Q&A: Two Types of Existence?
Two Types of Existence?
Question
Hello Rabbi,
On page 74 of the book The First Being.
You distinguish between two types of understanding in the intellect:
1) Definition and intellectual understanding (without any connection to reality)
2) Seeing (or some kind of perception of reality), and from that arriving at a definition for intellectual understanding.
And you say that if I defined something and then saw it in reality, that is not the same definition of the concept (as in the example of a triangle).
Why make that distinction? If I defined something and then saw it in reality:
1) Either it is the same thing I defined (so why say that the definition is different)
2) Or it is not what I defined, and then I create a new definition and about that I say: "it exists"
My question is: why distinguish between one definition that simply does or does not exist (before/after), and two different definitions?
Answer
I didn’t understand what you wrote at the end of the question here, and in any case it also relates to an imprecise formulation of my distinction that appears at the beginning of your question.
You did not define my distinction there correctly. I distinguish between an image of a chair in my consciousness/imagination and an image of an existing chair in my consciousness.
If you still see a difficulty, please explain it.
Discussion on Answer
Put differently:
Why is the second conclusion — "What exists in consciousness in such a case is different from the concept that was there without the realization" — called for / necessary?
One more wording, if it’s still not clear enough:
1) The definition of God
2) The definition of God + I know that He exists (the definition exists)
Why do you think there is a difference in the actual two definitions?
And even if there is a difference and knowing of existence changes everything — why is the second *greater* than the first?
I explain there that existence is not a property, and therefore an existing chair is not a different concept from a chair.
I didn’t understand the second question. If these are two different cognitions, meaning their content is different, then what is in consciousness in the two situations is different. That is a tautology.
I really don’t understand this discussion. It’s all discussed there. Have you read it already?
I read it, but I didn’t understand it all that well….
1) I still don’t understand why these are two different cognitions (who sees this as one simple cognition, just with or without existence in reality — a side bonus that does not affect the definition itself, and therefore a definition that exists also does not seem different to me from one that doesn’t) (where is the mistake?)
2) And even if we say these are two different definitions, why is one greater than the other?
Thanks!
It is not a different definition, but a cognition of something different. It is not different in its definition, but in the fact that it exists (which has nothing to do with the definition)
Different cognition — understood, thanks.
Why is one cognition greater than the other?
I have no explanation. There is such an intuition. I think I explain there the status of that assumption.
Thank you very much,
does the fact that I define a concept and then know that it exists mean that I changed the definition of that concept, or only my level of intellectual understanding of it? (Now I understand that that definition exists.)
Thanks again