Ibn Sina's Impact on "Universals" and "Principle of Individuation" in the Western Scholastic Thought

This writing is to explain the scope of the Impact of Ibn Sina's ideas on one of the most controversial philosophical issues in the Christian Middle Age and in particular scholastic thought, i.e. "universals" and consequently the "principle of individuation" with an eye to the ideas of the Scottish philosopher and theologian, Johannes Duns Scotus (1266- 1308) and the way that such impact appears. Discussion about universals and its threefold divisions, in particular "natural universal" and its existence or nonexistence in the external world and consequently the principle of individuation, i.e. the origin of the particular external objects, is among very important and decisive issues which begins in the western scholastic thought entirely under Ibn Sina's impact and leads to long debates between Christian philosophers and theologians. From among Ibn Sina's works, Scotus had studied his al-Shifa which was translated into Latin in 12th Century. Like other scholastic thinkers before him, he has discussed universals in details. His view is, however, entirely influenced by Ibn Sina and adopted from the latter's ideas. In the way he has introduced universals, three kinds of universals, and in particular in the way he discusses "natural universal", its external existence and the mode of this existence, he refers directly to Ibn Sina's ideas; though about the way of unity of natural universal in the external world, his ideas differ slightly from those of Ibn Sina. Also, in negating Platonic Ideals, he is completely influenced by Ibn Sina. Though in discussing principle of individuation he is like other scholastic thinkers influenced by Ibn Sina, his explanation is completely innovative and entirely independent from Ibn Sina's view. Introducing thisness (haecceitas) as the principle of individuation, he goes far from Ibn Sina who considers "personal properties and accident" as the agent of individuation.