The Voice of Prophecy, Lesson 39
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- General-particular-general, general-particular, and “what do we find” as similarity in one aspect, two aspects, and three aspects
- Translating the division into the structure of genus, species, and individual, and explaining the scope of the generalization
- Analogy and induction: two approaches among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and a third proposal
- Tosafot in Chullin and the meaning of “three aspects” as “all aspects”
- The thirteen principles: principles of judgment and principles of naming, and legitimizing modes of thought
- Critique of modern legal conceptions and of the judicial system
- Section 24: the three parts of logic and the difference between speculative logic and Hebrew-Torah logic
- The purpose of analogical power: from the lower to the higher, and positive attributes
Summary
General Overview
The text presents a systematic interpretation of the logical structure of the thirteen principles and of the Talmudic terms “similarity in one aspect,” “two aspects,” and “three aspects,” translating them into the structure of genus, species, and individual. It attributes to “the Nazir” an explanation according to which general-particular-general requires only a relatively faint similarity, because the inference expands from the individual to the genus, whereas general-particular limits the rule to what is in the particular and therefore requires a greater degree of closeness, while binyan av and “what do we find” require almost complete identity between two particulars and therefore do not create a broad rule. The text then develops a distinction between analogy that proceeds through induction and direct analogy from one particular to another, linking this to a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and to Tosafot in Chullin on “three aspects” as meaning “all aspects.” It then moves to a discussion of the difference between Greek “speculative” logic and Hebrew-Torah logic, which, according to the text, places judgment and inference at its center, and expands this into the claim that the Torah formalizes human modes of thought and grants them legitimacy. Finally, the text connects all this to questions of law and justice and to a critique of Israeli law and judicial activism, and hints at a broader purpose: using analogical power to infer from the lower to the higher and to ground the possibility of positive attributes in relation to the divine.
General-particular-general, general-particular, and “what do we find” as similarity in one aspect, two aspects, and three aspects
The text interprets the rule “general-particular-general, you can only infer what is like the particular” to mean that “like the particular” is some degree of similarity, relatively faint, not perfect similarity. It states that general-particular-general is similarity in one aspect, general-particular is similarity in two aspects because “you have only what is in the particular” and not “what is like the particular,” and binyan av and “what do we find” are similarity in three aspects, to the point of identity. It cites Tosafot in Chullin as interpreting “three aspects” to mean “five aspects,” that is, no difference at all, and describes this as imposing a requirement of equality in all relevant features at the level necessary for the analogy to apply.
Translating the division into the structure of genus, species, and individual, and explaining the scope of the generalization
The text translates one/two/three aspects into a logical scale of genus-species-individual, and illustrates the possibility of two particulars that belong to the same genus but not to the same species, such as a human being and a cow, which belong to the genus “living thing” but to different species. It defines genus as the most inclusive category and species as “the father of the individual,” and presents similarity in one aspect as similarity only at the level of genus. It explains that general-particular is a generalization to one species and therefore requires two shared features, genus and species, whereas general-particular-general is a “double generalization” that connects two species and leads to their common genus, and therefore the similarity it requires is weaker. It adds the rule that if the two generals are actually the same thing, then the principle of general-particular-general does not apply, because one cannot construct a new genus out of two species if in fact they are the same species.
Analogy and induction: two approaches among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and a third proposal
The text presents a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) over whether analogy works through induction, and explains a line of reasoning that moves from Socrates to Jacob our patriarch by first generalizing to all human beings and then returning to the individual. It presents a second approach in which analogy operates directly, and argues that induction itself is generated by many analogies, so that analogy is the more basic element. It proposes that the distinction between one/two/three aspects solves the question of where there is analogy without induction: when the similarity is in three aspects, the analogy does not pass through an inclusive species, but goes directly from particular to particular and therefore does not create a broad rule. It attributes to “the Nazir” a third approach according to which there are cases in which one cannot formulate the generalizing feature even though it exists intuitively, and from there opens a way to understand how the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who hold by generalization would say that even there there is an induction that simply has not been formulated.
Tosafot in Chullin and the meaning of “three aspects” as “all aspects”
The text explains that Tosafot in Chullin requires that in a similarity of three aspects, all aspects must be equal, because in such a case there is no transition through a general category but a direct transition between two particulars. It argues that this can be seen as a generalization to a two-member set that has no broader significance, and therefore the move is essentially a private analogy rather than the creation of a species or genus. It connects this to the idea that the differences between one aspect and two aspects require a move through generalization—once to a species, and twice to different species and from them to a genus.
The thirteen principles: principles of judgment and principles of naming, and legitimizing modes of thought
The text argues that the principles are “modes of thought” rather than deductive logic in the modern sense, and that the Torah’s purpose is to sharpen, institutionalize, and define the rules of thinking, and also to give legitimacy to using them. It attributes to Maimonides and Gersonides the position that the thirteen principles are not logical but rather “like an arbitrary code” of an axiomatic system, and sets against this the claim that such a view is implausible, because if everything were arbitrary there would be no point to the internal rules within the principles themselves. It presents a distinction between principles of judgment, as mechanisms for transferring laws and inferring one law from another, and principles of naming, as mechanisms that operate through relations between objects and categories, such as particular and general and general and particular.
Critique of modern legal conceptions and of the judicial system
The text compares approaches in the philosophy of law, and presents one approach that sees interpretation as part of an arbitrary system designed to organize life without committing itself to substantive justice, while claiming that this leads to absurdities and to “semantic corruption.” It argues that the current state of affairs is a “catastrophe,” because the connection between law and justice hardly exists, and when judges want justice they ignore the law or twist it. It criticizes judicial activism and argues that if a court acts as an automatic interpreter of statute, it could be replaced by a computer, whereas if it acts out of justice, then those who sit in judgment should be chosen on the basis of moral and intellectual public trust, not formal legal education. It argues that the concept of “the reasonable person” functions as a projection of a narrow group, and calls for broader representation of conceptions of justice within the judicial panel.
Section 24: the three parts of logic and the difference between speculative logic and Hebrew-Torah logic
The text explicitly quotes: “The parts of speculative logic are three: (a) the name, the concept, the image; (b) the judgment; (c) the inference. At its head stands the general image. But Hebrew-Torah logic has at its head the judgment and the inference. At the head of the principles stand inferential judgments, and after them come the principles of the general and particular name.” It interprets the corresponding division in logic as concepts, propositions, and inferences, and explains that “name, concept, image” are the components of the object: name as linguistic designation, concept as the thing itself, and image as a configuration or perceived form. It explains “judgment” as a proposition saying something about the object, but also points to another use of “judgment” in the sense of “one infers a fortiori,” and explains that inference is deriving a proposition from previous propositions. It reads the structure of the thirteen principles as beginning with four principles of judgment—an a fortiori inference, verbal analogy, binyan av from one text, and binyan av from two texts—and only afterward the principles of naming such as general and particular and particular and general, and interprets “judgment-inference” as analogy standing at the head of Hebrew logic, in contrast to Greek logic, which begins with a general image and deduces from the general to the particular.
