Note 305 — Chapter X

Mr Bosanquet’s opinion that “the disjunction seems to complete the system of judgments,” and that in some way it rises superior to other forms of judgment, is apparently based on the view that it is by the aid of the disjunctive judgment that we set forth the exposition of a system with its various subdivisions. Apart, however, from the fact that a disjunctive judgment does not necessarily contain such an exposition, Mr Bosanquet’s doctrine appears to regard a classification of some kind as representing the ideal of knowledge; and this can hardly be allowed. We cannot, for example, regard the classifications of such a science as botany as of equal importance with the expressions of laws of nature, such as the law of universal gravitation. And the ultimate laws on which all the sciences are based are not expressed in the form of disjunctive propositions.