DISJUNCTIVE JUDGMENTS AND PROPOSITIONS 281 



142. PROPOSITIONS WITH ALTERNATIVE SUBJECTS. We 

 have purposely defined the alternative or disjunctive judgment 

 very widely, so as to take in all the forms discussed by logicians. 

 The first of these the proposition with an alternative subject 

 is not usually regarded as an alternative. However, it requires 

 recognition somewhere, for it occasionally occurs ; and it may be 

 appropriately referred to here, seeing that the general function of 

 the alternative judgment is, as we shall see, to express know 

 ledge which is too vague and undefined in its reference to admit 

 of simple categorical statement, and that the form &quot;Either A or 

 B is C&quot; expresses one way in which our knowledge may be inde 

 finite. The force of introducing an alternative into the subject 

 of a proposition is to make theproposition/w^Vw/^r or indefinite 

 (93) if it were universal, and more indefinite still if it were already 

 particular. Compare, for example, &quot;John will be present! with 

 &quot; Either John or James will be present &quot; ; &quot;All the clergy will sup 

 port the candidate&quot; with &quot; Either all the clergy, or all the barristers, 

 or all the doctors, will support the candidate&quot; [i.e. (categorically) 

 &quot; One at least of the learned prof essions will support him &quot;] ; &quot; Some 

 of the Liberals will vote for us&quot; with &quot; Either some of the Liberals 

 or some of the Home-Rulers will vote for us&quot; (which might be ex 

 pressed categorically, &quot; Some of the opposition will vote for us.&quot;) 1 

 Obviously, judgments of this class differ in language rather than 

 in thought from categoricals. 



1 43. PROPOSITIONS WITH ALTERNATIVE PREDICATES. These 

 form a more distinctive class than the former ; although here, too, 

 the divergence from the ordinary categorical is not great. In 

 the affirmative categorical the predicate is indefinite or undistri 

 buted : the introduction of an alternative into it makes it still 

 more indefinite, and widens the reference of the subject accord 

 ingly. Compare the proposition &quot;He is a lawyer&quot; with the 

 proposition &quot; He is either a lawyer or a doctor or a clergyman &quot;. 

 The latter has the categorical equivalent &quot; He is a member of a 

 learned profession&quot; because the genus, to which the sub-classes 

 enumerated in the predicate belong, happens to have a name of 

 its own: so, too, the reference in &quot;He is either a solicitor or a 

 barrister&quot; is exactly the same as in the categorical &quot;He is a 

 lawyer,&quot; though wider than the reference in either of the categori 

 cals &quot; He is a barrister&quot; or &quot; He is a solicitor &quot;. 



Thus we see how little these judgments differ from categori- 

 1 C/. VENN, Empirical Logic, p. 247. 



