Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

and a general term appears to be good on more than one ground, and should not be overlooked1.

It should be observed that a general term is applicable to a number of things, not arbitrarily, but in virtue of their agreement in an attribute or collection of attributes. It implies that the things to which it is applicable agree in an attribute or attributes. It is, in fact, a name of a concept as well as of individual things. In technical language it is said to denote or signify directly the things to which it is applicable, and connote, imply or signify indirectly the attribute or attributes in which they all agree. In other words, a general term is a name of a class, and connotes the attribute or attributes which characterise it, and denotes the individuals which belong to it.

§ 4. The third division of terms is into concrete and abstract. An abstract term is a name of an attribute, or a collection of attributes, apart from the substance in which it exists. The word attribute is here used in its rudest sense to mean any quality, property, or accident of a substance or thing, and, also, any relation of things and qualities. For example, 'animality,' 'humanity,' 'whiteness,' 'triangularity,' &c., are all abstract terms, each signifying an attribute or a group of attributes apart from the substances in which it exists. 'Equality,' 'succession,' 'coexistence' are abstract terms, each signifying a relation of things apart from the things. A concrete term is, on the other hand, a name of a substance, or a class of substances. The word substance is here used in its popular sense to mean an individual thing or things. For example, 'Socrates,' 'the sun,' ‘the earth,' 'the table,' 'man,' 'animal,' 'plant,' &c., are all concrete terms, signifying individual things or substances, and not merely attributes. The term 'man' is concrete, inasmuch as it is a name of many things and not merely of the attribute 'humanity' possessed in common by all individual men. For the same reason, adjectives are generally concrete, inasmuch as they are names of things and not merely significant of attributes: the adjective

1 See Hamilton's Lectures, Vol. I. pp. 281-2.

'white,' for example, is a name of all things whatever having the colour 'whiteness,'-a name not merely of this quality, but of every white object. From this it is also evident that adjectives are general and not singular terms.

All adjectives are regarded by Mill and Jevons as concrete and general, that is, as names denoting or signifying directly things and connoting or implying attributes; but it is evident that some of them may signify attributes, and imply attributes of those attributes, and be thus general and abstract, and, also, that they may, in some cases, express attributes only, and be thus abstract or attributive. For an adjective may be applied to an attribute as well as to a concrete thing, that is, it may qualify both abstract and substantive nouns. For example, the adjective 'great' may qualify the abstract terms 'goodness,' 'boldness,' 'beauty,' 'generosity,' 'size,' 'extension,' 'firmness,' 'strength,' &c., as well as the concrete terms 'man,' 'philosopher,' 'poet,' 'picture,' &c.; the adjectives 'small,' 'equal,' 'greater,' 'large,' 'less,' &c., may likewise qualify attributes, as well as things; in such cases, adjectives should be regarded as general, and abstract rather than concrete. And, when an adjective is affirmed of a thing, or of an attribute, it suggests to the mind an attribute, and not any thing; for example in the proposition 'snow is white,' the word white suggests simply the attribute whiteness and not any thing or class of things; in the proposition 'gold is yellow,' the adjective yellow suggests simply the attribute 'yellowness'; in such cases adjectives are significant of attributes only, and not of things. This is, however, a matter in which logicians differ,—some (Mill, Jevons, &c.1) maintaining that all adjectives are names of things, implying attributes, that is, concrete and general; others (Martineau, Fowler, &c.) holding that they are not names of things, but attributives, that is, words which "ex

1 See Mill's Logic, Vol. 1. pp. 25, 31, &c.; and Jevons' Lessons, p. 21.

2 See Martineau's Essays, Vol. II. p. 345; and Fowler's Deductive Logic, 6th Edition, pp. 13, 18.

;

press characters or attributes, as such, apart from any objects having them."

Abstract terms are sometimes distinguished into singular and general. A singular abstract term is a name of a definite individual attribute. For example, 'milkwhiteness,' 'visibleness,' 'equality,' 'squareness,' &c., are singular abstract terms, signifying each an attribute perfectly definite and incapable of any division. A general abstract term is a name of each of a group of attributes, that is, a name which can be affirmed, in the same sense, of each of an indefinite number of attributes. For example, the terms 'colour,' 'figure,' 'virtue,' 'pleasure,' 'pain,' &c., are abstract, and, at the same time, general, each of them being applicable to every one of a number of attributes: 'colour' may stand for any variety or shade of colour, red, blue, yellow, indigo, &c.; 'figure,' for any kind of figure, triangle, quadrilateral, &c.; 'virtue,' for any species of it, justice, veracity, temperance, benevolence, &c. Whenever any attribute admits of degree, variety, or species, its name may stand for these, and thus become general. A concrete term is of course singular or general according as it is applicable, in the same sense, to one thing only or to more than one.

