to you from this that everything that understands is an existent essence in which intelligible forms are established, as one thing is established in another.”

He thus explicitly states that intelligible forms are established within the essence of the one who understands, as one thing is established in another. This contradicts the claim that the intellect, the one who understands, and the object understood are one and the same.

The aim is to accept what is true in his statements—namely, his affirmation that the Lord knows existing individual entities—and to demonstrate the soundness of his argument for this. As for his denial that He knows particulars, his argument for that denial is weak. Abū Hāmid, Abū al-Barakāt, and others have shown that their position commits them to affirming His knowledge of particulars, and have exposed the flaws in their arguments for denying it.

Ibn Sīnā said:

“Indication: Particular things may be understood intellectually just as universals are understood, insofar as they are necessitated by their causes and related to a principle whose species is particularized in its individual instance. A particular eclipse, for example, may be understood to occur because its particular causes coincide and the intellect comprehends them. It understands them as it understands particulars. This differs from the particular, temporal perception of them, which judges that it