Prima Pars
Lecture 77: Truth as Unchangeable and Falsity in Things

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One proceeds thus, it seems that truth is unchangeable. For Augustine says in the book on free judgment, free will, that truth is not, what, equal to the mind, huh? Because it would be changeable even as the mind is un- You change your mind, don't you? You know, we didn't change your mind, we changed it. Well, just a minute, be careful about that. My mind is changed, right? Moreover, that which remains after all change is what? Unchangeable. But just as the first matter is ungenerated and incorruptible, because it remains after all generation corruption. But truth remains after all change, because after all change, it is true to say that it is or it is what? Not. Therefore, truth is unchangeable. Moreover, if the truth of a statement changed, it would most of all change with the change of the thing. But in this way, it does not change. For truth, according to Anselm, Anselm is a rightness or correctness insofar as something fulfills that which was decreed, you might say, about it in the divine mind. But this statement, Socrates sits, it takes it from the divine mind, or you see from the divine mind, it might signify Socrates to sit. Which it signifies even with him, what? Not sitting, huh? Therefore, the truth of the statement in no way is, what? Changed, huh? It's kind of changing what you mean, really, talking about the truth of the statement. Moreover, where there is the same cause, also the same effect. But the same thing is the cause and the truth of these three statements. It's Socrates, what? Yeah? He sat, will sit, huh? Will sit, huh? Yeah. Therefore, there is the same truth of these things, huh? But it's necessary that one of these be true, right? Therefore, the truth of these statements remains unchangeably. And it's the same reason that of any other statement, huh? And it's sometimes done up when they ask, you know, is the faith of the prophets of the Old Testament the same as our faith? Because they believe that Christ will be, and we believe that Christ has come, right? So, the question is, is that really the same thing? In fact, make some distinction there, right? But in fact, we're both believing the same thing, right? That they believe that Christ is going to be, what? Become man, right? We believe that Christ has become man. We're really believing the same event, right? We'll see how Thomas handles that. But against all this is what is said in Psalm 11, and it's always quoted before, that truths are diminished, right? By the sons of men, huh? I answer it should be said, that it has been said above, truth is properly in the understanding of the Lord. But things, however, are said to be true by the truth, which is in some, what? Understanding, huh? So, the word is not being used in exactly one sentence, is it? But the primary meaning is in the mind. Whence the changeableness of truth ought to be considered in regard to the, what? Understanding, huh? Whose truth consists in this, that it has conformity or agreement to the things, what? Understood, huh? Which conformity is able to be varied in two ways, just as any other likeness, from the change of one of the, what? Yeah. Whence in one way truth is varied from the side of the understanding, from this, that about the same thing, from this, about the thing in the same way having itself, someone takes another, what? Opinion, right? Another way, if the opinion remains the same, the thing is, what? Changed. And in both ways, there comes a change from true to what? False, huh? If, therefore, there is some understanding in which there is not able to be any alternation of opinion, right? Or who's, what? Grasping, you might say, right? Something is not able to escape, right? In that thing, there would be unchangeable, what? Truth. I wonder who he's talking about. It's not about us. But such, he says, is the divine understanding, as is clear from what's gone before. Whence the truth of the divine understanding is unchangeable. Because he saw that truth as God himself is unchangeable, right? But the truth of our understanding is, what? Changeable. Not that it itself, he says, is the subject of change, right? But insofar as our understanding changes from, what? Truth to falsity. For in this way, forms are said to be, what? Changeable, huh? Kind of strange words speaking, huh? Not doing a natural philosophy. But the truth of the divine understanding is according as natural things are said to be true, which is altogether, what? Yeah. They're always conformed at fine mind. Now, the text from Augustine there, in the first objection, Augustine was speaking about, what? The divine truth, huh? And the second one was saying that, what? What remains after all, change is unchangeable, right? To the second, it should be said that being and truth are, what? Convertible. Now, what does convertible mean? Hmm? What? Convertible. What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? Convertible. What? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So if I say, how about triangle and green, right? Are they convertible? There might be some triangle that is green, but is every, you know, green a triangle? Some men are white. Everything white is a man. Some men are white. Okay. So it's obviously not convertible. That's something accidental, right? But if you take something like a genus, you say every man is an animal. Yeah. That's true. But can you turn around and say, every animal is a what? No. No. Okay. So he distinguishes those two, but neither one of them is convertible. And then what's convertible, he says. No. No. No. No. No. Either brings out the nature of the thing, what it is, we call that a definition, or if it doesn't bring out the nature, we'll just call it a, what, ideon, a property, right, huh, okay? So, if you take the definition of square, equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, every square is an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. And every equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral is a square, right? Right. So, as I say, you know, if someone tries to give a definition and maybe has part of what the thing is, but what he says is not convertible, it's