and over whether the nonexistent is a thing, and whether the existence of existing things is additional to their essences. Leading speculative thinkers have displayed much inconsistency and contradiction on these questions. At times, one of them adopts two mutually contradictory positions and attributes to others views they never expressed; at other times, he remains in doubt and bewilderment.

We have discussed these questions at length, along with the confusion, error, and bewilderment they have occasioned among leading theologians and philosophers, in greater detail than these brief statements can accommodate. We have explained that the correct position is that the existence of each thing in external reality is its essence as it exists in external reality. This differs from its essence as conceived in the mind, which is distinct from what exists externally.

We have also explained that the terms “self,” “thing,” “essence,” “reality,” and the like are all univocal. If they are said to be graded because their meanings admit of differing degrees, then graded predication is a type of univocal predication in its broader sense: what matters is that the term signifies a shared meaning, whether that meaning varies in degree across its instances or is equal in them.

We have explained that the nonexistent is also a thing in knowledge and in the mind, but not in external reality. Thus, there is no distinction between subsistence and existence; rather, the distinction is between existence in knowledge and existence in external reality. Nevertheless, what is present in knowledge is not the existent reality itself, but the knowledge that belongs to the knower and inheres in him. Likewise, the states in which existent beings resemble one another and differ have an existence in