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Aristotle on Non-contradiction
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Stanford Encyclopedia According to Aristotle, first philosophy, or metaphysics, deals with

ontology and first principles, of which the principle (or law) of non-
of Philosophy contradiction is the firmest. Aristotle says that without the principle of
non-contradiction we could not know anything that we do know.
Presumably, we could not demarcate the subject matter of any of the
special sciences, for example, biology or mathematics, and we would not
be able to distinguish between what something is, for example a human
being or a rabbit, and what it is like, for example pale or white. Aristotle's
Edward N. Zalta Uri Nodelman Colin Allen R. Lanier Anderson
own distinction between essence and accident would be impossible to
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draw, and the inability to draw distinctions in general would make rational
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http://plato.stanford.edu/board.html discussion impossible. According to Aristotle, the principle of non-
contradiction is a principle of scientific inquiry, reasoning and
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communication that we cannot do without.

Notice: This PDF version was distributed by request to mem- Aristotle's main and most famous discussion of the principle of non-
bers of the Friends of the SEP Society and by courtesy to SEP contradiction occurs in Metaphysics IV (Gamma) 36, especially 4. There
content contributors. It is solely for their fair use. Unauthorized are also snippets of discussion about the principle of non-contradiction
distribution is prohibited. To learn how to join the Friends of the early in the corpus, for example in De Interpretatione, and there is the
SEP Society and obtain authorized PDF versions of SEP entries, obscure chapter 11 of Posterior Analytics I, but none of these rival
please visit https://leibniz.stanford.edu/friends/ . Aristotle's treatment of the principle of non-contradiction in Metaphysics
IV. The discussion below mostly concerns the main interpretative and
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Copyright c 2015 by the publisher philosophical issues that arise from reading Metaphysics IV 36.
The Metaphysics Research Lab
Center for the Study of Language and Information Aristotle's discussion of the principle of non-contradiction also raises
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thorny issues in many areas of modern philosophy, for example, questions
Aristotle on Non-contradiction about what we are committed to by our beliefs, the relationship between
Copyright c 2015 by the author
Paula Gottlieb language, thought and the world, and the status of transcendental
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arguments. Arguments from conflicting appearances have proved
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1
 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
remarkably long-lived, and debates about skepticism, realism and anti-
realism continue to this day.
1. Three Versions of the Principle of Non-Contradiction
2. The Peculiar Status of the Principle of Non-Contradiction
3. The Elenctic Method and Transcendental Arguments
4. Aristotle's Challenge to the Opponent to Signify Some One Thing
5. The Role of Aristotelian Essentialism
6. The Principle of Non-Contradiction and Action
7. The Principle of Non-Contradiction and Proximity to the Truth or
the Truth-Like
8. The Argument from Conflicting Appearances
9. Protagoras, Heraclitus, and Plato's Theaetetus
10. Aristotle's Conclusion
11. A Note on Dialetheism and Paraconsistency
12. Posterior Analytics I 11
Bibliography
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1. Three Versions of the Principle of Non-
Contradiction
There are arguably three versions of the principle of non-contradiction to
be found in Aristotle: an ontological, a doxastic and a semantic version.
The first version concerns things that exist in the world, the second is
about what we can believe, and the third relates to assertion and truth. The
first version (hereafter, simply PNC) is usually taken to be the main
version of the principle and it runs as follows: It is impossible for the
same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing
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and in the same respect (with the appropriate qualifications) (Metaph IV
3 1005b1920). The following are some of those qualifications: The
same thing that belongs must be one and the same thing and it must be
the actual thing and not merely its linguistic expression. Also, the thing
that belongs must belong actually, and not merely potentially, to its bearer.
The second version is as follows: It is impossible to hold (suppose) the
same thing to be and not to be (Metaph IV 3 1005b24 cf.1005b2930).
Although this version is ambiguous as it stands, it is best understood as the
claim that it is impossible to hold the same thing to be F and not to be F
&c.
