And if (i) it is not true to apply
the predicates separately, our opponent is not saying what he
professes to say, and also nothing at all exists; but how could
non-existent things speak or walk, as he does? Also all things would
on this view be one, as has been already said, and man and God and
trireme and their contradictories will be the same. For if
contradictories can be predicated alike of each subject, one thing
will in no wise differ from another; for if it differ, this difference
will be something true and peculiar to it. And (ii) if one may with
truth apply the predicates separately, the above-mentioned result
follows none the less, and, further, it follows that all would then be
right and all would be in error, and our opponent himself confesses
himself to be in error.-And at the same time our discussion with him
is evidently about nothing at all; for he says nothing. For he says
neither 'yes' nor 'no', but 'yes and no'; and again he denies both
of these and says 'neither yes nor no'; for otherwise there would
already be something definite.
Again if when the assertion is true, the negation is false, and
when this is true, the affirmation is false, it will not be possible
to assert and deny the same thing truly at the same time. But
perhaps they might say this was the very question at issue.
Again, is he in error who judges either that the thing is so or
that it is not so, and is he right who judges both? If he is right,
what can they mean by saying that the nature of existing things is
of this kind? And if he is not right, but more right than he who
judges in the other way, being will already be of a definite nature,
and this will be true, and not at the same time also not true.
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