My final project examines instances of the a fortiori argument in two rabbinic works: the Mishna and the Mekhilta de R. Ishmael. It uses the dataset that I compiled for Project #2 and focuses on turning the disparate components in that effort into a meaningful accessible Story.
The a fortiori is a form of logical reasoning in which a known characteristic of a given “strong” case is presumed to apply to a comparable “weaker” case. For example, this reasoning would posit that if somebody has paid $500 per night night for a 1-bedroom Airbnb in NYC then I can infer that they’ll surely be willing to pay at least $500 per night for a 3-bedroom Airbnb in NYC.
Importantly, this technique is not always effective. The quality that is used to assess strength and weakness may not be relevant or determinative for the inference. In the case of the Airbnb: What if the renter’s previous stay was in Brooklyn but the 3-bedroom is in Staten Island? Or if the apartment is in really poor condition? Or they do not plan to travel to NYC again? Etc.
Studies of the a fortiori argument in rabbinic writings have noted the Sages’ awareness of flaws in this technique. While the argument occurs frequently in the traditional Jewish corpus of early rabbinic writings (dating roughly from c. 200 – 500 C.E.), it is not always deemed persuasive. It is often disputed, sometimes rejected or ignored, and only rarely explicitly accepted. Even the most insightful conventional analyses of trends in the use of this argumentation are somewhat impressionistic, with researchers selecting texts that they deem representative. Scholarship will benefit from a comprehensive data-driven study of the instances of a fortiori, in aggregate.
The current project is a pilot for a broad study of forms of logical argument in the rabbinic corpus. I focus specifically on the a fortiori argument as the most common of the types of reasoning, and I have limited the dataset to cases that explicitly name the argument. Since the rabbinic texts are highly self-reflective, they often flag their logical argumentation with technical terms. The most common expression for the a fortiori argument is qal va’homer, meaning “light and heavy.” Given that this term appears many dozens of times in the two works I chose for this project–the Mishna and the Mekhilta–I limited my dataset to the following less common expressions:
- “is it not a logical deduction”
- “for one, many times over”
- “all the more so”
I collected the examples by cutting and pasting the relevant excerpts from the Mishna and the Mekhilta from http://sefaria.org/ into an excel spreadsheet, and I created my variables as I took notes on the text. For the visualizations, I used a pared-down dataset. In retrospect, I saw that my selection of the variables was informed by the following characteristics of rabbinic literature:
- interaction with the text of the Hebrew Bible, e.g., through citation, allusion, interpretation
- categorization of the text as relating either to “narrative” and homilies, or to “law”[1] and religious practice
- multivocality—recording multiple opinions and arguments, e.g., for a textual interpretation, a “legal” ruling, a remembered tradition or event
- self-awareness and self-reflection regarding processes of production, analysis, and transmission of texts and traditions
So, these are the questions I set out to answer in my visualizations:
- How often do a fortiori arguments include citations of Biblical text, and what books do they cite?
- Do a fortiori arguments appear more frequently in texts about narrative or about law?
- Who are the sages who are named as engaging with a fortiori arguments?
- How often are a fortiori arguments accepted or rejected?
For all of these categories, I am interested in comparing the distribution of the results for the Mishna and the Mekhilta, and across the three different expressions, “all the more so”; “is it not a logical deduction”, and “for one, many times over”?
This project has moved me somewhat forward towards my long-term goal in working with techniques of logical reasoning in early rabbinic literature: I’d like to compile, classify, link, and annotate examples and metadata, including qualitative analytical evaluation of the reasoning.
[1] The term for “law”, halakha, derives from the word for “walking”, and has a very broad scope, encompassing civil law, ritual and liturgy, morality, life cycle and daily routines and more.
