with an answer that holds good on every position, this is better than answering them with an answer accepted only by certain groups of speculative thinkers, which most rational people consider self-evidently false.

Al-Rāzī has presented this argument elsewhere, stating that being affected has positive existence and that this is self-evident. He then proceeds to answer it by denying its positive existence, so that an infinite succession does not follow.

It is well known that premises which an opponent holds to be self-evident cannot be answered with a speculative argument. Rather, if those claiming that the premises are self-evident are adherents of a particular doctrine, and may have colluded in adopting that view and received it from one another, their claim may be false, and the premises may be shown not to be self-evident. But if these premises are acknowledged by natural human dispositions and reason, without collusion or the sort of mutual agreement found in inherited doctrines that a group professes in deference to its leader, such premises cannot be rejected. For if self-evident truths acknowledged by natural human dispositions and reason, without collusion or mutual awareness, could be rejected, no argument could be established against anyone defending falsehood.

This is sophistry, whose adherents can be engaged only through action. Anyone who denies the self-evident propositions firmly established in human minds, which people have not received from one another, is a sophist.

If someone claims that causal action has positive existence and that this is self-evident, one should not reply, “Rather, it has no positive existence,” in order to avoid the consequence of an infinite succession. For there are two well-known positions on an infinite succession of effects among Muslim speculative thinkers and others.