Q&A: If a concept is not a being, then what is it?
If a concept is not a being, then what is it?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
If a concept is not a being, then what is it? For example, where do the laws of logic exist? Do they "stand" somewhere, and so on?
Or are they actually created by human beings?
B. Is this also the reason that the Holy One, blessed be He, is subject to them—because they are not beings?
Answer
Laws and concepts are not beings, and therefore they do not exist. However, according to Plato, concepts refer to ideas, and the ideas are existing beings. God’s being bound by them is not related to the fact that they are not beings, but rather to the fact that they are logically necessary. That is not really subordination. See for example here:
https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%9B%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%A7%D7%91%D7%94-%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%92%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%94/
Discussion on Answer
I don’t understand the question. Can you explain to me what beings are? If you don’t understand what a law or a concept is, I don’t know how to explain it.
I think he means to ask a Parmenidean question: if the law is not, then in what sense does it exist such that we can talk about it?
A law describes some form of operation, just as velocity describes the motion of a body. Does velocity exist? Is it a being? And yet, one way or another, we can talk about it. We can talk about descriptions or characteristics of things, even though the descriptions/characteristics are not themselves things.
So maybe the Rabbi can explain what they are after all?!