Mulla Sadra's Existential View on the Five Universals

The logic of Aristotle—Ibn-Sina has been founded on neglecting existence, and on looking at the external reality through quiddity. Mulla Sadra’s different view of the external reality and how the man becomes aware of it, causes a change in the foundations of the logic of quiddity. In his logical works, Mulla Sadra does not present a systematic expression of his existential logic. In his philosophical works, however, he has presented some of the issues related to the existential logics. In Mulla Sadra’s view, existence is the ultimate differentia or form, unifying the type, the ultimate differentia, and previous genuses and differentia. This is in contrast with the general view that organic composition of matter and form denotes the arbitrary union of the essence and cannot justify the modality of union in attribution of essential universals to one another. In the well-known view, the matter and form are regarded external realities and are among the primary intelligible; but genus and differentia are only mental and are among the secondary logical intelligible. In existential view of Mulla Sadra, however, what is real and realized in external world is the existence of differentia which is followed by type, genus, previous differentia and accidental affairs. Thus, genus and differentia as well as type are not merely mental and among the secondary logical intelligible. Mulla Sadra regards non-conditioned conventions in five universals among external judgments of the essence, referring it to the existence and its judgments. Besides, in his existential view, the kind of from and ultimate differentia is quite separate from the kind of essence in type and genus, and those two do not belong to the essence of quiddity.