Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept

by Benedetto Croce

The character of these pseudojudgments, like that of the pseudoconcepts, is not cognitive, but practical and more properly mnemonic. Fixing our attention upon certain examples of such judgments, if we say of an animal: "It is a squirrel," or "It is a platyrrhine monkey"; if we say of a house: "This house is thirty metres high and forty wide"; if of a painting we say: "The Transfiguration is a sacred picture," or "The Danaë is a mythological picture"; or if of a literary work we say, "The Promessi Sposi is a historical romance";—what have we learned as to the true nature of the Promessi Sposi, of the Transfiguration, of the Danaë, of that house and of those animals? Upon close consideration, nothing at all. The animals have been put into one or another compartment or glass case, decorated with a name which might also be different from what it is, as the compartment and the glass case might also be different; the house has been compared in respect of its dimensions to other houses or to an object arbitrarily assumed as the unit of measurement, which is the metre, but which might be the foot, the palm, and so on; the two pictures and the literary work have been looked at from the visual angle of an arbitrary character, such as the mythological, religious or historical subject. As to what they truly are, as to how all these things came to be and to live, and as to their relation with other things and with the Whole, we have been silent. Their value, as it is called, remains unknown.

Genesis of the distinction between judgments of fact and judgments of value; and criticism of them.

This lack of all determination as to value, which is characteristic of individual pseudoconcepts, gives support to the distinction between judgments of fact (as individual pseudojudgments are sometimes called) and judgments of value; a distinction which makes evident the further need of supplying the spirit with what the first judgments do not give, that is to say, with the meaning or value of things. But since the individual pseudojudgments are not for us what they boast themselves to be, judgments of fact, we have no need to complete them with judgments of value; which would thus be themselves arbitrary (that is to say, conceived extrinsically to the determination of fact). True individual judgments are pure, and in them the universal penetrates the individual and the determination of value coincides with that of fact. In pseudojudgments there takes place no such penetration, but only the mechanical application of a predicate to a subject; so much so, that here is a true occasion for employing words which signify an extrinsic placing side by side, a reunion, combination or aggregation of subject with predicate.

Importance of the individual pseudojudgments.

Having made this clear, it is superfluous to repeat that we do not intend to remove, or even to attenuate, the due importance of individual pseudojudgments, as we did not remove or attenuate that of pseudoconcepts, when we defined them for what they are. And how can we deny their importance, if each one of us create and employ them at every instant, if each one of us strive to keep in order as best he can the patrimony of his own knowledge? It is easier for a student to work without notes and memoranda than for any one not to make use of individual pseudojudgments. If I pass mentally in review the material that must go to form the history of Italian painting or literature, I must of necessity arrange it in works of greater or less importance, in plays and novels, in sacred pictures and landscapes, and so on; save when I wish to understand those facts historically, and then I must abandon those divisions. I must abandon them during that act of comprehension; but I must immediately resume them, if I wish to give the result of my historical research; and in this exposition it will be impossible for me to avoid saying that Manzoni, after having composed five sacred hymns and two tragedies, set to work upon a historical romance; or that landscape painting was developed in the seventeenth century. These words are necessary instruments for swift understanding, and only a philosophical pedant could propose to expel them. In like manner, if I wish to buy a house, I shall visit several houses and arrange them in memory, according to the situation, their arrangement, their size and other characteristics, all formulated in pseudojudgments. I shall have to abandon all of these in the act of choice, for then the house that I shall choose will possess one only characteristic: that of being the one that suits my wants, that is to say, the one that pleases me. But I shall again have to employ those abstract characteristics, in my conversation with the person who sells it to me and in the contract that I make; there I shall speak, not only of my will and pleasure, but also of a house thirty metres high and forty wide, and so on. The same must be said of the squirrels and platyrrhine monkeys, which I cannot contrive to see in a museum or zoological garden, unless I describe them in that way; and I shall continue so to describe them, although those abstract characteristics have no definite value, either in permitting me to describe those animals with accuracy, or in making me understand their meaning in the universe, or in the history of the cosmos.

Empirical individual judgments and abstract individual judgments.

But in proceeding further to determine the differential characteristics presented by pseudojudgments in contrast with individual judgments, it is necessary to consider them according to the double form, empirical and abstract, assumed by pseudoconcepts, thus distinguishing them as empirical individual judgments and abstract individual judgments.

Process of formation of empirical judgments.

In comparing empirical individual judgments with pure individual judgments—for example, "The Transfiguration is a sacred picture," an empirical judgment, and "The Transfiguration is an æsthetic work," a pure judgment—the first thing to note is that the empirical individual judgment presupposes the pure individual judgment. We already know that pseudoconcepts, empirical or abstract, presuppose the idea of the pure concept; but that idea does not suffice for the formation of determinate empirical concepts, which can be employed as predicates of empirical judgments. We must not only think effectively these or those pure concepts, but they must be translated into individual judgments. Were this not so, where would empirical concepts obtain their material? Before the judgment: "The Transfiguration is a sacred picture," can be pronounced, we must first have the empirical concept of "sacred picture." Now this empirical concept (setting aside the fact that it presupposes other empirical concepts which we do not here take into account, because they would complicate the problem without aiding the solution that we wish to give) presupposes in its turn the pure concept of "æsthetic work"; and it is only when a certain number, more or less large, of artistic works have been recognized as such, that is, when pure individual judgments concerning them have been formed, that we can abstract the characteristics and pass to the formation of the pseudoconcepts: sacred, historical, mythological pictures, landscapes, and so on. Having obtained these, then, and only then when we stand before an æsthetic work, for example, the Transfiguration, and formulate again the pure individual judgment which recognizes it as such ("The Transfiguration is an æsthetic work"), are we enabled finally to apply the pseudoconcept and to pronounce the empirical judgment: "The Transfiguration is a sacred picture."

Its foundation in existence.