[26] BOSANQUET, _Logic_ (Vol. I, pp. 30-34), and Jones (_Philosophy of
Lotze_, 1895, chap. 4) have called attention to a curious inconsistency
in Lotzes's treatment of judgment. On one hand, the statement is as
given above. Judgment grows out of conception in making explicit the
determining relation of universal to its own particular, implied in
conception. But, on the other hand, judgment grows not out of conception
at all, but out of the question of determining connection in change.
Lotze's nominal reason for this latter view is that the conceptual world
is purely static; since the actual world is one of change, we need to
pass upon what really goes together (is causal) in the change as
distinct from such as are merely coincident. But, as Jones clearly
shows, it is also connected with the fact that, while Lotze nominally
asserts that judgment grows out of conception, he treats conception as
the result of judgment since the first view makes judgment a mere
explication of the content of an idea, and hence merely expository or
analytic (in the Kantian sense) and so of more than doubtful
applicability to reality. The affair is too large to discuss here, and I
will content myself with referring to the oscillation between
conflicting contents, and gradation of sensory qualities already
discussed (p. 56, note). It is judgment which grows out of the former,
because judgment is the whole situation as such; conception is referable
to the latter because it _is_ one abstraction within the whole (the
solution of possible meanings of the data) just as the datum is another.
In truth, since the sensory datum is not absolute, but comes in a
historical context, the qualities apprehended as constituting the datum
simply define the locus of conflict in the entire situation. They are
attributives of the contents-in-tension of the colliding things, not
calm untroubled ultimates. On pp. 33 and 34 of Vol. I, Lotze recognizes
(as we have just seen) that, as matter of fact, it is both sensory
qualities in their systematic grading, or quantitative determinations
(see Vol. I, p. 43, for the recognition of the necessary place of the
quantitative in the true concept), _and_ the "rich variety of local and
temporal combinations," that provoke thought and supply it with
material. But, as usual, he treats this simply as a historical accident,
not as furnishing the key to the whole matter. In fine, while the
heterogeneous collocations and successions constitute the problematic
element that stimulates thought, quantitative determination of the
sensory quality furnishes one of the two chief means through which
thought deals with the problem. It is a reduction of the original
colliding contents to a form in which the effort at redintegration gets
maximum efficiency. The concept, as ideal meaning, is of course the
other partner to the transaction. It is getting the various possible
meanings-of-the-data into such shape as to make them most useful in
construing the data.
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account