Daily Lessons from St. Thomas

339

Aquinas’s topic:  Logic of judgments:  truth

Scripture: “I, the LORD, alone probe the mind and test the heart, To reward everyone according to his ways, according to the merit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:10

Aquinas’s text:  De veritate 1.3c, written 1256-9

Here Br. Thomas explains truth is present in the intellect, what we might call the logical sense of truth.

Aquinas’s question: “Is truth found in the intellect composing and dividing?”

Aquinas’s response:

Just as the true is found primarily in the intellect rather than in things, so too it is found primarily in the act of the intellect composing and dividing rather than in the act of the intellect formulating the quiddities of things. For the definition of the true consists in the adequation of thing and intellect. Now the same thing is not adequated to itself, but adequation requires distinct terms. Consequently, the definition of truth is first found in the intellect, when the intellect first begins to possess something proper to itself that the thing outside the soul does not possess, but corresponding to it, so that between them an adequation can be noticed. Now the intellect, when it forms the quiddities of things, only has a likeness of a thing standing outside the soul, like the sense does when it receives the sensible species. But when it begins to make judgments about the thing apprehended, then its judgment is something proper to itself, not found outside in the thing. And the judgment is said to be true when it is adequated to what is external in the thing.  And the intellect then judges about the thing apprehended when it says that something is or is not. This is the the intellect composing and dividing.

This is why the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 6 that composition and division are in the intellect, not in things. Consequently, truth is found primarily in composition and division in the intellect.  Secondarily and in a posterior way the true is said to be in the intellect forming the quiddities of things or definitions.  Consequently, a definition is called true or false because of a true or false combination, as when a definition is be applied to something to which it does not belong, such as the definition of a circle being applied to a triangle, or when the parts of a definition cannot be reconciled, as happens when one defines some thing as “an animal entirely without sense.” For the composition implied in such a definition, namely, “some animal is without sense,”is false. In this way, a definition is said to be true or false only through is order to a composition, just as a thing is said to be true through its order to the intellect.

From what has been said, then, it is clear that the true is first of all said of composition or division by the intellect.  In second place, the true is said of the definitions of things, as they imply a true or a false judgment. Third, the true is said of things, as they are adequated to the divine intellect, or as their nature makes them apt to be adequated to the human intellect. Fourth, the true is said of a human, as he chooses truths or as he gives an estimate of himself or of others that is true or false, by what he says or does.  For words receive the predication of truth in the same way as the understanding they signify.

Dicendum, quod sicut verum per prius invenitur in intellectu quam in rebus, ita etiam per prius invenitur in actu intellectus componentis et dividentis quam in actu intellectus quidditatem rerum formantis. Veri enim ratio consistit in adaequatione rei et intellectus; idem autem non adaequatur sibi ipsi, sed aequalitas diversorum est; unde ibi primo invenitur ratio veritatis in intellectu ubi primo intellectus incipit aliquid proprium habere quod res extra animam non habet, sed aliquid ei correspondens, inter quae adaequatio attendi potest. Intellectus autem formans quidditatem rerum, non habet nisi similitudinem rei existentis extra animam, sicut et sensus in quantum accipit speciem sensibilis; sed quando incipit iudicare de re apprehensa, tunc ipsum iudicium intellectus est quoddam proprium ei, quod non invenitur extra in re. Sed quando adaequatur ei quod est extra in re, dicitur iudicium verum; tunc autem iudicat intellectus de re apprehensa quando dicit aliquid esse vel non esse, quod est intellectus componentis et dividentis.

Unde dicit etiam philosophus in VI Metaph., quod compositio et divisio est in intellectu, et non in rebus. Et inde est quod veritas per prius invenitur in compositione et divisione intellectus. Secundario autem dicitur verum et per posterius in intellectu formante quiditates rerum vel definitiones; unde definitio dicitur vera vel falsa, ratione compositionis verae vel falsae, ut quando scilicet dicitur esse definitio eius cuius non est, sicut si definitio circuli assignetur triangulo; vel etiam quando partes definitionis non possunt componi ad invicem, ut si dicatur definitio alicuius rei animal insensibile, haec enim compositio quae implicatur, scilicet aliquod animal est insensibile, est falsa. Et sic definitio non dicitur vera vel falsa nisi per ordinem ad compositionem, sicut et res dicitur vera per ordinem ad intellectum.

Patet ergo ex dictis quod verum per prius dicitur de compositione vel divisione intellectus; secundo dicitur de definitionibus rerum, secundum quod in eis implicatur compositio vera vel falsa; tertio de rebus secundum quod adaequantur intellectui divino, vel aptae natae sunt adaequari intellectui humano; quarto dicitur de homine, propter hoc quod electivus est verorum vel facit existimationem de se vel de aliis veram vel falsam per ea quae dicit vel facit. Voces autem eodem modo recipiunt veritatis praedicationem, sicut intellectus quos significant.

[Introductions and translations © R.E. Houser]