subject to the condition of absoluteness, it does not include the determinate, qualified thing. This is analogous to the jurists’ expression “unqualified water”: it is subject to the condition of being unqualified, and therefore does not include qualified water. By contrast, the absolute without any condition does include qualified water.

Thus, when we say that water falls into three categories—pure and purifying, pure, and impure—all three are categories of water. Pure and purifying water is unqualified water, which excludes anything that is not purifying, such as juices and impure water. Water as the category being divided is therefore the absolute without any condition, whereas water constituting one category alongside the other two is the absolute subject to the condition of absoluteness.

However, the absoluteness and qualification that the jurists discuss concerning the designation “water” concern unqualified and qualified wording: what falls within an unqualified expression such as “water,” or within a qualified expression such as “impure water” or “rose water.” Our initial discussion, by contrast, concerned absoluteness and qualification in the meanings of expressions. These are two distinct matters, and people make very many errors through failing to distinguish between them.

Every designation has a referent that is either determinate and cannot be shared by several things—as with “I,” “this,” and “Zayd,” which is called “the determinate” and “the part”—or can be shared by several things. The meaning that can be shared is the absolute universal meaning, which can be considered in three ways, as explained earlier.

As for unqualified and qualified expressions, examples include “freeing a slave” and “you find no water.” A meaning may fall within an expression considered without qualification, yet not within the unqualified expression: that is, it falls within the expression without the condition of being unqualified, but not within the expression subject to that condition, as we have said