Chapter V: Preface (5)

Ideas, according to the representational theory of knowledge, proved to be a poor medium for knowing reality in still another respect. They are in their very nature contents that have been reduced from the fulness of experience to mere index-signs. Even though their reference to a fuller content in the objective world of meanings presented no problem, still this objective world of meanings is far removed from reality. And yet, in order to know, we must be able to affirm ideas of reality. On the functional theory of ideas, their value does not rest at all upon their representational nature. They are not taken either in their existence or in their meaning as representations of any other content. They are taken as contents which mark a given function, and their value is determined entirely by the adequacy of the function of which they are the conscious expression. Their content may be as meager as you please. It may have been obtained by a long process of reducing and transforming sensory experience, but if it serve to enable its possessor to meet the situation which called it up with the appropriate act, then it has truth and value in the fullest sense. The reduction of the idea to a mere index-sign presents no problem when we realize that it is the tool of a given function, not the sign for a different and fuller content. The idea thus becomes a commendable economy in the thought-process, rather than a reprehensible departure from reality.

We have already upon general considerations criticised the point of view which holds that ideality consists in reference to another content. In arguing that this reference cannot be primarily to reality itself, but rather to an intermediate world of meanings, Bosanquet cites the question and the negative judgment. In the question ideas are not affirmed of reality, and in negation they are definitely denied of reality, hence their reference cannot be to reality. It must therefore be to an objective world of meanings. It may be worth while to point out in passing that, from the functional point of view, the part played by ideas in the question and in negative judgment is the same that it is in affirmation.

We have brought out the fact that all judgment arises in a doubt. The earliest stage of judgment is accordingly a question. Whether the process stops at that point, or is carried on to an affirmation or negation, depends upon the particular conditions. The ideas which appear in questions present no other problem than those of affirmation. They are ideas, not by virtue of their reference to another content in the world of meanings, but by virtue of their function, _i. e._, that of constituting that part of the total experience which is taken as doubtful, and hence as in process.

In order to make this point clear with reference to negative judgments, it will be necessary to consider the relation of negative and positive judgments somewhat more in detail. All judgment is in its earliest stages a question, but a question is never _mere_ question. There are always present some suggestions of an answer, which make the process really a disjunctive judgment. A question might be defined as a disjunctive judgment in which one member of the disjunction is expressed and the others implied. If the process goes on to take the form of affirmation or negation, one of the suggested answers is selected. To follow out the illustration of the bread used above, the judgment arises in a doubt as to the nature of the white object perceived, but the doubt never takes the form of a blank question. It at once suggests certain possible solutions drawn from the mass of organized experience at the command of the person judging. At this stage the judgment is disjunctive. In the illustration it would probably take the form: "This is either bread or cake." The further course of the judgment rejects the cake alternative, and selects the bread, and the final outcome of the judgment is formulated in the proposition: "This is bread." But how did it happen that it did not take the form: "This is not cake"? That proposition is also involved in the outcome, and implied in the judgment made. The answer is that the form taken by the final outcome depends entirely on the direction of interest of the person making the judgment. If his interest happened to lie in obtaining bread, then the outcome would naturally take the form: "This is bread," and his act would consist in eating it. If he happened to want cake, the natural form would be, "This is not cake," and his act would consist in refraining from eating. In other words, the question as to whether a judgment turns out to be negative or positive is a question of whether the stress of interest happens to fall on the selected or on the rejected portions of the original disjunction. Every determination of a subject through a predicate includes both. The selection of one or the other according to interest affects the final formulation of the process, but does not change the relations of its various phases. An idea in a negative judgment is just what it is in a positive judgment. In neither case is it constituted an idea by reference to some other content.

So far we have outlined Bosanquet's theory of the judgment; have noted the apparently insoluble problems inherent in his system, and have sketched a radically different theory which offered a possible solution for his difficulties. It now remains to develop the implications of the new theory further by comparing its application to some of the more important problems of logic with that of Bosanquet. In closing we shall have to inquire to what extent the new theory of the judgment with its metaphysical implications has proved more satisfactory than that of Bosanquet.

The special problems to be considered are (1) the relation of judgment to inference; (2) the parts of the judgment and their relationship; (3) the time element in the judgment; and (4) the way in which one judgment can be separated from another.

