It is said to him in reply:
The mind’s postulation of these categories does not entail that they exist in extramental reality or that their existence there is possible. This is like saying: A thing is either necessary, possible, or neither necessary nor possible; a thing is either eternal, originated, or neither eternal nor originated; a thing either subsists by itself, [subsists] in another (1), or neither subsists by itself nor in another; and a thing is either existent, nonexistent, or neither existent nor nonexistent.
Such suppositions and classifications do not establish that a thing is possible or that it exists in extramental reality. Rather, the possibility of a thing is known from its existence, the existence (2) of its analogue, or the existence of something when the thing in question is even more apt to exist than that whose existence is known, or through other similar methods.
Extramental possibility (3) is established through methods such as these. Mental possibility, however, merely means that the impossibility of a thing is not known. Yet lack of knowledge that it is impossible does not constitute knowledge that it is possible.
If the negationist says:
“Anything described as living, knowing, and powerful; anything possessing life, knowledge, and power; anything that may be seen; anything above the world; or anything of that sort—