The purpose of analogical power: from the lower to the higher, and positive attributes
The text connects the distinction between beginning with the general and beginning with the particular to the goal of understanding spiritual reality through analogy, and describes a movement of ascent from the particular to the general as foundational to Hebrew logic. It links this to the question of positive attributes versus negative attributes and to the ability to speak of the divine using attributes that have a real connection to what is said of human beings, and not merely “equivocal naming,” while emphasizing that analogy requires both skill and trust. It presents the example of knowledge and free choice, and argues that if the contradiction between them is a logical contradiction, one should consider giving up foreknowledge rather than free choice, because free choice relates to commandment and is presented as a “first intelligible,” whereas foreknowledge is not presented in the same way as a similarly binding claim.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] General-particular-general: you can only infer what is like the particular. The Nazir says: what does “like the particular” mean? “Like the particular” means something that has a certain similarity to the particular, a relatively faint similarity. In other words, general-particular-general is a similarity in one aspect. But in the language of the Talmud there is similarity in one aspect, similarity in two aspects, and similarity in three aspects. So general-particular-general is similarity in one aspect. Similarity in one aspect means similarity in some respect—it resembles the particular. I’m not saying it’s perfect similarity, but it’s similar in some respect. That’s general-particular-general. General-particular is similarity in two aspects.
[Speaker B] General-particular? Yes. What does the Jewish law say about that? What’s the exposition of that principle?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] General-particular means: you have only what is in the particular. Only what is in the particular, not what is like the particular—so it’s closer to the particular. And in binyan av and “what do we find,” it’s basically some kind of similarity in three aspects between two things, and the whole structure, that secret and so on, of three aspects means all aspects—that is, a kind of identity, perfect similarity, no difference at all. Now the Nazir says: let’s translate this. If we take the logical division into genera, species, and individuals—for example, this tree structure with three levels: there is a genus, which divides into several species, which divide into several individuals—then there really can be three levels of similarity between two individuals. There can be two individuals that belong to the same genus but not to the same species. That’s similarity in one aspect. A faint similarity, meaning they have something in common, they belong to the same genus but they are different species within that genus. Say, for example, a human being and a cow. Fine? A human belongs to the speaking species, and a cow belongs to the animal species. The broader genus, let’s say, the living thing—the genus is living thing. Fine.
[Speaker C] The species is the individual and the genus is the more inclusive thing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes. Genus is the most inclusive, species is like the individual relative to the genus, but the species itself divides into individuals.
[Speaker C] So genus means things belonging to the same genus.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Genus is the grandfather of the individual, not the father of the individual. The species is the father of the individual.
[Speaker C] Okay, so belonging—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —to the same genus but not to the same species. Exactly. They’re members of different species within the same genus. That’s called similarity in one aspect. In my opinion, the differentiation there—I need to check carefully exactly how he formulates it in the Talmud—his? Yes. That’s called similarity in one aspect. Why is that accepted in general-particular-general? Because general-particular is a comparison between two individuals that belong to the same species, which is similarity in two aspects, right? Because we have two things in common: both genus and species. So we have two things in common—we belong to the same genus and also to the same species. So that’s similarity in two aspects. Now general-particular-general, whether that’s two instances of general-particular, or one instance of general-particular and one of particular-general—we haven’t really gone into the difference between them, and for our purposes right now it doesn’t matter. But both are in fact generalization to a species. General-particular is a generalization to one species, and particular-general is a generalization to the second species. General-particular-general is really telling you: take the individual, find something similar to it that belongs with it to the same species in one sense—its species—not something similar from another species that belongs to the same broader thing, and then generalize these two species, find what they have in common in the genus. And therefore in general-particular-general, you can only infer what is like the particular, because you arrive at a similarity—the generalization is broader, and the similarity required is weaker. Why? Because it’s true also of this generalization, and also of that generalization—the common denominator of the two species, sorry, and this species. What do the two species have in common? The common genus of the two species. So in effect, where am I generalizing to? I’m generalizing from the individual to all the members of its genus, not of its species. I pass through two generalizations to species—different species—but from those two species I continue further and generalize to a genus. And that’s why we indeed have the rule that if the two generals are the same thing, then the principle of general-particular-general does not apply. Because you can’t generalize by connecting two different species and building a genus out of them, but if the two species are actually the same species, then you can’t build a genus out of them, right? So in fact general-particular-general is a double generalization that leads me to a very broad circle, and therefore the required similarity is only a faint similarity.
[Speaker B] But why is one similarity enough for a genus?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because for genus, one similarity is enough—that I’m in the same genus as the other. For example, what you and I have in common is that we’re both living creatures and we’re also both speaking beings. But what I and a cow have in common is only that we’re both living creatures. So the similarity between us is weaker than between me and you—compared with me and the cow as opposed to me and you. Do you understand? That’s what is called “only what is like the particular,” whereas here it’s two aspects, a more airtight similarity. There are two things similar between us: both that we speak and that we are living creatures. Fine? Between me and her there is only similarity in one aspect, only that we are living creatures. Fine? So in fact general-particular-general is composed of two instances of generalization from an individual to a general category, and then generalizing those two general categories into an even higher general category. Once you look at the whole thing this way, then what is required is only similarity at the level of genus, not species. It’s true that I passed through two similarities of two aspects, but in the end what is required is that I’m allowed to infer from this individual to any other individual that belongs to its genus. The way to get there is by passing through the species, the two species, but in the end the conclusion may be inferred about anything that belongs to the genus. And therefore general-particular-general is similarity in one aspect. By contrast, general-particular or particular-general is similarity in two aspects, a more—well, it’s a similarity that belongs to two individuals that belong to the same species and the same genus, so that’s two aspects. They have two things in common: they are also of the same species and also of the same genus. And general—
[Speaker C] And particular and general, do they have the same rule?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For the sake of our discussion right now, yes. It’s not exactly—
[Speaker C] But if you said there are three aspects?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait. Now three aspects is basically “what do we find?”
[Speaker C] Because there the particular—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly. You take two individuals that both belong to the same species and the same genus, but the similarity applies only to the two of them. It’s not even true of all the members of the common species; rather, the similarity is only between them. Why? Because between them there are already three equal aspects: they are also the same genus, also the same species, and specifically equal to each other as individuals, because I won’t be able to make the analogy to all the others that belong to the same genus and same species. Fine? This is a perfect analogy. In other words, here the two things have to be equal to each other in all the properties. That’s what Tosafot in Chullin said: that “three aspects” means “five aspects,” meaning there should be no difference at all.
[Speaker B] Except that it’s only three, no? What? Because when you talk about all aspects being equal, then you’re talking about identity between them, not some kind of similarity.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Identity at the required level. When you come to translate this into practice it’s always hard—meaning, what counts as one similarity, what counts as two similarities? Once you try to quantify it, it becomes problematic. But at least to explain the scheme—why this is called one aspect, two aspects, and three—it seems to me this is a brilliant explanation. To my mind it’s really brilliant. Otherwise it’s simply hard to understand all these terms—what in the world connects one thing to another here?
[Speaker C] Now in general and particular, “you have only what is in the particular,” right? There’s some kind of—what is general and particular? Yes, but still there is some small generalization, right? To a species, because it makes two aspects. If, say, there is—so you do almost the same thing, you know what, something like this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now if you remember, at the beginning we discussed a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) over whether analogy goes through induction, right?
[Speaker B] Is there someone who can review that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? I think I mentioned it last time, didn’t I?
