Q&A: Ontic and Epistemic Doubt
Ontic and Epistemic Doubt
Question
Regarding epistemic doubt and ontic doubt:
Maimonides, in Mishneh Torah, Laws of Shofar, Sukkah, and Lulav 2:5:
"And likewise, one who is half-slave and half-free cannot discharge even his own obligation, for the slave side within him cannot discharge the free side within him. So how does he fulfill his obligation? He must hear it from a free person who blows for him."
It seems to me (I already asked about this once) that in the case of someone who is half-slave and half-free, there is an aspect of both slave and free person here, meaning an 'ontic doubt.' What does the Rabbi say?
Or can one say that the opposite is more plausible, and simply because we have a doubt regarding the reality of this half-and-half person—whether he is a slave or whether he is free…
So on the possibility that he is a slave, he cannot discharge his own obligation… but here we reach something absurd, because if he is a slave then the question never even began. (He simply is not free.) And in any case, let him blow because of the doubt…
Either way . . if he is free? then he will have fulfilled his obligation! And if he is a slave? then in any event he will not have fulfilled it. (Even if a free person blows for him, since he is not obligated.)
And therefore it seems to me that this is some strange quantum creature, where there is ontic doubt, and even 'before Heaven it is not revealed'…
Answer
I see no reason at all to assume that. Simply speaking, this is a composite of a person made up of half-slave and half-free. It is neither a doubt nor ontic ambiguity.
And from that you can understand that there is nothing absurd here at all. After all, this is not a situation of doubt. The slave half within him certainly cannot discharge the free half within him. Therefore it does not help for him to blow out of doubt.