…and we have already shown the futility of that distinction and others like it. Nevertheless, we grant that certain propositions are self-evident and primary for some people—or even for everyone—and that the mere apprehension of the two terms of such a proposition obliges assent. Yet this is not because, as Fakhr al-Razi and those of his persuasion allege, the predicate inheres in the subject without any intermediary in the external order of things. We do not, in fact, find this view in the writings of Ibn Sina and his peers; for them the “middle term” is simply the proof, as was explained earlier. Nor is self-evidence something intrinsic to the proposition itself, for a statement may be axiomatic to Zayd while remaining theoretical to ‘Amr, according to the completeness or deficiency of each one’s conception of it.

This is a matter over which some have disputed. They claim that whatever is primary for Zayd is likewise primary for anyone else, arguing that human beings share in the knowledge of everything that is axiomatic for any individual among them, since such knowledge is produced by reason and reason is common to all. We reject this claim. A proposition may indeed be necessary for Zayd yet speculative for ‘Amr; similarly, other propositions may, for one person, be established through recurrent mass-transmission (tawātur), for another through direct sensory perception, for a third by experiment, and for yet another only through rational inference, and so forth.

Given this, our purpose here is not to decide whether these widely acknowledged propositions (mashhūrāt) are primary or not, nor whether they are primary for all people or only for some. What concerns us is that they belong to the class of propositions whose acceptance is obligatory, which must be affirmed and which furnish the material of demonstration. The logicians divide beliefs into three groups: those whose acceptance is obligatory, the mashhūrāt, and the imaginative (wahmiyyāt). Our contention is that the general mashhūrāt—such as “justice is good” and “injustice is evil”—fall under the heading of what must be accepted, even if we do not label them primary. According to their own scheme, the propositions that must be accepted comprise several kinds: primary axioms, direct observations, experimental judgments, intuitive apprehensions, recurrent mass-reports, and propositions whose syllogisms accompany them.

Thus, even if these mashhūrāt are not primary, they are certainly no less weighty than many experimental or intuitive propositions and the like. They therefore serve as material for demonstrative, certain proof, just as do propositions established by tawātur or by experience; for the mutawātir…