— we’ve almost forgotten already, but the debate over the judicial reform. That, right? maybe the stormiest debate we’ve had here recently. And when you look at it, then in a very strange way both sides are speaking in the name of democracy. Both sides claim that they are fighting for democracy and against anti-democratic forces. Right, so the protesters against the reform— listen, I’m not taking a position right now, I’m just describing— the protesters against the reform basically say that this is the destruction of democracy. There will be no separation of powers, the executive branch is taking over the judiciary, and the legislative branch hasn’t existed here for a long time anyway. So therefore this is a blow to democracy. And the supporters of the reform say that democracy is majority rule. And if the majority decided that this is what it wants, then harming that is harming democracy. Meaning both sides are basically fighting for democracy. Or in other words, ostensibly it looks like the protest or the support, right, the whole argument surrounding the reform, is really a dispute over a concept. The concept is: what is democracy? And if we define democracy as separation of powers, then the protesters are the ones fighting for democracy. That doesn’t mean it’s sacred, that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to oppose democracy, but they would be right that they are the ones fighting for democracy. And if I claim that democracy is majority rule, then the supporters of the reform are right in saying that they are the ones fighting for democracy. Now, as everyone understands, democracy needs separation of powers and it also needs majority rule. So it’s like the chocolate. But there’s also oppression of the minority as part of majority rule. That’s the claim of the reformists, of the supporters. Same thing, it doesn’t matter. I’m describing this very crudely. Obviously there are more lines that enter into this. I’m only trying to show the logic of the discussion. You’re right, there’s also tyranny of the majority and all the other arguments. All of that can be enlisted in favor of the protesters’ definition of democracy. Okay? But there is also the supporters’ definition of democracy. And therefore I say: without getting now into the details of the definition, it’s clear that I’ve done this very roughly and superficially. But I am trying to show that the two sides are in fact using different definitions of the concept democracy. Now more than that, apparently both sides are also right. Meaning the definitions that both propose for democracy are correct, except that the definition includes both the components these people emphasize and the components those people emphasize. Meaning it has to be majority rule, but there also must not be tyranny of the majority, and there must be separation of powers, and all sorts of other things. And therefore this kind of dispute raises two questions. First: is there really a correct answer to what democracy is? Or, right, are we in fact not speaking about different concepts? You’ll define democracy, and I’ll define it with some other word. You’ll call it yekompumkan and he’ll call it min shemaya. Fine? And now we’ll part as friends. Why should we be fighting over the meaning of using the term, the word, democracy? Fine, what difference does it make? Write a different dictionary and then democracy will have your meaning or my meaning, it makes no difference. The dispute is a semantic dispute. Okay, so the question in short is: is there a correct meaning to the concept democracy— is it worth arguing about? Second thing, of course one can also argue: even if there is a correct meaning, so what? Then I’m not a democrat. What’s the problem? What is sacred about this concept democracy? Meaning even if we manage to settle the conceptual question, that is, arrive at the correct answer to what democracy is, and suppose one side is right, he proved he is right and democracy is what he thinks— okay, then I’m not a democrat. What’s the point? Meaning one question is whether there is a correct answer; the second question, even if there is a correct answer, what is the point of looking for it? Meaning this is just an attempt to define a word. Okay? That’s one example. I can show you several more disputes that look exactly the same. For example… Rabbi, that’s exactly an excellent example of how destructive this idolatry of Platonism is— once we supposedly define, once we imagine to ourselves that there is some metaphysical creation called democracy that has to be worshipped, then of course everyone understands it differently and everyone tries to kill the other. If we were to say that we don’t worship the concept democracy, it needs a definition, and for one person the dominant thing is individual and minority rights, and for another what matters most is that power… That’s not democracy at all, that’s absolute tyranny of the majority, so what? What you’re raising now is exactly the argument I’m trying to deal with. That’s why I brought this debate. Except that the conclusion is the opposite of what you’re saying. I’ll get there in a moment. A second example: the debate, for example, over who is a Jew, okay? Or what is Zionism, if you like, that’s also a third dispute. All these arguments, if you distill them, you’ll see the structure is very similar. Very similar. Meaning when you argue over the question who is a Jew, okay, there are all sorts of people who say: what is a Jew? It’s someone loyal to the state, pays taxes, serves in the army, a moral person, never mind— inclusion, openness, my Judaism is tolerance for the universe, ecology, and I don’t know what else. And someone else says that his Judaism is commitment to Jewish law, or right, someone born to a Jewish mother or converted according to Jewish law, committed to Jewish law. So once again, we can conduct the same discussion according to the two questions I raised before. First: is there a correct answer here? Meaning he defines a Jew this way, he defines a Jew another way, fine— why, who said there is a correct answer here? Maybe in this case I think it’s less likely that both sides will agree that the definition is made up of all the aspects together, unlike the previous case. But still, fine, you define it this way and I define it differently. Second, even if there were a correct answer, then so what? Then I’m not Jewish— what practical difference does it make? Meaning it’s just the use of a word, that’s the point. So you see that the pattern of the dispute over who is a Jew is very similar to the pattern of the dispute over the reform or over what democracy is. Or if you ask what the debate is over what a Zionist is, then you see that under every flourishing tree every two hours there’s another conference on “Where is Zionism headed” and “What does Zionism obligate us to today.” Now of course the conference appears in the image and likeness of its organizers. So there are organizers who say Zionism calls on us to, I don’t know, draft Haredim; there are organizers who say Zionism calls