Although he was a scholar of the Talmud and studied extensively with some of the best in the field, he was basically self-taught in philosophy. He was also convinced that the Yiddish public needed to understand the importance of philosophy to both religion and science. In this effort Agushewitz broke new ground and did what no rabbi since Maimonides had done. Steiner (philosophy, Hebrew U., Jerusalem) provides an elegant translation of this remarkable text, which demystifies the trajectory of philosophy up to nearly the middle of the twentieth century and reconciles it with both science and religion. Agushewitz argues that philosophy is the basis for all existence, that the same principles that organize matter organize human beings, and that studying philosophy leads to the humility and altruism necessary to true knowledge of science and religion. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Principles of Philosophy

By Reuven Agushewitz

YESHIVA UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2008 Yeshiva University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60280-024-3

Contents

Preface Dr. Norman Lamm.................................ixTranslator's Introduction................................xiA Word to the Reader.....................................xviiiPrologue.................................................xxxAcknowledgements.........................................xxxvi1 What is Philosophy?...................................12 The Influence of Unity................................153 The Influence of Diversity............................454 Progress..............................................83Index....................................................190Index of Biblical & Rabbinic Sources.....................194

Chapter One

What is Philosophy?

A.

Never mind [meyle], I won't dispute [shparn] concerning what was. Certainly philosophy once had its function. In the times when the chieftain ruled with the help of his dark advisors, the magician, the astrologer, and the alchemist, certainly the torch of philosophy served to dispel somewhat the dark shadow of brutality and superstition. But those times are past. Today we have the electric light of modern science. Why should we still make use of the same obsolete torch-"How does a candle benefit us during the day?" (Talmud, Pesahim [the concept is in Pesahim; the actual phrase is in Hullin 60b-Tr.]) And if you like, I'll tell you a secret, today there is no longer any philosophy. Like a mature spore, the old philosophy has been divided into the various modern sciences, which, being better trained and equipped, perform its functions more perfectly.

-You err, my friend. There is even today a philosophy, and we must even today make use of it ...

I am not going to go with you into deep investigations concerning the essence of philosophy and science. I will here only dwell upon your own words. You first compared philosophy to a ripened spore which is then divided into various modern sciences. This means, that you yourself admit that the modern sciences have their origin in philosophy or that philosophy is the mother of the modern sciences and if not for philosophy, it is possible that the modern sciences would never have existed. It appears that for this reason alone philosophy deserves much more credit than you were willing to give it, and for this reason alone you should not have complained about the negligible profit extracted from philosophy. But I am not here seeking redress [monen di krivde] for philosophy, concerning its service in the past. Your words speak also about the importance of philosophy in the present and the future. Because if philosophy is the mother of the sciences, it must certainly have some particular characteristic [epes an aygnshaft] to be the mother of the sciences. It must be endowed with some kind of special power to give birth to the sciences; in other words, philosophy must surely have a power to initiate sciences, to create scientific principles.

And since philosophy has such creative power, it can of course never be dispensable [iberig], it continues to have an important function to fulfill. Because certainly you yourself will admit that science has no ground floor, that however scientific we might be, there remains in the end enough darkness about us and there always remains, therefore, enough place for the new birth of sciences.

I see that this particular answer has not made you completely happy. To be sure [take], you cannot deny the connection of philosophy to the birth of science, because you know too well the history of science. You know too well, that the first scientists were all philosophers and that the highest principles of science-conservation of matter, atomism, universal motion, the effect of positive and negative forces, organic evolution {Organic evolution is found in the writings of Axanimander, a philosopher who lived 2,500 years ago. Universal motion gets its pedigree [yikhes] from Herakleitos. The effect of positive and negative forces used to be called sympathy and antipathy.}, etc., were discovered by them without the help of scientific instruments. You therefore come, for no good reason [glat azoy], with demands and complaints [taynes]:

First, you would like to know exactly [genoi] what is the object of philosophy-what is the philosopher searching for and what does he ponder when he philosophizes. True, in our discourse a little earlier about the great service that philosophy does, you already heard in passing [agav urkhedik] that philosophers try to get to know the essential being of things-but what does "essential being" mean? And why can't we get to know it with the help of the sciences?

Second, you would like to know how philosophy goes about [zukht] achieving its object, what instrument does it employ to this end-is it the same as used in the sciences, or is there a peculiarly [ayngenartiger] philosophical instrument? And if the latter is true, you would still want me to explain exactly the nature of that instrument, how it works.

Third, you don't understand why there are so many definitions of philosophy. Just [aderabe] open up [an efen ton] the encyclopedia, we find there definitions of philosophy by Plato, by Aristotle, by Kant, by [Friedrich] Ueberweg [1826-1871], by Spencer, by James, and more-does philosophy really [nit shoyn zhe] have so many essences?

