The Divine Lamp

Not only, therefore, do we form abstract and universal concepts or notions, by means of which we understand more or less fully what things are which come under the notice of our senses. We also interpret the individual object in the distance.  I proceed to think to myself about it thus: “That is something; it is a material thing or being of some sort; it is not a pillar, nor a tree; it is moving; it is an animal of some sort; it is a horse.”  All these mental affirmations and denials are thoughts of another sort, thoughts by which we compare objects we have already conceived, by which we apprehend a relation of agreement or disagreement between things already perceived and conceived, and thus get a fuller insight into what the things are about which we are thinking.  This act of comparison is called judgment.  By means of it we interpret the individual things revealed to our senses-by affirming or denying about these things the objects we have already conceived in the abstract when forming our universal ideas (thing or being, material moving, life, tree, animal, horse, ect).  The act of judgment is thus an act by which we apprehend the identity or non-identity of the objects of two previous apprehensions.  It is an apprehensio complexa or incomplexorum-by which we conceive  an object in the abstract without making any mental affirmation or denial about it.  But conecption and judgment are fundamentally the same sort of mental act, an intellectual intuition of what some thing is.

So too, is what logic calls the third act of the mind, the act of reasoning or inference.  This is the process by which our reason so compares with one another the ideas and judgments it has already formed that it thereby apprehends new relations between the latter, and thus reaches fresh judgments and additional knowledge or truths about things.  Here, too, no less than in judgment, the object apprehended by the intellect is a relation of identity or difference between previously conceived objects: and this new apprehension involves, of course, a fuller and better understanding of what something is-”quod quid est”.

Conception, judgment, and reasoning are, therefore, fundamentally one and the same type of mental process-the understanding of the nature of a thing.  They are all alike acts of the same faculty-the intellect or reason.

Chapter 1

Article 1 Nature of Man: His mental Faculties: Senses and Intellect.

Since Logic deals with thought and thought is a product of the mind, we cannot better approach our subject than by taking a general glance at the nature of the mind and the way in which it acquires knowledge. There is a special ranch of philosophy which investigates all our mental activities: it is called Psychology. We will here take over from psychology, without any detailed analysis or discussion, those of its conclusions which will help throw light upon the subject-matter of logic proper. The mutual bearings of logic and psychology will be explained further on (#20). It is man himself, who by his own thought, furnishes the subject-mater of logic. Now man is corporeal being, existing in space and time like all other corporeal or material things, and, like them too, endowed with many mechanical, physical, and chemical properties and powers; but he is also animate or living, i.e., organically constituted in his material structure, and endowed with life in common with the things of the vegetable or plant world; and he is sentient also, capable of sense perceptions and sense desires, in common with the beings of the animal world; finally he is rational, that is to say, possessed of a characteristic aptitude peculiar to himself and entitling him to a place apart in God’s visible creation, the faculty of reason or intelligence (46). Such is man’s composite nature; and this nature is the remote principle or source of all his activities, rational, sentient, vegetative, and non-vital, all alike.

The proximate principles or sources of his various activities are called faculties. To what faculty do his acts of thought belong, and y what features are we to recognize them? Well, even the very highest and noblest thoughts of man reveal the compositeness of his nature. They spring from his reason or intelligence, of course, but no single thought of his is an act of the reason or intellect pure and simple. All his intellectual acts are dependent both in their origin and in their actual exercise, on the antecedent and concomitant activity of other cognitive faculties of the lower sense order, faculties which man possesses in common with animals, faculties which act only in and through some bodily organ. Of those faculties of sense knowledge or sense cognition, as they are called, some are known as external senses, and others as internal senses. The external senses-of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling or touching-are our channels of information about the outer world. The internal senses- of imagination, sense memory, and sense consciousness-recall or reproduce in our minds, and modify in many ways, the experiences of our external senses. All those sense faculties, external and internal, subserve and minister to the faculty of thought proper-the reason, intelligence, intellect, understanding, as it is variously called. I cannot think of a thing unless some of these senses has already perceived it. Nor can i continue to think of it unless some of them continues to assist me. If I want to recall it to my mind I must conjure up some sort of image of it: a natural image; or an outline or scheme or formula, such as the mathematicians forms in geometry; or an imaginary model or design, such as the artist constructs in his imagination to help him in the conception and execution of his work. All this deserves a little reflection.

Next installment: Distinction Between Sense Perception And Intellectual Conception: Dependence Of Intellectual Thought Upon The Sense Faculties.

The Science of Logic

Chapter 1
The Mind and Knowledge: Preliminary Truths.
Article 2 Distinction Between Sense Perception and Intellectual Thought Upon the Sense Faculties.

