FIRST REFLECTION: OF EXISTENCE' IN GENERAL

Even in the profoundest of treatises, the rule of thoroughness does not always demand that every concept employed should be developed or defined. No such requirement exists, namely, if one is assured that the clear and ordinary concept by itself can occasion no misunderstanding in the context in which it is employed. Such is the case with the geometer who with the greatest certainty uncovers the most secret properties and relations of that which is extended, even though in doing so he merely makes use of the ordinary concept of space. And such is also the case in the deepest science of all, where the word ‘representation’ is understood with sufficient precision and employed with confidence, even though its meaning can never be analysed by means of definition.

Hence, in these reflections I should not aspire to analyse the very simple and well-understood concept of existence, were it not for the fact that the present case is one in which such an omission could occasion confusion and lead to serious errors. It is certain that anywhere else in philosophy the concept could confidently be employed in the undeveloped form in which it occurs in ordinary usage. The one exception is the question concerning absolutely necessary existence and contingent existence. In this one case, an investigation of a subtler sort has drawn erroneous conclusions from an unhappily contrived but otherwise very pure concept. These erroneous conclusions have extended themselves over one of the most sublime parts of philosophy.

It is not to be expected that I shall begin by offering a formal definition of existence. Such a procedure is always undesirable when the correctness of the suggested definition is so uncertain. This situation arises more frequently than one perhaps realises.