72. Truth in the Mind and Things

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

Truth’s Primary Location: The Understanding #

• Truth is chiefly in the understanding, not in things themselves
• Aristotle teaches in the sixth book of Metaphysics that truth and falsity are not in things but in the understanding
• Contrast: goodness is primarily in things, while truth is primarily in the mind
• We cannot find truth by “digging in the earth” or “fishing in the ocean”—truth is a perfection of the mind

The Definition of Truth #

• Truth is the conformity or equality of the mind with things (adaequatio mentis et rei)
• This equality must be neither more nor less than what actually is—it must be exact
• The courtroom oath captures this structure: “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”
  • “The truth” = saying what is, is
  • “The whole truth” = not saying less than the truth (omitting what is)
  • “Nothing but the truth” = not saying more than the truth (not adding what is not)

More Than, Less Than, and Equal Truth #

• Saying less than the truth: omitting part of what is (e.g., the bartender saying only Tom was at the bar when Bill was too)
• Saying more than the truth: adding what is not (e.g., saying Harry was at the bar when he was not)
• Saying the truth: expressing exactly what is, neither adding nor subtracting
• Shakespeare’s characters illustrate this: some say more than the truth, others less; Kent says “all my reports go with the modest truth, nor more nor clipped but so”

Knowledge vs. Love: A Fundamental Contrast #

• Knowledge: takes the known into the knower; the mind grasps, contains, or gets hold of what it knows (Greek: kathalto; Latin: per se)
• Love: goes out toward the thing loved; we “give” the heart rather than “grasp” it
• The words used reveal the difference: we speak of grasping something understood but losing or giving the heart to what we love
• This distinction explains why truth is in the mind while goodness is in things:
  • Truth: conformity of mind to thing → mind contains the known → truth is in the mind
  • Good: the mind inclines toward the thing itself → love goes out to the thing → goodness is in the thing

Truth in Things (Secondary Sense) #

• Things may be said to be true secondarily, insofar as they conform to the understanding from which they depend
• Artificial things: a house is true insofar as it achieves the form existing in the builder’s mind
• Natural things: a stone is true insofar as it achieves the proper nature of a stone according to God’s understanding
• Truth in things is always relative to an understanding (human or divine)

The Same Knowledge of Opposites #

• By the same knowledge, one knows both health and sickness, order and disorder, normal and abnormal blood pressure, justice and injustice
• The knowledge of one opposite helps one know the other (e.g., knowing what abnormal blood pressure is requires knowing what normal is)
• Knowing how to write music correctly enables one to know how to write it incorrectly; the medical doctor knows both health and disease by the same art
• This is possible because opposites are together in the mind through definition and comparison
• But there is NOT the same love of opposites: the love of health excludes the love of sickness; the love of justice is incompatible with the love of injustice
• This difference shows that knowledge brings things into the mind, while love goes out to things as they actually are (where opposites exclude each other)

The Per Se / Per Accidens Distinction (As Such vs. By Happening) #

• Things may belong to something per se (as such, to itself, through itself, by being itself) or per accidens (by happening, accidentally)
• Examples:
  • A circle as such is not green (though it may happen to be green); but a circle as such is a plane figure
  • Man as such is an animal (per se); man is not white per se (though he may be white per accidens)
  • A philosopher as such is a lover of reason (wisdom is the highest perfection of reason); but a philosopher per se need not be white, Swedish, or a grandfather
• Necessity connects with the per se: what belongs per se is necessarily so; what belongs per accidens may or may not be so
• Knowledge requires the per se: to know something necessarily true, one must see that it belongs per se, to the thing itself
• The teacher does not learn per se (as teacher) what he teaches, because insofar as he is learning, he does not know—yet teachers commonly do learn per accidens (by happening) when they teach

Key Arguments #

Why Truth Cannot Be Only in Things #

• The stone in the earth: If truth were only in things themselves, a stone deep in the earth unseen would not be a true stone, because it would not be compared to any understanding—but this seems absurd
• The ancient philosophers’ error: They said “whatever is seen, seems so, is true” and tried to place truth only in our understanding of things, leading to contradictions (the same thing seeming both cold and not cold to different people)
• The solution: Truth must be primarily in the understanding but depend on things; things are true secondarily according to their conformity to the understanding from which they depend

Why Truth Is Primarily in the Understanding #

• The senses can be conformed to external objects but do not know this conformity
• Simple apprehension (understanding what something is) can grasp what a thing is but does not yet know truth
• Truth is properly and fully found in judgment—the second act of reason—where the mind affirms or denies that a predicate belongs to a subject
• A simple term like “man” or “stone” is neither true nor false; only when put into a statement (“man is an animal,” “man is not a stone”) does truth arise
• This is what Aristotle teaches: the mind knows truth chiefly in the act of knowing the conformity itself (in judgment)

