ideas, and are judgments of memory after sense that something
sensible existed, e.g. pressure existed: afterwards come judgments
of memory after inference, e.g. Caesar was murdered.
Finally, most judgments are inferential. These are conclusions
which primarily are inferred from sensory and memorial judgments;
and so far as inference starts from sense of something
sensible in the present, and from memory after sense of something
sensible in the past, and concludes similar things, inferential
judgments are indirect beliefs in being and in existence beyond
ideas. When from the sensible pressures between the parts
of my mouth, which I feel and remember and judge that they
exist and have existed, I infer another similar pressure (e.g. of
the food which presses and is pressed by my mouth in eating),
the inferential judgment with which I conclude is a belief that
the latter exists as well as the former (e.g. the pressure of food
without as well as the sensible pressures within). Inference,
no doubt, is closely involved with conception. So far as it
depends on memory, an inferential judgment presupposes
memorial ideas in its data; and so far as it infers universal
classes and laws, it produces general ideas. But even so the
part played by conception is quite subordinate to that of belief.
In the first place, the remembered datum, from which an inference
of pressure starts, is not the conceived idea, but the belief
that the sensible pressure existed. Secondly, the conclusion
in which it ends is not the general idea of a class, but the belief
that a class, represented by a general idea, exists, and is (or is
not) otherwise determined (e.g. that things pressing and pressed
exist and move). Two things are certain about inferential
judgment: one, that when inference is based on sense and
memory, inferential judgment starts from a combination of
sensory and memorial judgment, both of which are beliefs that
things exist; the other, that in consequence inferential judgment
is a belief that similar things exist. There are thus three primary
judgments: judgments of sense, of memory after sense, and of
inference from sense. All these are beliefs in being and existence,
and this existential belief is first in sense, and afterwards transferred
to memory and inference. Moreover, it is transferred in
the same irresistible way: frequently we cannot help either
feeling pressure, or remembering it, or inferring it; and as there
are involuntary sensation and attention, so there are involuntary
memory and inference. Again, in a primary judgment existence
need not be expressed; but if expressed, it may be expressed
either by the predicate, e.g. “I exist,” or by the subject, e.g.
“I who exist think.” There are indeed differences between
primary judgments, in that the sensory is a belief in present,
the memorial in past, and the inferential in present, past and
future existence. But these differences in detail do not alter
the main point that all these are beliefs in the existing, in the
real as opposed to the ideal, in actual things which are not ideas.
In short, a primary judgment is a belief in something existing
apart from our idea of it; and not because we have an idea of it,
or by comparing an idea with, or referring an idea to, reality;
but because we have a sensation of it, or a memory of it or an
inference of it. Sensation, not conception, is the origin of
judgment.
2. Different Significations of Being in different Kinds of Judgment.—As Aristotle remarked both in the De Interpretatione and in the Sophistici Elenchi, “not-being is thinkable” does not mean “not-being exists.” In the latter treatise he added that it is a fallacia a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter to argue from the former to the latter; “for,” as he says, “it is not the same thing to be something and to exist absolutely.” Without realizing their debt to tradition, Herbart, Mill and recently Sigwart, have repeated Aristotle’s separation of the copula from the verb of existence, as if it were a modern discovery that “is” is not the same as “exists.” It may be added that they do not quite realize what the copula exactly signifies: it does not signify existence, but it does signify a fact, namely, that something is (or is not) determined, either absolutely in a categorical judgment, or conditionally in a conditional judgment. Now we have seen that all primary judgments signify more than this fact; they are also beliefs in the existence of the thing signified by the subject. But, in the first place, primary judgments signify this existence never by the copula, but sometimes by the predicate, and sometimes by the subject; and, secondly, it does not follow that all judgments whatever signify existence. Besides inference of existence there is inference of non-existence, of things inconsistent with the objects of primary judgments. Hence secondary judgments, which no longer contain a belief that the thing exists, e.g. the judgment, “not-being is thinkable,” cited by Aristotle; the judgment, “A square circle is impossible,” cited by Herbart; the judgment, “A centaur is a fiction of the poets,” cited by Mill. These secondary judgments of non-existence are partly like and partly unlike primary judgments of existence. They resemble them in that they are beliefs in being signified by the copula. They are beliefs in things of a sort; for, after all, ideas and names are things; their objects, even though non-existent, are at all events things conceivable or nameable; and therefore we are able to make judgments that things, non-existent but conceivable or nameable, are (or are not) determined in a particular manner. Thus the judgment about a centaur is the belief, “A conceivable centaur is a fiction of the poets,” and the judgment about a square circle is the belief, “A so-called square circle is an impossibility.” But, though beliefs that things of some sort are (or are not) determined, these secondary judgments fall short of primary judgments of existence. Whereas in a primary judgment there is a further belief, signified by subject or predicate, that the thing is an existing thing in the sense of being a real thing (e.g. a man), different from the idea of it as well as from the name for it; in a secondary judgment there is no further belief that the thing has any existence beyond the idea (e.g. a centaur), or even beyond the name (e.g. a square circle): though the idea or name exists, there is no belief that anything represented by idea or name exists. Starting, then, from this fundamental distinction between judgments of existence and judgments of non-existence, we may hope to steer our way between two extreme views which emanate from two important thinkers, each of whom has produced a flourishing school of psychological logic.
On the one hand, early in the 19th century Herbart started the view that a categorical judgment is never a judgment of existence, but always hypothetical; on the other hand, in the latter part of the century Brentano started the view that all categorical judgments are existential. The truth lies between these contraries. The view of Herbart and his school is contradicted by our primary judgments of and from sense, in which we cannot help believing existence; and it gives an inadequate account even of our secondary judgments in which we no longer indeed believe existence, but do frequently believe that a non-existent thing is (or is not) somehow determined unconditionally. It is true, as Herbart says, that the judgment, “A square circle is an impossibility,” does not contain the belief, “A square circle is existent”; but when he goes on to argue that it means, “If a square circle is thought, the conception of impossibility must be added in thought,” he falls into a non-sequitur. To be categorical, a judgment does not require a belief in existence, but only that something, existent or not, is (or is not) determined; and there are two quite different attitudes of mind even to a non-existent thing, such as a square circle, namely, unconditional and conditional belief. The judgment, “A non-existent but so-called square circle is an impossibility,” is an unconditional, or categorical judgment of non-existence, quite different from any hypothetical judgment, which depends on the conditions “if it is thought,” or “if it exists,” or any other “if.” On the other hand, the view of Brentano and his school is contradicted by these very categorical judgments of non-existence; and while it applies only to categorical judgments of existence, it does so inadequately. To begin with the latter objection, Brentano proposed to change the four Aristotelian forms of judgment, A, E, I, O, into the following existential forms:—
A. “There is not an immortal man.”
E. “There is not a live stone.”
I. “There is a sick man.”
O. “There is an unlearned man.”