on us to relate to Diaspora Jewry; there are conferences that say Zionism tells us to be pluralistic and accept the other and I don’t know what, all kinds of things of that sort. And each one says it— and preferably with lots of pathos— “For me Zionism is such-and-such,” or “My Zionism is A, B, and C,” and the other says with the same pathos D, E, and F. Okay? And that reminds me— and now I’m also waving my hands— of what I already mentioned: I had a study partner in yeshiva who, whenever we argued and I started moving my hands around, would say to me: take your hands, put them behind your back, and start speaking only with your mouth. The moment you start waving your hands too much, it means your explanations are thin. Meaning you’re not managing to explain, so you wave your hands. So keep your hands behind your back and try to explain to me why you’re right. Like Eshkol— if you raise your voice, the argument here is weak. You know Eshkol’s remark on the page of his speech. In any case, the more the pathos rises, very often my concern is that the content drops. Meaning when people speak with immense pathos about what their Judaism is, it probably means their Judaism is nothing at all, and therefore they have to put something into it, I don’t know what, something else, because they can’t remain with a vacuum on that plane. So in fact you understand that I’m shifting the whole discussion to the psychological plane. What are the person’s needs? What makes him insist that Judaism is this, or democracy is this, or Zionism is this? And that’s not a philosophical debate but a psychological debate, which to me is less interesting. So these debates— what is democracy, what is Zionism, what is Judaism— they really look very, very similar. And with regard to all of them there are the same two questions, the question on two planes. The first plane: are we just playing with words? Meaning define the concept however you like, write your dictionary, he’ll write his dictionary. When you argue over the meaning of a concept, it has no correct meaning at all. There is no correct answer— that’s the first plane. The second plane: let’s say there is a correct answer, I don’t know how it’s defined. So what? So the correct answer is that a Jew is this, and democracy is this, and a Zionist is this. So I’m not democratic but yes Zionist and not Jewish according to these definitions we arrived at in the end. So what happened? Meaning what obligates me? The fact that there is a correct definition of this thing obligates me? Meaning the fact that we settled the question of what the concept means, why should that say anything about what I’m supposed to do with it? Now you understand that these two planes of discussion are exactly the two planes with which I opened today’s class. The first plane is the question whether there is such a concept that we are trying to reach its true definition, or whether in fact everyone can immerse the concept in whatever meaning he gives it, and everything is fine. Fine, then there’s no point in using the same term, because that term describes different concepts. So let’s attach different terms to them as well. Terms are a linguistic matter; concepts are the content. That’s the Platonic plane, right? Is there some true concept in the Platonic world? Then one can argue, yes or no, true or false— but who said such a thing exists at all? And the second question is connected to the ideological-psychological plane. Because even assuming there is such a concept— Jewish, democratic, Zionist— who says that I’m obligated to adhere to it? Meaning why, even if that is the correct description of the concept Jewish, democratic, or Zionist, then at most it will turn out that I’m not Jewish, or not democratic, or not Zionist, or not all three. Okay? What is the holiness of it even if there is such a concept? Here you understand that this plane of the discussion is already the second plane I was speaking about. Meaning if I have a model before my eyes, why do I need to adhere to it, or to what extent do I need to adhere to it? That is already Popper’s question of Platonism, right— the fanaticism or the disregard for reality that exists in Platonism. So this really mirrors the two planes of reference that I’ve described throughout this series. Okay? And both of them come up in the context of disputes over concepts. One could perhaps give another example, disputes over morality. Right, people argue over the question of what is moral to do: is it moral to conduct targeted killings when civilians are also harmed, or is it not moral to conduct targeted killings? What is that debate? It’s a debate over the meaning of the concept morality. Fine, so I’m not moral, I’m “fosari,” and therefore I think that’s what should be done. What difference does it make what you call it? Meaning if you reached the conclusion that this is what morality says, does that obligate me to behave that way? Then I’m not moral according to that definition. Okay, so what? But that’s still what I think should be done. Meaning our attachment to concepts again suffers from the same two problems on the two planes I described before, and you see that this is tied at the navel to the question of Platonism. And now I want to… Rabbi, Rabbi, Rabbi— wouldn’t it perhaps be more correct to say: why do we create concepts in our language at all? Unlike— I know the Rabbi disagrees with this, but I’m presenting another possibility. I think we create concepts mainly because we can’t really convey our feelings, not even to ourselves and certainly not to others. But when we create a concept, in association with some complicated feeling or another, then we can create some kind of common language. When everyone says democracy, whether supporters of the reform or the revolution and its opponents, obviously they learned that word in contexts where they read, I don’t know, about Soviet Russia and its horrors. So they feel there is something in a free, worthy, proper regime. Now what exactly its details and essences are, those differ, but that basic, primordial, fundamental feeling exists in both, and therefore they speak in terms of the concept democracy. Not because there exists some such foundation, but because the feeling exists. You’re giving me a historical-psychological explanation of why they speak. That doesn’t interest me— historical explanations… No, no, I mean, supposedly if the Platonic concept exists, then it’s a certain feeling. רגע, okay, you’re already… now you’re expressing a position, you already expressed it. I’m asking a question on the essential plane, not on the psychological and historical plane of why it happened. I’m asking whether it’s justified. Not why it happened. Why it happened can have explanations, all kinds of explanations for all kinds of things. But my question is whether this thing is justified. Meaning once I’m exposed to the fact that there are different definitions, I understand why everybody loves the word Jew, Zionist, or democratic so much, and therefore they fight over the right to use the word. Okay, then