 We might expect Fârâbî to say that the paronymous form of the Arabic word for being or “exists” [mawjûd] is a mere grammatical accident and that there is no such thing as the existence [wujûd] through which things exist. Instead he distinguishes (at least) two senses of being [mawjûd], each applicable in both 1- and 2-place contexts, and says that in each case there is a corresponding sense of existence [wujûd]. But he thinks that only a conflation between these two senses of being would lead us to believe that a being X exists through an existence which is both independent of the mind and extrinsic to the essence of X. Fârâbî tries to connect these two main senses of being with differences in how the term “being” is understood in different disciplines, specifically in dialectic and demonstrative science, and with differences in how dialectic and demonstrative science investigate the questions whether X is and what X is, which Fârâbî discusses in Book of Letters III in connection with the particles “whether” and “what”. His discussion is complicated and difficult, but some of his main points seem to be as follows.