Abstract

In the last few years there has been a revival of interest in F.H. Bradley and particularly the account of judgment contained in The Principles of Logic. Many of those who discuss Bradley’s theory of judgment mistakenly assume that it can best be seen as a linguistic account. They insist that what Bradley says can be understood as an account of the meaning and reference of words or sentences. In this paper I will argue that Bradley’s theory of judgment is essentially a psychological theory. Judgment is the union of part of the content of an image or other mental particular with our immediate experience. There is no evidence for the linguisitc interpretation and its defenders cannot make sense of Bradley’s discussion of a number of technical points, particularly his criticism of the view that judgment is the synthesis of ideas, and his comments on the idea of “this.” I will also argue that Bradley’s account of judgment cannot be separated from his later metaphysics and is essentially Hegelian in character. To explain Bradley’s theory I will begin where he does, with an examination of the nature of ideas.