What does he mean when he says "Knowledge of contraries is one"?

>>24461945 (OP)
what do you think he means?

>>24461968
I know he says it multiple times in deferent books and I should probably go back and look at the context.
I think he either means that the knowledge of a particular contrary i.e. health and disease, is one, like if you know what causes health then you know what causes not-health (disease).
Or he could mean that all contraries are (observed?) by the same one faculty.
I think the latter is closer to what he means, but I assume I'm off the mark.

>>24461945 (OP)
Aristotle believed that to truly understand a concept, one must also understand its opposite or contrary, and that a single science (or knowledge domain) must encompass both.

>>24461981
I think the main thrust is that negating a term still means the term is at hand, instead of creating a new term.

>>24461987
>Aristotle believed that to truly understand a concept, one must also understand its opposite or contrary,
I don't think he did
>if someone knows any relative definitely he will also know definitely that in relation to which it is spoken of. 8a37
It seems here that he is saying if one truly understands a concept, then he will also understand its contrary naturally.

>>24461945 (OP)
Aristotle is talking about the metalogical principle of the law of excluded middle. The other three metalogical principles are the law of contradiction, the law of identity, and logical truth in general.

>>24461996
You have to be careful reading this post because the infinite judgement non-courageous isn't properly contrary to courage, since it can be anything, but the negation is different from merely saying cowardice because cowardice technically falls under the infinite judgement of a non-courageous thing. So the proper way to think of a contrary is as a negation rather than a spectrum of excess and defect (which becomes 'virtue' instead of contrary since they are defined by their balanced concept.) The negative form of the term as a contrary preserves the oneness of the contrast by merely appending the logical argument to the term, so the contrary of a courageous pianist is a pianist who denies courage. Were cowardice merely the negation of rashness rather than a defect of courage, then cowardice would not have any meaning in itself as it is merely the denial of courageous behavior. That is just to say, a contrary can't just be an opposite concept, it has to be the absence of the concept. Like how a short pair and a tall pair can each have a tall person, short isn't contrary to tall here because there is already a tall in the short. So the right way to think of the contrary is not-tall, not tall and short.

>>24462051
>So the right way to think of the contrary is not-tall, not tall and short.
NTA, sounds like you're confusing contrary and contradictory. The contradictor of good is not-good while the contrary of good is bad. Things can have more than one contrary, but not always.
>What is contrary to a good thing is necessarily bad... But what is contrary to a bad thing is sometimes good but sometimes bad.
>For excess is contrary to deficiency, which is bad, and is itself bad; yet moderation as well is contrary to both, and it is good. -14a1

>>24462078
>What is contrary to a good thing is necessarily bad... But what is contrary to a bad thing is sometimes good but sometimes bad.
If you have a virtue then the negation is the only way to predicate opposition of it, but if you have an excess or a defect then you are supplied with an opposite concept in the corresponding excess or defect. Because good is a virtue you can only contradict it with not good, because cowardice is a defect you can oppose it with rashness. Since goodness and rashness is not one, they are not contraries, according to Aristotle. Since the negative judgment is merely a logical for what it is appended to remains singular, but there is also the infinite judgement of it.

>>24461945 (OP)

>>24462051
The excess and defect would be proper negations of each other, at least as defined poles, no?

>>24462018
doesn't the law of the excluded middle apply to contradictories not contraries?

>>24462092
But moderation is a virtue and you can oppose it with excess or deficiency. Does this not contradict what you are saying?
>good is a virtue
I didn't know that... I thought virtue was a good.

>>24462814
knowledge of a contrary is one when the negation of the contrary can't exist without its term. to say "he is not good" is not a verb because it does not point out a specific action, but is an inaction, which is the contrary of a verb. if you say the contrary to good is necessarily bad, you are saying the contrary to one action is another action, which you can never actually do without omitting the the first action. to say "he is not being moderate" does not mean the same thing as "he is being non-moderate". like, if you say the excess is directly the contrary of the mean, then why don't you get a regress of excess? how can the excess be the contrary of the mean and the defect if the contrary of the mean is not in effect to not exist so that the excess and defect may be contraries?

