Chapter I

IDENTITY OF THE JUDGMENT OF DEFINITION (PURE CONCEPT) AND OF THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT

[Sidenote: _Result of preceding enquiry: the judgment of definition and the individual judgment._]

The descent, as we have called it, from the pure concept to the intuition, or the examination of the relations which are established between the concept and the intuitions, when we have attained the first, and of the ensuing transformations, to which the second are subject, might at first sight seem complete. The concept, which was first contemplated in abstraction, has been demonstrated in a more concrete manner, in so far as it takes the form of language and exists as the judgment of definition. Further, we have shown how, when thus concretely possessed, it reacts upon the intuitions from which it was formed, or how it is applied to them, as it is called, giving rise to the individual or perceptive judgment. The transition from the intuitions to the concept, and so to the expression of the concept or the judgment of definition, and from this to the individual judgment, has been followed and demonstrated in its logical necessity. Thus the two distinct forms are also united, the first being the presupposition and base of the second, so that the connection seems at first sight to be perfect. The judgment of definition is not an individual judgment; but the individual judgment implies a previous judgment of definition. To think the concept of man does not mean that the man Peter exists. But if we affirm that the man Peter exists, we must first have affirmed that the concept of man exists, or is thought.

[Sidenote: _Distinction between the two: truth of reason and truth of fact, necessary and contingent, etc., formal and material._]

The distinction between the two forms, the judgment of definition and the individual judgment, is universally recognized. Not only can it be found, as has already been noted, in at least one of the significations which have been attached to the two classes of judgments, analytic and synthetic, but it is even more clearly expressed in the well-known distinction between _truth of reason_ and _truth of fact,_ between _necessary truths_ and _contingent_ truths, between truths _a priori_ and truths _a posteriori,_ between what is _logically_ and what is _historically_ affirmed. Indeed, it is only on the basis of this distinction that it seems possible to give any content to the logical doctrine, which recognizes the possibility of propositions true _in form_ and false _in fact._ This doctrine, as usually stated, is altogether untenable. It is impossible, above all, to maintain that formal truth can be distinguished from effective truth, always assuming that "form" is understood in its philosophical sense and not in that of formalist Logic, where it indicates an arbitrarily fixed externality, which, as such, is neither true nor false. It is therefore impossible to maintain that one and the same proposition can be true in one respect and false in another; for a proposition can be judged only from one point of view, which is that of its unique signification and value. But it is clear that once we admit the distinction between truth of reason and truth of fact, affirmations of both kinds might be found incorporated in the same verbal proposition, one of them false and the other true. For example, that the saying of Cambronne, "The Guard dies and never surrenders," is a "sublime saying" is formally (rationally) true, but it is materially (as fact) false, because Cambronne did not utter those words. On the other hand, that the _Assedio di Fiorenze_ of Guerrazzi is "a very beautiful book, because it inflamed many youthful bosoms with love of country," is materially (as fact) true, but it is formally (rationally) false, because the fact of its having produced such an effect is not proof of the beauty of a book, since beauty does not consist of practical efficacy.

[Sidenote: _Absurdities arising from these distinctions; the individual judgment as ultralogical._]

