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

THE LOGICAL PROPOSITION. 53
This fact is of importance, for we shall meet with cases
where the nomen indefinitum "not-P" appears as predi
cate in an affirmative proposition, so that the word
"not" belongs* entirely to the predicate, in the formal
expression
of the statement :
Subject Copula Predicate
S is not-P
Coming now to distinctions of quantity, we must
examine more closely each of the four classes mentioned
above.
(a) The affirmation or denial may be made of some
one object, so that the subject is a singular term (ch. II.
3). In this case we have a singular proposition.
The following are examples, not, of course, all ex
pressed in strict logical form: "/ am what I am";
"
Some one has blundered
"
some secret sin ;
"
"
; "fob
must have committed
"
This statesman is not dishonest ;
The Emperor of China is only in name a ruler." Many
of the mediaeval writers on Logic excluded singular terms,
and hence also singular propositions, from logical treat
ment, admitting only common terms, names of classes.
Hence, when afterwards singular terms were introduced
into Logic, a place had to be found for singular pro
positions in the accepted classification of propositions
to be men
i.e., in one of the two divisions immediately
tioned, (b) and (<r).
They
were ranked with the uni-
versals, division (b), on the ground that the predicate
refers to
"
the whole of the subject." It is unnatural to
treat an individual as a class, but such is the traditional
method.
(b) The affirmation or denial may be made of every
1
thing of a certain kind or class. In this case we have a
1 The philosophical aspects of the Universal Judgment will be
considered in ch. XI. 6.