The first or simplest exercise of the faculty of thought is called, in logic, Simple Apprehension or Conception. It is the process by which we form a concept or idea external of anything or object. To do this we need the assistance of the external senses; each of these seizing and presenting to our reason some sensible quality or other of external things. Here, for example, is a table-bell upon my desk; I look at it and ring it; my eye receives an impression which enables me to see the outline and the color of the bell, my ear an impression which enables me to hear a sound, my fingers the tactile impression which makes me conscious of the shape and resistance of the button pressed, and so on. These are so many distinct external sensations. But evidently these various sensible qualities of color,outline, sound, resistance, ect., would remain isolated from one another in my mind, did I not possesses the power or faculty of associating them. Both men and animals possess this power; it is a sense faculty, an internal sense; the ancients called it the Sensus Communis, modern philosophers call it the central sense, or the faculty of mental association.

As those sensible impressions are made practically together, it is easy to understand that the sensations produced by them are associated with one another. The qualities perceived by the production of those sensations come into our consciousness as forming one whole; this whole, the resultant of any many factors as there are qualities perceived, constitutes what we call the sense object: the concrete, individual, material thing, existing here and now in the actual conditions and circumstances of time and space in which it is thus perceived by the senses. The cognitive activity of these latter is called sense perception, or sensation, and the conscious product of this activity is called the precept.

Our sensations do not continue indefinitely in consciousness; but on passing out of consciousness they leave behind them traces of themselves, images of the sense qualities originally perceived. These images are preserved in the imagination and may be revived, or recalled to consciousness, by sense memory.

Now it is by the exercise of those partly bodily and partly mental activities of external sense perception and imagination that we obtain possession of the material or data necessary for thought proper. Aided by the sense precept or sense image, our purely mental faculty of thought, our intellect or reason, is able to form a concept or idea by which we apprehend what the thing is, get a rational knowledge of it, give it an intelligible interpretation or meaning and bestow upon it a name. In this we surpass the brute creation. Animals have indeed percepts and images of things; but they have no ideas or concepts; they do not understand what things are; they do not interpret their sense experiences as we interpret ours and theirs; nor have they language, the medium for expressing and communication thought.

To bring out the contrast between the two orders of mental product, the sensible and intellectual, let us revert to our illustration of the table-bell. It will enable us to realize that while the object grasped by sense cognition is concrete, individual, and limited by conditions of time, place, and material existence, the object grasped by the intellect through the idea, is abstract, universal, and independent of all such changing conditions and limitations. The thing perceived by the senses or reproduced by the imagination is always a definite individual thing apprehended as composed of this matter, endowed with these properties, existing here at this particular moment. This thing (the table-bell), which I see with my eyes and touch with my hands, is made of this particular piece of bronze, round in shape, agreeable in tone, resting here and now on this particular corner of this particular desk. All this is perfectly determined. But I can also think of a table-bell not of bronze, nor round in shape, nor agreeable to hear, nor resting here and now upon my desk,-of a table-bell which abstracts from all those particularities. No doubt, the table-bell thus thought of, apart from all those particular conditions , will, if it exists at all, be made of some metal or other; it will be of some shape or other; it will emit some sound or other; it will be localized some place or other, and exist at some time or other. But, as this table-bell of abstract thought may be made of any metal at all, be of any shape, yield any sound, exist anywhere and any time, it will evidently serve to represent to my mind, inadequately, of course, but faithful as far as it goes, any and every possible and actual table-bell of whatsoever material, shape, sound and whereabouts.

Any object or thing thus considered, apart from all the particularizing conditions with which it is really endowed when existing in the actual order of things, is called an abstract object; for to abstract mentally any object is precisely to consider it apart-”separatim considerare“- that which the thing or object is, while lying aside the particular characteristics which give it this, that, or the other definite and determined individuality. Once an object is thus conceived in the abstract by the intellect, it is seen to be capable of being embodied or realized equally and indifferently in an indefinite multitude of individual instances: which is the same as saying that it becomes or is made universal by the consideration of the intellect.

These two functions-of abstracting and generalizing its objects- are the characteristic features of the cognitive activity of human reason or intelligence.

