Conversation started Dec 9, 2013 at 21:53.
Monica Cellio
Monica Cellio
Dec 9, 2013 21:53
@Isaac @Hod you might find this question over there interesting. I'd be interested in your thoughts on my answer in particular. (And yes, I think a couple of the answers are misguided, but you could probably figure that out. :-) )
HodofHod
HodofHod
Dec 9, 2013 22:05
@MonicaCellio The interesting thing about your answer is that the examples you give assume that a person might not (be able to) set aside their biases themselves. It takes other people (e.g., peer review, interfaith dialogue) to enable/cause one to see outside their biases. Similar to "the prisoner cannot free himself" - Brachos 5b
Isaac Moses
Isaac Moses
@MonicaCellio If this question was meant to to be relevant to site policy, I think it's the wrong question, where the correct question is: "Is it possible to produce unbiased writing in interpreting Scripture?"
HodofHod
HodofHod
@IsaacMoses Well, it isn't on Meta, so it might be just about religious hermeneutics in general.
Isaac Moses
Isaac Moses
@HodofHod True.
@MonicaCellio goodreads.com/quotes/…
@MonicaCellio I think that to successfully study Talmud in depth, you need to be able to bracket like crazy.
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Monica Cellio
Monica Cellio
@HodofHod oh interesting. That wasn't my intent; I definitely know people who have changed core values after internal consideration rather than persuasion (I'm thinking of geirim in particular).
@IsaacMoses that's a good point. The question came out of the site-policy discussions, though it was asked on main (not meta) so also a question about the field, I guess. (I'm not the OP.)
@IsaacMoses ooh, good one!
Isaac Moses
Isaac Moses
Dec 9, 2013 22:20
@MonicaCellio The Midrash says that Avraham Avniu managed to do so.
Monica Cellio
Monica Cellio
@IsaacMoses yeah. I saw the question and was thinking "wait, we do that all the time - why is this a question?". Apparently we do but they think it's a foreign concept.
Isaac Moses
Isaac Moses
@MonicaCellio Relevant sources at torah.org/learning/integrity/torahbattles.html See footnotes to "So much so that our Sages often tried to refute their own opinions."
Monica Cellio
Monica Cellio
@IsaacMoses yup :-)
HodofHod
HodofHod
@MonicaCellio I thought not. I agree that persuasion is not necessarily required. But internal consideration still requires input from external influences.
But, yes, I agree that one can put aside biases enough to consider conflicting opinions.
The bias may still be present, but it doesn't necessarily preclude consideration of the idea, even to the extent of changing or eliminating the bias.
 
Conversation ended Dec 9, 2013 at 22:23.