1

THE PRINCIPLE OF BIVALENCE IN DE INTERPRETATIONE 4

Francesco Ademollo

[Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 38 (2010), 97113; unedited final version.]


In chapter 4 of De interpretatione Aristotle introduces the notion of a !"#$%, saying,
1
and draws a
crucial distinction between declarative
2
and non-declarative sayings (17
a
24):

&'$()*+,-.% /0 $1 '2% [sc. !"#$%], &!!3 4* 5 +. &!67898,* : ;89/8<7), ='>?@8, $1- 4* A')<,
/0 ='>?@8,, $B$* C 81@D !"#$% E*, &!!3 $F+3 &!67D% $F+8 ;8G/H%.

Not every saying is declarative, but only that in which being true or being false holds. But they do
not hold in all sayings: e.g. prayer is a saying, but is neither true nor false.

It has always proved tempting, at least since Alexander of Aphrodisias,
3
to think that here Aristotle
is giving us a definition of the declarative saying and that he is claiming that all and only

I owe deep thanks to Jonathan Barnes, Sergio Bernini and Paolo Crivelli for extremely helpful comments, suggestions
and criticism. Thanks are due also to Michele Alessandrelli, Walter Cavini, Paolo Fait, Brad Inwood, Chiara Masini,
Alessandro Parenti and the participants in the workshop on Testi antichi di logica e nuove interpretazioni, held at the
Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa) on 3031 March 2009, where I presented a version of this paper.
1
Saying is the translation which J. Barnes, Truth, etc. Six Lectures on Ancient Logic [Truth] (Oxford, 2007), 2,
180, proposes to cater for the fact that in Int. 45, Po. 20 and elsewhere Aristotle applies the term !"#$% to any
expression containing a name or a verb, hence both to phrases (biped animal) and to complete sentences (Callias
walks).
2
Declarative is my chosen translation of the Greek &'$()*+,-"% (see e.g. G. Striker, Aristotle: Prior Analytics,
Book I [Pr. An. I] (Oxford, 2009), 75); on the issue of what is declared see main text below. Several scholars prefer
such renderings as assertoric (P. Crivelli, Aristotle on Truth [Crivelli] (Cambridge, 2004), 867; Barnes, Truth, 3 etc.)
or statement-making (J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle: Categories and De Interpretatione [Ackrill] (Oxford, 1963), 1245).
These, however, have the twofold drawback of having no relation to the verbs etymological meaning and of belonging
to a conceptual area which is alien to Aristotles concerns, i.e. the theory of speech-acts.
3
Alexander, In APr. 10. 1320 Wallies, avers that in our passage that in which being true or being false holds is a
definition of the &'"()*<,%, i.e. of the declarative saying; that something is a declarative saying insofar as it is true or
false (-)7"<$*... : &!67H% 4<+,* : ;8G/H%); and that somethings being a declarative saying depends only on its
being true or false (I 0* &'$()*+,-.% !"#$% 4* +J &!67D% : ;8G/D% 8K*), L'!M% +. 8K*), N@8,). Among the ancient
commentators Alexander is followed by Amm. in Int. 66. 1016 Busse, Anon. in Int. 17. 35 Tarn. Among
contemporaries see e.g. C.W.A.Whitaker, Aristotles De interpretatione. Contradiction and Dialectic [Whitaker]
(Oxford, 1996), 73: The assertion has now been introduced and defined as a bearer of truth and falsehood. For more
references see Crivelli, 87 n. 31.
2
declarative sayings are either true or false, i.e. that an individual saying is declarative if and only if
either it is true or it is false. If this is so, then it follows, among other things, that Aristotle is
committing himself to a general principle of bivalence like the one set forth at Categories 4. 2
a
710
(cf. 10, 13
a
37
b
3,
b
2735):

Every affirmation seems to be either true or false [A')<) #O? /$-8P -)+>()<,% Q+$, &!67D% :
;8G/D% 8K*),], whereas none of the things said without combination is either true or falsee.g.
man, white, runs, wins,

or at De anima 3. 6, 430
b
267:

An affirmation is something said of something, as is a denial too, and every one is true or false
[&!67D% Q ;8G/D% '2<)].

