LOGIC AS THE SCIENCE OF THE PURE CONCEPT
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF
BENEDETTO CROCE
BY
DOUGLAS AINSLIE
B.A. (OXON.), M.R.A.S.
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1917
[Benedetto Croce's Philosophy of the Spirit, in the English translation
by Douglas Ainslie, consists of 4 volumes (which can be read separately):
1. Aesthetic as science of expression and general linguistic. (A first
ed. is available at Project Gutenberg. A second augmented ed. follows.)
2. Philosophy of the practical: economic and ethic. (In preparation)
3. Logic as the science of the pure concept.
4. Theory and history of historiography. (In preparation)
Transcriber's note.]
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
The publication of this third volume of the _Philosophy of the
Spirit_ offers a complete view of the Crocean philosophy to the
English-speaking world.
I have striven in every way to render the Logic the equal of its
predecessors in accuracy and elegance of translation, and have taken
the opinion of critical friends on many occasions, though more
frequently I have preferred to retain my own. The vocabulary will be
found to resemble those of the _Æsthetic_ and the _Philosophy of the
Practical,_ thereby enabling readers to follow the thought of the
author more easily than if I had made alterations in it. Thus the word
"fancy" will be found here as elsewhere, the equivalent of the Italian
"fantasia" and "imagination" of "immaginazione"; this rendering makes
the meaning far more clear than the use of the words in the opposite
sense that they occasionally bear in English; this is particularly so
in respect of the important distinction of the activities in the early
part of the _Æsthetic._ I have also retained the word "gnoseology" and
its derivatives, as saving the circumlocutions entailed by the use of
any paraphrase, especially when adjectival forms are employed.
I think that this Logic will come to be recognized as a masterpiece, in
the sense that it supplants and supersedes all Logics that have gone
before, especially those known as formal Logics, of which the average
layman has so profound and justifiable mistrust, for the very good
reason that, as Croce says, they are not Logic at all, but illogic--his
healthy love of life leads him to fight shy of what he feels would
lead to disaster if applied to the problems that he has to face in the
conduct of life. It is shown in the following pages that the prestige
of Aristotle is not wholly to blame for the survival of formal Logic
and for the class of mind that denying thought dwells ever in the _ipse
dixit._ Indeed, one of the chief boons conferred by this book will be
the freeing of the student from that confusion of thought and word that
is the essence of the old formal Logic--of thought that rises upon the
wings of words, like an aviator upon his falcon of wood and metal to
spy out the entrenchments of the enemy.
One of the most stimulating portions of the book will, I think, be
found in Croce's theory of error and proof of its necessity in the
progress of truth. This may certainly be credited to Croce as a
discovery. That this theory of the uses of error has a great future,
I have no doubt, from its appearance at certain debates on Logic that
have taken place at the Aristotelian Society within the last year or
two, though strangely enough the name of the philosopher to whom it
was due was not mentioned. A like mysterious aposiopesis characterized
Professor J. A. Smith's communication to the same Society as to the
development of the ethical from the economic activity (degrees of the
Spirit) some years after the publication of the _Philosophy of the
Practical._
It is my hope that this original work, appearing as it does in the
midst of the great struggle with the Teutonic powers, may serve to
point out to the Anglo-Saxon world where the future of the world's
civilization lies, namely in the ancient line of Latin culture,
which includes in itself the loftiest Hellenic thought. It is sad to
think that the Germans have relapsed to barbarism from the veneer of
cultivation that they once possessed, particularly sad when one comes
upon the German names that must always abound in any treatise on the
development of thought. Their creative moment, however, was very brief,
and the really important names can be numbered on the fingers of one
hand, that of Emmanuel Kant being corrupted from the Scots Cant. Of
recent years the German contribution has been singularly small and
unimportant, such writers as Eucken being mere compilers of the work of
earlier philosophers, and without originality. The foul-souled Teuton
will need a long period of re-education before he can be readmitted
to the comity of nations upon equal terms--his bestiality will ask a
potent purge.
In conclusion, I can only hope that the fact of this work having been
put into the hands of readers a decade earlier than would in all
probability have been the case, had I not been fortunate enough to
make a certain journey to Naples, will be duly taken advantage of by
students, and that it will serve for many as a solid foundation for
their thought about thought, and so of their thought about the whole of
life and reality in the new world that will succeed the War.
DOUGLAS AINSLIE.
THE ATHENAEUM, PALL MALL,
_March_ 1917.
ADVERTISEMENT
This volume is, and is not, the memoir entitled _Outlines of Logic as
the Science of the Pure Concept,_ which I presented to the Accademia
Pontiana at the sessions of April 10 and May 1, 1904, and April 2,
1905, and which was inserted in volume xxxv. of the _Transactions_
(printed as an extract from them by Giannini, Naples, 1905, in quarto,
pp. 140).
