In term logic (a branch of philosophical logic), the square of opposition is a diagram representing the relations between the four basic categorical propositions. The origin of the square can be traced back to Aristotle's tractate On Interpretation and its distinction between two oppositions: contradiction and contrariety. However, Aristotle did not draw any diagram; this was done several centuries later.
Summary In traditional logic, a proposition (Latin: propositio) is a spoken assertion (oratio enunciativa), not the meaning of an assertion, as in modern philosophy of language and logic. A categorical proposition is a simple proposition containing two terms, subject () and predicate (), in which the predicate is either asserted or denied of the subject.
Every categorical proposition can be reduced to one of four logical forms, named , , , and based on the Latin (I affirm), for the affirmative propositions and , and (I deny), for the negative propositions and . These are: The proposition, the universal affirmative (universalis affirmativa), whose form in Latin is 'omne est ', usually translated as 'every is a '. The proposition, the universal negative (universalis negativa), Latin form 'nullum est ', usually translated as 'no are '. The proposition, the particular affirmative (particularis affirmativa), Latin 'quoddam est ', usually translated as 'some are '. The proposition, the particular negative (particularis negativa), Latin 'quoddam nōn est ', usually translated as 'some are not '.
In tabular form:
+ The four Aristotelian propositions Name Symbol Latin English* Mnemonic Modern formPer The Traditional Square of Opposition: 1.1 The Modern Revision of the Square in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Universal affirmative Omne est . Every is .( is always .) (I affirm) Universal negative Nullum est . No is .( is never .) (I deny) Particular affirmative Quoddam est . Some is .( is sometimes .) (I affirm) Particular negative Quoddam nōn est . Some is not .( is not always .) (I deny)
*Proposition may be stated as "All is ." However, Proposition when stated correspondingly as "All is not ." is ambiguous because it can be either an or proposition, thus requiring a context to determine the form; the standard form "No is " is unambiguous, so it is preferred. Proposition also takes the forms "Some is not ." and "A certain is not ." (Latin 'Quoddam nōn est .')
** in the modern forms means that a statement applies on an object . It may be simply interpreted as " is " in many cases. can be also written as .
Aristotle states (in chapters six and seven of the Peri Hermēneias (Περὶ Ἑρμηνείας, Latin De Interpretatione, English 'On Interpretation')), that there are certain logical relationships between these four kinds of proposition. He says that to every affirmation there corresponds exactly one negation, and that every affirmation and its negation are 'opposed' such that always one of them must be true, and the other false. A pair of an affirmative statement and its negation is, he calls, a 'contradiction' (in medieval Latin, contradictio). Examples of contradictories are 'every man is white' and 'not every man is white' (also read as 'some men are not white'), as well as 'no man is white' and 'some man is white'.
The below relations, contrary, subcontrary, subalternation, and superalternation, do hold based on the traditional logic assumption that things stated as (or things satisfying a statement in modern logic) exist. If this assumption is taken out, then these relations do not hold.
'Contrary' (medieval: contrariae) statements, are such that both statements cannot be true at the same time. Examples of these are the universal affirmative 'every man is white', and the universal negative 'no man is white'. These cannot be true at the same time. However, these are not contradictories because both of them may be false. For example, it is false that every man is white, since some men are not white. Yet it is also false that no man is white, since there are some white men.
Since every statement has the contradictory opposite (its negation), and since a contradicting statement is true when its opposite is false, it follows that the opposites of contraries (which the medievals called subcontraries, subcontrariae) can both be true, but they cannot both be false. Since subcontraries are negations of universal statements, they were called 'particular' statements by the medieval logicians.
Another logical relation implied by this, though not mentioned explicitly by Aristotle, is 'alternation' (alternatio), consisting of 'subalternation' and 'superalternation'. Subalternation is a relation between the particular statement and the universal statement of the same quality (affirmative or negative) such that the particular is implied by the universal, while superalternation is a relation between them such that the falsity of the universal (equivalently the negation of the universal) is implied by the falsity of the particular (equivalently the negation of the particular). (The superalternation is the contrapositive of the subalternation.) In these relations, the particular is the subaltern of the universal, which is the particular's superaltern. For example, if 'every man is white' is true, its contrary 'no man is white' is false. Therefore, the contradictory 'some man is white' is true. Similarly the universal 'no man is white' implies the particular 'not every man is white'.Parry & Hacker, Aristotelian Logic (SUNY Press, 1990), p. 158.Cohen & Nagel, Introduction to Logic Second Edition (Hackett Publishing, 1993), p. 55.
