x40  E Flat Major

Schools of thought that have gone after Kant and other kinds of schools that have gone after Hegel.

 As is well known there has been a lot of  friction between the schools of thought that have gone after Kant and the other kinds of schools that have gone after Hegel.

Most of the critiques on Hegel seem to focus on his political ideas, and how the Communists took over parts of his ideas to justify their actions.

My feeling about all this is that the later schools that took off from Kant are mostly ready for the trash as Robert Hanna goes into excruciating  detail to show. [That is he shows the flaws of all the off shoots of Analytic philosophy of the 20th century.] His motto is "Forward to Kant". Yet I think that the school of thought of Kelley Ross and Leonard Nelson is a great development of Kant.

[Some of the questions on Hegel were answered by Cunningham and McTaggart. I feel that there is no system that cannot be misused. So the fact that Hegel is not a socialist at all should count. He does not hold of government control of industry or property.] 

I would be happy if it was possible to take the good on the Kant Fries School of Nelson and Ross and at the same time not ignore the important contributions of Hegel.

So my point here is what is worth spending time on? I mean you only have  a certain amount of hours in each day. So to spend more time on philosophy than is really needed, I would rather not do. I want to get the best, and then move on to other things [the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and Physics] that I need more urgently. So to get a good picture of philosophy it is helpful to have people that are good at building a system or making improvements on existing systems. It is even more helpful to have people that can critique and show the flaws of some supposedly well thought out systems. For example Habermas showed his real genius in a short paper that blew Rawls's Theory of Justice out of the water. Robert Hanna nuked twentieth century philosophy. So by default who is left standing? Kant and Hegel. But there were plenty of detours that lead to dead ends like Marxism and other kinds of off shoots. So that is why I am saying Kelley Ross and Leonard Nelson are the  best developments of Kant and Mc Taggart and Cunningham the best to show what Hegel is all about.

the subject of ספק ספיקא

 I wanted to go into the subject of ספק ספיקא in short. The wife of a kohen was found not to have been a virgin, so she is forbidden since the sex might have been after she was betrothed. Tosphot asks what about the status that she is assumed Ok חזקת כשרות until proven otherwise? Answer: the  prior status of the body חזקת הגוף goes against that since it shows she remained a virgin until the last possible minute. That pushes the act to be during the time she was betrothed. R. Akiva Eigger asks but status of "now" [חזקת השתא] pushes that back in time. I.e. we assume the way things are now goes back in time until the farthest possible moment. He answers that status does not join with status of her being allowed to her husband since these two different kinds of status say different things.(החזקות לא מצטרפות)

Rav Shach asked that R Eigger himself say elsewhere that that point itself is subject to an argument between Rav and Shmuel. His answer requires showing his point from a lot of places, but the short of it is that status of now only can put a prior status in doubt if the prior status was already weak. But if it is strong, then the status of now does not count at all.

 A lot of people get affected by some mental trap. There is a remarkable cure for this from Rav Nahman of Breslov: i.e., the prayer of Chavakook the prophet. That is the last part of that book. You can find this in the Bible in the minor prophets.

The fact is that nowadays with the whole world going insane, this seems like a good idea for people to say and even to say it as they are walking on the street. For the Evil Inclination, the Satan is attacking everyone in their thoughts. Bringing people to think exactly the things that are wrong and hurtful for them to think. This is a new technique of the evil inclination. For in former years people had to seek out evil ideas and insanities. Now these same evil thoughts come to everyone uninvited.  

[the prayer is השם שמעתי שמעך יראתי  השם פעלך בקרב שנים בקרב שנים תודיע ברוגז רחם תזכור Load i have heard about you and i was afraid. Lord you works are in the midst of years, in the midst of years let there be known, in anger remember to have mercy, etc.]

"Iyun" in depth learning and combine that with fast learning.

The idea of saying the words forwards and backwards as a way of doing "Iyun" in depth learning I found amazingly helpful when I was at Polytechnic Institute of NYU. I certainly see that it can get one bogged down if he does no fast learning either. Still in a situation where I found I had a time limit on how much I could study before exams, this method of saying the words forwards and backwards was helpful.

You can see this method in Rav Avraham Abulafia, a mystic of the Middle Ages [who is brought a lot as an authority by Rav Haim Vital and the Remak/Rav Moshe of Cordoba.]

When I first got to Shar Yashuv [beginner's yeshiva in NY] my first year was very difficult because there were no structured classes. I had to beg people to teach me anything. But I did manage to sort of get started. The second year was Hulin and that is when I began to understand the Litvak emphasis on "Iyun" in depth learning. The third year there was a class but instead I joined the group of Naphtali Yegger and then I began to see the depths of Gemara and Tosphot. But I could not do that own my own. So on my own I did just Tosphot along with the Maharsha and whatever Rishonim that seemed relevant to the sugia.

But all that time I had my separate sessions of learning fast in order to finish each tractate with Rashi and Tosphot. So I began to gain an appreciation for the idea of combining these two kinds of learning.

 I tend to be careful about rebuke because of Rav Nahman of Breslov's last Torah lesson. LeM vol II section 8. "Even though rebuke is a commandment in the Torah and everyone is required to rebuke their fellow man when they see him acting not properly, still not everyone is fit to rebuke as R. Akiva said, 'I would be surprised if anyone in this generation is fit to give rebuke.'"

What makes this especially significant is the in the thought of Rav Nahman, the later a Torah lesson was the more important it was. 

So by implication the idea of not giving rebuke (even when you think it is required) is the peak of all his Torah lessons.

Separation of religion and state. Even the thought that the religious authorities would have power gives me nightmares.

 Separation of religion and state is a big issue in Israel. But I can not see any source in Torah for this. Nor is it in the Constitution. "No national church" written in the Constitution of the USA is not the same as separation of church and state.

Still, in Israel I can see the point of this since the religious tend to be insane. [There is also the problem of group insanity besides individual insanity.] Even the thought that the religious authorities would have power gives me nightmares.

So why is this important principle not found in Torah? ANSWER: one of the reasons for the mitzvot is "shalom ha'Medina" (peace of the country), and experience has shown than power of religious authorities is highly detrimental to peace of the state and of the family, therefore one should have separation of religion and state.