As a descriptive account of human psychology, this may seem
implausible. People surely have inconsistent beliefs; indeed, most of us
have many inconsistent beliefs. This is especially true if we take into
account the consequences of our beliefs. Must one, though, believe the
consequences of one's beliefs? These remain difficult issues in modern
philosophy of language and epistemology. Can one knowingly believe an
outright contradiction? Heraclitus, for instance, seems to say contradictory
things. Here, Aristotle might retort, and he does so retort with respect to
Heraclitus, that people can utter such words, but cannot really believe
what they are saying (Metaph IV 3 1005b2326).
An alternate way of understanding the second formulation is to treat it not
as a descriptive claim about human psychology, but as a normative claim,
a claim about what it is rational to believe. On this view, it is not that one
cannot believe that x is F and not F &c, but that one cannot rationally do
so.
It is not completely clear how Aristotle understands the second
formulation. At the end of Metaphysics IV 3, Aristotle gives a bad
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction Paula Gottlieb

argument that the doxastic version rests on the ontological version, Aristotle explains that, given its peculiar status as the firmest first
confusing belief that not p with not having the belief that p. principle, PNC is not susceptible to demonstration. A demonstration is a
deductive argument, the conclusion of which is deduced from firmer, prior
There is a further problem with this second formulation. We need to premises. It follows that if PNC could be deduced from another premise,
distinguish the possibility of believing that x is F and not F in a particular then that premise would have to be a firmer and prior principle, with the
case from the possibility of disbelieving the first version of PNC in its full result that PNC could not have been the firmest first principle. Aristotle
generality. also says that if PNC could be demonstrated, then everything would be
subject to demonstration, which would lead to an infinite regress.
The third version is that opposite assertions cannot be true at the same
Therefore demonstration is ruled out, and one must be wary of
time (Metaph IV 6 1011b1320). As it stands, this version is neutral
reconstructions of Aristotle's discussion in terms of ordinary deductive
about the internal structure of the assertion, but Aristotle assumes that any
arguments. Anyone asking for a deductive argument for PNC, as Aristotle
assertion involves predicating one thing of another. As with the second
points out, is missing the point, or, rather, is asking for something that is
formulation, one might give a psychologistic interpretation, relating to
impossible without using PNC. You cannot engage in argument unless you
what people actually do affirm and deny, but the idea that opposite
rely on PNC. Anyone who claims to reject PNC for the sake of
assertions cannot be true at the same time suggests that this third version is
argument is similarly misguided.
better interpreted as a variant of the first formulation.
Given the impossibility of deducing PNC from anything else, one might
Which version Aristotle intends to establish is a matter of controversy. He
expect Aristotle to explain the peculiar status of PNC by comparing it with
could be establishing the second version on the basis of the first, or the
other logical principles that might be rivals for the title of the firmest first
first version on the basis of the second, or just the second version.
principle, for example his version of the law of excluded middlefor any
x and for any F, it is necessary either to assert F of x or to deny F of x.
2. The Peculiar Status of the Principle of Non-
Instead, Aristotle defies others to find a prior principle (Metaph IV 4
Contradiction 1006a1011). For modern philosophers, it is still an interesting question
whether PNC is prior to other principles of logic, or, indeed, to the notions
Aristotle says that PNC is one of the common axioms, axioms common to
of truth, reference and identity. PNC assumes the notion of identity: It is
all the special sciences. It has no specific subject matter, but applies to
impossible for (one and) the same thing to belong and not to belong to
everything that is. It is a first principle and also the firmest principle of all.
(one and) the same thing at (one and) the same time &c. PNC is
Like modus ponens, as Lewis Carroll memorably showed, PNC does not
presupposed by Leibniz's law, which states that if x and y are discernible
function as a premise in any argument. Unlike modus ponens, PNC is not
(if one has a property that the other lacks), then x is not identical with y.
a rule of inference. Aristotle says that it is a principle which is necessary
for anyone to have who knows any of the things that are (Metaph IV 3
1005b15). It is no mere hypothesis.