Yet, notwithstanding the apparently glaring distinction between the judgment of definition and the individual judgment, between truth of reason and truth of fact; notwithstanding its secular celebrity and its confirmation by universal agreement and common usage, this distinction meets with a very grave difficulty. In order to understand it, we must, above all, establish clearly what we have just stated in positing that distinction and in making the individual judgment or truth of fact _follow_ the judgment of definition or truth of reason. We have already posited a distinction of this kind between intuition and concept, and have noted that we have thus distinguished two fundamental forms of the Spirit: the representative or fantastic form, and the logical. Now, in positing as distinct the judgment of definition and the individual judgment, do we mean to do something analogous? Do we mean to distinguish the logical form (concept or definition) from another form, no longer logical, although containing the logical form in itself as overcome and subordinate, in the same way that the concept contains in itself the intuition? In other words, is the individual judgment something _ultralogical_? It can certainly be asserted that it is not mere definition; but can it be asserted that it is not logical? The words used should not lead to misconception. If in the individual judgment the subject be a representation, it is also true that this representation is not found there as it would be found in æsthetic contemplation, but as subject of a judgment, and therefore not as a representation pure and simple, but as a representation thought, or made logical. Hegel has several times remarked that whoever doubts the unity of individual and universal can never have paid attention to the judgments which he utters at every instant. In these, by means of the copula, he resolutely affirms that Peter _is_ a man, or that the individual (the subject) _is_ the universal (predicate); not something different, not a piece or fragment, but just that, the universal. Further, are not truths of fact also truths of reason? Would it not be irrational to think that a fact was not the fact it had been? The existence of Cæsar and of Napoleon is not less _rational_ than that of quality and of becoming. And are not both kinds of facts equally necessary--those called contingent not less than those called necessary? We are right to laugh at those who like to think that things could have happened otherwise than they have happened. Cæsar and Napoleon are as necessary as quality and becoming.

[Sidenote: _or duality of logical forms._]

It follows from these considerations (which could be easily multiplied) that the individual judgment is not less logical than that of definition. Truths of fact, contingent and _a posteriori,_ are not less logical than those of reason, necessary and _a priori._ But if this be so, the distinction between the two forms would not be a distinction between forms of the spirit, but a subdistinction within the logical form of the spirit: a subdistinction of which we have already denied the possibility. For it is not clear how a logical thought, or thought of the universal, can be _two_ thinkings, one in one way, one in another: one universal of the universal, the other universal of the individual. Either the first is void, or the second is improper. Intuition and concept are distinguished as individual from universal; but that universal should be distinguished from universal by the introduction of individuality as element of differentiation is inconceivable.

[Sidenote: _Difficulty of abandoning the distinction._]

The difficulty becomes greater from the equal inconceivability and impossibility of abandoning the result reached above, by which the individual judgment was shown to be possible only by means of a concept or judgment of definition. Every attempt that may be made to cancel that presupposition and to reconceive the individual or perceptive judgment as preceding the concept and being altogether without logical character, a mere assertion of fact, unenlightened by universality, must be considered, for the reasons we have given, to be entirely vain. If we cannot admit a duality of logical forms, still less can we admit that an alogical character, below the level of logic altogether, attaches to the individual judgment.

[Sidenote: _The hypothesis of reciprocal implication and so of the identity of the two forms._]

There seems to be but one way out of such a difficulty: namely, to preserve the result attained, that is to say, the necessity of the judgment of definition as the presupposition of the individual judgment, but to affirm at the same time the necessity of the individual judgment as the presupposition of the judgment of definition. Admitting this supposition by way of hypothesis, let us see what it would mean and what effect it would have in the discussion. Since the one judgment presupposes the other, and this presupposition is reciprocal, we could no longer talk of distinction between the two, but of unity pure and simple, of _identity,_ in which distinction could arise only by abstraction and the arbitrary act of dividing what cannot exist save as indivisible. But, on the other hand, the distinction, although abstract, would always retain its value as a didactic means of making clear the true nature of the logical act. Thus we should justify our first proceeding to develop the concept and the judgment of definition and then the individual judgment, and also the reservation that we have always made as to the provisional nature of such distinction, and thus also the new question as to the unity of the act, put and answered in the way proposed. All the difficulties arising from the appearance of a duality of logical forms would disappear. Definitions and individual judgments, truth of reason and truth of fact, necessity and contingency, _a priori_ and _a posteriori,_ would be revealed as one act and one truth. And we should also be justified in talking of them as distinct acts, for in expressing that single truth and single judgment verbally or in literature, we can attach greater importance now to the definition, and now to the statement of fact; now to the subject, and now to the predicate.

