Individuation in general

The third subsection [1067–1072]⁸²² contains passages that treat the individuation of all kind of existents, starting from God:

1067: The unification and individuation of thing are either by its quiddity, and this is the one whose existence is necessary in itself. Or, they [i.e., unification and individuation] are by concomitance from the quiddity, like the quiddities of the intellects after it, if it is like this – or the quiddity of the sun for example. And these two [i.e., unity and individuation], is such that what has them, cannot be shared by anything else. Or, [individuation and unity] is either by an attached accident (bi–ʽaraḍ lāzim) at the beginning of the existence or after.

We have already quoted this passage: here, Avicenna follows his “essential” approach, in the sense that the starting point in treating individuation is the quiddity. This is the so-called derivative reading of individuation: individuals derive from something. The first option is the quiddity; the second is the concomitant accidents, that is, things that always adhere to a quiddity not being part of it. Thirdly, the contingent accidents that distinguish one individual from the other, under one species. God is individual in and by itself, individuality is not superadded to his essence. The separate substances, the unique instantiations of their species differ in virtue of their quiddities. Individuation and unity are concomitants of their quiddities, and because there is no other individual apart from them sharing that quiddity, their individuation follows from their quiddity by concomitance. Those existents that are subsumed under a certain species are individuated by their unshareable feature, spatial position.

Accidents

There are two passages [1068–1069] that deal with the individuation of accidents. There is nothing new here: their individuated subjects individuate accidents. The text reads as follows:

1068: The accidents and forms are individuated by their subjects that are individuated by what we mentioned.⁸²³

Nevertheless, this passage raises several doubts regarding the accidental reading of individuation: it seems to involve circularity that accidents are individuated by their subjects and subjects by their accidents. Actually, just the former passage [1067] makes clear that

821 Bahmanyār, Taḥsīl, 505; Lawkarī, Bayān al-ḥaqq, 176.

822 Mubāḥathāt, 341–343 [1067–1072].

823 Mubāḥathāt, 342 [1068].

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“[individuation and unity] is either by an attached accident (bi–ʽaraḍ lāzim) at the beginning of the existence or after.” The solution lies in two points: first, on the intention of individuality and second, on the different approaches: the substance-accident approach other than the quiddity-accident approach.

As we have seen above, when in these later works Avicenna speaks about individuation, he follows the Porphyrian logical tradition that understands by individuation something like the Boethian incommunicabilitas: by raising the issue on the noetic level, its concept prevents it to be applicable to another. Thus, it must be such that its concept cannot be shared by anything else.⁸²⁴ This meaning, as applied to an accident, for example to a particular whiteness, gives the impression that this white cannot be shared not by itself, but by its inherence in an already individuated element. Secondly, it is not accidents that individuate the subject in the sense that they render it an existent individual, but in the sense that they help to distinguish it from another and identify it.

Second, as we have shown above, the subject-accident and quiddity-accident approaches are different. The first method entails mereological considerations, namely that which features are part of the subject and which features are not: accidents do not constitute the subject, they are not in it as parts. The quiddity-accident approach has another focus. The threefold division of quiddities means a derivative reading of individuation. A quiddity in itself becomes another by having accidents, where accidents again play a distinguishing role in the process of particularization. It does not mean that the accident in question would be a part of the underlying substance, qua substance. In this context, the spatial position is the thing individuated in itself:

it is the ultimate reason that makes diversity possible, and it is the sine qua non of particularization.

In the next passage, Avicenna goes into more details regarding accidents and their kinds of inherence in the subject. We have already seen above that he was hesitating about the exact nature of inherence that accidents have. In the V.5 chapter of the Metaphysics of the Shifā’, he divides accidents into relations (muḍāfāt) and states (ḥālāt). Under the latter, there are such whose removal entails the removal of the individual, and there are such whose removal does not entail the removal of the individual, only its accidental difference towards others will be changed.⁸²⁵

