Process and Reality — the Gifford Lectures, 1929

In the ‘organic’ doctrine, a clear distinction between a judgment and a proposition has been made. A judgment is a feeling in the ‘process’ of the judging subject, and it is correct or incorrect respecting that subject. It enters, as a value, into the satisfaction of that subject; and it can only be criticized by the judgments of actual entities in the future. A judgment concerns the universe in process of prehension by the judging subject. It will primarily concern a definite selection of objectified actual entities, and of eternal objects; and it affirms the physical objectification—for the judging subject—of those actual entities by the ingression of those eternal objects; so that there is one objectified nexus of those actual entities, judged to be really interconnected, and qualified, by those eternal objects. This judgment affirms, correctly or incorrectly, a real fact in the constitution of the judging subject. Here there is no room for any qualification of the categorical character of the judgment. The judgment is made about itself by the judging subject, and is feeling in the constitution of the judging subject. The actual entities, with which the judgment is explicitly concerned, comprise the ‘logical’ subjects of the judgment, and the selected eternal objects form the ‘qualities’ and ‘relations’ which are affirmed of the logical subjects.

This affirmation about the logical subjects is obviously ‘affirmation’ in a sense derivative from the meaning of ‘affirmation’ about the judging subject. Identification of the two senses will lead to error. In the latter sense there is abstraction from the judging subject. The subjectivist principle has been transcended, and the judgment has shifted its emphasis from the objectified nexusp. 292 to the truth-value of the proposition in question. Having regard to the fact that judgment concerns the subjective form of an impure feeling arising from the inteeration of simpler feelings, we note that judgments are divisible into two sorts. These are (i) intuitive judgments and (ii) derivative judgments. In an intuitive judgment the integration of the physical datum with the proposition elicits into feeling the full complex detail of the proposition in its comparison of identity, or diversity, in regard to the complex detail of the physical datum. The intuitive judgment is the consciousness of this complex detailed comparison involving identity and diversity. Such a judgment is in its nature correct. For it is the consciousness of what is.

In a derivative judgment the integration of the physical datum with the proposition elicits into feeling the full complex detail of the proposition, but does not elicit into feeling the full comparison of this detail with the complex detail of the physical fact. There is some comparison involving the remainder of the detail. But the subjective form embraces the totality of the proposition, instead of assuming a complex pattern which discriminates between the compared and the uncompared components. In derivative judgments there can be error. Logic is the analysis of the relationships between propositions in virtue of which derivative judgments will not introduce errors, other than those already attaching to the judgments on the premises. Most judgments are derivative; such judgments illustrate the doctrine that the subjective form of a feeling is affected by the totality of the actual occasion. This has been termed the ‘sensitivity’ of feelings in one occasion. In an intuitive judgment the subjective form of assent or dissent has been restrained, so as to derive its character solely from the contrasts in the datum. Even in this case, the emotional force of the judgment, as it passes into purpose, is derived from the whole judging subject.

Further, the judging subject and the logical subjectsp. 293 refer to a universe with the general metaphysical character which represents its ‘patience’ for those subjects, and also its ‘patience’ for those eternal objects. In each judgment the universe is ranged in a hierarchy of wider and wider societies, as explained above (cf. Part II, Ch. III). It follows that the distinction between the logical subjects, with their qualities and relations, and the universe as systematic background, is not quite so sharply defined as the previous explanation suggests. For it is a matter of convention as to which of the proximate societies are reckoned as logical subjects and which as background. Another way of stating this shading off of logical subjects into background, is to say that the patience of the universe for a real fact in a judging subject is a hierarchical patience involving systematic gradations of character. This discussion substantiates the statement made above (cf. Part I, Ch. I, Sect. V), that a verbal statement is never the full expression of a proposition.

We now recur to the distinction between a proposition and a judgment. A proposition emerges in the analysis of a judgment; it is the datum of the judgment in abstraction from the judging subject and from the subjective form. A judgment* is a synthetic feeling, embracing two subordinate feelings in one unity of feeling. Of these subordinate feelings one is propositional, merely entertaining the proposition which is its datum. The same proposition can constitute the content of diverse judgments by diverse judging entities respectively. The possibility of diverse judgments by diverse actual entities, having the same content (of ‘proposition’ in contrast with ‘nexus’), requires that the same complex of logical subjects, objectified via the same eternal objects, can enter as a partial constituent into the ‘real’ essences of diverse actual entities. The judgment is a decision of feeling, the proposition is what is felt; but it is only part of the datum felt.

But, since each actual world is relative to standpoint,

*@f, Part U0, Ch, Viz

p. 294