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chapter 1: On Apprehension - Gershom Carmichael, Natural Rights on the Threshold of the Scottish Enlightenment: The Writings of Gershom Carmichael [1724]

Edition used:

Natural Rights on the Threshold of the Scottish Enlightenment: The Writings of Gershom Carmichael, ed. James Moore and Michael Silverthorne (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


chapter 1

On Apprehension

1.

On the nature of apprehension. On the idea, and its comprehension and extension.

Apprehension is the act of the mind by which it merely perceives a thing or simply thinks about it, neither affirming nor denying it, neither desiring nor avoiding it. The representation of a thing in the mind which enables us to perceive it, is called an idea. A fuller inquiry into the relation of an idea to the actual act of apprehension belongs to the domain not of logic but of pneumatics.1 Meanwhile what is usually taught about ideas in logic may be appropriately understood of both.2

The thing which is represented to the mind through an idea is said to be its object.

Finally the word or complex of words, by which the idea, or the object as represented by it, is signified (as triangle, good man, etc.) is normally called a term (the reason for which we will give).3 It should be distinguished as a verbal term, since the idea itself is sometimes called a mental term; as the thing represented is also sometimes called an objective term.

Ideas are classified above all (not to touch here on other differences between them) either by their comprehension, i.e., by whether they include in themselves one or several representations, or by their extension, i.e., by whether they represent one or several objects.

In the former respect, an idea is either simple or complex. A simple idea is one which cannot be resolved into several different ideas; such are ideas of being, power, thought, etc. A complex idea on the other hand is one which comprehends several different ideas, into which it can be resolved; such is the idea of spirit, i.e., of a thing which has the capacity to think.

In the latter respect, an idea is either singular or universal. A singular idea is one which represents directly one object alone, so that it cannot be truly attributed to more than one individual: such are the ideas of Alexander, Bucephalus, this tree, etc. I say, directly, because a singular idea can represent one thing as conflated from several or related in another way to more than one; however, it cannot be predicated of these individual things in a direct, but only in an oblique, case. See what is said below about the proposition [pp. 299–300].4 By contrast, a universal idea is one which represents several direct objects indiscriminately, so that it can be truly applied to each one of them: such are the ideas of man, horse, tree, etc.

Here one must note that from singular or less universal ideas, more universal ideas are formed by means of abstraction, by which some part of the former comprehension is lost, and they become as a result more simple. By contrast, from universal, ideas become singular or less universal, by means of composition, by which they are made more complex by the addition of some idea to their comprehension.

2.

On division as the resolution of the extension of a universal idea.

The extension of a universal idea is resolved by division, by which we mean here the particular enumeration of ideas differing in their whole extension, by which the extension of a given universal idea is exactly exhausted. Thus animal is divided into man and brute; brute in turn into quadrupeds, flying beasts, fish, and reptiles. The more universal idea which is divided, is here called the whole; and the less universal ideas, into which it is divided, are called parts.

The division of a thing very much differs from this division of a universal idea of which we have spoken. It is the particular enumeration of things totally different, by which the constitution of any given composite thing is briefly described. By this means man is divided into soul and body, and body in turn into its various members.

3.

On definition as the resolution of the comprehension of a complex idea.

Just as the extension of a universal idea is resolved by division, so the comprehension of any complex idea is resolved by definition. By this we mean a phrase which explains a complex idea corresponding to the given name, by means of several connected words, by which are signified both the simpler ideas which make it up and the order in which they unite to do so.

The use of definition does not arise because when one has a complex idea before the mind, one may at the same time be unaware of its comprehension (just as one may be unaware of its extension). Rather it arises because, owing to the shorthand nature of speech, fairly complex ideas are normally denoted by simple words, and so it quite often happens that others do not understand what we mean to signify by some phrase, or we ourselves are not careful enough always to attach the same determinate idea in our minds to the same word.

Both these difficulties are remedied by definition, by which the meaning of a given word is both declared to others and determined with greater certainty in ourselves. We both instruct others and at the same time fix it in our own memories that the simple word covers the same complex idea which is explicated more clearly by several words in the definition. So, for example, spirit is defined as thinking substance, virtue as a habit inclining to morally good acts. If anyone should say that definition, as we have explained it here, is merely ideal, or rather nominal, I would not feel obliged for that reason to introduce a real definition which would be distinct from it, until I know how to explain real essences of things, distinct from ideal or nominal essences. And I have no doubt that it would be highly beneficial to all disciplines, if writers of every genre would imitate the precision of mathematicians in this respect, and never use a definition which they would not accept as a substitute for the word itself.5

From this it is obvious that if a definition is to have the use it is intended for, i.e., if it is to determine the idea which corresponds to a given word, one must first clearly understand which idea is expressed by the actual words of the definition. To understand this, it is important both to know the simpler ideas attached to the various words which enter into the definition and to perceive the relationship between the ideas which is expressed by the arrangement of the words. Therefore the definition must be designed to make both of these more evident than the notion one would have of the meaning of the word to which the definition is applied, if one did not have the help of the definition.

This is precisely the point of the cardinal rule of definition, which is almost the only rule we need: the definition must be clearer than what is defined. But provided clarity is preserved, a definition is thought to be all the better for being shorter and therefore easier to remember. For this reason, first, avoid all unnecessary words (such as words whose meaning is adequately included in other parts of the definition, except so far as the demands of grammar require them). Second, so that the definition may consist of as few words as possible, choose words that signify ideas which are immediately simpler than the idea to be defined, and in particular one word (if it can be found) which signifies the idea which is immediately superior in the categorical series. This idea, together with the word by which it is signified, is usually called a genus, as substance is in the definition of spirit given above. Anything added to the definition to fix its limits, is called the differentia, as thinking is in that same definition. And with respect to these parts, the whole complex idea together with the word by which it is signified, is called a species, and in fact, with respect to them, a subjicible species; but if it has no other universal class subject to it, of which it is the genus, it is said, with respect to particulars, to be a predicable species.

[1.] In the longer treatment of logic provided in his dictates, Logica, sive ars intelligendi [Logic or the Art of Understanding] (1697), Carmichael included discussion that he here consigns to pneumatology, or the science of the mind, of how ideas are formed. See also below, pp. 326 ff. In the Logica he also prefaced his logic with a historical account of the origin of philosophy. In that account, he underlined the importance of direct study of the nature of things, following the lead of great philosophers of the current age, in contrast with the scholastics.

[2.] The two sentences preceding were a footnote in Carmichael’s text. In his Annotations on the Art of Thinking, p. 2, he asked his students to write: “See this question more correctly addressed by Locke, in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, where he teaches that ideas of things and of corporeal modes derive their origin from sensation; of spiritual things (among them the idea of thought) from reflection on our thoughts; and more general ideas (among them the idea of being) derive their origin from both sources.”

[3.] See below, p. 300.

[4.] The two sentences beginning, “I say, directly, …” were a footnote in Carmichael’s text.

[5.] The previous two sentences were a footnote in Carmichael’s text. Carmichael’s insistence on merely nominal essences, as distinct from real essences, derives from Locke, Essay, III.III.17 ff. See also below, pp. 328 ff.