Descartes. When one sees a mountain the mountain is contained in one's mind. The actual mountain that one sees being in one's mind. Descartes said basically the same thing but there are several ways some people interpret him.
Decartes: "There is an ambiguity in the word "idea". "Idea" can be taken materially, as an operation of the intellect, in which case it cannot be said to be more perfect than me. Alternatively, it can be taken objectively, as the thing represented by that operation; and this thing, even if it is not regarded as existing outside the intellect, can still, in virtue of its essence, be more perfect than myself"



Dr. Michael Huemer An essay on Descartes ;-- That the actual mountain is in ones mind. The way Huemer understand this in Descartes is by another idea of Descartes that there are different levels of existence. Existence to Descartes is not an all or nothing proposition. [A good example of this is universals.] [This levels of existence thing I remember seeing in either Plato or Aristotle--I forget which.]
Huemer: "But in Descartes' ontology, things are capable of having different grades of existence (165) (he considers this "completely self-evident" (185)). Further, he makes it clear that the way in which things exist in the intellect is one of the lower grades of existence."




The other way to understand this is by the representation theory of ideas. This is how Thomas Reid understands Descartes.

also had a representation theory of ideas, based on what he says about vision in which he closely rephrases the Aristotelian idea about how vision works, but with subtle differences that make it more in accord with quantum mechanics}. Its seems to me that he would go with the idea of direct perception and not with the neo-Kant idea of representation.
a value creator  like Moses or Socrates; - a civilization founding person. A bringer of new values into the world.  The things that are particularly interesting about him are the seminal ideas-- ideas that he just hints at, but which open new horizons of thought. The originality of his thought also is indicative that we are dealing with a real mystic, not not a good copy cat of other people.



Appendix:

1) In short what Professor Huemer is getting at is that for the rationalists the idea of the mountain is more perfect than the mountain itself and thus  is more real. It is a modified version of Plato.



2) Prof. Michael Huemer is located at
Philosophy Department, CB 232
University of Colorado

3)  The area to think about here is the idea of Kant--the thing in itself-the dinge an sich. And this he applies to objective objects just as much as to objective ideas. Could this dinge an sich be more real than this reality in the cave? Surely Schopenhauer thought so. Schopenhauer wanted the real dinge an sich to apply to the Will--certainly the most real thing to Schopenhauer. 
 [What I mean here is that the dinge an sich can be understood to be on a different plane of existence than phenomenological reality.]

My father served 8 months in the European Theatre of Operations ( France , Germany and Switzerland )

I know I should have posted something about my fathers military record on June 6, D-day. I am sorry I did not so at least for today I am putting it here. The reason I have not mentioned it much is that it always seemed to me that what he accomplished after World War II eclipsed what he did during WWII.

He enlisted on October 12, 1942 when he was 24 years old. He attended the Yale Airplane Maintenance Engineering Class 44-33. According to his enlistment record, he was qualified in arms—carbine and was an expert with a pistol and a sharpshooter. He was an aviation cadet for maintenance engineering. He was discharged so that he could receive a commission as a second lieutenant. This record indicates that he was called to active duty on November 4, 1943.


He entered active duty on July 20, 1944, and was an aircraft engineering officer 4823. His medals were the American Campaign Medal, Army of Occupation Medal and World War II Victory Medal. He served 1 ½ years in the US and almost 8 months in Europe. He left active duty on September 29, 1946. His serial number was 0 872 281. He was promoted to captain just before he left the US Army, and served in the US Army, Headquarters and Base Service Squadron 413th Air Service Group 40th Bomb Wing United States Air Forces European Theater. In the US, he served at Great Bend , Kansas and was in charge of maintaining 6 B-29 aircraft for the unit. He supervised the work of 75 enlisted men. In Europe, he was a civilian personnel officer. He served 8 months in the European Theatre of Operations (France, Germany and Switzerland ) with the 413th Air Service Group and was in charge of 1500 German civilians, supervising 1 officer and 20 civilians. He spoke German fluently at the time.
[He was responsible to decide whether to hold a German for war crimes or not. So besides the specific Germans that he was in charge of, he had to sign the release forms of thousands of Germans. That he why he decided eventually to shorten his name from Rosenbloom to Rosten. I think this was someone's idea of a great joke--to have a Jew sign the release papers of  Germans.


