Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept

by Benedetto Croce

The difficulty becomes greater from the equal inconceivability and impossibility of abandoning the result reached above, by which the individual judgment was shown to be possible only by means of a concept or judgment of definition. Every attempt that may be made to cancel that presupposition and to reconceive the individual or perceptive judgment as preceding the concept and being altogether without logical character, a mere assertion of fact, unenlightened by universality, must be considered, for the reasons we have given, to be entirely vain. If we cannot admit a duality of logical forms, still less can we admit that an alogical character, below the level of logic altogether, attaches to the individual judgment.

The hypothesis of reciprocal implication and so of the identity of the two forms.

There seems to be but one way out of such a difficulty: namely, to preserve the result attained, that is to say, the necessity of the judgment of definition as the presupposition of the individual judgment, but to affirm at the same time the necessity of the individual judgment as the presupposition of the judgment of definition. Admitting this supposition by way of hypothesis, let us see what it would mean and what effect it would have in the discussion. Since the one judgment presupposes the other, and this presupposition is reciprocal, we could no longer talk of distinction between the two, but of unity pure and simple, of identity, in which distinction could arise only by abstraction and the arbitrary act of dividing what cannot exist save as indivisible. But, on the other hand, the distinction, although abstract, would always retain its value as a didactic means of making clear the true nature of the logical act. Thus we should justify our first proceeding to develop the concept and the judgment of definition and then the individual judgment, and also the reservation that we have always made as to the provisional nature of such distinction, and thus also the new question as to the unity of the act, put and answered in the way proposed. All the difficulties arising from the appearance of a duality of logical forms would disappear. Definitions and individual judgments, truth of reason and truth of fact, necessity and contingency, a priori and a posteriori, would be revealed as one act and one truth. And we should also be justified in talking of them as distinct acts, for in expressing that single truth and single judgment verbally or in literature, we can attach greater importance now to the definition, and now to the statement of fact; now to the subject, and now to the predicate.

Objection: the lack of an historical and representative element in definitions.

This path, which would offer such advantages and would constitute a true way out of the difficulty, seems, however, to be closed to us by the fact that in definitions there is no trace whatever of individual judgments which, on this hypothesis, would have to be contained within and be one with them. If we say "the will is the practical form of the spirit," or "virtue is the habit of moral actions," where is to be found in such statements the individual judgment and the representative element? We find in them without doubt the verbal form, expressive and representative, which is necessary to the concept for its concrete existence; but we do not find the statement of fact of which we are in search. Thus the proposed hypothesis will prove very ingenious and rich with all the advantages that we have stated; but since it does not appear to be confirmed by facts, we must, it seems, reject it, even at the risk of having to think out a better one, or, if we fail in this, of renouncing as desperate the attempt at a solution.

The historical element in definitions, taken in their concreteness.

We must not, however, be in a hurry, but rather carefully recall the observation just made incidentally: that the verbal or literary form can throw into relief a moment of the judgment, while casting a shadow over the other and causing it to be forgotten, without thereby ever being able to suppress it. There seemed, we remember, to be no trace of concepts in perceptive judgments or judgments of fact, and especially in those forms of them which are called merely existential and in those called impersonal. Yet there can be no doubt that none of those judgments is ever possible without the concept as basis. An analysis which does not allow itself to be arrested by appearances and examines verbal forms as regards both what they express and what they leave to be understood (though this too is expressed in its own way) has discovered it. Similarly a definition does not exist in the air, as might appear from the examples given in treatises, in which the where and the when and the individual and the actual circumstances in which the definition has been given are omitted. In a definition thus presented, it would certainly be impossible to discover a representative element and an individual judgment. But the reason for this is that it has been mutilated and made abstract and indeterminate, to such an extent that it can be made determinate only by the meaning which he to whom it is communicated likes to attach to it. If, on the contrary, we look at the definition in its concrete reality, we shall always find in it when we examine it with care the representative element and the individual judgment.

The definition as answer to a question and solution of a problem.

For every definition is the answer to a question, the solution of a problem. Did we not ask questions and set problems, there would be no occasion for giving any definition. Why should we give them? What need could there be? The definition is an act of the spirit and every act of the spirit is conditioned. Without contradiction, there can be no agreement; without the shock of multiplicity there can be no unity; without the travail of doubt that calls for peace, there can be no affirmation of the true. Not only does the answer presuppose the question; but every answer implies a certain question. The answer must be in harmony with the question; otherwise, it would not be an answer, but the avoiding of an answer. In reply to a question of a certain kind, we should turn our deaf ear, as the saying is, or reply with a blow. This means that the nature of the question colours the answer and that a definition taken in its concreteness is determined by the problem which gives it rise. The definition varies with the problem.

Individual and historical conditionedness of every question and problem.