To every affirmative proposition there is thus opposed a
contradictory negative proposition; to every negative a contradictory
affirmative. This pair of contradictory opposites may be called an
_Antiphasis_; always assuming that the predicate and subject of the
two shall be really the same, without equivocation of terms--a
proviso necessary to guard against troublesome puzzles started by
Sophists.[13] And we must also distinguish these propositions
opposite as _Contradictories_, from propositions opposite as
_Contraries_. For this, it has to be observed that there is a
distinction among things ([Greek: pra/gmata]) as universal or
singular, according as they are, in their nature, predicable of a
number or not: _homo_ is an example of the first, and _Kallias_ is an
example of the second. When, now, we affirm a predicate universally,
we must attach the mark of universality to the subject and not to the
predicate; we must say, Every man is white, No man is white. We
cannot attach the mark of universality to the predicate, and say,
Every man is every animal; this would be untrue.[14] An affirmation,
then, is _contradictorily_ opposed to a negation, when one indicates
that the subject is universally taken, and the other, that the
subject is taken not universally, _e.g. Omnis homo est albus_, _Non
omnis homo est albus_; _Nullus homo est albus_, _Est aliquis homo
albus_. The opposition is _contrary_, when the affirmation is
universal, and the negation is also universal, _i.e._, when the
subject is marked as universally taken in each: for example, _Omnis
homo est albus_, _Nullus homo est albus_. Of these contrary
opposites, both cannot be true, but both may be false. Contradictory
opposites, on the other hand, while they cannot both be true, cannot
both be false; one must be false and the other true. This holds also
where the subject is a singular term, as Sokrates.[15] If, however,
an universal term appear as subject in the proposition
_indefinitely_, that is, without any mark of universality whatever,
_e.g._, Est albus homo_, _Non est albus homo_, then the affirmative
and negative are not necessarily either contrary or contradictory,
though they may be so sometimes: there is no opposition, properly
speaking, between them; both may alike be true. This last observation
(says Aristotle) will seem strange, because many persons suppose that
_Non est homo albus_ is equivalent to _Nullus homo est albus_; but
the meaning of the two is not the same, nor does the truth of the
latter follow from that of the former,[16] since _homo_ in the former
may be construed as not universally taken.
[Footnote 13: Ibid. p. 17, a. 33: [Greek: _kai\ e)/stô a)nti/phasis
tou=to_, kata/phasis kai\ a)po/phasis ai( a)ntikei/menai.]
It seems (as Ammonius observes, Schol. p. 112, a. 33) that [Greek:
a)nti/phasis] in this sense was a technical term, introduced by
Aristotle.]
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