1. The discussion of the relation between judgment and inference comes up incidentally in Bosanquet's treatment of the distinction between a judgment and a proposition (p. 79). The proposition, he says, is merely the enunciative sentence which represents the act of thought called judgment. With this distinction we should agree. In his discussion of the point, however, he criticises Hegel's doctrine that a judgment is distinguished from a proposition in that a judgment maintains itself against a doubt, while a proposition is a mere temporal affirmation, not implying the presence of a doubt. The ground of his criticism is that judgment must be regarded as operative before the existence of a conscious doubt, and that, while it is true, as Hegel suggests, that judgment and inference begin together, they both begin farther back than the point at which conscious doubt arises. Doubt marks the point at which inference becomes conscious of its ground. Now, it is undoubted that inferences in which the ground is implicit exist at an earlier stage of experience than those in which it is explicit. The former we usually call simple apprehension, and the latter judgment. What Bosanquet wishes to do is to make the term "judgment" cover both the implicit and the explicit activities. The question at once arises whether such a use of terms is accurate. There is certainly a wide difference between an inference which is conscious of its ground, and one which is not. It is conceivably a distinction of philosophic importance. To slur the difference by applying one name to both accomplishes nothing. It will be remembered that the presence of a conscious doubt is the criterion of judgment adopted in the standpoint from which we have been criticising Bosanquet's theory. We should accordingly make the term "inference" a wider one than the term "judgment." A judgment is an inference which is conscious of its ground. Since fact and idea have been represented as constituted in and through judgment, the question which at once suggests itself is: What, from such a standpoint, is the criterion of fact and idea in the stage of experience previous to the appearance of judgment? The answer is that the question involves the psychological fallacy. There is no such distinction as fact and idea in experience previous to the appearance of judgment. The distinction between fact and idea arises only at the higher level of experience at which inference becomes conscious of its grounds. To ask what they were previous to that is to ask _what_ they were before they _were_--a question which, of course, cannot be answered.

Our reason for not adopting Hegel's distinction between a judgment and a proposition would accordingly not be the same as Bosanquet's. The question has already been touched upon in the distinction between dead and live judgments. What Hegel calls a proposition is really nothing but a dead judgment. His illustration of a temporal affirmation is the sentence: "A carriage is passing the house." That sentence would be a judgment, he says, only in case there were some doubt as to whether or not a carriage was passing. But the question to be answered first is: When would such a "statement" occur in the course of our experience? It is impossible to conceive of any circumstances in which it would naturally occur, unless there were some doubt to be solved either of our own or of another. Perhaps one is expecting a friend, and does not know at first whether it is a carriage or a cart which is passing. Perhaps some one has been startled, and asks: "What is this noise?" What Hegel wishes to call a proposition is, accordingly, nothing but a judgment taken out of its setting.

2. In dealing with the traditional three parts of the judgment--subject, predicate, and copula--Bosanquet disposes of the copula at once, by dividing the judgment into subject and predication. But the two terms "subject" and "predication" are not co-ordinate. Subject, as he uses it, is a static term indicating a _content_. Predication is a dynamic term indicating the act of predicating. It implies something which is predicated of something else, _i. e._, two contents and the act of bringing them into relation. Now, if what we understand by the copula is the _act_ of predicating abstracted from the content which is predicated of another content, then it does not dispose of the copula as a separate factor in judgment to include thing predicated and act of predicating under the single term "predication." The term "predication" might just as reasonably be made to absorb the subject as well, and would then appear--as it really is--synonymous with the term "judgment."

But Bosanquet's difficulties with the parts of the judgment are not disposed of even by the reduction to subject and predication. He goes on to say:

It is plain that the judgment, however complex, is a single idea.
The relations within it are not relations between ideas, but are
themselves a part of the idea which is predicated. In other words,
the subject must be outside the judgment in order that the content
of the judgment may be predicated of it. If not, we fall back into
"my idea of the earth goes round my idea of the sun," and this, as
we have seen, is never the meaning of "The earth goes round the
sun." What we want is, "The real world has in it as a fact what I
mean by earth-going-round-sun." (P. 81.)

We have already pointed out the difficulties into which Bosanquet's presupposition as to the nature of reality plunges him. This is but another technical statement of the same problem. If the subject is really outside of judgment, then the entire _content_ of the judgment must fall on the side of predicate, or idea. In the paragraphs that follow, Bosanquet brings out the point that the judgment must nevertheless contain the distinction of subject and predicate, since it is impossible to affirm without introducing a distinction into the _content_ of the affirmation. Yet he considers this distinction to be _merely_ a difference within an identity. It serves to mark off the grammatical subject and predicate, but cannot be the essential distinction of subject and predicate. His solution of the puzzle is really the one for which we have been contending, _i. e._, that "the real world is primarily and emphatically my world," but he still cannot be satisfied with that kind of a real world as ultimate. Behind the subject which presents my world he postulates a real world which is not my world, but which my world represents. It is the relation between this real world and the total content of a judgment which he considers the essential relation of judgment. This leaves him--as we have pointed out--as far as ever from a theory of the relation of thought to reality, and, moreover, with no criterion for the distinction of subject and predicate within the judgment. To say that it is a difference within an identity does not explain how, on a mere basis of content, such a difference is distinguished within an identity or how it assumes the importance it actually has. He vibrates between taking the whole intellectual content as predicate, the reality to be represented as subject (in which case the copula would be the "contact of sense-perception") and a distinction appearing without reasonable ground or bearing _within_ the intellectual content. When subject and predicate are regarded as the contents in which phases of a function appear, this difficulty no longer exists.

