There is evidently quite a bit of logic – inductive as well as deductive – to be found in the Tanakh (the Jewish Bible). Although this document aims, of course, primarily to convey narratives (they did this, they said that) and legislation (do this, don’t do that), it…
Induction, as an epistemological concept, refers to the logical processes through which all propositions, and their various constituents, are gradually developed. Some philosophers have tended to define induction as the pursuit of general principles from particu…
Jewish logic has long used and explicitly recognized a form of argument called qal vachomer (meaning, lenient and stringent). According to Genesis Rabbah (92:7, Parashat Miqets), an authoritative Midrashic work, there are ten samples of such of argument in the Tanakh: o…
In this essay, my purpose is to analyze the language actually used in Biblical a fortiori statements. An empirical study, without preconceptions.
A Biblical a fortiori argument, as we saw, usually consists of two more or less explicit sentences, one of which is the…
Some 18 years after I published Judaic Logic, I returned to the subject of a fortiori argument in the Tanakh in A Fortiori Logic, and in this context discovered many additional instances.
There are at least 46 instances of a fortiori discourse in …
In this chapter, I am called upon for the sake of comprehensiveness to comment on some of the a fortiori discourse found in Christian literature, especially the Gospels. I must stress that I do not intend the following treatment to be exhaustive. I am merely breaking gr…
In this chapter, I am called upon for the sake of comprehensiveness to comment on some of the a fortiori discourse found in Moslem literature. I must stress that I do not intend the following treatment to be exhaustive. I am merely breaking ground for a more extensive t…
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