A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2)Mill, John Stuart
Philosophy
A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2)
Mill, John Stuart
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Science -- Methodology
§ 7. In the foregoing inquiry into the import of Propositions, we have
thought it necessary to analyse _directly_ those alone, in which the terms
of the proposition (or the predicate at least) are concrete terms. But, in
doing so, we have indirectly analysed those in which the terms are
abstract. The distinction between an abstract term and its corresponding
concrete, does not turn upon any difference in what they are appointed to
signify; for the real signification of a concrete general name is, as we
have so often said, its connotation; and what the concrete term connotes,
forms the entire meaning of the abstract name. Since there is nothing in
the import of an abstract name which is not in the import of the
corresponding concrete, it is natural to suppose that neither can there be
anything in the import of a proposition of which the terms are abstract,
but what there is in some proposition which can be framed of concrete
terms.
And this presumption a closer examination will confirm. An abstract name
is the name of an attribute, or combination of attributes. The
corresponding concrete is a name given to things, because of, and in order
to express, their possessing that attribute, or that combination of
attributes. When, therefore, we predicate of anything a concrete name, the
attribute is what we in reality predicate of it. But it has now been shown
that in all propositions of which the predicate is a concrete name, what
is really predicated is one of five things: Existence, Coexistence,
Causation, Sequence, or Resemblance. An attribute, therefore, is
necessarily either an existence, a coexistence, a causation, a sequence,
or a resemblance. When a proposition consists of a subject and predicate
which are abstract terms, it consists of terms which must necessarily
signify one or other of these things. When we predicate of anything an
abstract name, we affirm of the thing that it is one or other of these
five things; that it is a case of Existence, or of Coexistence, or of
Causation, or of Sequence, or of Resemblance.
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