Logical Quality - Third Logical Qualities

Third Logical Qualities

Logicians in the western traditions have often expressed belief in some other logical quality besides affirmation and denial. Sextus Empiricus, in the 2nd or 3rd century CE, argued for the existence of "nonassertive" statements, which indicate suspension of judgment by refusing to affirm or deny anything. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the 6th century, argued for the existence of "non-privatives" which transcend both affirmation and denial. For example, it is not quite correct to affirm that God is, nor to deny that God moves, but rather one should say that God is beyond-motion, or super-motive, and this is intended not just as a special kind of affirmation or denial, but a third move besides affirmation and denial.

For Kant every judgment takes one of three possible logical qualities, Affirmative, Negative or Infinite. For Kant, if I say “The soul is mortal” I have made an affirmation about the soul; I have said something contentful about it. If I say “The soul is not mortal,” I have made a negative judgment and thus “warded off error” but I have not said what the soul is instead. If, however, I say “The soul is non-mortal,” I have made an infinite judgment. For the purposes of “General logic” it is sufficient to see infinite judgments as a sub-variety of affirmative judgments, I have said something of the soul, namely that it is not mortal. But from the standpoint of “Transcendental Logic” it is important to distinguish the infinite from the affirmative. Although I have taken something away from the possibilities of what the soul might be like, I have not thereby said what it is or clarified the concept of the soul, there are still an infinite number of possible ways the soul could be. The content of an infinite judgment is purely limitative of our knowledge rather than amplitative of it. Hegel follows Kant in insisting that, at least transcendentally, affirmation and negation are not enough but require a third logical quality sublating them both.