LOGIC Universal affirmative Every man is white Universal negative Contrary No man is white ry cto a di dic a tor ntr y o C Co ntr Particular affirmative Some man is white Particular negative Subcontrary Some man is not white The relationships set out in the de Interpretatione can be set out, and have been set out for centuries by Aristotle’s followers, in a diagram known as a square of opposition The propositions that enter into syllogisms and into the square of opposition are all general propositions, whether they are universal or particular That is to say, none of them are propositions about individuals, containing proper names, such as ‘Socrates is wise’ Of course, Aristotle was familiar with singular propositions, and one such, ‘Pittacus is generous’, turns up in an example in the Wnal chapter of the Prior Analytics (2 27 70a25) But its appearance is incongruous in a treatise whose standard assumption is that all premisses and conclusions are quantiWed general propositions In the de Interpretatione singular propositions are mentioned from time to time, principally to point a contrast with general propositions It is a simple matter, for instance, to form the contradictory of ‘Socrates is white’: it is ‘Socrates is not white’ (7 17b30) But to Wnd a systematic treatment of singular propositions we must turn to the Categories Whereas the Analytics operates with a distinction between propositions and terms, the Categories starts by dividing ‘things that are said’ into complex (kata symploken) and simple (aneu symplokes) (2 1a16) An example of a complex saying is ‘A man is running’; simple sayings are the nouns and verbs that enter into such complexes: ‘man’, ‘ox’, ‘run’, ‘win’, and so on Only complex sayings can be statements, true or false; simple sayings are neither true nor false A similar distinction appears in the de Interpretatione, where we learn that a sentence (logos) has parts that signify on their own, 124