let’s go to court and it will decide who has the right to use the word. Totally uninteresting. Meaning in the end this is a semantic debate, it has no real practical significance. And therefore it doesn’t interest me that people have sentiments toward concepts. That may be true, but I’m not speaking on that plane. I didn’t mean a historical sentiment about how it was formed, but also now all of us feel something basic. No, you’re still only speaking about sentiment. Nothing beyond that. Right. Fine, so I’m saying the question of sentiment doesn’t interest me. Meaning what interests me is— like in philosophy of science, there’s the context of discovery and the context of justification. Right? The context of discovery is how I discovered the theory, and the context of justification is whether it’s justified, whether it passes empirical tests. So philosophers of science explain— and rightly, in my opinion— that the context of discovery is uninteresting. Meaning if someone discovered the theory because his grandmother appeared to him in a dream, or because a telephone pole gave him inspiration when he saw it in the morning— fine, he discovered it this way or that way, that’s a question for psychologists. I’m not speaking on that plane, and the same is true here. No, again, I’m saying the feeling for me is the essence, not the way it arrived, it’s the thing itself. No, never mind. I know the Rabbi disagrees with this, but it’s still the way he arrived at it and still arrives at it now— what difference does it make? Feeling is an irrelevant plane. That’s what I want to claim: irrelevant to my discussion. As a psychologist you can spread out those feelings, but I’m speaking about the question of what we do with this debate. Leave me alone with the feelings— take a pill to get over them, that’s not interesting. I’m speaking on the philosophical plane, on the ethical plane, on the… It all depends on… depends on the debate. Legal plane, whatever it may be. So now the question is: what does such a debate really mean? Now in this context there are people— I think Shmuel expressed it earlier— who feel that in fact what this picture shows us is דווקא Platonism. Because— because it actually means Aristotelianism, sorry. Because it means that there really is no true meaning to the concept. Everyone shapes it in the way he sees fit, and in fact he probably uses the definition of the concept in order to advance an ideology or outlook that seems right to him. But concepts are plasticine, like clay in the hands of the potter, and in fact this is a conventional matter. And using concepts is demagoguery, in other words. Right, you use a concept— “Zionism says such-and-such.” It’s not Zionism that says it, it’s what you want, so don’t smuggle it into Zionism. Same with Judaism, democracy, right, replace all the concepts, morality, all the concepts I talked about before. And then what that basically says— the conclusion that comes out of this, let’s call it pluralism, right, the plurality of opinions about each of these concepts— is that in fact concepts are a conventional matter. And once the agreement breaks down, then what we need to do is simply resynchronize them so that we can talk. So there are sentiments, that person has sentiments toward the concept Jew and I have sentiments toward the concept Jew, so we’ll have to manage with the sentiments. But if these are different concepts, then come— you call yours Israeli, I’ll call mine Jew, or I’ll call mine Israeli, and then we’ll be able to talk. Now we can begin to argue; at least we’ll understand each other, what each one is saying. But today, when we use the same concept with different meanings, we simply don’t— we don’t even manage to understand one another. And therefore this is just a situation that, objectively, is not right— so let’s change it. Now we have an argument over who has copyright over the concept Jew. Fine, I’m willing to give it up. Meaning if the discussion is only semantic, I’m willing to give it up, I have no sentiments. Okay, call me yekomforken and you call yourself Jewish, and everything is fine. And now we’ll part as friends, each one going his own way. Why should I clash over the use of a term? Therefore, the picture I have described here actually leads to an Aristotelian view, not a Platonic one. Maybe in the realm of the concept this will sound sharper and clearer. A great many people claim that because there are different moral outlooks on all kinds of subjects, therefore the concept morality as such is empty of content. Meaning every society constitutes it according to what seems right to it. These are different agreements; in different societies there are different agreements, and therefore there is in fact no true objective content— I don’t know what to call it— to the concept morality. It’s just use of a word, right? The Eskimos say that you should take the elderly out into the snow and that’s what morality is— right? so that they die there— and that’s what is called morality. And others say you should put them in assisted living or a nursing home or whatever exactly, and that’s what the concept means. So who is right? There is no right and no wrong here. Their concept says this and their concept says that. Or in other words, both are using the term morality but with different meanings. So what for? You call yours morality and I’ll call mine “foser” or yekomforken, what I said before. So why argue? Again, the dispute becomes semantic. But now I want to make a further claim: the fact that these disputes are semantic, or viewing them as semantic disputes, ostensibly leads to Aristotelianism. Meaning it leads to saying that no, there is no true meaning to the concept. That’s an illusion. We naturally create concepts so that we can speak, but in the end there is no correct answer to that question. And consequently, on the second plane too— I asked two questions before on two planes— on the first plane, is there a correct answer? Aristotelianism says no. On the second plane, of course, the question no longer arises: if there is no correct answer, there is no point in asking it. And if I say that on the Platonic plane there is a correct answer, now Popper’s question can be asked: to what extent should we stick to that correct answer? Should we be dogmatic? Should we go all the way with the correct answer, even trampling reality in order to realize it? That is Platonism of the second type. But if I’m Aristotelian already on the first plane, then the second plane doesn’t arise. If there is no correct answer, there is no point in asking how much to cling to it— there is nothing to cling to. Okay? So this perspective that I’ve described here really gives a negative answer to the two questions I asked before. First, there is no correct answer to concepts— the Aristotelian answer. There is no correct answer to concepts; this is convention. Therefore there is no point in arguing about them. And second, obviously there’s also nothing to cling to in the “correct concept,” because there is no such thing as a correct concept. By