Q&A: The Aristotelian-Logic Equivalent of the Kabbalistic Terms Coupling and Gestation
The Aristotelian-Logic Equivalent of the Kabbalistic Terms Coupling and Gestation
Question
Hello, Rabbi! How are you? In your books, as I recall, you dealt with the relationship between wisdom and understanding (Human Like the Grass and others). This time I wanted to clarify the meaning of gestation and birth in Kabbalah, according to the interpretation of the Ramchal (I’ll quote the passage after the question). It seems to me that he is trying to relate the ways wisdom connects to understanding (on the cognitive plane) to the relation between the first premise and the second premise in an Aristotelian deductive argument (I hope I’m right; that’s how it looks to me). My question is twofold: A. In a deductive argument, is there anything that requires the first premise (or even one of them) to be general and the second particular? (Matter and form in the Ramchal’s language, or wisdom—the general—as against understanding—the particular.) That is, I can understand, say, that the claim “All Greeks are mortal” is general, and “Socrates is a Greek” is particular (though this is not a particular that sharpens the general rule, only narrows it). Does the argument work only in this way? I’m asking as a simple question in logic, in order to understand whether it really is necessary that wisdom (the general—“All Greeks are mortal”) come first and “couple” with understanding (the particular—“Socrates is mortal”) in order for the argument to be valid. What happens if we put the particular before the general? And what if there are two general rules—does the argument lose any of its force? I’m simply trying to understand what the Ramchal means. Second question: what is the meaning of matter and form in these words of the Ramchal? (Rabbi Spinner wrote in The New Da’at Tevunot, p. 398: “It should be noted that the terms matter and form are used here in a different sense from most of the early authorities, who spoke of and explained them by analogy to body and soul, physical and spiritual; whereas here the Ramchal explains them as general and particular. I do not recall elsewhere in the Ramchal’s writings that he speaks again about this issue of matter and form.” End quote.)
Here is the passage in question (the beginning of the passage, in parentheses, is not necessary except for understanding the context and the way the Ramchal leads the reader into a cognitive understanding of the sefirot, not a physical one. Each of the terms intellects, gestation, etc., receives a logical explanation:
(First Principles, principle 22) The matter of coupling, gestation, and birth mentioned regarding the sefirot is as follows: these kinds of illuminations that the Master, blessed be He, renewed in order to shine upon His creatures have an order and a law, and are arranged in an orderly system, so that they are all matters that require one another, relate to one another, and combine with one another in many ways. These are all the matters discussed in the tree of configurations. For the enclothing by which the higher configurations are clothed within the lower ones means that their content is hidden within the content of those lower ones. And here we should distinguish the benefit that comes to the one being clothed, namely that it becomes hidden, and to the ones doing the clothing, namely that they are affected by that enclothing according to what it is:
And the matter of the intellects—that the netzach, hod, and yesod of the higher become intellects in the lower—is that in order to complete the condition of that lower one, part of the higher above it must enter into it. The inner intellects will be in the category of a more immediate cause, and the surrounding aspects of the image in the category of a more distant cause🙂
Here is the passage! (with Rabbi Spinner’s explanation):
And in our matter, coupling, gestation, and birth exist because all these matters are drawn one from another, in a chain of cause and effect, and therefore all these notions can apply to them. For when one light emerges (=birth), which is one quality, from the power of the two lights that precede it, which are the premises preceding that quality, then it must be that first an operation is performed upon the joining of the two premises (=gestation), so that both act together (=coupling) to bring forth their offspring. And when we descend to the particulars of the matter, we see that among these matters and illuminations that we mentioned, which emerge gradually by way of cause and effect, we can distinguish a material cause and a formal cause, or we may say a general cause and a particular cause. That is, for every quality or light, two lights precede it that give birth to it: one gives its generality and its matter (=coupling), the second gives its particulars in its form, and the matter proceeds (=gestation) from the general cause to the particular one. Afterward the offspring (=birth) emerges from the connection formed between them. This is the coupling, namely the joining of the two causes we mentioned. And the emergence of the matter from the general to the particular, while it is still within the particular cause, before it has come out into actuality (??? what is the logical equivalent of this?)—is called gestation, and its coming out into actuality is birth. Etc. etc.