I might have republished that memoir, and made in it certain
corrections, great and small, and especially I might have enriched it
with very numerous developments. But partial corrections and copious
additions, while they would have injured the arrangement of the
first work, would not have allowed me to attain to that more secure
and fuller exposition of logical doctrine which, after four years'
study and reflection, it now seems to be in my power to offer. I
have therefore resolved to rewrite the work from the beginning on a
larger scale, with a new arrangement and new diction regarding its
predecessor as a sketch, which in a literary sense stands by itself,
and only making use of a page, or group of pages, here and there, as
suited the natural order of exposition.
Owing to this connection between the present volume with the
above-mentioned academic memoir, it will be seen in what sense it may
be called, and is called, a "second edition." It is a second edition of
my thought rather than of my book.
B. C.
NAPLES,
_November_ 1908.
PREFACE TO THIRD ITALIAN EDITION OF THE _LOGIC_
On reprinting the present volume, after an interval of seven years, I
have reread it with attention to its literary form, but have made no
substantial changes or additions to it; because the further development
of that part which deals with the logic of Historiography has been
collected in a special volume, forming as it were an appendix. This is
now the fourth volume of the _Philosophy of the Spirit._
It seemed to many, upon the first publication of this volume, that it
chiefly consisted of a very keen attack upon Science. Few, above all,
discovered what it was: _a vindication of the seriousness of logical
thought,_ not only in respect to empiricism and abstract thought, but
also to intuitionist, mystical and pragmatistic doctrines, and to
all the others then very vigorous, which, including justly combated
positivism, distorted every form of logicity.
Nor, in truth, did its criticism of Science favour what is known as a
philosophy "detesting facts": indeed, the chief preoccupation of that
criticism was meticulous respect of facts, which was neither observed
nor observable in empirical and abstract constructions and in the
analogous mythologies of naturalism. The character of this _Logic_
might equally be described as affirmation of the concrete universal and
affirmation of the concrete individual, as proof of the Aristotelian
_Scientia est de universalibus_ and proof of Campanula's _Scientia
est de singularibus._ In this manner those empty generalizations and
fictitious riches which are removed from philosophy in the course
of treatment, there appear more than amply, infinitely compensated
for by the restitution to it of its own riches, _of the whole of
history,_ both that known as human and that known as history of nature.
Henceforward it can live there as in its own dominion, or rather its
own body, which is co-extensive with and indivisible from it. The
separation there effected by philosophy from science is not separation
from what is _true knowledge in science,_ that is from the historical
and real elements of science. It is only separation from the schematic
form in which those elements are compressed, mutilated and altered.
Thus it may also be described as a reconnection of it with what of
living, concrete and progressive exists in those sciences. If the
destruction of anything be aimed at in it, that can clearly be nothing
but abstract and anti-historical philosophy. This _Logic_ must thus be
looked upon as a liquidation of philosophy rather than of science, if
abstract science be posited as true philosophy.
That point is dwelt upon in the polemic against the idea of a general
philosophy which should stand above _particular philosophies,_ or
the methodological problems of historical thought. The distinction
of general philosophy from particular philosophies (which are true
generality in their particularity) seems to me to be the gnoseological
residue of the old dualism and of the old transcendency; a not
innocuous residue, for it always tends to the view that the thoughts
of men upon particular things are of an inferior, common and vulgar
nature, and that the thought of totality or unity is alone superior
and alone completely satisfying. The idea of a general philosophy
prepares in this way consciously or otherwise for the restoration of
Metaphysic, with its pretension of rethinking the already thought
by means of a particular thought of its own. This, when it is not
altogether religious revelation, becomes the caprice of the individual
philosopher. The many examples offered by post-Kantian philosophy
are proof of this. Here Metaphysic raged so furiously and to such
deleterious effect as to involve guiltless philosophy in its guilt. The
latent danger always remains, even if this restoration of Metaphysic
does not take place, for if it never becomes effective because it is
carefully watched and restrained, the other draw-back persists, namely,
that that general philosophy, or super-philosophy or super-intelligence
desired, while it does not succeed in making clear particular problems,
which alone have relation to concrete life, nevertheless in a measure
discredits them, by judging them to be of slight importance and by
surrounding them with a sort of mystical irony.
