Abstract

Analyzing the predication of being (mawjud) of the Necessary-Being through the concrete mode of instantiation entails positing an element additional to essence and conflicts with divine simplicity. This study examines how this predication can be explained without such composition. Using Dawani’s discussion in his glosses on Sharh al-Tajrid, it investigates the theory of abstraction and evaluates it through Mulla Sadra’s critique. The findings show that Dawani distinguishes between the abstracted concept and the ground validating abstraction, and does not regard the predication of being as dependent on the addition of existence to the subject. In contingent beings, essence qua itself is not the ground for the abstraction of existence; rather, through the agent’s causality, the essence attains a mode of realization from which existence can be correctly abstracted. In the Necessary-Being, however, the simple essence itself is the ground of this abstraction. Thus, the difference between the Necessary and the contingent lies neither in the meaning of being nor in the rule of predication, but in the manner of realizing the ground of abstraction. The plurality of concepts such as existence and existent, or knowledge and knower, results from intellectual considerations of a single simple reality and does not entail multiplicity in the divine essence. Mulla Sadra’s critique indicates that the disagreement concerns the analysis of predication and the source of existence: Dawani explains the predication of being of the Necessary without adding existence to essence, whereas Mulla Sadra critiques this account’s explanation of contingent existence.