This construal is tempting; but it raises a problem. For in chapter 9, where he discusses the
problem of future contingents, Aristotle seems to come to the conclusion that Bivalence does not
hold universally: some declarative sayings are neither true nor false. Or rather, since Aristotle holds
that the truth and falsity of sayings are relative to time, so that a saying may change its truth-value
through time, some declarative sayings are neither true nor false at the time of their utterance. Thus,
e.g., the sentences

(1) There is a sea-battle now

and

(2) There was a sea-battle yesterday

are either true or false now, because now it is perfectly determined whether or not a sea-battle is
taking place now or took place yesterday. Likewise the sentence

(3) There will be a sunrise tomorrow

is presumably either true or false now, because by Aristotles lights it is already fully determined by
the laws of nature that the sun will rise again on us tomorrow. By contrast, the sentence

(4) There will be a sea-battle tomorrow

is neither true nor false now, because now it is not yet determined whether or not a sea-battle will
take place tomorrow.
4

Of course this interpretation of Aristotles conclusions in Int. 9 is not uncontroversial.
5
But it is
widely shared among scholars, and in what follows I shall just go on the assumption that it is

4
On Int. 9 see the excellent discussion of Crivelli, 198233. In particular on the case of (3) see Crivelli, 205, and H.
Weidemann, Aristoteles: Peri hermeneias, 2nd edn. [Weidemann] (Berlin, 2002), 228. On ancient conceptions of tensed
truth see Barnes, Truth, 192.
3
correct. So the question is: how is Aristotles statement of Bivalence in chapter 4 to be reconciled
with his denial of (unrestricted) Bivalence in chapter 9?
There are various possible ways of solving this puzzle. We might supposeas some have
actually donethat the two chapters were composed at different times, that Aristotle changed his
mind about bivalence in the meantime, and that when he added chapter 9 he failed to make chapter
4 harmonize with it.
6
This sort of hypothesis strikes me as both risky and unattractive, but it cannot
be ruled out. Alternatively, we may suppose that in chapter 4 Aristotle is speaking somewhat
carelessly and that his careless generalization is going to be corrected in chapter 9. This possibility
too is rather unpalatable, although it has to be said that Aristotle is actually careless on this score in
ch. 1, 16
a
918, where he expresses himself as if he were assuming that any complete sentence (as
opposed to names and verbs by themselves) is true or false.
There is also a third possibility, which has been advocated by Richard Gaskin and Paolo
Crivelli.
7
Perhaps we should resist the temptation to think that in chapter 4 Aristotle is claiming that
all and only declarative sayings are either true or false and rather take him to mean just that only
declarative sayings are either true or falsewhich does not entail that all are. In other words, an
individual saying is declarative if it is either true or falsenot if and only if it is either true or false.
8

This interpretation is, in a way, obviously superior to the previous two. For it saves the treatises
consistency without accusing Aristotle of inaccuracy or resorting to hazardous hypotheses about its
composition. But can Aristotles words really mean what this interpretation takes them to mean?
And can this make good philosophical sense as a characterization of the declarative saying? I
incline to believe that the answer to both questions is Yes.

5
For a different view see Whitaker, ch. 9, who maintains that the principle discussed in chapter 9, and ultimately
rejected by Aristotle as regards future contingents, is not Bivalence but rather what he dubs the Rule of Contradictory
Pairs (= RCP), according to which of two contradictory sentences one is true and the other is false. Whitaker fails to
address the compelling textual argument advanced by Ackrill, 1334, to show that Bivalence, not RCP, is the principle
under discussion; moreover, I find his interpretation unsatisfactory in various philosophical respects which I will not
dwell upon here.
6
D. Frede, Aristoteles und die Seeschlacht (Gttingen, 1970), 81; The Sea-Battle Reconsidered: A Defence of the
Traditional Interpretation, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 3 (1985), 3187 at 81.
7
R. Gaskin, The Sea Battle and the Master Argument (Berlin and New York, 1995), 180; Crivelli, 867.
8
Cf. J.-B. Gourinat, Lhistoire du principe de bivalence slon "ukasiewicz, in R. Pouivet and M. Rebuschi (eds.),
La philosophie en Pologne, 19181939 (Paris, 2006), 3766 at 51. This construal is also hinted at by Jonathan Barnes,
who personally confirmed to me that he endorses it. He writes (Truth, 3): you might doubt that Aristotle intends
thereby to define the notion of assertion; and in any event it is not evident that the definition means that every
assertion is either true or false.
4
To start with the former question, notice that Aristotle says the declarative saying is the one 4* 5
+. &!67898,* : ;89/8<7), ='>?@8,, in which being true or being false holds (or in which is
present, or is found). He does not say that the declarative saying is the one which truth and
falsity hold of, or belong to, using ='>?@8, with the dative.
9
Now, in the Aristotelian corpus
there is at least a couple of passages where the phrase ='>?@8, 4* is used with reference to a
situation in which a feature is possessed by some but not all of the members of a certain class. Here
is Categories 7, 6
b
1519:

Contrariety too holds in relatives [R'>?@8, /0 -)S 4*)*+,"+6% 4* +$P% '?"% +,], e.g. virtue is
contrary to vice (and each of them is relative), and knowledge to ignorance. But there is not a
contrary to every relative [$1 '2<, /0 +$P% '?"% +, ='>?@8, 4*)*+T$*]: for there is no contrary to
the double or the triple or any of such items.
10


