Genealogy of the Sadrian Theory of Individuation: A Reexamination of the Preparatory Role of the Ontological Foundations of Sayyid Sanad Dashtaki

The problem of individuation is among the most fundamental ontological issues and has undergone profound transformations in the shift from essentialism to the primacy of existence. In this context, Sayyid Sand Dashtaki, by distinguishing between two levels of discussion, adopts on the one hand an epistemological approach and refers the impossibility of predication to “the manner of sensory perception,” and on the other hand, in the ontological domain, invokes “the priority of existence over essence in the extramental order” to deny individuation by accidents. In contrast, Ṣadr al-Muta’allihīn, by establishing the primacy of existence, regards individuation as identical with the mode of external existence. The central question of this study is: what role did Sayyid Sand Dashtaki play in the formation of the Sadrian theory of individuation, and how did Mullā Ṣadrā reconstruct the critical and ontological elements of his thought within the horizon of the primacy of existence? Using an analytical-genealogical approach and relying on primary texts, this article shows that the relationship between these two thinkers goes beyond general influence. The findings indicate that Mullā Ṣadrā not only drew directly on Sayyid Sand’s arguments in dismantling the foundations of the opposing view (the addition of individuation to essence)—for example, in the case of the relation between substance and accident in his critique of the author of al-Mawāqif—but also employed the ontological premises embedded in Dashtaki’s statements as a logical prelude to his own final theory. In this way, Ṣadrā, in an evolutionary dialectic, moved beyond Dashtaki’s cognitive interpretation and expanded the existential sparks latent in his thought, thereby liberating the theory of individuation from the confines of the mind and bringing it to completion within the system of the primacy of existence.