The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

The whole of reflective knowledge, or the reason, has only one chief form, and that is the abstract conception. It is proper to the reason itself, and has no direct necessary connection with the world of perception, which therefore exists for the brutes entirely without conceptions, and indeed, even if it were quite another world from what it is, that form of reflection would suit it just as well But the combination of conceptions for the purpose of judging has certain definite and normal forms, which have been found by induction, and constitute the table of judgments. These forms are for the most part deducible from the nature of reflective knowledge itself, thus directly from the reason, because they spring from the four laws of thought (called by me metalogical truths) and the dictum de omni et nullo. Certain others of these forms, however, have their ground in the nature of knowledge of perception, thus in the understanding ; yet they by no means point to a like number of special forms of the understanding, but can all be fully deduced from the sole function which the understanding has — the direct knowledge of cause and effect. Lastly, still others of these forms have sprung from the concurrence and combination of the reflective and intuitive modes of knowledge, or more properly from the assumption of the latter into thep. 56 former. I shall now go through the moments of the judgment one by one, and point out the origin of each of them in the sources referred to ; and from this it follows of itself that a deduction of categories from them is wanting, and the assumption of this is just as groundless as its exposition was found to be entangled and self-conflicting.

I. The so-called Quantity of judgments springs from the nature of concepts as such. It thus has its ground in the reason alone, and has absolutely no direct connection with the understanding and with knowledge of perception. It is indeed, as is explained at length in the first book, essential to concepts, as such, that they should have an extent, a sphere, and the wider, less determined concept includes the narrower and more determined. The latter can therefore be separated from the former, and this may happen in two ways, — either the narrower concept may be indicated as an indefinite part of the wider concept in general, or it may be defined and completely separated by means of the addition of a special name. The judgment which carries out this operation is in the first case called a particular, and in the second case an universal judgment. For example, one and the same part of the sphere of the concept tree may be isolated through a particular and through an universal judgment, thus — "Some trees bear gall-nuts," or "All oaks bear gall-nuts." One sees that the difference of the two operations is very slight ; indeed, that the possibility of it depends upon the richness of the language. Nevertheless, Kant has explained this difference as disclosing two fundamentally different actions, functions, categories of the pure understanding which determines experience a priori through them.

Finally, a concept may also be used in order to arrive by means of it at a definite particular idea of perception, from which, as well as from many others, this concept itself is drawn; this happens in the singular judgment. Such a judgment merely indicates the boundary-line

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between abstract knowledge and knowledge of perception, and passes directly to the latter, "This tree here bears gall-nuts." Kant has made of this also a special category.

After all that has been said there is no need of further polemic here.