The Pseudo-Univocity of Being (tashkīk al-wujūd): Zayn al-Dīn al-Kashshī’s (d. before 1228) Alternative Opinion

Does existence (wujūd) mean the same about God and creatures? In medieval Islamic philosophy, two positions gained wide support: that existence indeed means the same for all beings, including God, and that it is purely equivocal. The present chapter explores the alternative middle-ground idea proposed by a disciple of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210), Zayn al-Dīn al-Kashshī (d. before 1228). In his extant works, as will be shown, al-Kashshī maintains the traditional Peripatetic doctrine that “being” is neither outright equivocal nor genuine univocal like genera and species. He also agrees with the master that we humans possess one universal and intuitive notion of existence. Against al-Rāzī, however, al-Kashshī holds that the instances of existence are, in fact, at variance in their true natures, so our notion of existence actually fails to correspond to the divergent instances of being, let alone on the transcendental level. Pseudo-univocal terms (al-asmāʾ al-mushakkika) like “being,” in al-Kashshī’s view, are applied to various things only thanks to our imagination of similarity or commonality between them. He thus regards this kind of term essentially as equivocal in the guise of univocal, whereas the majority of Avicennian philosophers considered it as quasi-univocal. However, the actual equivocity of being will not render positive theology impossible. For this matter, the so-called Māturīdism, instead of Ashʿarism, lies under al-Kashshī’s theological thinking. Clearly following Māturīdite theologians, he describes God as a “Being” unlike beings, which enables him to speak of the transcendent Creator in a cataphatic manner.