824 Mubāḥathāt, 337 [1045].

825 Ilāhiyyāt, 238, 8–239, 5.

196 Avicenna seems to take up this problem again:

1069: The adherence of accidents and material features is in two ways: The first is like the adherence of forms and accidents to quantity and position, and the second is like the adherence of motion to blackness. The first adherence, if it ceases to be, it is impossible for it to remain an existent in itself, or in its subject. Like blackness: if quantity and position depart from it, it cannot be said that its essence remained, unless as becoming indivisible, and non-designatable, and the black parts that we posit in case of blackness are not existent, and then how could be that blackness existent? As to the adherence of motion to blackness, any of them shall depart, it does not affect the other in anything.⁸²⁶

The two types of adherence run parallel to the one seen above. However, Avicenna here names two categories, quantity, and position whose removal entails the removal of the subject. As we saw above, quantity and position are necessary concomitants of the body; which is to be found up in the Tabula Porphyriana, being a genus, although not proximate genus of any human being for example. Therefore, quantity and position always accompany a body, but they do not constitute it in Avicenna’s view. If there is no quantity and position in a body, it is a sign that it has no continuity and the three dimensions may not be posited in it: then, it is no longer a body.

Avicenna, in the Maqūlāt of the Shifā’ attributes firm existence (wujūd qārr) to these categories:

as we saw above, commenting upon the second Aristotelian division of quantity,⁸²⁷ he insists that quantity that has a position, has actual parts having firm existence: these parts have a position to each other and continuity.⁸²⁸

However, this understanding of the position is other than the one, which means the relation to something else. This latter serves to distinguish one individual from the other, the former, the one subsumed under quantity means the internal relation of the parts, being a concomitant of continuity. It does not mean that it would individuate: as a concomitant of an essential feature (being a body) always accompanies the subject. That is, the aporia of the Ilāhiyyāt V.5 is still not resolved.

826 Mubāḥathāt, 342 [1069].

827 The traditional Aristotelian division is that quantity is either continuous or incontinuous, and positional and non-positional. Aristotle, Cat. 4b21–22 καὶ τὸ μὲν ἐκ θέσιν ἐχόντων πρὸς ἄλληλα τῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς μορίων συνέστηκε, τὸ δὲ οὐκ ἐξ ἐχόντων θέσιν.

828 Maqūlāt, 127, 6–9.

197 4 Conclusion

In this thesis, we reconsidered Avicenna’s theory of individuation of sensible substances. Since individuation was of marginal interest in the Classical philosophical tradition, following our methodological principles, first, we had to set up the context, in which the issue appeared: since individuation was not a distinct philosophical topic, the reconstruction of the original tenets depends upon the clear understanding of the contexts where it occurred. By contexts, we mean both inner and outer ones: the former represents the “requirements” of the philosophical system, whereas the latter comprises the cultural, religious challenges. Although it is impossible to understand Medieval philosophical texts in their context entirely, our inquiry cannot be but deficient in this respect. Still, even if this approach cannot be complete, we followed it as much as possible.

In the introductory chapters, we showed that the Greek philosophical tradition provided the tools and frameworks where individuation was addressed. The texts of the Alexandrian philosophical curriculum are the central axis, upon which the discussions hinged. In the logical context, it was mainly Porphyry’s Eisagoge and the Categories that exercised a lasting influence upon the doctrines. Just like Avicenna, Elias, the Alexandrian commentator challenged the “bundle-view” of individuals; and as his successor, David briefly reported, a sort of debate has arisen about individuals that time. The commentators had something to say in the context of the threefold division of common element, just like in hylomorphism. According to the generally accepted view, the matter was the principle of individuation, and as Themistius modified it, the principle of multiplicity. In turn, the form was the principle of persistence, as Alexander Aphrodisias noted.

We briefly outlined that in the Islamic rational theology, the similarity-otherness question appeared in connection with God’s tawḥīd, and it is here, where the distinction of atoms was treated. Although there were a great variety of views, some theologians endorsed a spatio-temporal distinction, with a special emphasis on the extension. The particularization argument that aimed at showing the existence of the Creator from the observation that accidents are all created and accidental features could easily be otherwise, also appears throughout Avicenna’s works. Elements of this theory indeed play a prominent role in Avicenna’s view on particularization. This chapter offers only introductory remarks; it will be the goal of further research to investigate this point further.

