36 On Opposition
36: On Opposition Next we shall consider opposition. It should be noted that the term 'opposite' signifies not only things (both those that are in the soul and those outside) but also signs of things. But things outside the soul, things that are not signs, can only be opposed as contraries; or, according to one view, they can also be opposed as relatives. The point is clear. For when objects are opposed there are only two possibilities. Either the opposed objects are both absolute things. Then the only form of opposition that can possibly obtain is that of contrariety. This is clear from induction (or they can also be opposed as relatives; then they cannot be opposed except as relatives and contraries).
Or one of the objects is an absolute thing and the other a relative thing. But in this case the objects are not really opposed. Thus, when absolute forms are so related that they cannot simultaneously but only successively be present in the same subject, they are opposed as contraries. Nevertheless, as | shall show later, this form of contrariety is subject to degrees. If we speak of that form of opposition which obtains between signs (concepts, spoken words, and written words), then, according to the Peripatetics the term 'opposite' is predicated of both complex and simple terms.
There are three ways in which complex terms can be opposed. Some are contradictories. Here we have two propositions with the same subject and the same predicate, one of which is affirmative and the other negative. This characterization, however, is incomplete, for one of the propositions must be universal and the other particular or indefinite, or both must be singular. For example, the following propositions are opposed as contradictories: Every man is an animal' and 'Some man is not an animal'. Likewise, the following: "Every man is an animal' and 'A man is not an animal'. In this last case we have contradictories because an indefinite proposition, when its subject is taken significatively, is always convertible with the corresponding particular proposition.
Thus the universal contradicts both the particular and the indefinite. Likewise the following propositions are contradictories: 'No man is an animal' and 'Some man is an animal'/ 'A man is an animal'. The following also contradict each other: 'Socrates is an animal' and 'Socrates is not an animal'.
Some propositions are opposed as contraries: the universal affirmative and the universal negative. This obtains when the subjects are taken significatively; otherwise it is not necessary. The following propositions are not opposed as contraries:
' "Every man" is a general term combined with the sign of universality' and ' "No man" is a general term combined with the sign of universality."
On Opposition There is no name for the third form of opposition between complex terms.
Propositions that are neither contradictories nor contraries are such that either they imply contradictories or one implies the contradictory of the other. Since the relevant implications hold, propositions of this sort cannot be simul taneously true. Thus, the following propositions are opposed: 'No animal runs' and 'Some man runs'. Since they do not have the same subject, they are neither contraries nor contradictories. They are opposed, rather, because 'Some man runs' entails the contradictory of 'No animal runs'; for it follows that since some man runs some animal runs.
From the foregoing it is clear that propositions which are related as subalterns and subcontraries are not opposed; they can be simultaneously true.
Among simple terms there are four forms of opposition. Some simple terms are contraries. These are simple terms which signify whatever they signify affirmatively and positively rather than negatively (that is there are no negative terms nor any expressions equivalent to such in the definitions expressing the meaning of the terms) and which, in addition, cannot be affirmed of one and the same thing simultaneously but only successively. Expressions are also contraries which cannot be truly predicated of the same thing either simultaneously or successively provided that they signify things which cannot be present in the same thing simultaneously. Examples of the first kind of contrariety are
'white' and 'black'. These terms signify nothing negatively; nevertheless, taken significatively they cannot be affirmed of the same thing simultaneously, although they can be affirmed successively. Nevertheless, as will be indicated later there are degrees in this kind of opposition. Examples of the second kind of contrariety are 'whiteness' and 'blackness'. These terms signify the kind of things outlined, and the terms themselves cannot either simultaneously or successively be affirmed of the same object while suppositing for that object.
As with the first form of contrariety, there can be degrees here.
But some simple terms are opposed as positive and privative. Here the terms are such that one of them signifies whatever it signifies positively and the other, while signifying something positively, signifies negatively what its opposite signifies affirmatively. This comes out in the definition expressing the meaning of the term, for in that definition a negative expression precedes the positive term opposed to it. 'Sight' and 'blindness' are so related, for 'sight' signifies affirmatively whatever it signifies. In the definition expressing its meaning there is no negative term. 'Blindness' or 'blind', on the other hand, signify something affirmatively and some thing negatively; for 'blind' is defined thus: a blind person is one who does not have the sight which he is apt to have. Here an expression precedes the negative term; its significatum is affirmatively designated by 'blind'. An expression also follows the sign of negation; its significatum is negatively signified by 'blind'. Some one might say that because of the clause which follows, the very same thing is affirmatively designated; but my point still stands; for in any event that thing is designated negatively. Nor is there anything problematical in the fact that a thing is designated both affirmatively and negatively by one and the same term. It is like a point we earlier made: one and the same thing can be signified by the same term in both the nominative and oblique cases.
