universals, such as the unrestricted animal. They concede that these do not exist externally as unrestricted universals, but suppose that they exist as part of a determinate individual. This too is mistaken. Rather, they exist only as determinate, individuated things. There is nothing unrestricted in what is determinate and individuated, nor anything universal in what is particular, for it is impossible for the universal to be confined within the particular, or the unrestricted within the determinate.

Al-Āmidī has demonstrated the invalidity of this in several places in his books, including his discussion of the distinction between the unrestricted and the restricted, and between the universal and the particular. He has also refuted the supposition that the universal is part of a determinate individual and explained the error of those who maintain this, such as al-Rāzī and others. Had he returned to the sound principle he himself established concerning the universal and the particular, and the unrestricted and the determinate, he would have recognized the invalidity of this argument. Yet because of the profound confusion in their statements, and the falsehood mixed into them that has confounded both them and others, the minds of many intelligent people are led astray by their arguments. They fall into their error without recognizing why those arguments are invalid, as do al-Rāzī, al-Āmidī, and others like them.

At times they deny the existence of mental forms, even denying that the universal exists in the mind; at other times they regard it as existing externally.

Here, al-Āmidī affirms that the common universal referent exists externally, while elsewhere he denies it altogether, as he states in his al-Ihkām when seeking to refute al-Rāzī concerning a command relating to a universal essence: does it constitute a command relating to any of its particular instances, or