Existence, unity, and individuation

In the following, we will turn to extramental individuals, and to the role, existence plays in the outer reality. The main goal of this subsection is to determine the exact role existence plays in individuation. Since quiddities exist only as individual things, existence seems to be a necessary condition for an individual to exist as an individual. Probably this reasoning lead scholars, like Allan Bäck to the conclusion that existence actually individuates. It is plain and evident that the existence of everything is particular and proper to it. Nevertheless, the question is the following:

is it existence that particularizes an individual, or is there something else that particularize the existence of an individual?

To answer this question, we shall first turn to the relation between existence and individuation.

In which sense can we say that it is a causal relation? In another word, what is the relationship, between the “individual” (shakhṣ) and “existent” (mawjūd) and unity (waḥda), or between

“individuation” (tashakhkhuṣ) and “existence” (wujūd), unification (tawaḥḥud)?

To reiterate Avicenna’s famous view on quiddities, a quiddity in itself may exist either in the mind or in the particulars. Existence is not constitutive for the quiddity, instead, it is a concomitant accident in it, in the sense that it may be removed from it in the estimation, but never in the external existence.

Concomitance (luzūm) is a key motive in Avicenna’s quiddity-existence distinction.

Accordingly, the spurious Kitāb al-Taʽlīqāt admits that it is the concomitant feature of the species that it does not exist but as an individual.⁶⁰³ That is, the quiddity that may be characterized as a species in the mind may exist only as an individual.

Avicenna consistently divides concomitant accidents, namely those features that are not constitutive for the thing but follow it, into those that follow the quiddity by themselves, or from “outside.” The example for this is the existence of the world.⁶⁰⁴ In other words, there are features that always follow the quiddity, as not being a part, either in virtue of the quiddity, or

603 Taʽlīqāt, (B) 58–59, (M) 145–146 [200].

604 Manṭiq al-Mashriqiyyīn, 18.

141 in virtue of its existence.⁶⁰⁵ Existence and individuality fall into the latter category; because the quiddity “human” does not exist because of humanity in itself, but its existence has another set of causes. Concomitance, in our view, only describes the relation of quiddity and existence/individuality on the conceptual level; but in Avicenna’s system, there is another range of causes that explains it. This is what we will see later, in our chapter on the particularity of existence.

In other words, existence, unity, and individuality are concomitant accidents of the quiddity.

We are in a better position to clarify their relation in case of existence and unity than in case of existence and individuality. In the Madkhal, we have already seen that the “individual human”

is somehow the effect of unity added to humanity, at least in the mind (fa-idhā iqtaranat al-waḥda bi-al-insāniyya ʽalā al-wajh al-madhkūr, ḥadatha minhumā al-insān al-shakhṣī alladhī yashtarik fīhā kull shakhṣ).⁶⁰⁶

In this passage, individuality is subsumed under unity. “One” is a simple term, it is in a way more known than individuality, since, as we saw above, it denotes a logical classification that its concept cannot be shared by anything else.

On the other hand, existence and unity are coextensive terms; that is, they are extensionally common but intensionally different.⁶⁰⁷ Everything of which existent is predicable, also one is predicable, but to be existent and to be one means different things.

Although to my knowledge, Avicenna does not admit it, the same issue holds of existence and individuation: everything that exists is an individual, and everything that is an individual, is existent. However, to be existent, and to be individual means different things: the former means that something has actual existence, and the latter implies that it has something that cannot be shared by anything else.

Especially in Avicenna’s later works, there are passages where individuation is placed besides unification (tawaḥḥud) as if these terms have been synonyms. In the Mubāḥathāt, tashakhkhuṣ and tawaḥḥud stand in a position where usually existence used to stand:

The individuation (tashakhkhuṣ) and unification (tawaḥḥud) of the thing is either because of the quiddity, and this is that the existence of which is necessary in its quiddity, or [the individuation (tashakhkhuṣ) and unity (tawaḥḥud) of the thing] is by concomitance of its quiddity like the quiddities of the intellects after Him, if it

