(1) We may affirm two or more simple judgments together. Thus, given that P and Q stand separately for judgments, we may affirm “P and Q.”
It has been held that a synthesis of two independent judgments in this way does not really yield any fresh judgment distinct from the two judgments themselves.[79] In a sense this is true. Anyone may, however, be challenged for holding two 83 judgments together on grounds which would have no application to either taken separately. Hence it is convenient to regard the combination as constituting a distinct logical whole, which demands some kind of separate treatment; and on this ground the description of “P and Q” as a compound judgment may be justified.
[79] Compare Sigwart, Logic, i. p. 214.
The synthesis involved is conjunctive. Hence P and Q may be spoken of more distinctively as a conjunctive judgment. Its denial yields “Not both P and Q” and this form is more truly disjunctive than the form (P or Q) to which that designation is more commonly applied.
(2) Without committing ourselves to the affirmation of either P or Q we may hold them to be so related that the truth of the former involves that of the latter. This yields the hypothetical judgment, “If P then Q.”
It has been held that to regard this as a combination of judgments, and to speak of it as in this sense a compound judgment, is misleading, since P and Q are here not judgments at all, that is to say, they are not at the moment intended as statements. Neither P nor Q is affirmed to be true. What is affirmed to be true is a certain relation between them.[80]
[80] Compare Sigwart, Logic, i. p. 219.
It is certainly the case that when I judge “If P then Q,” P need not be my judgment, nor need Q ; my object may even be to establish the falsity of P on the ground of the known falsity of Q. A more impersonal view, however, being taken, P and Q are suppositions, that is, possible judgments, so that they have meaning as judgments; and If P then Q may fairly be said to express a relation between judgments in the sense of its force being that the acceptance of P as a true judgment involves the acceptance of Q as a true judgment also. The description of the hypothetical judgment as compound appears therefore to be in this sense justified. Such a judgment as If P then Q cannot be interpreted except on the supposition that P and Q taken separately have meaning as judgments.
As we get a compound judgment when we declare two judgments to be so related that if one is accepted the other must be accepted also, so we get a compound judgment when 84 we deny that this relation subsists between them. Thus in addition to the judgment “If P then Q,” we have its denial, namely, “If P then not necessarily Q.”[81] The best mode of describing this form of proposition will be considered in a subsequent [chapter].
[81] In giving this as the contradictory of If P then Q, we are assuming a particular doctrine of the import of the hypothetical judgment. The question will be discussed more fully later on.