A Taxonomy of Argumentation

Maimonides' view of disagreement

In his Introduction to the Oral Torah, Maimonides deals with a thorny problem—where, why, and how do machlokot, disagreements, arise in the Oral Torah.

In the midst of that discussion, he lays out a three pronged taxonomy of argumentation which offers a profound mental model for analysing and thinking about disagreements, both in a halachic context and o…