It is of the greatest importance to distinguish clearly between the concrete, individual thing, which is the object of mere sense perception or imagination, and the abstract, universal object, which is apprehended by the thought proper. We can think, or have ideas, of objects which are not perceptible to our senses: for instance, objects not actually existent but only conceivable, such as a flying horse; or objects which we believe or know to exist, but to be imperceivable because not material, such as God, a pure spirit, the human soul, truth, virtue, similarity. And the things we do perceive by our senses we conceive by our intellects in a manner entirely different from that in which we perceive them. We perceive each numerical individual object of a class, as it exists in the concrete, John, James, Thomas, ect. We conceive the nature that is embodied or realized in each, and in virtue of which we put them into a common class, man; and we conceive this common human nature or humanity in the abstract, i.e. neglecting or not considering the different characteristics which particularize it in the individuals, John, James, Thomas, ect. Furthermore, we use this abstract and universal idea, man, for the purpose if interpreting for ourselves , or giving a meaning to, the individual objects John, James, Thomas, ect., which come under the notice of our senses: by thinking to ourselves, “John is a man,” “James is a man,” “Thomas is a man,” ect. The same is true of all our abstract and universal ideas. It is by means of these latter that we interpret or know intellectually the nature and the meaning of the Real World-of Reality itself-as this latter is revealed to us through our senses. This interpretation involves another exercise of thought-the second act of the mind in logic-the judgment.

The first act-conception-by which we form abstract and universal concepts of individual sense objects, has many modalities which have secured for it many different names. For example, when the mind considers one object independently of the surrounding objects it is said to pay attention to this object. This attention may be brought to bear either upon one single attribute of an object, independently of the other qualities with which that attribute is united; or upon all the attributes which constittute the common, specific or class nature of the object, apart from the characteristics that individualize that nature in the actual existing world: those mental acts are called acts of abstraction. Abstraction is the basis of generalization, as explained above; moreover it effects a mental process which we call analysis, i.e. a taking asunder or decomposing of the elements or attributes of a known object. Furthermore, when the mind once again reunites the attributes thus previously isolated, it carries on a work of synthesis. But in these activities judgment is involved as well as conception.-From “The Science of Logic” by Peter Coffey

Next installment:- Judgment or Interpretation: Inference or Reasoning.

The Science of Logic

Chapter 1

The Mind and Knowledge: Preliminary Truths.

Article 1. Nature of Man: His mental faculties: Senses and Intellect.

Since logic deals with thought and thought is a product of the mind, we cannot better approach our subject than by taking a general glance at the nature of the mind and the way in which it acquires knowledge. There is a special branch of philosophy which investigates all our mental activities; it is called psychology (The term as used in philosophy should not be confused with the discipline associated with names like Freud and Jung). We will here take over from psychology, without any detailed analysis or discussion, those of its conclusions which will help to throw light upon the subject-matter of logic proper. The mutual bearings of logic and psychology will be explained further on (sect. 20). It is man himself, who, by his own thought, furnishes the subject matter of logic. Now man is a corporeal being, existing in space and time like all other corporeal or material things, and, like them too, endowed with many mechanical, physical and chemical properties and powers; but he is also animate or living, i.e. organically constituted in his material structure, and endowed with life in common with the things of the vegetable or plant world; and he is sentient also, capable of sense perceptions and sense desires, in common with the beings of the animal world; finally, he is rational, that is to say, possessed of a characteristic aptitude peculiar to himself and entitling him to a place apart in God’s visible creation, the faculty of reason or intelligence (cf. sect. 46). Such is man’s composite nature; and this nature is the remote principle or source of all his activities, rational, sentient, vegetative, and non-vital, all alike.

The proximate principles or sources of his various activities are called faculties. To what faculty do the acts of thought belong, and by what features are we to recognize them? Well even the very highest and noblest thoughts of man reveal the compositeness of his nature. They spring from his reason or intelligence, of course, but no single thought of his is an act of reason or intellect pure and simple. All his intellectual acts are dependent, both in their origin and in their exercise, on the antecedent and concomitant activity of the other cognitive faculties of the lower or sense order, faculties which man possesses in common with animals, faculties which act only in and through some bodily organ. Of those faculties of sense knowledge or sense cognition, as they are called, some are known as external senses, others as internal senses. The external senses-of seeing, hearing, smelling,tasting, feeling or touching-are our channels of information about the outer world. The internal senses-of imagination, sense memory, and sense consciousness-recall or reproduce in our minds, and modify in many ways, the experiences of our external senses. All those sense faculties, external and internal, subserve and minister to the faculty of thought proper-the reason, intelligence, intellect, understanding, as it is variously called. I cannot think of a thing unless some of these senses has already perceived it. Nor can I continue to think of it unless some of them continues to assist me. If I want to recall it to mind I must conjure up some sort of image of it: a natural image; or an outline or scheme or formula, such as the mathematician forms in geometry; or an imaginary model or design, such as the artists constructs in his imagination to help him in the conception and execution of his work. All this deserves a little reflection. From “The Science of Logic”, by Peter Coffey. Public domain work.

Next installment: Article 2, The distinction between sense perception and intellectual conception: dependence of intellectual thought upon the sense faculties.