is predicated only by sheer homonymy, by strict univocity, or by an analogical gradation. Similar perplexities have arisen concerning the affirmation or denial of ahwāl (ontic states), the question of whether what is nonexistent can still be called a “thing,” and whether the existence of things is something added to their very quiddity.

Many leading dialecticians have become entangled in confusion and contradiction on these points: at one time the same scholar will espouse two mutually incompatible positions, or attribute to others statements they never actually made; at another he will simply admit his doubt and bewilderment. Elsewhere we have discussed at length these issues and the errors, ambiguities, and vacillation that have afflicted the imams of kalām and philosophy—far more than can be accommodated in these brief remarks.

What is correct, we have shown, is that the external existence of any given thing is identical with its quiddity as it exists outside the mind, whereas the quiddity conceived in the mind is distinct from the extramental existent. Moreover, the term “existence” functions like the term