Appendix - 2. (77).

My lack of a reply to C. Mamiani's Lettere was taken by one person as contempt. But I do not despise anyone, still less such a learned fellow-citizen as Mamiani, whom I have often sincerely praised. I have to say, however, that many of those who honour me with their comments almost always express my feelings in words that do not truly express them. In this case, my reply would have to be a simple reminder of the expressions I used. If I did this for every individual, I would constantly be going over the same path. This substitution of expressions different from my own, and hence of different concepts, is found also in Mamiani's Letters, although he certainly is unaware of this.

Let me give an example and, by breaking my intended silence, show my esteem for this exceptional Italian philosopher and man of letters. He finds intellective perception, as I describe it, impossible. He says: 'One of the terms must remain obscure and unknown by the very law of its nature. In fact, how will thought have information about the subsistent sensation, which is the real subject to which the predicate, the hypothetical ens, has to be joined?' (Lett. 4). But I have never used the expression 'hypothetical ens.' I have mentioned 'possible ens', but not 'hypothetical ens', which is something totally different. Possible ens is eternal and necessary and the very opposite of hypothetical ens.

It is also untrue that the predicate is, according to me, possible ens. The predicate is indeed ens, but ens in its common essence as ens. I have already said on several occasions that possibility is only a posterior relationship, added by mental reflection to innate ens (NE, vol. 2, 743-746). I said that it did not constitute the essence of ens. I also showed that the essence of ens is identical under the two forms of ideality and reality; the spirit finds it in both forms. It could not find it, however, in reality if it were not first given in ideality. Being is called 'ideal' only in so far as it is intelligible.

My reply to the other objection, 'One of the two terms remains unknown' in the primal judgment, is as follows. It is indeed unknown until this judgment has been made; but this judgment makes it known.

My reply to the other question, 'How will thought have information about the subsistent sensation which is the real subject to which the predicate, ens, has to be joined?' is as follows. If thought had information about the subsistent sensation, the latter would already have been perceived, and there would be no need to add the predicate, which would have already been added. It is mistaken to suppose that knowledge of the subsistent sensation is needed to form the primal judgment. On the contrary, this altogether unknown sensation comes to be known and affirmed by means of the judgment, which of course has to be explained. But affirming the sensation means knowing it; nothing real is known unless it is affirmed.

- But are you not saying that between the subsistent sensation and the ens which is predicated of it there is a relationship of subject and predicate? Yes, I am, but this does not take place in any way prior to the judgment; if the judgment has not been concluded neither one nor the other is subject or predicate. These two words, subject and predicate, are an analysis of an already formed judgment; predicate and subject are never found outside a judgment. But when the judgment has been formed, not before, the subsistent sensation is certainly known. Then it is called 'subject' by the person who reflects on the formed judgment and with this act of reflection considers it as known, and notes that existence is predicated of it. The objection is apparently serious, but arises solely through incorrect understanding and incorrect expression of my theory of intellective perception.

The synthetical judgment, therefore, that is, the primal judgment, is not to be confused with the analytical judgment which comes about as a result of reflection upon the synthetical. Moreover, it is incorrect to make all judgments analytical, as Galluppi does when he speaks in general terms, affirming: 'Judgment is simply an analysis of a complex perception' (Elementi di Psicologia, c. 1, §8). - Cf. Sistema filosofico, 43-50.