[Speaker B] I remember you said there are three—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That if there are two particulars and I make an analogy between them—yes?—now the question is whether I say: if this table is square, then that one is square too, for the sake of discussion, okay? I made an analogy and reached a conclusion. How did I make that analogy? Did I make the analogy by looking at this table and understanding that its squareness derives from its being a table, and in fact this is true of every table that is square, and therefore—one second more—and therefore it’s also true of the table in the other room?
[Speaker B] But that’s not analogy, if it’s built into the definition.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no—leave that comment aside for the moment, today we’ll talk about it exactly. But the usual line of thought about analogy says: look, if Socrates is mortal, then Jacob our patriarch is mortal. Why? Because he’s a human being, exactly. Why? Because Socrates’ being mortal is not unique to Socrates—it derives from the fact that he is human. And since that is so, Jacob our patriarch is also human, and therefore he too is mortal. You understand that an analogy like that is based internally on induction? Because I actually made an induction from the particular to the general, to all human beings, and then I made another deduction, a descent back to one particular that is part of the class of human beings, namely Jacob.
[Speaker B] The second approach among the medieval authorities (Rishonim)?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The second approach among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) says what? The first?
[Speaker B] Yes—what are the terms—but—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The question whether binyan av is the same as “what do we find” or not—we explained that here. So the second approach among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) is basically that analogy works directly. That is, I infer from Jacob to Socrates. And why? I’ll explain why. Because in fact, how do I do induction? How does one do induction? Exactly the opposite—through many analogies. Meaning: how do I know that all human beings are mortal, and that Socrates’ being mortal really derives from his being human? Well, because I know that Socrates is similar to Jacob our patriarch, and behold, surprisingly, he too is mortal and the other one is too—so from all these analogies I create the induction. So what is fundamental? What is fundamental is analogy, not induction.
[Speaker B] Right?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So—
[Speaker C] How can you generalize according to that?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Here—so now, no, no. So in fact this is how we understood the dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). Then we said that it seems to me, I somehow feel, that both are right in this sense. First, it could be that you really can’t separate these two mechanisms. This separation of analogy and induction is artificial on our part. But beyond that, there are cases in which analogy works this way and cases in which it works that way. In other words, we have two kinds of properties in which we make analogies.
[Speaker B] Is there such a thing as induction without analogy? Yes. And is there such a thing—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —as analogy without induction? Yes, there is. For example? There are intuitions where you can’t formulate for yourself what exactly is similar between the two things. But it seems to me that if this is true for that, then it’ll also be true for this. That has nothing to do with induction. And then that’s not about induction—it’s a direct transition from one particular to another. Not through some shared property. I can’t formulate the property, but somehow I feel they resemble each other. So that is apparently some kind of analogy I make directly between the two things without passing through induction. Now let’s return to our issue. It seems to me that here we find exactly the answer as to where one applies and where the other applies. When the similarity is in three aspects, then it’s analogy without induction. Exactly. That’s an analogy that does not proceed through induction, because through induction you always pass to the species. But if you make an analogy between two particulars and it is not true of the species that includes both of them, then what are you doing? You are making an analogy between the two particulars that is not true of the species encompassing them. In other words, you move directly from particular to particular, not through the species. That is exactly analogy that does not proceed through induction.
[Speaker B] The dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about binyan av and “what do we find”—is it about this in this case, or not?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, those medieval authorities (Rishonim) won’t accept this. Each one probably takes his position in a comprehensive way. The Nazir is proposing a third approach. The Nazir—I always remember that in Nazir he hardly says anything there. But it seems to me—no, I really think this is what he means. I don’t think this is an invention. It’s just that if you dig carefully in the notes and the things he says and so on, this is the picture that emerges, and it seems to me to be simply brilliant. Really, in my opinion it’s an amazing interpretation of the logical structure of the principles. I think it’s an astonishing decoding. There’s an amazing overarching conception of the principles here.
[Speaker B] Wait, so the third principle—what did he say it is? Which principle is the one of three aspects?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t—he doesn’t write that, but it seems to me it has to be “what do we find.”
[Speaker B] “What do we find”?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what—
[Speaker B] —would the medieval authorities (Rishonim) who say it works through induction say?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Apparently that there too an induction is operating, one that you don’t know how to formulate. The fact that you don’t know how to formulate the property—
[Speaker B] —common to both of them—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —as an inclusive species doesn’t matter; there is such a thing. You just don’t know how to formulate it. Fine—we don’t know how to formulate everything. But somehow you sense a general property here. There’s a lot of logic to it. You see a similarity between two particulars. You don’t always know how to formulate what you’re seeing, but in essence you’re seeing something more general here. If you saw another object with that property, you’d also feel that it belongs to the group. You just wouldn’t know how to formulate it.
[Speaker B] It sounds more reasonable. We passed through induction. Fine, I’m not going into resolving the—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But it seems to me this is the interpretation he’s proposing. And then you understand that this actually leads us directly to genera and species. Because the moment I move from one particular to another, and both belong to the same species and the same genus, but in fact it isn’t true of the whole species and certainly not of the whole genus, then it becomes very natural to say that the analogy does not proceed through generalization but directly from particular to particular. Or else it’s a very narrow rule. Fine? That’s why I brought Tosafot in Chullin, which says that when I see similarity in three aspects, it means in all aspects. Or in other words, that there are only two such particulars; there is no further rule. Or if there is a third, then it is also like that.
[Speaker C] Meaning, either you simply don’t create a general category out of them, or we create a category out of the two of them—because I’m making all kinds of cross-comparisons.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, you can always create a category out of two things, but that has no significance—only those two things. The similarity between them is a private similarity. You can call it a generalization to a two-member set, fine, but essentially it is an analogy. Do you understand? So that’s why Tosafot also requires that it not be only three aspects, but if there are additional aspects, then they all have to be equal. Because here I am not passing through a general category—that’s the whole point. I move directly from the particular to the particular. And that is similarity in three aspects. By contrast, similarity in two aspects, and certainly in one aspect, is similarity that passes through generalization. Once, a generalization to a species; and another time, a double generalization to two species and from them to a genus. And there it is clear that the similarity passes through generalization. Fine? That’s basically the picture—a wonderful picture. I think it’s simply amazing. Really something to marvel at.
[Speaker C] Wait, so what do you call it? Analogy with no mediation at all—that’s the point here?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes. Because when you read the Talmudic passages, all these things sound like—one aspect, two aspects, what? One aspect, three things, what does that have to do with anything? Then you take a few properties and compare in one property, and in two, and in three—what?
[Speaker B] There aren’t interpretations of it? People don’t deal with it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There aren’t interpretations. Nobody deals with it.
[Speaker B] At least not anyone I know—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] They don’t deal with it at all. Nobody understands these things. When you read the Talmudic passages—one aspect, two things, and with two they never give definitions—you can never know. Yes, you can’t. Into the medieval authorities (Rishonim) I can read things like this, as he says, but nobody says it. You understand? There’s no reference to methodology among the later authorities (Acharonim), ever. Meaning, it’s—
[Speaker C] An essential—
[Speaker B] —characteristic.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Academic research is another question. It seems to me that even there they haven’t arrived at something like this, in my opinion.
[Speaker C] No, in Nazir, no, there isn’t—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There aren’t people there talented enough to say something like this, I think. Anyway, I really marvel at this. All these principles are such a strange thing—it’s all these rules, and you don’t really know what the meaning is—and then suddenly this presents you with a magnificently structured framework for these principles. It’s beautiful. I mean, it’s simply genera, species, an epistemology of the principles.
