[Avodah] Was the Rambam really a rationalist?

[David Riceman]

Me:
> : Could you translate "rationalist" and "mystic" into Hebrew?

RMB:
> 
> I assume this is your way of pointing out that historically we couldn't
> have classified outselves this way; we didn't even think in those terms,
> at least not often enough to bother coining words for it.
> 
> I am not sure that matters. The Rambam could be a Rationalist (or not)
> whether or not he was aware of the fact. It may mean we are overly
> focused on a distinction that didn't matter to baalei mesorah. Ot it
> may mean that we found a useful way to model ideas that were inherently
> there all along, but never before consciously thought about and discusses.

Oxford Minidictionary (ROM???):

Mystic: A person who seeks spiritual truths or experiences

Rationalism: Practice of treating reason as the basis of knowledge and belief


On the face of it those categories are not mutually exclusive - - the Rambam and his son, R Avraham, easily
fit into both.  There is a history in Christian thought of treating them as exclusive, anachronistically say Aquinas vs. Tertullian.
And there is a strain in Kabbalah of denying the ability of human reason to penetrate certain matters
(compare MN II:11).

Not only were these categories generated by examples from outside of Judaism, but you need to distort
either them or Judaism to try to apply them to Jewish thinkers.  I was pushing you to delineate more appropriate
categories.

David Riceman