To annul the idea of a "general" philosophy is at the same time to
annul the "static" concept of the philosophic system, replacing it with
the dynamic concept of simple historical "systemizations" of groups of
problems, of which particular problems and their solutions are what
remain, not their aggregate and external arrangement. This latter
satisfies the needs of the times and of authors and passes away with
them, or is preserved and admired solely for æsthetic reasons when
it possesses them. But those who retain some superstitious reverence
for "General Philosophy" or "Metaphysic" have still a superstitious
reverence for what are known as static systems. In so doing they behave
in a rational manner, for they cannot altogether free themselves from
the claims of a definitive philosophy which is to solve once and for
all the so-called "enigma of the world" (imaginary because there are
infinite enigmas which appear and are solved in turn, but there is
not the Enigma), and is to provide the "true system" or "basis" of
the true system. Nevertheless I hope that good fortune will attend
the doctrine of the concept here set out, not only because it seems
to me to afford the satisfaction proper to every statement of truth,
namely, to accord with the reality of things, but also (if I may so
express myself) because it carries with it certain immediate and
tangible advantages. Above all, it relieves the student of philosophy
of the terrible responsibility--which I should never wish to assume--of
supplying the Truth, the unique eternal Truth, and of supplying it in
competition with all the greatest philosophers who have appeared in
the course of centuries. Further, it removes from him together both
the hope of the definitive system and the anxious fear of the mortal
doom which will one day strike the very system that he has so lovingly
constructed, as it has struck those of his predecessors. At the same
time it sets him out of reach of the smiling non-philosophers who
foresee with accuracy and are almost able to calculate the date of that
not distant death. Finally, it frees him from the annoyance of the
"school" and of the "scholars"; "school" and "scholars" in the sense of
the old metaphysicians are no longer even conceivable, when the idea
of "systems" having-their "own principles" has been abolished. All
dynamic systems or provisory systemizations of ever new problems have
the same principle, namely, Thought, _perennis philosophia._ There has
not been and never will be anything to add to this. And although the
many propositions and solutions of problems strive among themselves
to attain harmony, yet to each, if it be truly thought, is promised
eternal life, which gives and receives vigour from the life of each of
the others. This is just the opposite of what takes place with static
systems which collapse, one upon the other, only certain portions of
good work surviving them in the shape of happy treatment of special
problems which are to be found mingled with the metaphysic of every
true philosopher. And although there is no longer a field left over to
these scholars who merely faithfully echo the master, like adepts of a
religion, there is yet a wide field always open to the other type of
scholar, men who pay serious attention and assimilate what is of use to
them in the thought of others, but then proceed to state and to solve
new problems of their own. Finally, the life of philosophy as conceived
and portrayed in this _Logic,_ resembles the life of poetry in this:
that it does not become effective save in passing from _different_ to
_different,_ from one original thinker to another, as poetry passes
from poet to poet, and imitators and schools of poetry, although they
certainly belong to the world, yet do not belong to the world of poetry.
B. C.
_September_ 1916.
CONTENTS
FIRST PART
THE PURE CONCEPT, THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT AND THE _A PRIORI_ LOGICAL
SYNTHESIS
FIRST SECTION
THE PURE CONCEPT AND THE PSEUDOCONCEPTS
I
AFFIRMATION OF THE CONCEPT
Thought and sensation--Thought and language--Intuition and
language as presuppositions--Scepsis as to the concept--Its three
forms--Æstheticism--Mysticism--Empiricism--_Redactio ad absurdum_ of
the three forms--Affirmation of the concept.
II
THE CONCEPT AND THE PSEUDOCONCEPTS
Concept and conceptual fictions--The pure concept as ultra- and
omnirepresentative--Conceptual fictions as representative without
universality, or universals void of representations--Criticism of the
doctrine which considers them to be erroneous concepts, or imperfect
concepts preparatory to perfect concepts--Posteriority of fictional
concepts to true and proper concepts--Proper character of conceptual
fictions--The practical end and mnemonic utility--Persistence of
conceptual fictions side by side with concepts--Pure concepts and
pseudoconcepts.
III
THE CHARACTERISTICS AND THE CHARACTER OF THE CONCEPT
Expressivity--Universality--Concreteness--The concrete-universal
and the formation of the pseudoconcepts--Empirical and abstract
pseudoconcepts--The other characteristics of the pure concept--The
origin of multiplicity and the unity of the characteristics of the
concept--Objection relating to the unreality of the pure concept and
the impossibility of demonstrating it--Prejudice concerning the nature
of the demonstration--Prejudice relating to the representability of
the concept--Protests of philosophers against this prejudice--Reason of
their perpetual reappearance.
IV
DISPUTES CONCERNING THE NATURE OF THE CONCEPT
Disputes of materialistic origin--The concept as value--Realism
and nominalism--Critique of both--True realism--Resolution of
other difficulties as to the genesis of concepts--Disputes arising
from the neglected distinction between empirical and abstract
concepts--Intersection of the various disputes--Other logical
disputes--Representative accompaniment of the concept--Concept
of the thing and concept of the individual--Reasons, laws and
causes--Intellect and Reason--The abstract reason and its practical
nature--The synthesis of theoretical and practical and intellectual
intuition--Uniqueness of thought.