[Speaker B] It sounds terrible—I mean, like logic that we also know—it’s very—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Very much so, there’s some attempt here to organize the logic we know, because if we didn’t know it already, the Torah couldn’t have given it to us either. The Torah can only give you legitimacy for things you already know how to use.
[Speaker B] Things that are valid only in the context of Torah—it’s an axiomatic system.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the introduction he gave us here when we began, yes. That’s Maimonides and Gersonides, who really understand the thirteen principles as not logical, but rather as some rules that are valid—they’re like an arbitrary code. We agree on some arbitrary code with which you decode my communication; the code itself has no significance. It has no meaning.
[Speaker B] You’re coming to accept foundational assumptions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s a problem there, and he argues that this is not right, and I also believe it isn’t right. Because if it were right, then there would be no point in all the rules operating within the thirteen principles, and in my opinion that’s not plausible.
[Speaker B] Wait, and again, we defined a principle—a principle is what? Each principle is some kind of thinking process?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s some kind of thinking process. What is “logical”? Today logic is understood only as deductive logic, so this has nothing to do with that logic. These are human thinking processes. Yes. The Torah comes to sharpen, formalize, and define better the rules of your thought, and also to give you legitimacy to use them. Because as we discussed last time, a large part of the issue is the legitimacy.
[Speaker B] Take verbal analogy, for example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Verbal analogy is more textual, but there too we said—we discussed it at the beginning.
[Speaker B] Is an a fortiori inference deduction? An a fortiori inference isn’t deduction?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There was a session here—one or two sessions ago—where we dealt with the point that it isn’t deduction. I could sometime give you an article I wrote about that. Really?
[Speaker C] Yes, and there I talked about it a bit. That it’s abduction? Abduction? Yes, something like that. So is this what’s called the “Torah mind,” basically?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The point is that the Torah mind is not a non-human mind—that’s not true. The Torah mind—one of the things through which Torah is given to us—is our intellect. The Holy One planted intellect within us; that too is part of the giving of the Torah, that too is something the Holy One placed within us. He didn’t create us crooked and then give us the Torah in order to straighten us out. The Torah helps us understand what is already within us. In some way the Torah formulates, sharpens, or polishes the means of thought and perception that we already possess. And in that sense it’s simply human. Right—only again, the question is how you perform analogy. Polishing the tools of analogy is one dimension, and on the other hand the trust I have in the very act of analogy. Those are the two dimensions we mentioned last time, if we talked about it, right? That basically two things can be gained from this: both sharpening these tools and institutionalizing trust in them. Simply believing that they really do lead to a true conclusion.
[Speaker B] That’s not unique to every system, not unique specifically to a legal system. Every legal system deals with analogy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And somehow—
[Speaker C] —it guides you here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But in fact today there are two approaches in the philosophy of law. One really treats it as something arbitrary. What does that mean? We established some rules, and our analogy operates in interpretation—exactly, the interpretation is interpretation of the law, not substantive interpretation. Meaning, it’s not that there really is some similarity between this and that. Rather, I have no choice—I can’t write everything into the law. So what do I do? I write some law, try to make it fit the ways most judges and people think, and what I mean I somehow embed in it in that way, but not that I’m really doing substantive interpretation here. Because substantive interpretation is subjective—everyone can draw their own conclusions as to whether something is similar or not similar. After all, analogy isn’t deduction; it’s something that appears subjective. So what do people who believe this do? They really turn the whole thing into some kind of axiomatic system. In other words, okay, for the sake of discussion, from a legal standpoint. This is a valid legal procedure, not a philosophical one. So it’s a valid procedure, that’s how our legal system runs. I’m not thereby committing myself that these considerations are also considerations of justice, for example, or that this is really the right way to act. But we need somehow to organize life, so let’s agree on some arbitrary system that will bind all of us—we have no choice.
[Speaker C] And that’s what we’ll do.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s somewhat like what we saw regarding definition by extension as opposed to definition by content. You reach all kinds of absurdities with this approach—late semantic corruption.
[Speaker C] The next day he didn’t show up on time.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, right, because they—because you’re not talking here about substantive things. One of my claims is that this—
[Speaker C] It’s more something activist, like everyone can do whatever—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not true. My claim is exactly that analogies are not arbitrary. Analogies have a broad shared basis, not a small one.
[Speaker C] Supposedly discretionary judgment is a basis—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —that everyone would agree on, and there would be a broad enough consensus so that it would be no worse than the situation today. The situation today is a catastrophe. The connection between law and justice is practically nonexistent, and if it does exist it’s only because people aren’t following the law. If judges want to do justice, then they ignore the law and rule according to justice, or they somehow twist the law just so the outcome will fit justice. Do you understand? So either way—if I want them to go by justice, then don’t put judges there. Put there someone I trust in terms of his moral system, his way of thinking—
[Speaker C] —and not his legal education.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And if I want interpretation of the law, then that’s not what they’re doing. Or if they are doing it, they’re not doing it justly. What are you saying? That you don’t need to study law in order to be a judge. You said you need people with integrity, people who are—well, a jury is something else, taking people off the street, I’m against that too. I want to take people in whom the public more or less places trust, both morally and intellectually, and let them sit there and decide according to what seems right to them, not according to some formal system of rules. Usually, in ninety-nine percent of cases, what will seem right to them will seem right to most of the public. The whole legal system is in hysterics because of the one percent over which there will be disputes, where people won’t agree. So what do we do? We have no choice, we need to set things in advance so there will be uniform norms. But we lose so much in the process that I don’t care—if in one percent of cases there are rulings the public really won’t agree with, fine.
[Speaker B] The issue is value norms that differ among various publics, and the difficulty of finding them.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine. Then we’ll try to find them, or to give representation to the different views within the judicial panel.
[Speaker B] Maybe you’d just go to a court that had representation of—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, a representative court.
[Speaker B] It calls itself the court according to law, but that’s not the same thing.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? Because today the Supreme Court is not subordinate to the law—that’s exactly the point. High Court of Justice, not High Court of Law. So it does what seems just to it, not what seems to it to follow the law. It does what it wants, and that’s wonderful—as long as its justice… what it wants is what I want. But if it is doing what the laws say, then fine—since you’re just the interpreter of the laws, why do I care who sits there? Put a computer there to interpret the laws and produce the ruling; the laws were already decided in the Knesset. But the moment the judicial system claims independence for itself, cancels laws, goes outside the laws, and does what it wants to a large extent—perhaps in the name of justice, because it understands that the laws do not lead to justice—then I want to know that at least it will actually do justice. But if that’s the case, then I want someone sitting there who represents what I think justice ought to look like, not just some automatic interpreter of laws who studied law at a university. There’s no logic to that. The education needed for this is not law school at a university—on the contrary, it’s preferable not to study law for this. Meaning, in order truly to be a judge on the Supreme Court of Justice. So that’s why I say, either way: if you support judicial activism, then you don’t need a judge sitting there. If you don’t support judicial activism, then let there be a judge there who judges, because then it really doesn’t matter to me—then a computer could sit there too. The main thing is to derive the result from the laws. I’m formulating it in an extreme way, of course; interpretation is never completely unambiguous. No law covers everything entirely. But that’s the basic approach. If you see yourself as more constrained and subject to the law, and you’re really only trying to understand what the law says and not trying to insert your own sense of justice into the law—and if necessary, also twist it—then I care much less who sits there. Because ultimately what determines the ruling is the laws, not the person sitting in the judge’s chair. But in today’s situation, where the person gives himself the liberty to determine the ruling, and sometimes ignores laws and twists them and cancels them because it doesn’t look to him like what the reasonable person would think—that phrase they always use. Who is the reasonable person? It’s Aharon Barak and his whole crowd, all of whom look exactly the same. That’s called the reasonable person. For him, from his perspective, that’s one hundred percent of human beings, sure—because inside the court it’s one hundred percent of human beings who look like that. The problem is that outside, it’s not even two percent of human beings who look like that.
