Maybe his main claim there is something like this (the rest of the claims I think I rejected pretty easily):
1. Premise A — there are commandments connected to faith / correct understanding.
2. Premise B — like every commandment, these commandments have definitions and details.
3. Conclusion — we need to decide the parameters of these commandments using halakhic tools, like with the other commandments.

What do you disagree with?

1. You don’t accept at all that there are commandments in the Torah connected to correct outlook? After all, in principle it’s clear that you accept that if the Holy One, blessed be He, were to reveal Himself to us, then we would accept what He says even if we thought otherwise. Likewise, it is hard to say there is no ideological guidance at all in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
2. Sounds reasonable.
3. Maybe this is where the mistake is? That even if there are such commandments, and even if their parameters need to be interpreted, it is still left to each and every person, because in any case “the will has no entry into belief”?

More power to you, Yair. I actually enjoyed reading the article, especially the part about the attitude toward the aggadic literature of the Sages.

The question of whether or not there are such commandments is irrelevant. Even if there are no such commandments, there is certainly still value in clarifying your own intellectual positions. My claim is that in this matter there is no place for halakhic ruling or authority. Therefore, as you wrote in 3, even if there are such commandments, each person is supposed to interpret them according to his own understanding (and of course one may also adopt someone else’s position if it seems convincing to him, but that has nothing to do with processes of halakhic ruling as in Jewish law).

With all due respect, Rabbi,
Isn’t it presumptuous to stand like a fortified wall against a whole battery of medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim), who think the opposite of you?
Doesn’t something there give you pause? Maybe there is some mistake in the line of thought, since almost the entire edifice is against you…?

Maybe there is a difference between the truth and practical Jewish law. Maimonides writes several times that one should not decide Jewish law in matters that are not practical, and yet he still did decide them, in the Laws of Repentance for example, where he hints there to the Thirteen Principles that define heresy for that topic and their halakhic implications. Practically speaking, one does have to decide. Whether the decision is correct? Who knows.

Rabbi Michi, I agree with you, and also with Rabbi Yaakov Emden, who formulated it nicely (Birat Migdal Oz, “The Believing Institution”):
“And once reason has decreed so, there is no need for a commandment; for what use is a commandment to know and believe something if reason objects and refuses to accept it?” See there further.

Nice. I didn’t know that. He was a fascinating Jew.

The truth is that Maimonides probably meant by the word “to know” not “to accept” (even though in the Book of Commandments he wrote “to believe,” but that is a kind of translation mistake by the Ibn Tibbon family, and the correct translation was “to know,” as Rabbi Kapach writes), but rather to investigate what was transmitted to us through tradition. That is, to know through clear proofs, in his language (“that we should know, and that it should be established for us by clear proofs, that…”), that what was transmitted to us is true. Since knowledge as such is like sight, and it does not make sense to command it, the intention is probably a command regarding the actions that lead to knowledge — namely inquiry, searching, and examination. The system, מתוך confidence in the correctness of its axioms, commands you to arrive at a clear perception of their truth.

According to Maimonides, this was probably the infrastructure for the project of the Guide for the Perplexed, and that also explains the elaboration of the contents of this knowledge (the existence of God and His unity) in the first chapter of Foundations of the Torah. These are specifications of the ways of fulfilling this commandment according to his view. Just as he does with the other commandments, where he writes, “It is a positive commandment to do such-and-such,” and then details the other ways of fulfilling the commandment. In our time, the way to fulfill this commandment is by studying Jewish thought and the teachings of Kabbalah (along with independent thought — meaning, to study them in order to attain truth, not in order to know who says what. Without that, it is not called learning at all, regardless). In essence, the commandment is to study the sciences of divinity.