A universal proposition must ultimately be known without recourse to syllogism; otherwise one is trapped in circularity or an infinite regress. Since, then, they are compelled to acknowledge certain universals that are grasped independently of syllogistic reasoning, we say:

Within the realm of existent things there is nothing whose universal judgment is innately known without syllogism except that the mind’s awareness of its concrete particulars is stronger than its grasp of the universal itself. Take, for example, the statements: “one is half of two,” “a body cannot be in two places at once,” and “opposites do not coincide.” The fitrah knows that this specific one is half of these specific two earlier and more firmly than it knows that every one is half of every two—and so with every individual instance one might imagine.

These universal propositions, then, serve one of two purposes: either they concern knowledge of an external reality or they concern purely conceptual constructs. The latter is of scant benefit; as for the former, there is no concrete entity whose judgment, once apprehended in its particularity, is not clearer and firmer than the judgment derived for it through an encompassing universal syllogism. Syllogism therefore adds little practical value; it merely lengthens the discussion. It is resorted to only when addressing someone confused or obstinate: an example is cited, the universal rule is mentioned, and thus his error or stubbornness is removed—unlike the one whose innate disposition is sound.

The same applies to their dictum “opposites cannot coexist.” Whenever two things are known to be opposites, one already knows they cannot be combined before calling to mind the universal proposition that no two opposites can coexist. Likewise, there is no particular body but that one knows it cannot occupy two places simultaneously prior to learning the rule “every body cannot be in two places.” The same reasoning holds for their saying “contradictories neither both obtain nor both vanish,” meaning that the existence of a thing and its non-existence cannot be joined, nor can they both be absent. For every specific entity one already knows it cannot be both existent and nonexistent, and that it cannot escape being either existent or nonexistent, before ever grasping this general principle. Whoever reflects will discover many such examples.

Thus the very particular whose knowledge is supposed to be gained through these primary universal propositions is in fact understood beforehand and without them; awareness of it does not depend upon the universal. Rather, the universal aids only with mental constructs—imagined cases that are not found in external reality—whereas, with respect to existent things