Note 10 — Chapter XI · PHYSICA AND METAPHYSICA.
Reading edition
Aristot. Met. E. iv. p. 1027, b. 17; Θ. p. 1051, b. 2; p. 1052, a. 17-30; K. viii. p. 1065, a. 21.
There remains much obscurity about this meaning of Ens (Ens ὡς ἀληθές), even after the Scholia of Alexander (p. 701, a. 10, Sch. Brand.), and the instructive comments of Bonitz, Schwegler, and Brentano (Ueber die Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles, ch. iii. pp. 21-39).
The foundation of this meaning of Ens lies in the legitimate Antiphasis, and the proper division thereof (τὸ δὲ σύνολον περὶ μερισμὸν ἀντιφάσεως, p. 1027, b. 20). It is a first principle (p. 1005, b. 30) that, if one member of the Antiphasis must be affirmed as true, the other must be denied as false. If we fix upon the right combination to affirm, we say the thing that is: if we fix upon the wrong combination and affirm it, we say the thing that is not (p. 1012, b. 10). “Falsehood and Truth (Aristotle says, E. iv. p. 1027, b. 25) are not in things but in our mental combination; and as regards simple (uncombined) matters and essences, they are not even in our mental combination:” οὐ γάρ ἐστι τὸ ψεῦδος καὶ τὸ ἀληθὲς ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν, οἷον τὸ μὲν ἀγαθὸν ἀληθές, τὸ δὲ κακὸν εὐθὺς ψεῦδος, ἀλλ’ ἐν διανοίᾳ· περὶ δὲ τὰ ἁπλᾶ καὶ τὰ τί ἐστιν οὐδ’ ἐν τῇ διανοίᾳ. Compare Bonitz (ad Ar. Metaph. Z. iv. p. 1030, a.), p. 310, Comm.
In regard to cogitabilia — simple, indivisible, uncompounded — there is no combination or disjunction; therefore, strictly speaking, neither truth nor falsehood (Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, a. 26; also Categor. x. p. 13, b. 10). The intellect either apprehends these simple elements, or it does not apprehend them; there is no διάνοια concerned. Not to apprehend them is ignorance, ἄγνοια, which sometimes loosely passes under the title of ψεῦδος (Schwegler, Comm. Pt. II., p. 32).