3. The Elenctic Method and Transcendental

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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
Arguments
Although PNC is not subject to demonstration, it is subject to elenctic
refutation according to Aristotle. The elenchus refers to the Socratic
method of argument. When Socrates uses the elenchus, he gets his
opponent to refute himself out of his own mouth. The opponent makes a
proposal that is shown to conflict with other claims to which he agrees. To
be consistent, the opponent must give up one of these claims, and he
usually abandons the original proposal. This is the method of reductio ad
absurdum familiar to ancient Greek geometers and modern formal
logicians and mathematicians.
The idea of using an elenchus is at first sight very puzzling. The person
claiming to reject PNC is not being consistent and apparently does not
want to be. Aristotle is not trying to catch the opponent in a formal
contradiction. The opponent purportedly does not care about that, and it
would be begging the question. Instead, Aristotle's trick is to draw the
opponent into saying something, without making a complete statement,
that shows that he does accept that x is F and is not at the same time not F,
in spite of the words he previously said. In other words, Aristotle needs to
show that his opponent is committed to at least one thing that is not
contradictory. The Socratic method is turned on its head.
It has long been noted that Aristotle is here assuming that his opponent
takes the very strong position that for any x and for any F, it is possible for
F to belong and not to belong to x at the same time in the same respect &c.
Later he says that he is glad to have stamped out the view according to
which we do not have anything definite in our thinking (Metaph IV 4
1009a35).
Aristotle's elenctic refutation has been fruitfully compared to a Kantian
transcendental argument. Transcendental arguments generally run as
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follows: If certain aspects of experience or thinking are possible, the world
must be a certain way. Since these aspects of experience or thinking do
exist, the world is a certain way. These aspects of our experience or
thinking presuppose that the world is a certain way. That the world is a
certain way explains these aspects of our experience or thinking and not
the other way round. On this interpretation, Aristotle would be arguing
that the world conforms to PNC, or that PNC is true, because it is
presupposed by and explains the opponent's ability to say something
significant.
Transcendental arguments are controversial. One controversy surrounds
the precise content of their conclusions and what exactly is presupposed.
Should one conclude that the world must be a certain way or merely that
we have to think that it is a certain way, in order to have the experience
and thoughts at issue? The modern debate finds its counterpart in debate
among scholars about what Aristotle is aiming to do in his elenctic
discussion. There are two main possibilities. Aristotle may be aiming to
show that the ontological version of the principle of non-contradiction is
true, or he may be aiming to show merely that it cannot be disbelieved.
4. Aristotle's Challenge to the Opponent to Signify
Some One Thing
Aristotle challenges the opponent to signify some one thing both to
himself and to another, for example, human being. Aristotle explains
that the word chosen by the opponent can have several meanings, provided
one definition can be assigned to each and each definition is assigned a
different word. Aristotle says that the word may not have infinitely many
meanings. Perhaps this is because otherwise the opponent can keep on
saying that we have not yet reached the meaning she has in mind, or
perhaps Aristotle envisages infinitely branching meanings, so that we will
never arrive at anything definite.
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
Aristotle next draws a distinction between signifying and signifying
about. The opponent needs to do both and not merely signify about. One
can signify about something by saying pale (thing), but that does not tell
you what you are signifying, e.g., a human being. Human being both
signifies about and signifies a human being. If human being means
something definite, for example, two-footed animal (Aristotle's dummy
definition), then, Aristotle concludes, it is impossible that the same thing
be a human being and not be a human being. (For a parallel discussion, see
Posterior Analytics I 22.)
On such an account, Aristotle is showing the opponent that if she wants to
reject PNC she must pick out the same object and say that contradictory
predicates apply, but if she does not mean anything definite by human
being, for example, then she will be unable to pick out a subject of
predication, for example, a human being, and say that contradictory
predicates apply. Saying that an individual human being is a human being
and not a human being, where the first means two-footed animal and the
latter means something different is not to reject PNC. That is why the
opponent must pick a particular word with a definite meaning.
On an alternative account, Aristotle is merely talking about kinds. Pale
(thing) does not signify a kind, whereas human being does. Signifying
one thing does not involve signifying an individual who is a member of a
kind, but simply one kind.
