Matts question on the previous post is so fundamental, I will give it its own post.
To understand the Active intellect one must ask oneself a fundamental question about learning. How does man shift from ignorance, or mere potential knowing, to wisdom, or actual knowing? We are not the cause of our own knowing, it seems like we undergo a transformational process of, as it were, not seeing and then seeing an idea, shifting from ignorance to knowledge. What causes this transformation to occur?
Let us picture the discovery of gravity as a case in point. We can imagine Newton observing the apple falling from the tree. Newton realized that the falling apple was in reality an example of relationship between all bodies- there is an attraction between bodies that is the cause of the apple in particular falling. Taking a step back we can now ask a deeper question. What caused Newton to see the apple in the more general sense of body? No one else had ever seen apples falling as a special case of attraction between bodies. What was the cause of Newton's shift from potential knowing of gravity to actually knowing it?
Surely this is as legitimate a question as the one about falling. Why should a material change require a cause but a mental change not need one? Shouldn't all change require a cause not just material change? Surely there is a cause for the change of a צלם from ignorance to wisdom as much as a change of a body from one place to another?
This cause of knowing is not a material force like gravity. Gravity causes material motion, change of place or perhaps speed, of the various material parts of the universe in relation to each other. As such gravity can explain orbits of planets, it can allow us to calculate where the moon will be relative to the Sun or Earth at any given time. It cannot explain the immaterial צלם's transformation from unknowing to knowing of immaterial ideas. What force then is the cause of this immaterial transformation of knowing ideas?
It is in exploring this problem that we come to the idea of an “active intellect”. The active intellect is the pre-existing ideational force that is the cause of our insight,the cause of the action of transformation of צלם from potential knowing to actual knowing. We feel this force as an intuitive attraction to the idea that solves a problem. But our intuition is not the cause of itself. Rather our intuition is our experience of an external ideational or immaterial force attracting us,moving our צלם from potential knowing -a sense of problem in the world- toward actual knowing - insight into a universal abstraction such as "attraction of bodies" as the explanation of individual sensational events such as the falling of this apple.
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16 comments:
Rabbi Sacks,
Things are already much clearer! I now see the function of the Active Intellect and why it is necessary to posit its existence (though I still need to think whether there could be other possibilities).
Before proceeding, I need clarification on one point. You write: "The active intellect is the pre-existing idea that is the cause of our insight, the cause of the action of transformation from potential knowing to knowing."
My question is: What kind of a thing is the Active Intellect? According to the sentence above, it seems like the Active Intellect is an idea. Does that mean that there are multiple active intellects? I've never come across such a notion in the Rishonim.
Also, I have read that the Active Intellect is described as a malach. What does that mean? (But you don't have to answer this question unless it will help me to understand the Active Intellect in the context in which it is being presented on your blog.)
הלכות יסודי התורה פרק ב
ד [ג] כל מה שברא הקדוש ברוך הוא בעולמו, נחלק לשלושה חלקים: מהם ברואים שהם מחוברים מגולם וצורה--והם נהווים ונפסדים תמיד, כמו גופות האדם והבהמה והצמחים והמתכות. ומהם ברואים שהם מחוברים מגולם וצורה, אבל אינם משתנים מגוף לגוף ומצורה לצורה כמו הראשונים, אלא צורתם קבועה בגולמם לעולם, ואינם משתנים כמו אלו--והם הגלגלים והכוכבים שבהן, ואין גולמם כשאר גלמים ולא צורתם כשאר צורות
ה ומהם ברואים צורה בלא גולם כלל--והם המלאכים, שהמלאכים אינם גוף וגווייה, אלא צורות נפרדות זו מזו.
The Malachim are "tzurot" ideational entities. One of these is the "active intellect.
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To all readers
Please follow Matts lead and ask any "background" questions you have. I cant possibly anticipate all preliminary material in the posts themselves. Each one would become extremely long and tiresome if I were to try.
Rabbi Sacks,
Just to make sure I understand: The Active Intellect is an ideational entity whose function is to bring the knowledge in our minds from potential to actual?
An ideational entity is in a sense a mind.
The activity of the active intellect is to actualize all ideas that express themselves in matter as a medium. This is called tzura bichomer in Rambam. Tzura bichomer finds unity in an eco system of Earth. Gravity as an idea expresses itself as the motion of the sun moon earth etc neceassary for our atmosphere seasons etc. The tzura of animal expresses itself as dna in generation after generation of animal or vegetable. Chemical tzura expresses itself in the myriad compounds and mixtures.
Since man is himself part of the ecosystem of Earth, he also is created out of matter via tzura.
The uniqueness of man is that he can become aware of the very tzura of which he is composed. The ultimate act of active intellect is to transform the end product of the ecosystem, from potentially knowing himself as part of an ecosystem, to actually knowing this. This is portrayed in Brayshees as man naming the animals, realizing the tzura in them. Ultimately since we are ourselves a part of the ecosystem we are naming-we name ourselves.Become aware of idea as that which realizes our knowledge of an environment that we ourselves are part of.
If you look at Ralbag in tzelem 2 again you will see that this last point about man knowing the ecosystem of which he is part, is the first step of what he is saying.
Hello Rabbi,
To take the evolutionary biologists perspective, one could say that the human species ability to seek and identify patterns and order is a prerequisite for our survival. We can see similar behavior (however on a more elementary level) in other species. The difference can be seen in that we have developed further than any species, so our normal survival dependent activities are more rich and detailed. This is why we have the capability to learn and understand the world around us.
