Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept

by Benedetto Croce

The concept, as we know, is the logical a priori synthesis, and so the unity of subject and predicate, unity in distinction and distinction in unity, affirmation of the concept and judgment of the fact, at once philosophy and history. In pure and effective thought, the two elements constitute an indissoluble organism. A fact cannot be affirmed without thinking; it is impossible to think without affirming a fact. In logical thought, the representation without the concept is blind, it is pure representation deprived of logical right, it is not the subject of a judgment; the concept without representation is void.

Philosophism, logicism or panlogism.

This unity can be severed, practically, in the act which is called error, where propositions expressing the truth are combined, not according to their theoretical connection, but according to what is deemed useful by him who makes the combination. It then happens that in the first place we have an empty concept, which, being without any internal rule (owing to this very vacuity), fills itself with a content which does not belong to it—for this it could have only from contact with the representation—and gives itself a false subject. The opposite also occurs, that is to say, a false predicate or concept is posited, a case which will be considered further on. Limiting ourselves, meanwhile, to the first and observing that it consists in the abuse of the logical element, we shall be able to call that mode of error logicism or panlogism, or also philosophism (since the abuse of the logical element is identical with the abuse of the philosophic element).

Philosophy of history.

Logicism, panlogism or philosophism, is the usurpation that philosophy in the narrow sense wreaks upon history, by pretending to deduce history a priori, as the process is called. This usurpation is logically impossible owing to the identity of philosophy and history already demonstrated, whence bad history is bad philosophy, and inversely. It may happen that the same individual who at a given moment creates excellent philosophy (and excellent history at the same time) may create bad history (and so bad philosophy) the moment after. But this amounts to saying that he who at one moment has philosophized well, may philosophize badly and err the moment after, and not by any means that the two things are possible in the same act. However, the usurpation, logically impossible, is practically effected, in which case, it is not strictly speaking usurpation, although it comes to be so considered from the logical point of view. On the other hand, the claim for the a priori in history is perfectly just; for to affirm a fact means to think it, and it is not possible to think without transforming the representation by means of the concept, and so deducing it from the concept. But this deduction is an a priori synthesis and therefore also induction, whereas the claim to deduce history a priori would amount to a deduction without induction, not History (which is, for that very reason, Philosophy), but a Philosophy of History.

The contradictions in this undertaking.

The absurdity of this programme must be clearly set forth, because those who formulate it are wont to concede equivocally that a Philosophy of history must be founded upon actual data, and have induction as its basis. In reality, were those actual data documents to be interpreted, we should not have the Philosophy of history that they desire, but simply History. The actual data, the so-called formless material, in the programme of the Philosophy of history, are at the most already constructed histories, which do not content the philosophers of history. They do not content them, not because they judge them to be false interpretations of the documents (in which case nothing else would be needed but to correct history with history, carrying out the work that all historians do); but because the very method of history does not content them, and they demand something else. History is despised as mere narration, and considered not as a form of thought, but as its material, a chaotic mass of representations. The true form of thought is for them the Philosophy of history, which appears in history and not in documents. And how does it appear? If the documents are removed, the a priori synthesis is no longer possible. It arises, then, by the parthenogenesis of the abstract concept, which history finds in itself, without the spark being struck by confrontation with documents. History is deduced a priori, not in the concrete but in the void. Whatever be the declarations which philosophers of history add to their programme, its essence cannot be changed. Were these declarations made seriously and all their logical consequences accepted, there would be no reason for maintaining a Philosophy of history beside and beyond history. The two things would become identical, and the programme itself would be annulled, both for those who propose it, and for us who judge it to be contradictory. This is the dilemma, from which there is no escape: either the Philosophy of history is an interpretation of documents, and in this case it is synonymous with History and makes no new claim;—or it does make a new claim and in that case, being no longer interpretation of documents and intending all the same to think facts, it thinks them without documents and draws them from the empty concept, and we have the Philosophy of history, philosophism, panlogism.

Philosophy of history and false analogies.