5.Forming Judgments


SECTION THREE PART FIVE
Forming Judgments

When making a judgment, the senses, imagination, memory and will must be guided by the intellect, whose object is the truth.

Following the disposition of the triangles of T., the intellect makes its judgment by using A.S.V.X. etc. while it receives its own likenesses in itself from the senses, imagination, memory and will and forms its judgment so that these likenesses are not destroyed  and concordance is preserved between the universal and its particular in the cameras and universal propositions that belong to the figures.

In this Art, judgments are sometimes made with E., sometimes with I., sometimes with N., and sometimes with R. and sometimes with two or more of these letters. However, judgments made with N.R. are confused and closer to doubt or supposition. Some judgments in this Art are made through likenesses, and some through unlikenesses, some through affirmation and some through negation, some with reference to reality and others with reference to reason etc. But the general rule in this Art is that any judgment of any kind or on any subject must agree with the principles and propositions of this Art. And if the intellect cannot judge something to be possible, it must declare it impossible, and if it cannot judge something to be reasonable, it must declare it to be unreasonable.

Further, the author of this Art recommends that whenever the intellect is able to make a judgment in terms of the concordance of the likenesses it receives from the senses, imagination etc. it should accept this judgment, and whenever it cannot, it must turn the judgment into its opposite, or accept the likenesses that best agree with the greater concordance of reality, substance and accidents, and also best agree with the greater concordance of the cameras and propositions found in the figures of this Art.
 



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