 Secondly, a dialetheist can point out that the argument against dialetheism based on the truth conditions for (classical) negation begs the question at its last step: why should we assume that it is impossible for \(A\) to be both true and not true? Well, because it is a contradiction. But that is precisely what is at issue; the critic was supposed to be arguing for the impossibility of any contradiction holding to begin with. In fact, the dialetheist may even accept a characterisation of the truth conditions for negation as: ‘\(\neg A\) is true iff \(A\) is not true’. For if the ‘metalanguage’ in which the characterisation is expressed can be inconsistent in its turn, as a thoroughgoing dialetheist is likely to allow (as in Weber et al 2016), then there is no guarantee that the ‘not’ in that clause behaves consistently. So the debate comes back to the basic question of whether or not consistency can be presupposed.