The second is apprehension that meets one of the two conditions but not the other: it precludes being common to multiple individuals but does not depend on external existence. This is imaginative apprehension. For when I see Zayd and he then departs, I imagine him in his particular individuality. The very object I imagine precludes being common to multiple individuals. This apprehension, however, does not depend on the existence of the object apprehended in external reality, since I can imagine him even after he has ceased to exist.

The third meets neither condition: it neither precludes being common to multiple individuals nor depends on the existence of the object apprehended in external reality. This is what is called intellectual apprehension.”

[Ibn Taymiyyah’s commentary: returning to the discussion of Ibn Sīnā]

I say:

They have thus explained that intellectual apprehension does not preclude being common to multiple individuals and does not require the object apprehended to exist externally. It is well known that this is the apprehension of universals that exist in the intellect.

If that is so, then his statement:

“When it is an object of sense perception, it is enveloped in coverings extraneous to its essence which, if removed from it, would not affect its essential nature.”

implies that two things exist in external reality: first, an essence abstracted from sense-perceptible things; and second, sense-perceptible things that envelop that abstract, intelligible essence existing in external reality. This is false, and its falsity is self-evident simply from conceiving what he is saying.