Uncovering of the Will. Here I want to present the idea that there is not a window to to the Ding an Sich (the thing in itself, the Will) but from the Ding an Sich.

I should start with an apology or an excuse why I am not going with G.E. Moore, Michael Huemer, and Prichard.[The Intuitionist.] The reason is that Hume's critique of a priori involved more that just limiting pure reason to find things that can be derived from definitions. The idea was also that there is nothing to check a priori knowledge against.-No way of checking your homework. No measuring stick.

This essay is probably the only real new idea I have ever come up with in philosophy.
But to present it properly I would in fact have to do more background work in Schopenhauer and show why he rejected Kant's dinge an sich (things in themselves) for his ding an sich (the thing in itself)--the Will. Also I would have to present an argument to show it can be revealed-and  that is all too much for a single essay.



Kant and Ross
.
Here is Ross's treatment of Kant's Ethics.




My own feeling about all this really starts from Schopenhauer. That is the dinge an sich (the Thing in Itself) is the Will (that is the First Cause). Then the world is a representation of this Will. That is Schopenhauer in a nut shell. What I think to add to this is that the Dinge an Sich needs to be uncovered.  But I also see graduations of Being [note 1.]. And the good self is a representation of the Dinge an Sich. [Not the bad self which is a representation of the opposite.] And that good self needs to be uncovered. [note 2]





[note 1.] I am building here on Aristotle and also on an idea I had a few years ago that goes like this. modes are things that apply to substances.  That is the substance is the unchanging layer underneath that does not change. Water can be hot or cold. But water itself can go out of existence. I can boil it. What is water a mode of? What underlying substance is it a mode of?

[note 2] I am not going exactly with Kant here. I agree the Ding an Sich (the thing in itself) is covered.  We can only tell that it exists but its characteristics are only phenomena.  But I think the ding can be uncovered.

This is  different than Heidegger. What I am saying is that though to Kant there is no window to the ding an sich ((the thing in itself)) still I hold the Will reveals itself. And that we can participate in its revelation by morality. That is the the representation or emanation of the will is half subject and half object.


Appendix

1)  איה מקום כבודו. "Where is the place of his glory?"  The graduations of being are from Aristotle.  [I relate very much to this idea of searching for God. Where is the place of his glory? מלא כל הארץ גבודו.

2) And this is a teleological approach to morality. But also deontological ethics -the rules are what brings to revelation of the Will. This I am basing on Maimonides {Rambam}. That is natural law was the first revelation to Abraham. Then came the later revelation of Mount Sinai that was not independent of natural law but built on it and also is in fact deontogical. We can see this in the Talmud itself. דורשין טעמה דקרא. We go by the reason for the law--not by the law according to Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai. The Sages disagree -and say we go by the law, not by its reason. But they agree there are reasons and that they are known. As we see in the end of chapter 9 in Bava Metzia,.
The Rambam goes into all this in the Guide and here I am giving just a quick sketch of my ideas based on the Rambam. Dr Ross also has an essay on his site which goes into the Rambam and gives some details I have left out here.

3) What I left out from the above essay is that both natural law and Mount Sinai Law needed and need revelation. They are both uncovering of the Will. To Maimonides neither is accessible to human reason.

 the whole creation is to reveal the glory of God based on the verse כל הנקרא בשמי ולכבודי בראתיו יצרתיו אף עשיתיו everything that is called by my name I have created for my glory and also formed it and made it. And it was all made by ten statements and so every part of creation reveals some different aspect of the ten statements. Now even though "the whole world is full of his glory" still there are places where his glory can't spread to--that is bad places. So how do they exist? By the hidden statement. That is the highest of all the statements. So when a person seeks God from there he returns to the highest level.

4) The self is to Kant also what we call the ding an sich. This is important for his transcendental deduction.  the self can be connected with the Will by speaking truth always the truth which is the light of God is contained inside of one.

5) The dinge an sich of Schopenhauer and Kant are not the same thing. What I meant to show up above is that they are related. The Dinge an sich is contained in the smaller dinge an sichs

I saw and experienced something unique and amazing at the Mir yeshiva in NY. That was a combination of character development along with fear of God. But this was not in words. I have heard people that can talk the talk about having good character but do not walk the walk. The Mir was different. It was like the basic combination of learning Torah along with Musar accomplished something that each one could not do on it own.

Where things go wrong in the religious world is when rituals become primary or group identity instead of character. It is when activism to make movements takes the place of character development.

So within the context of the Jewish world I can see clearly what can help- because I was a part of something very special. {That is the Mir Yeshiva}. And I can see all the cults that claim to have this special energy of Torah how much in delusion they are.  But outside this horizon, I can't see very far. That is, I can't really tell what could be a tikun [correction] for all mankind, because my vision simply does not extend that far out. I can only report on the things that I saw that were amazing and good and helpful for everyone that got involved in them, and I can warn people to stay away from everything else that I saw is evil and corrupts everyone that touches it. But outside the Jewish world I can't see very well. Mainly, I can tell  that Christians have some very good and important points, but I can see that some of the doctrines are a bit off. But of what is out there, I can definitely say they are better than anyone else. [It is common with me to have one view point but to see the merits in an opposing view. I have a Kantian world view but I can still see the good points of the intuitionists like G.E. Moore, and Prichard]

Appendix: Musar refers to two very short sessions at the Mir of learning books about character improvement and Fear of God. The idea is very similar to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts before the boy scouts fell into the trash. In fact before the downfall of the boy-scouts they even had a few points that were not contained in Musar like outdoor skills and teamwork ethics.

