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
And in this manner every assertion respecting an attribute may be
transformed into an assertion exactly equivalent respecting the fact or
phenomenon which is the ground of the attribute. And no case can be
assigned, where that which is predicated of the fact or phenomenon, does
not belong to one or other of the five species formerly enumerated: it is
either simple Existence, or it is some Sequence, Coexistence, Causation,
or Resemblance.
And as these five are the only things which can be affirmed, so are they
the only things which can be denied. “No horses are web-footed” denies
that the attributes of a horse ever coexist with web-feet. It is scarcely
necessary to apply the same analysis to Particular affirmations and
negations. “Some birds are web-footed,” affirms that, with the attributes
connoted by _bird_, the phenomenon web-feet is sometimes coexistent: “Some
birds are not web-footed,” asserts that there are other instances in which
this coexistence does not have place. Any further explanation of a thing
which, if the previous exposition has been assented to, is so obvious, may
here be spared.
CHAPTER VI. OF PROPOSITIONS MERELY VERBAL.
§ 1. As a preparation for the inquiry which is the proper object of Logic,
namely, in what manner propositions are to be proved, we have found it
necessary to inquire what they contain which requires, or is susceptible
of, proof; or (which is the same thing) what they assert. In the course of
this preliminary investigation into the import of Propositions, we
examined the opinion of the Conceptualists, that a proposition is the
expression of a relation between two ideas; and the doctrine of the
Nominalists, that it is the expression of an agreement or disagreement
between the meanings of two names. We decided that, as general theories,
both of these are erroneous; and that, although propositions may be made
both respecting names and respecting ideas, neither the one nor the other
are the subject-matter of Propositions considered generally. We then
examined the different kinds of Propositions, and found that, with the
exception of those which are merely verbal, they assert five different
kinds of matters of fact, namely, Existence, Order in Place, Order in
Time, Causation, and Resemblance; that in every proposition one of these
five is either affirmed, or denied, of some fact or phenomenon, or of some
object the unknown source of a fact or phenomenon.
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