By any measure, Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed is one of the great philosophical books, particularly in its interpretation of the biblical text according to traditional Aristotelianism. Maimonides begins the book with the classic distinction between Physics (Ma'aseh Bereshit-- Description of the Creation) and Metaphysics (Ma'aseh Mercabah-- Description of the Chariot). These same categories he had already expounded in the his earlier magnum opus Mishneh Torah. Metaphysics is apparently referred to as the Description of the Chariot, because of the vision of the chariot in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel.
Maimonides is very insistent that it is the tradition in Judaism that Metaphysics is superior to Physics, and that metaphysical issues and questions hold pride of place over those that are concerned with the origin and construction of the physical world. At the same time, however, the rabbis are equally insistent that the Description of the Chariot should not be taught to any student, who has not mastered the Description of the Creation. Further, the student must have distinguished himself by certain intellectual qualities before being initiated into the mysteries of metaphysics. Both are necessary, but Physics is the only door of Metaphysics, while the purpose of Physics is the discovery (in the original sense of the word) of Metaphysics.
What makes this perspective so important is the fact that this culture has effectively excluded Metaphysics as an area of possible knowledge. In today's world, learning about the world (particularly in the modern sciences) leads nowhere but further into the physical world. Pure science is knowledge for knowledge's sake about the physical world that emphatically does not lead to something greater, something deeper, but constitutes an end in itself. Gone is the spirit of Aristotle himself, a spirit that, seeing the world of change described by physical science, longed to ascend above the realm of physical science to that that did not change. Maimonides would certainly look upon modern science as a truncated knowledge. He would see it as a form of physical science that was obsessed with itself
In the modern world, our culture has become satisfied with the official separation of Physics and Metaphysics. Much like the "separation of church and state" it has become a dogma as unbending as any geometric law. Physics and Metaphysics are discreet areas, which are explored by different people. Increasingly, those whose purview is the physical sciences refuse to even so much as acknowledge the possibility of the existence of anything beyond their field, claiming that the only things that are real are those that can be known empirically through sense perception.
Yet, at the same time that Metaphysics has been discarded, another interesting and counterintuitive thing is happening on the level of culture. One would think that with this emphasis on empirical knowledge and evidence there would be a growth in the use of reason and in rational argument as a means to arrive at the truth. Actually, however, the opposite is the case. As the physical sciences gain complete sway over everything else as the exclusive arbiters of meaning, there is a steady diminution of the ability of our contemporaries to use logic in order to frame rational arguments. More often than not, they will afford themselves of sentimentalism, arguments based on emotions, and, if these fail to be convincing to their interlocuters, they will resort to ad hominems. This can be clearly seen in political discourse, where the Left and the Right revile one another with invective and insult, but rational argument is nowhere to be found.
The disappearance of rational argument in modern discourse might easily be considered related to the disappearance of Metaphysics. The physical sciences are deemed an end in themselves, and not as a stepping stone to the greater realities that lie beyond the physical universe. Reason itself, beyond the laboratory quantifications associated with the scientific method, is not considered terribly useful, After all, "nature is red in tooth and claw." If the physical universe is all that exists, then there is no truth beyond what can be ascertained by physical science. There are the truths of mathematics. There is quantity, weight, duration, etc. There is no virtue, no good. Further, while there is in the physical sciences an intricate description of forces, there is no concept of Being, and no truth of Being.
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