My research centers on individual identity, where I develop the notion of whoness in contrast to the traditional paradigm of whatness (quidditas in Latin and māhiyyah/ ماهية in Arabic) through which individuation is usually approached. This conceptual shift allows me to articulate some distinctive features of what I describe as a formative age, namely, a period of creativity and re-invention situated between late Antiquity and the classical scholasticism of the Christian Middle Ages and the classical Islamic tradition. My dissertation on this topic includes chapters on John Scottus Eriugena, Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī, and Peter Abelard.