Signalling the Seabed

By: Jonathan Seidel

Semiotics and metaphysics: a supernal placement to the natural   

Maimonides’ metaphysics differ in his nominalistic perspective of religiosity. Maimonides allegorised much of the metaphysical frame. Converting the supernal into a mythical image denigrates its realistic capabilities. The miraculous loses its prowess. The irrational transitions to the fictional. The real becomes symbolic. The figurative aspect upholds a sentimental core to the celestial. For Maimonides, the underlying value is behind textual manipulation. 

Maimonides translates Abraham’s meeting with angels as a dream, leprosy as a medical condition and revelation as an intellectualised encounter. Maimonides figuratively explained the anthropomorphic texts. Maimonides believes that God is incorporeal and his physicality and emotions are metaphoric measures. He believes the characters the Eden story represent different parts of the human soul. Angelic confrontations are allegorised with deeper messages. The spiritual side is linked to the intellectual attainment. His model of metaphorical explanation is clinging to the symbolic gems inherent in religiosity. The semantic sting flourishes in the realistic portrayal of the world.   

Maimonides naturalism varies from modern conceptions. In a sense he does not naturalise insofar as super-naturalises. He believes in the divine transcendent and divine influence. Yet, he naturalised the celestial in the form of prophecy associating the prophetic encounter with intellectual attainment. Divine speech is linked to intellectualisation and his negative theology.  The messianic era is naturalised even if it brought by a supernatural being. Yet, the mitigation of the miraculous assumes a transcendence that evokes faithfulness over interventionism. 

Maimonidean rationalism differs heavily from Kaplanian naturalism. Kaplan furthered the impersonal nature of God. God is the sum of the natural processes and cannot reward or punish. God is the power of salvation. Kaplan’s naturalism is more trans-naturalistic in its incapability of scientific comprehension. Values and ideals fit into this category. Still, it is more naturalistic than Maimonides. Maimonides identifies a personalised creator who does reward and punish. Maimonides sees God as a transcendent entity and Kaplan’s is immanent. Maimonides attempts to uphold a traditional mantra albeit with his intense intellectualisation

Contemporary thinkers like Leibowitz Levinas and Goldman radicalise Maimonidean divinity. Their perspectives isolate the theological aspects for legalistic apprehension. Their focus is on valuational expression via religious fervour. Each thinker associates the centrality of God to the religious matrix. The halakhic-centred mentality flourishes in voiding theological jargon for legal implementation. Leibowitz specifically looked to religious values instead of religious facts. His removal of metaphysics was less a scientific rejection and more an anthropomorphic opposition. Sinai for him is a normative statement that shapes Judaism in the commanded aspect of religiosity. To Leibowitz, factuality is meaningless in the space of valuational projection. 

This all speaks to Maimonides’ “necessary beliefs” as nominalistic dogmas. The intellectualisation of religiosity compelled a naturalistic outlook yet it formulated a bridge between the supernal and the earth. The supernatural doctrines become fancied in reality. This does not mean that they are irrational but it does mark them as metaphorical. Maimonides’ intellectualism is limited by his traditionalism. Leibowitz alternatively, sought religious value and embarked on valuational rendering. Jewish events symbolically explain the tenants of Judaism. 

Semiotics explains the inherent religious dialectic in the mythos of spirituality. Leprosy is metaphorically symbolic of the semantic reasoning against slander. The normative metaphysical connection is muddled with signification. Maimonides’ figurative proposals unleash a breach with traditional definitions. His renewed analysis points to a harsher rationalism. Yet, this allegorisation is deeply rooted in mythic expression. The metaphysic is the core of the symbol. 

The allegorised text hints to a deeper lesson. Just as the text has an additional layer hiding behind the semantic phraseology, so too the rituals. Maimonides sees the bible as a philosophical treatise and offers an analysis beneath the surface. The symbiotic law and narrative is semantic for a guidebook. The semiology of talion law and Abraham meeting with the angels is a cornerstone of Andalusian lexicography. Even prior to Maimonides, exegetical texts hinted to layered meaning and figurative explanations. His incorporeal God is rooted in the school’s philosophy. Rabad’s critique is solely that the French rabbis felt otherwise, not other Spanish scholars. The French rabbis reread the narratives at face value semantically interpreting, dissociating from the ancient jargon. Knowing the underlying code is perpetuating the original tradition.   

Maimonides does believe in miracles but his natural conception of the world precludes intervention. Miracles are plausibilities not possibilities; it cannot break the natural order. He assigns much of the miraculous to dreams and visions voiding them to unrealistic impracticality. He is unwilling to oppose miracles on traditional grounds but does find more value than fact in their design. Miracles are empowering but they need not be considered truth historically. Maimonides philosophical goal of allegorisation was a metaphysical defence than a philosophical mantra. 

Even if Maimonides does not hold this way, Leibowitz more or less does and Gillman presents it similarly. The goal is to avoid historical legitimisation and instead further symbolic representation. The fictional becomes ever real to the believer. The phenomenological perspective of religiosity indeed may be a neurosis but it is the fervour felt in those moments. Language provides that realistic draw to the unfathomable. The sign behind the text means something more and feels different. 

For Maimonides, there is an intellectually educational moment of growth in identifying the beliefs. The allegorisation fits with his rationalism yet also undercuts the realism. Still, it maintains the existential and possibly even the empirical perspective. The experience occurs whether in a vision or dream. The irrationality of the supernal vision or the metaphysical ritual is a mindset not a miracle worker. The nominalistic vote is the surface layer expression. It is the emotions bursting behind the scenes. The semiology is the code crypted in philosophical truth. The experience is an allegorised motion of development. 

Maimonidean allegorisation is not about scientific alignment but symbolic identification. Ashkenazi academies disputed it in light of their simple reading. Their divergence from traditional hermeneutics dislocated their attachment to the semiotic definition. Symbolism anoints itself the ruler of metaphysical embodiment. The nominal transitions to the real. Psychosis ventures to sanity. Metaphysics is the study of unseen knowledge attained from the external force. The metaphysical realistic ontology is threaded through nominalistic morality. This semiotic notation confirms that the ritual hellbent on producing a supernal marvel is a valuational lesson.