[Speaker C] But that’s what he sees, and the reasonable person is just everything he sees around him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the problem. It’s a very problematic business, and all of it stems from this approach. And the absurdities are just—if this is legitimate and so on… On the one hand, people understand that the law is not everything, and that one somehow does need to strive for justice. And that’s good, that’s really true—the law can sometimes create distortions. But on the other hand, if so, then I want the justice system too to be under some kind of review. It can’t be that whoever happens to sit in that chair decides what justice is. Precisely because justice is not such a rigid concept, I would want there to be proper representation there for my position too, not only for other positions.
[Speaker C] There’s no representation there at all—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean, there’s some one religious person there.
[Speaker C] They’re very careful—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] —to make sure there won’t be more than one religious person.
[Speaker C] I heard they recently tried Rabbi Shlomo Dichovsky. I heard they appointed Rabbi Bar… yes, but he didn’t agree.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so what? So there’s another one? What, he won’t come? They’ll always bring someone else. What, but they tried because he’s a friend of Barak, so Barak got him in anyway, a good fig leaf, you can mention him too. He didn’t agree, so what? What do you mean? If you need someone like that, bring someone else like that. So what if he didn’t agree? Bring someone else. What, only this person? Only the few idiot jurists who get there are the only ones who can be Supreme Court justices?
[Speaker C] What a disgrace, a Supreme Court justice. Such gravity, like Yom Kippur.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Let’s move on to section 24. It’s just that earlier we saw the… I wanted to give some kind of summary of what we did before, to see that basically some kind of structure is developing here. The parts of speculative logic are three. This section—I’ll say in advance—I’m not sure how much I really understand it. I’m trying to decipher it together with you.
[Speaker C] You got to section 24?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You got to section 24. Yes. Okay. The parts of speculative logic are three: A. the name, the concept, the image. A. the name, the concept, the image. B. the judgment. C. the inference. And at its head is the general image. And by “at its head” he means at the head of speculative logic. But Hebrew Torah-based logic—at its head is judgment-inference. At the head of the hermeneutical principles are inferential judgments, and after them the principles of the general and the particular name. If it’s inference, isn’t that not the same
[Speaker B] thing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, that’s the first trap here, but in a moment we’ll see. Speculative logic—and we got stuck on the fact that “speculative” comes from “eye,” as distinct from auditory logic. And Greek logic is visual logic, and that’s what he calls speculative logic, it seems to me. But Hebrew Torah-based logic is kind of the antithesis, auditory logic. Now, the parts are apparently the same parts in both kinds of logic. So what are these parts? The whole question is what stands at the head of it, right? Maybe let’s just clarify the sentence itself, what the structure of the sentence is. There are two kinds of logic: speculative logic and Hebrew auditory logic, yes. The eye-based and the ear-based, yes, the auditory. These logics have three parts, and the dispute between them is which of the three parts stands at the top. In speculative logic, the general image stands at the top; in Hebrew logic, judgment-inference stands at the top. Okay? That’s the structure of the sentence. Now the question is what this sentence means. So let’s try to decipher it. The accepted division in logic is a discussion on three levels. You can see Bergmann’s book, Introduction to Logic, which is also divided this way.
[Speaker C] Not every logic book is like that, but
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] this really is a book divided that way. First they discuss concepts, afterward they discuss propositions, and afterward they discuss inferences. From the smaller to the larger.
[Speaker C] What
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] is a concept and what is a proposition? An inference? A concept is the particular object, the atomic thing. Things, discrete objects. A proposition is a statement about the concept. The concept is the subject of the proposition. Right? A proposition is a statement about the concept. And an inference is deriving one proposition from earlier propositions. And that is already a structure that includes several propositions; it’s an argument.
[Speaker C] That’s exactly what you do—you have the particular, you turn it into… you have the particular… you turn it into some generality, you turn it into…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not a generality. The transition between a concept and a proposition is not a transition between particular and general. It’s simply different syntactic-ontological levels. First we have the concepts themselves, before they even appear within the framework of a proposition. You need to discuss the relation between concepts before they appear inside a proposition. What is the relation between being a table and being a chair and being an object, or things like that? Those are discussions in the realm of concepts.
[Speaker B] So the proposition is basically the judgment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Just one second. The propositions or claims—that’s a proposition revolving around one of the concepts. I say: the concept “table” is something used for placing things on.
[Speaker B] Just as an example.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, a claim about things. Exactly. These are concepts, and then there is a proposition that revolves around them or connects between them or something like that. Sometimes it doesn’t connect between concepts; sometimes it’s said only about one concept. A good trait is an exalted thing. Okay? It maybe doesn’t connect concepts so much, but rather… a statement about a concept. That is the proposition. And the third stage is when I connect propositions to one another or discuss the relation between propositions. Earlier it was a relation between concepts; now it’s a relation between propositions, and that is essentially implication of propositions, or inference. A relation between propositions of premises and conclusion is basically a relation of argument, of inference. Okay? It seems to me that this is also what he means here. Up to this point, this is a division that exists in logic. Now it seems to me that these three things are the three things he means here. The name, the concept, and the image—all three together are the object, the thing, the entity. While the entity itself is divided into three parts. The name, the image—that’s the form of the entity, let’s start from the end.
[Speaker B] The concept is the entity itself, and the name
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] is its name, its terminology in language.
[Speaker C] Can you go over the three again?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The name, the concept, and the image—all three together are the object, the thing, the discrete entity. There are three components that a discrete entity has. What are those components? There’s its name—in other words, its designation in language. Inside a sentence in language I use a word that denotes the entity; I don’t put the entity itself into the sentence. I use a word that denotes the entity. Okay? Whenever a word appears without quotation marks—every logic book starts with this—when a word appears without quotation marks, the word denotes the object. When a word appears with quotation marks, then the subject of the sentence is the word itself, not the object it denotes. So for example I might say: “tree” is a three-letter word. “Tree” is a three-letter word. So you have to put quotation marks around the word “tree” in that case, right? Because the subject of the sentence is the word “tree,” not the object represented by the word “tree.” Right? And we said that when “tree” appears without quotation marks, then when it says “tree is such-and-such,” the reference is actually to the thing denoted by the word “tree.”
[Speaker B] That doesn’t matter to me right now. So that’s the name.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The concept is the thing itself, the concept, the thing. And the image is the figuration, its image, its form. So there is its matter, let’s call it that in another language, its form, and its name. The concept is the matter? The concept is the matter? Yes, it’s the thing itself. The image is how it looks? Exactly, and the image is how it looks, how it is perceived. Yes, so that is the form. Good. So that’s the first thing. Those three together create the basic object around which the proposition revolves. Okay? Now, judgment means to state a judgment. Right? I don’t know—“a person with no breath of life in his nostrils is impure.” That is stating a judgment, right? A judgment is basically the making of a proposition. I state a proposition about the object whose name is “a person without breath of life.” That is the object, the subject of the proposition, and the proposition says that he is impure. Okay?
