It has thus become clear that this rational, logical syllogism which they have devised and defined cannot, by itself, yield any universal knowledge concerning external reality. Their claim is therefore invalid:

“It is the standard by which universal demonstrative knowledge is measured.”

It does, however, yield knowledge of specific, individual particulars, but these can be known better through other means.

This brings us to the second point. We say: Things that actually exist are known through inward and outward perception, through analogical inference, and through inference containing no universal proposition, subsumption, or generalization. Rather, its three terms—the minor, middle, and major—are individual particulars, and its two premises and conclusion are particular propositions. Knowledge of these specific things through such methods is sounder, clearer, and more complete.

Someone who sees Zayd with his own eyes in one place and Amr in another has no need to infer this from the principle that a single body cannot occupy two places. Likewise, someone who weighs quantities of dirhams, each amounting to a thousand dirhams, has no need to draw an inference about a thousand of those dirhams on the grounds that they equal the standard weight, that this is one and the same object, and that things equal to the same thing are equal to one another. There are many similar examples.

This is why these people are called “men of talk”: they have supplied no knowledge that was not already known. They have merely added further talk that may serve no purpose: the syllogisms they have formulated to clarify what is already known through sensory perception. Although this