Some, but not all, relatives have a contrary; and Aristotle comments on this by claiming that
contrariety holds in relatives. Likewise, some but not all declarative sayings are either true or
false; so in Int. 4 Aristotle may well be commenting on this as he claims that the declarative saying
is that in which being true or being false holds. On this interpretation, the fact that only declarative
sayings are true or false is not expressed by the phrase ='>?@8, 4*, but rather by Aristotles use of a
definite description: not every saying is declarative, but only that in which being true or being false
holds.
There is another very similar passage at Cat. 8, 10
b
1217:

Contrariety too holds with regard to quality [R'>?@8, /0 -)S 4*)*+,"+6% -)+O +. '$,"*]. E.g.
justice is contrary to injustice, whiteness to blackness, and so on, and also things said to be
qualified in virtue of them but this sort of thing does not hold for all cases [$1- 4'S '>*+U* /0 +.
+$,$V+$*]; for there is no contrary to red or yellow or such colours, though they are qualified items.

Here the relevant turn of phrase is not ='>?@8, 4*, but ='>?@8, -)+> + accusative; but it comes
much to the same thing.
A third passage from the Categories is 12, 14
a
35
b
1:

Thirdly, a thing is called prior in respect of some order, as with sciences and speeches. For the
prior and posterior in order hold in the demonstrative sciences [N* +8 #O? +)P% &'$/8,-+,-)P%

9
Pace Weidemann, who translates Int. 17
a
24 as ein Behauptungssatz aber ist nicht jedes, sondern nur eines, dem
es zukommt, wahr oder falsch zu sein, and W. Cavini, Principia contradictionis. Sui principi aristotelici della
contraddizione ( 13) [Principia], Antiqvorum Philosophia, 1 (2007), 12369 at 126, who translates ma non ogni
<enunciato> dichiarativo, se non quello cui appartiene lessere vero o falso (my italics throughout).
10
Here and in the next quotations from the Categories and the De interpretatione I have modified Ackrills
translation.
5
4',<+H),% ='>?@8, +. '?"+8?$* -)S +. W<+8?$* +X +>Y8,], because the elements are prior in
order to the theorems.

Aristotle is not saying that, among demonstrative sciences, some are prior to others, but that, among
the items which the demonstrative sciences deal with, some are prior to others. Hence the passage is
not on all fours with the previous ones; but it is nonetheless relevant to our present purposes.
Finally, read Eudemian Ethics 1236
b
27:

the primary friendship, that of good human beings, is a mutual returning of love and choice this
sort of friendhip holds only among human beings [)W+6 0* $Z* 4* &*7?['$,% "*$* ='>?@8,
(,!T)] but the other sorts hold also among brutes.
11


Here Aristotle is saying that some human beings (though not all) experience the sort of friendship
he is discussing. He is also saying that only human beings experience this sort of friendship; but
note thatas we were supposing in Int. 4the expression ='>?@8, 4* alone is not enough to make
the latter point, and Aristotle needs to add the adverb only ("*$*).
You will notice that all the instances of ='>?@8, 4* which I have been citing are followed by a
dative plural, whereas in Int. 4 Aristotle uses it with the singular. But I doubt that this is a
significant problem. Indeed, the singular is due to the fact that in Int. 4, as in the parallel passages I
have cited, Aristotle is talking about features which hold in kinds; in our particular case, he is
concerning himself with the issue of whether or not the features of being true and being false hold
in various kinds of saying, including the declarative one. And when Aristotle says that a non-
essential feature is in a kind, or belongs to it in some way or other, he need not thereby imply that
the feature belongs to every instance of the kind. Thus at Cat. 5, 2
b
12 Aristotle says that colour is
in body [+. @?M) 4* <[)+,], hence also in some individual body, without thereby implying that
every body is coloured; and at 3
a
45 he says that you will call the individual human being literate,
hence you will call both the human being and the animal literate [-)S \*7?U'$* -)S ]J$*
#?))+,-.* 4?8P%: no doubt because literacy is in them]again without implying that every
human being, let alone every animal, is literate.
12
This of course accords with Aristotles claim (at
Int. 7, 17
b
712, 2937, APr. 1. 6, 29
a
69) that indefinite sentences like N<+,* \*7?U'$% !8G-"%

11
J. Solomons translation, as revised in J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford
Translation [ROT] (2 vols., Princeton, 1984), modified.
12
On the vexed question of being in in the Categories see R. Heinaman, Non-substantial Individuals in the
Categories, Phronesis, 26 (1981), 295307, and M.V. Wedin, Aristotles Theory of Substance. The Categories and
Metaphysics Zeta (Oxford, 2000), 3866. Fortunately the technicalities of that debate are irrelevant to our present
concerns.
6
(literally Human being is white) are not equivalent to universal sentences (Every human being is
white) but rather to particular sentences (Some human beings are white).

