contradiction is formulated and understood, not in the sense that A is
not B, but in that of A is A only and not also not A, or its opposite;
because, understood in this way, it leads directly to placing the
negative moment outside the positive, not-being outside or opposite
to being, and so, to the absurd conception of reality as motionless
and empty being. In opposition to this degeneration of the principle
of identity and contradiction, another law or principle has been
conceived and made prominent, whose formula is: "A is also not A," or
"everything is self-contradicting." This is a necessary and provident
reaction against the one-sided way in which the preceding principle was
interpreted. But it too brings in its turn the inconvenience of all
reactions, because it seems to rise up against the first law, like an
irreconcilable rival destined to supplant it. In the first formula we
have a duality of principles, which, as has been said, cannot logically
be maintained; in the second, a degeneration in the opposite sense, the
total loss of the criterion of distinction. To the false application
of the principle of identity and contradiction succeeds _the false
application of the dialectic principle._
This false application has also been manifested in a form which could
be called doubly arbitrary; that is to say, when it has attempted to
treat dialectically neither more nor less than empirical and abstract
concepts, whereas in any case it could not be applied to anything
but the pure concepts. The dialectic belongs to opposed categories
(or, rather, it is the thinking of the one category of opposition),
not at all to representative and abstract fictions, which are based
either upon mere representation or upon nothing. As the result of that
arbitrary form, we have seen vegetable opposed to mineral, society
opposed to the family, or even Rome opposed to Greece, and Napoleon
to Rome; or the superficies actually opposed to the line, time to
space, and the number two to the number one. But this error belongs to
another more general error, which we shall deal with in its place, when
discussing philosophism.
[Sidenote: _Errors of the dialectic applied to the relation of the
distincts._]
Here it is important to indicate only that false application of the
dialectic which tends to resolve in itself and so to destroy distinct
concepts, by treating them as opposites. The distinct concepts are
distinct and not opposite; and they cannot be opposite, precisely
because they already have opposition in themselves. Fancy has its
opposite in itself, fanciful passivity, or æsthetic ugliness, and
therefore it is not the opposite of thought, which in its turn has
its opposite in itself, logical passivity, antithought, or the false.
Certainly (as has been said), he who does not make the beautiful
(in so far as he does anything, and he cannot but do something)
effectively produces another value, for example the useful, and he
who does not think, if he does anything, produces another value, the
fanciful for instance, and creates a work of art. But in this way we
issue from those determinations considered in themselves, from the
opposition which is in them and _which constitutes them_; and from the
consideration of effectual opposition we pass to the consideration of
distinction. Considered as real, the opposite cannot be anything but
the distinct; but the opposite is precisely the unreal in the real,
and not a form or grade of reality. It will be said that unless one
distinct concept is opposed to another, it is not clear how there can
be a transition from one to the other. But this is a confusion between
concept and fact, between _ideal_ and therefore eternal moments of the
real and their _existential_ manifestations. Existentially, a poet
does not become a philosopher, save when in his spirit there arises
a contradiction to his poetry, that is to say, when he is no longer
satisfied with the individual and with the individual intuition: in
that moment, he does not pass into but is a philosopher, because
to pass, to be effectual, and to become are synonyms. In the same
way, a poet does not pass from one intuition to another, or from one
work of art to another, save through the formation of an internal
contradiction, owing to which his previous work no longer satisfies
him; and he passes into, that is to say he becomes and truly is,
_another_ poet. Transition is the law of the whole of life; and
therefore it is in all the existential and contingent determinations
of each of these forms. We pass from one verse of a poem to another
because the first verse satisfies, and also does not satisfy. The ideal
moments, on the contrary, do not pass into one another, because they
are eternally in each other, distinct, and one with each other.
[Sidenote: _Its reductio ad absurdum._]
Moreover, the violent application of the dialectic to the distincts,
and their illegitimate distortion into opposites, due to an elevated
but ill-directed tendency to unity, is punished where it sins; that
is to say, in not attaining to that unity to which it aspired. The
connection of distinct is circular, and therefore true unity; the
application of opposites to the forms of the spirit and of reality
would produce, on the contrary, not the circle, which is true infinity,
but the _progressif ad infinitum,_ which is false or bad infinity.