V
CRITIQUE OF THE DIVISIONS OF THE CONCEPTS AND
THEORY OF DISTINCTION AND DEFINITION
The pseudoconcepts, not a subdivision of the concept--Obscurity,
clearness and distinction, not subdivisions of the concept--Inexistence
of subdivisions of the concept as logical form--Distinctions of
the concepts not logical, but real--Multiplicity of the concepts;
and logical difficulty arising therefrom. Necessity of overcoming
it--Impossibility of eliminating it--Unity as distinction--Inadequacy
of the numerical concept of the multiple--Relation of distincts
as ideal history--Distinction between ideal history and real
history--Ideal distinction and abstract distinction--Other usual
distinctions of the concept, and their significance--Identical,
unequal, primitive and derived concepts, etc.--Universal,
particular and singular. Comprehension and extension--Logical
definition--Unity-distinction as a circle--Distinction in the
pseudoconcepts--Subordination and co-ordination of empirical
concepts--Definition in empirical concepts, and forms of the
concept--The series in abstract concepts.
VI
OPPOSITION AND LOGICAL PRINCIPLES
Opposite or contradictory concepts--Their diversity from distincts
--Confirmation of this afforded by empirical Logic--Difficulty arising
from the double type of concepts, opposite and distinct--Nature of
opposites; and their identity, when they are distinguished, with
distincts--Impossibility of distinguishing one opposite from another,
as concept from concept--The dialectic--Opposites are not concepts,
but the unique concept itself--Affirmation and negation--The principle
of identity and contradiction; true meaning, and false interpretation
of it--Another false interpretation: contrast with the principle of
opposition. False application of this principle also--Errors of the
dialectic applied to the relation of distincts--Its reduction to the
absurd--The improper form of logical principles or laws--The principle
of sufficient reason.
SECOND SECTION
INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT
I
THE CONCEPT AND THE VERBAL FORM. THE DEFINITIVE JUDGMENT
Relation of the logical with the æsthetic form--The concept as
expression--Æsthetic and æsthetic-logical expressions or expressions of
the concept: propositions and judgments--Overcoming of the dualism of
thought and language--The logical judgment as definition--Indistinction
of subject and predicate in the definition--Unity of essence and
existence--Pretended vacuity of the definition--Critique of the
definition as fixed verbal formula.
II
THE CONCEPT AND THE VERBAL FORM. THE SYLLOGISM
Identity of definition and syllogism--Connection of concepts and
thinking of concepts--Identity of judgment and syllogism--The middle
term and the nature of the concept--Pretended non-definitive logical
judgments--The syllogism as fixed verbal formula--Use and abuse
of it--Erroneous separation of truth and reason of truth in pure
concepts--Separation of truth and reason of truth in the pseudoconcepts.
III
CRITIQUE OF FORMAL LOGIC
Intrinsic impossibility of formal Logic--Its nature--Its partial
justification--Its error--Its traditional constitution--The three
logical forms--Theories of the concept and of the judgment--Theory
of the syllogism--Spontaneous reductions to the absurd of formal
Logic--Mathematical Logic or Logistic--Its non-mathematical
character--Example of its mode of treatment--Identity of nature of
Logistic and formal Logic--Practical aspect of Logistic.
IV
INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT AND PERCEPTION
Reaction of the concept upon the representation--Logicization of the
representations--The individual judgment; and its difference from
the judgment of definition--Distinction of subject and predicate in
the individual judgment--Reasons for the variety of definitions of
the judgment and of some of its divisions--Individual judgment and
intellectual intuition--Identity of individual judgment with perception
or perceptive judgment, and with commemorative or historical
judgment--Erroneous distinction of individual judgments as of fact
and of value--The individual judgment as ultimate and perfect form of
knowledge--Error of treating it as the first fact of knowledge--Motive
of this error--Individual syllogisms.
V
THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT AND THE PREDICATE OF EXISTENCE
The copula: its verbal and logical significance--Questions relating to
propositions without a subject. Verbalism--Confusion between different
forms of judgments in the question of existentiality--Determination
and subdivision of the question concerning the existentiality of
individual judgments--Necessity of the existential character in these
judgments---The absolutely and the relatively inexistent--The character
of existence as predicate--Critique of existentiality as position
and faith--Absurd consequences of those doctrines--The predicate of
existence as not sufficient to constitute a judgment--The predicate of
judgment as the totality of the concept.
VI
INDIVIDUAL PSEUDOJUDGMENTS. CLASSIFICATION AND ENUMERATION
Individual pseudojudgments--Their practical character--Genesis of the
distinction between judgments of fact and judgments of value; and
critique of it--Importance of individual pseudojudgments--Empirical
individual and individual abstract judgments--Formative process
of empirical judgments--Their existential basis--Dependence of
empirical judgments upon pure concepts--Empirical judgments as
classification--Classification and understanding--Substitution of
the one for the other, and genesis of perceptive and judicative
illusions--Abstract concepts and individual judgments--Impossibility
of direct application of the first to the second--Intervention of
empirical judgments as intermediate--Reduction of the heterogeneous
to the homogeneous--Empirical abstract judgments and enumeration
(mensuration, etc.)--Enumeration and intelligence--The so-called
conversion of quantity into quality--Mathematical space and time and
their abstractness.
