Posted by Jost on November 20, 2006, at 16:18:55
In reply to Lou's response to aspects of gg's post, posted by Lou Pilder on November 20, 2006, at 13:25:44
Lou, I don't know if one can take Bob's statement of rules for Psychobabble as a serious enough attempt to codify the principles of governance if this board.
If you do, as the following citation from "Talumic Method" by H. A. Wolfson makes me worry, I hope you aren't too frustrated by the fact that he, the deputies, and others here aren't prepared to engage in that sort of analysis of the text.
Jost
TALMUDIC METHOD
Harry Austryn Wolfson, Crescas' Critique of Aristotle
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1929)"In the Talmudic method of text study, the starting point is the principle that any text that is deemed worthy of serious study must be assumed to have been written with such care and precision that every term,expression, generalization or exception is significant not so much for what it states as for what it implies. The contents of ideas as well as the diction and phraseology in which they are clothed are to enter into the reasoning....
...This attitude toward texts had its necessary concomitant in what may again be called the Talmudic hypothetico-deductive method of text interpretation. Confronted with a statement on any subject, the Talmudic student will proceed to raise a series of questions before he satisfies himself of having understood its full meaning. If the statement is not clear enough, he will ask, 'What does the author intend to say here?' If it is too obvious, he will again ask, 'It is too plain, why then expressly say it?' If it is a statement of fact or of a concrete instance, he will then ask, 'What underlying principle does it involve?' If it is broad generalization, he will want to know exactly how much it is to include; and if it is an exception to a general rule, he will want to know how much it is to exclude. He will furthermore want to know all the circumstances under which a certain statement is true, and what qualifications are permissible....
...Statements apparently contradictory to each other will be reconciled by the discovery of some subtle distinction, and statements apparently irrelevant to each other will be subtly analyzed into their ultimate elements and shown to contain some common underlying principle. The harmonization of apparent contradictions and the interlinking of apparent irrelevancies are two characteristic features of the Talmudic method of text study. And similarly every other phenomenon about the text becomes a matter of investigation. Why does the author use one word rather than another? What need was there for the mentioning of a specific instance as an illustration? Do certain authorities differ or not? If they do, why do they differ?"
poster:Jost
thread:704221
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20061018/msgs/705579.html