in its primary meaning, contradiction is the act of contradicting, of opposing oneself to someone by saying the opposite of whatever he or she says. The term is used in mathematics and philosophy. In mathematical logic, a contradiction is a statement whose truth function has only one value: false. In philosophy it is the relation that exists between the affirmation and the negation of a proposition. A term that embodies incompatible (contrary or contradictory) elements is also called a contradiction.