W. E. Johnson, Logic: Part I (1921)

CHAPTER II
THE PRIMITIVE PROPOSITION

§ 1. The form of proposition which appears to be psychologically prior even to the most elementary proposition that can be explicitly analysed is the exclamatory or impersonal. Propositions of this kind, which are more or less unformulated and which may be taken to indicate the early stages in a developing process, will here be called primitive. The most formless of such primitive propositions is the exclamatory assertion illustrated by such an utterance as 'Lightning!' This appears to contain only a characterising adjective without any assigned subject which is so characterised. Now it is true that any proposition can be regarded as a characterisation of the universe of reality regarded as a sort of unitary whole; but this way of conceiving the nature of the proposition in general, must be also associated with the possibility of using adjectives as characterising a part rather than merely the whole of reality; and certainly the case here is one in which we are bound to recognise the lightning as having, so to speak, an assignable place within the universe, and not merely as an adjective attached to the universe as a whole. The lightning as an actual occurrence must occupy a determinate position, in reference both to time and to space; but it is obvious that no reference to such determinate position is itself contained in the merely exclamatory assertion. Any implicit reference to place or time can only be rendered explicit when the judgment has been further developed; in the undeveloped judgment the reference is indeterminate, and any judgment which might be developed from this primitive form would assert what was unasserted in the original. In logical analysis it is of the utmost importance to avoid putting into an assertion what further development of the percipient's thought might elicit on the basis of the original.

We ask then, how such judgment in its most primitive and undeveloped form can be conceived as referring to a subject when its verbal expression includes no such reference? Now we may speak of the presented occasions or occurrences that give rise to such incompletely formulated judgments as manifestations of reality. The exclamatory judgment 'Lightning' may thus be rendered formally complete by taking as subject term 'a manifestation of reality.' Here I do not propose to take simply as the equivalent of the exclamatory judgment 'Reality is being manifested in the lightning,' but rather 'A particular portion of reality manifests the character (indicated by the adjectival import of the word) lightning.' In short, what is asserted by the percipient is 'a manifestation of lightning1.' This phrase for representing the assertum contains of course the characterising tie but not the assertive tie. The assertive tie may be introduced by employing the form: 'There is a manifestation of lightning,' which raises the interesting problem as to the significance of the word 'there.' Like many other words in current language it is used here in a metaphorical, or perhaps rather in a general or abstract sense. Literally 'there' means 'in that place,' so that in its original significance it involves the demonstrative article, and furthermore -- which is the new matter of interest -- a reference to position in space. Moreover the tense of the verb is points to the present time. If these references were developed still more precisely, the assertion would become: 'There and now -- in that place and at this time -- is a manifestation of lightning.' What remains as the significant element in the word 'there is,' in the absence of any definite reference to position in time or space, must be an indefinite reference to position in time and space. Otherwise the exclamatory assertion can only be expressed by omitting the word 'there' altogether, and the assertion to which we are reduced -- when the subject implicit in the exclamation is made explicit -- becomes, as above, 'A manifestation of lightning2.'

§ 2. The phrase 'there is' points to an important presupposition underlying the possibility of this most primitive form of perceptual judgment: namely, that things should be presented apart or in separation in order that any characterising judgment may be directed now to one and then again to another. Thus separation of presentment is a presupposition of cognition or judgment. Here I use the word ' presentment' not as equivalent to cognition, but as something presupposed in all -- even the most primitive -- acts of cognition. The word 'present' -- with the accent on the second syllable3 -- is in English equivalent to 'give'; in this sense a presentation is eqivalent to a datum -- where by 'datum' is meant not a piece of given knowledge, but a piece of given reality that is to be characterised in knowledge. Thus the presentation or the datum is what I have otherwise called the determinandum -- that which is given or presented to thought to be thought about. This expresses briefly, the meaning of the primitive 'this.' The 'this' as thus defined is not rich in predicates and adjectives, but at the same time it cannot be said to be empty of adjectives or predicates, because, in the meaning of thisness, abstraction is made from all predicates or adjectives. But the 'this' cannot be explicated apar from an implicit reference to the 'that,' in the sense that the 'this' must be for the percipient presented in separation from the 'that': one determinandum is one to which its own adjectives may be assigned, just because the other must be presented in separation or apart from the one, before the most primitive form of articulate judgment is possible4. Briefly separateness is before relating; more specifically, it is the presupposition which makes it possible in more highly developed perception to define the relations (temporal or spatial) between those things which are first presented merely as separate.

§ 3. It is in this quite ultimate sense that I demur to Mr Bradley's dictum: 'distinction implies difference.' His dictum means, as far as I understand, what in my own terminology I should express by the phrase: 'otherness presupposes comparison' (the comparison, in particular, in which the relation of difference is asserted). Now in my view this dictum is exactly wrong: the assertion of 'otherness' does not presuppose or require a previous assertion of any relation of agreement or of difference. It does not even presuppose the possibility of asserting in the future any particular relation of agreement or of difference. The first important relation which will be elicited from otherness is, in fact, not any relation of agreement or difference at all, but a temporal or spatial relation; and thus the primitive assertion of otherness is only occasioned and rendered possible from the fact of separateness in presentation. When presentations are separate, then we can count one, two, three; further, we can connect them by temporal relations such as before and after, or by spatial relations such as above or below; and finally by relations of comparison such as like or unlike. These examples indicate my view of the quite primary nature of separateness of presentment, since it is for me the pre-requisite for all those acts of connecting: with which logic or philosophy -- and we may add psychology -- is throughout concerned. In illustration, I have briefly referred only to relations of number, relations of time and space, and lastly to relations of comparison in a quite general sense.

