Part 8

Thought, in so far as it is itself life (that is to say, the life which is thought, and therefore life of life), and in so far as it is reality (that is to say, the reality which is thought, and therefore reality of reality) has in itself opposition; and for this reason it is also _affirmation and negation_; it does not affirm save by denying, and does not deny save by affirming. But it does not affirm and deny save by distinguishing, because thought is distinction, and we cannot distinguish (truly distinguish _i.e.,_ which is a different thing from the rough and ready separations made by the pseudoconcepts) save by unifying. He who meditates upon the connections of affirmation-negation and unity-distinction has before him the problem of the nature of thought, and so of the nature of reality; and he ends by seeing that those two connections are not parallel nor disparate, but are in their turn unified in unity-distinction understood as effective reality, and not as simple abstract possibility, or desire, or mere ought to be.

[Sidenote: _The principle of identity and contradiction; its true meaning and false interpretation._]

If we now wish to state the nature of thought as reality in the form of _law_ (a form which we know to be one with that of the concept, though the first term be adopted by preference for the pseudoconcepts), we can only say that the law of thought is the law of unity and distinction, and therefore that it is expressed in the two formulæ A is A (unity) and A is not B (distinction), which are precisely what is called the law or _principle of identity and contradiction._ It is a very improper, or, rather, a very equivocal formula, chiefly because it allows it to be supposed that the law or principle is outside or above thought, like a bridle and guide, whereas it is thought itself; and it has the further inconvenience of not placing in clear relief the unity of identity and distinction. But these are not too great evils, because misunderstandings can be made clear, and because--what we will not tire of repeating--all, all words indeed, are exposed to misunderstandings.

[Sidenote: _Another false interpretation; struggle with the principle of opposition. False application of this principle._]

We have a much greater evil, when the principle of identity and contradiction is formulated and understood, not in the sense that A is not B, but in that of A is A only and not also not A, or its opposite; because, understood in this way, it leads directly to placing the negative moment outside the positive, not-being outside or opposite to being, and so, to the absurd conception of reality as motionless and empty being. In opposition to this degeneration of the principle of identity and contradiction, another law or principle has been conceived and made prominent, whose formula is: "A is also not A," or "everything is self-contradicting." This is a necessary and provident reaction against the one-sided way in which the preceding principle was interpreted. But it too brings in its turn the inconvenience of all reactions, because it seems to rise up against the first law, like an irreconcilable rival destined to supplant it. In the first formula we have a duality of principles, which, as has been said, cannot logically be maintained; in the second, a degeneration in the opposite sense, the total loss of the criterion of distinction. To the false application of the principle of identity and contradiction succeeds _the false application of the dialectic principle._

This false application has also been manifested in a form which could be called doubly arbitrary; that is to say, when it has attempted to treat dialectically neither more nor less than empirical and abstract concepts, whereas in any case it could not be applied to anything but the pure concepts. The dialectic belongs to opposed categories (or, rather, it is the thinking of the one category of opposition), not at all to representative and abstract fictions, which are based either upon mere representation or upon nothing. As the result of that arbitrary form, we have seen vegetable opposed to mineral, society opposed to the family, or even Rome opposed to Greece, and Napoleon to Rome; or the superficies actually opposed to the line, time to space, and the number two to the number one. But this error belongs to another more general error, which we shall deal with in its place, when discussing philosophism.

[Sidenote: _Errors of the dialectic applied to the relation of the distincts._]

Here it is important to indicate only that false application of the dialectic which tends to resolve in itself and so to destroy distinct concepts, by treating them as opposites. The distinct concepts are distinct and not opposite; and they cannot be opposite, precisely because they already have opposition in themselves. Fancy has its opposite in itself, fanciful passivity, or æsthetic ugliness, and therefore it is not the opposite of thought, which in its turn has its opposite in itself, logical passivity, antithought, or the false. Certainly (as has been said), he who does not make the beautiful (in so far as he does anything, and he cannot but do something) effectively produces another value, for example the useful, and he who does not think, if he does anything, produces another value, the fanciful for instance, and creates a work of art. But in this way we issue from those determinations considered in themselves, from the opposition which is in them and _which constitutes them_; and from the consideration of effectual opposition we pass to the consideration of distinction. Considered as real, the opposite cannot be anything but the distinct; but the opposite is precisely the unreal in the real, and not a form or grade of reality. It will be said that unless one distinct concept is opposed to another, it is not clear how there can be a transition from one to the other. But this is a confusion between concept and fact, between _ideal_ and therefore eternal moments of the real and their _existential_ manifestations. Existentially, a poet does not become a philosopher, save when in his spirit there arises a contradiction to his poetry, that is to say, when he is no longer satisfied with the individual and with the individual intuition: in that moment, he does not pass into but is a philosopher, because to pass, to be effectual, and to become are synonyms. In the same way, a poet does not pass from one intuition to another, or from one work of art to another, save through the formation of an internal contradiction, owing to which his previous work no longer satisfies him; and he passes into, that is to say he becomes and truly is, _another_ poet. Transition is the law of the whole of life; and therefore it is in all the existential and contingent determinations of each of these forms. We pass from one verse of a poem to another because the first verse satisfies, and also does not satisfy. The ideal moments, on the contrary, do not pass into one another, because they are eternally in each other, distinct, and one with each other.

