The origin of the concept individuality

What is of greater interest for us is the nature of these terms: where does the idea of universality and particularity come from? Michael E. Marmura insists that universality simply means the relation of the concept to things in re: it is the abstraction of the quiddity’s extramental relation of „being common to many.”³⁸¹ On the other hand, Jon McGinnis takes into account Avicenna’s epistemology as well and concludes that it is the Active Intellect that imparts the accident universality to the quiddity in itself in the mind after the human has had multiple encounters with concrete particulars and stripped away all the individuating accidents. In other words, if it abstracted all that accompanies the quiddity.³⁸² Both of these views are tenable; since Avicenna’s epistemology indeed presupposes the intervention of the Active Intellect to acquire the plain intelligibles. However, other items among the secondary intelligibles, as the genus, species, and difference signify simply relations between mental concepts according to generality and specificity. Avicenna distinguishes between two levels where generality (ʽumūm) comes to the fore. First, generality according to the particular subjects, where the

379 Ilāhiyyāt, 109, 5-6.

380 Ilāhiyyāt, 247, 2–3.

381 Marmura, 2005, 34.

382 McGinnis, 2007, 173.

93 animal is more general than the human; if our starting point is the subject, like Zayd. Second, it may be according to the adherent considerations that accompany mental notions: the animal in itself is more general than the animal taken as a genus, or the animal taken as a species, or as an animal taken as an individual. In this latter case, genus – species – individual are different considerations that differ in generality. ³⁸³ These considerations reflect the reference of the notion in question to the existence in re: animal, taken as a genus means an existent, who is animal, without taking into account whether it is a horse, a human, or a duck. Animal taken as a species refers to a body which has soul, no matter whether it is a palm tree or a dog. Animal, taken as an individual, seems to refer to any individual in re which is an animal, and in this case, it means the animality of – say – Zayd, in other words, it signifies a unique thing – whose concept cannot be shared (and this is what the term “individual” signifies) that is an animal. In other words, the “individual animal” refers to only one subject alone, which is an animal.³⁸⁴ Thus, the logical intelligibles classify the quiddity in itself according to generality and specialty.

In this sense, Marmura’s interpretation seems to be right: He says the following:

Both the ideas of particularity and universality seem to be abstractions of the relation of the quiddity in external reality to the particular existents.³⁸⁵

In his wording, particularity seems to correspond to the term šakhṣiyya, rather than juz’iyya.³⁸⁶ In this sense, this is a meaning, which makes the quiddity specific in the sense that it refers to only one object.

In case of individuality as logical universal, Marmura’s solution seems to be closer to the point:

it is hardly conceivable that it comes from the separate intellects. First, because there is no demonstrative knowledge, and definition of individuals, only sense-perception might attain such kind of knowledge: the concept of an individual qua individual, cannot be universal. The idea of individuality, insofar as it is a universal notion, so to say, a logical universal, it seems to come by with the contact of the rational soul with the Dator Formarum, just as every universal does.

383 Madkhal, 71, 13–19.

384 However, this last example is not like the former two: in those cases animal may well be either a genus or a species according to the Tabula Porphyriana, as an individual, it may only following another consideration - because what is above it, body, is not an ultima species for it. Thus, animal as an individual may be taken only if it means the animality of Zayd.

385 Marmura, 1992, 80.

386 In this context Avicenna doesn’t speak about juz’iyya, which would be the direct translation of the English term.

94 However, to answer the question where does individuality come from, we should re-enumerate Avicenna’s different articulations of individuality.

As Marmura pointed out, one of them seems to be the conceptualization of the notion’s relations to its referents. This candidate is simply the result of human thinking; it is just the generalization of the primary notion that a certain individual is there.

The second account of individuality is the one based on Porphyry’s Eisagoge: the individual is the concept of which cannot be shared by anything else.

The third account is based on the role unity plays in individuation:³⁸⁷

As the man can exist with a certain accident, such as the man capable of laughing, this can be predicated of everything of which the man alone can be predicated among the particulars that serve as the subject. In a like manner, the individual man. This is because unity is one of the concomitant accidents, which follow things.

We will make clear that it is not constitutive for their quiddities. If unity is linked to humanity in the aforementioned way, the individual man is generated from them, which is shared by every individual.³⁸⁸

In this passage, Avicenna comes up with a new formula, according to which the individual human comes to be, only after unity is getting attached to humanity in itself. Every individual human shares the concept of the “individual human” since it only means that this concept refers to a human being that is one, that is, an individual. Avicenna highlights that unity, just like existence, is not essential for the thing, whatever it may be; it is only a concomitant accident: if the thing is conceived as the quiddity in itself, it is not one essentially, because in this case the humanity that is in Zayd, may be the same as the one in ʽAmr. Thus, unity is something additional to the quiddity; a necessary condition for it to become a particular existent.

Unity is a concomitant accident of things,³⁸⁹ and it is a real accident in re:³⁹⁰ Avicenna is adamant that it is not only a mental existent but a real concomitant feature that accompanies the thing so long as it exists. Since unity and existence are correlational notions, that is, everything that is said to be that exists it is also one, and everything that is said to be one, also exists.³⁹¹ This third formula (unity plus humanity makes the individual human) gives a general account that is true of every individual. Thus, this account with unity does not count for the distinction

387 This account corresponds to (1c) in the theoretical approach, what makes y to be one?

388 Madkhal, 71–72.

389 Ilāhiyāt, 109, 10; 106, 14; however, in this case it is the concomitant accident of substance. For further details see Wisnovsky, 2003, 158–159.

390 Ilāhiyāt, 119, 3–9.

391 Ilāhiyyāt, 303, 5–8. We shall turn back to the relation of thing - existence - and unity later.

95 between individuals; it rather gives an idea of the so-called derivative individuation.³⁹² Unity makes the quiddity one; which is a necessary condition for humanity to become a certain human, because every individual human is one in number, and there is no human individual that would not be one in number.

Since unity and existence are correlational terms, and unity means indivisible existence, in this respect, it is subsumed under existence. It is true in the sense that whatever has a particular existence is one. As for the origin of unity, is it possible that unity always accompanies existence, simply emanates along with existence at the moment of a generation. In this sense, it would be a unity that would make the individual human, as being attached to humanity itself along with existence. However, this addition still needs to be verified in the Metaphysical context.