To say that 'not-just' has no more meaning than 'not-honourable'--that is
to say, that the two cannot in any degree be distinguished, is clearly
repugnant to the common use of language.

The ordinary logic is also jealous of the explanation of negation as
relation, because seeming to take away the principle of contradiction.
Plato, as far as we know, is the first philosopher who distinctly
enunciated this principle; and though we need not suppose him to have been
always consistent with himself, there is no real inconsistency between his
explanation of the negative and the principle of contradiction. Neither
the Platonic notion of the negative as the principle of difference, nor the
Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being, at all touch the principle of
contradiction. For what is asserted about Being and Not-Being only relates
to our most abstract notions, and in no way interferes with the principle
of contradiction employed in the concrete. Because Not-being is identified
with Other, or Being with Not-being, this does not make the proposition
'Some have not eaten' any the less a contradiction of 'All have eaten.'

The explanation of the negative given by Plato in the Sophist is a true but
partial one; for the word 'not,' besides the meaning of 'other,' may also
imply 'opposition.' And difference or opposition may be either total or
partial: the not-beautiful may be other than the beautiful, or in no
relation to the beautiful, or a specific class in various degrees opposed
to the beautiful. And the negative may be a negation of fact or of thought
(ou and me). Lastly, there are certain ideas, such as 'beginning,'
'becoming,' 'the finite,' 'the abstract,' in which the negative cannot be
separated from the positive, and 'Being' and 'Not-being' are inextricably
blended.

Plato restricts the conception of Not-being to difference. Man is a