Judgment is one of the main forms of human thinking, which is an integral element of any knowledge. Especially if this process is associated with reflections, conclusions and construction of evidence. In logic, a judgment is also defined by the word "proposition".
Judgment as a concept
Having only one concepts and representations without the possibility of their connection or connection, could people come to the knowledge of something? The answer is unequivocal: no. Cognition is possible only in cases where it has to do with truth or falsity. And the question of truth and falsehood arises only if there is any connection between concepts. The unification between them is established only at the moment of judgment about something. For example, when pronouncing the word "cat", which carries neither truth nor falsity, we mean only the concept. The judgment "the cat has four paws" is already a statement that is either true or not and has an affirmative or negative assessment. For example: "All trees are green"; "Some birds don't fly"; "Not a single dolphin is a fish"; "Some plants areare edible.”
The construction of a judgment creates a framework that is considered valid. This allows you to move in reflection to the truth. Judgment allows you to reflect the relationship between phenomena and objects or between properties and features. For example: “Water expands when it freezes” - the phrase expresses the relationship between the volume of a substance and temperature. This allows you to establish a relationship between different concepts. Judgments contain the assertion or denial of the connection between events, objects, phenomena. For example, when they say: "The car drives along the house" - they mean a certain spatial relationship between two objects (car and house).
Judgments are a mental form that contains the affirmation or denial of the existence of objects (concepts), as well as the relationship between objects or concepts, objects and their features.
Linguistic form of judgment
Just as concepts do not exist outside of words or phrases, so statements are impossible outside of sentences. However, not every sentence is a judgment. Any statement in a linguistic form is expressed in a narrative form that carries a message about something. Sentences that do not have a negation or affirmation (interrogative and incentive), that is, those that cannot be characterized as true or false, are not judgments. Statements that describe possible future events also cannot be judged as false or true.
And yet there are sentences that look like a question or an exclamation in form. Butmeaning they affirm or deny. They are called rhetorical. For example: "What Russian doesn't like to drive fast?" - This is a rhetorical interrogative sentence that relies on a specific opinion. The judgment in this case contains the assertion that every Russian loves fast driving. The same goes for exclamatory sentences: "Try to find snow in June!" In this case, the idea of the impossibility of the proposed action is affirmed. This construction is also a statement. Similar to sentences, judgments can be simple or complex.
Structure of judgment
A simple statement does not have a specific part that can be distinguished. Its constituent parts are even simpler structural components that name concepts. From the point of view of a semantic unit, a simple judgment is an independent link that has a truth value.
The statement connecting the object and its feature contains the first and second concepts. Offers of this type include:
- The word reflecting the subject of the judgment is the subject, denoted by the Latin letter S.
- Predicate - reflects the attribute of the subject, it is denoted by the letter R.
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Bundle - a word designed to connect both concepts to each other ("is", "is", "is not", is not). In Russian, you can use a dash for this.
“These animals are predators” is a simple statement.
Types of judgments
Simple statements classifyby:
- quality;
- quantity (by subject volume);
- predicate content;
- modalities.
Quality Judgments
One of the main, important logical characteristics is quality. The essence in this case is manifested in the ability to reveal the absence or presence of certain relationships between concepts.
Depending on the quality of such a link, two forms of judgments are distinguished:
- Affirmative. Reveals the presence of some connection between the subject and the predicate. The general formula for such a statement is: "S is P". Example: "The sun is a star."
- Negative. Accordingly, it reflects the absence of any connection between the concepts (S and P). The negative judgment formula is "S is not P". For example: “Birds are not mammals.”
Such a division is very conditional, since any latent statement contains a negation. And vice versa. For example, the phrase "this is the sea" means that the subject is not a river, not a lake, and so on. And if “this is not the sea”, then, accordingly, something else, perhaps an ocean or a bay. That is why one statement can be expressed in the form of another, and the double negation corresponds to the statement.
Varieties of affirmative judgments
If the particle "not" is not in front of the link, but is an integral part of the predicate, such statements are called affirmative: "The decision was wrong." There are two varieties:
- positive property when "S is P": "Doghomemade.”