[Speaker B] But later on judgment isn’t in the sense of proposition?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Just a second. Here I don’t know that I have a good answer to that, but it seems to me that in the earlier division that’s how the word judgment has to be understood.
[Speaker B] In the context of the division into three, clearly it had to mean proposition. Just a second.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, in the next sentence he links judgment and inference, and then you see that in any case it’s not in the previous terminology. So that makes me calmer. Judgment is presented as two different parts out of the three—judgment and inference—and then later suddenly judgment and inference become together. So it seems to me that the word judgment is used in two meanings in this sentence. We’ll see in a moment.
[Speaker C] Judgment is stating a proposition about the entity.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You want to state a judgment, so you say: a person without breath of life in his nostrils is impure. That is stating his judgment, right? A statement about a thing is always, in a broader language, basically stating what its judgment is. When the Torah determines something about a thing, that generally comes by way of determining a judgment about that thing. The judgment is of course derived from some reality of the thing—obviously—but that is certainly the conservative view. But a statement about a thing is what is called judgment.
[Speaker B] Judgment in the sense of inference, like when they say “it is inferred a fortiori”? Yes, that’s the second meaning.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Good, so now I understand. Judgment means “it follows by law,” meaning an a fortiori inference? Yes. C is inference, and that, we said, is inference in the sense of deriving a proposition, or deriving a judgment from a judgment. That is exactly the Talmudic give-and-take: how to infer specific judgments from general ones, general ones from specific ones, how to compare judgments. This is basically what the Talmudic give-and-take deals with. The hermeneutical principles by which the Torah is expounded—we already saw that they are divided into two types: principles of the name and principles of the judgment. Right? There are principles that compare judgments to one another or derive one judgment from another, and there are principles that derive one name from another. Meaning, when I want to draw a legal conclusion about something, I can do it in two ways. Either I say that if there is such a judgment, then there will probably also be such a judgment, in various ways—drawing conclusions on the level of judgments, since I know certain judgments about the thing, then probably other judgments also apply to it. Yes, or the same thing regarding other things—but the relation is between the judgments and not between the entities. And I can make an analysis on the level of the entities. I can say: since this thing too is an animal like an ox, then probably the judgments said about animals were also said about it. Here the inference is not on the level of judgments but on the level of things. I say that a cow is a type of animal, and therefore when they speak about an animal they probably also mean a cow.
[Speaker B] Even when you use names, you’re referring to the fact that there are two similar objects here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, when he deals with judgments, that’s understandable. I didn’t understand. Did you understand? Because “animal” is the name of a broad group, and “cow” is the name of a particular group. The relation of the particular to the general exists in the world of entities. So comparing particular to particular, or particular to general, or something like that—that is inference by way of the relation between entities, not between judgments. Therefore it is called principles of the name. There are the principles of judgment, which are to transfer judgments from one to another—for example, maybe you can think at least of constructing a general principle or “what do we find,” which is a kind of analogy—not in the previous division, but some kind of analogy: if this judgment is correct, maybe that judgment is also correct. Since there are two kinds in “what do we find,” that may already be another question. Yes.
[Speaker C] I understood what changed in speculative logic.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, he didn’t say that. One second.
[Speaker C] In relation to this speculative logic, the Rabbi gave the example that within the Torah we find this. When the Torah wants to say something about some entity, then it says a name. And inference—the Rabbi mentioned that in the Talmudic tractates we find all kinds of propositions and make all kinds of transfers between them, things like that. So that’s… I didn’t understand. I understood that when the Torah says something about an entity, then usually it writes a name. And once the Mishnah or the Talmudic tractates work on those judgments, they derive all kinds of judgments and make all kinds of—so that is the inference. Now, from what I understood, in the Talmud we generally find this order of name, judgment, and inference.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In everything, both in Hebrew logic and in speculative logic, there are these three things,
[Speaker C] but what is their order?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, we’re not talking about their order yet; now we’ll talk about the order, we’ll get to that in a moment. Now he continues: “And at its head is the general image.” What now? Eight-thirty. “And at its head is the general image.” What does that mean? “And at its head”—both of speculative logic and of the system of inferences—there sits some general image, a schema of inference.
[Speaker B] The image we talked about at the beginning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Inference, for example—the classic inference built from a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion—that starts with the image, with some schema of inference. If every X is Y and A is X—those are two premises—then the conclusion is A is Y.
[Speaker B] The first premise is broader, and the second is more particular, and from it you infer the particular. Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now this whole schema is what I think he calls the general image.
[Speaker B] Not the first structure?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. “At its head is the general image”—I think that’s what it means. I really got tangled up in this. It seems to me he means to say that the basic inference, the general image of inference, is the foundation of the… what? The result? What result? That’s what stands at the foundation of speculative logic. Not at the head of inference? That’s the issue.
[Speaker B] Now that, I don’t know. In terms of content I feel, no,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But even “at the head of inference,” I’m not sure it would specifically be the first proposition. Because at the head of inference sits the general schema of inferences; there are other schemas of inference too. But at the top sits the deductive schema, the basic schema of deduction. Here I’m not entirely clear
[Speaker C] what he means by “at its head is the general image.”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying, I myself don’t know which interpretation is correct, but I can suggest a few possibilities. One possibility is that “at its head” refers to speculative logic,
[Speaker C] and that at the head
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] of speculative logic—simply because the continuation of the sentence makes it seem that way. “But Hebrew Torah-based logic, at its head is judgment.” What is this “but”? There’s some contrast here. Earlier we spoke about speculative logic, and at its head is the general image, yes?
[Speaker C] But—just a second—but
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Hebrew Torah-based logic, at its head is judgment. So it seems fairly clear that “and at its head” in the first sentence refers to speculative logic. Right? So at the head of speculative logic stands the general image. What does “the general image” mean? If so, then let me come to the conclusion I’m more inclined toward. “At its head is the general image” means at the head of speculative logic, not at the head of inference. If it’s at the head of speculative logic, then the image stands there. I think the meaning is inference from the general to the particular, which is actually the first schema—exactly, the first schema of deduction. So there are five schemas; actually there are four schemas in Aristotle for inferences, four figures, four figures, maybe fewer, not the point—four for inferences,
[Speaker B] four figures, four figures of inference.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, four deductive figures. So the first schema is: every X is Y, A is X, therefore A is Y. I think. I don’t remember exactly what the four schemas are; it appears in the books.
[Speaker C] The inference from the general to the particular, so
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] there is some first schema that is more basic. I think it’s this schema: all human beings are mortal, and so on—the regular deductive inference. But in a broader sense I think it’s simply inference from the general to the particular, yes—from “all human beings are mortal” to “Socrates is mortal.” And that is the foundation of speculative logic.
