ABSTRACT
This paper w ill exam ine M aim onides’ use o f reasoning, or logic, to aid in legal decision-m aking and the definitive formulation o f the law .1
In Jewish jurisprudence, the concept o f legal log ic usually appears in the context o f interpreting the sources;2 as discussed here, however, “legal rea soning” w ill have a different sense. It w ill refer to log ic as em ployed by M aim onides to analyze his sources: to decide whether a given source man dates its ow n use in determ ining the law, and if so, to demarcate its precise scope and status; and to select the determinative source in cases w here there are a number o f sources, conflicting sources, and so on.