These things being so, the first question I asked above is to be answered in the affirmative:
Aristotles words in Int. 4 are, to say the least, linguistically compatible with the Gaskin/Crivelli
construal. Let us now turn to the second question. At first blush it seems reasonable to assume that
Aristotle ought to be specifying a feature which, besides belonging only to declarative sayings, also
belongs to every declarative saying. Surely, therefore, it is pretty unhelpful to characterize the
declarative saying as we are supposing that Aristotle does?
Not necessarily. It seems to me that Aristotle can believe that only but not all declarative sayings
are true or false and yet characterize declarative sayings in terms of their being either true or false, if
he holds that those which are either true or false constitute, as it were, the standard or primary case
of declarative saying and that it is somehow by reference to them that also the others, which are
neither true nor false, have to be conceived of. Crivelli, 7, says something which you can regard as
one particular version of this suggestion: declarative sayings coincide with truth-evaluable
sentences, i.e. with the sentences with regard to which the question Is it true or false? can be
reasonably asked this question cannot be reasonably asked with regard to certain sentences (e.g.
prayers). In the case of some sentences with regard to which the question Is it true or false? can
be reasonably asked, the correct answer is Neither.
Perhaps this suggestion can be refined a bit further. Faced with the task of identifying a feature
which belongs to all and only declarative sayings, both to those which are either true or false and to
those which are neither true nor false, we should not content ourselves with claiming that both sorts
of saying are truth-evaluable, i.e. that both are such that it can be reasonably asked about them
whether they are true or false; we should also want to spell out why that question is a reasonable
one.
To start with, we can rephrase the point in terms of Hodgess test for declarative sentences,
13

thus: a saying is declarative if, and only if, substituting it
14
for P both in

(5) Is it true that P?

and in

(6) Is it false that P?


13
W. Hodges, Logic, 2nd edn. (London, 2001), 56.
14
Or rather, if sayings are utterances, substituting a token-inscription of the same type. For the view that Aristotelian
declarative sayings are utterances see Crivelli, 726 (although I do not agree with all of his arguments).
7
yields a grammatical result. Sayings like questions, commands and prayers obviously fail this test.
By contrast, sayings like (1), (2), (3) and (4) all pass the test, and hence are declarative. But while
sayings like (1), (2) and (3) are such that in their case the answer to either (5) or (6), though not to
both, is Yes, sayings like (4)declarative sayings about future contingentsare special in that in
their case the answer to both (5) and (6) is No.
15

This is a way of making it clearer in what sense it is reasonable to ask with regard to
declarative sayings whether they are true or false. But thereby we have not really brought out why
this is so. To get closer to a real explanation we could try something along the following lines:
although declarative sayings about future contingents are neither true nor false, they are as it were
fit for being true or false. This means that, if the world were different than it isi.e. if the future
were completely determined, as it actually is not, and hence there were no future contingent
events, then such sayings would be either true or false. Indeed, Aristotle himself, on at least one
possible interpretation of his views in Int. 9, believes that such sayings will become either true or
false in the course of time, i.e. as soon as the events taking place or failing to take place is
determined. E.g., an utterance of (4) which lacks a truth-value now will become either true or false
by tomorrow.
16
And even now, when the future is not yet determined and (4) still lacks a truth-
value, declarative sayings about future contingents are already taken to be either true or false by the
determinist, who regards the future as already fixed and hence takes (4) to be either true or false
without thereby displaying any sort of linguistic incompetence.
By contrast, nothing similar holds of sayings like questions and prayers. These would still be
neither true nor false in a determinist world; the course of time will not bring them a whit closer to
acquiring a truth-value; and no one who understood them correctly could take them to be either true
or false. In other words, while the fact that declarative sayings about future contingents are neither
true nor false depends on the way the world is (the future is at least partly open), the fact that
sayings like questions and prayers are neither true nor false depends on something about those
sayings themselves.

