 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 entertain the corresponding concept. So, we can retain a concept of such a thing just as we can keep our knowledge of such a thing even when there is no longer such a thing. Boethius’ answer to (b) combined with remarks elsewhere suggests that he took causal structures to remain in place in all circumstances and scientific theorems of the form “Every S is P” to be necessary in the weak sense that if some S exists, and no superior cause unaccounted for in the relevant science intervenes, then S cannot fail to have the predicate P.