Explanation of the Topic Before dealing with the core of the problem...

Explanation of the Topic Before dealing with the core of the problem, the concept of ‘union’ ( ittiḥād ) must be made clear. We must see precisely what is intended by those who accept the union of the rational agent ( ‘āqil ) with the intelligible ( ma‘qūl ) or the union of the knower with the known. Perhaps the correct perception of this meaning will provide considerable help in solving the problem.

The union of two existents will be either a union with respect to their whatnesses or with respect to their existences, or with respect to the existence of one and the whatness of the other.

However, the union of two complete whatnesses implies a transformation in whatness which is a contradiction, for the assumption of a complete whatness is the assumption of a specific conceptual mold which does not correspond to any other conceptual mold, and the union of two complete whatnesses would imply the correspondence of two distinct molds, such as the union of a circle and a triangle, to use an example of sensibles to illustrate the case regarding intelligibles.

The union of a complete specific whatness with an incomplete whatness (genus and difference), according to Aristotle’s apparatus of genus and difference, is unobjectionable and ubiquitous, but this has no relation to intellection and perception. In intellection, such union does not occur. In addition, sometimes man intellects a whatness completely distinct from the whatness of man and such that there is no shared whatish property between them.

Therefore, if one were to believe that in perception the whatness of the perceiving existent becomes united with the whatness of the perceived existent, and, for example, that the whatness of man becomes one with the whatness of a tree or an animal, this would be contradictory and impossible.

Likewise, the union of the existence of the perceiver with the whatness of the perceived and the reverse are also impossible, and even if the union between existence and whatness is in some sense correct, it is the union of the existence of a single existent with its own whatness, not with the whatness of another existent. Hence, the only hypothesis that can be maintained regarding the union of the subject and object of intellection is that of the union of their existences.

Now we must see whether the union between two existences is possible or not. If it is possible, in how many ways can it occur?