15
I am assuming that declarative sayings about future contingents are the only kind of declarative sayings which are
neither true nor false. I do so for the sake of simplicity and because they are the only kind recognized in the De
interpretatione. Some interpreters believe that at SE 25, 180
a
34
b
7 Aristotle addresses the paradox of the Liar and that
his solution consists in rejecting Bivalence for such paradoxical sentences as I am speaking falsely; but it is less than
clear that this is so. See P. Fait, Aristotele: Le confutazioni sofistiche. Organon VI (Rome and Bari, 2007), 20811.
16
The key text is the famous 19
a
369: Necessarily, one of the two members of the contradictory pair is true or
falsenot, however, this one or that one, but however it chances, and one of the two is more true, but not already [Q/6]
true or false. For discussion see Crivelli, 21626.
8
So, if Aristotle has an intuition along these linesif he thinks that (i) any declarative saying is
such that you can ask whether it is true or false, and indeed (i) any declarative saying is, in some
sense, fit for being true or false, even though (ii) only some (most) of them are actually true or
false, then it is understandable that in Int. 4 he characterizes the declarative saying as the sort of
saying in which being true or being false hold, i.e. (on my construal) some (most) of whose
instances are either true or false.
We may now want to push our analysis one step further and ask what, according to Aristotle,
makes declarative sayings (both those which are either true or false and those which are neither true
nor false) fit, and other sorts of sayings unfit, for being true or false. There are at least two possible
ways of trying to answer this question.
One attempt could go as follows. There is some reason to ascribe to Aristotle the view that all
declarative sayings have this in common as against other kinds of saying, that they are capable of
expressing beliefs. For Aristotles phrase !"#$% &'$()*+,-"% is certainly meant to suggest that the
kind of saying at issue &'$()T*8,, declares or reveals, somethingsomething which is
presumably a belief. For Aristotle holds that linguistic expressions are signs of affections of the
soul (Int. 1) and, in particular, declarative sayings are signs of /"Y),, beliefs (Int. 14, 24
b
13);
moreover, the verb &'$()T*U has a fairly well-established use in the turn of phrase #*[6*
/"Y)* &'$()T*8,*, to express a view / belief.
17
Thus we could suppose that, on Aristotles view,
declarative sayings are all fit for being true or false because they can all express beliefs. But this
answer would not be completely satisfactory. For it would be based on something (i.e. declarative
sayings being capable of expressing beliefs) which seems to play a rather marginal role in
Aristotles reflections. Moreover, it would raise further difficult questions: why are beliefs fit for
being true or false in the first place? Would Aristotle answer that this is a primitive fact which
admits of no further explanation?
So I will leave this first attempt aside and turn to a different one, which requires that we move on
to chapter 5. There, among other things, Aristotle draws two distinctions: one between (A)
declarative sayings that are single and (B) declarative sayings that are many; another, narrower
one between (A1) declarative sayings that are single because they indicate one single thing and
(A2) declarative sayings that are single in virtue of a connective. Moreover, from the very
beginning of the chapter (17
a
89) he makes it sufficiently clear that affirmation (-)+>()<,%) and

17
See Hdt. 1. 40, Pl. Tht. 170 D, Arist. Po. 1450
a
7, and cf. G. Nuchelmans, Theories of the Proposition. Ancient and
medieval conceptions of the bearers of truth and falsity (Amsterdam and London, 1973), 267; Crivelli, 87; Cavini,
Principia, 126.
9
denial (&'"()<,%) belong to (A1), i.e. are declarative sayings which are single because they
indicate one single thing. Then, at 5, 17
a
20 6, 17
a
26, Aristotle says this:

(5.) Of these [sc. of single declarative sayings] the one is a simple declarative sentence, i.e.
something of something or something away from something [C 0* L'!^ 4<+S* &'"()*<,%, $B$*
+S -)+> +,*$% : +S &'" +,*$%], whereas the other is compounded of simple declarative sentences
and is a kind of composite saying.
The simple declarative sentence is a significant spoken sound about whether something does or
does not hold, in accordance with the divisions of time [_<+, /3 C 0* L'!^ &'"()*<,% (U*D
<6)*+,-D '8?S +$V 8` ='>?@8, +, : D ='>?@8,, a% $b @?"*$, /,c?6*+),]. 6. An affirmation is a
declarative sentence [which says] something of something, while a denial is a declarative sentence
[which says] something away from something [-)+>()<,% /E 4<+,* &'"()*<,% +,*.% -)+O +,*"%,
&'"()<,% /E 4<+,* &'"()*<,% +,*.% &'. +,*"%].

The passage features the term of art &'"()*<,%. The term literally means something like
declaration; I have rendered it as declarative sentence in order to bring out that it is plainly
meant to be equivalent to the phrase !"#$% &'$()*+,-"%, declarative saying. Indeed, it is
important to appreciate
18
that here at 17
a
234 Aristotle is giving us an actual definition of the
(simple) &'"()*<,%
19
and hence of the !"#$% &'$()*+,-"% as well.