[Sidenote: _Its reductio ad absurdum._]

Moreover, the violent application of the dialectic to the distincts, and their illegitimate distortion into opposites, due to an elevated but ill-directed tendency to unity, is punished where it sins; that is to say, in not attaining to that unity to which it aspired. The connection of distinct is circular, and therefore true unity; the application of opposites to the forms of the spirit and of reality would produce, on the contrary, not the circle, which is true infinity, but the _progressif ad infinitum,_ which is false or bad infinity. Indeed, if opposition determine the transition from one ideal grade to the other, from one form to the other, and is the sole character and supreme law of the real, by what right can a final form be established, in which that transition should no longer take place? By what right, for instance, should the spirit, which moves from the impression or emotion and passes dialectically to the intuition, and by a new dialectic transition to logical thought, remain calm and satisfied there? Why (as is the contention of such philosophies) should the thought of the Absolute or of the Idea be the end of Life? In obedience to the law of opposition, it would be necessary that thought, which denies intuition, should be in its turn denied; and the denial again denied; and so on, to infinity. This negation to infinity exists, certainly, and it is life itself, seen in representation; but precisely for this reason we do not escape from this evil infinite of representation save through the true infinite, which places the infinite in every moment, the first in the last and the last in the first, that is to say, places in every moment unity, which is distinction.

We must, however, recognize that the false application of the dialectic has had, _per accidens,_ the excellent result of demonstrating the instability of a crowd of ill-distinguished concepts; as we must take advantage of the devastation and overturning of secular prejudices which it has brought about. But that erroneous dialectic has also promoted the habit of lack of precision in the concepts, and sometimes encouraged the charlatanism of superficial thinkers; though this too, _per accidens,_ so far as concerns the initial motive of dialectical polemic is rich with profound truth.

[Sidenote: _The Improper form of logical principles or laws. The principle of sufficient reason._]

The form of _law_ given to the concept of the concept has led to this confusion; for it is an improper form, all saturated with empirical usage. Given the law of identity and contradiction, and given side by side with it that of opposition or dialectic, there inevitably arises a seeming duality; whereas the two laws are nothing but two inopportune forms of expressing the unique nature of the concept, or, rather, of reality itself. The peculiar nature of the concept may rather be said to be expressed in another law or principle, namely that of _sufficient reason._ This principle is ordinarily used as referring to the concept of cause, or to the pseudoconcepts, but (both in its peculiar tendency and in its historical origin) it truly belonged to the concept of end or reason. That is to say, it was desired to establish that things cannot be said to be known, when any sort of cause for them is adduced, but on the contrary, that cause must be adduced, which is also the end, and which is, therefore, the _sufficient_ reason. But what else does seeking the sufficient reason of things mean but thinking them in their truth, conceiving them in their universality, and stating their concept? This is logical thought, as distinct from representation or intuition, which offers things but not reasons, individuality but not universality.

It is not worth while talking about the other so-called logical principles; because, either they have been already implicitly dealt with, or they are ineptitudes without any sort of interest.

SECOND SECTION

THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT

I

THE CONCEPT AND VERBAL FORM. THE DEFINITIVE JUDGMENT

[Sidenote: _Relation of the logical with the Æsthetic form._]

With the ascent from the intuition-expression to the concept, and with the concentration upon it of our attention, we have risen from the purely imaginative to the purely logical form of the spirit. We must now, so to speak, begin the descent; or rather consider in greater detail the position that has been reached, in order to understand it in all its conditions and circumstances. Were we not to do this, we should have given a concept of the concept, which would err by abstraction.

