Q&A: Regarding the eyes of the intellect — what exactly is meant?
Regarding the eyes of the intellect — what exactly is meant?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask you: until now I understood that you hold that the eyes of the intellect are an intuitive view of reality, through which we manage to bridge between empiricism and rationalism by creating a cognitive mode of thought that mediates between understanding and the world. Just as we apprehend various kinds of understanding in reality that cannot be learned from the five senses alone or from thinking that exists only within us internally.
Seemingly, the Rabbi mentioned that he finds his doctrine already in Husserl, who called this “eidetic intuition.” And so I understand from his words that when we see a collision between object A and object B, we see the causal relation by means of the principle of causality.
But here in the responsum above the Rabbi argues that he is not speaking about ideas in the Platonic sense, but only about relations such as speed! But after all, the Rabbi’s whole innovation is that there exists an intermediate layer or additional dimension of reality, a kind of sixth sense through which we understand things via the phenomena in reality. So what is that if not an idea? If it is only an internal definition, then we are back to saying that this is merely thought, but that cannot be learned from reality. Whereas speed is indeed a definition of the relation of change in position per unit of time. And if it is something external that we identify, then it is an entity; and if it is an intelligible entity, then isn’t that precisely an idea?
This is a really interesting topic that the Rabbi uses a lot, but as far as I know explains less often: how exactly the Rabbi understands relations in this whole metaphysical world.
Answer
Why don’t you continue the discussion there? I explained there what I mean. A relation between cause and effect is not an idea but a relation between events. What idea is relevant here? The principle of causality itself may perhaps be an idea. Everything was explained there, and I see no point in continuing.
Discussion on Answer
I’ll explain one more time, and after that I won’t answer anymore.
Just as one can see objects, one can also see relations between objects or their properties. Objects are seen either with the eye (concrete objects) or with the eyes of the intellect (abstract objects, ideas). In the same way, relations and properties of objects and between them are sometimes seen with the eye (that a body is moving, or that body A is larger than body B), and sometimes with the eyes of the intellect (that event A is the cause of event B). That’s it.
There is absolutely no necessity in the world that what is seen with the eyes of the intellect must be an object rather than a relation or a property. And even if you repeat a thousand times the same objection/assumption that only objects can be seen, that doesn’t explain it to me any better. Therefore I don’t see what there is left to answer that I haven’t already answered, or why another thread has been opened here that just repeats the same thing.
I’m sorry, but I do not understand how you see a relation between objects with the eye. You certainly can see properties of objects, but relation is an act of thought. For example, you can notice that object A is 30 cm long and object B is 40 cm long. Then you understand that object B is larger than object A by 10 cm. But you do not see the relation. You see the property of length reflected from the object and compare the objects. But you think I am mistaken, and that you really can see the relation?
But in any case, in the matter at hand the objection is surely much stronger, because even if you are able to discern that same idea somewhere in Plato, so long as there is no property of causality attached to the objects, but it only occurs at the time of the event itself (which is itself not an entity, but only a name for the result of the objects’ encounter), then how can you see a relation of causality that is created ex nihilo?
Maybe I didn’t understand exactly what the Rabbi means, because it seems obvious to me that a relation comes out of a thought process and not from sight. But the Rabbi added the word “relations and *properties*,” and properties really are something essential in an entity. Granted, they are not an independent entity, but they are still something accompanying it.
And in order to create a relation between two things, it has to be possible to compare the two things according to some parameter. Otherwise we arrive at a situation akin to the incommensurability of values.
But if I’m right, then it comes out that the Rabbi thinks that every physical object has, in addition, some “spiritual” description of factors that exists in an additional layer of reality, and that it can be identified through the eyes of the intellect.
Maybe this is indeed not an idea in itself as an independent object (and some would say that even that is only a description of God), but it is still something non-physical…
Only in this way, as I understand it, can your words make sense. Because if there is nothing there, then what exactly is your whole innovation regarding cognitive thought — either it’s one huge piece of nonsense, or you’ve changed your mind since then.
The only question that remains is: if every object has such a property, then how exactly is it only in the process of collision that we are exposed to it? But maybe one could compare it to something like a photon being emitted…
It is indeed “something” non-physical, but not an entity — a relation. We do not need a collision in order to be exposed to it. It is not a matter of visual sight.
Thank you very much!! By the word “relation,” do you mean that every physical object has certain metaphysical properties, or some other non-physical thing? Because only that way, as I understand it, can one create some sort of relation that we can perceive, if both share the same scale.
But I still didn’t quite understand what is meant by a causal relation without observing a collision:
For example, if we saw two billiard balls moving at opposing angles according to the law of conservation of momentum, then let us suppose that ball A caused ball B to move, or vice versa — but how exactly do we posit this causal relation? Is it written, as it were, into one of object A’s properties, “I moved ball B”? That sounds very strange.
I wrote that I already explained all I had to explain. We are going over the same thing again and again. I claim that with the eyes of the intellect one sees relations. That is all. I will not answer further.
Maybe you could refer to a place where you explain more how this works? Rather than abstract talk about relations between metaphysical properties attached to particles with masses or physical material waves…
Also, where you explain how we make use of this in terms like true and stable, you also don’t really explain much more what exactly that means or how it works…
Sorry, I simply didn’t understand anything there, and I still don’t completely understand, aside from the end.
What is meant by the expression “relation”? Seemingly, a relation is not an independent entity but something we understand internally. But that itself is David Hume’s objection — that we do not see causality.
And therefore, insofar as it is something we apprehend through a sixth sense, then it has to be some definite existent, no? Like the realization of an idea, just as colors reflect an electromagnetic wave…