that, it is likewise impossible for them to agree in error in such a case. If error were possible in such a case, there could be no certainty about what people report having known through sensory perception or self-evident knowledge, since they might have been mistaken. Errors of outward or inward perception, or of reason, do occur among individuals and among groups that have reached an understanding and received their views from one another—as with inherited doctrines and followers’ claims that something is known self-evidently, for they belong to a school whose teachings they have received from one another.

By contrast, those who are certain, through self-evident knowledge, that Allah is above the world; that a self-subsisting existent that cannot be pointed to is inconceivable; that two existents, neither of which is co-located with nor separate from the other, are inconceivable; and that such a thing is impossible by virtue of the self-evident knowledge they find within themselves, like all other necessary knowledge—these constitute many peoples who have neither colluded nor agreed upon a particular doctrine.

As for his statement:

“The third possibility remains. This premise therefore involves circular reasoning, since establishing it depends on negating it.”

This is not the case. Like all other self-evident knowledge, establishing this self-evident premise does not depend on refuting what contradicts it. Rather, we know self-evidently, in general terms, that any conclusions of theoretical reasoning that contradict it are false, even if we do not set out detailed answers to the specious arguments. Likewise, we know that all other sophistical theories contradicting self-evident knowledge are invalid.

If someone says:

“This premise cannot be established until the counterargument that invalidates it has been refuted, yet refuting that counterargument is possible only once the premise has been established,”