The Cause Is More True Than the Effect #

• Just as the cause is “on account of which each thing is that more so,” the being of a thing (not its truth) causes the truth of a statement about it
• Example: Your sitting (your being seated) causes my statement “you are sitting” to be true; it is not the truth of your sitting that causes my statement to be true
• The medicine is not called healthy in the same way the healthy body is; the medicine causes health but is not itself more healthy than the body
• Similarly, your being seated is the cause of my statement’s truth, but truth is not primarily in your being seated—it is primarily in my mind’s conformity to that fact

Important Definitions #

Truth (Veritas) #

• The conformity or equality of the mind with things (adaequatio mentis et rei)
• Neither more nor less than what is—an exact correspondence
• That which is known as a perfection of the understanding
• Found primarily in the mind (in judgments); secondarily in things insofar as they conform to understanding

Per Se (As Such, To Itself, Through Itself) #

• That which belongs to a thing by its very nature or definition, not accidentally
• Example: triangularity per se involves having three sides and interior angles equal to two right angles
• Connected with necessity: what is per se is necessarily so

Per Accidens (By Happening, Accidentally) #

• That which belongs to a thing by chance or circumstance, not by its nature
• Example: a circle may happen to be green, but greenness is not per se to the circle
• Not necessarily so

The Second Act of Reason (Actus Secundus) #

• The act of judgment or composition/division (compositio/divisio)
• The mind affirms that a predicate belongs to a subject or denies that it does
• The proper and full seat of truth and falsity
• Expressed in language as a statement or proposition

Examples & Illustrations #

The Bartender’s Testimony #

• Situation: Tom and Bill were at the bar between 9-10 PM; nobody else was there
• The whole truth: “Tom and Bill were there” (saying exactly what is)
• Less than the truth: “Just Tom was there” (omitting Bill; saying what is not, is)
• More than the truth: “Tom, Bill, and Harry were there” (adding what is not; saying what is not, is)

Simple Terms vs. Statements #

• The word “man” alone is neither true nor false
• “Man is an animal” is true (what is, is)
• “Man is not a stone” is true (what is not, is not)
• “Man is a stone” is false (saying what is not, is)
• “Man is not an animal” is false (saying what is, is not)

The Overactive Thyroid #

• To know what an overactive thyroid is, one must know what a properly functioning thyroid is
• The knowledge of the abnormal depends on and involves the knowledge of the normal
• Yet one does not love an overactive thyroid if one loves health
• This shows knowledge can grasp both opposites, but love cannot

The Teacher Learning While Teaching #

• Teachers often say they learn something new each time they teach
• But does it belong per se to the teacher as such to be learning? No—insofar as he is learning, he does not yet know, and thus is not fully teaching
• He learns per accidens (by happening), not per se
• Same with the carpenter or baker: they may learn by making, but learning is not per se to the maker’s activity

Geometry and the Triangle #

• A triangle per se has three sides
• A triangle per se has interior angles equal to two right angles
• A triangle per se is a plane figure
• But a triangle per se is not green (though one particular triangle may happen to be green)
• Knowledge of the triangle’s necessary properties (per se) is possible; knowledge that it must be green is not

Questions Addressed #

Where is truth primarily located—in things or in the understanding? #

• Answer: Primarily in the understanding, but secondarily in things according to their relation to an understanding
• Things do not have truth in themselves but in comparison to the mind from which they depend
• Natural things are true according to God’s eternal understanding; artificial things according to the maker’s mind

How does the courtroom oath structure the definition of truth? #

• “The truth” = saying that what is, is (and what is not, is not)
• “The whole truth” = not saying less than what is (not omitting part of reality)
• “Nothing but the truth” = not saying more than what is (not adding what is not)
• These three phrases together capture the exact equality of mind and thing

Why is the per se/per accidens distinction important for knowledge? #

• To know something necessarily, one must see that it belongs per se to the thing itself
• What belongs only per accidens cannot be known necessarily
• This explains why a circle must have interior angles equal to two right angles (per se) but need not be green (per accidens)

Can there be the same knowledge of opposites? The same love? #

• Knowledge: Yes—by the same knowledge one knows both health and sickness, order and disorder, justice and injustice
• The knowledge of one helps one know the other (opposites are together in the mind)
• Love: No—the love of one opposite excludes the love of the other
• Love follows the way things are, where opposites cannot coexist; knowledge brings opposites together in the mind

What causes the truth of a statement—the being of the thing or the truth of the thing? #

• Answer: The being of the thing
• Your sitting (not the truth of your sitting) causes my statement “you are sitting” to be true
• The cause is more true than the effect, but we must distinguish between what causes truth and where truth is found
• Truth is in the mind; the thing’s being is the cause of that truth

Thomas’s Structural Insight #

The Order of Divine Considerations #

• Goodness of God is considered with God’s substance (Question 6) because goodness is primarily in things
• Knowledge of God is considered before truth (Questions 14-17 before 16) because truth depends on understanding
• Will of God comes after truth (Question 19) because will desires the good
• The principle: The divine substance is a thing, so goodness attaches to substance; but truth attaches to knowledge because truth is primarily in the mind
• This order is not arbitrary but reflects the nature of truth and goodness