I should mention that neither the Mir nor Shar Yashuv my first yeshiva was into group identity as a form of worship. They were into Torah. But not oblivious to the great minds of history. There was a time I was frequent by Reb Freifeld  and played there my repertoire of Mozart, Bach, and other  music geniuses. I did this also in Reb Shmuel Berenbaum's home.  And Reb Freifeld made sure I continued my philosophy studies on my own and it was while I was there that I rounded out my education with a good deal of western literature,

Talking with God as one talks with a friend.



This is I think very important advice because without it one loses his center. It is not just that one can get caught up with secular activities.  Even learning Torah can put layers and layers of ideas between oneself and his own center--(the dinge an sich - the self in itself).

Dennis Prager has an idea about the difference between left and right.

How do you judge America




My basic idea of how to improve the USA is by learning Torah. That means the Oral and Written Law [Old Testament and Talmud].  For Christians I recommend learning The Torah [Old Testament], plus Augustine and Aquinas.

This was Reb Shmuel Berenbaum's idea. Whenever he was asked a question about almost any issue in society his answer was to learn Torah and not to speak Lashon Hara [slander].

In my first yeshiva I gained two important ideas. Bitul Torah --that is bitul Torah is a bad thing. [That means not learning Torah when one can is a sin. This idea actually comes from the Talmud itself. In the Talmud Yerushalmi it says that Bitul Torah [not learning when one has time to learn] is equal to three   other sins of the Torah that are the most serious. Also I learned there the idea that every word of Torah is a mitzvah in itself.

I have a learning partner that I have been learning the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach with.

I  have a learning partner that I have been learning the Avi Ezri of Rav  Shach with. Sometimes the discussion goes into other areas but in general we have been plowing through Rav Shach's book on the Mishne Torah of the Rambam. This is a little different from the Gemara session we were doing before but at some point it seems natural to go over to Rav Shach because in his essays on the Rambam he is dealing with and bringing clarity to many of the issues that we were dealing with in the Gemara.

You can see that I was dealing with issues in sin offerings when we were doing Sanhedrin and and before that we were doing Shabat and now looking at Rav Shach we are seeing an amazing degree of clarity and depth he brings to these issues.
But I am not sure if someone would see this if they had not done the preliminary homework in the Gemara itself. In any case, the Avi Ezri is in my opinion the most important Torah book to come to print within the last hundred years.
I highly recommend it to anyone that can find it. 

I know people will say but what about the Chidushei HaRambam of Reb Chaim? My answer is that the Chidushei HaRambam is a great book in the it opens up the infinite layers of depth in the Rambam that had previously been hidden, but when I would finish an essay in it I usually came out with the feeling that things were even more confusing than when I had started. I never feel that way with Rav Shach. When I finish an essay by him I feel like the whole subject has been magically been made clear and light.

I was in  position to know Rav Shick {Moharosh} fairly well   But I think he got way too much into his pantheism thing.  This same process happens often with religious leaders. At some point they start getting absorbed into some kind of archetype. [Or they just get too much caught up with themselves.]

 I think I gained a great deal by learning the basic path of Rav Shick.
Still the Intermediate Zone has too many problems, and people that get caught in it seem to lose some aspect of their humanness.
The Gra accurately identified this problem, and thus came to be the basic approach of the Litvaks that tends to be straightforward--learn Torah  --and don't get into spiritual trips.

The best long and involved treatment of this problem was given by Arubindo, a Hindu saint. And his extended treatment of this problem seems to me to be as accurate as one can get. [What often happens is when people hear about the Intermediate zone and powers that come from the Dark Side they think that is only for those other groups but not our group--because we are on the path of truth. This is in it self usually a delusion.]

Litvaks --if anything simply don't have enough faith in the Gra to realize how accurate he was. Philosophy does not seem to have any way of dealing with the problem of delusion nor have any way of discerning between the different zones. Some people simply dismiss all spiritual phenomena as delusions and this seems to me to be based on scientism--a belief that only what science knows can be true--which is a highly non scientific attitude.

How to learn? Fast or slow?

I  remember Reb Freifeld suggesting to learn every chapter of Talmud ten times. I did not do this as I wanted to make progress. I also had seen the musar book The Paths of the Righteous  which said to learn fast.
Still I remember that I did chapter 5 in Ketubot a a bunch of times. But I was learning with the group of Naphtali Yeager at the time and he was concentrating on the first chapter of Ketuboth mainly from page 9 until page 13. He was doing it with the שב שמעתתא and I was just a beginner at the time. Still he was kind enough to show me the ropes and showed to me the depths of Talmud and Tosphot and I have not forgotten that amazing lesson. I think most people that I have encountered are simply unaware of this depth in the Gemara.



This tension between review and fast learning is part and parcel of the yeshiva experience.

Yeshivas began to deal with this issue in this way. The morning hours were spent in preparation of the Rosh yeshiva's class which would be given a hour before Mincha.  The afternoon was meant for fast learning--meaning some Tosphot but not necessarily every single one.

In conclusion I want to suggest to divide ones time equally between in depth learning and review time of learning. This was the eventual conclusion of the great yeshivas and it seems to me that it must have been based on experience.

While I was in Polytechnic Institute of NYU I used to say every chapter of the Math  and Physics forwards and backwards- including the problem sets and that seemed to have helped me pass my courses. This was an idea I had seen in the Ari. when I used this method when I tarted getting back into math, this method helped a lot.