A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and InductiveMill, John Stuart
PhilosophyPhilosophy
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
Mill, John Stuart
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Science -- Methodology
said to signify the subjects _directly_, the attributes _indirectly_; it
_denotes_ the subjects, and implies, or involves, or indicates, or as we
shall say henceforth _connotes_, the attributes. It is a connotative name.
Connotative names have hence been also called _denominative_, because the
subject which they denote is denominated by, or receives a name from the
attribute which they connote. Snow, and other objects, receive the name
white, because they possess the attribute which is called whiteness;
Peter, James, and others receive the name man because they possess the
attributes which are considered to constitute humanity. The attribute, or
attributes, may therefore be said to denominate those objects, or to give
them a common name.(11)
It has been seen that all concrete general names are connotative. Even
abstract names, though the names only of attributes, may in some instances
be justly considered as connotative; for attributes themselves may have
attributes ascribed to them; and a word which denotes attributes may
connote an attribute of those attributes. Of this description, for
example, is such a word as _fault_; equivalent to _bad_ or _hurtful
quality_. This word is a name common to many attributes, and connotes
hurtfulness, an attribute of those various attributes. When, for example,
we say that slowness, in a horse, is a fault, we do not mean that the slow
movement, the actual change of pace of the slow horse, is a bad thing, but
that the property or peculiarity of the horse, from which it derives that
name, the quality of being a slow mover, is an undesirable peculiarity.
In regard to those concrete names which are not general but individual, a
distinction must be made.
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