The fact of my accepting way of learning of saying the words and going on [mentioned in the Musar book אורחות צדיקים ורב נחמן the Ways of the Righteous and Rav Nahman Conversations 76  ] does not mean I see no place for intense review and in depth learning. It is just that this sort of in depth type has never been clear to me how to go about it. One of the many ways I have tried is this. Once I get to a place in a book where things simply stop making any sense to me [let's say for example in Algebraic Topology] it is at that point that I figure I need to do review. So I simply start where I am already holding and go back page by page to the very beginning. That seems to work for some subjects. But Tosphot is more self contained. You do not need to know every other Tosphot in Shas in order to understand one. So in terms of that kind of learning I would take just one particular Tosphot or some chapter in the Avi Ezri or Rav Haim of Brisk, and just review that one chapter day after day. So it seems to me that in depth learning depends on the subject.

 z4 A minor

z4 midi file

z4 nwc

Metaphysics

 One finds in some rishonim the importance of Metaphysics. Mainly that would be Ibn Pakuda [author of the Obligations of the Hearts], Binyamin the doctor [author of Maalot HaMidot], Rambam and others. [They do not see this as bitul Torah [waste of time that should be used for learning Torah].] So while clearly they are referring to the discipline, still I would say the main reference is the Book Metaphysics by Aristotle.

So what does that mean for today? My impression is that this discipline has developed in three different directions. Kant (along the lines of Leonard Nelson); Hegel; G.E. Moore. That is I would not venture to say which of these is right because each school seems to have very great and important points. But not the whole picture. 

[The Kant Friesian school tends towards reason in areas of physical reality. It is in spiritual reality it tends towards a sort of fifth sense [non intuitive immediate perception. While Hegel agrees totally with these realms of spiritual reality, he holds that reason can penetrate even there.  The G.E. Moore School simply holds that that way that Hume limited the range of reason is just not so. So he is like Hegel.]

[So in philosophy it seems you have the Kant Fries school of Leonard Nelson. Then Hegel and then G.E. Moore. It is hard to know which one is correct, but all have something to add to understanding.

 There is an aspect of Hegel that is similar to the Kantian School of Fries and Leonard Nelson. That is in the self contradictions in every thought and every aspect of being things. 

So it seems to me that these two traditions are not as contrary as one might think at first.

In the Leonard Nelson approach this beyond logic and reason occurs in the dinge an sich, the areas beyond possibilities of experience. In Hegel the contradictions are in every stage of being and are resolved only in the Absolute [God]. So to me, it seems these are not all that different. 

[I mean in terms of metaphysical reality. But as for how we know stuff, there is a difference.]

 I was at the Na Nach place today and there came up an interesting discussion about important it is to marry only a woman who does not listen to religious authorities. The reason being that marriage is a union of minds and when someone else is in your wife's mind, that is not a real marriage.

It occurred to me then that in the LeM of Rav Nahman that this same idea came up in the LeM vol I:61 where it says not to give religious authority to people that are not fit for it since by that is cause that Israel goes into exile. And the language Rav Nahman uses is על ידי זה מגרשים ישראל ממקומם which is the same language used to causing of divorce between couples.

The path of the Torah.

There are things that the Tora is strict about. This can not be derided as "religious fanaticism." And example is idolatry. So what makes the world of the religious problematic is not whether to be strict of not. It is what to be strict about. If only the things that the Torah actually cares about were the top of the list of importance, then everything would be alright. That is why the path of the Gra is so important. Not because of the Gra as much as it accurately defines what Torah is about.  

 Kant actually never shows how mind and body are connected. Rather he shows that they must be connected-but does not show how. [That is not my new idea here. This has been noticed even from the very first review of the Critique by Shultz.] 

So to me it seems that Fries and Leonard Nelson were right in the claim that there is a deeper source of knowledge, non intuitive immediate knowledge, that empirical knowledge and a priori knowledge are just secondary manifestations of. But how do they combine? I think that Hegel was right in this that the way these two origins of knowledge combine together is by a give and take process where each modifies the other --what he terms ''dialectics.'' [Hegel actually also never shows how they are connected. But he does come onto this dialectical process to show how the kind of knowledge that is a part of intuition and the kind of knowledge that is independent of intuition work together.--basing himself on Socrates.]

[And this fact was noticed by Michael Huemer in one of his essays where he shows that there is no such thing as empirical knowledge without some a priori assumptions built into it. [See his list of essays.]

So what you have is the primary source of knowledge that Fries and Nelson call immediate non intuitive. Them the two parts split off into empirical and a priori parts. Then they recombine to create actual knowledge.