Kitap 10
8
Now if the types of opposition are contradiction, privation, contrariety and relation, and of these the primary type is contradiction, and an intermediate is impossible in contradiction but possible between contraries, obviously contradiction is not the same as contrariety; and privation is a form of contradiction;
9
for it is either that which is totally incapable of possessing some attribute,This is not a proper example of privation. Cf. Aristot. Met. 5.22. or that which would naturally possess some attribute but does not, that suffers privation—either absolutely or in some specified way. Here we already have several meanings, which we have distinguished elsewhere. Thus privation is a kind of contradiction or incapacity which is determinate or associated with the receptive material.
10
This is why though there is no intermediate in contradiction there is one in some kinds of privation. For everything is either equal or not equal, but not everything is either equal or unequal; if it is, it is only so in the case of a material which admits of equality. If, then, processes of material generation start from the contraries, and proceed either from the form and the possession of the form, or from some privation of the form or shape, clearly all contrariety must be a form of privation, although presumably not all privation is contrariety.
11
This is because that which suffers privation may suffer it in several senses; for it is only the extremes from which changes proceed that are contraries.
11
This can also be shown by induction. Every contrariety involves privation as one of its contraries, but not always in the same way: inequality involves the privation of equality, dissimilarity that of similarity, evil that of goodness.