[Sidenote: _Objection: the lack of an historical and representative element in definitions._]

This path, which would offer such advantages and would constitute a true way out of the difficulty, seems, however, to be closed to us by the fact that in definitions there is no trace whatever of individual judgments which, on this hypothesis, would have to be contained within and be one with them. If we say "the will is the practical form of the spirit," or "virtue is the habit of moral actions," where is to be found in such statements the individual judgment and the representative element? We find in them without doubt the verbal form, expressive and representative, which is necessary to the concept for its concrete existence; but we do not find the statement of fact of which we are in search. Thus the proposed hypothesis will prove very ingenious and rich with all the advantages that we have stated; but since it does not appear to be confirmed by facts, we must, it seems, reject it, even at the risk of having to think out a better one, or, if we fail in this, of renouncing as desperate the attempt at a solution.

[Sidenote: _The historical element in definitions, taken in their concreteness._]

We must not, however, be in a hurry, but rather carefully recall the observation just made incidentally: that the verbal or literary form can throw into _relief_ a moment of the judgment, while casting a shadow over the other and causing it to be forgotten, without thereby ever being able to suppress it. There seemed, we remember, to be no trace of concepts in perceptive judgments or judgments of fact, and especially in those forms of them which are called merely existential and in those called impersonal. Yet there can be no doubt that none of those judgments is ever possible without the concept as basis. An analysis which does not allow itself to be arrested by appearances and examines verbal forms as regards both what they express and what they leave to be understood (though this too is expressed in its own way) has discovered it. Similarly a definition does not exist in the air, as might appear from the examples given in treatises, in which the _where_ and the _when_ and the _individual_ and the _actual circumstances_ in which the definition has been given are omitted. In a definition thus presented, it would certainly be impossible to discover a representative element and an individual judgment. But the reason for this is that it has been mutilated and made abstract and indeterminate, to such an extent that it can be made determinate only by the meaning which he to whom it is communicated likes to attach to it. If, on the contrary, we look at the definition in its concrete reality, we shall _always_ find in it when we examine it with care the _representative element_ and the _individual judgment._

[Sidenote: _The definition as answer to a question and solution of a problem._]

For every definition is the answer to a question, the solution of a problem. Did we not ask questions and set problems, there would be no occasion for giving any definition. Why should we give them? What need could there be? The definition is an act of the spirit and every act of the spirit is conditioned. Without contradiction, there can be no agreement; without the shock of multiplicity there can be no unity; without the travail of doubt that calls for peace, there can be no affirmation of the true. Not only does the answer presuppose the question; but every answer implies a certain question. The answer must be in harmony with the question; otherwise, it would not be an answer, but the avoiding of an answer. In reply to a question of a certain kind, we should turn our deaf ear, as the saying is, or reply with a blow. This means that the nature of the question colours the answer and that a definition taken in its concreteness is determined by the problem which gives it rise. The definition varies with the problem.

[Sidenote: _Individual and historical conditionedness of every question and problem._]

But the question, the problem, the doubt is always individually conditioned. The doubt of the child is not that of the adult, the doubt of the uncultured man is not that of the man of culture, or the doubt of the novice that of the learned. Further, the doubt of an Italian is not that of a German, and the doubt of a German of the year 1800 is not that of a German of the year 1900. Indeed, the doubt formulated by an individual in a given moment, is not that formulated by the same individual a moment after. It is sometimes said by way of simplification, that the same question has been put by very many men, in various countries and at various times. But in the very act of saying this, we simplify. In reality, every question differs from every other question. Every definition, though it may seem to be the same and bounded with certain definite words, which seem to remain unchanged and constant, differs in reality from every other, because the words, even when they seem to be materially the same, are in effect different, according to the spiritual differences of those who pronounce them. Each of these is an individual, and on that account each finds himself in circumstances that are individually determined. "Virtue is the habit of moral actions," is a formula which can be pronounced a hundred times. But if it be seriously pronounced as a definition of virtue each of those hundred times, it answers to a hundred psychological situations, more or less different, and is in reality not _one,_ but _a hundred_ definitions.