3. In discussing the time relations within judgment (p. 85) Bosanquet first disposes of the view which holds that the subject is prior to the predicate in time, and is distinguished from the predicate by its priority. He emphasizes the fact that no content of consciousness can have the significance of a subject, except with reference to something already referred to it as predicate. But while it cannot be true that the parts of the judgment fall outside of one another in time, it is yet evident that in one sense at least the judgment is in time. To make this clear, Bosanquet draws a provisional distinction between the process of arriving at a judgment and the completed judgment. The process of arriving at a judgment is a process of passing from a subject with an indefinite provisional predicate--a sort of disjunctive judgment--to a subject with a defined predicate. This process is evidently in time, but it is as evidently not a transition from subject to predicate. It is, as he says, a modification, _pari passu_, of both subject and predicate. The same distinction, he thinks, must hold of the judgment when completed. But this throws us into a dilemma with reference to the time-factor in judgment. Time either is or is not an essential factor in judgment. If it is not essential, then how explain the evident fact that the judgment as an intellectual process does have duration? If it is essential, then how explain the fact that its parts do not fall outside one another in time? Bosanquet evidently regards the former problem as the easier of the two. His solution is that, while the judgment is an intellectual process in time, still this is a purely external aspect. The essential relation between subject and predicate is not in time, since they are coexistent; therefore time is not an essential element in judgment.

The first point at which we take issue with this treatment of time in relation to judgment is in the distinction between the process of arriving at the judgment and the completed judgment. Bosanquet himself defines judgment as an intellectual act by which an ideal content is referred to reality. Now, at what point does this act begin? Certainly at the point where an ideal content is first applying to reality, and this, as he points out, is at the beginning of the process which he describes as the process of arriving at a judgment. It is nothing to the point that at this stage the predicate is tentative, while later it becomes defined. His process of arriving at the judgment is exactly the process we have been describing as the early stages of any and every judgment. When he talks about the judgment as completed, he has apparently shifted from the dynamic view of judgment implied in his definition to a static view. All he could mean by a completed judgment--in distinction to the total activity of arriving at a judgment--is the new content of which we find ourselves possessed when the total process of predication is complete. But this content is not a judgment at all. It is a new construction of reality which may serve either as subject or as predicate in future judgments.

Now, if we regard the judgment as the total activity by which an ideal content is referred to reality, then must we not regard time as an essential element? Bosanquet answers this question in the negative, because he believes that if time is an essential element, then the parts of the judgment must necessarily fall outside one another in time. But is this necessary? If the essence of judgment is the very modification, _pari passu_, of subject and predicate, then time must be an essential element in it, but it is not at all necessary that its elements should fall outside of one another in time. In other words, the dilemma which Bosanquet points out on p. 87 is not a genuine one. There is no difficulty involved in admitting that the judgment is a transition in time, and still holding that its _parts_ do not fall outside _one another_ in time. His own solution of the problem--_i. e._, that, although judgment is an intellectual process in time, still time is not an essential feature of it, because subject and predicate are coexistent and judgment is a relation between them--involves a desertion of his dynamic view of judgment. He defines judgment, not as a relation between subject and predicate, but as an intellectual _act_.[53]

4. The discussion of the time-element in judgment leads up to the next puzzle--that as to the way in which one judgment can be marked off from another in the total activity of thought. Bosanquet has pointed out that subject and predicate are both of them present at every stage of the judging process, and are undergoing progressive modification. If, therefore, we take a cross-section of the process at any point, we find both subject and predicate present; but a cross-section at one point would not reveal quite the same subject and predicate as the cross-section at another point. He comes to the conclusion that judgment breaks up into judgments as rhomboidal spar into rhomboids (p. 88). It is, accordingly, quite arbitrary to mark out any limits for a single judgment. The illustration he gives of the point is as follows:

Take such an every-day judgment of mixed perception and inference
as, "He is coming down stairs and going into the street." It is
the merest chance whether I break up the process thus, into two
judgments as united by a mere conjunction, or, knowing the man's
habits, say, when I hear him half way down stairs, "He is going
out." In the latter case I summarize a more various set of
observations and inferences in a single judgment; but the judgment
is as truly single as each of the two which were before separated
by a conjunction; for each of them was also a summary of a set of
perceptions, which might, had I chosen, have been subdivided into
distinct propositions expressing separate judgments; _e. g._, "He
has opened his door, and is going toward the staircase, and is
half way down, and is in the passage," etc. If I simply say, "He
is going out," I am not a whit the less conscious that I judge all
these different relations, but I then include them all in a single
systematic content "going out." (P. 89.)

