This position is also unacceptable...

This position is also unacceptable, for despite the fact that the words tāmir and mushammas may be related to date selling and sunshine, this position implies that the expression ‘ mawjūd ’ has two different meanings, involving a kind of ambiguity. However, there is no ambiguity with regard to wujūd , so, it is also unacceptable with regard to mawjūd .

Moreover, the position mentioned is based on the fundamentality of whatness with regard to the Creator, which is incorrect, as became clear in Lesson Twenty-Seven.

The third position is related to the peripatetics, and is known as the ‘plurality of existence and of existent.’ According to this position, the plurality of existents is undeniable, and necessarily each of them will have its own specific existence, and since existence is a simple reality, so, every existence will be completely distinct ( bi tamām-e dhāt ) from every other existence.

The following argument can be given for this position: one of these cases has to be true of existences: [i] all of them are real unitary individuals; such as individuals of a single kind, [ii] they are of various kinds of a single genus, such as the participation of various species of animals in the genus animal; [iii] none of them have any essential aspect in common, and are completely distinct.

This third alternative corresponds to the third position [mentioned above] which is currently under consideration, and with the refutation of the other two alternatives, it would be established.

However, the invalidity of the second position is clear, for it implies that the reality of existence is composed of a common aspect and a distinguishing aspect, that is, composed of genus and difference, and it does not correspond to the simplicity of the reality of existence, and this goes back to the fact that existence is really itself that common aspect, and by the addition of something else to it, it takes various forms of species.

But in the world of being, nothing can be found other than existence which could be added to it as a entified distinguishing aspect. However, the first alternative implies that existence, like natural universals, takes the form of different individuals with the addition of individuating accidents.