KANT'S CRITIQUE OF TELEOLOGY IN BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Infinite Judgments 69
normally rendered in English as "indefinite terms"). "Infinitum" is
the Latin translation introduced by Boethius of the Aristotelian
!"#$%&"', which was applied to parts of a judgment. However, after
Boethius a judgment in which either subject or predicate contained
a negation was often called "affirmatio infinita" or "negatio
infinita". Kant seems however to have been the first to take the term
"infinitum" literally. For most logicians the expression seems to
have been simply a perhaps unfortunate but traditional term for
indefinite predicates or for judgments containing such predicates. 21
Hegel remarked, looking back, "The name, infinite judgment, tends
to be mentioned in the usual logic books, although it is not clear
what its significance might be." 22
Meier's Logic, which Kant used as a text in his lectures, considers
infinite judgments in various forms: "If there is a negation in
a judgment, either in the subject or predicate or in both at once, as
long as the copula is not negated, the judgment is affirmative and is
called an infinite judgment (iudicium infinitum)." 23 In practice
Meier treats such judgments as if they were negative.
J.H. Lambert, often cited as influential for the development of
Kantian logic, does not introduce infinite judgments but does consider
indefinite terms (termini infiniti); he not only equates
judgements containing such terms with negative judgments but
even tries to reduce the latter to the former: "With regard to affirmation
and negation we must note that both actually affect the
predicate, and by negation the latter is transformed into a
terminum infinitum." 24 This equation of negative and infinite
judgments in their logical functions subscribed to by Meier and
Lambert is rejected by Kant, who notes that his division of
judgments "appears to depart from the technical distinctions
ordinarily recognized by logicians" (B96).
21 Cf. Prantl, Logik, pp. 692f; Maier, Qualitätskategorie, p. 44.
22 Hegel, Logic II,324 (pt. 2, sect. 1, chap. 2, A.c.).
23 Cf. Ak 16,636.
24 Lambert, Organon, §144, p. 93. It is interesting to note that Lambert after
equating the two goes on to make a rather elementary logical mistake, in that he
not only says that two contraries "contradict" one another but also that one must be
true and the other false: "Since then consequently B and Not B cannot possibly be
together in one and the same subject, then ... the statements: Every A is B and
Every A is not B contradict one another absolutely, and one of them is necessarily
false and the other is necessarily alone true."