THIRD SECTION
IDENTITY OF THE PURE CONCEPT AND THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT THE LOGICAL _A
PRIORI_ SYNTHESIS
I
IDENTITY OF THE JUDGMENT OF DEFINITION (PURE CONCEPT) AND OF THE
INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT
Result of preceding enquiry: the judgment of definition and the
individual judgment--Distinction between the two: truth of reason
and truth of fact, necessary and contingent, etc.; formal and
material--Absurdities arising from these distinctions: the individual
judgment as ultra-logical; or, duality of logical forms--Difficulty of
abandoning the distinction--The hypothesis of reciprocal implication,
and so of the identity of the two forms--Objection; the lack of
representative and historical element in the definitive--The historical
element in the definitions taken in their concreteness--The definition
as answer to a question and solution of a problem--Individual and
historical conditionally of every question and problem--Definition
as also historical judgment--Unity of truth of reason and truth of
fact--Considerations in confirmation of this--Critique of the false
distinction between formal and material truths--Platonic men and
Aristotelian men--Theory of application of the concepts, true for
abstract concepts and false for true concepts.
II
THE _A PRIORI_ LOGICAL SYNTHESIS
The identity of the judgment of definition and of the individual
judgment, as synthesis _a priori_--Objections to the synthesis
_a priori,_ deriving from abstractionists and empiricists--False
interpretation of the synthesis _a priori_--Synthesis _a priori in_
general and logical synthesis _a priori_--Non-logical synthesis _a
priori--_The synthesis _a priori,_ as synthesis, not of opposites,
but of distincts--The category in the judgment. Difference between
category and innate idea--The synthesis _a priori,_ the destruction of
transcendency, and the objectivity of knowing--Power of the synthesis
_a priori_ remained unknown to its discoverer.
III
LOGIC AND THE DOCTRINE OF THE CATEGORIES
The demand for a complete table of the categories--This demand
extraneous to Logic--Logical categories and real categories--Uniqueness
of the logical category: the concept. The other categories, no longer
logical, but real. Systems of categories--The Hegelian system of
the categories, and other posterior systems--The logical order of
the predicates or categories--Illusion as to the logical reality of
this order--The necessity of an order of the predicates not founded
upon Logic in particular, but upon the whole of Philosophy--False
distinction of Philosophy into two spheres--Metaphysic and Philosophy,
rational Philosophy and real Philosophy, etc., derived from the
confusion between Logic and Doctrine of the categories--Philosophy and
pure Logic, etc.; overcoming of the dualism.
SECOND PART
PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY AND THE NATURAL AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES
I
THE FORMS OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE DIVISIONS OF KNOWLEDGE
Summary of the results relating to the forms of
knowledge--Non-existence of technical forms, and of composed
forms--Identity of forms of knowledge and of knowing. Objections
to them--Empirical distinctions and their limits--Enumeration and
determination of the forms of knowing reality, corresponding to the
forms of knowledge--Critique of the idea of a special Logic as doctrine
of the forms of knowing the external world and of a special Logic
as doctrine of the methods--Nature of our treatment of the forms of
knowledge.
II
PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy as pure concept; and the various definitions of
philosophy--Those which negate philosophy--Those which define it as
science of supreme principle, of final causes, etc.; contemplation
of death, etc.; as elaboration of the concepts, as criticism, as
science of norms; as doctrine of the categories--Exclusion of material
definitions from philosophy--Idealism of every philosophy--Systematic
character of philosophy--Philosophic significance and literary
significance of the system--Advantages and disadvantages of the
literary form of the system--Genesis of the systematic prejudice,
and rebellion against it--Sacred and philosophic numbers; meaning of
their demand--Impossibility of dividing philosophy into general and
particular--Disadvantages of the conception of a general philosophy,
distinct from particular philosophies.
III
HISTORY
History as individual judgment--The individual element and historical
sources: relics and narrative--The intuitive faculty in historical
research--The intuitive faculty in historical exposition. Resemblance
of history and art. Difference between history and art--The predicate
or logical element in history--Vain attempts to eliminate it--Extension
of historical predicates beyond the limits of mere existence--Asserted
unsurmountable variance in judging and presenting historical facts
and consequent demand for a history without judgment--Restriction of
variance, and exclusion of apparent variances--Overcoming of variances
by means of deep study of the concepts--Subjectivity and objectivity
in history: their meaning--Historical judgments of value, and normal
or neutral values. Critique--Various legitimate meanings of protests
against historical subjectivity--The demand for a theory of historical
factors--Impossibility of dividing history according to its intuitive
and reflective elements--Empiricity of the division of the historical
process into four stages--Divisions founded upon the historical
object--Logical division according to the forms of the spirit--The
empirical division of the representative material--Empirical concepts
in history; and the false theory as to the function they fulfil
there--Hence also the claim to reduce history to a natural science;
and the thesis of the practical character of history--Distinction
between historical facts and non-historical facts; and its empirical
value--The professional prejudice and theory of the practical character
of history.