It will be replied that the concept remains the same through all these definitions, like a man who changes his clothes a hundred times. But (setting aside the fact that even the man who changes his clothes a hundred times does not remain the same) the truth is that the relation between concept and definition is not the same as that between a man and his clothes. No concept exists save in so far as it is thought and enclosed in words, or in so far as it is defined. If the definitions vary, the concept itself varies. There are, certainly, variations of the concept, of that which is, _par excellence,_ self-identical. These are the life of the concept, not of the representation. But the concept does not exist outside its life, and every thinking of it is a phase of this life, never its overcoming, since however far we go, it is never possible to swim outside water, or however high we climb, to fly outside air.

[Sidenote: _The definition as also historical judgment. Unity of truths of reason and of fact._]

If we posit individual or historical conditions for every thinking of the concept, or of every definition (conditions which constitute the doubt, the problem, the question, to which the definition replies), we must admit that the definition, which contains the answer and affirms the concept, at the same time illumines by so doing those individual and historical conditions, that group of facts, from which it comes. It illumines, that is to say, qualifies it as what it is, grasps it as subject by giving it a predicate, and judges it. And since the fact is always individual, it forms an individual judgment. This means just that every definition is also an individual judgment. And this agrees with the hypothesis we framed: it is the assumption that seemed doubtful and now is proved. Truth of reason and truth of fact, analytic and synthetic judgments, judgments of definition and individual judgments, do not exist as distinct from one another: they are abstractions. The logical act is unique: it is the identity of definition and of individual judgment, the thinking of the pure concept.

[Sidenote: _Considerations confirming this._]

Such a theory as this, although it goes against the ordinary way of thinking (though this, in its turn, suffers from its own contradictions), can be made convincing even to ordinary thought, when it is led to reflect upon what is implicitly understood in any judgments of definition that are pronounced. For example, definitions have always in view some particular adversary; they change according to time and circumstances, and those definitions that we felt constrained to give, at one stage of our mental development, we abandon at another, not because we judge them to be erroneous, but because they seem to us to be inopportune or commonplace. These and other facts, easy to observe, would not be possible, unless judgment of definite situations intervened to produce the change. And this judgment, though we may try to think of it as preceding or as following each one of those acts of definition, in reality neither precedes nor follows them, but on the contrary presents itself to the mind as contemporaneous, or rather coincident and identical with the act of definition. Every one who attains to a conceptual truth, every one, for instance, who achieves a definite doctrine of art or of morality, is immediately aware in himself that henceforth he knows more adequately not only the kingdom of ideas but also the kingdom of things. He realizes that as soon as an idea becomes more clear _ipso facto_ it makes clearer the things out of whose vortex and tumult it comes. The star-gazer who forgets the earth, will be an astronomer, but certainly not a philosopher. In the act of thought, in the world of ideas, earth and sky are fused in one. Whoever looks well at the sky sees in it (miraculously!) the earth.

For the rest, the identity of definition and individual judgment, which we have demonstrated by various processes that are usually called negative, hypothetical, or inductive and based upon observation, is also confirmed by the process called deductive. For if the thinking of the concept be a degree superior to pure representation, and if in the degrees of the spirit the superior contain in itself the inferior, it is evident that representation as well as conceptual elements must always be found in the concept. But it is also evident that we can never find them distinct or distinguishable, but mingled in such a way that every distinction in them must be introduced solely by a deliberate act. The logical act is certainly spoken, represented, individualized. But when it is split up into concept and individual judgment, one of two things must happen: either we make an empirical and external distinction, of more or less; or two monstrosities are asserted: a non-individualized concept, which therefore does not exist, and a judgment not thought, and therefore non-existent as judgment, and existing, at the most, as pure intuition.

