The first is what follows necessarily from his statement and is true. He must accept this implication, for whatever follows necessarily from the truth is itself true. It may be attributed to him if his disposition is known to be such that he would not refuse to accept it once it became clear to him. Much of what people attribute to the teachings of the imams falls into this category.

The second is what follows necessarily from his statement and is not true. He is not obliged to accept this implication, for at most it means that he has contradicted himself. It has already been established that every scholar, apart from the prophets, falls into contradiction.

If his disposition is known to be such that he would accept the implication once it became clear to him, it may be attributed to him. Otherwise, it is impermissible to attribute to him a statement whose falsity, if apparent to him, would lead him to reject it, merely because he has said something that entails it while being unaware that the statement is false. Nor is it binding upon him.

This distinction provides a better resolution of the disagreement over whether the implications of a position are themselves part of that position than an unqualified endorsement of either answer. Whatever implication the speaker would accept once it became clear to him is his position; whatever he would not accept is not his position, even if he is inconsistent. This is the distinction between an implication that must be accepted together with its underlying proposition and an implication that requires the underlying proposition to be abandoned because it necessarily entails it. Once this is understood, the distinction becomes clear between the positions one ought to hold and those one actually holds.

This applies to implications that he has not expressly denied follow from his position. If, however, he himself denies that they follow, then under no circumstances may the implication be attributed to him; otherwise,