Particularized existence: ʽayn – taʽayyun

As I showed it earlier, one of the synonyms for individuals that Avicenna, and in general philosophers writing in Arabic used, was ʽayn.⁶⁴⁹ The fifth form of the root ʽ - y – n, taʽayyun may be found in kalām discussions as well, at least in some works of Avicenna’s contemporary, Qāḍī ʽAbd al-Jabbār.⁶⁵⁰

However, in the Avicennan corpus, taʽayyun – and its ergative form – taʽyīn, is usually mean a certain degree of definiteness. ʽAyn, for Avicenna, means individual, hence his fī al-aʽyān is a synonym term for fī al-wujūd or fī al-khārij.

The term taʽayyun in the Avicennan corpus may be found in various sciences, such as logic, physics, and metaphysics. In the following, we will focus only on the last. However, in a physical context, although not exclusively, it occurs mostly in connection with the motion, meaning “to single out.”⁶⁵¹ In a logical context, it may be translated again as (“to single out something”) either in mental existence, as Zayd’s individuality may be singled out in the intellect.⁶⁵²

As for the Ilāhiyyāt of the Shifā’, the term taʽayyun, occurs in several places. In the broadest meaning, it seems to mean determinacy or being singled out. Sometimes it is the subject – mawḍūʽ – being the subject of the verb taʽayyana, where a certain accident, quality, or color becomes determined by its subject.⁶⁵³ Sometimes it means a certain determinacy when you

648 Madkhal, 72.

649 Ibn al-Muqaffaʽ, Manṭiq, 12.

650 ʽAbd al-Jabbār, Mughnī, IV, 191.

651 Samāʽ, 92 (singling out the starting point and goal of motion); 199 (as running parallel with designation); 255 (singling out direction for a motion); 321 (singling out).

652 Madkhal, 70, 13; Ilāhiyyāt, 239, 4: for universal notions as existing in the mind.

653 Ilāhiyyāt, 137, 6–7; 77, 15.

151 single out the rear in the circle or a direction for motion.⁶⁵⁴ It may work on the mental level too when a certain nature becomes determined either in the mental, or outer existence.⁶⁵⁵ Moreover, last but not least, existence – wujūd – may be determined: the existence of the possible might be singled out by something else, namely, a cause.⁶⁵⁶

Thus, Avicenna applies the term to existence. As we saw above, existence is imprinted in the soul in a primary way; nothing is more obvious and known. A particular existence, just like in this expression, is something more: on the conceptual/mental level, there is something superadded to it that makes it a particular.

This kind of particular existence equally applies to God. God is the Necessary of Existence in itself, perfectly simple, lacking any composition. It does not have māhiyya–wujūd composition;

rather, its quiddity is His existence.⁶⁵⁷ Everything that has a quiddity is caused. God has no quiddity; it is not caused; rather, every existence ultimately emanates from him.⁶⁵⁸

God, however, as we just saw, is also one. One of Avicenna’s arguments for divine oneness tawḥīd is the following:

He is one by himself. His reality, by which he is what he is, is by himself, and he is this determined thing – hadhā al-muʽayyan – by himself. In consequence, nothing may share this reality.⁶⁵⁹ Then, his reality would come from something else, which, of course, might lead to a contradiction, saying that God has a cause. Thus, the reality of the Necessary is the One Existence.⁶⁶⁰

Avicenna then goes on saying that multiplicity is always due to a meaning, a maʽnā: it is either only a meaning, or the bearer of that meaning, by the causes of position and place, or time.⁶⁶¹ Since none of these conditions applies to the Necessary of Existence, it cannot be multiplied.