((P.S. This is what he wrote in the parallel passage in Da’at Tevunot:
140) The Intellect said: The great Rabbi Maimonides, of blessed saintly memory, took note of the term “begot” found in Scripture, transferred to things for which birth is not distinctive. And he said, of blessed memory (Guide of the Perplexed, Part I, Chapter 7), “Begot—this word is borrowed for the coming-into-being of natural things—‘Before the mountains were begotten’ (Psalms 90:2), and it is also borrowed for the origination of thoughts, and what opinions and agreements they necessitate, as in ‘and gave birth to falsehood’ (Psalms 7:15), and from this is ‘and with the children of foreigners they are pleased’ (Isaiah 2:6).” End quote. This term was transferred to thought, as were all that resemble it; that is, just as the term birth is borrowed for a thing newly brought into being, so for something standing in potential to come into actuality we borrow the term pregnancy, as the verse itself says (Psalms 7:15), “He conceived toil and gave birth to falsehood”; for once one action has been transferred, all its other details are transferred as well. Now we know that every conclusion of counsel derived by sound reasoning has its begetters, namely the first premises. Thus the offspring exists in its begetters in potential before it is born from them, and when it is born it goes out from potential into actuality:
Moreover, since whenever something is completed, its perfection is something additional to its existence, for it could exist without that perfection, therefore two things reach the cause of that thing: namely its existence and its completion. For the cause that brings something into being is also the cause that completes it and sustains its existence, since the completion of the effect is nothing but the complete birthgiving of the cause—when it gives birth to all that it is in its nature to give birth to, that offspring will be found complete in all its perfection. And all this is simple for one who has traveled the paths of wisdom… And all these things are simple to those who know the ways of demonstrative wisdoms.))
Answer
It seems that this is indeed what he means.
But there is no necessity for that at all. For example, if every frog is a right triangle, and every triangle is a cloud, then every frog is a cloud. There has to be an inclusion relation, not necessarily a particular proposition. There are also entailments that are not based on inclusion. If every cloud sails quickly, and everything that sails quickly is beautiful, then a cloud is beautiful.
Discussion on Answer
The most common picture of a syllogism is from the general to the particular (all X are Y, and also a is X, conclusion: a is Y). Therefore people are used to relating to deduction as an inference from the general to the particular. That is still the accepted way today.
From my experience, logical analyses of everyday arguments yield almost nothing. You just get tangled up in formalization. Only when there’s something tricky can formalization help.
Thank you! And why is deduction from the general to the particular more common? Because it’s easier to understand, more intuitive? (And also, the Ramchal speaks about “particular” not in the sense of a member of a set, but in the sense of a specification of the general so that it becomes more than the sum of its parts.)
Likewise, what is the meaning of gestation? Is there a stage in which some process of breaking down the first premise takes place in its crossing with the second premise—such that only afterward does he derive the conclusion (birth), or does it happen immediately? From the Ramchal quoted above in First Principles it seems that there is indeed some process before this happens (a process in the logical sense). I would note that the coupling of the first premise with the second is, as I understand it, in the reality of the common denominator that attaches them—and that is the term shared by both of them (y). From the Ramchal’s perspective, this very attachment is what Kabbalah calls “coupling.” See his wording: “For when one light emerges, which is one quality, from the power of the two lights that precede it, which are the premises preceding that quality, then it must be that first an operation is performed upon the *joining* (wordplay: coupling) of the two premises, so that both act together to bring forth their offspring. And when we descend to the particulars of the matter, we see that among these matters and illuminations that we mentioned, which emerge gradually by way of cause and effect, we can distinguish a material cause and a formal cause, or we may say a general cause and a particular cause. That is, for every quality or light, two lights precede it that give birth to it: one gives its generality and its matter, the second its particulars in its form (coupling), and the matter proceeds from the general cause to the particular one (gestation). Afterward the offspring emerges from the connection formed between them (birth). This is the coupling, namely the joining of the two causes we mentioned. And the emergence of the matter from the general to the particular, while it is still within the particular cause, before it has come out into actuality, is called gestation; and its coming out into actuality—birth….
