The Judgment Itself
The second mental operation: what the Judgment is, how it is defined as the mind's pronouncement on the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, and what its constituent elements are.
The Judgment is the second mental operation: the mind's act of pronouncing on the agreement or disagreement of two ideas. It requires three elements: (1) two ideas present in the mind, (2) comparison of the two ideas, and (3) the act of pronouncement or predication — the judgment proper. One idea is predicated of the other as agreeing (affirmative judgment) or not agreeing (negative judgment). The subject idea is that of which the predicate is predicated; the predicate idea is predicated of the subject. Judgments are classified by the scope of the subject (universal, particular, singular, indefinite) and by the mode of predication (specific, generic, differential, proper, or accidental). The judgment is the locus of truth and falsity: ideas in themselves are neither true nor false; only the pronouncement that connects them can be so.
The mind not only forms ideas; it also compares one idea with another and notices and enunciates their relation as agreement or disagreement. This operation of the mind is the Judgment.
a) Description of the Judgment
How can ideas agree or disagree? Obviously, in their essential make-up — their Comprehension. If the essential notes of two ideas are precisely the same, those ideas are identical and in full agreement. If two ideas are identical up to a certain point, they agree in that measure; beyond that point they disagree.
Thus the ideas man and animal agree inasmuch as all the essential notes in the Comprehension of animal (being, subsistent, bodily, living, sentient) are also in the Comprehension of man (being, subsistent, bodily, living, sentient, rational). This agreement can be enunciated in the judgment, “Man is an animal.” Inasmuch as the ideas also disagree in point of rationality, the mind can enunciate the judgment, “Man is not an irrational animal.”
b) Definition of the Judgment
Judgment is the pronouncement of the mind upon the agreement or disagreement of two ideas.
When agreement is enunciated, the judgment is positive or affirmative. When disagreement is enunciated, the judgment is negative.
The judgment is a pronouncement of the mind — a mental enunciation, a predication. When one idea is enunciated of another as its inferior (subject), the idea so enunciated is called the predicate. Thus:
Judgment is the pronouncement of the mind that one idea (subject) is or is not contained in the Extension of another idea (predicate) as an inferior.
This may be illustrated by circles. Draw a circle to indicate the idea animal. Draw another circle, partially overlapping the first, to indicate man. The overlapping area indicates the point in which man and animal agree, and we may enunciate the judgment “Man is an animal.” The part of the man-circle which does not overlap justifies the judgment “Man is not a brute.” On the other hand, the part of the animal-circle which does not overlap justifies the judgment “A brute is not a man.”
c) Elements of the Judgment
Three elements enter into every judgment:
- Two ideas in the mind;
- Comparison of the two ideas by the mind;
- Pronouncement by the mind (predication) on the agreement or disagreement of the two ideas.
The first two elements taken together constitute the material element of the judgment. The third — the predication itself — is the formal element, the judgment proper.
A note on sense-judgments: there exist judgments elicited by brutes, by those of undeveloped mind, and by normal adults acting without intellectual advertence. “It is raining,” “I feel cold,” or a brute’s judgment that a sound is a summons — these are sense-judgments, formed immediately upon sensation. Dialectics has nothing to do with sense-judgments; this science treats only of intellectual judgments wherein pronouncement is made upon ideas.
Summary of the Chapter
In this brief Chapter we have learned what is meant by judgment, by the terms subject and predicate, and by the term predication. We have distinguished positive and negative judgments, and have listed the elements of judgment, classifying these as material (the two ideas and their comparison) and formal (the pronouncement or predication).