605 Madkhal, 30, 8–9.

606 Madkhal, 72, 2–3.

607 Ilāhiyyāt, 103, 7–9; 303, 5–12; Wisnovsky, 2003, 153.

142 is so, or, for example, the quiddity of the sun. (…) Alternatively, [the individuation (tashakhkhuṣ) and unification (tawaḥḥud) of the thing] is by an adhering accident at the beginning of the existence or after.⁶⁰⁸

Here we see a brief and simplified version of Avicenna’s modal ontology: everything, in which existence and quiddity are the same is necessary of existence in itself, and its individuation and unification is due to its quiddity. Individuation and unification, if they are due to the quiddity, are the quiddity itself – which refers only to the Necessary Existent. In this place, usually, existence used to stand: its quiddity is existence, nothing more. It is as if individuation and unification would be another two aspects of the thing that exists. In consequence, the individuation and unification of God are in itself, not due to an external cause.

The other existents, the celestial ones, namely those that are the unique instantiations of their species, are individual and one, but their individuation and unification concomitantly follow from their quiddity. Existents subsumed under the same species are individual and one due to an accident. Besides the three-level structure of individuation among the different sort of existents, what is of more importance here is that Avicenna deals with individuation as a synonym for existence.

Alternatively, consider another passage from the Kitāb al-Taʽlīqāt:

The huwiyya of the thing, and the ʽayn of the thing, its unity (waḥdatuhu) and its individuation (tashakhkhuṣuhu) and its special singular (khuṣūṣiyyat wujūdihi al-munfarid lahu)⁶⁰⁹ existence are all one.

Our saying, “it is it” (innahu huwa) is an indication to its huwiyya, and to its special singular existence which is not shared.⁶¹⁰

These passages are all late in Avicenna’s carrier, and they are not easy to interpret.⁶¹¹ Even if this Taʽlīqāt passage was written up by his pupils, it reflects the same consideration, namely that all these terms are coextensive but intensionally different. If we bear in mind Avicenna’s former discussions about the coextensivity of unity and existent, this might equally apply to all these features enumerated in this passage. In other words, this reading implies that these features are different aspects of an individual, which is otherwise an indefinable “this”: it may be approached from different routes. On the other hand, the fact that the author of the Taʽlīqāt takes them as one suggests that they are epistemically distinct predicates.

608 Mubāḥathāt, 341 [1067]. A parallel passage: Taʽlīqāt, (B) 98; (M) 274 [465].

609 Notice that the term equally appears in Ilāhiyyāt, 47, 4–5.

610 Taʽlīqāt, (B) 145, (M) 431 [784]. See al-Fārābī, Taʽlīqāt, (M), 42 [91].

611 First of all, this passage is included to the other Taʽlīqāt, attributed to al-Fārābī. Its authenticity is still an open question: al-Fārābī, Taʽlīqāt, (M), 42 [91]; Gutas, 2014, 162; Janos, 2012, 389.

143 To understand this passage, we have to consider all these aspects enumerated here. As far as huwiyya or huwahuwa is concerned, the passage adds shortly after that they are identical with unity and existence.⁶¹² That is, a thing has huwiyya – ʽayn – waḥda – individuation – khuṣūṣiyyat wujūdihi al-munfarid lahu – special singular existence, being all one. As we just noted, these concepts can hardly be understood as being paronyms, in the sense that with the difference of the expression, they mean the same thing. Rather, they seem to refer to one and the same thing, which may be described with many features – all these features that these expressions signify.

Second, what is of crucial importance, is that in the passage, the personal pronoun huwa is an indication of huwiyya, and the special, singular existence (khuṣūṣiyyat wujūdihi al-munfarid lahu), which cannot be shared. Here, the author of the Taʽlīqāt explicitly insists that existence is a particular, unshareable feature. It is indeed a tempting suggestion to equate this particular existence with the existence of the Madkhal I.12, the criterion of individuality. However, here, what is unshareable is a special and singular existence, not existence taken absolutely. That is, there is something, a sort of specialization superadded to existence that renders the absolute existence a particular existence. In the following, we will see that Avicenna has much to say about the particularization of existence.

Nevertheless, from this conceptual triangle – individuation – existence – unity – the investigation of unity is missing; therefore, in the following, we will turn our attention to it.