In summary: Universal statements are contraries: 'every man is just' and 'no man is just' cannot be true together, although one may be true and the other false, and also both may be false (if at least one man is just, and at least one man is not just). Particular statements are subcontraries. 'Some man is just' and 'some man is not just' cannot be false together. The particular statement of one quality is the subaltern of the universal statement of that same quality, which is the superaltern of the particular statement because in Aristotelian semantics 'every is ' implies 'some is ' and 'no is ' implies 'some is not '. Note that modern formal interpretations of English sentences interpret 'every is ' as 'for any , a statement that is implies a statement that is ', which does not imply 'some is . This is a matter of semantic interpretation, however, and does not mean, as is sometimes claimed, that Aristotelian logic is 'wrong'. The universal affirmative () and the particular negative () are contradictories. If some is not , then not every is . Conversely, though this is not the case in modern semantics, it was thought that if every is not , some is not . This interpretation has caused difficulties (see below). While Aristotle's Greek does not represent the particular negative as 'some is not , but as 'not every is ', someone in his commentary on the Peri Hermaneias, renders the particular negative as 'quoddam A nōn est ', literally 'a certain is not a ', and in all medieval writing on logic it is customary to represent the particular proposition in this way.
These relationships became the basis of a diagram drawn by Boethius and used by medieval logicians to classify the logical relationships. The propositions are placed in the four corners of a square, and the relations represented as lines drawn between them, whence the name 'Square of Opposition'. Therefore, the following cases can be made: If is true, then is false, is true, is false; If is true, then is false, is false, is true; If is true, then is false, and are indeterminate; If is true, then is false, and are indeterminate; If is false, then is true, and are indeterminate; If is false, then is true, and are indeterminate; If is false, then is false, is true, is true; If is false, then is true, is false, is true.
To memorise them, the medievals invented the following Latin rhyme: adfirmat, negat , sed universaliter ambae; firmat, negat , sed particulariter ambae. It affirms that and are not neither both true nor both false in each of the above cases. The same applies to and . While the first two are universal statements, the couple / refers to particular ones.
The Square of Oppositions was used for the categorical inferences described by medieval logicians: conversion and obversion and contraposition. Each of those three types of categorical inference was applied to the four logical forms: , , , and .
The problem of existential import
Subcontraries ( and ), which medieval logicians represented in the form 'quoddam est ' (some particular is ) and 'quoddam non est ' (some particular is not ) cannot both be false, since their universal contradictory statements (no is / every is ) cannot both be true. This leads to a difficulty firstly identified by Peter Abelard (12 February 1079 – 21 April 1142). 'Some is ' seems to imply 'something is ', in other words, there exists something that is . For example, 'Some man is white' seems to imply that at least one thing that exists is a man, namely the man who has to be white, if 'some man is white' is true. But, 'some man is not white' also implies that something as a man exists, namely the man who is not white, if the statement 'some man is not white' is true. But Aristotelian logic requires that, necessarily, one of these statements (more generally 'some particular is ' and 'some particular is not ') is true, i.e., they cannot both be false. Therefore, since both statements imply the presence of at least one thing that is a man, the presence of a man or men is followed. But, as Abelard points out in the Dialectica, surely men might not exist?In his Dialectica, and in his commentary on the De Interpretatione.
For with absolutely no man existing, neither the proposition 'every man is a man' is true nor 'some man is not a man'.Re enim hominis prorsus non existente neque ea vera est quae ait: omnis homo est homo, nec ea quae proponit: quidam homo non est homo.
Abelard also points out that subcontraries containing subject terms denoting nothing, such as 'a man who is a stone', are both false.
If 'every stone-man is a stone' is true, also its conversion per accidens is true ('some stones are stone-men'). But no stone is a stone-man, because neither this man nor that man etc. is a stone. But also this 'a certain stone-man is not a stone' is false by necessity, since it is impossible to suppose it is true.Si enim vera est: Omnis homo qui lapis est, est lapis, et eius conversa per accidens vera est: Quidam lapis est homo qui est lapis. Sed nullus lapis est homo qui est lapis, quia neque hic neque ille etc. Sed et illam: Quidam homo qui est lapis, non est lapis, falsam esse necesse est, cum impossibile ponat.
Terence Parsons (1939 – 2022) argues that ancient philosophers did not experience the problem of existential import as only the A (universal affirmative) and I (particular affirmative) forms had existential import. (If a statement includes a term such that the statement is false if the term has no instances, i.e., no thing associated with the term exists, then the statement is said to have existential import with respect to that term.)
Affirmatives have existential import, and negatives do not. The ancients thus did not see the incoherence of the square as formulated by Aristotle because there was no incoherence to see..
He goes on to cite a medieval philosopher William of Ockham (c. 1287 – 9/10 April 1347 ), In affirmative propositions a term is always asserted to supposit for something. Thus, if it supposits for nothing the proposition is false. However, in negative propositions the assertion is either that the term does not supposit for something or that it supposits for something of which the predicate is truly denied. Thus a negative proposition has two causes of truth.