But is it a question of merest chance which of these various possibilities is actualized? Is Bosanquet really looking--as he thinks--at the actual life of thought, or is he considering, not what as a matter of fact does take place under a concrete set of circumstances, but what might take place under slightly differing sets of circumstances? If it is true that judgment is a crisis developing through adequate interaction of stimulus and response into a definite situation, beginning with doubt and ending with a solution of the doubt, then it is not true that its limits are purely arbitrary. It begins with the appearance of the problem and its tentative solutions, and ends with the solution of a final response. It does, of course, depend upon momentary interest, but this does not make its limits arbitrary, for the interest is inherent, not external. In the case of Bosanquet's illustration, the question of whether one judgment or half a dozen is made is not a question of merest chance. It depends upon where the interest of the person making the judgment is centered--in other words, upon what is the particular doubt to be solved. If the real doubt is as to whether the man will stay in his room or go out, then when he is heard leaving his room the solution comes in the form: "He is going out." But if the doubt is as to whether he will stay in his room, go out, or go into some other room, then the succession of judgments occurs, each of which solves a problem. "He has opened his door"--then he is not going to stay in his room; "He is going toward the staircase"--then he is not going into a room in the opposite direction, etc. It is impossible to conceive of such a series of judgments as actually being made, unless each one represents a problematic situation and its determination. The only time that a man would, as a matter of fact, choose to break up the judgment, "He is going out," into such a series, would be the time when each member of the series had its own special interest as representing a specific uncertain aim or problem. Nor is it altogether true that in making the judgment, "He is going out," one is not a whit the less conscious that he judges all these different relations. He judges only such relations as are necessary to the solution of the problem in hand. If hearing the man open his door is a sufficient basis for the solution, then that is the only one which consciously enters into the formation of the judgment.

We have attempted to bring out in the preceding pages what seem to be the contradictions and insoluble problems involved in Bosanquet's theory of the judgment, and to exhibit them as the logical outcome of his metaphysical presuppositions. We have also tried to develop another theory of the judgment involving a different view of the nature of reality, and to show that the new theory is able to avoid the difficulties inherent in Bosanquet's system. The change in view-point briefly is this: Instead of regarding the real world as self-existent, independently of the judgments we make about it, we viewed it as the totality of experience which is assured, _i. e._, determined as to certainty or specific availability, through the instrumentality of judgment. We thus avoided the essentially insoluble problem of how a real world whose content is self-existent quite outside of knowledge can ever be correctly represented by ideas. The difficulty in understanding the relation of the subject and the predicate of judgment to reality disappears when we cease to regard reality as self-existent outside of knowledge. Subject and predicate become instrumentalities in the process of building up reality. Thought no longer seems to carry us farther and farther from reality as ideas become abstract and recede from the immediate sensory experience in which contact with the real occurs. On the contrary, thought carries us constantly toward reality. Finally, we avoid the fundamental skepticism about the possibility of knowledge which, from the other standpoint, is forced upon us by the long succession of facts which have faded into the realm of false opinions, and the lack of any guarantee that our present so-called knowledge of reality shall not meet the same fate. From that point of view, reality seems to be not only unknown, but unknowable.

The criticism sure to be passed upon the alternative view developed is that the solution of Bosanquet's problems which it affords is not a real solution, but rather the abandonment of an attempt at a solution. It represents reality as a thing which is itself in process of development. It would force us to admit that the reality of a hundred years ago, or even of yesterday, was not in content the reality of today. A growing, developing reality is, it will be said, an imperfect reality, while we must conceive of reality as complete and perfect in itself. The only answer which can be made is to insist again that we have no right to assume that reality is such an already completed existence, unless such an assumption enables us to understand experience and organize it into a consistent whole. The attempt of this paper has been to show that such a conception of reality really makes it inherently impossible to give an intelligible account of experience as a whole, while the view which regards reality as developing in and through judgment does enable us to build up a consistent and understandable view of the world. This suggests that the "perfect" may not after all be that which is finished and ended, but that whose reality is so abundant and vital as to issue in continuous self-modification. The Reality that evolves and moves may be more perfect, less finite, than that which has exhausted itself. Moreover, only the view that Reality is developmental in quality, and that the instrument of its development is judgment involving the psychical in its determination of subject and predicate gives the psychical as such any significant place in knowledge or in reality. According to the view of knowledge as representation of an eternal content, the psychical is a mere logical surd.

VI

TYPICAL STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF JUDGMENT

Logic aims at investigating the general function of knowing. But knowing, it is commonly asserted, is constituted as judgment. Furthermore, there is reason to believe that judgment undergoes well-marked changes in its development. Consequently, an understanding of the judgment-function and of its epochs in development is of prime importance. In carrying through the investigation we shall endeavor, first, to state and to defend a certain presupposition with reference to the character of the judgment-function; second, to exhibit the application of this presupposition in the typical stages of judgment.

I

Judgment is essentially _instrumental_. This is the presupposition which we must explain and make good. And we shall accomplish this by way of an analysis of judgment as meaning.

It cannot be denied that what we call knowledge is concerned with the discrimination of valid meaning. To know is to appreciate the _meaning_ of things and the meaning _of things_ is the same with valid meaning. Judging determines knowledge, and in the same act develops meaning. To put it otherwise, knowledge is a matter of _content_; _content_ is _meaning_, and we have knowledge when we have meaning satisfactorily determined. It is evident, therefore, that if we would understand the judging-function, we must first make clear to ourselves the nature and rôle of _meaning_.

