Engliš presents this short work as a prolegomenon to his larger Lehre von der Denkordnung, but it is already a complete reorientation of logic. Its main thesis is that logic is neither psychology, nor a calculus modeled on mathematics, nor a general theory of truth. Logic is the science of the normative order within which concepts are joined in judgments.
Die Logik ist eine Wissenschaft von der Denkordnung.
English translation: Logic is a science of the order of thought.
The starting point is a rejection of psychologism. Psychology studies thinking as a causal mental process; logic must study it as an intentional ordering of thought-contents toward an “Erkenntnisziel.” Hence logical correctness is not the same as methodological usefulness: method belongs to the empirical sciences and their aims, while logic concerns the norms that regulate possible and necessary combinations of concepts. Engliš’s decisive move is to treat thinking as purposive order rather than mere association.
Das Denken, auf das sich die logischen Normen beziehen, ist eine gewollte Aktivität
English translation: The thinking to which logical norms refer is a willed activity.
The basic units of this order are concepts, not sentences. Symbols fix and communicate meanings, but the sentence is only the grammatical vehicle of a judgment. Against traditions that confuse statements, norms, postulates, and judgments, Engliš insists that only judgments can be true or false; norms and postulates can be valid, useful, revoked, or obeyed, but not refuted as judgments. Equally important, a concept by itself is not knowledge.
Der einzelne Begriff an sich ist jedoch keine Erkenntnis.
English translation: The individual concept in itself, however, is not knowledge.
Concepts are “Zweckgebilde,” formed for cognitive purposes. Their structure contains both content and form. Engliš’s central conceptual architecture arises from three elementary forms: something is thought as existing, as willed, or as ought-to-be. These become three autonomous orders of thought: ontology, teleology, and normology. Ontology orders reality through cause and effect; teleology orders what is willed through means and ends; normology orders what ought to be through norm, duty, validity, and higher normative ground. Each has its own categories, relations, values, and mode of explanation.
The work’s relevance to law and economics follows from this triad. Engliš argues that the natural sciences have illegitimately monopolized ontology as the model of science, while law and economics require teleological and normological forms. Law, for example, must be studied normologically as validity, teleologically as state policy, and ontologically as legal history. These perspectives are not interchangeable.
Die eine Wissenschaft kann die anderen nicht ersetzen
English translation: One science cannot replace the others.
Mathematics occupies a special but limited place. It is a logic of quantity and space, built on axioms. But axioms are not truths; they are postulates or norms that found a formal order. Mathematical judgments are correct within such an order, not true of reality. This allows Engliš to resist attempts to mathematize all logic.
Die Mathematik sagt über die Wirklichkeit nichts aus
English translation: Mathematics says nothing about reality.
A major structural distinction follows: logical judgments know relations among concept-contents and are therefore correct or incorrect; empirical judgments use concepts to know reality and must be both logically admissible and true. The “truth criterion” cannot be supplied by logic, because truth concerns the empirical sciences’ comparison and integration of experiences. Logic can define truth formally as agreement with reality, but it cannot determine that agreement.
Nur die Erfahrung ist wahr oder unwahr
English translation: Only experience is true or untrue.
Engliš then reworks judgment and inference. A judgment is not adequately analyzed as grammatical subject plus predicate. Its logical structure depends on the question it answers: the question gives the ground of judgment, and the answer supplies the logical predicate. This move explains why the law of excluded middle applies to judgments but not to every sentence or assertion. Inference likewise is not merely a set of premises and a conclusion; it includes the logical act expressed by “Daraus ergibt sich, daß …”. Induction and deduction differ according to whether an added premise is drawn from experience or from the thought-order.
The later chapters extend the argument to value. Valuation is not opposed to cognition; each order has its own values: ontological degrees such as heat or hardness, teleological usefulness or harm, and normological correctness or validity.
Die Wertung ist ein Erkennen
English translation: Valuation is a form of cognition.
The concluding diagnosis of the “crisis of logic” targets Aristotle’s overemphasis on syllogism, Kant’s appeal to a priori forms, psychologism, and logistic statement-calculi. Their common failure is ignorance of the differentiated orders of thought, especially teleology and normology. Engliš’s final claim is programmatic: only by distinguishing concept from judgment, postulate from norm, logical correctness from empirical truth, and the three fundamental Denkordnungen can logic become the science it should be.
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