contrast, Plato would answer yes to both questions: there is a correct answer, and the fact that there is a correct answer is of course not just a dictionary question. There is a correct answer for Zionist, Jew, democratic, moral— all these concepts— but it also says something about me, about how it is right to behave, think, and so on. And that takes us into the question of hard or soft Platonism. That can be argued about— to what extent should one cling to the correct answer, to what extent does it obligate me. But Plato would say yes, there is something to being committed to it— softly or hard, but there is something to it. Okay, so here the two questions I asked at the beginning both arise out of the situation I’ve just described, the disputes around these foundational concepts. And the very existence of disputes often serves people as a way of arguing in favor of Aristotle, meaning in favor of a negative answer to both questions. Okay? “What is clearer than democracy? North Korea says they are a democracy.” A people’s democracy, exactly. The Soviet Union was a democracy of the proletariat. A democracy of the proletariat, right. “There are all kinds of countries that have elections, and if it’s not 99% for the ruler, there’s a problem there. So in my opinion that means that’s the definition.” The Syrian Arab Republic, the Democratic People’s Republic of Syria. “And regarding the second point, democracy is something that exists, I’d say, for 200 years, from France or something, or from America or something. Before that, monarchy was on top, everybody had this idea that kingship comes from the Holy One, blessed be He, or something. I want now the Davidic monarchy, that’s really what I want here in the land.” But you understand that your argument now goes in two contradictory directions. Because you say that what people thought 200 years ago— that the king is from God, from the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore that’s the source of his authority— and today you smile when you say it, and so do I, because in my view that’s nonsense, and I assume in your view too. But in my view that’s nonsense. So by the same token, also today when we think democracy is, I don’t know what, the pinnacle of creation, and once people didn’t think that— that doesn’t prove anything. It could be that in that matter too they were wrong, and democracy was always right, only it was discovered in the last 200 years. Meaning your argument can take us either in the Platonic direction or in the Aristotelian direction, depending on what one does with it. So therefore it depends on whom you declare mistaken. But let me sharpen this a bit more. Look, I think— I’ll continue with the moral example because I think it’s easiest to show there, and it’s a paradigm for all the others. I think, I claim, that the existence of disputes— let’s talk about morality now, afterward I’ll broaden it to all concepts— the existence of disputes about morality is evidence for Platonism, not for Aristotelianism. That’s my claim. Meaning the fact that people argue about what morality is and offer different definitions of the concept morality is not evidence for Aristotelianism, it is not evidence that this is convention and has no true objective meaning, but exactly the opposite. It is evidence for Platonism. Why? Because if Aristotelianism were correct, there would be no point in arguing, because there really is no such concept, so we use a word— we’ll use two words, what difference does it make? Now of course one can always say, okay, but we’re psychologically fixed, we have sentiments toward that word— all true. But you understand that explanations of that sort are really explanations whose— I would say, their hand is on the lower end. The one who says that has the burden of proof. Meaning when you want to claim that the whole world is behaving irrationally, the burden is on you, because I have another explanation that presents the world’s behavior as rational. And therefore you cannot argue in favor of the claim that the world behaves irrationally without bringing proof for it— and certainly not see that as evidence for your own view, which is absurd altogether. And I want to make the following claim: when we argue over the question what morality is, there is agreement between us that there is such a thing as morality and that it obligates, except that we argue over its content. But the fact that there is such a thing is apparently agreed upon by both sides, because otherwise there would be nothing to argue about. Again, there could be some result of psychology and so forth, but in the end this is not exactly proof of the existence of God, but it may be a step on the way. What I want to say is that once a dispute is taking place, that means both sides are relating to the same thing and proposing different accounts of it, right? Because otherwise: I say I see a dove and I say it’s a dove. Someone else looks here, sees a book, and says this is a book. Do we have an argument? No. Only if we are looking at the same thing and I say it’s a dove and you say it’s a book do we have an argument, right? Meaning a dispute takes place only where both sides are trying to relate to the same thing, except that they see it differently, and therefore a dispute arises. But if they are relating to two different things and just want to call them by the same name, then they are simply stupid or captive to their own psychology. Okay? So I’m saying: the first interpretation of these disputes seems to me much more sensible, much more plausible. And therefore I want to argue that if there are disputes on moral issues, that is evidence that there is objective morality. And everyone agrees— both sides in the dispute agree— that there is objective morality, and they have a dispute over what that morality says. Now here we have to pay close attention. If they have a dispute over what that morality says, then what is the meaning of what I said before, that there is objective morality? Then it’s not objective— here, everyone argues and says something different about what that morality says. Here I return to the claim I spoke about at the beginning of the series, when I tried to define Platonism. I spoke there about the concept and its characteristics. If you remember Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles, Leibniz says that if there are two things that have exactly the same set of characteristics, then they are the very same thing. So they are not two things, they are one thing. He calls this the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, meaning if there are two things that are indiscernible, then they are identical, then they are one thing. Not identical in the sense that they are completely similar, that’s obvious, but that they are simply not two things at all, they are one thing. I analyzed his argument there; he also brings a proof by contradiction, a logical proof, and I showed that this proof begs the question. Why? Because the dispute with Leibniz is over the question: what is morality? A dispute between Platonism