Findlay is not alone in positing the existence of an underlying reality, or “ world” in which the antinomies and philosophical conundrums of our own world are presumably resolved (Plato’s ideal forms, Kant’s “noumenal” reality, Hegel’s “absolute spirit”, the linguistic philosopher’s “ideal language” are each examples that come readily to mind). Just as one might posit the existence of an “afterlife” to explain the moral antinomy manifest in the “suffering of the righteous,” one might also posit the existence of a “higher” reality in order to solve other enigmatic and disturbing philosophical problems.
Indeed, when we reflect upon the kind of world which would resolve our philosophical dilemmas, we begin to recognize it as very much akin to the world which certain mystical traditions posit as existing in a metaphysical region between our world and the Absolute, and which Findlay tells us serves as the compliment or completion of our own world. This is because such a higher world is a unified, purely spiritual and conceptual world that exists outside the vexing realm of space and time. It is a world which follows a purely rational order in which there is no place for randomly caused events. It is a world in which “acts of will” need not proceed through the medium of matter and hence involve themselves in the problems of material necessity. It is a world in which we are in direct communion with both the (purely ideational or spiritual) objects of experience and the thoughts of other minds, and hence a world within which the philosophical problems of “knowledge and its objects” and the “existence of other minds” cannot conceivably arise. It is a world devoid of serial time and hence a world in which the puzzles of temporality cannot arise. It is a world without gross matter, and hence a world in which the distinction between a concept and its instance cannot be maintained, and thus where to know an instance is ipso facto to know its universal and vice versa. Finally, it is a world in which there is neither material harm nor gain and, hence, where virtue and righteousness exist as their own and only reward.
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[This article is a modified version of essays that appear in S Drob, Kabbalistic Metaphors: Jewish Mystical Themes in Ancient and Modern Thought (Jason Aronson, 2000) and on the New Kabbalah Website (www.newkabbalah.com), where the author argues that Findlay's philosophy is particularly helpful in understanding the Jewish Mystical tradition.]