He had a base in France in which damaged aircraft could come in and be repaired within minutes. He trained different personal to how to check and fix only one small part of the plane. So when a plane came in with damage his whole crew swarmed over the ship and fixed it up in minutes and sent it on its way. This was the reason for one of his medals.



The most interesting time of Dad’s professional career was when he returned and was at Fort Monmouth and then his very secret work at Hycon, and created the camera of the U-2, and on the highly secretive SDI Star Wars project.

Much of this information I found out after he was gone. As a father I knew him as a very simple person that loved me, my brothers and my Mother very deeply.
He never talked about his work of his WWII experiences. The peak of living for him was taking us all to the beach on Sunday, and going into the mountains of Southern California skiing once or twice a year. We could not go to the beach on Shabat because I had to spend my time learning Hebrew and Torah.

After seven years working on SDI [star wars] he left TRW and began private business and also he invested in the Stock Market.

His was the general path  Torah with "Derech Eretz", (the path of the world). Torah and work as two sides of the same coin--but not  any work but some work for the benefit of others. I can't explain this but my brother used the word that I think describes it best "Balance."
A word that describes it is Yiddish is to be a "mensch"
He invented a machine called the "copy-mate" which was an extra sharp kind of zerox machine based on focusing of x rays. And he marketed it for about five years until the American military swooped down and recruited him for SDI. So from what I can tell it seems his major contributions to the American Military were night vision and focusing of infra red -- and laser communication between  satellites. He might get honorable mention for the U-2 camera but there apparently were two teams for that and I am not sure whose actual camera was used in the end.

Most people are sensitive to spiritual things to more or less degrees but can't tell when it is real and when it is not.

I have said it a million times. The Torah as it stands with the Talmud is a neat system.


But if we think further into this issue we can see that it is a common feature of cults to have great public faces and hide and a whole string of hurt and broken lives that it leaves in its wake. This has to be at least a warning sign that religious Judaism is has become a cult. It is not just because some people abuse it that it is bad. In what way is it any different from the Divine Light Mission or Adi Da? In what way is it different that any Eastern Cult?

The warning signs are there.

The way  cults work is by a process called Confabulation. This means that there are spiritual phenomena. But even normal sane people can confuse spiritual phenomena with illusion. You don't need to be mentally ill to do this. It is in all people. Because most people are sensitive to spiritual things to more or less degrees but can't tell when it is real and when it is not.
This is where the leader come in. He can create in people the illusion of spirituality. This is a collective venture.
(This was like the type of things that Adi Da would do.) This does not imply holiness. Doing miracles or giving people powerful spiritual experiences does not imply holiness.

Pseudo-Torah

Pseudo-Torah just has a distinctive tone and structure. If there was a debate about something I know nothing at all about, like the metrical structure of Tang Dynasty Chinese poetry, I'd be able to tell in ten minutes who were the real scholars and who were the charlatans. Real scholars look at the totality of the Talmud; charlatans rely on stories and anecdotal evidence. Real Torah scholars know what constitutes being an expert (I will not write that here right now), and rely on the findings of experts. Charlatans cite people with irrelevant credentials, or marginal credentials as if they were on a par with the real Torah scholars on the other side. Charlatans pile on accusations that they were being unfairly treated and complain that important questions are not being addressed, when even a cursory examination of the literature shows that they are.

Since this is a little abstract I should probably give a few examples. The best examples I knew were the Roshei yeshiva of the Mirrer yeshiva in NY. The knew the Talmud inside and out with an amazing level of expertise and depth. Shelomo Haliua the acting Rosh yeshiva of Chaim Berlin also.
I also met a lot of people that were far from that high level but were aspiring towards it and working towards it.

Usually the roshei yeshiva of Litvak yeshivot are very good. Both in character and in Torah knowledge. The Litvaks are the Gold Standard. 

