Principles of Logic

by George Hayward Joyce

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. THE CONCEPT: THE NAME: THE TERM. I. The Concept. We have already explained what are the grounds, on which Logic takes cognizance of the Concept. Considered in isolation, the concept is not an act by which the mind attains truth. It can neither be termed true nor false. But concepts are the material of which our mental acts, true and false, consist. Every judgment of necessity contains two concepts. Hence the treatment of the concept is fundamental in the science of Logic. And in every science it is of vital importance that the primary notions should be accurately grasped. There is truth in that saying of Aristotle's, which in the middle ages had passed into a proverb: What is at the ' beginning but a small error, swells to huge proportions ' at the close. In the first place it is necessary to distinguish carefully between the Concept or intellectual idea properly so called, and the Phantasm or mental picture. Whenever I think of an object, I simultaneously form a sensible picture of it in my imagination. If for instance I judge that ' Fishes' are vertebrate, ' or that ' The sun is round, ' I cannot do so without imagining to myself a sensible representation of a fish, or of the sun. Some- times, indeed, as when I think of some abstract subject, such as ' virtue, ' the image of the mere word ' virtue ' will serve my purpose: but some image is requisite, nor does the intellect ever operate save in Connexion with a phantasm.2 1 De Caelo, I. c. 5. -rb it dpxB luxpbv ir Tjj Teevttj yfrenu Parvus error in principio fit magnus in fine. 1 The term ' phantasm ' (innaaiui) is Aristotle's. Thus in De Anima, III. c. 8, he tells us that when we contemplate any thing, we are forced to contemplate it in conjunction with a phantasm (tram re Stupjj, irtfX.il ...

Genres: Logic, Philosophy

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Dolphin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven't finished it all, but nearly. I started out thinking it was a great book, but it glosses over things, I mean mentions them almost in passing, or without the required depth for me to really grasp them. A good example is of the idea of intention, first intention & second intention and all that, which is fairly simple, once ya get it, but really integral to getting a good distinction between logic & metaphysics. Unfortunately George Hayward Joyce doesn't give a good enough definition of this so it's left somewhat half-made in your mind, which is never good. At least it was in mine.

Unfortunately for me this book has been completely overshadowed by Peter Coffey's Science of Logic which, as far as I can tell, goes into greater depth on every subject contained in this book.

But, saying that, it is still good, though confusing because of what is left out. It's Scholastic, so you are getting truth and rigour, just not enough rigour.

You can call it a jump book, like many other books, because it gives you a taste of what you need to jump to other books to get a better bite of. That is good, but not great.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Book. Hard to grasp at times, and consequently I needed to read it slowly in order to retain what was being taught. All in all a very good intro to logic as it was taught and understood by those who understood it best.