- negative when "S is not-P": "The soup is stale".
Varieties of negative judgments
Similarly, among negative statements they distinguish:
- with a positive predicate, the formula "S is not P": "Olya did not eat an apple";
- with a negative predicate, the formula "S is not non-P": "Olya must go."
The importance of negative judgments lies in their participation in reaching the truth. They reflect the objective absence of something from something. No wonder they say that a negative result is also a result. Establishing what an object is not and what qualities it does not have is also important in the process of reflection.
Judgments by quantity
Another characteristic based on the knowledge of the subject's logical volume is quantity. The following types are distinguished:
- Single, containing information about one subject. Formula: "S is (is not) P".
- Particulars are those that have a judgment about a part of the items of a particular class. Depending on the certainty of this part, they distinguish: definite ("Only some S are (are not) P") and indefinite ("Some S are (are not) P").
- General contains a statement or a negation about each subject of the class under consideration ("All S are P" or "No S is P").
Combined Judgments
Many statements have both qualitative and quantitativecharacteristic. For them, a combined classification is applied. This gives four kinds of judgments:
- General affirmative: "All S are P".
- Common negative: "No S is P".
- Particular affirmative: "Some S are P".
- Partial negative: "Some S's are not P"
A variety of judgments based on the content of the predicate
Depending on the semantic load of the predicate, statements are distinguished:
- properties, or attributes;
- relationships, or relative;
- existence, or existential.
Simple judgments that reveal a direct connection between the objects of thought, regardless of its content, are called attributive, or categorical. For example: "No one has the right to take the life of another." The logical scheme of the attributive statement: "S is (or is not) P" (subject, connective, predicate, respectively).
Relative judgments are statements in which the predicate expresses the presence or absence of a connection (relationship) between two or more objects in different categories (time, place, causal dependence). For example: “Peter arrived before Vasya.”
If the predicate indicates the fact of the absence or presence of a connection between objects or the object of thought itself, such a statement is called existential. Here the predicate is expressed by the words: "is/is not", "was/was not", "exists/does not exist" and so on. Example: "There is no smoke without fire."
Modality of judgments
In addition to the general content, the statement cancarry an additional semantic load. With the help of the words "possible", "insignificant", "important" and others, as well as the corresponding negatives "not allowed", "impossible" and others, the modality of judgment is expressed.
There are these types of modality:
- Alethic (true) modality. Expresses the connection between objects of thought. Modal words: “maybe”, “accidentally”, “necessary”, as well as their synonyms.
- Deontic (normative) modality. Refers to the code of conduct. Words: "forbidden", "mandatory", "allowed", "permitted" and so on.
- Epistemic (cognitive) modality characterizes the degree of certainty (“proven”, “refuted”, “doubtful” and their analogues).
- Axiological (value) modality. Reflects the attitude of a person to any values. Modal words: "bad", "indifferent", "not important", "good".
The expression of attitude to the content of the utterance through the statement of modality, usually associated with the emotional state, is defined as a value judgment. For example: "Unfortunately, it's raining." In this case, the subjective attitude of the speaker to the fact that it is raining is reflected.
Structure of a compound statement
Complex judgments consist of simple ones connected by logical unions. Such bundles are used as a link that can connect sentences with each other. In addition to the logical link, which in Russian has the form of unions, quantifiers are also used. They come in two forms:
- The general quantifier is the words "all", "each", "none", "any" and so on. The sentences in this case look like this: "All objects have a certain property."
- The existential quantifier is the words "some", "many", "a little", "most" and so on. The compound sentence formula in this case is: "There are some objects that have certain properties."
An example of a complex proposition: "The rooster crowed early in the morning, it woke me up, so I didn't get enough sleep."
Judgment Ability
The ability to build statements comes to a person with age, gradually. By about three years old, a child can already pronounce simple sentences stating something. Understanding logical connections, grammatical conjunctions is a necessary and sufficient condition for a correct judgment on a specific occasion. In the process of development, a person learns to generalize information. This allows him, based on simple judgments, to build complex ones.
