Logic as the Science of the Pure ConceptCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept
Croce, Benedetto
Logic
Expressivity, universality, concreteness, are then the three
characteristics of the concept derived from the foregoing discussion.
Expressivity affirms that the concept is a cognitive act, and denies
that it is merely practical, as is maintained in various senses by
mystics, and by arbitrarists or fictionists. Universality affirms that
it is a cognitive act _sui generis,_ the logical act, and denies that
it is an intuition, as is maintained by the æstheticists, or a group
of intuitions, as is asserted in the doctrine of the arbitrarists
or fictionists. Concreteness affirms that the universal logical act
is also a thinking of reality, and denies that it can be universal
and void, universal and inexistent, as is maintained in a special
part of the doctrine of the arbitrarists. But this last point needs
explanation, which leads us to enunciate explicitly an important
division of the pseudoconcepts, which has hitherto been mentioned as
apparently incidental.
[Sidenote: _Empirical pseudoconcepts and abstract pseudoconcepts._]
The pseudoconcepts, falsifying the concept, cannot imitate it
scrupulously, because, if they did, they would not be pseudoconcepts,
but concepts; not imitations, but the very reality which they imitate.
An actor who, pretending on the stage to kill his rival in love,
really did so, would no longer be an actor, but a practical man and an
assassin. If, therefore, with regard to the representations, and when
preparing to form pseudoconcepts, we should think representations with
that universality which is also the concreteness proper to the true
concept, and with that transcendence which is also immanence (and is
therefore called _transcendentalism),_ we should form true concepts.
This, indeed, often happens, as we can see in certain treatises which
mean to be empirical and arbitrary, and from which, _currente rota,
non urceus, sed amphora exit._ Their authors, led by a profound and
irrepressible philosophic sense, gradually and almost unconsciously
abandon their initial purpose, and give true and proper concepts in
place of the promised pseudoconcepts: they are philosophers, disguised
as empiricists. In order to create pseudoconcepts, we must therefore
begin by arbitrarily dividing into two the one supreme necessity of
logic, immanent transcendence, or concrete universality, and form
pseudoconcepts, which are _concrete_ without being _universal,_
or _universal_ without being _concrete._ There is no other way of
falsifying the concept; whoever wishes to falsify it so completely as
to render the imitation unrecognizable, does not falsify, but produces
it; he does not remain outside, but permits himself to be caught in its
coils; he does not invent a practical attitude, but thinks. That one
mode is therefore specified in two particular modes, of which examples
have already been given in our analysis of the pseudoconcepts of the
house, the cat, the rose, which are concrete without being universal;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account