Indeed, if opposition determine the transition from one ideal grade
to the other, from one form to the other, and is the sole character
and supreme law of the real, by what right can a final form be
established, in which that transition should no longer take place?
By what right, for instance, should the spirit, which moves from the
impression or emotion and passes dialectically to the intuition, and
by a new dialectic transition to logical thought, remain calm and
satisfied there? Why (as is the contention of such philosophies)
should the thought of the Absolute or of the Idea be the end of Life?
In obedience to the law of opposition, it would be necessary that
thought, which denies intuition, should be in its turn denied; and the
denial again denied; and so on, to infinity. This negation to infinity
exists, certainly, and it is life itself, seen in representation; but
precisely for this reason we do not escape from this evil infinite
of representation save through the true infinite, which places the
infinite in every moment, the first in the last and the last in
the first, that is to say, places in every moment unity, which is
distinction.
We must, however, recognize that the false application of the dialectic
has had, _per accidens,_ the excellent result of demonstrating the
instability of a crowd of ill-distinguished concepts; as we must take
advantage of the devastation and overturning of secular prejudices
which it has brought about. But that erroneous dialectic has also
promoted the habit of lack of precision in the concepts, and sometimes
encouraged the charlatanism of superficial thinkers; though this too,
_per accidens,_ so far as concerns the initial motive of dialectical
polemic is rich with profound truth.
[Sidenote: _The Improper form of logical principles or laws. The
principle of sufficient reason._]
The form of _law_ given to the concept of the concept has led to this
confusion; for it is an improper form, all saturated with empirical
usage. Given the law of identity and contradiction, and given side by
side with it that of opposition or dialectic, there inevitably arises a
seeming duality; whereas the two laws are nothing but two inopportune
forms of expressing the unique nature of the concept, or, rather, of
reality itself. The peculiar nature of the concept may rather be said
to be expressed in another law or principle, namely that of _sufficient
reason._ This principle is ordinarily used as referring to the concept
of cause, or to the pseudoconcepts, but (both in its peculiar tendency
and in its historical origin) it truly belonged to the concept of end
or reason. That is to say, it was desired to establish that things
cannot be said to be known, when any sort of cause for them is adduced,
but on the contrary, that cause must be adduced, which is also the end,
and which is, therefore, the _sufficient_ reason. But what else does
seeking the sufficient reason of things mean but thinking them in
their truth, conceiving them in their universality, and stating their
concept? This is logical thought, as distinct from representation or
intuition, which offers things but not reasons, individuality but not
universality.
It is not worth while talking about the other so-called logical
principles; because, either they have been already implicitly dealt
with, or they are ineptitudes without any sort of interest.
SECOND SECTION
THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT
I
THE CONCEPT AND VERBAL FORM. THE DEFINITIVE JUDGMENT
[Sidenote: _Relation of the logical with the Æsthetic form._]
With the ascent from the intuition-expression to the concept, and with
the concentration upon it of our attention, we have risen from the
purely imaginative to the purely logical form of the spirit. We must
now, so to speak, begin the descent; or rather consider in greater
detail the position that has been reached, in order to understand it in
all its conditions and circumstances. Were we not to do this, we should
have given a concept of the concept, which would err by abstraction.
[Sidenote: _The concept as expression._]
The concept, to which we have risen from intuition, does not live in
empty space. It does not exist as a mere concept, or as something
abstract. The air it breathes is the intuition itself, from which it
detaches itself, but in whose ambient it continues. If these images
seem unsuitable, or somewhat drawn from the sphere of representations,
we may choose others, such as that, which we used on another occasion,
of the second grade, which, to be second, must rest upon the first,
and, in a certain sense, be the first. The concept does not exist, and
cannot exist, save in the intuitive and expressive forms, or in what is
called language. To think is also to speak; he who does not express, or
does not know how to express his concept, does not possess it: at the
most, he presumes or hopes to possess it. Not only is there never in
reality an unexpressed representation, a pictorial vision unpainted,
or a song unsung; but there is never even a concept which is simply
thought and not also translated into words.