In any case, it seems that the Ramchal wanted us to look at all of reality through a logical lens, not at everyday claims, in order to understand the three kabbalistic causes that stand behind every phenomenon, and thereby create unity within the system (this requires length, so I won’t elaborate now). This idea is expressed, for example, in his esoteric works The Secret of the Lord Is for Those Who Fear Him. Here is such a passage, for example, at the end of his discussion in Da’at Tevunot about syllogisms and causal relations:
(…Moreover, since whenever something is completed, its perfection is something additional to its existence, for it could exist without that perfection. Therefore two things reach the cause of that thing, namely its existence and its completion. For the cause that brings something into being is also the cause that completes it and sustains its existence, since the completion of the effect is nothing but the complete birthgiving of the cause—when it gives birth to all that it is in its nature to give birth to, that offspring will be found complete in all its perfection. And all this is simple for one who has traveled the paths of wisdom):
Now you have already heard above that all the matters of existing things are interconnected, so that they all extend one after another and are born from one another. And all of them together are one bond and one total existence, which is completed only through all these particulars, and on this depend the beauty and perfection of the world, as we explained above. This gives us a very broad arena for contemplation and for deepening in the wisdom of the Creator, may His name be blessed, in His creation. For every matter found in His governance—we know that within the governance itself there is a prior matter that necessitates it, and this is called its cause and begetter. And that cause is what gives birth, and it is what completes the matter that is necessitated and born from it. This is the general principle of the configurations that we mentioned above, which roll through the world from the heavens of heaven to the depths of the earth, as all the higher and lower beings, the lofty and the lowly, are interconnected with one another, and born from and necessitated by one another… And even in this its existence is examined in a state of incompleteness and in completeness. And all these things are simple to those who know the ways of demonstrative wisdoms:
I think it is because deduction from the general to the particular illustrates very well the necessity of the logical argument. If the claim is true of the general class, it is certainly true of a particular included in it.
The Ramchal’s words are an ideological declaration. When I see examples of logical analysis that are actually useful for something in reality, I’ll be able to address it specifically. I doubt there are any. Many people who study logic (including your faithful servant) get very enthusiastic at first and think it is the whole picture and that everything can be built on it. Maybe the Ramchal also wrote out of that enthusiasm.
Thank you very much! It’s hard for me to understand why he mistakenly thought otherwise—maybe because it was the fashion to begin with the general and move to the particular? Or perhaps there was some built-in mistake in logic that people only gradually realized and corrected. I don’t know, but that already interests me less. (By the way, the Ramchal wrote a book on logic and dealt with it extensively. It is also very prominent in the 138 Openings, where many of the long twists there are based on attempts to establish logical arguments. At one time I was tempted to examine the Ramchal’s Kabbalah on the basis of his logic in his Book of Logic. Those days have already passed—and in my humble opinion no one has yet done this, and in that sense their understanding of the Ramchal is fairly superficial, at least in light of his explicit desire to ground everything in the doctrine of logic. See, for example, the wonderful sentence that could be a motto for your site: “Da’at Tevunot, 136–154: ‘And all these things are simple to those who know the ways of demonstrative wisdoms…’ The soul said: ‘I have no doubt that it is impossible to grasp even the tiny bit that a person can grasp of the wisdom of His deeds, may He be blessed, except through the paths of study and wisdom. And whoever wishes to enter these investigations without the necessary preparations and studies is guilty only of recklessness, and cannot succeed.’”)
I would note in passing that Rabbi Skatton from Diaspora Yeshiva, who edited the Ramchal’s Book of Logic as well as The Book of Eloquence and The Way of Wisdom (logic in the Talmud), has for years been teaching Talmud on the basis of the Ramchal’s analytic approach to how one should approach a Talmudic passage. I haven’t heard the style with my own ears and can’t testify exactly where, but the attempt is interesting.