[Sidenote: _The concept as expression._]

The concept, to which we have risen from intuition, does not live in empty space. It does not exist as a mere concept, or as something abstract. The air it breathes is the intuition itself, from which it detaches itself, but in whose ambient it continues. If these images seem unsuitable, or somewhat drawn from the sphere of representations, we may choose others, such as that, which we used on another occasion, of the second grade, which, to be second, must rest upon the first, and, in a certain sense, be the first. The concept does not exist, and cannot exist, save in the intuitive and expressive forms, or in what is called language. To think is also to speak; he who does not express, or does not know how to express his concept, does not possess it: at the most, he presumes or hopes to possess it. Not only is there never in reality an unexpressed representation, a pictorial vision unpainted, or a song unsung; but there is never even a concept which is simply thought and not also translated into words.

We have previously defended this thesis against the objections which are wont to be made to it.[1] But in order to recapitulate and thus to avoid the misunderstandings which might arise from the abbreviating formulæ which we use, it will be well to repeat that the concept is not expressed only in the so-called vocal or verbal forms; and if we mention these more than others, it will be by synecdoche, that is to say, when we refer to them, we desire to take them as representative of all the others. Undoubtedly, the affirmation that the concept can also be expressed in non-verbal form may cause surprise. It will be said that geometry itself, in so far as it describes geometrical figures, at the same time employs or implies speech; and we shall be ironically challenged to attempt to set the _Critique of Pure Reason_ to music or to make a building of Newton's _Natural Philosophy._ But we must carefully beware of breaking up the unity of the intuitive spirit, because errors arise and become incorrigible, precisely through such breaking up. Words, tones, colours, and lines are physical abstractions, and only by abstraction can they be successfully separated. In reality, he who looks at a picture with his eyes also speaks it in words to himself; he who sings an air also has its words in his spirit; he who builds a palace or a church speaks, sings, and makes music; he who reads a poem sings, paints, sculptures, constructs. _The Critique of Pure Reason_ cannot be set to music, because it already has its music; the _Natural Philosophy_ cannot be built in stone, because it is already architectonic; in exactly the same way that the _Transfiguration_ cannot be turned into a symphony in four movements, or the _Promessi Sposi_ into a series of pictures. Thus the challenge, if made, would testify to the lack of reflection on the part of the challengers, for they would confuse physical distinctions with the real and concrete act of the intuitive spirit.

[Sidenote: _Æsthetic and Æsthetic-logical expressions or expressions of the concept; propositions and judgments._]

Owing to the incarnation of the concept or logic in expression and language, language is quite full of logical elements; hence people are often led astray into affirming (we have already made clear the erroneousness[2] of this) that language is a logical function. Water might as well be called wine, because wine has been poured into the water. But language as language or as simple æsthetic fact is one thing, and language as expression of logical thought is another, for in this case, certainly, language remains always language and subject to the law of language, but is also more than language. If the first be termed simple expression, _logos seimantikos,_ as Aristotle said, or _judicium æstheticum sive sensitivum,_ according to the school of Baumgarten, the second must on the contrary be called affirmation, _logos apophantikos, judicium logicum_ or _æsthetico-logicum._ To this same issue we can reduce, if we understand it properly, the distinction between _proposition_ and _judgment,_ for they are only distinguishable in so far as it is assumed that the second form is dominated by the concept, whereas the first is given as free of such domination.

But we should seek in vain for facts in proof of expressions belonging to either form, because we cannot furnish them without making the proviso that we understand them in the meaning of one or other of the two forms. Taken by themselves, any verbal expressions which we adduce or can adduce as proofs are indeterminate and therefore of many meanings. "Love is life" can be the saying of a poet who notes an impression with which his soul is agitated and marks it with fervour and solemnity; or it can be, equally, the logical affirmation of some one philosophizing on the essence of life. "Clear, fresh, and sweet waters," when uttered by Petrarch, is an æsthetic proposition; but the same words become a logical judgment when, for example, they answer the question as to which is the most celebrated love song of Petrarch, or pseudological when applied by a naturalist to the substance water. A word no longer has meaning, or--what amounts to the same thing--has no definite meaning, when it is abstracted from the circumstances, the implications, the emphasis, and the gesture with which it has been thought, animated, and pronounced. Nevertheless, forgetfulness of this elementary hermeneutic canon, by which a word is a word only on the soil that has produced it and to which it must be restored, has been in Logic the cause of interminable disputes as to the logical nature of this or that verbal phrase, separated from the whole to which it belonged and rendered abstract. It would be much less equivocal to adduce such poems as _I Sepolcri,_ or the song _A Silvia,_ as documents of æsthetic propositions, and philosophical treatises (for examples, the _Metaphysics_ or the _Analytics_) as documents of æsthetic-logical judgments or propositions. But here, too, we should need to add: "poetry considered as poetry," and "philosophy considered as philosophy," since it is clear that a poem is prose in the soul of him who reflects upon it, and prose is poetry in the soul of a writer vibrating with enthusiasm and emotion in the act of composition. Facts do not constitute proofs in philosophy, save when they are interpreted through the medium of philosophy; and then, too, they become mere _examples,_ which aid in fixing the attention upon what is being demonstrated.

