date

3 Oct. 1814 Logic 2
3 Oct. 1814

Logic

2

Ch.2. Ontology

Entities classed

53

2

At any point of time {in any place whatsoever} take any entity - any real entity - whatsoever, between its existence in that place and its non-existence in that same place, there is not any alternative, there is not any medium whatsoever.

Necessity, impossibility, certainty, uncertainty, probability, improbability, actuality, potentiality; - whatsoever there is of reality correspondent to any of these names, is nothing more or less than a disposition, a persuasion of the mind, on the part of him by whom these words are employed, in relation to the state of things, or the event or events to which these qualities are ascribed.

Down to the present time - whatsoever be this present time, whether the time of writing this, or the time of anyone's reading it, whatsoever has not existed has not had existence; at this time whatsoever does exist, has existence, - whatsoever does not exist has not existence; and so at any and every future point of time. Throughout the whole expanse of time, past, present, and future, put together, where will room be found for anything real to answer to any of these names ?

Quality itself is but a fictitious entity, but these are all of them so many fictitious qualities. They do not, as real qualities, - they do not, like gravity, solidity, roundness, hardness, belong to the objects themselves to which they are ascribed, - in the character of attributes of the objects to which they are ascribed, they are mere chimeras, mere creatures of the imagination - nonentities.

Yet, nonentities as they are, but too real is the mischief of which some of them, and, in particular, the word necessity, has been productive: - antipathy, strife, persecution, murder upon a national, upon an international, scale.

52
Similar Items
  • Title: [2 Oct. 1814 Logic 1]
    Description: 2 Oct. 1814

    Logic

    1

    Ch. Ontology

    Entities classed

    52

    1

    Existence, and the several classes of fictitious Entities related to it.

    Existence is a quality; the most extensively applicable, and at the same time, the most simple of all qualities actual or imaginable. Take away all other qualities, this remains: to speak more strictly, take any entity whatsoever, real or fictitious, - abstract the attention from whatsoever other qualities may have been found belonging to it, this will still be left. Existence is predicable of naked substance.

    Opposite to the idea of existence is that of non-existence. Non-existence is the negation of existence. Of every other entity, real or fictitious, either existence or non-existence is at all times predicable. Whether such other entity be real or fictitious its existence is of course a fictitious entity; i.e. the word existence is in all cases the name of a fictitious entity.

    The idea of non-existence is the idea of absence extended. Take any place, and therewith, any real entity - any body existing in that place, suppose it no longer existing in that place, you suppose its absence, its relative non-existence; expel it in like manner from every, from all, place you suppose its absolute non-existence.

    It is through the medium of absence - the familiar and continually recurring idea of absence, that the idea of non-existence, the terrific, the transcendant, the awful, and imposing idea of non-existence is attained.

    It being as above a species of quality, existence is itself a fictitious entity; it is in every real entity: every real entity is in it.

    In it, the man the object of whose appetite is the sublime, and he the object of whose appetite is the ridiculous, may here find matter for their respective banquets. Nothing has been laughed at to satiety. The punster who has played with nothing till he is tired may renew the game with existence and non-existence.

    51
  • Title: [26 Aug. 1814 '.1 + Logic Ch]
    Description: 26 Aug. 1814 '.1 +

    Logic

    Ch Paraphrasis etc.

    '.1. Explanation

    1

    1

    Ch.7. Of Exposition by Paraphrasis with its subsidiary operations, viz. Phraseoplerosis and Archetypation.

    '.7 Explanation of these modes of exposition, and of the case in which they are necessary.

    Paraphrasis is that mode of exposition which is the only instructive mode, where the thing expressed in /being/ the name of a fictitious entity, has not any superior in the scale of logical subalternation.

    Attached to and /Connected, and that/ necessarily connected with Paraphrasis, is an operation, for the designation of which the word Phraseoplerosis /Phraseoplerosis/ (i.e. the filling up of the phrase,) may be employed.

    By the word Paraphrasis may be designated that sort of exposition which may be afforded by transmuting into a proposition, having for its subject some real entity, a proposition which has not for its subject any other than a fictitious entity.

    Nothing has no properties. A fictitious entity being, as this its name imports, being, by the very supposition, a mere nothing, cannot of itself have any properties: no proposition by which any property is ascribed to it can, therefore, be in itself, and of itself, a true one, nor, therefore, an instructive one. Whatsoever of truth is capable of belonging to it cannot belong to it in any other character than that of the representative - of the intended and supposed equivalent and adequate succedaneum, of some proposition having for its subject some real entity.

    147
  • Title: [7 July 1821 Logic Section 5]
    Description: 7 July 1821

    Logic

    Section 5

    Of fictional entities

    2

    2

    An entity, whether perceptible or inferential, is either real or fictitious.

    A real entity is an entity to which, on the occasion and for the purpose of discourse, existence is really meant to be ascribed.

    A fictitious entity is an entity to which, though by the grammatical form of the discourse employed in speaking of it, existence be ascribed, yet in truth and reality existence is not meant to be ascribed.

    Every noun substantive which is not the name of a real entity, perceptible or inferential, is the name of a fictitious entity.

    Every fictitious entity bears some relation to some real entity, and can no otherwise be understood than in so far as that relation is perceived, - a conception of that relation is obtained.

    Reckoning from the real entity to which it bears relation, a fictitious entity may be styled a fictitious entity of the first remove, a fictitious entity of the second remove, and so on.

    A fictitious entity of the first remove is a fictitious entity, a conception of which may be obtained by the consideration of the relation borne by it to a real entity, without need of considering the relation borne by it to any other fictitious entity.

    A fictitious entity of the second remove is a fictitious entity, for obtaining a conception of which it is necessary to take into consideration some fictitious entity of the first remove.

    11