[Sidenote: _Critique of the false distinction between formal and material truths._]

As our distinction between definitions and individual judgments was provisional, so also we must regard the consequence that we showed to issue from it--the partial justification of the doctrine of affirmations formally (logically) true and materially (individually) false. In reality, an error of fact implies a more or less inaccurate and erroneous definition, and an error of definition implies an error of fact. Thus this distinction also retains only an empirical meaning useful for the rough distinction of certain classes of errors from certain others. And resuming another previous observation, we must also say that, strictly speaking, it must be held impossible to err as to facts through the use of pure concepts, since the penetration of concepts, however great one may think it, is also always penetration of facts. This formula, too, cannot have anything but an empirical meaning, to indicate a certain type of errors of concept and of fact, which is popularly called the use of concepts and the use of facts, whereas it is the abuse of both.

[Sidenote: _Platonic and Aristotelian men._]

In ordinary life it is customary to distinguish between those who cultivate ideas and those who cultivate facts, between _Platonic_ and _Aristotelian_ men. But if the Platonists seriously cultivate ideas, they cultivate facts and are also Aristotelians, and the Aristotelians cultivate ideas and are Platonists. Here, too, the difference is practical and extrinsic, not substantial; so much so that we are often astonished both at the singular clear-sightedness and penetration of the actual situation manifested by cultivators of ideas, and at the profound philosophy which we discover in the pretended cultivators of facts.

[Sidenote: _Theory of the application of the concepts, true for abstract concepts and false for pure concepts._]

Hence the further consequence, that we must avoid the formula which speaks of the _application_ of concepts, as, for instance, that in the individual judgment the concept is applied to the intuition. To say this, is, as a saying, innocuous, since like many others, it is metaphorical; but the doctrine implied in it, or that may be suggested by it (and that is indeed rarely separated from it), is altogether erroneous. The concept is not applied to the intuition, because it does not exist, even for a moment, outside of the intuition, and the judgment is a _primitive act_ of the spirit, it is the logical spirit itself. If that formula has been successful, the reason for its success must usually be sought in the theory of the pseudoconcepts. Even these, in relation to the question which engages us now, and in so far as they are empirical concepts, are indistinguishable from individual pseudojudgments. To construct an empirical concept is equivalent to pronouncing that the objects _a, b, c, d,_ etc., belong to a definite class. The two acts of the construction of the class and of effectual classification are only to be distinguished in an abstract manner. In conformity with this, we must now correct the theory that we have given above. But on the other hand, in so far as they are abstract concepts, they are void of all representative content, and therefore constituted outside of every individual judgment. They cannot of themselves give rise to such judgments. Before they can be united to them, we must _apply them_ to individual judgments, elaborated into pseudojudgments, or made homogeneous by the process of classification. And in truth, 'not only the doctrine of application, but also the distinctions between analytic and synthetic judgments, between definitions and perceptions, between truths of reason and of fact, between necessity and contingency, find their confirmation in being referred to abstract concepts, as distinct from empirical. The same may be also said of the other doctrine, which distinguishes between affirmations that are formally true and materially false. Two griffins plus three griffins make five griffins. This is formally true, since it is true that two plus three equals five; but it is materially false, because griffins do not exist. Numbers and their laws would, for example, be truths of reason, necessary, _a priori,_ in analytical judgments and pure definitions; truths derived from experience would be truths of fact, contingent, _a posteriori,_ in synthetic and individual judgments. But though this conception may have currency in a field where, properly speaking, there is neither thought nor truth, in the field of truth and of thought the terms of both series are found in the corresponding terms of the other. Analysis apart from synthesis is as unthinkable as synthesis apart from analysis. In the same way we can empirically distinguish intention and action in the practical spirit. But in reality pure intention outside effectual action, is not even intention, because it is nothing. And an action beyond and without intention is nothing, for practical reality is the identity of intention and action. Here, too, theoretical spirit and practical spirit correspond at every point.