Well [iz], to answer these complaints directly, I fear, would lead to abstract discourse, which would probably bore you [farnudzen=farnudyen]. Therefore I will try to rely on an appropriate concrete example. Let us take an essence that we know through and through and we know therefore, of it, what precisely is essential and what contingent. We can find easily such an example among our own artifacts [shafungen]-chess, for example.

Let us take the game of chess as our example. As any other thing, chess has a contingent aspect and an essential aspect: the particular matter, proportions, and colors of the chess board and the pieces belong to the contingent part, and changes in these things will make no difference in the essential being of chess. On the other hand, the design of the chess board, the square of 64 boxes of two different colors, one next to the other, belong to the essential part, and a change in this would destroy the essential being of chess.

Now let us imagine that a group of very tiny, short-lived, but intelligent creatures examine the nature of chess. Among this group of small fry [khevre kleynvarg], can be found all kinds of scientists: chemists, physicists, mathematicians, historians, biologists, psychologists, etc. Each group of scientists tries to investigate according to their manner [shteyger] the essence of chess.

The chemists find out the correct formula for the elements and the matter of the chess board, of the pieces, and of the players. The physicists examine the forces to which the movements of the pieces are subjected. The mathematicians calculate the amount of space and time in all this. The historian discovers very interesting facts, that everything here is cyclical [galgalhakhoyzer], when it seems to be approaching the end, it begins once again. And the biologists and psychologists, probably, take to elaborating scientifically the players themselves, investigating all facts about them. The former will ponder mainly the breathing and the blood pressure of the players during the stress of the game. The latter will surely be interested more in the way the players hold the pieces, in front of their heads or in front of their bellies.

Don't laugh [lakht nisht], this is not an empty illustration. Pay attention and you will see this kind of comical scene in real life. You need not go far. Take life itself-the great game, in proportion to which we humans are certainly no more than little creatures. Don't you look comical, when the source of desire, effort, creativity, and progress is, through various scientists, explained away [oysgetaytsht] as a result of an accidental merging of various inorganic elements, or from some combination of heat and cold, which came about when the earth cooled off? But even more comical is, when the biologists hold that they are giving you a definition of life, when they introduce you to the facts by which life is manifested.

Try, in fact, to question a biologist: what is life? He will start reading off a list [tsetl] of actions which a living cell performs: it is sensitive, reactive, breathes, grows, reproduces itself, requires and assimilates food, etc. But that which follows from life is not life itself. Imagine seeing all these activities in a stone-would it not occur to you, that besides these activities, which you see, there must be something else in the stone, which you do not see, something of which these activities are consequences?

Let us, however, leave aside for a while the definition of life, to which we will return later, and revert to our example. Of course, in this manner, the little creatures will never achieve knowledge of the true essence of the game of chess. For this, what is necessary is a deeper cognition of things, a cognition which penetrates the shell of contingency so far as to be able to conjecture [onshtoysn] the concept [plan] of the game of chess: an cognition of the state of the chess board through which we become acquainted with the required order of its squares; a cognition of the moves through which we become acquainted with the required hierarchy in the ranks of the pieces; a cognition through which, in the continual exertions of the players, we can detect a continual desire for achievement, to have something more or to progress. {Some may not find these last words clear, but they will become clear later, when the concept of progress is treated at great length. Meanwhile it will suffice to mention that the desire to progress is the true cause of play, and indeed of all our activities. The difference between play and our serious activities, lies not in their object nor in their duration-in both cases, we are looking for progress, though in a game we are looking for progress during the time of the game, while in our other engagements we look for progress that will hold for a longer time.} This deeper cognition with things is the characteristic instrument of philosophy.

Now let us imagine, that some of the little creatures actually possess this deeper cognition, by which they have cognized the essence of chess, as well as that of many other things-what would you call the object of that cognition, what do we cognize with that deeper cognition? You will surely say, that with this, we cognize the essence of things. Yet we cognize essence not only with this deeper cognition. In fact, in the abovementioned illustration, the chemists also cognize the essence of things, the essence of the matter through which the chess game is realized. You must therefore say, that with the deeper cognition, we cognize the basic essence of things as such, the essence which represents the thing in itself, and not one of its contingent manifestations.

The essential being of a thing is, according to Plato, the pure Idea, which exists eternally, and therefore the philosophy is, for Plato, "knowledge of eternal reality." For Aristotle, the essential being is the correct definition of a thing, the essence with which we must end up at the end of analysis, after setting aside from the thing all of its contingent manifestations; therefore, philosophy is, for Aristotle, "a science of final reality." The same essential being of a thing is called by Kant "pure concept," or "concept as such." And because pure concepts provide the highest instance of our cognitive faculty, reason, philosophy according to Kant is "a rational knowledge begotten of concepts as such."

