"The Seven Wisdoms" (שבע חכמות) were considered essential prerequisites by the Gra in order to understand Torah. He said that lack of knowledge in any one of the seven wisdoms creates lack of knowledge and understanding of Torah by a hundred fold.
This kind of approach is pretty consistent among the Rishonim whether by the מעלות המידות [Importance of Good Traits by Benjamin the doctor], Rav Saadia Gaon, the Obligations of the Heart.
But what exactly is included in the seven wisdoms?
Pseudo wisdoms like psychology [certainly do nor count as wisdom]. Among secular subjects there are subjects that are straight forwards false and contrived like psychology. But still it has a great number of followers because it gives people the chance and opportunity how to manipulate others.
Even in Torah there are plenty of books that are pseudo Torah or Torah of the Dark Side (Sitra Achra), for example, that come from the groups that the Gra warned against. How they got accepted in the religious world is a mystery to me. [I would have to say that R. Nahman of Breslov is OK and good to learn since after reading the books that brings most of the relevant documents concerning the letter of excommunication signed by the Gra I realized that R. Nahman was not included.]
But there are categories of subjects or authors that I am not sure about if they are included in the list of things one must learn. For example we know from Maimonides the importance of learning Physics and Metaphysics. So he included these two in the list of things one ought to learn. So my question is what does Metaphysics include? Just judging by the Rambam himself it certainly looks to be Plato, Aristotle, and the medieval Ibn Rushd and Farrabi. . Leonard Nelson would also have excluded the entire Post Kant Neo Kantians. Cassirer and Nelson had a long and bitter debate about that. My own feeling is that Nelson was right.]
This kind of approach is pretty consistent among the Rishonim whether by the מעלות המידות [Importance of Good Traits by Benjamin the doctor], Rav Saadia Gaon, the Obligations of the Heart.
But what exactly is included in the seven wisdoms?
Pseudo wisdoms like psychology [certainly do nor count as wisdom]. Among secular subjects there are subjects that are straight forwards false and contrived like psychology. But still it has a great number of followers because it gives people the chance and opportunity how to manipulate others.
Even in Torah there are plenty of books that are pseudo Torah or Torah of the Dark Side (Sitra Achra), for example, that come from the groups that the Gra warned against. How they got accepted in the religious world is a mystery to me. [I would have to say that R. Nahman of Breslov is OK and good to learn since after reading the books that brings most of the relevant documents concerning the letter of excommunication signed by the Gra I realized that R. Nahman was not included.]
But there are categories of subjects or authors that I am not sure about if they are included in the list of things one must learn. For example we know from Maimonides the importance of learning Physics and Metaphysics. So he included these two in the list of things one ought to learn. So my question is what does Metaphysics include? Just judging by the Rambam himself it certainly looks to be Plato, Aristotle, and the medieval Ibn Rushd and Farrabi. . Leonard Nelson would also have excluded the entire Post Kant Neo Kantians. Cassirer and Nelson had a long and bitter debate about that. My own feeling is that Nelson was right.]