and Aristotelianism, really. The Platonist claims that there is such a thing; the concept is some kind of entity. Now what are its properties? We try to look and understand what its properties are, like scientific observations, except that we don’t do it through the senses but through the eye of the intellect. But when we look at the concept, we try to understand what it says, and if different people see it differently, a dispute arises. But this dispute arises because we are looking at the same concept in the Platonic world of ideas, and somehow the picture we see is different— like the debate over the dove, right? Is it a dove or a book? But if we are looking at the same object, then we can have a dispute whether it is a dove or a book. If these are two different objects, then we have no dispute. Therefore if a dispute is taking place in the field of morality, then clearly there is some idea of morality in the Platonic world that we are contemplating and trying to understand what it says about our situation. Then we have a dispute; we see it differently, but we are seeing the same thing in two different ways, and therefore there is a dispute. We are not looking at two different things, or at nothing at all and simply inventing it from our imagination. No— we are looking at the same thing and arguing. So that means the concept morality as such has some kind of existence, and its properties are the properties of the concept; they are not the concept itself. For Aristotle, the collection of properties is the concept. For Plato, it’s like there is a person and he has qualities. The qualities are not the person; there is the person who has the qualities. The qualities are his qualities, but they are not him. A person is not a collection of kindness, height, weight, place of residence, and occupation. Okay? That collection of qualities or characteristics is not the person. It doesn’t even relate to the person in that way; those are characteristics of the person. So who is that thing whose characteristics these are? It is the person in himself. The Platonic idea or the concept as such is a concept that has all sorts of characteristics, and sometimes disputes rage over the characteristics. We see it differently, and therefore we have a dispute. But there is some thing there whose characteristics these are. This is a very important point. And I spoke about the paradox of the third man in Platonic philosophy, where I tried to show the logical meanings of this claim. I also spoke about the example of the psychologist Rabinovitch, Aharon Rabinovitch, who once wrote an article about where he identifies the self on the psychoanalytic map. What is the self on the classical psychoanalytic map? In Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, in Nefesh HaChaim, in the Tanya, and in various other thinkers— he goes through all sorts of thinkers and tries to locate how they understood the self. And in my opinion the whole discussion is bizarre, a misunderstanding. The self is not on the psychoanalytic map. The psychoanalytic map is a map of it. Meaning it is a map of its characteristics. The self is the bearer of those characteristics that the psychoanalytic map describes. It’s like asking where to find the State of Israel on a map of Israel. Where is the State of Israel here on the map of Israel? The map is a map of the State of Israel. Meaning the State of Israel is the object that the map describes. There’s no point looking for the State of Israel on the map. Okay. So regarding morality— regarding morality— it could be that there is a person who is a utilitarian, who believes in being practical. He doesn’t believe there is a concept morality that obligates me; he just wants the world to function in the best possible way. I think many people who do not believe in God would say: it’s not that I really believe there is something obligating; I just want a world that functions as well as possible. Okay. And that’s the dispute. When they say, “I want democracy,” or “I want this and this and this,” they’re not arguing about the idea of the thing, they’re just arguing about how the world should be run in the best way. Okay. So I say, then one of two things. If they want to argue about how best to run the state, then don’t ask me what the content of the concept democracy is; show me with arguments why what I’m proposing will lead to problematic or less good outcomes. Okay, and that is perfectly fine. That’s a dispute I entirely agree with and have no problem with. I’m only asking why people feel the need to use disputes about concepts. Then say that directly— say that in your eyes this will lead to a better world or something like that. The phenomenon I want to point to is that the disputes are not satisfied merely with arguments of that sort, and often arguments of that sort don’t even come up. Rather, the disputes are over the question— right, for example when you argue about who is a Jew, that’ll make it easier for you to say this. Because you want to say one should be a moral person— no problem, be a moral person. But why is that the content of the concept Jew? Why are we using the concept Jew? So when people argue over who is a Jew, behind that there is some desire or assumption that I really belong to this concept and I want to show that I really am there. It’s not just a question of how one should behave. I don’t think that many of the people who define who is a Jew would claim that Belgians also ought to behave this way because this is the more correct way to behave. People who argue in favor of democracy say that this is the more correct way to behave, and they would make that demand of Australia too. Meaning if this is the more correct way to behave, then it’s not true only for us, it is true in principle for every state— say every state in our sort of situation. Okay. But I’m not speaking about those debates; those are substantive debates. I’m speaking about debates that revolve around a word, around the content of a word. I’m asking: what does the fact that such debates exist mean? So therefore regarding morality too, the same thing. If people argue over what morality says, that’s the debate I’m talking about. If someone comes and says to me, listen, morality says nothing as far as I’m concerned, I’m only claiming that it’s more convenient for me to live in a world that behaves this way and not in a world that behaves another way— that is perfectly fine, that’s a debate that should be conducted, and I have no problem with it. That’s not what I’m talking about. So I’m talking about a certain kind of dispute, but it appears in many of our fundamental arguments. So I want to talk about disputes of that kind. And the claim, basically, is that as I said regarding Leibniz, when… when I speak— when someone claims against Leibniz that there can be two different entities that have exactly the same set of characteristics and still they are two different entities, what is he really saying? He is really saying that the entity is not the collection of its characteristics, but that there is something