• Albert
    1
    Can I ask a really hard question?
    about logic
    What is the difference between these two sentences?
    1.This flower is non-blue.
    2.This flower is not blue.

    My understanding is that infinite judgment provides knowledge, while negative judgment does not provide knowledge.
    But according to formal logic, they are the same
    But I still don't understand why Kant wants to distinguish between the two.
  • Terrapin Station
    13.8k
    I'm no Kant expert, and I'm not a fan, but per my memory of this, Kant's negative/infinite distinction is about a contingent/necessary or accidental/analytic distinction, normally re classes.

    In other words, it's about some set of Fs and whether we can predicate Gness of Fs.

    A "negative judgment" here refers to a contingent or accidental fact that no Fs happen to be Gs.
    An "infinite judgment" here refers to a necessary or analytic fact that no Fs are Gs.

    We could extend that to particulars if we think of a particular as either contingently or necessarily having some property. So (1)--the flower necessarily isn't blue, or (2) the flower contingently isn't blue.

    I don't recall the "provides knowledge" part so well, but if that's right, it would probably be based on something like "knowledge" providing information that's universally applicable rather than just a contingent fact.
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