If 'an individual man' were a singular term (as Alyngton's theory requires), knowing the identity of the referent would be required to understand the sentence.

since the syntagm ‘an individual man’ (‘homo singularis’) would be a singular term standing precisely for one individual, e.g., ‘Socrates’ (‘Sortes’). Furthermore, it is a fact that anyone can understand the sentence ‘an individual man runs’ even without knowing the identity of the man who is running – which is required according to Alyngton’s theory. Therefore, Sharpe regarded second intentions of this kind as common ones (ibid., pp. 132–33).