Rambam:  the five difference between the Reason of God and the Reason of Man. [Here "Reason of Man" means  the reason a man would have if he had perfect human reason.] This is not the exact same thing as Kant. With Kant you have limit to perfect reason. And it seems to be a bit different than the Rambam's limits. .




The problem that Kant is addressing is that of Hume. Empirical things we can reason about because we have some way of checking our homework against a background. Physical reality. When we reason about a triangle what background is there to check our work? 


And this seem to me to be a close as one can expect to Kant. For Kant while accepting we have knowledge of a priori things --not based on observation and also not dependent on definitions. But with Kant you have a large area of antimonies where even this kind of reason fails.

So what I am suggesting is a close comparison between the Rambam's five things and Kant's antimonies.


Appendix:
(1)  Aspects of God's knowledge beyond pure reason:
There is no division in his knowledge even when he knows different things. His knowledge does not take something out of the realm of the possible. His knowledge encompasses things that have no end There is no difference in his knowledge before the thing exists and after it comes into being.
Brisk has done very good work in the Rambam and that work is continuing.
The major players in that school are Chaim Soloveitchik, and his direct disciples Baruch Ber  Shimon Shkop. The great book of them all is the master piece of Rav Shach the Avi Ezri.  This I consider to be greater than even the חידושי הרמב''ם. Why? Because even though it was Reb Chaim that opened the door to the Rambam but Rav Shach went in in away that even Reb Chaim could not. Rav Shach  is deeper and clearer. But none of these deal with the Guide for the Perplexed. And I think there is no excuse for that. None whatsoever. If anything the Guide is as deep as the Mishna Torah. Once You have someone of the stature of Rav Abraham Abulfia witting a mystic commentary of the Guide you know something deep is going on there.

Music for the glory of God,

l98


Mathematics

If you have suffered from a certain person the tendency is to find blame in that person's world view. One tends to think that if the system was different evil would be eradicated.

People that have suffered from people that are theists tend to say theism is the problem. If one has suffered from people that believe in a different system, the tendency will be to blame that system. Another example is if people have suffered under the Nazis, then the tendency is to say the belief system of Nazism is the trouble. And this kind of thinking is sometimes justified. After all blaming Nazism for the Holocaust does not seem like much of a stretch. But there are other times that it seems to me that building ones world view on what he sees as negative influences is a dumb way of going about thinking about these things.

Human evil is the type of thing that even people believing in a good system will get the virus of evil. No system is immune. But that does not mean all systems are alike. Nor are all social memes alike. You find one social meme  you think is bad and try to eradicate it you will probably find two that have grown in its stead.

But like Nazism there are certain social memes which are pernicious.

Sometimes one has just found a bad group inside a decent system.
 Personally I go with my parents system, Judaism, but I modify that with a good dose of traditional learning Talmud and keeping Jewish Law. But the basic structure of belief--the world view of my parents of what makes a man into a "mensch" I think they knew more about that than anyone I have ever met.

But their beliefs were not really in accord with Reform  even though we went to a Reform Shul in Hollywood.--a great place--Temple Israel of Hollywood. But teh belif system of my parents was a lot more traditional that official Reform.

To get an idea of what my parents thought and what I think is the proper approach to life I recommend learning Musar. That is the  basic set of medieval books חובות לבבות אורחות צדיקים מסילת ישרים  etc. there are about thirty in all. This is hard reading. The ideas are not hard. It is rather that by reading these books and saying them out loud as you read you get fear of God. And that is hard work. It is not supposed to be light reading.

Music for the glory of God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and of my parents.

b105 

I am upset by the attacks against the USA. Mainly because the USA, the country that I grew up in, was  wholesome and wonderful, and so unrecognizable from what there is today I simply can't comment on it. It is like the first Temple that Solomon built. I am sad it is gone, but there is not much I can do about restoring it.
Mainly I think it was a communist plot. The idea was to undermine American values in universities, and then Americans themselves would destroy it from within. Most people I know don't think the KGB had that kind of influence. But first of all the KGB was highly compartmentalized. And the part of it devoted to disinformation in the USA would not have been known to other department people. Also, I should mention the budget of the KGB for these kind of operations was enormous. And once you have gotten to people in collage and convinced them of the "truths" of socialism, then even when they becomes senators or judges or even the president, they continue with those same policies.
Today the KGB is gone, and I doubt if Russia has the same goals as the USSR. They might want an expanded Russian empire, but I highly doubt if they are interested in the downfall of the USA.
Today the main threat against the USA are Muslims, but they are not the only ones. The Democrats are hard at work undermining the basis of the USA in other ways.

Music for the glory of God,

b98 mp3

b98  [midi] I think I  posted this before some time ago. I am just doing so again just in case. b98 nwc

Music,

q3  [q3 in midi]

l87  [l87 in midi]