2. Analytical Introduction (8)

2.2.2. The object of logic

From all that we have said in the first part of the introduction, it follows that the products of reason (and emphatically not its operations!) are what terminate the logical science, in other words are its material object. Now the products of reason, such as the definition, the statement or proposition, the syllogism are not considered by the logician as the product of the corresponding operation, but exclusively under the aspect of the order which reason establishes between the concepts in the definition or the proposition, then between the propositions in argumentation, in such a way as to grasp the truth. Therefore the formal object quod of logic consists in the relations constructed by reason in its proper product, and aimed at the truth, such as the relation of predicability of one concept to another, or that of actual attribution in a proposition, or above all that of illation in an argument. To know the correctness of such relations, that is their ordinability to the true, logic is founded on first principles immediately accessible to the natural light of the intellect, which therefore constitute its formal object quo, such as the principle of identity. In synthesis:



The material and formal quo objects are easily understood; on the other hand, it is necessary to inquire more deeply into the formal object quod: in what exactly do these relations between concepts and propositions which logic should study consist?