or joint truth cannot admit the coexistence of the two absences. Just as evenness is incompatible with oddness in a number, the absence of evenness is incompatible with the absence of oddness, not with its presence. Thus, the two absences cannot coexist: if one absence is established, the other is not, so that daʿm displaces absence.

Moreover, the proponent of the proof seeks to establish that motion and rest are both positive realities. If he says:

“Motion being replaced by rest entails that one of them is a positive reality, because removing an absence establishes a presence,”

then establishing that both are positive realities depends upon assuming that one of them is an absence, since he said, “because removing an absence establishes a presence.” Unless one of them is an absence, this reasoning is invalid. Yet if what is removed is an absence, they cannot both be positive realities, whereas establishing that both are positive realities is precisely the intended conclusion. The intended conclusion thus contradicts a premise of the proof, as the objector pointed out.

Nevertheless, he said:

“It is preferable to formulate the argument as follows: motion is a positive reality by consensus, and because it is visible. Rest must therefore also be a positive reality, by the preceding argument.”

He then mentioned al-Urmawī’s objection, saying:

“The objection was raised that the opposition between them is either one of contrariety or one of privation and possession. It is self-evident that things opposed as contraries, or otherwise opposed, differ in their essences.”

He said:

“The reply was that this does not follow when the contrariety between two things is incidental to them, as with a black thing and a white thing. Such is the case under discussion: their contrariety is incidental to them because of their being preceded by something else. This is a privative feature, so it cannot be