IV
IDENTITY OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY
Necessity of the historical element in philosophy--Historical
quality of the culture required of the philosopher--Apparent
objections--Communication of philosophy as changing of
philosophy--Perpetuity of this changing--The overcoming and continuous
progress of philosophy--Meaning of the eternity of philosophy--The
concept of spontaneous, ingenuous, innate philosophy, etc.; and its
meaning--Philosophy as criticism and polemic--Identity of philosophy
and history--Didactic divisions, and other reasons for the apparent
duality--Note.
V
THE NATURAL SCIENCES
The natural sciences as empirical concepts, and their practical
nature--Elimination of an equivocation concerning this practical
character--Impossibility of unifying them in one concept--Impossibility
of introducing into them rigorous divisions--Laws in the natural
sciences, and so-called prevision--Empirical character of
naturalistic laws--The postulate of the uniformity of nature, and its
meaning--Pretended impossibility of exceptions to natural laws--Nature
and its various meanings. Nature as passivity and negativity--Nature
as practical activity--Nature in its gnoseological significance,
as naturalistic or empirical method--The illusions of materialists
and dualists--Nature as empirical distinction of an inferior reality
in respect to a superior reality--The naturalistic method, and the
natural sciences as extending to superior not less than to inferior
reality--Claim for such extension, and effective existence of what is
claimed--Historical foundation of the natural sciences--The question
whether history be foundation or crown of thought--Naturalists
as historical investigators--Prejudices as to non-historicity of
nature--Philosophic foundation of the natural sciences, and effect
of philosophy upon them--Effect of natural sciences upon philosophy,
and errors in conceiving such relation--Reason of these errors.
Naturalistic philosophy--Philosophy as the destroyer of naturalistic
philosophy, but not of the natural sciences. Autonomy of these.
VI
MATHEMATICS AND THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCE OF NATURE
Idea of a mathematical science of nature--Various definitions of
mathematics--Mathematical procedure--Apriority of mathematical
principles--Contradictoriness of the _a priori_ principles. They
are not thinkable, and not intuitive--Identification of mathematics
with abstract pseudoconcepts--The ultimate end of mathematics: to
enumerate, and, therefore, to aid the determination of the single.
Its place--Particular questions concerning mathematics--Rigour of
mathematics and rigour of philosophy--Loves and hates between the
two forms--Impossibility of reducing the empirical sciences to the
mathematical; and the empirical limits of the mathematical science of
nature--Decreasing utility of mathematics in the loftiest spheres of
the real.
VII
THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES
Theory of the forms of knowledge and doctrine of the
categories--Problem of classification of the sciences; its empirical
nature--Falsely philosophic character that it assumes--Coincidence
of that problem with the search for the categories, when understood
with philosophic rigour--Forms of knowledge and literary-didactic
forms--Prejudices derived from the latter--Methodical prologues to
scholastic manuals, their impotence--Capricious multiplication of the
sciences--The sciences and professional prejudices.
THIRD PART
THE FORMS OF ERROR AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
I
ERROR AND ITS NECESSARY FORMS
Error as negativity; impossibility of a special treatment of
errors--Positive and existing errors--Positive errors as practical
acts--Practical acts and not practical errors--Economically practical
acts, not morally practical acts--Doctrine of error, and doctrine
of necessary forms of error--Logical nature of all theoretical
errors--History of errors and phenomenology of error--Deduction of
the forms of logical errors. Forms deduced from the concept of the
concept, and forms deduced from the other concepts--Errors derived from
errors--Professionally and nationality of errors.
II
ÆSTHETICISM, EMPIRICISM AND MATHEMATICISM
Definition of these forms--Æstheticism--Empiricism--Positivism, the
philosophy founded upon the sciences, inductive metaphysic--Empiricism
and facts--Bankruptcy of Empiricism: dualism, agnosticism, spiritualism
and superstition--Evolutionistic positivism and rationalistic
positivism--Mathematicism--Symbolical mathematics--Mathematics
as a form of demonstration of philosophy--Errors of mathematical
philosophy--Dualism, agnosticism and superstition of mathematicism.
III
THE PHILOSOPHISM
Rupture of the unity of the _a priori_ synthesis--Philosophism,
logicism or panlogicism--Philosophy of history--Contradictions in its
assumptions--Philosophy of history and false analogies--Distinction
between Philosophy of history and books so entitled--Merits of these,
philosophic and historical--Philosophy of nature--Its substantial
identity with Philosophy of history--Contradictions of Philosophy of
nature--Books entitled Philosophy of nature--Contemporary seekings for
a Philosophy of nature and their various meanings.
