Al-Farabi on Individuation: A Conceptual, Propositional and Systematic Analysis

Al-Farabi’s view on individuation has two versions: one is his strict view in his works and the other is what Mulla Sadra ascribes to him. His clearly expressed view in his Ta’liqat is that individuation is due two categories of time and position. However, Mulla Sadra argues that al-Farabi holds that it is due to how something exists. In what follows, the author is, first, seeking to clearly define the concept of individuation according to al-Farabi. He has, then, gone to determine how the verbal and logical structures of the proposition denoting al-Farabi’s view is. And, third, what the proposition denoting al-Farabi’s view on individuation bears to his indicative core idea in his web of meaning. The conceptual analysis has shown that, for al-Farabi, individuation is a relational concept. The propositional analysis proves that al-Farabis’s view on individuation of position is suffering from vagueness though. The systematic analysis demonstrates that the issue of individuation has been proposed for the later al-Farabi as a question and it bears a tie to his indicative core idea through existence. Nonetheless, it does not mean that one might refer to al-Farabi’s view on individuation as a proof to ascribe the primacy of existence theory to al-Farabi.