Summarising this attempt to indicate the precise logical character of such primitive judgments as the ex-clamatory or impersonal, and their relation to more highly developed judgments: we have found that to assert 'Lightning!' is to characterise, not reality as a whole, but a separate part of reality -- to use an inadequate expression -- and that the possibility for this primitive assertion to develop into higher, more interrelated forms of judgment, is wholly dependent on the attribution of an adjective to a part of reality presented in separation from other presentables.

For the purpose of further elucidation we may bring two or three assertions into connection with one another, which might be briefly formulated thus: 'Lightning now!' 'Lightning again!' 'Thunder then!' The first two judgments when connected, involve two manifestations of the same character denominated lightning, which are two because they have been separately presented. The use of the terms 'now' and 'then' does not necessarily presuppose a developed system of temporal relations; but they indicate at least the possibility of defining relations in time between separately presented manifestations. Again the exclamation 'Thunder!' when taken in connection with the exclamation 'Lightning!' already presupposes -- not only that the manifestations are given somehow in separation -- but further that the percipient has characterised the separated manifestations by different adjectives. I will not here discuss whether these manifestations (as I have called them) are, in their primitive recognition, merely the individual's sense-experiences of sound and light, or whether from first to last they are something other than sense-experiences. In either case our logical point will be the same, when it is agreed that they are given separately, and that their separate presentment is the precondition for any further development of thought or of perception. The view put forward here is so far equivalent to Kant's in that I regard space and time as the conditions of the otherness of sense-experiences upon which the possibility of cognising determinate spatial and temporal relations depends, and that this characteristic of space and time is what constitutes Sense-Experience into a manifold, i.e. a plurality of experiences, which we can proceed to count as many only because of their separate presentment.

§ 4. Taking more elaborate examples of these primitive forms of perceptual judgment: 'This is a flash of lightning,' 'This (same) flash of lightning is brighter than that (other),' 'This (same) flash appeared before that clap of thunder'; we note that in the predesignations 'this' and 'that' the percipient has passed beyond the indefinite article 'a,' and has identified a certain manifestation as that of which more than one characterisation can be predicated -- e.g. 'lightning' and 'brighter than that.' It is this identification which gives to the articles 'this' and 'that' a significance which may be called referential, to be distinguished from their use as demonstratives; and in this alternation between the demonstrative and the referential usage, we can trace, I think, the very primitive way in which thought develops: first, in fixing attention upon a phenomenon by pointing to its position; and, next, in identifying it as the same in character when it is changing its spatial relations. All that is theoretically required for identification is the retention -- or rather the detention -- of our cognition or judgment upon a certain manifestation; but, when attributing different qualities or relations to what continues to function as the same logical subject, we are assisted by the temporal continuance of a phenomenon, either with unaltered quality, or in an unaltered position, or in a continuously changing position, etc. Thus the changes involving variations in space, time, and quality amongst different manifestations of the same phenomenon constitute the groundwork upon which the several judgments of relation are built.

In asserting 'There was a flash of lightning that was very brilliant and that preceded a clap of thunder' we are grasping the identity of a certain manifestation, thus used in two propositions, of which one predicates a relation in time to a clap of thunder, and the other, a quality characterising the flash itself. Any such connected judgment contains implicitly the relation of identity, in that the manifestation is maintained as an object in thought, while we form two judgments with respect to it. It is only, in short, in the act of joining two different characterisations that any meaning for identity can be found. In an elementary judgment which predicates only one adjective, no scope or significance for the notion of identifying a subject as such can be afforded. Thus the three factors in the thinking process which the 'this' reveals are:

  1. the given -- which is equivalent to the 'it' in 'It lightens!'
  2. the demonstrative -- which, by indicating spatial position, helps towards unique identification,
  3. the referential -- which marks the achievement of this process of identification.
As will be seen from the discussion in a subsequent chapter, these three elements of significance in the 'this' bring it into line with the proper name.

Notes

1 In grammatical phraseology, the expression 'manifestation of reality' illustrates the subjective genitive, while 'manifestation of lightning' illustrates the objective genitive.

2 As an illustration of how words lose their philological origin and become merely metaphorical, consider the expressions: 'There is a God,' 'There is an integer between 5 and 7.'

3 When accented on the first syllable, its meaning combines a reference both to space and to time; so that the word presentation contains in its meaning the three factors in our analysis, viz. the given, the here, and the now.

4 It is here presumed that such mental processes as sense differentiation, etc., in which the experient is merely passive or recipient, must have been developed prior to the exercise of judgment, to furnish the material upon which the activity of thought can operate.