Jerusalem and Athens: The Congruity of Talmudic and Classical Philosophy
The Talmud - the Mishnah, a philosophical law code, and the Gemara, a dialectical commentary upon the Mishnah - works by translating principal modes of Western philosophy and science into the analysis of the rules of rationality governing the rules of humble, everyday reality. Science, in particular the method of hierarchical classification characteristic of natural history, supplies the method of making connections and drawing conclusions to the Mishnah, the law-code that forms the...
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Neusner shows in this original study how philosophy, specifically, dialectical analysis, defines the logic of the Talmud of Babylonia's Gemara and guides the writers of the Gemara's compositions and the compilers of its composites in their analysis and amplification of some of the topical presentations, or tractates, of the Mishnah.
PrefaceIThe Science and Philosophy of the Workaday World1IIPhilosophical Modes of Analytical Argument19iThe Public Side of Thought20iiWritten Marks of Thought Recorded for Oral Recapitulation35iiiThe Rules of Engagement44ivThe Public Argument in the Mishnah49vThe Public Argument in the Tosefta53viWill Plato and Aristotle Have Approved?58IIIThe Dialectical Argument and the Bavli63iPhilosophical Dialectics63iiWhy Dialectics Was the Chosen Medium of Thought and Expression for the Mishnah's Heirs and Continuators74iiiThe Gemara's Dialectics83ivAn Example of a Dialectical Argument88vAn Example of an Argument of an Other-than-Dialectical Character95viThe Importance of the Dialectical Argument in the Gemara110viiThe Law behind the Laws113viiiThe Unity of the Law118ixThe Triumph of the Gemara's Dialectics: Turning a List into a Series122xDialectics and the Intellectual Dynamics of the Gemara139IVHow the Talmud Works142Bibliography156General Index163Index to Biblical and Talmudic References165
