Zayd,” he does not mean that he struck the letters. Rather, it is understood that when names are uttered without qualification, what is intended is their referents—the things those names were instituted to denote. When the names are written, what is intended by the writing is what is intended by the spoken expression.
Thus, if it is said of what appears on a sheet of paper, “This is the Kaaba of the Hijaz,” what is intended is the entity named (1) by the spoken name to which the writing corresponds. There are many such examples, and everyone understands them.
When it is said of what is in the mind, “It is not itself the very thing that exists in the external world, but is so only in this respect,” the meaning is that what you have conceived [in] (2) the mind exists in the external world, but the external thing corresponds to the mental conception as the known object corresponds to knowledge.
Likewise, when it is said, “The natural universal exists in the external world,” this is meant in the same respect: something exists in the external world to which the natural universal (3) corresponds. For it is the unqualified considered without any condition, and therefore corresponds to particular instances. This differs from the unqualified considered on condition that it be unqualified, for the latter does not correspond to particular instances.
But as for the claim [that] (4) there exists in the external world one and the same universal entity shared by all—present in this particular and that particular—this (5) is categorically false, even though a group has asserted it. They affirmed abstract essences existing externally and apart from particular entities, and said that extraneous accretions had enveloped those essences and that the causes of essence differ from the causes of existence.
This has been discussed at length in the discussions of logic, of al-Ishārāt (“The Pointers”), and elsewhere. It has been demonstrated that what is beyond doubt is that what is conceived in minds is not identical with what exists among