The details of the argument are controversial. Is it meant to be
generalizable across the board so that it would work for things that are not
substances, for example, qualities like redness? Aristotle elsewhere says
that the sweet is necessarily so (Metaph IV 5 1010b246). Must the
opponent say something that names a natural kind? What if the opponent
says animal, naming a genus rather than a species? What if the opponent
says goatstag, something that does not exist? Does the distinction
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between signifying and signifying about necessarily lead to subjects
that are individuals (for example, individual human beings or horses) and
their properties? Here, we run into the issue of Aristotelian essentialism.
5. The Role of Aristotelian Essentialism
Aristotelian essentialism is the view that there exist what modern
philosophers would treat as natural kinds, for example, human beings,
horses and acanthus plants. Individuals belonging to these kinds have
essential natures that are definable. These individuals cannot survive a
change in essence, but they can survive a change in their accidental
properties. There is a difference between dying and dyeing one's hair.
When a human being ceases to be a human being, she dies. By contrast,
when her hair is dyed a different color, she survives. In an earlier work,
Aristotle distinguishes essence, for example the necessary property of
being rational for a human being, from accident, for example, being
asleep, and from distinctive properties, those necessary properties that are
explained by rationality but are not part of the human essence, for
example, the capacity to learn a language (Topics I 5). It is a puzzling
feature of the argument of Metaphysics IV 4 that distinctive properties are
not explicitly mentioned.
Aristotle says that those who refuse to take up the challenge to signify one
thing do away with substance and essence. For they must say that all
attributes are accidents, and that there is no such thing as being
essentially a human being or an animal (Metaph IV 4 1007a2023).
According to Aristotle, then, those who claim to reject PNC are rejecting
Aristotelian essentialism. Aristotle connects merely signifying about
with denoting an accident, and signifying with denoting the bearer of an
accident, the bearer being a substance. If the opponent refuses to signify,
she is left with accidents.
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
Next, Aristotle tries to put Humpty Dumpty together again: Accidents
cannot be predicated of accidents, but they must be predicated of
something. For example, if there are accidents such as the musical or the
pale, these cannot be predicated of one another, so they need a subject
with an essential nature to be predicated of, for example, Socrates, a
human being. While Socrates is pale and musical, the pale is not musical,
nor the musical pale, unless all this means is that Socrates is pale and
musical. Nor does a collection of accidentsthe pale, the musical and so
onadd up to one subject like Socrates. Nor does it tell us what Socrates
is, a human being. Accidents need subjects and subjects that are
substances and have an essential nature, and, if that is the case,
essentialism is reinstated and PNC applies after all.
According to Aristotle, if the opponent refuses to speak, he is no better off
than a vegetable. While this may seem to be merely ill-tempered abuse, it
has a serious side. If the opponent rejects PNC and essentialism, then he
cannot explain why he is not a vegetable. Aristotelian essentialism, if
correct, applies to oneself as well as to other things in the world. At first
sight, it is not clear why the PNC-opponent is left with a picture of
anything. But perhaps that is Aristotle's point. Aristotle gives the PNC-
opponent a world in which accidents can be linked up in any way he likes.
Anything goes in such a world, or nothing goes, depending on his taste.
Alternatively, as Aristotle puts it, all things will be one (Metaph IV 4
1007a19).
Aristotle is arguing that the rejection of PNC leads to the rejection of
Aristotelian essentialism, and the acceptance of Aristotelian essentialism
leads to the acceptance of PNC. A controversial question is whether
Aristotle is also arguing that the acceptance of PNC necessarily goes hand
in hand with the acceptance of Aristotelian essentialism. If Aristotle is
claiming that to signify something is to signify a bearer that has an
essential nature, this would lead to the acceptance of both PNC and some
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form of essentialism. The argument itself does not rule out Platonic forms
as the bearers, or momentary objects, or numbers. Nevertheless, the
argument could be supplemented by Aristotle's arguments elsewhere
against Platonic forms, and his distinctions between different types of
change in the world.
