 When duplex negatio affirmat, what exactly does the double negation affirm? When a negative term is a contrary rather than a contradictory of the corresponding simple affirmative, to deny its application—Socrates isn’t a not-white log—does not result in the mutual annihilation of logical double negation, any more than does the negation of a mediate contrary (She’s not unhappy, It isn’t uncommon). While Aristotle countenanced multiple negation, to the extent of generating such unlikely sequences as Not-man is not not-just (De Int. 19b36), each proposition contains only one instance of negation as wide-scope predicate denial (juxtaposed here with both a negated subject term and a negated predicate term), since each categorical statement contains only one predicate.