10. THE JUDGMENT AS A THOUGHT PRODUCT.
Judging is the process of conjoining and disjoining notions.The product of judging is the judgment and all judgments are expressed by means of propositions. A proposition consists of one subject and one predicate connected by some form of the verb be or its equivalent.
(1) A judgment may conjoin or disjoin two individual notions.
To wit: Conjoined—This pencil belongs to Albert White.
Disjoined—This pencil does not belong to Mary Smith.
(2) A judgment may conjoin or disjoin two general notions.
Conjoined—Some men are virtuous.
Disjoined—Some men are not virtuous.
(3) A judgment may conjoin or disjoin a general and an individual notion.
Conjoined—Abraham Lincoln was virtuous.
Disjoined—Edgar Allen Poe was not temperate.
In order that the knowing mind may conjoin notions it must recognize some mark of similarity or connection. This is the thinking aspect of the judgment. It is likewise to a certain degree the judging aspect as the latter is simply a matter of affirming or denying connections between notions. But thinking is a broader term than judging. There may be connections established between a name and a notion. For example in the case of the dog which the child sees trotting along the sidewalk and which the mother refers to as a “bow-wow”; the term “bow-wow” is not a percept and has no meaning independent of its association with the dog, hence it is not a notion, yet some connection has been made in the child’s mind between “bow-wow” and his notion of dog. This is a simple form of thinking, but not of judging, as the latter affirms or denies connections between notions only.
The fact that judging and thinking so closely resemble each other has given just cause for some logicians to designate judging as the most fundamental element in all thinking. “The simplest form of thinking,” says Creighton, “is judging.” In order to think many notions into one class it is necessary to conjoin notions. To illustrate: The child who has a general notion of man sees for the first time a negro. If he recognizes the negro as a colored man he must conjoin his general notion of man with this individual notion. In short, a concept is built by means of a series of judgments. It may be said furtherthat an inference is simply a made-over judgment. It is thus evident that judging appears in both the thought processes of conception and inference and, therefore, as a final conclusion it may be affirmed that judging, though perhaps not the simplest form of thinking, is the basic element of developed thought.