6. The Principle of Non-Contradiction and Action
Aristotle notes that even if the opponent fails to speak, she must still act,
and if she acts in a certain way, that shows that she thinks that things in the
world are one way rather than another, and that some courses of action are
better than others. That is why people do not walk into wells or over
precipices, and it shows that people think it better not to walk into a well
or over a precipice than to do so. Their actions show that they have beliefs
that conform to PNC.
In response to Aristotle, one might wonder whether it is possible to act
merely as if one has certain beliefs, without having them. In Hellenistic
philosophy, the question arises whether the skeptic can live his skepticism,
and in modern philosophy the parallel question arises whether moral anti-
realists can act on their theory. If the answer is yes, then all Aristotle will
have shown is that we do act as if we are committed to PNC, an answer
that falls short of Aristotle's aim in Metaphysics IV 4, whether this is
interpreted as to show that PNC is true or to show that PNC is indubitable.
On this view, we are left with a skeptical Humean or pragmatic account.
Aristotle's account would be parallel to Hume's skeptical solution to the
problem of induction: We just do proceed as if induction is correct, even
though we lack any justification for so doing. Or compare Wittgenstein:
..the end is not an unfounded presuppositionIt is an unfounded way of
acting. (On Certainty, Section 110).
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
Is such a view coherent? Here it is appropriate to ask the skeptic what kind
of justification she is seeking. The question returns us to the problem of
PNC being a first principle for which there is no ordinary proof. Is it
possible to act as if one has certain beliefs even though one does not? Here
the skeptic owes the non-skeptic some account of as-if belief that differs
from actual belief. If this is to act following how things appear to one,
Aristotle is justified in asking whether they can even appear to be F and
not F to the same human being at the same time. As-if belief may
commit one to PNC just as much as actual belief does.
Action is the place where our beliefs collide with the world. If the skeptic
is skeptical about beliefs, it is not clear that she can accept that there are
actions, as opposed to reflexes and other involuntary movements. Such a
PNC-opponent would become a robot, not just a vegetable.
7. The Principle of Non-Contradiction and Proximity
to the Truth or the Truth-Like
At the end of chapter 4, Aristotle says that however much things are so
and not so, there is a more and a less in the nature of things, for
someone who thinks that four things are five is less wrong than someone
who thinks that they are a thousand, and so there must be some truth to
which the more true is nearer. He adds that even if there is not some truth
to which the more true is nearer, still there is already something firmer
and liker the truth, and we shall have got rid of the unqualified doctrine
which would prevent us from having anything definite in our thought
(Metaph IV 4 1009a25). He first points out that we can make
comparative judgments, even if we do not make absolute judgments, and
that comparative judgments presuppose some absolute standard. But even
if there is no absolute standard, something truth-like is presupposed and so
we will not be prevented from having anything definite in our thought.
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One might wonder how much of a concession these points are to
Aristotle's opponent. A modern scientific realist would insist that our
views merely approximate the truth. But would it be enough that there be
something liker the truth? It would be interesting to work out the
implications of these ideas for Aristotle's essentialism. Would Aristotle be
sympathetic to fuzzy essentialism or fuzzy realism? How much
vagueness can Aristotelian realism allow? These are issues about realism
that later Hellenistic philosophers and modern philosophers consider in
more detail.
8. The Argument from Conflicting Appearances
In chapter 5, Aristotle distinguishes two types of opponent, those who
claim to reject PNC for the sake of argument, and those Pre-Socratics who
are genuinely perplexed. He now addresses the second type. Anaxagoras
and Democritus are led to say that contradictions are true at the same time,
because they are confused by change. They see contraries coming into
existence out of the same thing, and infer that the same thing must have
had contrary properties. Aristotle introduces his distinction between the
potential and the actual to dispel their confusion. An object can be
potentially F and potentially not F, but it cannot be actually F and actually
not F at the same time.
Other philosophers are led by the argument from conflicting appearances
to accept conclusions that violate PNC or lead to general scepticism.
Aristotle presents the argument as follows:
1. There are three sorts of cases of conflicting appearances:
a. Things appear different to different members of the same
species, e.g., the same thing is thought bitter by some and sweet
by others (Metaph IV 5 1009b23).
b. Things appear different to members of different species (e.g., to
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
other animals and to us) (Metaph IV 5 1009b78).
c. Things do not always appear the same even to the senses of the
same individual (Metaph IV 5 1009b89).