Logicians, however, differ in this matter; and I wish, therefore, to note the different opinions which they hold :—

(1) Some Logicians hold that the distinction of singular and general is not applicable to abstract terms; and that abstract terms should be placed in a class apart. Mill indicates this view in one passage. He says "To avoid needless logomachies, the best course would probably be to consider these names as neither general or individual, and to place them in a class apart 1." Mr Keynes says, "A still more satisfactory solution however is to consider the distinction of general and singular as not applying to abstract names at all 2". So far as Mill's passage is concerned, I do not think it carries any weight. All that he says about

1 Logic, 8th Edition, Vol. 1. p. 30.

2 Formal Logic, p. 12.

'attribute,' 'relation,' 'quantity,' 'quality,' &c. in the chapter on 'Nameable Things' is opposed to it. In fact, throughout his chapters on 'Terms' he recognises the distinction as applicable to abstract terms, and one single statement with 'probably' qualifying it does not certainly carry much of the weight of his opinion.

(2) Some Logicians hold that all abstract terms are singular. "I should doubt," says Mr Keynes, "if any attribute can, strictly speaking, be conceived as many. An attribute in itself is one and indivisible, and does not admit of numerical distinctions 1" Mr Monck says, "Abstract terms would seem to be singular when considered logically 2."

(3) Some Logicians hold that all abstract terms are general in as much as an attribute may be possessed by each of a number of individual things.

(4) Some Logicians hold that abstract terms, like concrete, should be divided into singular and general. Mill says:-" Do abstract names belong to the class of general, or to that of singular names? Some of them are certainly general, I mean those which are names not of one single and definite attribute, but of a class of attributes. Such is the word colour, which is a name common to whiteness, redness, &c. Such is even the word whiteness, in respect of the different shades of whiteness to which it is applied in common: the word magnitude in respect of the various degrees of magnitude and the various dimensions of space; the word weight in respect of the various degrees of weight. Such also is the word attribute itself, the common name of all particular attributes. But when only one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in kind, is designated by the name; as visibleness; tangibleness; equality; squareness; milkwhiteness; then the name can hardly be considered general; for though it denotes an attribute of many different objects, the attribute itself is always conceived as one, not many 3." Hamilton says:-"The

1 Formal Logic, p. 11.

2 Introductive Logic, p. 102.

3 Logic, p. 30.

notion of the figure of the desk before me is an abstract idea— an idea that makes part of the total notion of that body, and on which I have concentrated my attention, in order to consider it exclusively. This idea is abstract, but it is at the same time individual; it represents the figure of this particular desk, and not the figure of any other body 1."

Ueberweg says:-"The general conception (in opposition to the individual conception) is not to be confounded with the abstract (in opposition to the concrete, see § 47). The divisions cross each other. There are concrete and abstract individual conceptions and concrete and abstract general conceptions ?."

2

It is evident that the question as to whether the distinction of singular and general is applicable to abstract terms cannot be satisfactorily solved without stating clearly as to what is meant by a singular and what by a general term. If a singular term is a name applicable to one object of thought, and if a general term is a name applicable to each of a number of objects of thought, then the distinction is certainly applicable to abstract terms: for attributes as well as phenomena and substances may be objects of thought; and an abstract term, like a concrete, may be a name of one object of thought or a name of each of a number of objects of thought. The abstract terms, for instance, "the figure of the desk before me," ""the colour of the rose near me," "the solidity of this stone," as well as 'squareness,' 'equality,' 'visibleness,' &c., are each of them applicable to one object of thought -to a single definite individual attribute, while the abstract terms relation,' 'quality,' 'quantity,' 'figure,' 'attribute,' 'virtue,' &c., are each of them applicable to each of a number of objects of thought, that is, to each of a class of attributes: 'relation,' for example, is a name applicable to any relation whatever, succession, coexistence, resemblance, difference, &c.; 'quality' is a name applicable to any quality of any object whatever.

6

1 Lectures, Vol. 11. p. 287—8.

2 Logic, p. 127. See also pp. 114-115.

« AnteriorContinuar »