Logic as the Science of the Pure ConceptCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept
Croce, Benedetto
Logic
The consequence of this demonstration is then that if abstract
concepts can be applied to individual judgments (and they are as
a fact applied), there must be an intermediary which makes the
application possible. The Individual empirical judgments are just such
an intermediary. They reduce the heterogeneous to the homogeneous
and prepare the ground for the application of the abstract concepts
and for the formation of their corresponding pseudojudgments. These
are therefore more correctly termed empirico-abstract judgments
than individual-abstract judgments. Empirical and empirico-abstract
judgments cannot then be presented as two co-ordinate classes of the
individual pseudojudgment. They are two forms, of which the second is
evolved from the first.
The reduction of the _heterogeneous_ to the _homogeneous_ is effected
by means of the procedure already discussed, by the formation of
classes and classification with them as basis. Individual varieties,
which escape all numerical application, are thus subdued, and we obtain
in exchange things belonging to the same class, as for example oaks,
cows, men, ploughs, plays, pictures, and so on. These things are finite
in number (as we already know from our analysis of the representative
elements contained in a determinate empirical concept) and can
therefore be numbered. Thus we can finally arrive at pronouncing the
empirico-abstract judgments: "These cows number one hundred," "these
oaks are three hundred in number," "there are four hundred houses in
this village," "it contains two thousand inhabitants," "there are two
ploughs in this field," and so on. Or we can say elliptically: "100
cows," "300 oaks," "400 houses," "2000 inhabitants," "2 ploughs," and
so on, as is done in statistics and inventories.
[Sidenote: _Empirico-abstract judgments and enumeration (measurement,
etc.)._]
If the procedure proper to individual judgments has been described
as _classification,_ that of empirico-abstract judgments is rightly
called _enumeration._ Enumeration also makes possible another
procedure, known as _measurement,_ and what has been said by way of
example about abstract concepts of number must be repeated _mutatis
mutandis_ of geometrical figures, which are employed as instruments
of measurement. The procedure of measurement is somewhat more
complicated; enumeration and measurement are related to one another as
are arithmetical and geometrical concepts, but substantially they come
to the same thing. The definition sometimes given of measurement can
be extended to enumeration in general, namely, that it is _qualitative
quantity_ applied to quality, strictly speaking, to quality rendered
homogeneous by the process of classification. The empirico-abstract
judgments are in fact qualitative-quantitative.
[Sidenote: _Enumeration and intelligence._]
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