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Two Models of Jewish Philosophy Submitted for the Degree of Phd in Philosophy at the London School

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Two Models of Jewish Philosophy Submitted for the Degree of Phd in Philosophy at the London School Justifying One’s Practices: Two Models of Jewish Philosophy Submitted for the degree of PhD in Philosophy At the London School of Economics and Political Science Daniel Rynhold 2000 1 UMI Number: U120701 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U120701 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 773 ) Thesis Abstract Judaism is a religion that emphasises the importance of a set of practical commandments and in the history of Jewish philosophy various attempts have been made to rationalise or justify these commandments. In this thesis I try to establish a general model for the justification of practices through a critical examination of two such attempted rationalisations. However, the study is framed within the more general question of whether or not there can be such a thing as Jewish Philosophy as a genuinely substantive discipline. Thus, I take the particular topic of rationalising the commandments as a ‘case study’ in order to see whether we can do substantive Jewish philosophy at least in the practical sphere. In the main body of the thesis I look at the methods of rationalisation of Moses Maimonides and Joseph Soloveitchik and argue that despite being based on very different scientific models they share a central methodological presumption that I term the Priority of Theory (PoT). I outline the main features of this PoT approach to justification and offer a critique of it based primarily on the argument from uncodifiability. I then offer an alternative method of justifying practices - the Priority of Practice approach (PoP) - based on an analysis of the Judaic concept of faith and certain remarks by Soloveitchik that are in tension with his main model of rationalisation discussed earlier. This PoP method stresses the limits of propositional approaches to the justification of practices and the need for a more pragmatic approach. In conclusion I consider again the framing question concerning Jewish philosophy, concluding that if we accept the meta-philosophical conclusions reached regarding practical justifications, the sense in which we can do practical Jewish philosophy is restricted more by the limits of philosophy in the practical sphere than by those of Judaism. 2 Table of Contents Pages Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Primary Sources 4 Chapter one Introduction: Jewish Philosophy or Philosophy 5-26 Of Judaism? Chapter two Rationalising the Commandments I: The 27-62 Maimonidean Method Chapter three Rationalising the Commandments II: The 63-100 Soloveitchikian Method Chapter four The Priority of Theory 101-131 Chapter five Problems with Principles 132-161 Chapter six The Priority of Practice 162-201 Chapter seven Conclusion: Autonomous Jewish Philosophy 202-207 Bibliography 208-216 3 Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Primary Sources I. Aristotle NE: Nichomachean Ethics, trans. (as Ethics) by J.A.K. Thomson, revised with notes and appendices by Hugh Tredennick (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976). Parenthetic references are to this translation, by book, chapter and page; e.g., (NE, I: 3, 65) refers to Part I, chap. 3, p. 65. II. Moses Maimonides GP: The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines, 2 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963). Parenthetic references are to this translation, by part, chapter and page; e.g., (GP, I: 2, 23) refers to Part I, chap. 2, p. 23. HI. Joseph B. Soloveitchik HM: The Halakhic Mind: An Essay on Jewish Tradition and Modem Thought (New York: Free Press, 1986). HMN: Halakhic Man, trans. Lawrence Kaplan (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1983). 4 Chapter one Introduction: Jewish Philosophy or Philosophy of Judaism? This thesis is intended, in part, to be a contribution to the field of Jewish philosophy. However, the very notion of Jewish philosophy is seen as problematic by a number of writers. Philosophy is often believed to be an enterprise that searches for objective, universal truths that are available in principle to all rational enquirers insofar as they are rational. In contrast, Judaism is a particular religion shaped by a particular normative system as set out in a Torah that was intended for a specific nation. And within this contrast lies an immediate problem for the very concept of Jewish philosophy, a problem that has been given a concise philosophical formulation by Ze’ev Levy (amongst others) who writes: How can a certain concept be truly philosophical and simultaneously Jewish in its essence? . When one posits certain ‘values’ which are found in Jewish sources, then one of two conclusions must be valid: if the value has philosophical meaning, its Jewish origin is merely of historical interest: if it contains meaning that is uniquely Jewish, it ceases to be philosophical as the term is generally defined.1 This dilemma, which we shall subsequently refer to as Levy’s dilemma, asserts that the very particularity that would mark out a value as Jewish, at the same time singles it out as unphilosophical. The philosophical nature of the enterprise implies a search for universality whilst its essentially Jewish subject matter seems to be irredeemably particular and thus contrary to this universal nature of philosophy. The assumption therefore is that for a value to have philosophical meaning it has to have universal import and as such any Jewish content must either vitiate or be incidental to the philosophical nature of the enterprise. Of course one could argue that there has to be such a thing as Jewish philosophy for it is the subject of those works written by Jewish philosophers throughout history. However, even with regard to the person who for many is the paradigmatic Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, this has been disputed. Thus, Leo Strauss, one of the great Maimonidean scholars, has written concerning Maimonides’ philosophical magnum opus, The Guide of the Perplexed, that it is not a philosophic book - a book written by a philosopher for philosophers - but a Jewish book: a book written by a Jew for Jews.Its first premise is the old Jewish premise that being a Jew and being a philosopher are two incompatible things. A Jew may 5 make use of philosophy and Maimonides makes the most ample use of it; but as a Jew he gives his assent where as a philosopher he would suspend his assent.2 (Emphasis added). It is this predicament that has led a number of thinkers to the conclusion that there can be no such thing as Jewish philosophy in the same way as there can be no Jewish science or Jewish mathematics. Indeed, those Jews who have contributed to science or mathematics have done so to the disciplines as a whole for these subjects cannot contain laws, principles or concepts that are only applicable to certain ethnic groups and, it is claimed, the same is true of Jewish philosophy. The question therefore, is whether or not this is a genuine dilemma or, put another way, whether there can be such a thing as Jewish philosophy as a genuinely distinct discipline (rather than there being Jewish philosophy in the sense that there are subjects like Greek or German philosophy which are not distinct from philosophy as a whole but are merely general philosophy done by Greeks or Germans respectively).3 As noted above though, Levy’s dilemma presupposes a certain conception of rational enquiry - the universalistic conception. This view which has often been identified as the Enlightenment view is summed up by one of its most prominent critics Alasdair MacIntyre as follows: Rational justification was to appeal to principles undeniable by any rational person and therefore independent of all those social and cultural particularities which the Enlightenment thinkers took to be the mere accidental clothing of reason in particular times and places.4 The assumption is that there is some pure abstract rationality common to everyone in so far as they are rational and that anybody has to use if they are to be counted as rational enquirers at all. This universal form of rationality is independent of any cultural or intellectual allegiances and though the truths that it yields may find different expressions in different cultural circumstances, they are, as Robert P. George writes (with respect to moral universalism in particular), ‘nevertheless captured in sound practical judgements that may be formed by any thinking person.’5 It is this view of rationality that motivates our dilemma and it is certainly an attractive one, with echoes of an idea that traces right back to the ancient Aristotelian contention that rationality is the essence of man. To reiterate with regards to the dilemma, if a value contains meaning that is uniquely Jewish it ceases to be philosophical. Levy is therefore assuming that in order for a concept to be philosophical it has to be universal in the sense stated above, i.e. it must be available to all rational enquirers irrespective 6 of their religious, or indeed any other, allegiances, which implies that it must be justified according to the universal principles of rationality that all these rational enquirers supposedly accept. Thus any particular truths of Judaism that cannot be justified in this way are immediately discredited philosophically and are said to be opposed to reason. The general philosophical world view, by utilising the pure abstract rationality that the universalists see as exclusively constitutive of what it is to be rational, is identified as the rational world view.
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