Meaning is universally embodied in _ideas_. To know, to understand the meaning, to get ideas, are the same. Now, in ideas two factors may be distinguished. First, every idea has as its base an image or emphasized portion of experience. In some forms of ideation we are more immediately aware of the presence of images than in others, but no idea--even the most abstract--can exist apart from an ultimate base. Second, every idea is equally a function of _reference_ and _control_. As _reference_, the idea projects in the mind's view an anticipation of experiences and of the conditions upon which these experiences depend for their realization; as _control_, ideas are agencies in turning anticipations into realizations.[54]

To be more specific on both points: Since the days of Galton it has been almost a commonplace in psychology that ideas are embodied in forms of imagery which vary for and in different individuals. It has been maintained, it is true, that in abstract forms of thought, imagery disappears. This objection is met in two ways. For one, words--the vehicle of many abstract ideas--involve imagery of a most pronounced type: for another, every idea, when examined closely, discloses an image, no matter how much for the time being this has been driven into obscurity by the characteristics of reference and control. Furthermore, when we examine the anticipatory aspect of ideas, the presence of imagery both with reference to outcome and to conditions is so evident that its presence will scarcely be denied.

The second point may be illustrated in several ways. In everyday life anticipation and realization are inseparable from the nature and use of ideas. "Hat" means anticipation of protection to the head and the tendency toward setting in motion the conditions appropriate to the realization of this anticipation. The same factors are evident in the boy's definition of a knife as "something to whittle with." Again it is maintained that intelligence is an essential factor in human self-consciousness. By this is meant that human beings are universally aware in some degree of what they are about. And this awareness consists in understanding the meaning of their actions, of forecasting the outcome of various kinds of activity, of apprehending beforehand the conditions connected with determinate results. Within this sphere we speak of certain men as being pre-eminently intelligent, meaning that for such men outcomes are previewed and connected with their appropriate conditions far beyond the range of ordinary foresight. Finally, scientific intelligence is essentially of this kind. It aims at understanding the varying types of process which operate in nature and thus at possessing itself of information with reference to results to be expected under determinate conditions. For example, the knowledge acquired in his researches by Louis Pasteur enabled him to predict the life or death of animals inoculated with charbon virus according as they had or had not been vaccinated previously. His information, in other words, became an instrument for the control and eradication of the disease. And what is true of this case is true of all science. To the scientist ideas are "working hypotheses" and have their value only as they enable him to predict, and to control. And while it is true that the scientist usually overlooks the so-called _practical_ value of his discoveries, it is none the less true that in due time the inventor follows the investigator. The investigator is content to construct and show the truth of his idea. The inventor assumes the truth of the investigator's work and carries his idea as a constructive principle into the complications of life. To both men "knowledge is power," although the "power" may be realized in connection with different interests. But if this be true, ideas can no longer be regarded as copies in individual experience of some pre-existing reality. They are rather instruments for transforming and directing experience, by way of constructing anticipations and the conditions appropriate to their realization. Herein also consists their truth or falsity. The true idea is reliable, carrying us from anticipation to realization; the false idea is unreliable, and fails in bringing the promised result.

Now, in the development of instruments generally, we may distinguish a rule-of-thumb or more or less unreflective stage of construction, and one entirely reflective. As to use there is the distinction of inexpert and expert control. This leads us to expect that in the thought-function also certain typical stages of construction and of control may be found. To the investigation of this point we shall next direct attention.

II

In its development from crude to expert forms judgment exhibits three typical stages--_the impersonal_, _the reflective_, and _the intuitive_. These we shall consider in order of development. But first it is to be noticed that these stages of judgment are not to be regarded as hard and fast distinctions of the kind that no indications of the higher are to be found in the lower types, but rather as working distinctions within a process of continuous development.

1. _The impersonal judgment._--Ever since the days of the Greek grammarians the impersonal judgment has been considered an anomaly in logic. And the reason is not far to seek. From the time of Aristotle it has been customary to maintain that judgments, when analyzed, disclose a subject and a predicate. Logically considered, these appear to be entirely correlative, for, as Erdmann puts it,[55] "an event without a substrate, a quality without a subject, is altogether unpresentable." But there is in all languages a class of judgments, such as, "It rains," "It snows," "Fire!" in which no directly asserted subject is discoverable. To these the name impersonal and subjectless has been given. Here then is the difficulty. If we admit that the impersonal expression involves predication, we must, in all consistency, search for a subject, while at the same time the subject refuses to disclose itself. In ancient days the orthodox logician confined his search to language and to the spoken or written proposition. The unorthodox critic maintained, in opposition to this, that a subject was provided only by warping and twisting the natural sense of the impersonal expression. And thus the matter stood until the development of modern comparative philology. It was then demonstrated beyond the possibility of doubt that the "it" (or its equivalent) of the impersonal is a purely contentless form word. Language provides no subject whatsoever. So strong, however, is the hold of tradition that the search has been renewed. Attention has been turned upon the mental processes involved, and this time with more apparent result. Although there has been no general agreement with reference to the subject, a classification of the different views may still be made. (_a_) The subject is universal and undetermined; (_b_) it is individual and more or less determined; (_c_) between these extremes lies almost every intermediate degree conceivable.

