date

30 Jan y. 1816 Chrestom or Language
30 Jan y. 1816

Chrestom or Language

Ch.2 Signs viz. Propositions

'.1 Single Propositions

 [...?]. Propositions, why spoken of before terms. Proposition, the integer: time but a fraction - result of the decomposition of a proposition.

Brutes incapable of the decomposition: their language is all in propositions.

Ch.│ │ Signs employed for the designation of these phænomena, viz. Propositions: - their modifications or species - their consituent parts or contents.

'.1. Collections of signs, i.e. Propositions expressive of some state of the perceptive faculty, considered as having for the source of the perception, a corporeal object or objects.

Correspondent to the objects to be designated, such must be the signs by which they are designated.

Correspondent to the states, and modifications of which corporeal objects are susceptible, such must be the modifications of the signs which, under the name of language or discourse, are employed in the designation of them.

Every proposition by which any portion of matter is brought to view - is presented to the mind - has for its subject either some material body, some portion of a body, or some collection of bodies, or portions of bodies, or of bodies, and portions of bodies.

The sign or portion of language, by which any such modification or modifications of matter are presented to the mind is termed a name, a denomination, an appellation, an appellative.

By any such name, what is designated is either a single body, a part of a single body, or an aggregate of bodies, or of parts of single bodies.

If a part of a body be spoken of by itself, it is in so far considered as a whole.

If it be a single body, the mode in which that body is spoken of is either determinate or indeterminate: if determinate, the name is stiled a proper name: if it be an aggregate of bodies, it is stiled a common name.

If the individuals designated by such common name be all determinate, it is or may be stiled a collective name, in so far as any of them are indeterminate, a generic or specific name.

If being a single body it be indeterminate, it has for its denomination a common name, whether collective or generic, being the name of the aggregate of which it is considered as an unit, coupled with a species of sign denominated a pronoun adjective of which by and by.
Similar Items
  • Title: [18 Jan y. 1816 + Chrestom or Language]
    Description: 18 Jan y. 1816 +

    Chrestom or Language

    Ch. │ │ Content of Language

    '. │ │ Simple Propositions

    Subject

    '.9. Of the subject of a proposition.

    The name of the subject of a proposition is either a singularly designative or a plurally designative name: it is singularly designative when no more than one individual is meant to be designated: plurally, when individuals more than one.

    A singularly designative name is either determinately or indeterminately designative: determinately, where the individual meant to be designated or distinguished from all others: as in the case of the proper name of a man, a field, a street, a town,[?] &c.; indefinite or indeterminate, when the import of the pronoun adjective some or any is considered as attached to it.

    A plurally designative name is the name of an aggregate or number of individuals, considered as if collected together.

    These individuals are either all determinate, all indeterminate, or some determinate, others indeterminate.

    1. All determinate: for instance, the members of one official Board actually in existence.

    2. All indeterminate: for instance, the intended members of an official board not in existence but in contemplation to be established.

    3. Some determinate, some indeterminate.

    Of this sort, are the names of all species and genera of things - of aggregate objects which have, have had, or will have, a real existence: For in and by every such specific or generic name are designated in the first place, all the individuals which are considered as being at the time in question endowed with the specific quality indicated by the name - in the next place, all that ever were.[?] In the last {place,[?] all[?] that[?]} ever will be: and by the supposition, these last neither have, nor ever have had, existence.
  • Title: [25 Sept. 1814 Logic 3]
    Description: 25 Sept. 1814

    Logic

    3

    Ch. 2. Ontology

    Entities classed

    8

    2

    The word substance is the name of a class of real entities of, the only class which has in it any corporeal entities.

    The word matter is but the name of a class of fictitious entities, springing out of the sort of real entity distinguished by the word substance.

    And so it is in regard to the word form.

    The ideas respectively belonging to /designated/ by these corresponding words are fractional results, produced from the decomposition of the word substance.

    Every real physical entity every corporeal substance every sort of body has its matter and form; and this its matter, and this its form are entities totally different from each other.

    These names of entities possess, both of them, the characteristic properties of fictitious entities. It is by means of propositions designative of place, and, by that means, of a fictitious material image, that their images are connected with the name of the real entity substance.

    In that substance exists such and such matter; behold the matter of that substance; behold all this matter from that substance. Here substance is a receptacle; matter a fictitious entity, spoken of in one of these occasions as if it were a real entity contained within that receptacle; in the others as one that had proceeded from it.

    Behold the form in which that substance presents itself; behold the form, the figure, the shape, the configuration of that substance.

    Figure, configuration, shape - in these several words may be seen so many synonyms, or almost synonyms, to the word form.

    30
  • Title: [10 Dec. 1815 Chrestom. or Language]
    Description: 10 Dec. 1815

    Chrestom. or Language

    1

    '. Noun substantive

    3. Number

    Number. Every proposition in which the noun is in the plural number, is a complex one; and, as such, resolvable, at least in its origin, into a multitude of propositions, according to the number of the persons or things which occupy in it the station of subject or predicate, to which soever it be that that number is attributed.

    When the number of these objects is determinate, the number of the simple propositions included in the complex one thus formed, will be exactly equal to the number of these objects, and so far no abstraction will necessarily have had place. When the number of these objects is altogether indeterminate, so, of consequence, must be the number of the simple propositions requisite to the constituting one equivalent to the supposed plural one.

    Take the state of things when the primeval society consists of four persons, Cain and Abel being born to Adam and Eve. Applied to persons, - They are asleep, addressed by Eve to Adam, will have for its equivalent these two simple propositions, Cain is asleep - Abel is asleep. A sister, suppose, is born to them; - the numbers of simple propositions capable of being included in a pronoun-substantive of the first person, is now increased from two to three.

    As soon as the plural becomes indefinite, abstraction is performed, the idea of a class is formed, an aggregate of which the individual elements are susceptible of continual change.

    32