The basic approach of the Torah is Neo Platonic as you can see in the Chovot Levavot [Obligations of the Hearts] by Ibn Pakuda. [Also Saadia Geon, the Rambam and Ramban and all other rishonim that I am aware of] But this needs modification because it is based somewhat on Aristotle. Now with all due respect to Aristotle, there are some issues that need addressing as Berkeley noticed. There is nothing in the sharpness of the knife that enters into the human brain to give it the idea of sharpness. There is nothing in the heat of the fire that comes into my head to give me an idea of hotness. You go back and forth on these issues until you get to Kant and Hegel. But going back to the straight Neo Platonic view is impossible. So you are left with who was right? Kant or Hegel?
Maybe this will be like the problems between Plato and Aristotle that also had no resolution until Plotinus came up with the Neo Platonic school. May that is how things will eventually work out between Kant and Hegel. It seems each has some things right, and some things not so right. So until a new Plotinus comes along, I think we are stuck.
{I can imagine you can look up the problems in each. Critics abound. But just for one example of a problem in Kant. The mind imposes the categories on the phenomenological world. OK. But whose? My mind? Yes. Your mind? Yes. Lots on minds imposing all their rules on the world. There is something odd about that. Plus, the other issue that a central proof in the Critique is to show from the fact of time ordering events in the mind, Kant gets to time ordering events in the world. Well, no. That is Relativity. Problems with Hegel on the other hand also abound. Mostly because of his political views which in fact seem a bit hard to swallow. The individual is not a microcosm of the state. The only way a well ordered state can function is by division of powers. Not the king, not the parliament, not even the people have all the powers. Examples abound when one of these gets the upper hand what goes wrong. But the individual is just the opposite. I would rather my heart not be working against my lungs. The individual works only when everything is working together. The state is just the opposite.
I think the most basic problem in Kant is that we know nothing about electrons, photons, other people, etc. That is the very reason I had to write "phenomena" instead of "appearances". All we know about are the image of electrons in our minds. I this so obvious? Would it not take a lot of evidence to show that we know nothing about electrons, only our concept or electrons? Lacking any definite proof, would it not make sense to say that we know E=mc^2 about actual electrons, not just the ones in our minds.
This was the exact point of Hegel. This was later taken up by Michael Huemer and the Intuitionists. But they diverge from Hegel in other points.]
Would not physics seem to be about actual electrons? Not just the appearances on our heads? I thought Physics is telling us something about electrons and the Schrödinger equation. Not just he ones I have in my head. I after all I a not smart enough to have come up with the Schrodinger equation all on my own. No in my conscious nor in my subconscious. So why should those poor electrons worry about what I think? Besides the fact that I could not have come up with the Schrodinger equation even if I had thought nut i a thousand years. Would t t]have giv3n chance to those poor miserable electrons some toe to have fun until I cam along with my preconceived ideas anpoiyt ow they ought to behave