This issue is articulated a bit differently in the Ishārāt. Quite in line with what we have found above in the Shifā’, Avicenna reiterates this argument: God is determined – mutaʽayyin – in itself. The contention that God is one entails that God is like an individual if you bear in mind the logical formulation of individuality that the individual is the one the meaning of which cannot be shared. Avicenna, however, seems to reject to use this term. The reason is quite obvious: individual, being a logical intelligible, is understood as something superadded to the

654 Ilāhiyyāt, 61, 17; 384, 6; 385, 1; 386, 1; 3; 5.

655 Ilāhiyyāt, 239, 4–5; 228, 7–8; 223, 6.

656 Ilāhiyyāt, 39, 7–10.

657 Ilāhiyyāt, 347, 10.

658 Ilāhiyyāt, 347, 10.

659 Ilāhiyyāt, 349, 17–18.

660 Ilāhiyyāt, 350, 3. Unlike Marmura’s emendation, see Marmura, 2005, 279, 7.

661 Ilāhiyyāt, 350, 4–6.

152 quiddity in the mind, (reflecting the outer existence) which means a composition that can be no way imaginable in case of God.

God’s pure existence is also determined, however, as we saw it in this brief sketch above, this cannot be something superadded to the existence taken absolutely – since this would mean a derivative approach. Actually, this is what Avicenna shows in these lines.

In a difficult passage, Avicenna proves that taʽayyun is not something extrinsic for the Necessary of Existence, rather it is a per se feature. The method Avicenna uses is a simple analysis: taʽayyun is either by the Necessary of Existence itself or by something else. Since he showed that it is by something else, the only possibility left is that the Necessary of Existence is determined by itself.

The way he proves this is the following: if the Necessary of Existence is a concomitant accident of its determinateness, then its existence would be a concomitant accident of something else.

Alternatively, if it would be an accident of determinateness, then it would be due to some cause;

or if determinateness were an accident in it, it would be due to some other cause. Besides, it would entail other absurd consequences. In every case, the accident accedes to the subject due to a cause. Even if the determinateness and the Necessary of Existent together would form a quiddity, the cause of its specialty would be a part of its quiddity – and this would be the cause of its uniqueness. Thus, it is also absurd.⁶⁶²

Then he goes on to investigate the lower beings, celestial and sublunar existents:

You should know from this that the things having one specific (being species) definition, differ by other causes. If one of them has no potentiality to receive the influence of the causes, which is matter, is not getting determined (lam yataʽayyan), unless if it is by nature of its species to exist as one individual. [On the other hand], if it is in the nature of its species to be predicated of many, every single one of them is getting determined by a cause. In consequence, there is no two blacks or two whites in the real thing (fī nafs al-amr), if there is no difference between them in their substrate/position, and what is similar to it.⁶⁶³

In this passage, Avicenna expressis verbis asserts that it is matter – the potentiality to receive – that is the condition of taʽayyun. Among the things that may be characterized as species in the mind, there are such that has no potentiality to receive the influence of the causes, namely the celestial beings. In themselves they might be predicated of many, but for other – outer – reasons they have only one instantiation, like the sun and the moon.⁶⁶⁴ On the other hand, there are such

662 Ishārāt, 270–271.

663 Ishārāt, 271.

664 Ilāhiyyāt, 190, 15.

153 quiddities that by themselves may be predicated of many, and this manifoldness has a cause;

what is more, every single one of them is getting determined (yataʽayyan) by a cause.

Here, Avicenna makes it clear that every particular existence is due to a cause. Of course, this issue is the central part of his modal ontology: the existent is either necessary in itself, or necessary by something else, that is, possible in itself.⁶⁶⁵ So, it is beyond doubt that the existence is caused in a quiddity that is possible of existence in itself; and this framework offers a good opportunity to explain how existence becomes, in a concrete particular, particular. In other words, the particularity of existence is also explainable to a certain degree. Sometimes Avicenna simply admits it: the special, singular existence of something (khuṣūṣiyyat wujūdihi al-munfarid lahu) has a cause, that is, it is an effect.⁶⁶⁶

Thus, we would expect from Avicenna to give an answer to the particular existence problem, in his teaching on causality. As we shall see, in his later works, this is what he actually does.

On the other hand, he talks about the difference (ikhtilāf), in this framework as well. The source of differentiation of two similar objects is the difference in the substrate (mawḍūʽ) – or spatial extension (mawḍiʽ). This point will be explored later in the hylomorphic approach, but it is worth to note that spatial accidents that occur throughout the Avicennian corpus concerning individuation, as in the epistemic approach (differentiation of individuals), also appears here.

The importance of position/location (mawḍiʽ) will reappear in the argument on the spatial position in explaining that matter is never devoid of form.