Jessica Green is a second-year philosophy and comparative literature major at the University of Chicago. In philosophy she focuses on philosophy of the mind, epistemology, and the philosophy of science. In comparative literature she focuses on Italian, Latin, and postmodern texts. She has lived her whole life until now in Centennial, Colorado. Outside of schoolwork, Jessica participates in the University of Chicago Motet Choir, plans UChicago’s first ever Jewish Cultural Festival as president of the Jewish Students Association, and captains her team for the world’s largest scavenger hunt at UChicago. Jessica has considered such varied careers as teaching, writing, business consulting, law, and Jewish nonprofit work. While she has no idea which one of these career paths she will choose, Jessica knows that she wants to make a big difference.
Jessica's paper explores the similarities and differences between Descartes and Maimonides; in particular, in their proofs of G-d’s existence and the explanation for G-d’s properties. (1) Descartes intends his text for a strictly philosophical audience and Maimonides intends his text for the average person. (2) While she finds that both Descartes and Maimonides are advocates of foundationalism (the philosophical belief that all our beliefs rest on a set of basic beliefs that can be justified non-inferentially) with the belief in G-d’s existence being the basic belief, foundationalism is Descartes’s goal, whereas Maimonides only happens upon it in the course of proving G-d’s existence. (3) The difference in their proofs represent a difference between the traditional philosophical rationalist and empiricist, Descartes being the rationalist moving from what he knows only by logical reasoning to proving the existence of the world, Maimonides being the empiricist beginning his proof from what he knows about the physical world. (4) Descartes uses Ancient Ethics in a Post-Modern World 10a pre-established logical construct to prove that G-d has the properties he believes G-d to have, while Maimonides takes a more complicated route. (5) Descartes’s failing is the inherent circularity in his proof, while Maimonides ultimately relies on faith. (6) Jessica concludes that Maimonides’s proof has more practical use because he successfully proves G-d’s existence and his failing is only relevant in his proof of the properties of G-d.
This presentation was delivered at the Sinai Scholars Academic Symposium 2012.
The Sinai Scholars Symposium is a yearly conference for university students, hosted by the Sinai Scholars Society. Students from around the world gather with an esteemed panel of Ivy League professors, world-class Torah scholars and experts in their field to study, discuss and present their thoughts on various subjects that deal with Judaism and the modern world. Each student prepares an academic paper which they present to their colleagues and a panel of judges.
Paper Rationalism vs. Empiricism