The essential being [etsen vezn] of a thing is also the principle from which follows everything related to the thing, everything that brings the essence of the thing to manifestation-the board is of wood, because through the wood, the plan of the chess board is manifested-therefore, for Ueberweg, philosophy is "the science of principles." The essential being of a thing, or its principle, is also the universal in the thing, that which must be found in all its manifestations-the plan of the chess board must be found in every chess board-and therefore, philosophy is, for James, "thinking more about universals than about particulars." In accordance with Spencer's system of principles, furthermore, the universals themselves must be a manifestation of a higher universal, and therefore philosophy must be "knowledge of the highest grade of universality." It thus turns out [kumt oys] that the all these definitions really stem from the same essence.

Your objections to philosophy are therefore no objections at all [keyn taynes nisht]; philosophy has a specific object, and a specific instrument to achieve this object. True, this instrument does not work so easily and so accurately as scientific instruments-the deeper cognition is more an inspiration {to what extent such an inspiration is possible, we will see later}, which is not as controllable or as accurate as the worked out scientific rule-and therefore, philosophy finds it more difficult to achieve its object, and its cognition is also not so exact as the cognition of the sciences. But you should not forget, that there is no other instrument for getting at the essential being of things; and if you understand that we cannot renounce such an important and interesting field of cognition, you must have recourse [onkumen] to the instrument of philosophy, you cannot do without [bagevn] philosophy.

And you should not forget either, that philosophy not only introduces us to a very important field of cognition, but the way it takes us there has an importance all its own. For when we cognize something via the sciences, we know only that it is thus, but not that it must be thus. For example, when we find out that when chlorine and sodium unite chemically, the result is salt-but why just [grod] salt? This, the sciences cannot tell us. If it were not for the rule that from the same cause, the same effect follows, one could expect that tomorrow morning the same combination of elements should comprise something else. But when we cognize, through philosophy, that something manifests an essential principle, we cognize also, that it must manifest that very principle, and that from here on in, we ourselves should propose it as a manifestation of the same principle. When we cognize that life is a manifestation of a higher degree of unity and diversity, cognizing indeed in life the characteristics of a higher degree of unity and diversity, then we should ourselves also propose the former as a manifestation of the latter.

Philosophy, therefore, acquaints us not only with what is, but also with what must be, and "must" is the instrument of morality-thefore there is a close relationship between philosophy and morality. When you know what has to be, you have an ideal and you can appraise the worth of things and deeds [handlungn] according to whether they achieve your ideal; for example, you can know that a human life is worth more than an animal life, because it represents a higher degree of unity and diversity, that which life must manifest, and thus you can know also, that a deed which brings utility to human life, is worth more than a deed which serves an animal life. When you have a philosophy, you have also a standard for morality.

And when you have a standard for morality, you would prefer to live in accordance with that standard and that everyone should live that way, because when you know what ought to be, you desire that what ought to be should actually be-in this, Socrates was certainly right.

Philosophy and morality stand in a close relationship; the stronger the influence of philosophy, the tighter the bonds of morality, "the more Torah, the more life" [Avot 2:7]. Conversely, a crisis in philosophy brings with it a crisis in morality. Scientific inquiry of any kind cannot help here.

B.

-My word ['khleben], a fine discourse [a gants fayner pilpel], the only problem is, it's inconsistent [nit oysgehaltn]. You say that philosophy grants us a standard of morality. Everything would be good if there were one philosophy and one standard. What happens, though [vi iz ober der din], when there are a number of philosophies, each one of which with its own standard? One philosophy says that the main thing is to devote oneself to nourishing the soul; that the highest good lies in the pleasure of cognizing a true idea, "there is no good but Torah" [Avot 6:3]; as for the bodily pleasures, one should avoid them like the plague. Another says just the opposite: the good is the gratification of bodily appetites, and too much Torah may even be unhealthy, "to increase knowledge is to increase pain" [Ecclesiastes 1:18]. According to one philosophy, a man must not take into account the opinion of society; freedom is the highest virtue. According to another one, sociability is, on the contrary, the highest virtue: "A man should always be of sweet disposition [Heb. me'orav beda'at] in associating with men" (Ketubot 17). One holds that when one is perfect, he is necessarily [mimeyle] happy. Another holds the converse, that when one is happy, he is necessarily perfect. So [iz] whose moral standard should you adopt? Or should you rather [gor], like the Rabbinical judge in the story about the two litigants, say that everybody's right? ["You're right too," the rabbi answered his wife, when she protested that the two litigants couldn't both be right -Tr.]

(Continues...)

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