Book 6
1
So much, then, for the accidental sense of being; we have defined it sufficiently. As for being qua truth, and not-being qua falsity, since they depend upon combination and separation, and taken together are concerned with the arrangement of the parts of a contradiction (since the true has affirmation when the subject and predicate are combined, and negation where they are divided; but the false has the contrary arrangement.
2
How it happens that we combine or separate in thought is another question. By combining or separating in thought I mean thinking them not as a succession but as a unitysc., or not as a unity but as a succession (this is separating in thought).); for falsity and truth are not in things —the good, for example, being true, and the bad false—but in thought ; and with regard to simple concepts and essences there is no truth or falsity even in thought;
3
—what points we must study in connection with being and not-being in this sense, we must consider later. But since the combination and separation exists in thought and not in things, and this sense of being is different from the proper senses (since thought attaches or detaches essence or quality or quantity or some other category), we may dismiss the accidental and real sensesi.e., the senses in which the verb to be is used to express an accidental or a true relation. of being.
4
For the cause of the one is indeterminate and of the other an affection of thought; and both are connected with the remaining genus of being, and do not indicate any objective reality. Let us therefore dismiss them, and consider the causes and principles of Being itself qua Being. [We have made it clear in our distinction of the number of senses in which each term is used that being has several senses.]This sentence is almost certainly a later and clumsy addition to show the connection with the following book.
