Thursday, May 18, 2006

Q17 A4: Whether true and false are contraries?

Yes. True and false are opposed as contraries because contraries both assert something (unlike negation) and determine the subject (unlike negation and privation).

Falsity asserts something, for a thing is false, as Aristotle says (Metaph. iv, 27), inasmuch as something is said (or seems) to be something that it is not, or not to be what it really is.

For as truth implies an adequate apprehension of a thing, so falsity implies the contrary.

What is in things is the truth of the thing; but what is apprehended, is the truth of the intellect, wherein truth primarily resides.

Hence the false is that which is not as apprehended. To apprehend being, and not-being, implies contrariety.