Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept

by Benedetto Croce

Were it not idealistic, it would not be philosophical, and so it would not be possible to submit it to criticism from the philosophical point of view.

Systematic character of philosophy.

From the identity of philosophy with the pure concept can be also deduced its necessarily systematic character.

To think any pure concept means to think it in its relation of unity and distinction with all the others. Thus, in reality, what is thought is never a concept, but the concept, the system of concepts. On the other hand, to think the concept in general is only possible by arbitrary abstraction. To think it truly in general, means to think it also as particular and singular, and so to think the whole system of distinct concepts. Those who wish to think an isolated concept philosophically without paying attention to the others, are like doctors who wish to cure an organ without paying attention to the organism. Such a mode of treatment may cure the organ, but the organism dies and with it dies the healed organ a moment after. The true philosopher, when he makes even the smallest modification in a concept, has his eye on the whole system, for he knows that this modification, however small it may seem, modifies to some extent the whole.

Philosophic and literary significance of system.

The systematic character of philosophy, understood logically, belongs to every single philosophical proposition which is always a philosophical cosmos, as every drop of water is the ocean, indeed, the whole world, contracted into that drop of water. It is hardly necessary to distinguish from this the literary sense of system, which is the name given to certain forms of exposition, which embrace definite groups of problems, traditionally held to be those in which philosophy is contained. When some or many of those groups do not receive explicit literary treatment, it is said that system is wanting. It is true that there is wanting the fulfilment of a literary task (or what here amounts to the same thing, of a pedagogic task); but the system is there, even in the case when a very specialized problem is treated, provided it be approached with philosophic and so with systematic energy. That the same thinker, when he passes to another problem, should give a wrong solution contradictory to that previously given, does not prove that he had not at first a system, but that he has lost it when faced with the new difficulty. He was at first a philosopher and so systematic; afterwards, not philosopher enough, and so not sufficiently systematic.

Advantages and disadvantages of the literary form of system.

The traditional groupings of problems, and the construction of system in the literary and pedagogic sense, certainly have their utility (all that exists has its proper function and value). They preserve and promote culture already acquired, by obliging it to examine difficulties, which, were they neglected, might unexpectedly become a great hindrance and loss. Hence the love for system, or for the literary form of system, a love which the author of these pages also nourishes in his soul and of which he has sought to give some proof, by writing a system, although it is long since systems have been written, in Italy at least (unless scholastic manuals be thus called), and it is no slight merit to have braved the ridicule of the enterprise. But systems have also the disadvantage of sometimes leading to a tiresome re-exposition of problems that are out of date and whose solutions have passed into the common patrimony of culture. The treatment of these problems is better left to be understood, that time and space may be gained for the treatment of others more urgent. Hence the rebellion against system, or against the pedantry which can adhere to that form of exposition. This rebellion is similar at all points with that against the pedantry of definition, which is a legitimate rebellion, yet cannot eliminate the logical form of definition. Instead of systems, we write monographs, essays, and aphorisms, but these, if philosophic, will always be inwardly systematic.