We have previously defended this thesis against the objections which
are wont to be made to it.[1] But in order to recapitulate and thus to
avoid the misunderstandings which might arise from the abbreviating
formulæ which we use, it will be well to repeat that the concept is
not expressed only in the so-called vocal or verbal forms; and if we
mention these more than others, it will be by synecdoche, that is to
say, when we refer to them, we desire to take them as representative
of all the others. Undoubtedly, the affirmation that the concept can
also be expressed in non-verbal form may cause surprise. It will be
said that geometry itself, in so far as it describes geometrical
figures, at the same time employs or implies speech; and we shall be
ironically challenged to attempt to set the _Critique of Pure Reason_
to music or to make a building of Newton's _Natural Philosophy._ But
we must carefully beware of breaking up the unity of the intuitive
spirit, because errors arise and become incorrigible, precisely through
such breaking up. Words, tones, colours, and lines are physical
abstractions, and only by abstraction can they be successfully
separated. In reality, he who looks at a picture with his eyes also
speaks it in words to himself; he who sings an air also has its words
in his spirit; he who builds a palace or a church speaks, sings, and
makes music; he who reads a poem sings, paints, sculptures, constructs.
_The Critique of Pure Reason_ cannot be set to music, because it
already has its music; the _Natural Philosophy_ cannot be built in
stone, because it is already architectonic; in exactly the same way
that the _Transfiguration_ cannot be turned into a symphony in four
movements, or the _Promessi Sposi_ into a series of pictures. Thus the
challenge, if made, would testify to the lack of reflection on the part
of the challengers, for they would confuse physical distinctions with
the real and concrete act of the intuitive spirit.
[Sidenote: _Æsthetic and Æsthetic-logical expressions or expressions of
the concept; propositions and judgments._]
Owing to the incarnation of the concept or logic in expression and
language, language is quite full of logical elements; hence people
are often led astray into affirming (we have already made clear the
erroneousness[2] of this) that language is a logical function. Water
might as well be called wine, because wine has been poured into the
water. But language as language or as simple æsthetic fact is one
thing, and language as expression of logical thought is another, for
in this case, certainly, language remains always language and subject
to the law of language, but is also more than language. If the first
be termed simple expression, _logos seimantikos,_ as Aristotle said,
or _judicium æstheticum sive sensitivum,_ according to the school of
Baumgarten, the second must on the contrary be called affirmation,
_logos apophantikos, judicium logicum_ or _æsthetico-logicum._ To
this same issue we can reduce, if we understand it properly, the
distinction between _proposition_ and _judgment,_ for they are only
distinguishable in so far as it is assumed that the second form is
dominated by the concept, whereas the first is given as free of such
domination.
But we should seek in vain for facts in proof of expressions belonging
to either form, because we cannot furnish them without making the
proviso that we understand them in the meaning of one or other of
the two forms. Taken by themselves, any verbal expressions which we
adduce or can adduce as proofs are indeterminate and therefore of many
meanings. "Love is life" can be the saying of a poet who notes an
impression with which his soul is agitated and marks it with fervour
and solemnity; or it can be, equally, the logical affirmation of
some one philosophizing on the essence of life. "Clear, fresh, and
sweet waters," when uttered by Petrarch, is an æsthetic proposition;
but the same words become a logical judgment when, for example, they
answer the question as to which is the most celebrated love song
of Petrarch, or pseudological when applied by a naturalist to the
substance water. A word no longer has meaning, or--what amounts to the
same thing--has no definite meaning, when it is abstracted from the
circumstances, the implications, the emphasis, and the gesture with
which it has been thought, animated, and pronounced. Nevertheless,
forgetfulness of this elementary hermeneutic canon, by which a word is
a word only on the soil that has produced it and to which it must be
restored, has been in Logic the cause of interminable disputes as to
the logical nature of this or that verbal phrase, separated from the
whole to which it belonged and rendered abstract. It would be much less
equivocal to adduce such poems as _I Sepolcri,_ or the song _A Silvia,_
as documents of æsthetic propositions, and philosophical treatises
(for examples, the _Metaphysics_ or the _Analytics_) as documents of
æsthetic-logical judgments or propositions. But here, too, we should
need to add: "poetry considered as poetry," and "philosophy considered
as philosophy," since it is clear that a poem is prose in the soul of
him who reflects upon it, and prose is poetry in the soul of a writer
vibrating with enthusiasm and emotion in the act of composition. Facts
do not constitute proofs in philosophy, save when they are interpreted
through the medium of philosophy; and then, too, they become mere
_examples,_ which aid in fixing the attention upon what is being
demonstrated.
