According to Bahmanyār...

According to Bahmanyār, in the book Al-Taḥṣīl , “How can existence not possess entified truth when its meaning is nothing but real occurrence?”1 Some of the advocates of the fundamentality of whatness have said: “It is true that whatness itself in itself lacks existence and nothingness, and does not demand either of them, and in this sense can be considered respectival, but when it is related to the Maker ( Jā‘il ) it obtains objective reality.

And it is with regard to this matter that it is said that whatness is fundamental.” It is clear that a relation which accompanies the occurrence of whatness in reality is due to causing it to exist, that is, the granting of existence to it, and this shows that its reality is that very existence which is granted to it.

Another reason for the respectivalness of whatness is that basically the analysis of entified reality into two aspects, whatness and existence, occurs only in the mind through acquired knowledge. In presentational knowledge no trace of whatness is found.

So, if whatness were fundamental, then it would have to be realized through presentational knowledge, as well, for it is in knowledge by presence that entified reality itself is perceived or observed internally without the intermediary of any mental form or concept. It is possible that to this argument the objection will be raised that just as there is no trace of whatish concepts in knowledge by presence, we see no trace in it of the concept of existence.

In other words, just as whatish concepts are obtained by mental analysis, the concept of existence also occurs in the realm of mental analysis. Therefore, it cannot be said that existence is also fundamental. In response to this objection, it must be said that there is no doubt that the two aspects, whatness and existence, can be distinguished from one another only in the realm of the mind.

Their duality is specific to the realm of mental analysis, and for the same reason the concept of existence also, insofar as it is a mental concept, is not the same as objective reality, and is not fundamental. But, nevertheless, this same concept is a means for denoting that which has objective reality, from which the whatish concept is abstracted, and this is what is meant by the fundamentality of existence and its having entified reality.