more in the entity beyond the collection of characteristics. And therefore, even if the collection of characteristics is identical for the two entities, that does not mean they are not two different ones. Different, again— not different properties, but that they are two and not one. Right, that is the point. Meaning that’s the point under dispute. And in his proof Leibniz in fact ignores that assumption, and therefore he begs the question. I’m not going into that now again, but for me that is what matters. And Platonism basically says that if an idea of that kind really exists, then it’s not only that it has certain properties everyone must agree on. They may not agree on them, just as in science there can be disputes. It’s just that in those disputes one is right and the other is wrong, because there are certain properties in the world of ideas that are the correct properties, because there is an object whose properties these are. Therefore when we argue, in principle only one of us is right. How do we know? That’s another question. But in principle only one of us is right. And therefore I claim that once we argue over what morality requires, it is clear in the subtext that we both agree there is such a thing as binding morality. Therefore the existence of disputes actually proves, or supports, Platonism and not Aristotelianism as people think. Exactly the opposite. Meaning if Aristotelianism were correct, all these disputes would be stupid disputes. If Platonism is correct, then the disputes are legitimate, they need to be conducted. And that means what is the correct answer? First, meaning that on the plane— I said there were two problematic planes— first, it means there is a correct answer and we are now arguing over it. I don’t know who is right; the debate has to be conducted; maybe we’ll manage to reach agreement and maybe not, but there is one who is right, there is a correct answer here. And second, suppose I return to the example of morality: once there is a correct answer, then you cannot say, fine, the answer is correct, but it doesn’t obligate me. Because the definition of morality, once you understand that this is what morality says, also means that it obligates you. That is the meaning of the concept morality. It’s like saying I won’t do it because I don’t feel like it— but you can’t say morality indeed says this, but it doesn’t obligate me. Not that I won’t behave this way— you have free choice— but that it doesn’t obligate me, there’s no such thing. Meaning to say that morality says this is simply to say, in other words, this is what obligates every person. That’s the claim. And after that I have the choice whether to do what I am obligated to do or not. So on both planes of the discussion regarding Platonism I want to say that the existence of a dispute about morality really means that Plato is right on both planes, not only on one of them. Not only is this not Aristotle, it is Plato— and it is Plato on both planes. Why? Because this dispute in fact says two things. First, it says there is a correct answer, and therefore we argue. You claim the correct answer is this, I claim the correct answer is that, but we both agree first of all that there is a correct answer. So there’s Platonism on the initial philosophical plane. Second, what difference does it make that there is a correct answer? Why is it interesting to argue about it? What are we, scientists mapping the world of ideas now? Magellan sets out on a mapping voyage in the world of ideas and tries to understand what morality is there? No. We argue because this bears on our lives here; we argue over how it is right to behave. So that means that on the second plane too we agree with Plato. We both agree that if we conclude that this is what morality says, then it also obligates us. That is Platonism of the second kind, the psychological kind. There’s a question here: if we return to Judaism, what about “These and those are the words of the living God” and “the Torah has seventy faces”? That seems to say there is more than one. I spoke about this in other classes. If you want, I’ll send you a link, because I can’t give a whole class on it now. But briefly I’ll say: you read those statements in a pluralistic way, and I read them in a harmonistic way. Meaning “These and those are the words of the living God” means that each one grasps a certain facet of the truth, but the truth is the collection of all the facets— yet there is one truth. But that really is only in a sentence or two here; it needs more elaboration. I wrote about it and I can send links. In any case, so I return: regarding morality, I think it is easier to feel what I’m saying here. Two people argue over whether it is right to carry out a targeted killing or not a very targeted killing, right? Or I don’t know, abortion, or any moral dispute you choose— both sides feel that they are arguing over right and wrong. And if they are right, then the other person too should behave that way. It’s not that I am defending my right to behave however I feel like it. No— I am defending a view that is supposed to obligate you too. Therefore, disputes of this kind are disputes that reflect clear Platonism. Meaning not only are they not evidence for Aristotelianism, they are evidence against Aristotelianism, they are evidence for Platonism. And the same is true of the concept Jew, where it’s harder to understand this. In the moral world it is really easier to see, because I think everyone feels that if the moral outlook he espouses is the correct one, then he would want everyone to behave that way. Meaning he is not defending merely a subjective view of his own. So in the moral world it is easier to see the objectivity of the concept we are talking about. But in the context of Judaism, for example— who is a Jew— there the Aristotelian solution is apparently more tempting. What is a Jew? A Jew is some concept. Is there an obligation to be Jewish? Whether you are Jewish or not is a fact. So why should I care about the definitions of the concept Jew? Ostensibly this really is convention. But I claim that there too, no— even though it is less intuitive. Because if people bother to argue and say no, no, Judaism is not this, Judaism is that, or Judaism is this way or that way, what does that mean? It means that they too agree that there is a concept called Judaism, and they are making a different claim about its content, what it says. Or a broader claim, or another claim, it doesn’t matter, but they are claiming something else about its content. And not only that, they also think that it obligates them. Meaning they say that a Jew ought to behave in a Jewish way. Therefore when I define the concept Jew, that also says something about what is incumbent upon me to do. In that sense it is very similar to the dispute about morality, and if so then the conclusion there too is a Platonic conclusion on both planes. Both that there is a correct answer to the concept Jew, and that the fact there is a dispute confirms that there is a correct answer and not that there is no correct