[Sidenote: _Surpassing of the dualism of thought and language._]
The relation between language and thought, conceived as we have
conceived it, does not admit the criticism that it creates an
insuperable dualism, though that criticism was justly aimed at those
who set the two concepts side by side and parallel with one another.
In that case the sole means that remained of obtaining unity was
to present language as an acoustic fact and declare thought to be
the unique psychic reality, and language the physical side of the
psychophysical nexus. But no one will henceforth wish to repeat the
blasphemy that language (the synonym of fancy and poetry) is nothing
but a physical-acoustic fact and merely adherent to thought. We have in
the two forms, notwithstanding their clear distinction, not parallelism
and dualism, but an organic relation of connection in distinction,--the
first form being implied in the second, the second crystallized into
the first,--precisely in conformity with that rhythmical movement of
the concepts which we have already discussed. And thus, too, when asked
if the _prius_ of Logic be the concept or the judgment, we must reply
that the judgment, understood as an æsthetic proposition, is certainly
a _prius;_ but understood as a logical judgment, it is neither a
_prius_ nor a _posterius_ in relation to the concept, since it is the
concept itself in its effectuality.
[Sidenote: _The logical judgment as definition._]
This pure expression of the concept, which is the logical judgment,
constitutes what is called _definitive judgment_ or _definition._
This, considered on its verbal side, or as the synthesis of thought
and word, does not give rise to any special logical theory in addition
to that which we have already stated, when definition showed itself to
be one with distinction or conceptual thought; nor does it give rise
to any special æsthetic doctrine, since the general doctrine expounded
elsewhere includes this also. The dispute, as to whether the definition
be verbal or real, finds its solution in the relation we have just
established between thought and words; hence definition is verbal
because it is real, and _vice versa._ And as to the other meaning
of the question, whether, that is to say, definition be _nominal_
or _real,_ conventional or corresponding with the truth, that finds
its solution in the distinction between pseudoconcepts and concepts,
the first of which, it is clear, are _defined_ only in a nominalist
or conventional way, because they _are,_ in fact, nominalist and
conventional.
[Sidenote: _The indistinguishability of subject and predicate in the
definition. Unity of essence and existence._]
Greater importance attaches to the other dispute, as to whether the
definitive judgment be analysable into subject, predicate, and copula,
whether, for example, the definition: "the will is the practical
form of the spirit," can be resolved in the terms: "will" (subject),
"practical form of the spirit" (predicate), and "is" (copula). Now,
the difference between subject and predicate is here illusory, since
predicate means the universal which is predicated of an individual, and
here both the so-called subject and the so-called predicate are two
universals, and the second, far from being more ample than the first,
is the first itself. As to the "is," since the two distinct terms which
should be copulated are wanting, it is not a copula; nor has it even
the value of a predicate, as in the case in which it is asserted of an
individual fact that it is, that is to say, that it has really happened
and is _existing._ The "is," in the case of the definition, expresses
nothing except simply the act of thought which thinks; and what is
thought is, in so far as it is thought; if it were not, it would not be
thought; and if it were not thought, it would not be. The concept gives
the essence of things, and in the concept _essence involves existence._
That this proposition has sometimes been contested is due solely to
the confusion between the essence, which is existence and therefore
concept, and the existence which is not essence and therefore
is representation. It is due therefore to the problem to which
representations gave rise in this respect, and with which we shall
deal further on. Freed from this confusion, the proposition is not
contestable, and is the very basis of all logical thought, of which we
have to examine the conceivability, or essence, that is, its internal
necessity and coherence; and when this has been established, existence
has also been established. If the concept of _virtue_ be conceivable,
virtue is; if the concept of _God_ be conceivable, God is. To the most
perfect concept the perfection of existence cannot be wanting without
being _itself_ non-existent.