not yet a definition, right? So, in my simple example, you've heard me give, I've said so many times, if Socrates asks me, what is a man, or what is a dog? And I say, well, a dog is a four-footed animal. Socrates would probably say, well, every dog is a four-footed animal, but is every four-footed animal a dog? So, it's not yet a definition until it's convertible. That's what Aristotle teaches us there in the second book, The Postural Index, he's talking about a definition, right? But if I say, for example, that every two is half of four, and everything half of four is two, well, that's really convertible, but half of four doesn't really tell you the nature of two. It tells you what it is towards four. And, or if I said four is double of two, well, you don't really know what four is through knowing what two is, but this is convertible with four, right? So, he calls that a property, right? And so, you have the four predicates on them. There's a book for each one of these in the books and places. The reasoning, right? That this belongs to that, or it doesn't belong to it, or it belongs to it essentially, or not essentially, belongs to it convertible or not, right? And if it's convertible, does it count to nature or not, right? And it goes through and shows these ways to do that. So, that's what it means to say convertible, right? Now, it was Aristotle who first saw that there's a number of most universal words or thoughts, but thoughts that are in fact, or words that are in fact convertible. And basically, these thoughts were being, right? Thing or something. One, right? If you take one in the sense of including not only undivided, but distinct from other things, right? And then, what's more hard to see, true and what? And good, right? Okay? And it takes some time to see that they are really convertible, right? Because people say, aren't there some bad things, right? You know? So, is everything good? But when you study the nature of bad more fully, you realize that nature is a kind of what? I mean, bad rather, is a kind of what? None being, right? And so that, that's not a problem, is it? Of good being convertible with being, right? And that helps you when you finally, you know, realize that God is, I am who am, right? Because then, everything insofar as it is, is in some way like God and therefore good, right? But the bad is really unlike God because it's a kind of non-being. And Augustine, you know, the famous words of Augustine, he kind of, you know, exaggerates this. He says, sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes nothing, you know? But strictly speaking, sin or the bad is not nothing. It's the non-being of something you're able to have, right? It's a non-being of something and a subject that is able to have this and should have it or wouldn't have it, right? So it's not a pure, what, negation, right? We've talked about this before, right? You know, the difference, if you go back to the categories, right after Aristotle goes through the ten categories, then he talks about the various kinds of opposition, right? And he distinguishes between the opposition of, what, contradiction, and then the opposition of having and lacking, and then the opposition of contraries, and the opposition of relatives. But in the opposition of contraries, both of them are just something, what, real, right? But in the case of having and lacking, the lacking is really a kind of non-being. But it's not just non-being, period, but it's non-being in a subject capable of having something. It's a non-being of something you're able to have and should have. And so, in bringing out this, we say, you know, if you have contradictories in the strict sense and you understand them, everything is either one or the other. Either you see or you don't see, right? I see, here it doesn't see, right, this bookmark, right? But if you take the lack, which would be blind, right? Is everything either see or it's blind? No. Because you've got to be something capable of seeing by nature, right? And something that should be able to see, right? And so it's only man and the other animals that are, what, capable of sight and should have sight, right? It's only man and the other animals that are said to be blind when they don't have what they're able to have and should have. But in my bookmark, it's not able to have sight, nor can you see it's lacking something it should have. It's got a very nice material, it's made a very, very good bookmark, you know. It's got this in Italy here. In your wine calf leather made Italy, you know, excellent, right? It's lacking in nothing that a bookmark should be lacking in anything. It even fits my, you know, gold and red, you know, it just fits the book and everything, just perfect, you know? But it's not the sort of thing that is, but it's not blind, right? So in the case of contradictories, either the affirmative or the negative, it's true, right? Now you go from having and lack to contraries, you see. And one contrary will be lacking something in comparison to the other, but it's not simply the lack of the other. So in ethics, there are, you study virtue and vice. Vice is not just the lack of virtue. The man who has the vice has got a real, but habitual intonation to something unreasonable. And so you can say that the vice lacks the order of reason, it lacks the moderation of reason, but it's not simply the lack of that. So the newborn baby is neither chaste nor lustful, right? But your age and my age were either one or the other, right? But the newborn baby simply lacks the virtue and lacks the what? The vice, right? And we talked about that in the mind, it was easy to see, too. That ignorance, for ignorance you mean something you don't know, the lack of knowledge, right? Well, ignorance is, again, a lack, because, as I say, my bookmark here is not ignorant of theology. It doesn't know any theology, see? But it's not ignorant, strictly speaking, because it's not able by nature to know theology, nor is it somebody that should know theology, right? Just to mark the place where I was. But a mistake or an error is really the contrary of knowing, huh? The man who's mistaken or error is ignorant, but he actually thinks something, right? Okay? Is that man good or bad over