The Litvak Yeshiva path is not exactly the path of Musar. There is a certain amount of discrepancy. What would be called secular studies is one area. Another is Torah for money.
However the areas of agreement are more that the areas of discrepancy.
The secular studies area is easily divided into two parts. One part is where in fact secular studies are ridiculous. Obviously pseudo science. And anything with the word "studies" attached to it.
On the other hand, there are areas in which the Rambam and other rishonim held they are even higher than traditional "learning Torah" i.e. Physics and Metaphysics.
But this is clearly an area of disagreement among rishonim. The Ramban/Nahmanides clearly was no fan of Aristotle. Even in his defence of the Rambam, he did not go so far as to advocate the Guide for the Perplexed itself. [I.e. I mean to say that there is a letter from the Ramban/Nahmanides defending the Rambam, but in spite of his impassioned plea for the defense of the Rambam, he did not actually defend the Guide as being "right."]
The nice thing about being in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY was the fact that almost no one was there in order to be using Torah to make money. In both places the clear intention for everyone was "Lishma" (i.e., Torah for its own sake). And besides that, there was also a kind of feeling of, "if everyone would be doing this the whole world would be a better place." There was a feeling of doing something for all mankind just by sitting and learning Torah. [You can actually see this stated as such in the Nefesh HaHaim of Rav Haim of Voloshin, a disciple of the Gra.] [I ought to add the fact that in both Shar Yashuv and the Mir I was very happy. There is a kind of "synergy" when you are learning Torah in the path of the Gra that everything seems to fall into place. Just like the sages said, "One who receives the yoke of Torah on himself the yoke of government and work is removed from him."]
I have really no good ideas about the Metaphysics. Leonard Nelson of the Kant Fries School looks pretty great to me --but ironically enough I also think Hegel has some great ideas. Nowadays, there are some really great people like Kelley Ross, Huemer, Ed Feser. Steven Dutch I think is gone, but his web site is still up--thank God.
The way to put that all together is basically this. Moral principles are universals. And the function of reason is to recognize universals. But to start reason, you need some kind of starting point that is not itself based on reason. So you have to know your starting points, or at least accept them as prima facie unless something even more clear overthrows it.
But reason without faith is empty. It can easily come up with all kinds on nonsense. So you need a kind of immediate non intuitive perception [faith].
[Mainly I believe that the Leonard Nelson approach makes the most sense because the transcendental deduction of Kant never really worked to be able to combine reason and perception. As Kelley Ross put it both must have a deeper source That is non intuitive immediate knowledge. But as Michael Huemer pointed out, that there is no reason to believe implanted knowledge has any relation to reality. Therefore that immediate non intuitive knowledge-the axioms by which knowledge starts must be open to correction. It is not infallible. And if one asks-- that empirical facts ought not to be able to correct a priori knowledge that is where Hegel comes in handy. There is a point where knowledge itself gets to a plateau and gets above it by contrasting two points where separate series of reasoning led to and end up in a contradiction by which one starts the whole process again. Something like electromagnetism and newton that contradicted until you got special relativity,-- and relativity and quantum mechanics contradicted until you got quantum field theory and to sew up gravity you get string theory.
However the areas of agreement are more that the areas of discrepancy.
The secular studies area is easily divided into two parts. One part is where in fact secular studies are ridiculous. Obviously pseudo science. And anything with the word "studies" attached to it.
On the other hand, there are areas in which the Rambam and other rishonim held they are even higher than traditional "learning Torah" i.e. Physics and Metaphysics.
But this is clearly an area of disagreement among rishonim. The Ramban/Nahmanides clearly was no fan of Aristotle. Even in his defence of the Rambam, he did not go so far as to advocate the Guide for the Perplexed itself. [I.e. I mean to say that there is a letter from the Ramban/Nahmanides defending the Rambam, but in spite of his impassioned plea for the defense of the Rambam, he did not actually defend the Guide as being "right."]
The nice thing about being in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY was the fact that almost no one was there in order to be using Torah to make money. In both places the clear intention for everyone was "Lishma" (i.e., Torah for its own sake). And besides that, there was also a kind of feeling of, "if everyone would be doing this the whole world would be a better place." There was a feeling of doing something for all mankind just by sitting and learning Torah. [You can actually see this stated as such in the Nefesh HaHaim of Rav Haim of Voloshin, a disciple of the Gra.] [I ought to add the fact that in both Shar Yashuv and the Mir I was very happy. There is a kind of "synergy" when you are learning Torah in the path of the Gra that everything seems to fall into place. Just like the sages said, "One who receives the yoke of Torah on himself the yoke of government and work is removed from him."]
I have really no good ideas about the Metaphysics. Leonard Nelson of the Kant Fries School looks pretty great to me --but ironically enough I also think Hegel has some great ideas. Nowadays, there are some really great people like Kelley Ross, Huemer, Ed Feser. Steven Dutch I think is gone, but his web site is still up--thank God.
The way to put that all together is basically this. Moral principles are universals. And the function of reason is to recognize universals. But to start reason, you need some kind of starting point that is not itself based on reason. So you have to know your starting points, or at least accept them as prima facie unless something even more clear overthrows it.
But reason without faith is empty. It can easily come up with all kinds on nonsense. So you need a kind of immediate non intuitive perception [faith].
[Mainly I believe that the Leonard Nelson approach makes the most sense because the transcendental deduction of Kant never really worked to be able to combine reason and perception. As Kelley Ross put it both must have a deeper source That is non intuitive immediate knowledge. But as Michael Huemer pointed out, that there is no reason to believe implanted knowledge has any relation to reality. Therefore that immediate non intuitive knowledge-the axioms by which knowledge starts must be open to correction. It is not infallible. And if one asks-- that empirical facts ought not to be able to correct a priori knowledge that is where Hegel comes in handy. There is a point where knowledge itself gets to a plateau and gets above it by contrasting two points where separate series of reasoning led to and end up in a contradiction by which one starts the whole process again. Something like electromagnetism and newton that contradicted until you got special relativity,-- and relativity and quantum mechanics contradicted until you got quantum field theory and to sew up gravity you get string theory.