(1)I want to mention what I think are two problems in Kant plus a few other thoughts.

) I want to mention what I think is a problem in Kant. Problems in Kant is a wide subject and has given rise to many schools of thought. Some people because of these problem simply go out a form new schools. At any rate my problem is that the self is for Kant on the level of the "thing in itself" (dinge an sich ). But if this were so then moral obligations could apply to oneself. It is a basic characteristic of morality that it refers to obligations towards others. [Kant's ethics is the categorical imperative.]
[Actually I saw later in the Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) that morality consists of three parts: obligations (1) towards God, (2) towards others (3) towards oneself..]

This question of course depends on the conception of self of the Enlightenment. (See Allan Bloom in his Closing of the American Mind for a thorough treatment of this topic) If we think of the self as the soul as per the Middle Ages this might not be a problem.

) Brian Caplan mentioned an important point--that if we can know things only by deductive reasoning and the information of the senses, then moral values are impossible for the simple reason that the "is- ought" boundary can't be penetrated. [And Kant seems to accept only these two types. If we add immediate non intuitive knowledge to Kant (as we can according to Dr Kelley Ross) then this problem disappears.]

) The realm of nature is the realm of freedom of the will. God created the world in such a way that the rules of nature would unfold by themselves until such a time that a being would evolve that would recognize God and by prayer could reach out to Him and receive help. But this spiritual aspect of things is not a part of nature, but above it. But freewill is an inherent part of nature. So the realm of freedom is not the thing in itself. This is another problem I have with Kant.

) A further problem is that I think you need reason to perceive but not be implanted with structure. One basic answer to Kant's problem how is synthetic a priori possible is immediate non intuitive knowledge.  And this can be falsified in theory which makes it actual knowledge. But how can you falsify it in practice? It perceives unconditioned realities. [I think I asked this question to Kelley Ross and he answered it and I posted the answer on this blog somewhere.]


I hope people don't take this in the wrong way. Kant is the most important Philosopher since Aristotle. The fact that there are problems is similar to the kinds of problems we have in Talmud. It  means we have lots of quality time to spend working out the problems.

I have written a little about Reb Shmuel Berenbaum in some essay long ago. But just to recount in short a little of my experiences at the Mir in Brooklyn.  The Mir was one of the Ivy league in those days. [Other people like Reb Moshe Feinstein were more into halacha [Jewish law].

 One of the best books to come out of the Mir is the Sukkat David which was simply the classes [shiurim] of the first level class in the Mir --for first year students. Yet it is a great book and in fact even in Israel when people what to learn a little about how to learn they go to the Sukkat David.
My first year there I finished up tractate Yevamot which I had started in Far Rockaway. The thing is that for some strange reason I think my own learning fell at the Mir. I may have learned longer hours--but the intensity of learning for me was lacking. While at Shar Yashuv (in Far Rockaway) I could be in the mountains with the Friefeld family in some empty beit midrash, and learn all day long with extreme intensity. Most of my learning during my Far Rockaway years were with the Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot and the Beit Yosef and Tur which I used as commentary on the Gemara. When Tosphot was unclear to me, I learned the Ritva and Rosh and other rishonim (Mediaeval authorities) to help me figure out what Tosphot was saying. Often the other rishonim [first authorities i.e mediaeval commentaries] would say different things than Tosphot, but learning them helped me put the idea of tosphot into context. In Far Rockaway also there was the presence of Reb Naphtali Yeger who had a really great way of learning. It was completely different that the regular way of looking at the Chidushei HaRambam (by Reb Chaim Soloveitchik) or other achronim.

 In fact, the whole idea of finding the yesod ( foundations) was completely wrong in the eyes of Reb Naphtali. (Don't put something into Tosphot that is not there. Don't put outside principles into Tosphot. If you can't understand Tophot without putting in some principle that he does not say there, then that means you don't understand Tosphot.)

