Proposition

Use in the book

The warning against making a proposition of a precept prevents a practical direction from being treated automatically as a theoretical assertion. Interlaced propositions can also manufacture an apparent solidity absent from each thread, whereas good doctrine requires each to possess its own truth and clarity. In the Leibnitz response, ideas and feelings may be innate but expressly formulated propositions are not. The truth test then goes beyond inferential relation: a proposition must be true as principle, or independently satisfying, not only as consequence. The later reformulation distinguishes inference from consequent and rejects silencing an opponent as equivalent to convincing him. These are criticisms of unsupported or merely combative argument, not a denial that propositions can convey truth.

Places to read

1. I, p. 272, entry 6, ¶1A proposition is distinguished from precept, rule and commandment.
2. I, p. 300, entry 3, ¶1Interlacing can conceal the weakness of separate claims.
3. I, p. 319, entry 3, ¶1A formulated proposition is not treated as innate.
4. II, p. 511, entry 3, ¶1Truth as consequence alone is declared insufficient.
5. II, p. 651, entry 3, ¶1The inferred claim must be true within its inference.

Translation in this edition

The English translation uses proposition consistently. Conséquence becomes consequence in the shorter maxim and inference in the scholastic comparison, where conséquent remains consequent. The “or rather” revision and the unfinished “Reasoning being” construction remain. The argument is not silently repaired into a modern logical theorem.