2. It is not clear which appearances are true and which false (Metaph IV
5 1009b10).
3. Conclusions:
a. Nothing is true (Democritus in dogmatic mood, Metaph IV 5
1009b1112).
b. (If something is true) it is not clear to us (Democritus in
skeptical mood, Metaph IV 5 1009b12).
c. Everything is just as true as everything else. (This is mentioned
as an explanation of premiss 2 at Metaph IV 5 1009b1011. It is
Protagoras's view, as described at the beginning of the chapter.)
In response to this argument, Aristotle concedes most of the first premise.
He agrees that things do appear different to different members of different
species, to different members of the same species, and even to the same
individual, although he denies that the same thing can appear differently to
the same sense of the same individual at the same time (Metaph IV 5
1010b18).
Unlike modern philosophers, Aristotle does not attack the inference from
premises 1 and 2 to the conclusions in 3. Instead, he attacks premise 2. If
the attack is successful, he will have knocked down all three conclusions
at the same time. Aristotle's attack on premise 2 does not rest on accepting
a majority verdict. Aristotle appears to accept his opponents' argument
that, in cases like 1a, where things appear different to different members
of the same species, majority decision is not an appropriate criterion for
truth, because if the majority were ill or mad, the minority would be
thought to be in that condition. He argues instead that people are not really
confused as to whether magnitudes and colors are such as appear to those
at a distance or those nearby, or whether what appears to the weak or
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strong is heavier or whether what appears to one asleep or awake is true.
Once awake, a person in Libya is not confused about whether his dreams
of Athens or his waking experiences are true; he does not start out for the
odeon. Therefore, according to Aristotle, people do not really find it
unclear which appearances to take as true.
Aristotle extends his discussion to opinions, arguing that not all opinions
are equally authoritative. Aristotle points out that when it comes to
questions about our future health, the opinion of the physician is not on a
par with a lay person. Nor are our senses equally authoritative on the same
subject matter. Each sense is authoritative about its own special objects.
For example, sight, and not taste, is the authority on color, but taste, and
not sight, is the authority on flavor (Metaph IV 5 1010b1117). According
to Aristotle, then, it is far from unclear which appearances, or whose
opinions, are to be trusted in cases of conflict. Those who profess to deny
this, show, by their own actions, presumably by trusting only their waking
appearances when they are awake, and by consulting a physician when
they are ill and so on, that they believe quite the reverse. Therefore,
according to Aristotle, the second premise of the argument from
conflicting appearances is false, and so the argument fails.
Aristotle has not had the last word. The skeptics of Hellenistic times made
much of arguments from conflicting appearances, and modern
philosophers continue to discuss their efficacy, especially in the field of
ethics.
9. Protagoras, Heraclitus, and Plato's Theaetetus
At the beginning of Metaphysics IV 5, Aristotle says that PNC stands and
falls with the doctrine of Protagoras, that each individual human being is
the measure of all things. In his Theaetetus 151183, Plato argues that
Theaetetus, who holds that knowledge is nothing but perception, is
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
committed to Protagoras's view via an argument from conflicting
appearances. If the wind appears cold to you but hot to me and knowledge
is nothing but perception, then we must both be correct, as Protagoras
says.
Plato goes on to argue that Protagoras is committed to the view that
nothing is anything in itself (otherwise one might be wrong about how it
really is) and to a secret Heraclitean doctrine of flux. In order to
accommodate more and more conflicting appearances, and to avoid
violating PNC, more and more flux is needed, until we reach a radical
version of Heraclitus's doctrine according to which everything is so and
not so (Tht 183), with accompanying difficulties for ordinary language.
The extended argument also contains a mini-argument, a self-refutation,
where Plato draws the exquisite conclusion that Protagoras refutes
himself if he agrees that other people disagree with his own view (Tht
171A-D). If they are right, then he must be wrong!
