We are at any rate driven to this if we once admit that attributes may themselves be the subjects of attributes, and it is difficult to see how this admission can be avoided. If, for example, we say that “unpunctuality is irritating,” we ascribe the attribute of being irritating to unpunctuality, which is itself an attribute. Unpunctuality, therefore, although primarily an abstract name, can also be used in such a way that it is, according to our definition, concrete.
Similarly when we consider that an attribute may appear in different forms or in different degrees, we must regard it as something which can itself be modified by the addition of a further attribute; as, for example, when we distinguish physical courage from moral courage, or the whiteness of snow from the whiteness of smoke, or when we observe that the beauty of a diamond differs in its characteristics from the beauty of a landscape.
Hence, if the definitions under discussion are adopted, we arrive at the conclusion that while some names are concrete and never anything but concrete, names which are primarily formed as abstracts and continue to be used as such are apt also to be used as concretes, that is to say, they are names of attributes which can themselves be regarded as possessing attributes. They are abstract names when viewed in one relation, concrete when viewed in another.[15]
[15] The use of the same term as both abstract and concrete in the manner above described must be distinguished from the not unfrequent case of quite another kind in which a name originally abstract changes its meaning and comes to be used in the sense of the corresponding concrete; as, for example, when we talk of the Deity meaning thereby God, not the qualities of God. Compare Jevons, Elementary Lessons in Logic, pp. 21, 22.
19 It must be admitted that this result is paradoxical. As yielding a division of names that is non-exclusive, it is also unscientific. There are two ways of avoiding this difficulty.
In the first place, we may further modify our definitions and say that an abstract name is the name of anything which can be regarded as an attribute of something else (whether it is or is not itself a subject of attributes), while a concrete name is the name of that which cannot be regarded as an attribute of something else. This distinction is simple and easy of application, it is in accordance with popular usage, and it satisfies the condition that the members of a division shall be mutually exclusive. But it may be doubted whether it has any logical value.
A second way of avoiding the difficulty is to give up for logical purposes the distinction between concrete and abstract names, and to substitute for it a distinction between the concrete and the abstract use of names. A name is then used in a concrete sense when the thing called by the name is contemplated as a subject of attributes, and in an abstract sense when the thing called by the name is contemplated as an attribute of subjects. It follows from what has been already said that some names can be used as concrete only, while others can be used either as abstract or as concrete. This solution is satisfactory from the logical point of view, since logic is concerned not with names as such, but with the use of names in propositions. It may be added that as logicians we have very little to do with the abstract use of names, A consideration of the import of propositions will shew that when a name appears either as the subject or as the predicate of a non-verbal proposition its use is always concrete.
13. Can Abstract Names be subdivided into General and Singular?—The question whether any abstract names can be considered general has given rise to much difference of opinion amongst logicians. On the one hand, it is argued that all 20 abstract names must necessarily be singular, since an attribute considered purely as such and apart from its concrete manifestations is one and indivisible, and cannot admit of numerical distinction.[16] On the other hand, it is urged that some abstracts must certainly be considered general since they are names of attributes of which there are various kinds or subdivisions; and in confirmation of this view it is pointed out that we frequently write abstracts in the plural number, as when we say, “Redness and yellowness are colours,” “Patience and meekness are virtues.”[17]
[16] This represents the view taken by Jevons. See Principles of Science, 2, § 3.
[17] Compare Mill, Logic, i. 2, § 4.