Abstract

In the history of philosophy, the distinction between positive and negative predication has been collapsed. The collapse has caused us to search for a way through Parmenides’ gate: we have constructed scaffolding to see over its boundaries. Kant gave us the distinction between conceptual and non-conceptual knowledge; Hegel gave us determinate negation; Frege gave us the negation stroke; Husserl gave us bracketing and disappointment; G. Spencer-Brown gave us a calculus of distinction. Despite this, we find ourselves—alongside Wittgenstein— wondering how it can be the case that we are able to think what is not the case. We are puzzled by the fact that we can think nothing without the thought lacking content. I suggest that this confusion is unnecessary. Throughout this work, I exercise the thought that the distinction between positive and negative predication is mistaken. I rather suggest that to think what is or is not the case necessarily depends upon an exemplar distinction that is experientially recognized and learned in the world. All the same, our capacity to understand natural distinction likewise depends upon our practical and pervasively conceptual capacities to express it in language. I conclude by suggesting that what makes positive and negative predication distinct is a fundamental unity in conceptual form through its capacity to play distinct functional roles in linguistic practice.