Mr Bosanquet holds that bare denial has in itself no significance, and he apparently denies that the contradictory of a judgment, apart from the grounds on which it is based, conveys any information.[119] For the meaning of significant negation we must, he says, look to the grounds of the negation; or else for contradictory denial we must substitute contrary denial. As a consequence, a judgment can, strictly and properly, “only be denied by another judgment of the same nature; a singular by a singular judgment, a generic by a generic, a hypothetical by a hypothetical”;[120] and, presumably, a particular by a particular, an apodeictic by an apodeictic.
[119] Logic, i. p. 305.
[120] Ibid, p. 383.
It is of course true that every denial must have some kind of positive basis, but it is also necessary that a judgment should be distinguished from the grounds on which it is based. We cannot say that a judgment of given content is different for two people because they accept it on different grounds; and if it is said that this is to beg the question, since a difference in ground constitutes in itself a difference in content, the reply is that such a doctrine must render the content of every judgment so elusive and uncertain as to make it impossible of analysis.
The view that identifies the denial of a judgment with its contrary not only mixes up a judgment with its grounds, but also overlooks one of the two principal grounds of denial. When the ground of negation is an opposition, we may no doubt be said to reach denial through the contrary, though we should still hold that the denial is in itself something less than the contrary; but when the ground of denial is a deficiency, even this cannot be allowed. If, for example, I have arrived 123 at the conclusion that a man did not start by a given train because I searched the train through before its departure and did not find him there; or if I conclude that a given metal is not copper because it does not satisfy a given test; I have obtained no contrary judgment, and yet my denial is justified.
These would be cases of bare denial. I have gained no positive knowledge of the whereabouts of the man in question, nor can I identify the given metal. But surely it cannot be seriously maintained that the denial is meaningless or useless, say, to a detective in the first instance, or to an analytical chemist in the second.
Of course we seldom or never rest content with bare denial. The contrary rather than the contradictory represents our ultimate aim. But it is often the case that, temporarily at any rate, we cannot get beyond bare denial; and we ought not to consider that we have altogether failed to make progress when all that we have achieved is the exclusion of a possible alternative or the overthrow of a false theory. Recent researches, for example, into the origin of cancer have led to no positive results; but it is claimed for them that by destroying preconceived ideas on the subject they have cleared the way for future advance. Will anyone affirm that this was not worth doing or that the time spent on the researches was wasted?
Looking at the question from another point of view, it is surely absurd to say that we cannot deny a universal unless we are able to substitute another universal in its place. Various algebraical formulae have from time to time been suggested as necessarily yielding a prime number. They have all been overthrown, and no valid formula has been established in their place. But knowledge that these formulae are false is not quite appropriately described as ignorance.
Elsewhere Mr Bosanquet says that mere enumerative exceptions are futile and cannot touch the essence of the unconditionally universal judgments they apparently oppose.[121] He appears to have in view cases where nothing more than some modification of the original judgment is shewn to be 124 necessary. But even so the enumerative exceptions have overthrown the original judgment. No doubt a scientific law which has had a great amount of evidence in its favour is likely to contain elements of truth even if it is not altogether true; and the object of a man of science who overthrows a law will be to set up some other law in its place. But, says Mr Bosanquet, even if the first generic judgment were a sheer blunder and confusion, as has been the case from time to time with judgments propounded in science, it is scarcely possible to rectify the confusion except by substituting for it the true positive conceptions that arise out of the cases which overthrew it.” Here it is admitted that the exceptions do overthrow the law, and the rest of the argument is surely an instance of ignoratio elenchi. It is moreover a pure, and in many cases an unjustifiable, assumption that the cases which suffice to overthrow a false law will also suffice as the basis for the establishment of a true law in its place.
[121] Logic, i. p. 313.