The Logic of Hegel

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

165.] It is the element of Individuality which first explicitly differentiates the elements of the notion. Individuality is the negative reflection of the notion into itself, and it is in that way at first the free differentiating of it as the first negation, by which the specific character of the notion is realised, but under the form of particularity. That is to say, the different elements are in the first place only qualified as the several elements of the notion, and, secondly, their identity is no less explicitly stated, the one being said to be the other. This realised particularity of the notion is the Judgment.

The ordinary classification of notions, as clear, distinct and adequate, is no part of the notion; it belongs to psychology. Notions, in fact, are here synonymous with mental representations; a clear notion is an abstract simple representation: a distinct notion is one where, in addition to the simplicity, there is one 'mark' or character emphasised as a sign for subjective cognition. There is no more striking mark of the formalism and decay of Logic than the favourite category of the 'mark.' The adequate notion comes nearer the notion proper, or even the Idea: but after all it expresses only the formal circumstance that a notion or representation agrees with its object, that is, with an external thing.—The division into what are called subordinate and co-ordinate notions implies a mechanical distinction of universal from particular which allows only a mere correlation of them in external comparison. Again, an enumeration of such kinds as contrary and contradictory, affirmative and negative notions, &c., is only a chance-directed gleaning of logical forms which properly belong to the sphere of Being or Essence, (where they have been already examined,) and which have nothing to do with the specific notional character as such. The true distinctions in the notion, universal, particular, and individual, may be said also to constitute species of it, but only when they are kept severed from each other by external reflection. The immanent differentiating and specifying of the notion come to sight in the judgment: for to judge is to specify the notion.

(b) The Judgment.

166.] The Judgment is the notion in its particularity, as a connexion which is also a distinguishing of its functions, which are put as independent and yet as identical with themselves, not with one another.

One's first impression about the Judgment is the independence of the two extremes, the subject and the predicate. The former we take to be a thing or term per se, and the predicate a general term outside the said subject and somewhere in our heads. The next point is for us to bring the latter into combination with the former, and in this way frame a Judgment. The copula 'is' however enunciates the predicate of the subject, and so that external subjective subsumption is again put in abeyance, and the Judgment taken as a determination of the object itself.—The etymological meaning of the Judgment (Urtheil) in German goes deeper, as it were declaring the unity of the notion to be primary, and its distinction to be the original partition. And that is what the Judgment really is.

In its abstract terms a Judgment is expressible in the proposition: 'The individual is the universal.' These are the terms under which the subject and the predicate first confront each other, when the functions of the notion are taken in their immediate character or first abstraction. [Propositions such as, 'The particular is the universal,' and 'The individual is the particular,' belong to the further specialisation of the judgment.] It shows a strange want of observation in the logic-books, that in none of them is the fact stated, that in every judgment there is such a statement made, as, The individual is the universal, or still more definitely, The subject is the predicate: (e.g. God is absolute spirit). No doubt there is also a distinction between terms like individual and universal, subject and predicate: but it is none the less the universal fact, that every judgment states them to be identical.

The copula 'is' springs from the nature of the notion, to be self-identical even in parting with its own. The individual and universal are its constituents, and therefore characters which cannot be isolated. The earlier categories (of reflection) in their correlations also refer to one another: but their interconnexion is only 'having' and not 'being,' i.e. it is not the identity which is realised as identity or universality. In the judgment, therefore, for the first time there is seen the genuine particularity of the notion: for it is the speciality or distinguishing of the latter, without thereby losing universality.

Judgments are generally looked upon as combinations of notions, and, be it added, of heterogeneous notions. This theory of judgment is correct, so far as it implies that it is the notion which forms the presupposition of the judgment, and which in the judgment comes up under the form of difference. But on the other hand, it is false to speak of notions differing in kind. The notion, although concrete, is still as a notion essentially one, and the functions which it contains are not different kinds of it. It is equally false to speak of a combination of the two sides in the judgment, if we understand the term 'combination' to imply the independent existence of the combining members apart from the combination. The same external view of their nature is more forcibly apparent when judgments are described as produced by the ascription of a predicate to the subject. Language like this looks upon the subject as self-subsistent outside, and the predicate as found somewhere in our head. Such a conception of the relation between subject and predicate however is at once contradicted by the copula 'is.' By saying 'This rose is red,' or 'This picture is beautiful,' we declare, that it is not we who from outside attach beauty to the picture or redness to the rose, but that these are the characteristics proper to these objects. An additional fault in the way in which Formal Logic conceives the judgment is, that it makes the judgment look as if it were something merely contingent, and does not offer any proof for the advance from notion on to judgment. For the notion does not, as understanding supposes, stand still in its own immobility. It is rather an infinite form, of boundless activity, as it were the punctum saliens of all vitality, and thereby self-differentiating. This disruption of the notion into the difference of its constituent functions',—a disruption imposed by the native act of the notion, is the judgment. A judgment therefore means the particularising of the notion. No doubt the notion is implicitly the particular. But in the notion as notion the particular is not yet explicit, and still remains in transparent unity with the universal. Thus, for example, as we remarked before (§ 160, note), the germ of a plant contains its particular, such as root, branches, leaves, &c.: but these details are at first present only potentially, and are not realised till the germ uncloses. This unclosing is, as it were, the judgment of the plant. The illustration may also serve to show how neither the notion nor the judgment are merely found in our head, or merely framed by us. The notion is the very heart of things, and makes them what they are. To form a notion of an object means therefore to become aware of its notion: and when we proceed to a criticism or judgment of the object, we are not performing a subjective act, and merely ascribing this or that predicate to the object. We are, on the contrary, observing the object in the specific character imposed by its notion.

167.] The Judgment is usually taken in a subjective sense as an operation and a form, occurring merely in self-conscious thought. This distinction, however, has no existence on purely logical principles, by which the judgment is taken in the quite universal signification that all things are a judgment. That is to say, they are individuals, which are a universality or inner nature in themselves,—a universal which is individualised. Their universality and individuality are distinguished, but the one is at the same time identical with the other.

The interpretation of the judgment, according to which it is assumed to be merely subjective, as if we ascribed a predicate to a subject, is contradicted by the decidedly objective expression of the judgment. The rose is red; Gold is a metal. It is not by us that something is first ascribed to them.—A judgment is however distinguished from a proposition. The latter contains a statement about the subject, which does not stand to it in any universal relationship, but expresses some single action, or some state, or the like. Thus, 'Caesar was born at Rome in such and such a year, waged war in Gaul for ten years, crossed the Rubicon, &c.,' are propositions, but not judgments. Again it is absurd to say that such statements as, 'I slept well last night,' or 'Present arms!' may be turned into the form of a judgment. 'A carriage is passing by'—would be a judgment, and a subjective one at best, only if it were doubtful, whether the passing object was a carriage, or whether it and not rather the point of observation was in motion:—in short, only if it were desired to specify a conception which was still short of appropriate specification.