True or False

There cannot be an intermediate between contradictories.

One subject must either affirm or deny any one predicate.

This is clear if we define what the true and the false are.

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false,

while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true

So that he who says of anything that it is, or that it is not, will say either what is true or what is false;

but neither what is nor what is not is said to be or not to be.-Again, the intermediate between the contradictories will be so either in the way in which grey is between black and white, or as that which is neither man nor horse is between man and horse.

• (a) If it were of the latter kind, it could not change into the extremes (for change is from not-good to good, or from good to not-good), but as a matter of fact when there is an intermediate it is always observed to change into the extremes. For there is no change except to opposites and to their intermediates. (b) But if it is really intermediate, in this way too there would have to be a change to white, which was not from not-white; but as it is, this is never seen.-Again, every object of understanding or reason the understanding either affirms or denies-this is obvious from the definition-whenever it says what is true or false. When it connects in one way by assertion or negation, it says what is true, and when it does so in another way, what is false.-

There must be an intermediate between all contradictories, if one is not arguing merely for the sake of argument; so that it will be possible for a man to say what is neither true nor untrue.

There will be a middle between that which is and that which is not, so that there will also be a kind of change intermediate between generation and destruction.

In all classes in which the negation of an attribute involves the assertion of its contrary, even in these there will be an intermediate; for instance, in the sphere of numbers there will be number which is neither odd nor not-odd. But this is impossible, as is obvious from the definition.

The process will go on ad infinitum, and the number of realities will be not only half as great again, but even greater.

For again it will be possible to deny this intermediate with reference both to its assertion and to its negation, and this new term will be some definite thing; for its essence is something different.-Again, when a man, on being asked whether a thing is white, says ’no’, he has denied nothing except that it is; and its not being is a negation.

Some people have acquired this opinion as other paradoxical opinions have been acquired; when men cannot refute eristical arguments, they give in to the argument and agree that the conclusion is true. This, then, is why some express this view; others do so because they demand a reason for everything. And the starting-point in dealing with all such people is definition.

Now the definition rests on the necessity of their meaning something; for the form of words of which the word is a sign will be its definition.

While the doctrine of Heraclitus, that all things are and are not, seems to make everything true, that of Anaxagoras, that there is an intermediate between the terms of a contradiction, seems to make everything false; for when things are mixed, the mixture is neither good nor not-good, so that one cannot say anything that is true.