answer. Because otherwise the dispute would not take place. Again, I’ll sharpen this: plurality of views may support Aristotle— the fact that there are different views. But again, they are arguing. Just a second— plurality of views can lead to Aristotle’s conclusion. The plurality of views says that ostensibly there is no correct answer. But the dispute between the multiple views, the fact that one tries to persuade the other or attack the other, is evidence for Plato. Because if Aristotle were right, then there would be many views but they would not argue, because fine, there’s no truth here, everyone uses the concept as he understands it. So note: I am not bringing proof from the plurality of views; I am bringing proof from the fact that a dispute takes place between the different views. If a dispute takes place between the different views, that is evidence for Plato. Everyone understands that there is such a thing called Jew, and now we have a dispute over what it is, what this thing is. We are observing this idea in the world of ideas and offering different results from that observation. So we have a dispute, a quasi-scientific dispute: what is the correct fact, what are the correct characteristics of this concept that we all observe. And that is true of Zionism, and of democracy, and of Judaism, and of morality, and of basically everything that people argue about. Every single thing that people argue about— the argument says that one thing is shared by both sides: that there exists such a thing, the object that has the properties, it exists— both sides agree; and both sides agree that they are speaking about the same object and not two different objects. Precisely for that reason there is a dispute about the properties. But that demands an explanation: what is that entity there? Was it born today, a hundred years ago, before a hundred years… was it always there? What is that entity? You’re taking me back to the beginning of the series. I don’t know how it was born. It may have been born with the creation of the world, and that also takes me back to the comment about… At creation there was already Zionism? What? Yes! There was already then a concept of an entity called Zionism? It had not yet been historically realized. Never mind, but the concept already existed in the world of ideas, and its historical realization required the formation of certain circumstances. Under those circumstances it is realized. It’s like asking whether the prohibition against murder exists when there are no human beings. The answer is yes, it exists, and what it says is that if there are human beings, one may not murder them. But I do not need the existence of human beings in order for the prohibition “You shall not murder” to exist in the world of ideas. The practical realization— just like the idea of horseness can exist even if there are no horses in the world. It will be realized when there are horses in the world. It has to do with human beings, so if there are no human beings then there is no one to argue between us now, but as for Zionism, in some tiny crumb in the cosmos… What? There is such a concept that was born from the beginning of the world? Fine. I think Popper brings, regarding… that’s the meaning. I think maybe it’s Popper who brings, for example, Beethoven— his Fifth Symphony— that it existed even before Beethoven created it, okay? That there is this notion that… No, I’m not sure that’s a concept. What is Jewish? It’s what we want in history, how we wanted Jews to behave, and on that everyone brings proofs from all sorts of places about how Jews behaved, what their outlook was. Look, I’ll answer you on two planes. First of all, the very question of historical disputes and the connection between history and today belongs to the second section, about changes in the definition of a concept. I said I would get to that too; right now I’m talking about disputes over concepts. Beyond that, not all disputes about Judaism are of that kind. For example, many of the people who argue in favor of secular Judaism admit that this is a new concept. They don’t claim that Jews were always secular or that there were secular characteristics of Judaism all along. But they claim that historical Judaism is more correctly implemented in this way today. Today this is how it should appear and not otherwise. So that is indeed a dispute over the question what Judaism is, how Judaism should conduct itself today. The historical proofs in that context, from their point of view, neither add nor subtract; they too know that traditionally, up until the seventeenth century, Jews observed commandments in principle. There were of course all sorts of lapses and isolated people who did not, but a Jew meant someone committed to commandments. I don’t think anyone argues about that. And still there are people who say yes, but the definition of Judaism in the sense relevant for today should be different. That’s what I’m speaking about. Now this too has some historical meaning, but I’m saying: that belongs to the discussion of change in concepts, in the definition of concepts. That’s the next section I want to reach. But if I go back— I return basically to our definitions, to our claim— then I really want to say that when we stand before such a dispute, and again, not before a plurality of views but before an argument between people who hold different views, we have two interpretive possibilities. The first interpretive possibility is Aristotelian, which says: there is a dispute because there is no truth; everyone sees what his heart imagines, there really is nothing out there that everyone is arguing over in the objective world. Everyone sees what his heart imagines, there is no correct answer here. That is the Aristotelian interpretation. So why are they arguing? Just because they’re idiots. Right, sentiments, psychology, but all the psychology and everything are just explanations for why we’re idiots. In the end we argue because we’re idiots. That is the Aristotelian interpretation. The Platonic interpretation says no: they argue because both understand that they are referring to the same object, and there is such an object called morality, Zionism, Judaism, democracy, and they are arguing over how to implement it correctly in our present circumstances, or what its characteristics say about our circumstances today. And this is a real dispute. And in that direction there is one correct answer, and if it turns out to be that answer, then it will obligate all of us because we all agree that we are obligated to be Jewish, to be Zionist, to be democratic, to be moral. Okay? That is the assumption of the dispute. So that is the Platonic interpretation, and you see that the dispute between the Aristotelian and Platonic interpretation runs along the entire front line, both on the plane of whether there is a correct answer in the first place, and on the plane of whether that answer obligates me. Two things. Aristotle says no to both. Plato says yes to both. And I think that if you look at it this way, then the very existence of disputes