IV
THE MYTHOLOGISM
Rupture of the unity of the _a priori_ synthesis. The mythologism
--Essence of myth--Problems relating to theory of myth--Myth
and religion--Identity of the two spiritual forms--Religion and
philosophy--Conversion of errors, the one into the other--Conversion of
the mythologism into philosophism (theology) and of the philosophism
into the mythologism (mythology of nature, historical apocalypses,
etc.)--Scepsis.
DUALISM, SCEPTICISM AND MYSTICISM
Dualism--Scepsis and scepticism--Mystery--Critique of affirmations
of mystery in philosophy--Agnosticism as a particular form of
scepticism--Mysticism--Errors in other parts of philosophy--Conversion
of these errors into one another and into logical errors.
VI
THE ORDER OF ERRORS AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
Necessary character of the forms of errors. Their definite number
--Their logical order--Examples of this order in various parts of
philosophy--Erring spirit and spirit of search--Immanence of error
in truth--Erroneous distinction between possession of and search
for truth--Search for truth in the practical sense of preparation
for thought; the series of errors--Transfiguration of error into
tentative or hypothesis in the search so understood--Distinction
between error as error and error as hypothesis--Immanence of the
tentative in error itself as error--Individuals and error--Duplicate
aspect of errors--Ultimate form of error: the methodological error or
hypotheticism.
VII
THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ERROR AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Inseparability of phenomenology of error from the philosophical
system--The eternal course and recurrence of errors--Returns to
anterior philosophies; and their meaning--False idea of a history of
philosophy as history of the successive appearance of the categories
and of errors in time--Philosophism case in point of this false
view, as is the formula concerning the identity of philosophy and
history of philosophy--Distinction between this false idea of a
history of philosophy, and the books which take it as their title or
programme--Exact formula: identity of philosophy and history--History
of philosophy and philosophic progress--The truth of all philosophies;
and criticism of eclecticism--Researches for authors and precursors of
truths; reason for the antinomies which they exhibit.
VIII
"DE CONSOLATIONE PHILOSOPHIAE"
Logic and defence of Philosophy--Utility of Philosophy and the
Philosophy of the practical--Consolation of philosophy, as joy
of thought and in the true. Impossibility of a pleasure arising
from falsity and illusion--Critique of the concept of a sad truth
--Examples: Philosophical criticism and the concepts of God and
Immortality--Consolatory virtue, pertaining to all spiritual
activities--Sorrow and elevation of sorrow.
FOURTH PART
HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
I
HISTORY OF LOGIC AND HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
Reality, Thought and Logic--Relation of these three terms--Inexistence
of a general philosophy outside particular philosophic sciences;
and, in consequence, of a general History of philosophy outside the
histories of particular philosophic sciences--Histories of particular
philosophies and literary value of such division--History of Logic in
its particular sense--Works dealing with history of Logic.
II
THEORY OF THE CONCEPT
Question as to the "father of Logic"--Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
--Enquiries as to the nature of the concept in Greece. Question of
transcendency and immanence--Controversies in Plato concerning the
various forms of the concept--Philosophic, empirical and abstract
concepts in Aristotle. Philosophy, physics, mathematics--Universals of
the "always" and those of "for the most part"--Logical controversies
in the Middle Ages--Nominalism and realism--Nominalism, mysticism and
coincidence of opposites--Renaissance and mysticism--Bacon--Ideal of
exact science and Cartesian philosophy--Adversaries of Cartesianism
--Vico--Empiristic logic and its dissolution. Locke, Berkeley and
Hume--Exact science and Kant. Concept of the category--Limits of
science, and Jacobi--Positive elements in Kantian scepticism--The
synthesis _a priori_--Inward contradiction in Kant. Romantic principle
and classic execution--Progress since Kant: Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel--Logic of Hegel. The concrete concept or Idea--Identity of
Hegelian Idea and Kantian synthesis _a priori_--The Idea and the
antinomies. The dialectic--Lacunæ and errors in Hegelian Logic. Their
consequences--Contemporaries of Hegel: Herbart, Schleiermacher and
others--Posterior positivism and psychologicism--Eclectics. Lotze--New
gnoseology of the sciences. Economic theory of scientific concept.
Avenarius, Mach--Rickert--Bergson and the new French philosophy--Le
Roy, and others--Reattachment to romantic ideas, and progress upon
them--Philosophy of pure experience, of intuition, of action, etc.: and
its insufficiency--The theory of values.
III
THEORY OF THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT
Secular neglect of theory relating to history--Ideas upon history
in Græco-Roman world--Theory of history in mediæval and modern
philosophy--Writers on historical art in the sixteenth century--Writers
on method--Theory of history and G. B. Vico--Anti-historicism of
eighteenth century, and Kant--Hidden historical value of synthesis
_a priori_--Theory of history in Hegel--W. von Humboldt--F.
