International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume 1: Philosophy and Metaphysics
Philosophy
International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume 1: Philosophy and Metaphysics
Conference proceedings; Medicine -- Congresses; Science and the humanities -- Congresses; Technology -- Congresses
Here is where Kempe's generalization begins to come into sight. These
two categories, in at least one very fundamental realm of exact thought,
can be reduced to one. There is, namely, a world of ideal objects which
especially interest the logician. It is the world of a _totality of
possible logical classes_, or again, it is the ideal world, equivalent
in formal structure to the foregoing, but composed of a _totality of
possible statements_, or thirdly, it is the world, equivalent once more,
in formal structure, to the foregoing, but consisting of a _totality of
possible acts of will_, of possible decisions. When we proceed to
consider the relational structure of such a world, taken merely in the
abstract as such a structure, a relation comes into sight which at once
appears to be peculiarly general in its nature. It is the so-called
illative relation, the relation which obtains between two classes when
one is subsumed under the other, or between two statements, or two
decisions, when one implies or entails the other. This relation is
transitive, but may be either symmetrical or not symmetrical; so that,
according as it is symmetrical or not, it may be used either to
establish levels or to generate series. In the order system of the
logician's world, the relational structure is thus, in any case, a
highly general and fundamental one.
But this is not all. In this the logician's world of classes, or of
statements, or of decisions, there is also another relation observable.
This is the relation of exclusion or mutual opposition. This is a purely
symmetrical or reciprocal relation. It has two forms--obverse or
contradictory opposition, that is, negation proper, and contrary
opposition. But both these forms are purely symmetrical. And by proper
devices each of them can be stated in terms of the other, or reduced to
the other. And further, as Kempe incidentally shows, and as Mrs. Ladd
Franklin has also substantially shown in her important theory of the
syllogism, _it is possible to state every proposition, or complex of
propositions involving the illative relation, in terms of this purely
symmetrical relation of opposition_. Hence, so far as mere relational
form is concerned, the illative relation itself may be wholly reduced to
the symmetrical relation of opposition. This is our first result as to
the relational structure of the realm of pure logic, that is, the realm
of classes, of statements, or of decisions.
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