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Full Idea
To everything that admits of a contrary there is one contrary and no more.
Gist of Idea
Only one thing can be contrary to something
Source
Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 332c)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Protagoras and Meno', ed/tr. Guthrie,W K C [Penguin 1956], p.65
A Reaction
The sort of thing for which a modern philosopher would demand a proof (and then reject when the proof couldn't be found), where a Greek is happy to assert it as self-evident. I can't think of a counterexample.
| 192 | Only one thing can be contrary to something [Plato] |
| 1697 | The contrary of good is bad, but the contrary of bad is either good or another evil [Aristotle] |
| 1698 | Both sides of contraries need not exist (as health without sickness, white without black) [Aristotle] |
| 24052 | From one thing alone we can infer its contrary [Aristotle] |
| 4333 | Contraries are by definition as far distant as possible from one another [Aristotle] |
| 1708 | In "Callias is just/not just/unjust", which of these are contraries? [Aristotle] |
| 608 | There is no middle ground in contradiction, but there is in contrariety [Aristotle] |
| 1684 | Two falsehoods can be contrary to one another [Aristotle] |
| 16854 | Contrary pairs entail contradictions; one member entails negation of the other [Lipton] |