ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophical Instructions Lesson Twenty-Two: The Concept of Existence The Unity of the Concept of Existence Another discussion which has been raised about the concept of existence is whether existence applies to all existents with a single meaning, with an unequivocal meaning, or with different meanings, with a kind of equivocation.

The origin of this discussion is that a group of theologians imagined that the sense in which existence is used for creatures could not be used for God the Almighty. For this reason, some said that when existence is related to a thing, it takes the meaning of that to which it is related. For example, in the case of man it will have the meaning of man, and in the case of tree, the meaning of tree.

Some others, in this respect, posited two meanings, one specifically for God the Almighty, and the other for all other created things. This sort of doubt may be traced to confusion between concepts and their instances, that is, that which cannot be compared pertaining to God the Almighty and to creatures is the instance of existence, not its concept. Differences among instances do not require differences in concept.

We also can understand the source of this confusion as being due to confusion between whatish concepts and philosophical concepts. Commonality of concept indicates a common essence among instances only when the concept is a kind of whatish concept. However, the concept of existence is a kind of philosophical concept, and its unity only indicates an aspectival unity, which the intellect considers in order to abstract [the concept of existence], and that aspect is that of the lack of nothingness.

In their refutation of the first position, Islamic philosophers have made several claims, including the following: “If existence had the same meaning as every subject to which it is applied, this would require that in simple propositions the predication, which is a kind of common predication, should be turned into a primary predication and be self-evident.