Logic as the Science of the Pure ConceptCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept
Croce, Benedetto
Logic
[Sidenote: _Summary of results as to the forms of acquaintance._]
The result of the preceding enquiries into the constitution of the
cognitive spirit can be resumed, for mnemonic purposes, by saying
that there are _two pure theoretic_ forms, _the intuition_ and
_the concept,_ the second of which is subdivided into _judgment
of definition and individual judgment,_ and that there are two
modes of _practical_ elaboration of knowledge, or of formation of
pseudoconcepts, the _empirical concept and the abstract concept,_ from
which are derived the two subforms of judgment of _classification_ and
of judgment of _enumeration._ If the methods in use in the mediæval
schools or in those of Port-Royal (which were not without their
utility) were still in vogue, we should be able to embody these results
in a few _mnemonic verses,_ which would render the distinctions we have
made easy to impart.
Easy to impart, but not understood, or worse, ill understood; because,
as we know, both the scheme of classification here adopted and the
arithmetical determination of two or more forms are not truly logical
thoughts adequate to the representation of the process of the real
and of thought. Our grouping constructed to help the memory must
therefore be interpreted with the aid of the developments offered
above, and not only corrected, but altogether resolved in them. In
these developments, the intuition and the concept have appeared as two
forms, not capable of co-ordination, but both distinct and united. The
judgment of definition and the individual judgment have appeared as
logically identical, divisible only from an external or literary point
of view, that is to say, by the greater or less importance attached
either to the predicate or to the subject. Further, the formation of
the pseudoconcepts is outside theory, although founded upon theoretic
elements; it belongs essentially, not to the cognitive spirit, but
to the practical spirit. And if their subdivision into empirical and
abstract concepts is necessary, the necessity is founded upon the fact,
that only in these two modes can the concept be practically developed,
when its synthetic unity is arbitrarily split up into two one-sided
forms. Finally, the two fundamental forms of the spirit themselves, the
theoretic and the practical, are not co-ordinate with one another, nor
capable of arithmetical enumeration. The one is in the other, the one
is correlative to the other, because the one presupposes the other.
[Sidenote: _Non-existence of technical forms, and of composite forms._]
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