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General conception of the Nature of Ratiocination A judgment is the comparison of a subject or thing with a predicate or attribute . The comparison is made by using the copula or linking verb is or its negative is not. Therefore, a judgment is a declarative sentence, which is a categorical proposition. Example: The tiger is four-footed. A predicate can also have its own predicate. In the example, the predicate four-footed can, itself, have the further predicate animal. One of these predicates is immediately and directly connected to the subject or thing. The other predicate is mediate and indirectly connected to the subject. The tiger ----------is---------- a four-footed---------- animal. In order to have clear knowledge of the relation between a predicate and a subject, I can consider a predicate to be a mediate predicate. Between this mediate predicate or attribute, I can place an intermediate predicate. For example, in the judgment the sun is luminous, I attempt a clarification by inserting the predicate star, which then becomes an immediate predicate, intermediate between the subject sun and the mediate predicate luminous. The sun is a star that is luminous. Sun = subject Is = copula Star = immediate predicate Luminous = remote mediate predicate Kant calls this process ratiocination. It is the comparison of a remote, mediate predicate with a subject through the use of an intermediate predicate. The intermediate predicate is called the middle term of a rational inference. The comparison of a subject with a remote, mediate predicate occurs through three judgments: | 