There are three reasons for
being sure that this is what Aristotle is doing. First, he characterizes the (simple) &'"()*<,% as a
specific kind of significant spoken sound ((U*D <6)*+,-H), i.e. a significant spoken sound
about whether something does or does not hold, in accordance with the divisions of time; likewise
he had previously defined the name (2, 16
a
1921), the verb (3, 16
b
67) and the saying (4, 16
b
268)
as various specific kinds of significant spoken sound.
20
Secondly, a definition of &'"()*<,% (along
with the other relevant linguistic units: name, verb, affirmation, denial, saying) is what Aristotle
literally promised in the treatises opening lines, 16
a
12. Thirdly, Aristotles account in this passage

18
As is done by Boethius, In Int. II 118. 17123. 22 Meiser (citing Porphyry [94F. Smith]), and by Striker, Pr. An. I,
75, but apparently not by many other commentators.
19
The definition of the simple &'"()*<,% can be trivially expanded, in a purely recursive way, into a completely
general definition of &'"()*<,%. Moreover, there seems to be an important sense in which a non-simple (i.e.
compound) &'"()*<,% fails to count as a single &'"()*<,% at all, in that it fails to indicate one single thing. See
Crivelli, 16372.
20
Two remarks on this. (1) #he phrase significant spoken sound does not actually occur in the verbs definition,
but is rather understood, the verb being defined as possessing certain features in addition to those of a name: see 16
b
6
d^) /E 4<+, +. '?$<<6)P*$* @?"*$*. (2) Name, verb (implicitly) and saying were actually defined as specific kinds
of spoken sound significant by convention (-)+O <G*7H-6*)a qualification that is not repeated here. In fact, it was
already omitted in the definition of saying advanced at the beginning of ch. 4, 16
b
268, and was added only later in the
chapter (16
b
3317
a
2), in the lines that immediately precede those we are discussing.
10
is close to his definitions of premiss ('?"+)<,%) at APr. 1. 1, 24
a
1617, where the premiss is
defined as a saying affirming or denying something of something, and at APo. 1. 2, 72
a
89, where it
is defined as one or other member of a contradictory pair, one thing of one thing.
21

Now, if Aristotle here is offering a definition of &'"()*<,%, then he is, I think, unlikely to have
been offering a different definition of !"#$% &'$()*+,-"% in our lines 17
a
23.
22
Thus we have some
genuine evidence that the characterization of the declarative saying as the saying in which being
true or being false holds was not intended as a definition, despite what Alexander and other
commentators believe. This evidence harmonizes with my construal of that characterization as
picking out a feature that actually belongs only to declarative sayings but not to all of them.
Indeed, the very content of chapter 5s definition of &'"()*<,% is relevant for our purposes. For
it enables us to answer our pending question by identifying something which is common to all
declarative sayings, including those which are neither true nor false, and which can account for their
being in some sense fit for being true or false. This crucial feature is the fact that, as Aristotle says,
a declarative sentence turns on whether something does or does not hold, in accordance with the
divisions of time (17
a
234). That is to say, a declarative sentence or declarative saying turns on
whether or not something held in the past, holds now or will hold in the future. This feature is
obviously instantiated by declarative sayings about future contingents and is the one that makes
them (like any other kind of declarative saying) fit for being true or false, even though they are not
actually true or false. To see even more clearly why this is so consider that in the passage Aristotle
distinguishes two varieties of simple declarative sentence: +S -)+> +,*$% (something of something:
affirmation) and +S &'" +,*$% (something away from something: denial). He quite clearly assumes
that all declarative sayings have something in common, something which makes them different
from other kinds of saying and (unlike those other kinds) fit for being true or false, insofar as they
all say either something of something or something away from something and insofar as this is
the sort of (predicative) combination or division that is fit for corresponding, or failing to
correspond, to the way things and their features are combined and divided in reality. Remember

21
I follow J. Barnes, Aristotle: Posterior Analytics, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1993), 98, both in reading &*+,(><8U% for
&'$(>*<8U% at APo. 72
a
89 and in suspecting that the definition of &'"()*<,% at 72
a
1112 ought to be excised.
22
Boethius, In Int. II 119. 10122. 3 Meiser, assumes that both passages contain a definition and tries to reconcile
them by taking the Aristotelian words about whether something does or does not hold as involving a reference to truth
and falsity. He paraphrases 17
a
234 thus: a declarative sentence is a significant spoken sound in which the true or the
false is expressed [in qua verum falsumve demonstratur], but one part of it is affirmative, the other is negative (120.
268).
11
chapter 1, 16
a
1213: falsehood and truth have to do with combination and division.
23
As far as
declarative sayings about the past or the present are concerned, there is a real combination or
division to which they correspond or fail to correspond, hence they are either true or false. As far as
declarative sayings about future contingent events are concerned, instead, there is no fact of the
matter, no real combination or division for them to match or mismatch; hence they are fit for being
true or false while not being actually (or perhaps yet) true or false.