Ueberweg maintains that the subject of the impersonal is the actual totality of present experience. When we ask, "What rains?" we must understand a reference to our general environment, in which no special element is singled out. Sigwart, on the other hand, maintains that the subject can be construed only as the actual sense-impression. This diversity of opinion might seem to indicate that, were it not for the constraining power of theory, a subject would scarcely be thought of for the impersonal. Still it must be admitted that when we examine the impersonal expression closely we can discover a sense-impression, whether definite or indefinite, combined with an idea. This would seem to give the case to the orthodox logician, for he will at once claim the sense-impression as the subject and the idea as the predicate of the judgment. But we must have a care. Predication is usually held to consist in a _reference_ of predicate _to_ subject. The factors of the judgment are, as it were, held apart. In the impersonal no such thing as this can be discovered. The meaning is so close a unity that impression and idea are entirely fused. We may analyze the expression and find them there, but by so doing we destroy the immediacy which is an essential characteristic of the impersonal. In other words, the impersonal does not analyze itself. It is entirely unconscious of its make-up. And yet it is definite and applies itself with precision: If I am in a lecture-hall and hear the fire-alarm, the thought "Fire!" which enters my mind leads to an immediate change in my conduct. I arise, move quietly out, and prepare for duty. If, on the other hand, I open the street door and the rain strikes my face, I ejaculate "Raining!" turn, reach for my umbrella, and pass out protected. In both cases I act _knowingly_ and with _meaning_, but I do not analyze the movement either of thought or of action. A correlate to the unreflective impersonal judgment is found in early custom. Custom embodies social ideas and is an instrument for the determination and control of action. Individuals moved by custom know what they are about and act with precision according as custom may demand. But it is notorious that custom is direct and unreflective. It represents social instruments of control which have grown up without method and which represent the slow accretion of rule-of-thumb activities through many ages. So in the impersonal judgment we have a type of intellectual instrument which has been brought to a high degree of precision in use, but which still retains the simplicity and certainty of an unquestioned instrument of action. For this reason, whatever complexity of elements the impersonal may present to a reflective view, it does not contain to itself. Consequently it may be best to say that to the impersonal there is neither subject, predicate, nor reference of the one to the other. These are distinctions which arise only when the instrument of action has been questioned and the mind turns back upon the meaning which it has unhesitatingly used, analyzing, investigating, constructing, laying bare the method and function of its tools. Thus arises a new and distinctive type of judgment, viz., the reflective.

2. _The reflective judgment._--By the reflective judgment is to be understood that form of meaning whose structure and function have become a problem to itself. The days of naïve trust and spontaneous action have gone by. Inquiry, criticism, aloofness, stay the tendency to immediate action. Meaning has grown worldly wise and demands that each situation shall explain itself and that the general principles and concrete applications of its own instruments shall be made manifest. Hence in the various forms of reflective thought we find the progressive steps in which meaning comes to full consciousness of its function in experience.

The demonstrative judgment (the simplest of the reflective type) carries doubt, criticism, construction, and assertion written on the face of it. For example, in the expression, "That is hot," we do not find the directness and immediacy of response characteristic of the simpler impersonal "hot." Instead, we note a clash of tendencies, a suspension of the proposed action, a demand for and a carrying out of a reconsideration of the course of action, the emergence of a new meaning, and the consequent redirection of activities. An iron lies upon the hearth; I stretch out my hand to return it to its place; I stop suddenly, having become conscious of signs of warmth; the thought arises in my mind, "That is hot;" I experiment and find my judgment correct; I search for a cloth, and thus protected carry out my first intention. Again, a hunter notes a movement in the thicket, quickly raises his gun, and is about to fire. Something in the movement of the object arrests him. He stops, thinking, "That is a man, perhaps." What has caught the eye has arrested his action, has become a demand, and not until the situation has become clear can the hunter determine what to do. In other words, he must reflectively assure himself what the object is before he can satisfy himself as to how he should act. Subject and predicate have arisen and have consciously played their parts in the passage from doubt to decision.

