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Good sugiya! Kiddushin 61b-62a - it's talking about making conditions in sales, like a situation where you say "If you give me £X, you'll get Y". The question is, is it implicit or not that if you don't give me £X, you won't get Y, and if you set up a sale with only the first part, was it valid or not.
Rabbi Meir develops a line of argument that says it's not implicit. If you're going to make conditions, you have to spell out both halves; what happens if the condition is fulfilled and what happens if not.
Rabbi Hanina ben Gamliel says it's obvious, and you only have to give one part, since any fool knows that if you don't give £X, you're clearly not going to receive Y.
It develops away from this particular issue, and moves into if-then statements in general. It's lovely because Rabbi Meir is developing a strictly logical system; it is correct, according to formal logic, that X=>Y doesn't automatically give you X'=>Y'. Rabbi Hanina, on the other hand, is developing a colloquial system; it's generally implicit when people speak, that X=>Y gives also X'=>Y' ("if you study you'll get good grades" carries with it the implication that if you don't study you won't get good grades, although this is strictly speaking not logical).
If I knew more about the general shitot of R Meir and R Hanina, it would be interesting to see if these were both coherent deductive systems, and what other practical differences it might give rise to. It seems as though R Hanina wants to make the legal system and everyday verbiage cohere, and R Meir wants the legal system to be formalistic and common speech not. From this.
Rabbi Meir develops a line of argument that says it's not implicit. If you're going to make conditions, you have to spell out both halves; what happens if the condition is fulfilled and what happens if not.
Rabbi Hanina ben Gamliel says it's obvious, and you only have to give one part, since any fool knows that if you don't give £X, you're clearly not going to receive Y.
It develops away from this particular issue, and moves into if-then statements in general. It's lovely because Rabbi Meir is developing a strictly logical system; it is correct, according to formal logic, that X=>Y doesn't automatically give you X'=>Y'. Rabbi Hanina, on the other hand, is developing a colloquial system; it's generally implicit when people speak, that X=>Y gives also X'=>Y' ("if you study you'll get good grades" carries with it the implication that if you don't study you won't get good grades, although this is strictly speaking not logical).
If I knew more about the general shitot of R Meir and R Hanina, it would be interesting to see if these were both coherent deductive systems, and what other practical differences it might give rise to. It seems as though R Hanina wants to make the legal system and everyday verbiage cohere, and R Meir wants the legal system to be formalistic and common speech not. From this.