But the soul is particular, and the body is particular, and their conjunction is possible. These thinkers confuse the soul’s conjunction with the body and its separation from it with the conjunction of intelligible universals with their particulars and their abstraction from them. The distinction between the two is too obvious to require elaboration.

They confuse one with the other, using the terms “abstraction” and “conjunction” equivocally, and speak of “intellects separate from matter.” They do not distinguish between the soul’s being conjoined to the body and universal intelligibles that do not depend upon the existence of any particular thing. For the soul—which is the rational soul—exists externally and subsists in its own right when it separates from the body.

Universal intelligibles abstracted from particular things, however, exist only in minds, not in external things. We must therefore distinguish between separating the soul from the body and abstracting universals from particular things.

As for his statement:

“Likewise, only the outward aspect of its form is represented in sensory perception.”

The reason for this is that sense does not apprehend it in its entirety, although all of it is perceptible, in the sense that it can, in general, be sensed and seen. Its interior, however, is not perceptible to us