Triangle of opposition

Imagine you have three toys - a red ball, a blue car, and a green cube. Now, let's put them in a triangle shape. The red ball is at the top of the triangle, the blue car is at the bottom left corner, and the green cube is at the bottom right corner.

Now, we can make some statements about these toys. For example, we can say that the red ball is not the same as the blue car. This is because they are different shapes and colors. We can also say that the blue car is not the same as the green cube, since they are also different shapes and colors.

But what happens if we try to make a statement about the red ball and the green cube? They seem to have nothing in common, so it might seem like we can't say anything about them. However, if we think a little harder, we can see that they do have something in common - they are both not the same as the blue car.

This idea is called the triangle of opposition. It helps us understand how statements that we make about different things relate to each other. In this case, we can say that the red ball and the green cube are both "opposite" or "contradictory" to the blue car. Because they are not the same as the blue car, they must be different from each other too.

So, the triangle of opposition is a way to think about how different things are related to each other based on what we can say about them. It helps us understand that some statements we make might seem like they have nothing to do with each other, but they can actually be related in unexpected ways.