[Sidenote: _Surpassing of the dualism of thought and language._]

The relation between language and thought, conceived as we have conceived it, does not admit the criticism that it creates an insuperable dualism, though that criticism was justly aimed at those who set the two concepts side by side and parallel with one another. In that case the sole means that remained of obtaining unity was to present language as an acoustic fact and declare thought to be the unique psychic reality, and language the physical side of the psychophysical nexus. But no one will henceforth wish to repeat the blasphemy that language (the synonym of fancy and poetry) is nothing but a physical-acoustic fact and merely adherent to thought. We have in the two forms, notwithstanding their clear distinction, not parallelism and dualism, but an organic relation of connection in distinction,--the first form being implied in the second, the second crystallized into the first,--precisely in conformity with that rhythmical movement of the concepts which we have already discussed. And thus, too, when asked if the _prius_ of Logic be the concept or the judgment, we must reply that the judgment, understood as an æsthetic proposition, is certainly a _prius;_ but understood as a logical judgment, it is neither a _prius_ nor a _posterius_ in relation to the concept, since it is the concept itself in its effectuality.

[Sidenote: _The logical judgment as definition._]

This pure expression of the concept, which is the logical judgment, constitutes what is called _definitive judgment_ or _definition._ This, considered on its verbal side, or as the synthesis of thought and word, does not give rise to any special logical theory in addition to that which we have already stated, when definition showed itself to be one with distinction or conceptual thought; nor does it give rise to any special æsthetic doctrine, since the general doctrine expounded elsewhere includes this also. The dispute, as to whether the definition be verbal or real, finds its solution in the relation we have just established between thought and words; hence definition is verbal because it is real, and _vice versa._ And as to the other meaning of the question, whether, that is to say, definition be _nominal_ or _real,_ conventional or corresponding with the truth, that finds its solution in the distinction between pseudoconcepts and concepts, the first of which, it is clear, are _defined_ only in a nominalist or conventional way, because they _are,_ in fact, nominalist and conventional.

[Sidenote: _The indistinguishability of subject and predicate in the definition. Unity of essence and existence._]

Greater importance attaches to the other dispute, as to whether the definitive judgment be analysable into subject, predicate, and copula, whether, for example, the definition: "the will is the practical form of the spirit," can be resolved in the terms: "will" (subject), "practical form of the spirit" (predicate), and "is" (copula). Now, the difference between subject and predicate is here illusory, since predicate means the universal which is predicated of an individual, and here both the so-called subject and the so-called predicate are two universals, and the second, far from being more ample than the first, is the first itself. As to the "is," since the two distinct terms which should be copulated are wanting, it is not a copula; nor has it even the value of a predicate, as in the case in which it is asserted of an individual fact that it is, that is to say, that it has really happened and is _existing._ The "is," in the case of the definition, expresses nothing except simply the act of thought which thinks; and what is thought is, in so far as it is thought; if it were not, it would not be thought; and if it were not thought, it would not be. The concept gives the essence of things, and in the concept _essence involves existence._ That this proposition has sometimes been contested is due solely to the confusion between the essence, which is existence and therefore concept, and the existence which is not essence and therefore is representation. It is due therefore to the problem to which representations gave rise in this respect, and with which we shall deal further on. Freed from this confusion, the proposition is not contestable, and is the very basis of all logical thought, of which we have to examine the conceivability, or essence, that is, its internal necessity and coherence; and when this has been established, existence has also been established. If the concept of _virtue_ be conceivable, virtue is; if the concept of _God_ be conceivable, God is. To the most perfect concept the perfection of existence cannot be wanting without being _itself_ non-existent.

[Sidenote: _Alleged emptiness of the definition._]