[Speaker B] And in Hebrew, because the inference comes first, it basically reverses the stages. Because in Hebrew, since inference is at the head, it reverses the stages; basically you begin with inference, and you begin already with the premise
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that stands there. I begin with the process of inference, not with the premise that underlies the process of inference. That seems to me to be what he means. Really, this is so obscure here that I’m far from convinced I’m reading it correctly. But Hebrew demanding logic—at its head is judgment, inference. Now “judgment, inference”—if you go back for a moment to this—
[Speaker B] not the judgment from before,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] section 21—do you see its heading? “Conditional judgment and inference in the new logic.” This “judgment,” what he seems to mean here is probably a fortiori reasoning. Yes, here too we hesitated a bit about what exactly he means, but it’s probably a fortiori reasoning. Simply “punishments are not inferred a fortiori.” “Judgment” is usually the accepted term for a fortiori reasoning in the Torah terminology of the concept. Yes, so here it seems to me that the word judgment is used in the sense of a fortiori reasoning, and that really does stand at the head of the hermeneutical principles. Right, the first of the thirteen principles is a fortiori reasoning.
[Speaker B] It seems to me that here in speculative logic the intention is—no, no—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The fact that it stands at the head of the hermeneutical principles also probably points to something essential. But first of all, judgment-inference stands at the head of the principles. That means that the first principle among the thirteen principles is a fortiori reasoning.
[Speaker B] Okay, beyond
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that, though, if you notice the structure of the principles—how are the principles built? There is a fortiori reasoning, verbal analogy, constructing a general principle from one verse, constructing a general principle from two verses, and then they begin: every general and particulars, right? Meaning, at the beginning there are the four principles of judgment, after that four principles of the name. Okay? Therefore judgment is in fact not only a fortiori reasoning, and this really is a discussion whether “punishments are not inferred a fortiori” applies only to a fortiori reasoning or maybe also to other things—a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim). And in fact the four principles of judgment are all, in a certain sense, judgment, because they are all analogies. And even a fortiori reasoning is an analogy and not a deduction, as we already noted. So basically these are four kinds of analogies, and it seems to me that in some sense he means that “judgment” is a fortiori reasoning, but “judgment-inference” is already a broader sense that is basically analogy.
[Speaker C] We said inference means various kinds, right? It’s deriving propositions? Analogy is inference. But according to what we’re saying now, then inference includes all kinds of things—like a fortiori reasoning and more,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, what is a fortiori reasoning? It’s deriving one proposition from another proposition. Is inference always analogy? When he says inference, yes, “judgment-inference” is probably—at least if I’m interpreting him correctly—analogy. And that stands at the head of the principles, but not only a fortiori reasoning. There are four principles there: a fortiori reasoning, verbal analogy—that again is some kind of analogy—all the judgment and inference and these things; constructing a general principle from one verse, we said, is induction, right? And from two verses, that is induction and analogy, exactly. And after that begin the principles of the name: general and particular, particular and general, which are also in fact analogies, if you remember, as we already said at the beginning of the lesson, right? But these are nominal analogies, meaning analogies between entities, not between judgments as we said before. Therefore that is already something else. First of all, inference between judgments is basically inferential processes, arguments, yes—deriving one judgment from another.
[Speaker C] Is there constructing a general principle from one verse and constructing a general principle from two verses?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s two principles—or one principle, that too is a dispute among medieval authorities (Rishonim): constructing a general principle from one verse and from two verses. Now the question is what it means that this inference is at the head of the principles. It seems to me that what he means to say is that at the head of Hebrew logic sits analogy, while at the head of Greek logic sits “from the general to the particular,” the general image, from the general to the particular—that is deduction.
[Speaker B] The same distinction again?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. He’s just showing it from other aspects. He’s showing that it stands at the foundation of a great many differences—exactly this one point. You need to know how to translate everything into this central point. In the book there is actually one central point that he emphasizes all the time, but it’s interesting to see it from different angles. Did you basically find it? Yes. It’s basically an interpretation of the whole prophecy. Let’s put it more… okay. Is that written on the back?
[Speaker C] Is that written on the back? I don’t know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What, its holiness is behind, maybe what is written on the back? Guy, what’s going on with him? In the meantime the cover still hasn’t been made, only the inside.
[Speaker C] I’m
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] working on the cover.
[Speaker B] What
[Speaker C] about it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, as for the book, meanwhile I still haven’t received one final answer. Okay.
[Speaker C] Because it’s religious, or because…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Don’t know. No explanation. They come up with all kinds of…
[Speaker B] Is Hovitzki publishing it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, but Hovitzki is something else. Hovitzki doesn’t make claims.
[Speaker B] So there’s also a difference between a package that’s only academic—yes, exactly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, publishers are much more comfortable publishing books… I already heard this from a friend of mine who read it; he also told me it would be hard to get it in, because it’s a book that presents a very tendentious, clear position. It’s not a book that surveys positions.
[Speaker B] Already the first chapter is scary. Yes, and the chapter on religious coercion also immediately creates…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and that immediately lowers the stock, meaning it’s hard to get something like that into regular print.
[Speaker C] I think it was a mistake to say that at the beginning, because then
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m scary… Dan Dibs? I don’t know if that’s the reason; they didn’t write me explanations. But I have a friend who knows these things. The Amnon publishing house… from the dialogue? Language, right? That name. He says yes, I’ll change them. I’ll change them. It was only in the first copy that I wrote it like that just for amusement. I sent it to them to read; that’s how it was written. Okay. Anyway. Also got offended that I mentioned him as a kippah… wait… so for that there aren’t final answers and things like that. Yes.
[Speaker B] And that’s connected, by the way, to what I wrote at the end…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes. Amnon is secular and Rafi is Haredi (ultra-Orthodox), and there’s another one who is half-Orthodox—he became like a model, but it didn’t become dialogical.
[Speaker C] There’s some element here of
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] politically correct.
[Speaker C] There’s a book called The Ideal Jew, Bublil. Right? I only read the cover, not
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] know what’s inside.
[Speaker C] From there—the formula wins. No, he doesn’t…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Oh really?
[Speaker C] That’s enlightenment. Enlightenment. No, no, there really not… okay. I also don’t write anywhere that this really is the difference between them. It doesn’t seem relevant. You evaluate the arguments themselves, not the people themselves. In any case, so it seems to me that in the end
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] this sentence comes to say that at the base of Greek visual logic stands inference from the general to the particular, and at the base of Hebrew logic stands inference from the particular to the particular, or from the particular to the general—but inference that begins with the particular and does not begin with the general. Therefore, at its head is not the general image but the particular image. The judgments, the inferences, and after them—you see? Judgment and inference at the head of the principles. The inferential judgments. What does “inferential judgments” mean? That there is judgment. Judgment and inference is a fortiori reasoning. The judgments and the inferences are also a fortiori reasoning and every constructed general principle, all the first four. Therefore I say: “and after them the principles of the general and particular name.” I think I’m reading this sentence correctly. After them, the principles of the general and particular name—that is, the general and particular, and so on. Okay? Is judgment only a fortiori reasoning? The judgments and inferences are a fortiori reasoning, constructing a general principle, one verse, and so on—the analogies in the order of the principles. That set.
[Speaker C] But do we see here a difference that appears in a fortiori reasoning and in all the constructed general principles and all those things, in the concept of judgments and inferences?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no. Judgment and inference—a fortiori reasoning is simply the father of them all, but they are all basically judgments and inferences. Also, “the principles of the general and particular name were elevated to the principles of judgment. You infer something of the kind of the particular.”
[Speaker B] What does “were elevated” mean? That at their foundation too there is analogy?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, that’s a sentence I really don’t understand.
