Being versus Non-being

The terms ‘being’ and ’non-being’ are used in 3 ways:

1. With reference to the categories
2. With reference to the potency or actuality of these or their non-potency or nonactuality
3. In the sense of true and false.

This depends, on the side of the objects, on their being combined or separated, so that he who thinks the separated to be separated and the combined to be combined has the truth, while he whose thought is in a state contrary to that of the objects is in error.

When truth or falsity present or absent?

It is not because we think truly that you are pale, that you are pale, but because you are pale we who say this have the truth.

If, then, some things are always combined and cannot be separated, and others are always separated and cannot be combined, while others are capable either of combination or of separation, ‘being’ is being combined and one, and ’not being’ is being not combined but more than one.

Regarding contingent facts, then, the same opinion or the same statement comes to be false and true, and it is possible for it to be at one time correct and at another erroneous; but regarding things that cannot be otherwise opinions are not at one time true and at another false, but the same opinions are always true or always false.

But with regard to incomposites, what is being or not being, and truth or falsity?

A thing of this sort is not composite, so as to ‘be’ when it is compounded, and not to ‘be’ if it is separated, like ’that the wood is white’ or ’that the diagonal is incommensurable’; nor will truth and falsity be still present in the same way as in the previous cases.

In fact, as truth is not the same in these cases, so also being is not the same; but (a) truth or falsity is as follows–contact and assertion are truth (assertion not being the same as affirmation), and ignorance is non-contact.

For it is not possible to be in error regarding the question what a thing is, save in an accidental sense; and the same holds good regarding non-composite substances (for it is not possible to be in error about them).

They all exist actually, not potentially; for otherwise they would have come to be and ceased to be; but, as it is, being itself does not come to be (nor cease to be); for if it had done so it would have had to come out of something. About the things, then, which are essences and actualities, it is not possible to be in error, but only to know them or not to know them. But we do inquire what they are, viz. whether they are of such and such a nature or not.

“(b) As regards the ‘being’ that answers to truth and the ’non-being’ that answers to falsity, in one case there is truth if the subject and the attribute are really combined, and falsity if they are not combined; in the other case, if the object is existent it exists in a particular way, and if it does not exist in this way does not exist at all. And truth means knowing these objects, and falsity does not exist, nor error, but only ignorance-and not an ignorance which is like blindness; for blindness is akin to a total absence of the faculty of thinking.

In unchangeable things there can be no error in respect of time.

E.g. if we suppose that the triangle does not change, we shall not suppose that at one time its angles are equal to two right angles while at another time they are not (for that would imply change).

It is possible, however, to suppose that one member of such a class has a certain attribute and another has not; e.g. while we may suppose that no even number is prime, we may suppose that some are and some are not. But regarding a numerically single number not even this form of error is possible; for we cannot in this case suppose that one instance has an attribute and another has not, but whether our judgement be true or false, it is implied that the fact is eternal.