Under the heading "individual judgments" are classed such expressions as, "That ship is a man-o'-war," "Russia opposes the policy of the open door in China." In both these cases it is evident that an advance in definiteness of conception and of complexity of meaning has been made, while at the same time we recognize that the instrumental characteristics of the thought-movement remain the same. In considering the subject of the judgment we note that the stimulus presents itself partly as a determinate factor and partly as a problem--an insistent demand. The expression, "That ship is a man-o'-war," might be written, "That is a ship and of the kind man-o'-war," and it thus constitutes what Sigwart calls a "double synthesis." As used in actual judgment, however, the two are held together and constitute the statement of a single stimulus of which a certain portion is evident and a certain portion is in doubt. The working out of the difficulty is given in the predicate "is a man-o'-war," in which we at once detect the instrumental characteristics fundamental to all judgment. To illustrate: At the close of the battle of Santiago, in the Spanish-American war, smoke appeared upon the horizon revealing the presence of a strange ship. Instantly attention was directed to it, and it became a problem for action--a demand for instrumental information. Soon it was identified as a man-o'-war, and the American ships were cleared for action. Closer approach raised a further question with reference to its nationality. After some debate this also was resolved, and hostile demonstrations were abandoned.

The universal judgment is sometimes said to exhibit two distinct forms. Investigation, however, has proved this statement to be incorrect. Instances taken in themselves and apart from their character are of no logical significance. Advance is made by weighing instances and not by counting them. In short, the true universal is the hypothetical judgment, and the reason for this may be readily shown. The hypothetical judgment is essentially double-ended. On the one hand, it is a statement of the problem of action in terms of the conditions which will turn the problem into a solution. On the other hand, it is an assertion that once the conditions of action have been determined the result desired may be attained. Here we note that the judgment has come to clear consciousness of itself and of the part which it plays in experience. It has now obtained an insight into the criterion of its legitimate employment, _i. e._, of its truth and falsity. And this insight makes the justification of its claim almost self-evident. For, inasmuch as the hypothetical judgment says, "If such and such conditions be realized, such and such a result will be obtained," the test of the claim is made by putting the conditions into effect and watching whether the promised experience is given. And further, since it has been found that the judgment formulated as a hypothesis actually accomplishes what it promises, we must admit that the hypothetical judgment is also categorical. These two factors cannot be separated from each other. It is true that the hypothetical judgment reduces every valid meaning to the form, "_If_ certain conditions be realized," but it as plainly and positively asserts, "such and such results _will_ be obtained." When we grasp the absolute correlativity of the hypothetical and categorical aspects of judgment, we realize at once the essentially instrumental character of judgment, when it comes to consciousness of its structure and function. It arises in the self-conscious realization of a problem. This it reflects upon and sizes up. When the difficulty has been apprehended, the judgment emerges as the consciousness of the conditions which will attain the desired end of action freed and unimpeded. This may be illustrated by reference to the work of Pasteur cited above. His investigations began in a problem set for him by agricultural conditions in France. A certain disease had made the profitable rearing of sheep and cattle almost an impossibility. After long and careful examination he discovered the beneficial effects of vaccination. To him the conditions which governed the presence of the disease became apparent, and this knowledge furnished him with an instrument by means of which one difficulty was removed from the path of the stock-raiser. In this illustration we have an epitome of the work accomplished everywhere by the scientist. It is his task to develop and to reduce to exact terms instruments of control for the varied activities of life. In its parts and as a whole each instrument is intelligently constructed and tested so that its make-up and function are exactly known. Because of this, reasoned belief now takes the place of unreflective trust as that was experienced in the impersonal stage of judgment. What at first hand might appear to be a loss was in reality a gain; the breakdown of the impersonal was the first step in the development of an instrument of action conscious of its reason for being, its methods and conditions of action. These latter constitute the distinctive subject and predicate of the reflective judgment.

This brings us to the connection between the hypothetical character of this form of judgment and its universality. And this perhaps will now be quite apparent. The reflective judgment lays bare an objective connection between the conditions and outcomes of actions. It proves its point by actually constructing the event. Such being the case, universality is no more than a statement of identical results being predictable wherever like conditions are realized. If it be true that "man is mortal," then it is an identical statement to insist that, "Wherever we find men there we shall also find mortality."

And this point brings us naturally to the treatment of the disjunctive judgment: "A is either B or C or D." In the disjunctive judgment the demand is not for the construction of a reliable instrument of action, but for the resolution of a doubt as to which instrument is precisely fitted to the circumstances. In fact, the disjunctive judgment involves the identification of the practical problem. When we say of a man, "He is either very simple or very deep," we have no doubt as to our proper course of action in either case. If he is simple, then we shall do so and so; if he is deep, then another course of action follows. We can lay out alternative courses beforehand, but the point of difficulty lies here: "But just which is he?" In short, the disjunctive judgment is the demand for and the attempt at a precise diagnosis of a concrete problem. To illustrate: A patient afflicted with aphasia is brought to a physician. The fact that the trouble is aphasia may be quite evident. But what precisely is the form and seat of the aphasia? To the mind of the educated physician the problem will take on the disjunctive form: "This is either subcortical or cortical aphasia. If subcortical, intelligence will not be impaired; if cortical, the sensor and motor tracts will be in good condition." Appropriate tests are made and the subcortical possibilities are shut out. The disjunction disappears and the judgment emerges: "This is a case of cortical aphasia." But now a new disjunction arises. It is either the sensory or motor form of cortical aphasia, and, whichever one of these, it is again one of several possibilities. As the alternatives arise, the means for discriminating them arise also; determinate symptoms are observed, and in due time the physician arrives at the final conclusion: "This is sensory cortical aphasia of the visual type." Having determined this, his method of action is assured, and he proceeds to the appropriate operation. Thus, finally, we are brought to a form of judgment aware not only of its motive, method, and justification, but also to one aware of its specific application to individual cases. Thus it would seem as though judgment had returned upon itself and had completed the determination of its sphere of action. And in one sense this is true. In the disjunctive judgment, as inclusive of the motives of the hypothetical and categorical forms, the reflective judgment would appear to have come to its limit of development. One thing, however, remains to be considered, viz., the development from crude to expert uses of intellectual instruments.