there, see? Well, Augustine says, I don't know er. Or, I say, I don't know. But if I say I don't know, I'm not, what? I don't know whether it's good or bad. I'm not mistaken about being good or bad either, am I, right? But if I say something, I'm very unlikely to be, what? Mistaken, right? So, you know, the Manichaeans thought that there was, what, two beginnings of the world, one good and one bad, right? Fighting it out, so to speak. I don't know how he decided who was going to win, but... It's a game tonight, you know? The two beginnings of the world. Yeah. Yeah. But if bad was something, what, fundamentally a being rather than non-being, you'd have no problem there, right? Okay, so we're in second objection, I guess. To second it should be said that true and being are, what, convertible. Just like you might say that, what, being and knowable are, what, convertible, right? Does that mean that non-being is, what, not knowable? Well, how can I know that my plate is empty? How can I know that I'm, what, ignorant, right? How can I know that my students are ignorant? How can I know that, right? Because that's a, what, a non-being, right? But as you pointed out here before, the mind gives a kind of being, a reason, you might say, to what, non-being. That non-being, just like nothing, is something in the mind. And, you know, we always go back to the, to the thing we learned in natural philosophy. A kind of common opinion of the early Greeks was, you can't get something from nothing, right? And King Lear talks about this, I'm not going to get you nothing. He says to Desdemona, not Desdemona, but who? Cordelia. Oh, yeah, yeah. When you hear that story, by the way, incidentally, the earlier versions of it, you know, the name is not as nice as Cordelia. Shakespeare proves just the sound of the name, a beautiful sound. So he's saying nothing to nothing, right? And even, through the end, he sings about this, right? Nothing comes in nothing, nothing ever could. He's singing one of the songs. So, if someone asks yourself, we kind of know what these words mean, don't we, right? So does, does the word nothing mean something? Yeah, see? In other words, when you hear the word nothing, you say nothing will get you nothing. Of course, you can't get something from nothing. Do you understand something by the word nothing? Or do you understand nothing by the word nothing? But most people, you see how a sophist could get you tied up in that, right? But Aristotle, in the fifth book of Wisdom there, where he distinguishes the meanings of being, right? The two main distinctions of the meaning of being are being, as is found in the world around us, and he distinguishes it into being an act and being an ability, right? And being according to the figure of predication. Substance, quantity, quality, and so on, right? But then he gives being according to the truth of a statement, right? And that brings in these beings of reason, right? And he talks also about accidental being, right? Like Christian geometers and white grandfathers and so on, right? Is there such a thing as a white grandfather or not, do you think? Is there such a thing as a white grandfather? What kind of grandfather do you think you'd be to be a white grandfather? Or a white geometer or a white Christian, huh? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's my being white and my being a grandfather, aren't there really two different things in me? And do they come together and make something one? So the fact that to be white and to be a grandfather happened to the same man, that we see there exist white grandfathers. In a way, it's nothing. And, you know, Aristotle points out there's a way you became white. I suppose it's in my genes. The way I became a grandfather, right? Quite the labor of my children as well as I am. But there's no way in which you become a white grandfather. And since so, it's not always a white grandfather. There's no way to become one. And it seems hard to exist, right? But Aristotle, you know, it's a completely universal understanding of being, right? And in some way, you could say white grandfathers exist, right? Or another example, you know, affirmative action, right? If the Christian academy wants to hire a Christian geometer, you can go and get one, right? If you want to hire a black magician, maybe you can go and... To some extent, black magicians exist, right? To some extent, there are white Christian geometers around, right? But it's hardly being, right? Though Thomas says, don't not interact with no being because our perfection depends upon it, right? Being a number of these things, right? Being a geometer, being a Christian, being a cook and so on. It's all part of your perfection, right? But your accidental being, yeah? God doesn't need that sort of thing. So the second, it should be said, that true and being are convertible. Whence just as being is not generated, nor is it corrupted as such, right? But by accident, by happening, insofar as this or that being is corrupted or what? Generated, huh? As is said in the first book of the physics, huh? Well, you know, this is the famous argument there with his name, Minesis and Permanentis. He said that being can't come to be or cease to be, right? And you can't get being from what? None being, because you can't get something out of nothing. And you can't get being from being, because then it would be before it came to be. So, Aristotle says, well, the change is not from being to being, but from what? This kind of being to that kind of being, right? So, you know, if a dog became a cat, that would be quite a change, right? But someone came along and said, well, an animal, a dog is an animal, and a cat is an animal. So, in the beginning here, you had an animal, then you have an animal. So then there's been no change, right? Or because an animal would be before you had an animal, right? It doesn't make any sense. But Aristotle says, well, it's not really, the change is not between animal and animal, but between dog and cat, and these things are what? Happening to that, right? Okay. But Thomas is, you know, going all the way back to the first book of the, of natural hearing, the so-called physics. So he says, it should be said, then, that true and being are convertible. Whence, just