[Sidenote: _Alleged emptiness of the definition._]
Yet it would seem that though the definition affirms both essence
and existence, and therefore the reality of the concept, it is,
nevertheless, an empty form; for we have recognized that in every
definition subject and predicate are the same, and it is therefore a
tautological judgment. Certainly, the definition is tautological, but
it is a sublime tautology, altogether different from the emptiness
which is usually condemned in that expression. The tautology of the
definition means that the concept is equal only to itself and cannot be
resolved into another or explained by another. In the definition truth
_praesentia patet,_ and if the Goddess does not reveal herself by her
simple presence, it is in vain that the priest will strive to discover
her to the multitude by comparing her with what is inferior to her:
with sensible things, which are particular manifestations of her.
[Sidenote: _Critique of the definition as fixed verbal form._]
As in relation to the concept the definition is not to be held
distinguishable, so in its expressive or verbal aspect it must not be
understood as a formula separate from the basis of the discourse, as
though it were the official garb of truth, the only worthy setting
for that gem. Such a conception of its nature has caused _pedantry of
definition, hatred_ of and consequent rebellion _against definitions._
That pedantry, however, like all pedantries, had some good in it; that
is to say, it energetically affirmed the need for exactitude; and too
frequently the rebellion, denying, like all rebellions, not only the
evil but also whatever good there might be in the thing opposed, has,
through its hatred of formulæ, made exactitude of thought a negligible
matter. But definition, taken verbally, is not a formula, a period
or part of a book or discourse; it is the whole book or the whole
discourse, from the first word to the last, including all that in it
may seem accidental or superficial, including even the accent, the
warmth, the emphasis, and the gesture of the living word, the notes,
the parentheses, the full stops, and commas of the writing. Nor can we
indicate a special literary form of definition, such as _the treatise
or system or manual,_ because the definition or concept is given alike
in opuscules and in dialogues, in prose and in verse, in satire and
in lyric, in comedy and in tragedy. To define, from the verbal point
of view, means to express the concept; and all the expressions of the
concept are definitions. This might trouble rhetoricians desirous of
devoting a special chapter to the form of scientific treatment; but it
does not trouble good sense, which quickly recognizes that the thing
is just so, and that an epigram may give that precise and efficacious
definition in which the ample scholastic volume of a professor
sometimes fails, although full of pretence in this respect.
[Footnote 1: See _Æsthetic,_ part i. chap. iii.]
[Footnote 2: See Sect. I. Chap. III.]
II
THE CONCEPT AND THE VERBAL FORM, THE SYLLOGISM
[Sidenote: _Identity of definition and syllogism._]
The definition not only is not a formula separable or distinguishable
from the thread of the discourse, but it cannot even be separated or
distinguished from the ratiocinative forms or forms of demonstration,
as is implied in the custom of logicians, who make the doctrine of the
definition or of the _systematic_ forms, as they usually call them,
follow that of the forms of demonstration. They ingenuously imagine
that thought, after having had a rough-and-tumble with its adversaries,
and after having proclaimed, shouted, and finally vindicated its own
right, mounts the rostrum and henceforth calm and sure of itself begins
to define. But, in reality, to think is to combat continuously without
any repose; and at every moment of that battle there is always peace
and security; and definition is indistinguishable from demonstration,
because it is found at every instant of the demonstration and
coincides with it. _Definition and Syllogism_ are the same thing.
[Sidenote: _Connection of concepts and thought of the concept._]