Logic as the Science of the Pure ConceptCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept
Croce, Benedetto
Logic
Yet, notwithstanding the apparently glaring distinction between the
judgment of definition and the individual judgment, between truth
of reason and truth of fact; notwithstanding its secular celebrity
and its confirmation by universal agreement and common usage, this
distinction meets with a very grave difficulty. In order to understand
it, we must, above all, establish clearly what we have just stated
in positing that distinction and in making the individual judgment
or truth of fact _follow_ the judgment of definition or truth of
reason. We have already posited a distinction of this kind between
intuition and concept, and have noted that we have thus distinguished
two fundamental forms of the Spirit: the representative or fantastic
form, and the logical. Now, in positing as distinct the judgment of
definition and the individual judgment, do we mean to do something
analogous? Do we mean to distinguish the logical form (concept or
definition) from another form, no longer logical, although containing
the logical form in itself as overcome and subordinate, in the same way
that the concept contains in itself the intuition? In other words, is
the individual judgment something _ultralogical_? It can certainly be
asserted that it is not mere definition; but can it be asserted that
it is not logical? The words used should not lead to misconception. If
in the individual judgment the subject be a representation, it is also
true that this representation is not found there as it would be found
in æsthetic contemplation, but as subject of a judgment, and therefore
not as a representation pure and simple, but as a representation
thought, or made logical. Hegel has several times remarked that whoever
doubts the unity of individual and universal can never have paid
attention to the judgments which he utters at every instant. In these,
by means of the copula, he resolutely affirms that Peter _is_ a man,
or that the individual (the subject) _is_ the universal (predicate);
not something different, not a piece or fragment, but just that, the
universal. Further, are not truths of fact also truths of reason? Would
it not be irrational to think that a fact was not the fact it had
been? The existence of Cæsar and of Napoleon is not less _rational_
than that of quality and of becoming. And are not both kinds of facts
equally necessary--those called contingent not less than those called
necessary? We are right to laugh at those who like to think that things
could have happened otherwise than they have happened. Cæsar and
Napoleon are as necessary as quality and becoming.
[Sidenote: _or duality of logical forms._]
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