3. _The intuitive judgment._--As stated above, the intuitive type of judgment depends upon efficiency in the use of judgment. In this regard there is a great similarity between the impersonal and the intuitive judgments. Both are immediate and precise. But there is a radical and essential difference. The impersonal judgment knows nothing of the strict analysis, insight, and constructive power of the reflective judgment. The intuitive judgment, on the other hand, includes the results of reflection and brings them to their highest power. Paradoxically put, in the intuitive judgment there is so much reflection that there is no need for it at all. To the intuitive judgment there is no hesitation, no aloofness. Action is direct, but entirely self-conscious. That such a type of judgment as the intuitive exists there can be no doubt. There is all the difference in the world between the quality of consciousness of a mere layman and that of an expert, no matter what the line. The layman must size up a situation. It is a process whose parts are successive, whether much or little difficulty be experienced. For the expert situations are taken in at a glance, parts and whole are simultaneous and immediate. Yet the meaning is entirely exact. The expert judgment is self-conscious to the last degree. While other individuals are thinking out what to do, the expert has it, sees the advantage, adjusts, and moves. Demand and solution jump together. How otherwise can we explain, for example, the action of an expert ball-player? Witness his rapid reactions, his instantaneous adjustments. Mistakes of opponents which would never be noticed by the average player are recognized and seized upon. On the instant the new opening is seen, the adjustment is evident, the movement made. Illustrations to the same effect could be drawn from other modes of life, _e. g._, music, the military life, etc. That intuitive judgments are not more common is a proof in itself of their distinctive character and value. Only in so far as we become experts in our special fields of experience and have reduced our instruments of action to precise control, can we expect the presence of intuitive judgments. They remain, therefore, as the final outcome of the judgment-function made perfect in its technique and use.

In conclusion we shall make a brief summary of our investigation and a criticism of certain current theories of judgment.

Judgment is essentially instrumental. Its function is to construct, justify, and refine experience into exact instruments for the direction and control of future experience through action. It exhibits itself first in the form of instruments developed unsystematically in response to the hard necessities of life. In a higher stage of development the instrumental process itself is taken into account, and systematically developed until in the methodical procedure of science the general principles of knowledge are laid bare and efficient instruments of action constructed. Finally, constant, intelligent use results in complete control, so that within certain spheres doubt and hesitancy would seem to disappear as to the character of the tools used, and remain only as a moment in determining their wisest or most appropriate employ.

The criticism indicated is based upon the instrumental character of judgment and is directed against all theories which contend that knowledge is a "copying" or "reproducing" of reality. In whatever form this "copy" theory be stated, the question inevitably arises how we can compare our ideas with reality and thus know their truth. On this theory, what we possess is ever the copy; the reality is beyond. In other words, such a theory logically carried out leads to the breakdown of knowledge. Only a theory which contains and constructs its criterion within its own specific movement can verify its constructions. Such a theory is the instrumental. Judgment constructs a situation in consciousness. The values assigned in this situation have a determining influence upon values further appreciated. The construction arrived at concerns future weal and woe. Thus gradually a sense of truth and falsity attaches to the construing of situations. One sees that he _must_ look beyond _this_ situation, because the way he estimates _this_ situation is fraught with meaning beyond itself. Hence the critically reflective judgment in which hesitancy and doubt direct themselves at the attitude, elements, and tools involved in defining and identifying the situation, instead of at the situation itself _in toto_. Instead of developing a complex of experience through assigning qualities and meanings to the _situation_ as such, some one of the quales is selected, to have _its_ significance determined. It becomes, _pro tempore_, the situation judged. Or the same thing takes place as regards some "idea" or value hitherto immediately fastened upon and employed. In either case we get the reflective judgment, the judgment of pure relationship as distinct from the constructive judgment. But the judgment of relation, employing the copula to refer a specified predicate to a specified object, is after all only for the sake of controlling some immediate judgment of constructive experience. It realizes itself in forming the confident habit of prompt and precise mental adjustment to individualized situations.

VII

THE NATURE OF HYPOTHESIS