Which term denotes the act of grasping a concept without affirming or denying?

• A. Judgement
• B. Simple apprehension
• C. Proposition
• D. Abstraction

Answer: (B)

Grasping a concept without affirming or denying is called simple apprehension. In traditional logic, this is the first mental move: you form or hold in the mind the meaning of a term or concept (like “triangle” or “human”) without saying whether it exists or whether the statement about it is true. It’s the act of understanding what the idea signifies, independent of truth claims.

This differs from judgment, which is about affirming or denying something about a subject (making a claim true or false). A proposition is the content of a declarative sentence that expresses a judgment. Abstraction involves extracting or focusing on certain aspects to form a general idea, which goes beyond simply grasping the concept and often leads to universal terms. So the act described—grasping the concept without approval or rejection—best fits simple apprehension.