Take for the example the invention of controlled fire. Civilization could not have come into existence if it wasn't for fire. Yet in the context of history fire is a very recent invention. Other animals have figured out to use tools, human-like beings had been in existence for a little while up to the point. Fire itself had existed forever. What took so long to tame it? I don't see a need to posit that there was some sort of outside force that was pushing humanity towards technological advancement, the same way I don't see how there is an outside force pushing humanity towards intellectual advancement.
What is lacking in the explanation that due to our advanced consciousness we have an ability to apply the same tactics and systems of operation we use in the physical world to a new paradigm (intellect)?
Michael
I agree with you in regard to the patterns useful to invention. These are what are called descriptions or toar. For the "good" of control or conquering nature all we need a "pattern" that is easily communicated to the fellow professionals or members of a craft.This ,as Ralbag points out we share with the animals.
What I am talking about is the theoretical ideas of man. These, to my mind, are qualitatively different than patterns arising from experience. The ideas are vastly more abstract and more importantly are valued for their beauty of explanation not for their application in inventions to control the world. The theoretical motive of man drives ones like Socrates,Plato, Newton Poincare and Einstein as they describe in their works. The good they seek is knowledge itself not the power of inventions knowledge gives.Power is indeed an animal drive and can be explained by survival.Theoretical pleasure cannot.
This motive of theoretical pleasure_ahava- guides the problems selected and the end product desired. The Ohev is characterized by Shabbat the culmination of craft with the true human end of reflection for its own sake. The Ohev avoids practical applications merely useful for technology. He seeks cases that advance the universality of his understand at the expense of his power. Unlike Edison Einstein takes no pleasure in making tools like a light bulb. His pleasure lies in using lightbulbs to ponder great ideas for the love of those ideas.
Rabbi Sacks,
You have explained the active intellect as the force which guides man to apprehension of the idea. It transforms man from potential knowing to actual knowing. Can you elucidate why one man gets the full benefit of the “active intellect” and another person will not? If it is the active intellect that is causing the transformation, then why does a Newton only discover level of understanding of gravity and an Einstein discovers a deeper one?
Why does a Ramban come to one view of the Torah system and the Rambam to another? They both seem to position themselves in a way to allow the active intellect to transform them to knowing.
RW
Actually, as Rambam points out in the intro to the Mishna, there should be very little machlokes between mature minds within a given factual base.
On the other hand, we stand on the shoulders, as Ralbag points out in the intro to Milchamos Hashem. Human experience grows and knowledge becomes possible that previously was not. Einstein sees what Newton could not see precisely because Newton is the shoulders he stands upon. The active intellect works on a subject matter as it is evolving in humanity.
Rabbi Sacks,
Do you mean to say that a Newton could never have percieved the ideas of Einstein?
Is it the same in Torah, is a person limited in his depth of understanding to the starting point of where the generations before him reached?
Furthermore, you do see that there are minds that seem to have far surpassed the ideas of his current generation, why was he succesfull and another thinker not so?
I think there is a limit to what a person can see given the fact that his mind sees universal principles like gravity via a subject matter that is organized by a community or "field" over time. This is the meaning of being a dwarf on the shoulder of giants-a metaphor beloved to Aristotle, Newton and Einstein. It is quoted by Ralbag as well,in the intro to Milchamos Hashem, with regard to Torah as well.
Consider also the implication of Rambam saying that if a demonstration for the eternity of the universe could be found he would read Brayshees metaphorically. How big a change in perspective would that be if such a demonstration were in fact found?
RW
Please also consider the implication of Ibn Ezra and Ralbag explaining the Hasgahic motion of Moshe to the palace of Pharaoah to receive the best education available. Why would this preparation of mind through the subject be so important if Moshe Rabbenu himself would not otherwise have been limited?
If you suggest that it is the Active Intellect that is making the transformation from unknowing to knowing, then what specifically in man prepares him to see the idea. You do see that Moshe needed to be "התחכם שם עם חכמי מצרים" to prepare him to be able to reach the levels that he did. What is the condition in man that allows him to have the Active Intellect act upon him?
Second, should two people theoretically be in the same “condition”, would both receive the same idea from the Active Intellect?
If one considers the human fields of study,indeed the basis of education, the underlying premise is indeed unity in the idea people apprehend.
We could not even speak without the assumption of share ideas and therefore meaning shared through communication.
The essential state of mind needed for readiness for the action of the active intellect is ישוב דעת
Rambam describes this as the end product of mitzvot or Davar katan. This state of mind is a gathering of sensory experience of the world and an organization of it in the psyche. The organization must be realistic both in the sense of realizing the "good" of man and the realistic means of attaining it. So long as this well being is not attatined, the psyche is not able to allow itself to consider more abstract wisdom, as we said in the case of R Meir and Beruria.
RW
"Allow itself" is imprecise. So long as the psyche does not actually engage its practical knowledge of how to acquire well being it will be dissatisfied. This dissatisfaction will prevent focus on the Chochmas hashem in the system of all Creations and require focus on the specific framework of aretz where resources can be acquired. It is fot this reason Rambam calls mitzvot bread and meat- the means of acquiring satisfaction from these so as to refocus on the Creation system.
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