over concepts is in fact evidence in favor of Platonism. And why? Because the Platonic interpretation does not claim that all of us are idiots, and I think that whoever claims everyone is an idiot has the burden of proof. It could be true; I too am often inclined to think so. But the burden of proof is on him. I tend to think that people— at least when they speak innocently, right, when they are not thinking consciously but acting intuitively, instinctively— usually there is something to what they are doing. Precisely when they think, right? I have much more trust in Kahneman’s System 1 than in System 2. When a person acts innocently, speaks without self-conscious calculation, usually there is something to what he says. When he tries to give reasons and explanations and justify it, very often he talks nonsense. It reminds me: once I was sick after the wedding, and we couldn’t get out of it, tests and everything, there were fears of serious illnesses and all sorts of things like that. They managed to drag me to all sorts of sorcerers of alternative medicine, for my sins. I mention those sins today. And the pattern I encountered every time with each such sorcerer was that he started explaining to me that there are energy lines and meridians, and I don’t know what, and electricity flows in your palms as the song says, and all sorts of things of that kind, and then he draws this or that conclusion. And I would always say to them: spare me the theory. Don’t explain to me what meridian… either it works or it doesn’t. But the moment you start giving me explanations, then you’re a babbler. Those explanations are usually some collection of vague feelings that they are trying somehow to conceptualize and define. Of course they always use concepts from physics or medicine because that sounds impressive, but with a completely different meaning, and altogether they’re just talking nonsense. Therefore I say that very often when human beings try to reason or act according to arguments and reasons, they speak nonsense. But when human beings speak innocently, act intuitively, I tend to think there is something there. That’s not a guarantee; it’s not always right. But there is something there. Even if there is an error, the error requires explanation. Meaning it’s not… the error is in the details. In principle I assume there is something in what they are doing. And if the whole world argues passionately over these concepts, then that means not everyone is a complete fool. Meaning probably we sense in some way, understand in some way, that we stand before a Platonic world of concepts, and we are trying to understand what this Platonic idea— Zionism, democracy, morality, Judaism— what does it say? Then we have a dispute and we clash and we fight. Therefore the very existence of disputes, under the charity principle, right, under the more charitable interpretation— the principle of interpretive charity says that if you see a dispute, interpret it in as fitting a way as possible and not as “everyone is stupid.” Therefore I say that these disputes are not evidence for Aristotelianism; they are evidence for Platonism. Unless everyone is stupid and everyone is mistaken and everyone is just following his own psychology and that’s all— simply acting foolishly. So that’s regarding disputes over concepts, and I’m already not going to have enough time. Rabbi, Rabbi. Rabbi, maybe one could consider— I completely agree with everything the Rabbi said, and I think the example the Rabbi brought from morality is a clear example, that indeed morality is the only thing that is exceptional. On that I completely agree with the Rabbi, that the only ontological entity is that. And here there is something real, and that is the thing everyone is striving toward, truly this great truth that they are trying to persuade others of as well. But all the other things, all the other concepts that we create, which are really all consequences of morality because they come to tell us what we should and shouldn’t do— they are already our own creation, and really this is a bit of our own idolatry that we are trying to impose on others. I don’t know what to do with such a declaration. It’s a declaration. I brought an argument. My argument says that once you see a dispute, you have two interpretive possibilities: the Aristotelian interpretation and the Platonic interpretation. Now you choose the Aristotelian interpretation, but you didn’t provide a reason why. No, I’m saying that regarding morality I do agree it’s completely Platonic. I’m talking about other things, not morality. So I’m saying they can all be correct only as implications of morality, not as something standing on its own. If, for example… Is being Jewish more moral than not being Jewish? What does that have to do with morality? Rabbi, for example, if we decided to create a concept called “the correct Zoom class.” There is such a Platonic concept, such an entity in the Garden of Eden, of what the correct Zoom class is, and now we’ll start arguing over whether the Rabbi’s class right now fulfills the criteria of a correct class or not, and that would eventually lead us to bloodshed. Why? Because we decided to create a concept with no basis and no essence. No, no. That “why” is already your responsibility. If that really happened, then the interpretation I would offer— unless there are good arguments against it— would be that there is indeed such a thing as a correct Zoom class. And therefore people argue about it passionately, and therefore people, each one takes a position and attacks the other position. The very fact that both sides agree there is a correct answer— that is exactly the point. You make it ridiculous by raising a possibility that we all understand is not true, and then you say yes, but what would happen if everyone did. But that doesn’t happen. There are no arguments over what the correct Zoom class is. Why? Because there is no such thing as a correct Zoom class. That is exactly the point. Where are there heated disputes? There are heated disputes precisely in those places where, in my opinion, exactly because of the Platonic interpretation, there really are concepts over which we are arguing. Okay? That is exactly my claim. And on the other hand, if we all understood that it is all an implication of morality and that’s what we’re striving for… I said: Judaism is not an implication of morality. By the way, I don’t think Zionism is either. I think everything is an implication of morality. Everything. Everything people fight about is an implication of morality. There is no separation at all between religion and morality; that separation is strange and nonexistent. But I really have to finish, I have to leave, so… Morality and values— are morality and values synonyms, or are they unrelated? You could say that, that’s a semantic question, yes. Values are usually moral values, but one can also speak about other values. Halakhic values, for example— in my view they are not moral, but fine, that’s a different discussion. Well, I’m sorry that I have to run, so goodbye.