"Be convinced that, if man were able to reach the end without preparatory studies, such studies would not be preparatory but tiresome and utterly superfluous"
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Maimonides is doing something sly here: he defends difficulty without romanticizing it. The line is framed as a conditional truism - if you could reach the destination without the climb, the climb would be pointless. But he immediately flips the obvious moral. Preparatory studies are not noble because they are hard; they are justified because the human mind is not built for teleportation. The premise is psychological and ethical at once: shortcuts are tempting precisely because they promise to spare us the labor that actually changes us.
The subtext is a quiet polemic against two audiences. First, the anti-intellectual believer who wants instant access to truth through pure faith, charisma, or inherited authority. Second, the overconfident rationalist who thinks first principles can be grabbed raw, without formation, discipline, or interpretive tradition. Maimonides refuses both fantasies. He implies that readiness is not bureaucracy; it is transformation. Without it, "the end" would be either misunderstood or misused.
The context matters: this is the medieval Jewish philosopher who tried to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Torah, writing for readers hungry for metaphysical certainty but living in a world where bad metaphysics could become bad theology. His insistence on preparatory study functions like a safety rail. Before you touch the big questions - God, providence, law, the structure of reality - you train your mind to avoid idolatry of the intellect and superstition of the crowd. He sells humility as rigor: the hard route is not a punishment, it's what makes understanding possible.
The subtext is a quiet polemic against two audiences. First, the anti-intellectual believer who wants instant access to truth through pure faith, charisma, or inherited authority. Second, the overconfident rationalist who thinks first principles can be grabbed raw, without formation, discipline, or interpretive tradition. Maimonides refuses both fantasies. He implies that readiness is not bureaucracy; it is transformation. Without it, "the end" would be either misunderstood or misused.
The context matters: this is the medieval Jewish philosopher who tried to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Torah, writing for readers hungry for metaphysical certainty but living in a world where bad metaphysics could become bad theology. His insistence on preparatory study functions like a safety rail. Before you touch the big questions - God, providence, law, the structure of reality - you train your mind to avoid idolatry of the intellect and superstition of the crowd. He sells humility as rigor: the hard route is not a punishment, it's what makes understanding possible.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
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