For example...

For example, there exist differences among whatish, philosophical and logical concepts, and each of these types must be further specified in a particular branch of the sciences, for these differences in the concepts pertain to the different characteristics of their employment and the ways in which the mind attends to them.

For example, the concept ‘universal’ cannot be understood as a mirror or sign for something objective and entified, for objective things are always existents in the form of individuals. It is impossible to apply the property of universality to an objective existent.

It is with respect to this point that it is said, “Existence is equivalent to individuality.” Thus, the inapplicability of the concept of universality as a mirror or sign for something objective is due to the essential characteristics of this concept itself, which, like other logical concepts, can only be used for other mental concepts. Philosophical and whatish concepts, on the other hand, may be used to describe objective things.

In our discussions of epistemology, we divided concepts into two kinds, universal and particular. Each particular concept is a looking glass for a particular individual, and is unable to describe anything but its own individual instance. To the contrary, universal concepts have the ability to act as mirrors for countless individuals. This bifurcation is related to the mirror-like referential and conceptual capacities of the concepts.

Universal concepts themselves, however, have other aspects pertaining to their existential aspects in the mind. In this respect, things such as the existence of particular concepts and such as existences outside the mind are considered as cases of individuality, as was said in Lesson Fourteen.

The group of universal concepts which have objective instances, which in technical terms are said to have ‘objective characterization’ ( ittiṣāf khārijī ), may also be further subdivided into two groups: whatish concepts, which group together equivalent cases and specify their whatish limits; and philosophical concepts, which refer to fundamental being and existential relations, as well as to deficiency and nothingness, but which do not represent specific whatnesses.

The concepts of the first group naturally refer to common whatnesses among individuals, or, in other words, they refer to equivalent limits among existents.