The details of Plato's argument, the fairness and the success of his strategy
against Theaetetus and Protagoras are matters of some controversy. A
recent point of contention is whether Plato's Protagoras is committed to a
view of relative truth instead of flux, and how far Aristotle's Protagoras
is similar. What is less controversial is that elements of Plato's discussion
re-surface in Aristotle's Metaphysics IV. Aristotle's opponents are said to
believe that knowledge is perception because they think that what they
perceive is all that exists, and they are also said to be impressed by
arguments from conflicting appearances. The thesis that knowledge is
perception and an argument from conflicting appearances lead to
Protagoras's view in Plato's Theaetetus. In Metaphysics IV 5, Aristotle
agrees with Plato that Protagoras's view and the suggestion that everything
is so and not so (an expression echoed by Aristotle earlier at Metaph IV
4 1006a3031) go hand in hand. The Protagoras of Plato's Theaetetus and
the PNC-opponent in Metaphysics IV 4 are said to be committed to the
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thesis that nothing is anything in itself, understood by Aristotle to mean
that everything is accidental.
While Aristotle does not saddle Heraclitus himself with the rejection of
PNC, he notes that Heraclitus's followers thought that there is so much
change in the world that it is impossible to say anything true, and so
Cratylus, one of their number, was reduced to wagging his finger. Cratylus
was mistaken, according to Aristotle, because there is no radical flux.
When things change, something persists, and even if the quantity of a
thing is not constant, we know each thing by what sort of thing it is.
Presumably, even if its water is constantly flowing, we can still identify a
river. Aristotle points out that if there were radical flux, this would be
tantamount to everything being at rest, so the idea of radical flux is
contradictory.
One way to think of Aristotle's strategy in Metaphysics IV is as the reverse
of Plato's. If the PNC-opponent says something significant, for example,
the beginning of Protagoras's doctrine of the measure, human being,
then she is committed to denying the thesis that nothing is anything in
itself, and to accepting a non-Protagorean view. On this interpretation of
Aristotle's strategy, at least two puzzling features in Aristotle's discussion
are resolved, why he appears to be addressing someone who claims the
contrary, and not the contradictory of PNC, and how Aristotle can argue
from the second version of the principle of non-contradiction to the first.
Since Plato's Protagorean is forced to reject PNC across the board,
Aristotle's Protagorean PNC-skeptic would be an opponent who claims the
contrary, not merely the contradictory, of PNC. In addition, a Protagorean
PNC-skeptic, who accepts that as things appear to one, so they are
would have to be impressed by an argument that shows that things cannot
appear to him in a way that would violate PNC. On his own view, showing
that PNC is indubitable would also show that it is true.
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
At this point, one might wonder if Protagoras can turn the tables on
Aristotle. Certainly, to a Protagorean, showing that PNC is indubitable
would show that it is true, but it also assumes his own view, that how
things appear is how they are! Does Aristotle or Protagoras win? The same
can be asked of the exquisite argument of Plato's Theaetetus. Is
Protagoras's view refuted or confirmed? The Stoic Chrysippus apparently
wrote a whole book, now lost, on such table-turning arguments.
A further question surrounds the formulation of Protagoras's own view. In
Metaphysics IV 6, Aristotle explains how a Protagorean PNC-skeptic
ought to present his view so as to avoid violating PNC: those who seek to
be compelled by argument, and at the same time demand to be called to
account for their views, must guard themselves by saying that the truth is
not that what appears exists, but that what appears exists for him to whom
it appears, and when, and to the senses to which, and under the conditions
under which it appears. Otherwise, they will find themselves
contradicting themselves (Metaph IV 6 1011a2025). However, Aristotle
still finds fault with this view because it makes everything relative to
perception, including the perceiver. Not everything can be relative to
perception, according to Aristotle. As he explains at the end of the
previous chapter, there is something beyond perception that causes the
perception and is prior. Aristotle uses his discussion of PNC and
Protagoras to stake out a realist position.
