From Focal Homonymy to the Ambiguity of Existence (tashkīk al-wujūd): Avicenna’s Reception and Revision of Aristotle’s Categorial Ontology

This paper argues that both Aristotle’s theory of the so-called focal homonymy of “being” and Avicenna’s corresponding theory of the ambiguity of “existence” (tashkīk al-wujūd) are meant to address the same dilemma of categorial ontology, but by recourse to different solutions. Avicenna retains Aristotle’s concerns but rejects his solution of focal homonymy, offering a new theory which more satisfactorily addresses each horn of the dilemma. This reading departs from prior scholarship, which, taking Avicenna to have adopted the focal theory basically intact from his Late Antique predecessors, instead tends to privilege the theory’s (peripheral) theological applications.