>>24462814
>I didn't know that... I thought virtue was a good.
i think i meant temperance and not goodness, or whatever you want to out as the mean between rashness and cowardice

>>24461945 (OP)

>>24462726
>contradictories
You mean contradictions? The law of contradiction covers those.

>>24461945 (OP)
If one knows what makes a movie good, then he should also know what makes it bad.

>>24463535
No I mean contradictories

>>24463643
OP

>>24463643
Law of contradiction for contradictiories, law of excluded middle for contraries.

>>24463679
There is clearly a middle term for contraries, in this case "Some S is P" where the contraries are "Every S is P" and "No S is P." They can't both be true at the same time but they do not together comprise the totality of possibilities in the way that contradictories do, where always one of the two must be true, and so it is in this case that the law of excluded middle applies.

There's only one contrary in the diagram, and it's "No S is P". The only purpose of the diagram is to show what contraries are in relation to contradictories.

From De Interpretatione 7:

If, then, a man states a positive and a negative proposition of universal character with regard to a universal, these two propositions are 'contrary'. By the expression 'a proposition of universal character with regard to a universal', such propositions as 'every man is white', 'no man is white' are meant. When, on the other hand, the positive and negative propositions, though they have regard to a universal, are yet not of universal character, they will not be contrary, albeit the meaning intended is sometimes contrary. As instances of propositions made with regard to a universal, but not of universal character, we may take the 'propositions 'man is white', 'man is not white'. 'Man' is a universal, but the proposition is not made as of universal character; for the word 'every' does not make the subject a universal, but rather gives the proposition a universal character. If, however, both predicate and subject are distributed, the proposition thus constituted is contrary to truth; no affirmation will, under such circumstances, be true. The proposition 'every man is every animal' is an example of this type.

An affirmation is opposed to a denial in the sense which I denote by the term 'contradictory', when, while the subject remains the same, the affirmation is of universal character and the denial is not. The affirmation 'every man is white' is the contradictory of the denial 'not every man is white', or again, the proposition 'no man is white' is the contradictory of the proposition 'some men are white'. But propositions are opposed as contraries when both the affirmation and the denial are universal, as in the sentences 'every man is white', 'no man is white', 'every man is just', 'no man is just'.

>>24463719
So how relevant is the amphiboly to the discussion?

>>24461945 (OP)

>>24463832
About as relevant as the contraries of "Some S is P".

Ought I read History of Animals - Generation of Animals or can I skip to Metaphysics?

to truly know something is to know it's opposite
if you know a lock you know it's key
"only if you've been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.”

>>24464292
Skim them and read the philosophical parts. Gen An is worth reading in full, same with parts 1 and movement of animals

>>24464416
Thanks. What do you think about all the so called spurious ones?

bump

>>24461945 (OP)
OP

I don't understand contraries, especially when I start thinking about NE and the golden mean =/

>>24461945 (OP)

>>24468200
thanks for the bump, fren

He means exactly what he said, that’s why he chose the words. /thread

>>24469207
thanks for nothing you annoying piece of shit

You know the where the black is, you know where the white is

>>24469625
Bro he tells you what contrariety is in the categories and topics and meta 10. He tells you what knowing is in the analytics and de anima and ne. He tells you what one is in meta 5. He tells you what it is to know “something” (as opposed to being x) in post an 2 and meta 7 and from these you can see that knowledge of contraries is one. It’s not complicated.

To make it simple: to know something is to know it as what it is. Therefore to know a contrary is to know it as a contrary. In theory if you “knew” a contrary but not as a contrary you would only know it per accidens (someone who only knew tyranny and couldn’t imagine anything better wouldn’t even really know tyranny). But a contrary is relative. Therefore etc

I’m not trying to give you a hard time you’re doing it right if you’re overthinking, but it’s this simple.

>>24461945 (OP)

What do you mean, “knowledge”? What do you mean, “contraries”? What do you mean, “one”?

>>24469859
find another site to sully