A Sound Argument for Studying Philosophy
As a philosophy major at Stern, I am one member of what is a very small club. Adding a Judaic Studies major to the mix might seem like I am doubling down on impracticality. But studying both has convinced me that the two subjects have more to say to each other than most people realize.
While I’m most definitely not qualified to be commenting on the complicated and important sugya of learning secular philosophy, I like to think that both as a Jew and as someone trying to think seriously about the world, the benefits of my double major are incredibly meaningful.
Last week, I was reading an essay in “The Insecurity of Freedom” by Abraham Joshua Heschel with a friend, in which he discussed free will. Because I had just learned about Malebranche and Spinoza in my Modern Philosophy class, I didn’t just read Heschel, I read him in conversation with them. I could see where he separated himself from a centuries-old debate, and where he built on preexisting concepts. I noticed where his theology diverged from determinists and occasionalists, and observed what was distinctively Jewish about his position. I understood what Heschel was arguing and could appreciate some of the preconceived notions he was challenging in a way I would not have a semester ago.
On a separate occasion, when I found myself in a discussion about whether you have to perform a mitzvah with the correct intentions in order to receive credit for it, I thought back to my Ethics class and our debates over whether altruism truly exists and whether an action could truly be selfless if the person performing it wants something in return, even if that something is divine reward. The overlap with the question of schar (reward) is uncanny and, I think, not incidental.
When my friends and I discussed whether there is morality outside of God and the Torah — a topic that comes up more than one might think — I reflected on my Philosophy of Law class, where we spent weeks distinguishing between rules and principles, between commands and moral standards. And while that distinction does not resolve the age-old questions of Jewish thought, it helps sharpen them and gives me a better vocabulary to work through relevant issues.
That sharpening is the core of what philosophy does. It does not provide the answers, but improves on the questions themselves.
One of the first things you learn in most philosophy classes is the difference between a valid argument and a sound argument. A valid argument is one in which the conclusion follows from the premises; a sound argument is one in which the structure holds, but the premises must also actually be true. You can have an airtight argument in which the conclusion logically makes sense, but it is built on false assumptions and so will produce a false conclusion. Studying philosophy trains you to ask yourself, “Does this argument follow?” and “Is this true?” It trains you to notice when two premises that seem compatible actually contradict each other, and when someone has proven something to be true but has not proven what they think they have.
These skills are not abstract academic skills, used only in deciphering dense philosophical texts. These are the skills used in a beit midrash to seriously study traditional Jewish text and trace the arguments each rishon makes. These are the skills needed to be a good chavruta, to challenge assumptions and learn from the process.
Philosophy also teaches me something more specific: how to read closely. In my philosophy classes, I learn to treat every word and sentence as a choice, each meant to convey a particular message. When Kant wrote “ought implies can,” meaning that a moral obligation only makes sense if one can actually choose, he packed an entire argument about free will and moral responsibility into three words. Unpacking each word and phrase, and finding the meaning behind them, is exactly the sort of skill that learning Torah requires. Anyone who has read a Rashi and then tried to figure out the underlying decisions he made — why he chose a specific word, or why he commented at all — needs to possess the ability to read closely. When I bring that skill from my philosophy classes to my Judaic Studies classes, I read differently than I did before, with more attention, more carefully and with the assumption that there’s something I’m missing. Suddenly, my philosophy major perfectly complements my Judaic Studies major, creating a harmony that reflects the purpose of Torah U’Madda.
My double major is, in a way, a concretized version of what I am arguing. Every semester, when I register for my two philosophy classes and three Judaic classes, I am implicitly saying that these two traditions have something to say to each other. My Judaic Studies classes open me to texts and questions about God and obligation, with real stakes that impact how I live my life, and my philosophy classes give me the tools to work through those questions. The two disciplines are not in competition, but rather in conversation, and my goal is to be the intermediary between them.
Since coming to Stern, I’ve noticed a shift in the kinds of conversations I have with my friends and peers. Discussions about Jewish philosophy and the goals and methods of Modern Orthodoxy come up with unusual frequency. Maybe it’s just because of the environment that we find ourselves in, but I’d like to think there’s something more causing this. When you spend a semester asking philosophical questions in a secular context, you naturally start asking the same questions in a Jewish one too. When you learn what it means to “beg the question,” you start seeing this fallacy appear in conversations regarding religious issues — like when someone argues that we must have free will because God holds us accountable for our actions, which assumes the very thing we’re trying to prove — and suddenly you have the vocabulary to explain why an argument does not work, which opens up a conversation that would not have started otherwise.
It’s not just the topics that have changed, but the quality with which I have these conversations, whether that’s bringing in sources from both Judaic texts and secular philosophers or simply asking better questions and pushing back against bad ones. Philosophy teaches me to ask myself what kind of claim someone is actually making before attempting to respond and to look for and challenge both my own and others’ assumptions. It has also made me more comfortable sitting with questions that do not have clear answers, which, in Judaism, are some of the most important ones.
I am not arguing that studying philosophy is the only way to achieve serious thinking or that Jewish texts lack something that philosophical works can provide. What I’m saying is that studying philosophy has made me a more intellectually curious and serious Jew. It has both armed me with a new language to formulate questions I was already asking and has deepened my curiosity about new questions altogether. It has connected me to a new tradition of arguments, from Aristotle to Maimonides, one that is much more interconnected than I had ever known.
And I’m only a sophomore, with two full years left to take more classes, two full years to figure out what to do with my uncommon mix of majors. But instead of feeling like I am only at the beginning of a long and complex road, I recognize that I stand before an opportunity to connect to the chains of Jewish mesorah and philosophical tradition, and to see where they take me.
Photo credit: Roman Eisele
Photo caption: Bookshelf containing books by ancient Greek philosophers, Greek dictionaries and Greek grammars.