[Speaker B] What does “were elevated” mean?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Unlike the previous sentence, which I’m also not sure I understood correctly, this one too I don’t understand. I’m not sure I understand it correctly. But I think what he means to say here—and this is in light of what comes later—is that it’s true that the inferences in the principles of the name are inferences based on the relation between entities, not on what I say about the entities. But at bottom, some kind of judgment also sits there. What do you infer about this particular, not what is the particular? You use the question of what the particular is, and its relation to another particular, in order to compare—but the goal is to derive the conclusion of what I infer about the particular, not what the particular itself is. It may be that hidden in this is a conception that judgments, in the sense that we use here in the yeshiva, say, in the concept of judgments, represent some reality that actually exists. When you discern a similarity between two entities, it’s not accidental that the two judgments about them are also equal. The judgment is connected to a reality that exists within. The judgment is derived from the reality in the thing; it is not imposed on the thing. In terms that Kant might have used, the judgment is autonomous and not heteronomous. Kant discusses this regarding morality: is morality—religious morality at least—something imposed on a person from outside, or something a person chooses to do? Right? Something rooted in human nature, internal to the person, not imposed on him externally. And he thinks yes—he thinks morality is autonomous and religious morality is heteronomous, and in that sense he opposes it somewhat, the morality of conventional religion.
[Speaker B] Right, because there were those who tried to reinterpret religion in such terms.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, and Rabbi Kook interprets religion not in that way, yes?
[Speaker C] But rather as something deriving from the person’s reality, right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Meaning, Kant’s whole inquiry is based on a mistake according to Rabbi Kook. I don’t know whether he speaks about Kant, but he knew Kant, that means… but I don’t know whether in this context, no, I don’t know whether in this context, I don’t know. In the end he knew Rabbi Kook. It’s clear that according to Rabbi Kook, Kant’s inquiry is not based on a mistaken conceptual system. There is no difference between heteronomous and autonomous—that’s the claim. Because something imposed on you from outside merely reveals something that is inside you; it’s not that you submit and nullify yourself and do it. Rather, it’s clear that it only exposes what was already within you. And in that sense, maybe that is what he means here: that the judgments, or what I say about the entities, are derived from what is inside them. Which includes—if we continue through gritted teeth—the unity of the name, the judgment, and the inference, which is the purpose of the new logic, the supreme logical unity. Wow. In order to understand this sentence, you have to read the next section, if I understand it correctly. And again, here it’s all sort of—I hope I understand it correctly—but broadly speaking, I’m not going to do it now. Broadly speaking, I’m just giving it so the context here will be clear. Afterward we’ll come back to it again. It’s that in the end, basically, a new logic? A logic of… the sound of money. Who is that?
[Speaker B] Who is it? The Nazir, the Nazir.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’ll talk about that a bit in the next lesson, an interesting figure in his own right, so we’ll get to know him a bit too. But in any case, we won’t get to it today. But the point he wants to reach is this: that statements about things are not… the way to form a generalization—even when we generalize, we don’t do it like the Greeks. Because there are two ways to generalize. Meaning, I can grasp—start from the particular, dig into the entrails of the particular, understand what is inside it, dig similarly into other particulars and find that the same thing is also inside them, and thus create the general. To understand that the same component that exists in this particular exists also in that particular and in that particular, and thus I basically create the general, which is that component itself. The other option is to start from the general in an external way. Meaning, to see: look, this and this and this and this are all called democratic states. So as far as I’m concerned there is a category of democratic states, and this and this and this… And in some sense not even to do that—the Greeks usually don’t even do that. The Greeks are Platonists; rather, they start from the concept of a democratic state. They don’t create it from investigating a certain particular state, but they create it and in effect arrive at the fact that it is conventional, and so on. And from it, as we said before, they begin from the general and from there descend to the particular. And therefore for them deduction is at the top of the pyramid. But אצלנו everything begins from the particular, and the analogies raise us upward and further upward and further upward, until in section 26 we begin speaking about lowering the higher to the lower, or lowering the likeness of the higher—I don’t know how to read
[Speaker B] it, it has the mark below.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] that we begin from the world that is at our level and understand what happens in higher worlds through some kind of analogy—which is really the goal of this whole passage. If you remember, this whole business began with positive attributes versus negative attributes. That’s how this essay started here. Right? And basically his goal was to explain why the philosophers are not right. Why the kabbalists are right when they say there are positive attributes. So we said: because they speak about Atzilut and not about Beri’ah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah—not about Creation, Formation, and Action. And then what? The philosophers are right, after all—Atzilut is Atzilut—but I have no access to it, so how can I know anything about it? I can’t know anything about it. The Nazir says: you can’t know anything about it because, in your mind, at the head of your logic sits the general. But in my logic, at the head sits the particular. And then, if I take something I know from the worlds of Creation, Formation, and Action, I can lower the higher to the lower and find a likeness between them, and infer from what I see below to what exists above. But for that you need a developed analogical power, you need the power to make analogies. Something that among the Greeks is not so developed, and maybe they don’t even… For that purpose all thirteen principles were created—to give me analogical ability. This analogical ability enables me to function in the study of Jewish law, but its real goal is actually to try to grasp spiritual reality. And if you are equipped with proper analogical power, then you can also draw positive conclusions about divinity from what you see in your world, and understand that when you say “the Holy One, blessed be He, knows,” that has some connection to the concept of knowing that I say about my friend or about myself. These are not things that are merely equivocal terms; rather, I really do trust the analogy I am making—the analogy between the word “knows” in my sense and “knows” in the sense of the Holy One, blessed be He. I both trust the analogy and know how to use the analogy. And of course it’s reciprocal—if I use it
[Speaker C] well, then I’m also entitled to trust it. But you can run into all kinds of problems, that sometimes it seems to you that you
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] have to limit the Holy One, blessed be He? If you say “knows,” then you’ll be limiting the Holy One, blessed be He. Right. Right. So all the philosophers are correct in that sense—that maybe it’s not exhaustive. But I still do have some conception of the Holy One, blessed be He. I must not recoil completely from the possibility of grasping something about the Holy One, blessed be He, positively, not negatively.
[Speaker C] And if it runs into tangles?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If it runs into tangles, then you didn’t grasp it correctly.
[Speaker C] So if, for example, in the concept of knowing we run into free choice and foreknowledge, then—then you didn’t grasp it correctly, so the Holy One, blessed be He, does not
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] know. Otherwise you’re not grasping it. Meaning, otherwise “knows” is really
[Speaker C] only in the negative sense.
[Speaker B] Last time we talked in the previous lesson about knowledge and choice. Yes, yes. The Rabbi claims that it may actually be that—no, because to grasp the two propositions separately, you can’t, because that is to say you can’t.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Assuming—I’m not sure—but assuming that the contradiction between them is a contradiction on the logical level, and that is a separate human question, then you need to give up one of the two. Either free choice or knowledge, and clearly in that case you have to give up knowledge and not free choice. Because free choice
[Speaker C] concerns us.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And besides, nowhere does it explicitly say that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows. Free choice is a first intelligible. Meaning, if you are commanded, then clearly you choose. If you do not choose, then why are you commanded? And the idea that the Holy One, blessed be He, knows—that is some philosophical argument that you may accept, may not accept, and may debate. And indeed people have debated it, as we mentioned a bit. Good.