The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Summary: Kaindl - Wesen und Bedeutung der Impersonalien
While according to grammar every sentence must have subject and predicate, and according to logic in every judgment of a subject a predicate concept must be asserted or denied, there seems to be no subject in such expressions as 'es donnert, mir ist wohl, es ist Tag'. Impersonals may be treated from two points of view, the psychologico-logical and the philologico-historical. The present article is devoted principally to a logical investigation of the subject. Traditional logic teaches that the judgment has two members. Some, however, (Brentano, Miklosich, Marty,) find the essence of the judgment in the act of recognition or rejection, and claim that this can as well take place with one concept as with two. When Miklosich says that in the sentence 'pluit' the subject is not only not expressed but also not even thought, he is right, but only in so far as he is thinking of an efficient subject. Here, as in the case of all impersonals, there is a subject in the wider sense. Every judgment as thought has two members. The expression, however, may be incomplete, either the subject or the predicate being omitted. K. investigates the conditions under which the subject is omitted, and reaches the conclusion that impersonals of all classes name some definite occurrence or state of things without any thought of an efficient subject. The subject in the wider sense is the concrete-real occurrence or state which we have in mind but do not bring to spoken expression. K. discusses further the origin and proper designation of impersonals, and the significance of the third person singular, and of the 'es' or 'it' in such expressions.