2. The True
a) Formation of the theory. This transcendental presents
a more complex pattern, since the true - as also the good -
denotes being, not in itself, but in relation to another.
What is truth? is an age-old question. Offhand, most men
would agree that it is the goal of all knowledge, the desire
and perfection of the intellect: we seek knowledge because
we seek truth. To speak of truth as the perfection of the
intellect is to speak of it as in the subject, hence from the
subjective point of view - a valid conception. As a matter of
fact Aristotle conceives of it mostly in this way. St.
Augustine, doctor par excellence of the philosophy of
truth, reverses the perspective; and the tradition that attaches
to his name has faithfully followed him. Truth in the
Augustinian sense is in the object, or rather is an object that
dominates and imposes itself upon the mind. Primarily and
most properly this conception refers to the divine truth,
eternal and immutable, in which created intellects participate.
St. Thomas, heir to both traditions, undertook to
reconcile them. For him, truth was indeed the perfection of
the intellect, it was in the subject; but it was also in the
object, an objective property of being deriving ultimately
from the divine knowledge rather than the human. Truth,
in short, was both logical and ontological.
b) Logical and ontological truth in formula. Truth always implies a relation between being and intellect. But the relation can be considered from either of its terms, either as based in the intellect or as grounded in being. Truth is in the intellect or, an intellect is true when its act (of knowledge) conforms with being, with what is.20 True knowledge, then, is knowledge which bears a relation of conformity with its object, with reality. Thus understood, truth is defined as the conformity of intellect to thing: adaequatio intellectus ad rem; which, by common accord, is the definition of logical truth. Conversely, from the objective point of view, truth is in things or a thing is true in proportion to its conformity with the intellect. This is ontological truth, the conformity of thing to intellect: adaequatio rei ad intellectum. Both definitions (formulas) must be looked into further.21
c) Logical truth. Truth, in the primary sense, is in the intellect or, more generally, in the faculty of knowledge; and, as we have seen, it arises when (and in the measure that) the faculty is conformed to the thing. But the conformity exists on two levels, so to speak. For the intellect is already conformed to the thing in the act of simple apprehension, and the sense faculty is conformed to its object in the act of sensation. But neither the intellect at this moment, nor the sense at any time, knows its conformity.
Through its power of reflection, however, the intellect is capable of passing judgment upon its knowledge by comparing its apprehension with the thing apprehended, and thus it becomes aware of the conformity with its object. So that it is in judgment (the second operation of the mind) that the intellect comes in possession of truth as a known or recognized conformity; which, for the intellect, is obviously a more perfect state of affairs than the unrecognized conformity in simple apprehension. Logical truth is precisely the truth as known, the conformity that has entered the awareness of the intellect. Scholastics speak of this state of truth as formal; whence their conception that truth is formally in judgment rather than in simple apprehension. On which matter St. Thomas deserves to be quoted at length; his doctrine, it will be seen, squares perfectly with the above:
Truth is defined by the conformity of intellect and thing; hence to know this conformity is to know truth. But in no way does sense know this. For though sight has the likeness of a visible thing, it does not know the comparison which exists between the thing seen and that which it itself is apprehending concerning it. But the intellect can know its own conformity with the intelligible thing; yet it does not apprehend it by knowing of a thing what a thing is [simple apprehension]. When, however, it judges that a thing corresponds to the form which it apprehends about that thing, then it first knows and expresses truth. This it does by composing and dividing [i.e. in judgment]: for in every proposition it either applies to, or removes from, the thing signified by the subject some form signified by the predicate. So, then, the sense is indeed true in regard to a given thing, as is also the intellect in knowing what a thing is; but it does not thereby know or affirm truth. . . . Truth, accordingly, may be in the sense, or in the intellect knowing what a thing is, namely, as in something that is true, but not as the thing known is in the knower, which is what the word truth implies. Yet the perfection of the intellect is truth as known. Properly speaking, therefore, truth resides in the intellect composing and dividing, and not in the sense or in the intellect knowing what a thing is 22
d) Ontological truth. This is truth as inhering in things, as a transcendental property of being. Its definition still includes reference to intellect, for truth of whatever kind implies a relation to intellect. But again the occurrence is twofold. The reference, namely, may be to an intellect upon which the thing in question depends for its existence, as the work of art upon the artist, and more properly, all creation upon the Creator; or it may be to an intellect which must bend to the thing it knows as to its object. Ontological truth refers, essentially, to the first mentioned, to the intellect upon which things depend, in the final count to the creative intellect of God. Primarily, then, ontological truth is simply the conformity of things to the divine intellect, all things having been preconceived by God and made to his knowledge.23 In a less proper sense, however, things may also be said to be true from their relation to an intellect (created, to be sure) upon which they do not depend. But this is an accidental relation as far as things are concerned, and to say that things are true in this accidental sense means simply that they have an aptitude to be an object of knowledge for a speculative intellect, for example that of man.24
In summation, truth is found:
e) The false. Along with the true St. Thomas, not inappropriately, studies its opposite, the false. To be noted, among other things, is that there can be no transcendental or ontological falsity in the absolute sense; for this would mean that a being escapes the creative causality of the divine intellect, an impossible eventuality. Absolutely speaking, then, (which means in relation to the divine intellect) being cannot be false. In reference to the created intellect, however, (and specifically to the human) things may be said to be false when by their appearances they invite misconception of their true nature. So, for example, we speak of false gold; yet the reality in question is not false but true - true copper, true bronze, or whatever it truly is. Actually, to speak of things in this way is just that - a manner of speech, albeit a legitimate one.
But if ontological falsity is not strictly possible, logical falsity, as everyone can testify, is only too common. Like logical truth, logical falsity exists in the mind, and formally in judgment, which is false when it says of what is that it is not, and vice versa. As for the senses, and also the intellect in simple apprehension, these are always true, at least in regard to their proper object.