Unity and Composition in Judgment

UNITY AND COMPOSITION IN JUDGMENT X INTERESTING aspect of Thomistic judgment theory which offers a number of difficulties is the question of composition in judgment. What is judgmental composition in general? Which of the several compositions involved in judgment pertains to the essence of the act? How does composition arise from the simplicity of abstraction? These and other problems concerning composition in judgment could each be considered separately and in detail. However, it is also possible to organize all the problems around a central thesis of the nature and genesis of judgmental composition. Such is the approach that will be followed in the present article. Judgment theory is in some sense the common property of three major fields of philosophy -logic, psychology, and epistemology . Logic is concerned with the mode of composition of judgment as a proposition, with special emphasis on the proper combining of concepts necessary for truth in judgment itself and as a principle of the reasoning process.1 Epistemology is primarily concerned with the truth value of judgment, and more especially with the ways in which this truth value can be ascertained and guaranteed.2 Psychology's interest is more directly concerned with judgment itself as an act of the mind. Consequently, questions concerning the nature and genesis of the various compositions involved in judgment fall most properly within the field of psychology. Of the three approaches, then, the one most pertinent to the present investigation is the psychological. Logical and epistemological considerations will be adduced where they seem appropriate, but their roles will be secondary to that of psychology. The problem of composition in judgment is central in St. 1 St. Thomas, In Pe:rikerm., Prologue, Nos. 1-8. • L. M. Regis, Epistemology (New York: Macmillan, 1959), pp. 188-89. 88 84 PAUL R. DURBIN Thomas' judgment theory. For St. Thomas to judge is "to understand by composition and division." 8 St. Thomas considers that this presents a problem: Our intellect can understand only one thing at a time; how then can it understand all at once the several things involved in a composition? 4 To one who is aware of St. Thomas' mode of procedure within the tight organization of the Summa theologiae - where this objection is raised- it will be apparent that this difficulty is not placed where it is by chance. Read in context it indicates that St. Thomas purposelJ set up his consideration of judgment by means of the doctrine that the mind can know only one thing at a time, with the consequent difficulty regarding judgment. Hence the importance of St. Thomas' reply to the objection; in it he outlines the psychological approach to the composition of judgment. The composition of judgment, he maintains, is a unity-in-composition, a composition reduced to a simplicity that can be known all at once.5 The implications of this point on judgment theory are in a sense obvious, yet so manifold and diverse that specific details would require extensive consideration . In a general way it is the aim of this study to spell out some of these implications, to treat in an extended way what St. Thomas has compacted into such a small space and so few words. TYPES OF COMPOSITION INVOLVED IN JUDGMENT Before giving any details of the procedure in a psychological consideration of judgment, it is necessary to give a preliminary sketch of the various types of composition which are involved in judgment. The first and most fundamental is the composite mode of being which is, properly speaking, the object of judgment .6 A second composition involved in judgment is a composite phantasm which represents the composition of the object to the mind. On the intellectual level there are two more compositions, of the impressed and expressed species of judg8 Summa theol., I, q. 85, a. 5.£ Ibid., obj. I. 5 Ibid., ad 1; 4c and ad 4; q. 58, a. ~. 6 Regis, op. cit., pp. 8~8-88. UNITY AND COMPOSITION IN JUDGMENT 85 ment- the enunciable and enunciation. Finally, there is a composition which compares the enunciation with reality, applies it to reality. This has been interpreted in two ways, as the essence of the judgmental act,7...