The Judgment of Reflection is distinguished from the Qualitative
judgment by the circumstance that its predicate is not an immediate
or abstract quality, but of such a kind as to exhibit the subject
as in relation to something else. When we say, _e.g._ 'This rose is
red.' we regard the subject in its immediate individuality, and
without reference to anything else. If, on the other hand, we frame
the judgment, 'This plant is medicinal,' we regard the subject, plant,
as standing in connexion with something else (the sickness which it
cures), by means of its predicate (its medicinality). The case is the
same with judgments like: This body is elastic: This instrument is
useful: This punishment has a deterrent influence. In every one of
these instances the predicate is some category of reflection. They all
exhibit an advance beyond the immediate individuality of the subject,
but none of them goes so far as to indicate the adequate notion of it.
It is in this mode of judgment that ordinary _raisonnement_ luxuriates.
The greater the concreteness of the object in question, the more points
of view does it offer to reflection; by which however its proper nature
or notion is not exhausted.
175.] (1) Firstly then the subject, the individual as individual (in
the Singular judgment), is a universal. But (2) secondly, in
this relation it is elevated above its singularity. This enlargement is
external, due to subjective reflection, and at first is an indefinite
number of particulars. (This is seen in the Particular judgment,
which is obviously negative as well as positive: the individual is
divided in itself: partly it is self-related, partly related to
something else.) (3) Thirdly, Some are the universal: particularity is
thus enlarged to universality: or universality is modified through the
individuality of the subject, and appears as allness Community,
the ordinary universality of reflection.
* * * * *
The subject, receiving, as in the Singular judgment, a universal
predicate, is carried out beyond its mere individual self. To say,
'This plant is wholesome,' implies not only that this single plant is
wholesome, but that some or several are so. We have thus the particular
judgment (some plants are wholesome, some men are inventive, &c). By
means of particularity the immediate individual comes to lose its
independence, and enters into an inter-connexion with something else.
Man, as _this_ man, is not this single man alone: he stands beside
other men and becomes one in the crowd, just by this means however he
belongs to his universal, and is consequently raised.--The particular
judgment is as much negative as positive. If only some bodies are
elastic, it is evident that the rest are not elastic.
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