Brentano--Controversies as to the nature of history--Rickert; Xénopol.
History as science of individual--History as art--Other controversies
relating to history.
IV
THEORY OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THOUGHT AND WORD AND FORMALIST LOGIC
Relation between history of Logic and history of Philosophy of
language--Logical formalism. Indian logic free of it--Aristotelian
Logic and formalism--Later formalism--Rebellions against Aristotelian
Logic--Opposition by humanists and its motives--Opposition of
naturalism--Simplicatory elaboration in eighteenth century.
Kant--Refutation of formal Logic. Hegel; Schleiermacher--Its partial
persistence, owing to insufficient ideas as to language--Formal
Logic in Herbart, in Schopenhauer, in Hamilton--More recent
theories--Mathematical Logic--Inexact idea of language among
mathematicians and intuitionists.
V
CONCERNING THIS LOGIC
Traditional character of this Logic and its connection with Logic of
philosophic concept--Its innovations--I. Exclusion of empirical and
abstract concepts--II. Atheoretic character of second, and autonomy
of empirical and mathematical sciences--III. Concept as unity of
distinctions--IV. Identity of concept with individual judgment and of
philosophy with history--V. Impossibility of defining thought by means
of verbal forms, and refutation of formal Logic--Conclusion.
FIRST PART
THE PURE CONCEPT, THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT, AND THE _A PRIORI_ LOGICAL
SYNTHESIS
FIRST SECTION
THE PURE CONCEPT AND THE PSEUDOCONCEPTS
I
AFFIRMATION OF THE CONCEPT
[Sidenote: _Thought and sensation._]
Presupposed in the logical activity, which is the subject of
this treatise, are representations or intuitions. If man had no
representations, he would not think; were he not an imaginative spirit,
he would not be a logical spirit. It is generally admitted that thought
refers back to sensation, as its antecedent; and this doctrine we have
no difficulty in making our own, provided it be given a double meaning.
That is to say, in the first place, sensation must be conceived as
something active and cognitive, or as a cognitive act; and not as
something formless and passive, or active only with the activity of
life, and not with that of contemplation. And, in the second place,
sensation must be taken in its purity, without any logical reflection
and elaboration; as simple sensation, that is to say, and not as
perception, which (as will be seen in the proper place), so far from
being implied, in itself implies logical activity. With this double
explanation, sensation, active, cognitive and unreflective, becomes
synonymous with representation and intuition; and certainly this is
not the place to discuss the use of these synonyms, though there are
excellent reasons of practical convenience pointing to the preference
of the terms which we have adopted.
At all events, the important thing is to bear clearly in mind, that the
logical activity, or thought, arises upon the many-coloured pageant of
representations, intuitions, or sensations, whichever we may call them;
and by means of these, at every moment the cognitive spirit absorbs
within itself the course of reality, bestowing upon it theoretic form.
[Sidenote: _Thought and language._]
Another presupposition is often introduced by logicians: that of
language; since it seems clear that, if man does not speak, he does
not think. This presupposition also we accept, adding to it, however,
a corollary, together with certain elucidations. The elucidations are:
in the first place, that language must be taken in its genuine and
complete reality; that is to say, it must not be arbitrarily restricted
to certain of its manifestations, such as the vocal and articulate;
nor be changed and falsified into a body of abstractions, such as
the classes of Grammar or the words of the Vocabulary, conceived as
these are in the fashion of a machine, which man sets in motion when
he speaks. And, in the second place, by language is to be understood,
not the whole body of discourses, taken all together and in confusion,
into which (as will be seen in its place) logical elements enter;
but only that determinate aspect of these discourses, in virtue of
which they are properly called language. A deep-rooted error, which
springs directly from the failure to make this distinction, is that
of believing language to be constituted of logical elements; adducing
as a proof of this that even in the smallest discourse are to be
found the words _this, that, to be, to do,_ and the like, that is,
logical concepts. But these concepts are by no means really to be
found in every expression; and, even where they are to be found,
the possibility of extracting them is no proof that they exhaust
language. So true is this that those who cherish this conviction are
afterwards obliged to leave over as a residue of their analysis,
elements which they consider to be illogical and which they call
_emphatic, complementary, colorative,_ or _musical_: a residue in which
is concealed true language, which escapes that abstract analysis.
Finally, the corollary is that if the concept of language is thus
rectified, the presupposition made for Logic regarding language is not
a _new_ presupposition, but is identical with that already made, when
representations or intuitions were discussed. In truth, language in the
strict sense, as we understand it, is equivalent to expression; and
expression is identical with representation, since it is inconceivable
that there should be a representation, which should not be expressed
in some way, or an expression which should represent nothing, or be
meaningless. The one would fail to be representation, and the other
would not even be expression; that is to say, both must be and are, one
and the same.
[Sidenote: _Intuition and language as presuppositions._]