In the logical approach, we examined Avicenna’s challenge of the “bundle-view” of individuals and his spatio-temporal solution. We showed that it was partly directed against some of the

198 Baghdad peripatetics, like Yaḥyā Ibn ʽAdī and Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Ṭayyib, who took the term individual to be equivocal. We have shown that the spatio-temporal criterion serves not only to identify individuals in Avicenna’s system, but it is a metaphysical base for the mental representation of particulars. Thus, this is another reason why individuals have no intelligible concepts, except for the individuum vaguum. The outer context here is the famous problem, God’s knowledge of particulars.

In the Metaphysical part, we followed Avicenna’s main topics: the threefold consideration of quiddities, where he seems to accept an accidental reading of individuation; we showed that this is due to the derivative understanding, that is, particularization: what is at stake here is the particularization of the quiddity.

It has been suggested in the secondary literature that it is existence that individuates for Avicenna. However, we slightly modified this view. Keeping to Avicenna’s contention, we showed that existence does not have a distinguishing role on the conceptual level; if it is distinguished, it is unity, the correlational pair of existence that explains its distinctness and particularity on the conceptual level. Even though the particular existence is particular to the individual, in Avicenna’s modal ontology, it always has a cause. In the process of generation, it has a necessitating condition, which rests again upon the spatio-temporal distinction. On the other hand, it is unity that reflects the particular aspect of existence, not existence in the absolute sense.

We equally treated Avicenna’s spatio-temporal reading of individuation. In a broader context, what ultimately explains the diversity of the material world is spatial position, as it is the utmost particularizing factor in producing difference by the celestial motion. This is the reason in virtue of which change and divisibility come to be in the material world. It overarches Avicenna’s philosophy, it appears in Logic, as counting for the unshareability of concepts in the conceptual level, in the Physics, where it serves to differentiate circular motions, and finally in the Metaphysics, in different sub-questions. It explains the particularity of the material world if we look at the individual as an existent, and it is the criterion that serves to differentiate between distinct pieces of matter.

In the hylomorphic approach, we agree with most of the scholars that matter is the principle of individuation if we understand individuation here as multiplicity. The spatial position and time are the necessary conditions of distinctness between different pieces of matter. At the same time, the form also plays a role in individuation: it is the principle of persistence that explains

199 the individual’s being the same, as it appears in the argument on growth. It is the substantial form that renders the thing actual; it counts for its identity; it explains why Zayd is the very same individual. In the existence-quiddity approach, it is existence that corresponds to actuality and, in this respect, it overlaps with form, being responsible for identity. In his later works, Avicenna admits that it indeed counts for identity; in case of the human rational soul, it plays the same role through self-awareness, inasmuch as self-awareness represents the particular existence. In sum, Avicenna has a complex theory of individuation: it would be an oversimplification to say that x or y individuates in his system. Instead, individuals are complex entities, having many causes. Among the many factors, each one explains a certain aspect. This is in accord with Avicenna’s “principle of the one:” one thing produces only one thing in one thing.

Last but not least, we examined Avicenna’s views on individuation from the Budhūr material.

It is a valuable text because it contains explicit passages about the topic. Here Avicenna stresses the role spatial position plays in individuation, whereby individuation he means the Porphyrian, conceptual reading of individuals. He elaborates on the element “individuated in itself.” As we have seen the spatio-temporal reading appears throughout his opus, first because on mental level individuation is taken to mean distinction and second, because in his emanationist system the particularization is the main challenge, as far as individuals are concerned. Although the spatio-temporal reading of individuation does not explain Zayd’s being Zayd, it serves as a criterion to distinguish one individual from another. On the other hand, it serves to explain the diversity of the material world. It is one of the utmost principles in virtue of which multiple motions come to be in the supralunar, and in consequence, in the sublunar sphere.

These later texts testify that Avicenna gave massive importance to the spatial position in individuation, at least at the end of his career. This tenet is corroborated by the whole thesis because it is the spatial position being the ultimate source of particularization that overarches almost all the philosophical topics. This is to be understood under the egis of our methodological approach: the inner context, namely, Avicenna’s system as a whole, rests upon the threefold division of quiddities, which entails a derivative reading of individuation, where, on the analytical level, the discussion revolves around the particularization of the quiddity in itself. On the other hand, the views of the predecessors, contemporaries, and the actual cultural-religious challenges represent the outer context, without which Avicenna’s philosophy can hardly be understood.

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