So far so good. Now, it is interesting to notice that the sort of strategy which I am ascribing to
Aristotle in Int. 4 finds a partial parallel in chapter 5 of the Categories. There, among other things,
Aristotle has to find out the proprium of substance. Here is his well-known proposal (4
a
1021):

It seems most proper to substance that it is something which, while being numerically one and the
same, is capable of receiving contraries [e>!,<+) /0 f/,$* +^% $1<T)% /$-8P 8K*), +. +)1+.* -)S
g* &?,7J h* +M* 4*)*+TU* 8K*), /8-+,-"*]. That is to say, in the case of nothing else
24
could one
bring forward anything which, being numerically one, is capable of receiving contraries. E.g. a
colour which is numerically one and the same will not be both black and white, nor will
numerically one and the same action be both bad and good; and similarly with everything else that
is not substance. By contrast, substance is something which, while being numerically one and the
same, is capable of receiving contraries. E.g. an individual human being, while being one and the
same, comes to be pale at one time and dark at another, and hot and cold, and bad and good.

Here Aristotle starts out announcing that he is about to identify the proprium of substancehence,
we might naturally expect, something that holds of every substance. But what he really goes on to
give us is the following feature: being numerically one and capable of receiving contraries. And
this is something which at best, as Philoponus points out in his commentary, holds only of

23
On combination and division in Aristotles conception of truth see Crivelli, 4571, 8295. One of the clearest
texts concerns beliefs and not sentences (which Aristotle plainly takes to work analogously): Metaph. ! 10, 1051
b
35
True are the beliefs of the person who believes of what is divided that is divided and of what is combined that it is
combined, whereas false are the beliefs of the person who is in the state contrary to that of the objects.
Note that Aristotles account applies also to existential declarative sentences insofar as for Aristotle, to quote
Owens slogan, to be is always to be something or other. For Callias to be is to be a substance, for whiteness to be is
to be a quality, etc. (see Metaph. i 2, j 7, k 1, l 2, with G.E.L. Owen, Aristotle on the Snares of Ontology, in R.
Bambrough (ed.), New Essays on Plato and Aristotle (London, 1965), 6995, repr. in Logic, Science and Dialectic.
Collected papers in Greek philosophy (London, 1986), 25978, and R.M. Dancy, Aristotle on Existence, in S.
Knuuttila and J. Hintikka (eds.), The Logic of Being (Dordrecht, 1986), 4980 at 4959). Therefore also existential
sentences, like chapter 9s very sea-battle example, involve the relevant sort of combination and division.
24
At 4
a
1213 I accept the deletion of m<) H 4<+,* $1<T) (v.l. m<) H 8`<,* $1<T),) proposed by L. Minio-Paluello,
Aristotelis Categoriae et Liber De Interpretatione (Oxonii, 1949). For discussion see R. Bods, Aristote: [Catgories]
(Paris, 2001), 2601.
12
substance, but not of every substance ("*n 0* ='>?@8, +X $1<To, $1 E*+$, #8 '><n, In Cat. 77.
312 Busse). For it holds of primary substances, but not of secondary ones (+X #O? /8G+E?o
$1/)M% +$V+$ ='>?@8,, 78. 5; cf. Simplicius, In Cat. 113. 1315, 2031 Kalbfleisch).
25
As
Ackrill, 89, puts it, Aristotle is not speaking of the possibility of mans being both dark and pale
(of there being both dark men and pale men), but of the possibility of one and the same individual
mans being at one time dark and at another time pale. Then what about secondary substances? We
can follow Ackrill in thinking that their proprium will be that they are the genera and species of
individuals which, while remaining numerically one and the same, are capable of receiving
contraries. Primary and secondary substances receive an analogous sort of characterization at the
beginning of the same chapter, 2
a
1119:

A substancethat which is called a substance most strictly, primarily, and most of allis that
which is neither said of a subject nor in a subject, e.g. the individual human being or the individual
horse. Secondary substances are called the species in which the things primarily called substances
areboth these species and their genera.

Here all that we are given as a general characteristic of substance is a disjunctive feature: X is a
substance if and only if either X is neither said of a subject nor in a subject (primary substance) or X
is a genus or species of something that is neither said of a subject nor in a subject (secondary
substance).
26
Likewise, all that 4
a
1021 allows us to identify as a general proprium of substance is a
disjunctive feature: X is a substance if and only if either X is an individual which, while remaining
one and the same, is capable of receiving contraries or X is a genus or species of such an
individual.
27
But there the case of secondary substances is not explicitly taken into account.
So at the end of Cat. 5 Aristotle puts forward as a proprium of substance something which in fact
is only a proprium of an especially relevant class of substances, namely primary ones, leaving it to
us to expand that into something which will hold of secondary substances as well. Likewise, on the

