The existing realities would therefore be dependent upon that.

Seventh: When a listener hears a definition, what he hears is a statement composed of words, each word signifying a particular meaning. If, beforehand, he is not already familiar with those individual words and the meanings they denote, he cannot understand the statement. Indeed, the very awareness that a word signifies a meaning, or has been coined for it, is preceded by conceiving that meaning. Whoever has not formed a conception of what is meant by “bread,” “water,” “sky,” “earth,” “father,” or “mother” will not recognize the word’s signification. Conversely, if he already conceives the thing signified and its meaning before hearing the word—even though he does not yet know that the word designates it—it is impossible to say that he conceived it solely by hearing the word. Such a claim would involve a vicious circle: it would require saying that he did not conceive the meaning until he heard and understood the word, while he could not understand the intent of the word unless he had previously conceived that very meaning.

The same point that applies to the way names denote their individual referents applies, identically, to how definitions denote the things they define: each merely points to a single meaning, though the definition gives in detail what the name conveys in summary.

According to the logicians, a definition may set out both the common and the peculiar attributes of the thing. The theologians, however, adopt another approach: they define only by the distinctive, differentiating attribute, omitting what is common, and they even reject the composite structure that the logicians require. By my life, this is closer to the intended goal, as we shall, God willing, show—and we shall demonstrate that the use of definitions is to distinguish, not to depict.

Since what is sought is discrimination, that is achieved solely through the distinguishing element, not through the shared one. Moreover, the more concise, comprehensive, and specific the wording, the better—just as with names. In truth, a definition is nothing but one name, or two or three at most, as when one says, “rational animal.” In the same way it has been said that Adam’s being taught “all the names” meant that he was taught their definitions. These are of the same kind as the bounded limits referred to in the words of the Most High: “and are more likely not to know the limits of what Allah has revealed to His Messenger” (al-Tawbah 9:97).