Logic as the Science of the Pure ConceptCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept
Croce, Benedetto
Logic
This pure expression of the concept, which is the logical judgment,
constitutes what is called _definitive judgment_ or _definition._
This, considered on its verbal side, or as the synthesis of thought
and word, does not give rise to any special logical theory in addition
to that which we have already stated, when definition showed itself to
be one with distinction or conceptual thought; nor does it give rise
to any special æsthetic doctrine, since the general doctrine expounded
elsewhere includes this also. The dispute, as to whether the definition
be verbal or real, finds its solution in the relation we have just
established between thought and words; hence definition is verbal
because it is real, and _vice versa._ And as to the other meaning
of the question, whether, that is to say, definition be _nominal_
or _real,_ conventional or corresponding with the truth, that finds
its solution in the distinction between pseudoconcepts and concepts,
the first of which, it is clear, are _defined_ only in a nominalist
or conventional way, because they _are,_ in fact, nominalist and
conventional.
[Sidenote: _The indistinguishability of subject and predicate in the
definition. Unity of essence and existence._]
Greater importance attaches to the other dispute, as to whether the
definitive judgment be analysable into subject, predicate, and copula,
whether, for example, the definition: "the will is the practical
form of the spirit," can be resolved in the terms: "will" (subject),
"practical form of the spirit" (predicate), and "is" (copula). Now,
the difference between subject and predicate is here illusory, since
predicate means the universal which is predicated of an individual, and
here both the so-called subject and the so-called predicate are two
universals, and the second, far from being more ample than the first,
is the first itself. As to the "is," since the two distinct terms which
should be copulated are wanting, it is not a copula; nor has it even
the value of a predicate, as in the case in which it is asserted of an
individual fact that it is, that is to say, that it has really happened
and is _existing._ The "is," in the case of the definition, expresses
nothing except simply the act of thought which thinks; and what is
thought is, in so far as it is thought; if it were not, it would not be
thought; and if it were not thought, it would not be. The concept gives
the essence of things, and in the concept _essence involves existence._
That this proposition has sometimes been contested is due solely to
the confusion between the essence, which is existence and therefore
concept, and the existence which is not essence and therefore
is representation. It is due therefore to the problem to which
representations gave rise in this respect, and with which we shall
deal further on. Freed from this confusion, the proposition is not
contestable, and is the very basis of all logical thought, of which we
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