Any extra word or idea that you had to put into Tosphot to make it make sense, simply meant that you did not understand Tosphot. What he did was make me repeat the Tosphot--not word for word, but explain what he was saying from beginning to end. And during that process, I would notice some glitch in the reasoning of Tosphot. It was in these glitches that Reb Naphtali used to uncover the infinite layers of depth in Tosphot. The answer to a glitch would seems to make the glitch disappear, but bring another question in its turn; and the answer to that question would bring another answer in its turn. The usual amount of sub-levels that Reb Naphtali discovered in a Tosphot in this way was about twenty. In the Mir this was unknown. And in Israel I discovered to my great disappointment that people were dogmatic believers, but not devotees of the Talmud.





Back to the Mir. I went to Reb Shmuel's class right when I came into the Mir. This was not usual because most people had to start at the first level and work their way up. I don't know why I was accepted for the highest class.(Maybe just kindness to me.) His way of learning was very deep, but it was the Reb Chayim type of approach which I mentioned.  In the hands of Reb Shmuel, this was a great approach. (It can be abused. People can make up yesodot principles all day long and stick them into any given Tosphot or Rambam all day long.  You can always force any given text to say anything you want any time.) But Reb Shmuel had this logically rigorous type of way of going deeper and deeper into the subject but again he was starting with the basic Reb Chayim approach. Personally let me say I was coming from Beverly Hills High School with  zero experience with this Brisk type of learning. I had no way of deciding between Brisk and Naphtali Yeger. To this day both approaches seem to me to be valid. But when I do my own thinking into a Tosphot, I usually take the Naphtali Yeger approach simply.
My second year in Mir they started learning Ketubot which I had just finished in Far Rockaway. So I joined a group doing Shabat instead.-

Reb Shmuel Berenabum- loved the Gemara and learning and living it is what he was about.
He lacked the highly negative traits of  dogmatic believers.

But let me just say for now that the few short years I was at the Mir were an amazing experience. So I want to put down a few memories that are not on the other essay.
First in the home of Reb Shmuel there was little in the way of ornaments. Mainly there were walls lined with books. And he really lived a Talmudic type of existence. I used to come over there on Shabat and on Motzai Shabat [Saturday Night] with my violin and play for the family and also tell bedtime stories to the children. But his basic entertainment was to learn Gemara. The rebitzin [his wife] would clear the table and after havadala and he would learn Talmud.
The music I played on the violin was in general classical music. [Mozart,  Handel, ]




I have not said much about how he learned. It is true that it was very much based on Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. But he had a depth to him. Once I was in a shiur in Zevachim and he was giving over some idea--a "yesod" type of the type that you see in the Chidushei Harambam of Reb Chayim Soloveitchik. And one person brought in another way to on the surface seems also to fit. But Reb Shmuel showed how it would not work. I.e. to use the "foundation" idea of Reb Chaim, you need a great deal of depth that most people don't have.

Reb Shmuel was very strict about Lashon Hara. Let me just say that he was not judgmental. He was not interested in being a frumy [religious] policeman.




I did not go to university at the time but after some years I asked him about university, and he said if it for parnasa (making a living) it is fine. I tried to say that it is a mitzvah in itself. I tried to bring sources from the Guide For The Perplexed and the Gra, but he simply said, "Only if it is for parnasa."

I might mention that sometimes the questions and issues that he raised were the same as you find in the Mishna Lamelech on the Rambam.

Don't get the impression that I was good disciple.-I am a barbarian. I live and eat like a bear. If I learn Gemara it is not because I think it is scientifically accurate. It is rather because I think it contains a holy core which I like. I am no where near the idea that all truth is in the Talmud. Nor is it infallible. It greatness lies to two areas. One is explaining verses of the Torah. The other area it is great in is  Law.

But though I admire Reb Shmuel let me just say that I am basically Reform. I have great interest in the Divine truths of the Torah and Talmud, but my real teacher was my father and his copilot my mother. It is his understanding of God and Torah that informs my beliefs. It is the understanding of Torah and what it means to live a decent upright life that I gained from my parents that is determinate. I know from my parents and their friends what it means to be a Jew. And the world of the Talmud to me is an important part of that if it is done with "Daat" common sense and equilibrium with Music and science and other aspects of life that constitute being a full human being, a mensch.