An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

IMPORT OF PROPOSITIONS AND JUDGMENTS. 113
us in perception and feeling. The other
us as works of thought or works of imagination.
"
"
worlds come to
Owing to the great importance of grasping what is
meant by the
"
"
reference to reality in a judgment, we
will quote Prof. Minto s statement of the same con
clusion which we have set forth.
propositions : The
streets are wet ;
"
Take a number of
<
George
has blue
eyes ; The Earth goes round the Sun ; Two and
two make four. Obviously, in any of these proposi
tions, there is a reference beyond the conceptions in
the speaker s mind. . . . They
express
beliefs about
things and relations among things in rerum natura :
when any one understands them and gives his assent
to them, he never stops to think of the speaker s state
of mind, but of what the words represent. When states
of mind are spoken of, as when we say that our ideas
are confused, or that a man s conception of duty influ
ences his conduct, those states of mind are viewed as
objective facts in the world of realities. Even when
we speak of things which have, in a sense, no reality,
as when we say that a centaur is a combination of man
and horse, or that centaurs were fabled to live in the
vales of Thessaly, ... we pass at once to the ob
jective reference of the words [to the world of Greek
l
mythology]."
EXERCISE VIII.
The following questions refer to the subjects of the present
chapter.
(i) State and discuss the different theories as to the
Import of a Proposition. [O.] Or,
1 The philosophical aspects of the "reference to reality" in Judg
ment will be further considered in our concluding chapter (ch.
H