25
In fact Simplicius, 114. 23115. 10 Kalbfleisch, argues that being capable of receiving opposites fails to hold
even of every primary substance, because it fails to hold of the heavenly bodies like the sun.
Here I will not discuss Aristotles view that being capable of receiving opposites holds only of substances. In Cat. 5.
4
a
21
b
19 Aristotle himself confronts the apparent counterexample constituted by saying (!"#$%) and belief (/"Y)),
which are capable of receiving truth and falsity. Barnes, Truth, 39 suggests other counterexamples.
26
It is up to us to go beyond this merely disjunctive analysis and identify some metaphysically significant common
ground between primary and secondary substances, as is convincingly done by M. Kohl, Substancehood and
Subjecthood in Aristotles Categories, Phronesis, 53 (2008), 15279.
27
Philoponus solution is somewhat different: it seems to be especially proper to the category of substance that the
individuals subordinate to it are capable of receiving contraries in turn (79. 23 Busse). Here the proprium is
formulated as something that holds, not of every substance, but rather of Substance as a highest genus.
13
present interpretation, in Int. 4 Aristotle puts forward as a characteristic of the declarative saying the
fact that some (indeed most) declarative sayings have a certain feature, leaving it to us to explain
the unity between such sayings and those (which we can regard as special or deviant cases) which
lack that feature while being declarative nonetheless.
A characteristic of the declarative saying. What sort of characteristic? We have already found
evidence that in Int. 4 Aristotle does not think he is specifying a definition of the declarative saying;
and perhaps it is no accident that he does not claim he is specifying a proprium either. Still, the
parallel with Cat. 5 shows that Aristotle might regard being either true or false as a proprium of the
declarative saying.
This sort of viewthe view that something which holds only of kind K, but not of every K,
might count as a proprium of Kis not advanced in Aristotles discussion of the proprium in the
Topics. Indeed, it is incompatible with Aristotles assumption, made out in Top. 1. 5, 102
a
1819
and elsewhere, that the proprium of K must be co-extensive with K (&*+,-)+6#$?8P<7),).
28
If,
however, you look at the definition of the proprium in 102
a
1824, you will see that there Aristotle
concerns himself especially with the fact that the proprium belongs only to K:

A proprium is that which does not indicate the essence but holds only of the object and is
predicated convertibly of it ["*p /3 ='>?@8, -)S &*+,-)+6#$?8P+), +$V '?>#)+$%]. Thus it is a
proprium of the human being to be capable of learning grammar: for if he is a human being, he is
capable of learning grammar, and if he is capable of learning grammar, he is a human being. For no
one calls what may possibly hold of something else a proprium [$178S% #O? f/,$* !E#8, +.
4*/8@"8*$* \!!p ='>?@8,*], like sleeping of the human being, not even if it happens to hold only
of it at a certain time.
29


Thus, with regard to a situation in which A is offered as the proprium of B, although it is true both
that every B is A and that every A is B, Aristotle isnaturally enoughmore interested in the latter
half of the equivalence (every A is B) than in the former, as though he were taking the former (every
B is A) for granted.
30
This is even clearer in Top. 5. 1, 128
b
345:

The proprium in its own right is what is ascribed to something in comparison with everything else
and separates it off from everything else [_<+, /0 +. 0* -)73 )=+. f/,$* q '?.% A')*+)
&'$/T/$+), -)S ')*+.% @U?T]8,].


28
On Aristotles conception(s) of the proprium in the Topics see J. Barnes, Property in Aristotles Topics
[Property], Archiv fr Geschichte der Philosophie 52 (1970), 13655.
29
Here and in the next quotation I have modified Pickard-Cambridges translation, as revised in Barnes, ROT.
30
See Barnes, Property, 1467. This does not mean that 102
a
19 -)T is explanatory, as Barnes (Property, 137)
believes.
14
Aristotle immediately goes on to illustrate this by a standard example of co-extensive proprium
(like mortal animal capable of receiving knowledge, in the case of the human being,
b
356); but
the definition literally means just this: A is a proprium in its own right of B =
df
for every X, if X is
not B, then X is not A; that is to say, A is a proprium in its own right of B =
df
every A is B; that is
to say, A is a proprium in its own right of B =
df
only Bs are A.
And thus the view Aristotle never states came to be stated by the ancient commentators.
Simplicius, In Cat. 113. 27 Kalbfleisch, in the course of arguing that the proprium of Cat. 5 holds
only of substance but not of every substance, claims that in the fifth book of the Topics he defined
the proprium thus, presumably referring to 128
b
345.
31
Before him Porphyry, Isagoge 12. 1314
Busse, claims that there are four sorts of proprium, or senses of the term proprium, and identifies
this as the first one:

what is an accident only of a certain species, even if not of it all [q "*p +,*S 8f/8, <GrEr6-8*, 8`
-)S D ')*+T], as doctoring or doing geometry of the human being.
32


Aristotle never says this, and what he really says in the Topics is flatly inconsistent with it. But
as a matter of fact he avails himself of something along these lines in Categories 5, on a crucial
occasion; and so he might well be doing the same in De interpretatione 4.


Liceo Classico Galileo, Florence



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