St. Anselm suggests this distinction between signifying something affirmatively and negatively in chapter 11 of The Fall of the Devil. "It is clear that the expression 'nothing' does not, in its signification, differ from the expression
'non-something'. Further, it is obvious that the term 'non-something' has the effect, by its signification, of removing cognitively everything, whether external or internal, which is something and of retaining cognitively nothing, whether internal or external, which is something. But the removal of something can in no way be signified except by the signification of that whose removal is signified. No one understands what 'non-man' signifies except by understanding what man is. Therefore it is necessary that the expression 'non-something', by removing that which is something, signify something." Anselm continues, "It signifies something by removing that notion, not by affirming it."
He also says, "Thus, there is nothing repugnant in the joint supposition that evil is nothing and that the term 'evil' is significant. It could signify negatively, thereby affirming nothing."
From these and other remarks which Anselm makes in the same treatise it is clear that some simple terms signify by removing, negating, or denying something and that others signify by affirming or positing something.
It follows that privation is not something inhering in an object outside the mind and that it is not in any way distinct from that which is positive. Blindness does not, on the part of the thing, inhere in the eye. As Anselm says in an earlier passage, "Many things are expressed by a formoflanguage that does not correspond to the facts. Thus, 'to fear' is grammatically in the active voice; in actual fact it is something passive. Similarly, according to the form of speech blindness is said to be something; in actual fact it is not anything at all. Just as we say that an object has sight and that sight is in the object, we say that an object has blindness and that blindness is in it. Actually, blindness is not something; it is, rather, a non-something. To have blindness is not to have something.
On the contrary it is the lack of that which is something, for blindness is nothing but sightlessness or the absence of sight in that in which sight ought to be.
But sightlcssness or the absence of sight is not something existing where sight ought to be rather than where it ought not be. Just because sight ought to be in the eye, it does not follow that blindness is in the eye rather than, say, in the stone where sight ought not be."?
It is clear, then, on the basis of this authority that blindness is not something On Opposition existing, on the part of the thing, in the eye and, consequently, that it does not exist anywhere on the part of the thing. Thus, those things which are outside the soul are not opposed as positive and privative. Rather, the signs of things, one of which signifies affirmatively and the other negatively, are opposed by means of privation.
Opposition in terms of relatives obtains among names which cannot be affirmed of the same thing with respect to the same thing. This holds true whether things outside the soul are opposed as relatives or not. It is not, however, because I deny that relations are things outside the mind that I speak of names as relatives. One could use the term apropos of things as well as names of things. But that some names are relatives is clear from the work of the grammarians for whom the relative name constitutes one species of name.
Simple terms are opposed as contradictories when one of them affirmatively signifies some thing or things and the other negatively signifies the same thing or things without signifying anything affirmatively. 'Man' signifies all men affirmatively and 'non-man' signifies those very same men negatively while affirmatively signifying nothing in any determinate or definite way. I add the final qualification to meet the objection of the quibbler who would say that 'non-man' signifies a donkey on the basis that it can supposit for a donkey in the proposition 'A donkey is a non-man'.
It should be noted that all opposites are in themselves really positive and absolute things and that when they supposit for themselves, the expression
'real thing' can be predicated of them. Thus, if the subject in the proposition ""Non being" is a being' supposits for itself, the proposition is true; for that subject really is a being. It is a subject and therefore a part of a proposition, and no proposition is composed of non-beings.
One might object here that if propositions of this form be allowed to stand, then one of a pair of opposites can be predicated of the other. The response here is simply that there is nothing problematical in one opposite being predicated of the other provided that the second is not suppositing significatively but only simply or materially. Such propositions as ' "Non-expression" is an expression', ' "Non-simple" is simple', and ' "Non-part" is a part' are true.
Similarly, the proposition ' "Non-word" is a word' is true; for if the subject is suppositing for itself, it is certain that it is a word; what I utter when I say 'nonword' is surely a word.
For the present this is enough on opposition. The many points | have omitted here I have considered in my commentary on the Categories.?
3See Expositio Aurea super Artem Veterem, ed., Marcus de Benevento (Bologna, 1496).