Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic. W. Stebbing
names, on the other hand, though concrete, are not connotative. They are merely distinguishing marks, given perhaps originally for a reason, but, when once given, independent of it, since the reason is proved to be no part of the sense of the word by the fact that the name is still used when the reason is forgotten. But other individual names are connotative. Some of these, viz. those connoting some attribute or some set of attributes possessed by one object only, e.g. Sun, God, are really general names, though happening to be predicable only of a single object. But there are also real connotative individual names, part of whose meaning is, that there exists only one individual with the connoted attribute, e.g. The first Emperor, The father of Socrates; and it is so with many-worded names, made up of a general name limited by other words, e.g. The present Prime Minister of England. In short, the meaning of all names, which have any meaning, resides, not in what they denote, but in what they connote. There perpetually, however, arises a difficulty of deciding how much they do connote, that is, what difference in the object would make a difference in the name. This vagueness comes from our learning the connotation, through a rude generalisation and analysis, from the objects denoted. Thus, men use a name without any precise reference to a definite set of attributes, applying it to new objects on account of superficial resemblance, so that at length all common meaning disappears. Even scientific writers, from ignorance, or from the aversion which men at large feel to the use of new names, often force old terms to express an ever-growing number of distinctions. But every concrete general name should be given a definite connotation with the least possible change in the denotation; and this is what is aimed at in every definition of a general name already in use. But we must not confound the use of names of indeterminate connotation, which is so great an evil, with the employment, necessitated by the paucity of names as compared with the demand, of the same words with different connotations in different relations.
A fourth division of names is into Positive and Negative. When the positive is connotative, so is the corresponding negative, for the non-possession of an attribute is itself an attribute. Names negative in form, e.g. unpleasant, are often really positive; and others, e.g. idle, sober, though seemingly positive, are really negative. Privatives are names which are equivalent each to a positive and a negative name taken together. They connote both the absence of certain attributes, and the presence of others, whence the presence of the defaulting ones might have been expected. Thus, blind would be applied only to a non-seeing member of a seeing class.
The fifth division is into Relative and (that we may economise the term Absolute for an occasion when none other is available) Non-relative names. Correlatives, when concrete, are of course connotative. A relation arises from two individuals being concerned in the same series of facts, so that the signification of neither name can be explained except by mentioning another: and any two correlatives connote, not the same attribute indeed, but just this series of facts, which is exactly the same in both cases.
Some make a sixth division, viz. Univocals, i.e. names predicated of different individuals in the same sense, and Æquivocals, i.e. names predicated of different individuals in different senses. But these are not two kinds of names, but only two modes of using them; for an æquivocal name is two names accidentally coinciding in sound. An intermediate case is that of a name used analogically or metaphorically, that is, in two senses, one its primary, the other its secondary sense. The not perceiving that such a word is really two has produced many fallacies.
CHAPTER III.
THE THINGS DENOTED BY NAMES.
Logic is the theory of Proof, and everything provable can be exhibited as a proposition, propositions alone being objects of belief. Therefore, the import of propositions, that is, the import of predication, must be ascertained. But, as to make a proposition, i.e. to predicate, is to assert one thing of another thing, the way to learn the import of predication is, by discovering what are the things signified by names which are capable of being subject or predicate. It was with this object that Aristotle formed his Categories, i.e. an attempted enumeration of all nameable things by the summa genera or highest predicates, one or other of which must, he asserted, be predicable of everything. His, however, is a rude catalogue, without philosophical analysis of the rationale even of familiar distinctions. For instance, his Relation properly includes Action, Passivity, and Local Situation, and also the two categories of Position ποτἑ [Greek: pote] and ποὑ [Greek: pou], while the difference between ποὑ [Greek: pou] and κεἱσθαι [Greek: keisthai] is only verbal, and ἑχειν [Greek: echein] is not a summum genus at all. Besides—only substantives and attributes being there considered—there is no category for sensation and other mental states, since, though these may rightly be placed, so far as they express their relation, if active, to their objects, if passive to their causes, in the Categories of Actio and Passio, the things, viz., the mental states, do not belong there.
The absence of a well-defined concrete name answering to the abstract existence, is one great obstacle to renewing Aristotle's attempt. The words used for the purpose commonly denote substances only, though attributes and feelings are equally existences. Even being is inadequate, since it denotes only some existences, being used by custom as synonymous with substance, both material and spiritual. That is, it is applied to what excites feelings and has attributes, but not to feelings and attributes themselves; and if we called extension, virtue, &c., beings, we should be accused of believing in the Platonic self-existing ideas, or Epicurus's sensible forms—in short, of deeming attributes substances. To fill this gap, the abstract, entity, was made into a concrete, equivalent to being. Yet even entity implies, though not so much as being, the notion of substance. In fact, every word originally connoting simply existence, gradually enlarges its connotation to mean separate existence, i.e. existence freed from the condition of belonging to a substance, so as to exclude attributes and feelings. Since, then, all the terms are ambiguous, that among them (and the same principle applies to terms generally) will be employed here which seems on each occasion to be least ambiguous: and terms will be used even in improper senses, when these by familiar association convey the proper meaning.
Nameable things are—I. Feelings or States of Consciousness.—A feeling, being anything of which the mind is conscious, is synonymous with state of consciousness. It is commonly confined to the sensations and emotions, or to the emotions alone; but it is properly a genus, having for species, Sensation, Emotion, Thought, and Volition. By thought is meant all that we are internally conscious of when we think; e.g. the idea of the sun, and not the sun itself, is a thought; and so, not even an imaginary thing like a ghost, but only the idea of it, is a thought. In like manner, a sensation differs both from the object causing it, and the attribute ascribed to the object. Yet language (except in the case of the sensations of hearing) has seldom provided the sensations with separate names; so that we have to name the sensation from the object or the attribute exciting it, though we might conceive the sensation to exist, though it never actually does, without an exciting cause. Again, another distinction has to be attended to, viz. the difference between the sensation and the state of the bodily organs, which is the physical agency producing it. This distinction escapes notice partly by reason of the division of the feelings into bodily and mental. But really there is no such division, even sensations being states of the sentient mind, and not of the body. The difference, in fact, between sensations, thoughts, and emotions, is only in the different agency producing the feeling; it being, in the case of the sensations, a bodily, and, for the other two, a mental state. Some suppose, after the sensation, in which, they say, the mind is passive, a distinct active process called perception, which is the direct recognition of an external object, as the cause of the sensation. Probably, perceptions are simply cases of belief claiming to be intuitive, i.e. free of external evidence. But, at any rate, any question as to their nature is irrelevant to an inquiry like the present, viz.