Logic as the Science of the Pure ConceptCroce, Benedetto
Philosophy
Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept
Croce, Benedetto
Logic
On the other hand, it would be erroneous to divide individual
judgments, as has often been attempted, into judgments of _fact_ and
judgments of _value,_ claiming that the judgment, "Peter is a man," is
of a different nature from: "Peter is good." Every judgment of fact, in
so far as it attributes a predicate to a subject, gives to it a value,
declaring it to participate in the universal or in a determination of
the universal. And conversely, every judgment of value, in so far as
it attributes a value, cannot attribute other than the universal or
a determination of the universal, since outside the universal there
is no value. Even judgments of negative form, such as: "Peter is
not good," or "is not-good," or: "Peter is bad," are attributes of
universality and of value; because, as we know, theoretically they do
not affirm anything other than that Peter has a spiritual determination
different from goodness (for example, that he is utilitarian, not yet
moral). Certainly, in judgments such as these which we have selected
as examples, there is mingled (this too has been noted; and at this
point it suffices to recall it) the expression of an _ought to be,_
which, in this case, is revealed in the negative formula adopted; but
the expression of an ought to be or of a desire is not a judgment
either of fact or of value; indeed, it is not a judgment at all; it is
a mere proposition, a logos semanticos, not apophanticos, an optative
or desiderative formula, a _lyricism_ of the spirit directed to the
future.[1]
[Sidenote: _The individual judgment as ultimate and perfect form of
knowledge._]
There is no other cognitive fact to know, beyond perception or
individual judgment. In this, the ultimate and the most perfect
of cognitive facts, the circle of knowledge is completed. Obscure
sensibility, having become clear intuition, and then having made itself
thought of the universal, in the individual judgment is logically
thought, and is, henceforward, knowledge of fact or of event, that is,
of effectual reality. The individual judgment, or perception, is fully
adequate to reality.
[Sidenote: _Error of treating it as the first fact of knowledge._]
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