thing?

Those who drew a distinction said: “Its essence is not related to its essence, whereas this distinguishing feature is absent in cases other than these two.”

They said: “There is no intermediary between it and its essence closer to its essence than its essence is to itself. This does not hold for anything other than its essence.”

They also said: “Knowledge is identical with the knower, not with the object known. Thus, its knowledge of its own essence is identical with its essence, unlike its knowledge of anything else.”

In short, they have mentioned distinctions: if these are valid, the proposed assimilation fails; if they are invalid, the judgment concerning the original case cannot be conceded.

But to treat the judgment concerning the original case as conceded, while drawing an analogy between knowledge of other things and knowledge of oneself, concluding that every knower of an object is identical with that object and that there is no knowledge additional to the object known—this is rejected by plain reason. Merely conceiving it fully suffices to recognize its falsity.

[The third argument]

It may be said: His statement, “Thus, in apprehending what proceeds from its essence by its own essence, it needs no form other than the form of that which proceeds, by which it is what it is,” is a proposition necessarily known to be false. A person finds within himself that, when he wishes an external form to proceed from him, whether in speech or action, he conceives in his mind what he wishes to express before expressing it, and distinguishes between the form in his mind and what he expresses through his speech and action.