The Open Past: Subjectivity and Remembering in the Talmud

Preamble: The Virtual Subject

131 p re ambl e The Virtual Subject From the question “Who speaks?” we arrive at an answer Talmud criticism gave to the implied question “Who thinks?” Answering both questions with their respective notions of “The Author” as either “redactors” or “composer” of Talmudic discussions, scholars in Talmud criticism assumed a strong and rigid connection between thinking and a person who thinks. By the logic of that connection, a thinking person has to be the center, the source, the root, and the moving force of thinking, in which that person participates. That rigid connection allowed the scholars in Talmud criticism to prove the existence, albeit ultimately virtual, of the “redactors” or “composers” of Talmudic discussions . That proof of existence was based on a thought process the scholars discovered in the text, which they ascribed neither to a named character in this text (Halivni’s view) nor even to any anonymous character in this text (Friedman’s view), but invariably still to a character—to a persona, either individual or collective, construed as “redactors” or “composer.” Thus, from observing unattributed thought-forms in the Talmud, the scholars of Talmud 132 Who Thinks? criticism automatically concluded to the existence of a character who thinks, to whom they attributed these through-forms. The rigid connection between thinking and the person who thinks led Talmud criticism to impasses, rooted, as argued, in missing the virtual in the dichotomy of the real versus the imaginary nature of “The Author” as the site of the thinking in the Talmud. If not to overcome, then to bypass these impasses, an extended framework of thinking about thinking in the Talmud is needed, which would reach through and beyond Talmud criticism. As a first step in building such a framework, the hitherto implicit question “who thinks in the Talmud” is to be addressed explicitly. The complex structure of the question “who thinks” calls for detailed analysis. Such an analysis would either lead to a more precise answer to the question of who thinks in the Talmud, or would make it possible to reconsider the question, thereby also leading to a better understanding of the thinking processes in the Talmud. My focus in the third part of the book is the core structural element of the question “who thinks”: the notion of the thinking subject and a construction of the virtual agency it implies. Extending a body of work in the history and archaeology of philosophy to the history of Talmud’s formation and interpretation, I argue that the notion of the thinking subject is grounded in medieval theological and philosophical agendas and their continuations in modernity and that it informs Talmud criticism. What is even more important, the notion of the thinking subject represents a historically specific version of the virtual, as an element of reality that is weaker than actual, but stronger than potential. Ramifications of that notion of the virtual in such constructs as “redactors” and “composer” of the Talmud, I will argue, both animate and limit the possibilities of Talmud criticism as a way to think about thinking in the Talmud. To think through these ramifications in philosophical terms, I discuss shortcomings of the notion of the thinking subject and of the model of the virtual it implies. This discussion helps explain the necessity by which Talmud criticism implicitly interpreted “The Author” of the Talmud as a virtual site of thinking rather than as a factual, imaginary, or historically real person who thinks, even if such an interpretation went against the explicit tasks and/or agendas of Talmud criticism. The complex structure of the question of who thinks in the Talmud calls for detailed analysis, because, if better understood through such an analysis, the question “who thinks in the Talmud” would either lead to a more precise Preamble: The Virtual Subject 133 answer or would make it possible to reconsider the question, thereby also leading to better understanding the thinking processes in the Talmud. Chapter 7 introduces complexity and undoes the obviousness of the notion of the thinking subject in the history of philosophy and by extension in the history of Talmud as a discipline of thinking. Chapter 8 reintroduces Augustine as a resource for thinking about thinking without the thinking subject by highlighting the role of memory in Augustine, and engaging resources of Talmud criticism to negotiate an extension of Augustine’s model of thinking in remembering to apply to Talmudic discussions. ...