Judgment as a faculty, act, and result of thought

The paper covers the logical category of “judgment” broadly considered: not as one of the forms of abstract thinking, but as the most important element of concrete thinking. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate the power of judgment as a “distinctive” feature of thought that accompanies it from birth to the moment of final formation. The latter is understood as the discretion of truth or falsity of abstract statements (rules, norms, principles) as applied to a specific situation that confirms (or refutes) their effectiveness. The study advocates the idea that assimilation of general statements of this kind does not involve mental activity, but only their unconditional acceptance, whereas thinking itself begins with their application. Therefore, to think means to think concretely (according to the situation), and to think concretely is to implement the faculty of judgment discursively (in reasoning) in order to form a concrete judgment.