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. He, then, who says 'this
is and is not' denies what he affirms, so that what the word
signifies, he says it does not signify; and this is impossible.
Therefore if 'this is' signifies something, one cannot truly assert
its contradictory.
Further, if the word signifies something and this is asserted
truly, this connexion must be necessary; and it is not possible that
that which necessarily is should ever not be; it is not possible
therefore to make the opposed affirmations and negations truly of
the same subject. Further, if the affirmation is no more true than the
negation, he who says 'man' will be no more right than he who says
'not-man'. It would seem also that in saying the man is not a horse
one would be either more or not less right than in saying he is not
a man, so that one will also be right in saying that the same person
is a horse; for it was assumed to be possible to make opposite
statements equally truly. It follows then that the same person is a
man and a horse, or any other animal.
While, then, there is no proof of these things in the full
sense, there is a proof which may suffice against one who will make
these suppositions. And perhaps if one had questioned Heraclitus
himself in this way one might have forced him to confess that opposite
statements can never be true of the same subjects. But, as it is, he
adopted this opinion without understanding what his statement
involves
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