In his answer to question (b) Boethius claims that while the object of knowledge must be extant in order for us to acquire knowledge about it, we need not lose that knowledge if it ceases to exist, only it can no longer be knowledge that the object has a certain predicate, but knowledge about precisely which causes such a thing will have if it comes into being. As for (c), he similarly holds that a word does not become meaningless by losing its referents, because it is still possible to entertai