Q&A: What Is a Halut
What Is a Halut
Question
Amiel asked:
I read the Rabbi's article, “What Is a Halut,” and I’d like to try to understand better what exactly the Rabbi means. The Rabbi devoted a large part of his article to explaining that understanding a halut as a concept that exists independently of its consequences can explain the existence of contradictory haluyot. The Rabbi brought as an example that salt and sugar, even though their effects are contradictory (salty and sweet), can exist in the same dish. Seemingly, one could distinguish between the cases (this is my way of formulating the question, but it is difficult even without the example). In the case of sugar and salt, the distinction between the entities and their effects led us to understand the entities in such a way that they do not contradict one another, because the effects of both are positive effects: salt causes a salty taste and sugar a sweet taste. And positive effects contradict one another only when they clash, not in their very being—the things that cause them can exist simultaneously side by side (as happens in the same dish that contains both), and they simply fight it out to the bitter end… However, the effects of being married and being divorced do contradict each other on the logical level, and the reason the distinction between the effects of the halut and the halut itself helped us understand why the haluyot can both exist is by abstracting the haluyot into things that we have no tools to analyze, and as such we have no knowledge that they contradict each other. But this approach assumes that haluyot cannot be understood through their effects, and that from the effects one cannot infer anything about the halut itself. Because if we do infer from the effects of the halut of divorce to the halut itself, then to the best of my understanding the haluyot themselves can also contradict each other (the Rabbi has no proof that conceptual entities cannot themselves constitute a contradiction). If we cannot infer from the effects to the halut, then he has no tools with which to discuss them, and from our perspective they become meaningless—there is no way for us to determine when they exist and when they do not, nor even what their effects are. The same question also exists regarding the halut of ownership without all the effects known to us as consequences of ownership—this is basically a claim that we are able to analyze the concept of ownership in itself. If so, for example, how do we know that in a sale it ceases and passes to someone else? I apologize if the question is a bit confused; I’m confused too… I would be very glad for some further clarification of these points.
Answer
I did not understand the question. A contradiction exists only between properties, not between entities. That requires no proof, only a bit of reflection.
Salt and sugar are two entities with contradictory properties, so I did not understand what distinction you wanted to draw between them and a divorced woman and a married woman. It is exactly the same thing.
Discussion on Answer
Correction — (line 4) and this would be according to the laws of conceptual entities (which in our case cannot both apply to the same woman simultaneously)
It is not possible that two concepts cannot exist together. This is logic, not physics. I do not understand what you see in a divorced woman and a married woman that is different from sugar and salt.
I saw a translation for “halut”:
“validity.”
That is not correct; it too is an existing concept—an entity [if so, then it would be possible for something to be true and not true at the same time, and if not, then what is the difference between “divorced” and “it is not true that she is married” (there may be other things in the concept “divorced” besides “it is not true that she is married,” but it includes that as well)]
I’ve lost you.
The term “divorced,” if we analyze it based on its phenomena, is a term that contains within it a negation of the term “married.” In other words: the term “divorced” contains within it “it is not true that she is married.” Does the Rabbi disagree with that?
Absolutely. The term “divorced” is independent of the term “married.” They have opposing characteristics. That is precisely my claim: the characteristics do not determine the term. Just as salt is not the opposite of sugar. Leibniz thought that a concept is the collection of its characteristics, and I explained in several places why he is mistaken.
I repeat this again and again. You are entitled not to agree, but I do not see any argument that I can respond to. So unless such an argument is raised, I am ending our discussion here.
Clearly, between entities on the fundamental level there cannot be contradictions, but the question is whether it is possible that the entities themselves contradict one another in the sense that they cannot both exist in the same place [just as a physical object cannot be in the same space at the same time as another object, because the laws governing physical objects (the laws of nature) do not allow it, so too it may be that two conceptual entities cannot exist in the same place—and this would be according to the laws of physical entities. With the example of sugar and salt, I meant to show that in sugar and salt the contradiction exists only in their effects, and therefore in their very being there is no contradiction and they can both be in the same dish. But in a divorced woman and a married woman, the effects point to properties of the entity itself, and if we accept the analysis based on the effects as correct, then it would seem reasonable that the laws of their concepts would not allow them to be in the same place. The ways to answer would be either to deny the inference from the effects on the particular level (I’d be glad if the Rabbi would explain how), or to deny the whole method of inferring from effects to concepts—but then it would no longer be possible to discuss them at all.