10. Aristotle's Conclusion
At the end of chapter 6, Aristotle concludes, Let this, then suffice to show
(1) that the firmest belief is that opposite assertions are not true at the same
time, (2) what happens to those who speak in this way and (3) why people
do speak in this way (Metaph IV 6 1011b1315).
18 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Paula Gottlieb
On the first point, as we saw, it is controversial whether Aristotle's
conclusion that the firmest belief is a belief in PNC carries with it the
presupposition that PNC is true, a presupposition that is needed for his
own project of first philosophy. On the third point, Aristotle discusses
views about perception and change that lead people to say that they reject
PNC. On the second point, Aristotle shows that those who say that they
reject PNC do not really do so, or, if they do, they will be giving up
intelligible discourse and action, andone might addthey will be living
in a world of mere sophistry and power. It is controversial how much of an
essentialist or indeed realist view one must accept if one accepts PNC, but
it is clear that PNC is essential for the project of an Aristotelian science.
Without it, Aristotle notes, beginners in philosophy who are interested in
the truth would be off on a wild goose chase (Metaph IV 5 1009b368).
Acceptance of PNC, then, may also have ethical implications.
11. A Note on Dialetheism and Paraconsistency
Aristotle's account of the PNC has been challenged anew by modern-day
dialetheists, who hold that there are some true contradictions, and that
Aristotle's discussion fails to show otherwise. Moreover, some modern
logicians, who need not be dialetheists, think that logic can be
paraconsistent, i.e., that, contrary to classical logic, one contradiction need
not lead to an explosion where anything goes. While Aristotle is obviously
not a dialetheist, it is not clear where he stands on the issue of
paraconsistency in Metaph IV. Although Aristotle does claim that if his
opponent rejects PNC across the board, she is committed to a world in
which anything goes, he never argues that if (per impossibile) his
opponent is committed to one contradiction, she is committed to anything,
and he even considers that the opponent's view might apply to some
statements but not to others (Metaph IV 4 1008a1012). However one
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction
understands these passages, in the Prior Analytics, Aristotle does commit
himself to the view that syllogistic is paraconsistent (APr. II 15 64a15).
12. Posterior Analytics I 11
This is an intriguing and relatively neglected text. At first sight it looks as
if Aristotle is presenting a valid argument that includes contradictions as
some of the premises, which would be surprising given his account of
PNC in Metaphysics IV. However, the text is even more obscure than
usual.
There are two basic interpretations. According to one interpretation,
Aristotle does indeed include contradictions, but these are idle and play no
real logical role in the argument he presents. According to the other
interpretation, following Aquinas's commentary (lecture 20), Aristotle is
not claiming that Callias both is and is not Callias or that he is and is not a
human being, for example, but that the term animalcovers Callias and
those who are not Callias and not human beings, as Aristotle himself
explains when he says that the major term (animal) is more extensive
than the middle term (human). (In the syllogism All As are Bs; All Bs
are Cs; therefore All As are Cs, A is the major term and B is the
middle term.)
There are difficulties with both interpretations. Aristotle starts by saying
that no demonstration assumes PNC unless it concludes that x is F and not
not-F. According to the first interpretation, Aristotle's explanation about
the major and middle term is unnecessary. However, according to the
second interpretation, the relationship between Aristotle's main point and
his comments about PNC is obscure. The text invites further elucidation.
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20 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Paula Gottlieb
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Kirwan, Christopher, 1993. Translation with notes. Aristotle's Metaphysics
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 Aristotle on Non-contradiction Paula Gottlieb

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See also the bibliographies of the related entries on Aristotle's
Metaphysics and Logic, and Plato's Theaetetus below.
For detailed analyses and commentaries on selected Greek texts, see
Project Archelogos
Related Entries
Aristotle, General Topics: logic | Aristotle, General Topics: metaphysics |
contradiction | dialetheism | essential vs. accidental properties | logic:
ancient | logic: paraconsistent | metaphysics | Plato: on knowledge in the
Theaetetus | reference | relativism | skepticism | skepticism: ancient
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Evan Keeling, Anne Veenstra, Emily Fletcher, David Ebrey, and
Graham Priest.
Copyright 2015 by the author
Paula Gottlieb

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