Book 5
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But the false definition is not strictly a definition of anything. Hence it was foolish of AntisthenesThe Cynic; contemporary and renegade disciple of Socrates. He taught that definition, and even predication, are strictly speaking impossible. A simple entity can only be named; a complex entity can only be defined by naming its simple constituents. Cf. Aristot. Met. 8.3.7, 8; Plat. Theaet. 201d-202c, Plat. Soph. 251b, c. to insist that nothing can be described except by its proper definition: one predicate for one subject; from which it followed that contradiction is impossible, and falsehoodCf. Plat. Euthyd. 283e-284c, 286c, d. nearly so. But it is possible to describe everything not only by its own definition but by that of something else; quite falsely, and yet also in a sense truly—e.g., 8 may be described as double by the definition of 2.
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Such are the meanings of false in these cases. (3.) A false man is one who readily and deliberately makes such statements, for the sake of doing so and for no other reason; and one who induces such statements in others—just as we call things false which induce a false impression. Hence the proof in the HippiasPlat. Hipp. Min 365-375. that the same man is false and true is misleading;
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for it assumes (a) that the false man is he who is able to deceive, i.e. the man who knows and is intelligent; (b) that the man who is willingly bad is better. This false assumption is due to the induction; for when he says that the man who limps willingly is better than he who does so unwillingly, he means by limping pretending to limp. For if he is willingly lame, he is presumably worse in this case just as he is in the case of moral character.