as being is not generated nor corrupted per se, right? But procedence, huh? Insofar as this or that kind of being is corrupted or what? Generated, right? As is said in the first book of the physics. So truth is changed, not that no truth remains, but because it does not remain that truth which was what? Before, huh? So it's true that I am sitting, but then maybe I don't know what else from now would be, what? False, as Aristotle's example in the categories. Morbry, let's look at the third objection again. Morbry, if the truth of a statement changes, it would most of all change with the change of the thing. But it does not thus change. For truth, according to Anselm, is a rightness, insofar as something fulfills that which there was about it in the divine mind. But this statement, Socrates sits, takes from the divine mind that it signifies Socrates sits, huh? Which it would signify even when he's not sitting. Therefore, the truth of the statement is in no way changed. The third should be said, huh? That the proposition or statement not only has truth as, what? Other things are said to have truth, right? Insofar as it fulfills that about which it was ordered by the divine mind to have, right? But it's said to have truth in a certain special way, insofar as it signifies the truth of the, what? Understanding. Understanding. Which consists in the conformity of the understanding and the thing, right? That's why we said before, people think, you know, that Plato's right, and thinking that the way we know must be the way things are. As if that requires that kind of conformity. That's why we said before, people think that the way we know must be the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth. The truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth of the truth. That's a very subtle thing that they're into. Which being taken away or subtracted, there is change, the truth, the opinion, and consequently the truth of the statement. Therefore, this statement, Socrates sits, him sitting is true, and by the truth of the thing, insofar as it is a certain, what, signifying voice, and by the truth of the signifying, insofar as it signifies a true opinion, Socrates, what, rising, there remains the first truth, right? It's still kind of the same statement, right? It's still signifying what it does signify, but it's not signifying something true in the mind, right? It's changed in the second way. Okay, that's kind of a strange argument there. So you say Socrates is sitting, and he's sitting, it's true, right? When he gets up, Socrates is sitting, it's still the same statement, it's changed. But no longer signifies, what, something true in my mind, then. So I've got to check it now, right? But notice there are some statements that are always true, like two is half a four. Some statements that are always false, like two is half a five. And some statements, like Socrates is sitting, that are sometimes true, and sometimes what? False, huh? Fourth objection, look back at the objection again. Where there is the same cause, also the same effect. But they're the same thing as the cause and the truth of these three statements. Socrates was sitting, is sitting, will be sitting, right? To the fourth it should be said that the sitting of Socrates, which is the cause and the truth of this statement, Socrates is what? Sitting. Does not have itself in the same way when Socrates sits and after he, what, yeah? And before he sat down, right? Whence the truth caused by this has itself in diverse ways. And diversity is signified in the propositions about the present, the past, and the, what, future. Whence it does not follow that although one of the three statements is true, right? That the same truth remains, what? In very, what, right? I would think about that again when we get down to say whether the, you know, whether Isaiah has had the same, what, belief that we have. Or Abraham's, you know, saw by Danny Joyce, right? That goes through God's knowledge, I suppose. Now the next question is going to be on the falsehood. It'll break around. Between truth and falsehood is good to pause between the two, isn't it? But this is an example of there being the same knowledge of what? Yeah. And this is a famous statement that goes back to Plato, especially, in Aristotle. And the one place that comes up in Plato that I've mentioned before, I think, is in the dialogue called the, what, symposium, right? Which means... Oinas and I'm looking together. But at the end of the symposium, everybody's kind of, you know, under the table, or at least in the chair. And the guy's here in the last bit of conversation, you know, and Socrates and the Agathon, the tragic poet who has won the prize and for whom the symposium is in honor of. And Aristophanes, a great comedy poet, or conversing with Socrates, right? Last bit there. Before they pass off. But Socrates gets up and walks out and has a bath, you know. Spends his usual day, right? And, but Socrates is arguing that if you guys knew what you were doing, you could write both tragedy and comedy, right? But you, Agathon, could write comedy as well as tragedy, and you, Aristophanes, could write tragedy as well as comedy, right? And apparently, they didn't do that, though, right? But at least the poet, and the one Maristow calls the poet Homer, he wrote the Iliad, right? And then he wrote the Margites. And we've lost the Margites, though there'll be a few fragments of it in Plato and Aristotle. But Aristotle says in the book on the poetic art that the Margites is to comedy but the Iliad is to tragedy, right? And so Homer did both, right? And the same thing could be said of Shakespeare, right? That he wrote both great tragedies and comedies. And I was mentioning my brother Richard, you know, seeing some Shakespearean comedy and saying to me, I didn't realize Shakespeare was so funny, right? But the point is in high school you probably read, you know, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth and you read any of the plays. So you kind of think of Shakespeare in terms of his tragedies and you realize he's also very good at comedies because you don't read that many plays, you know? And, but some of you may be like, like Moliere, you know, writes only comedies, right? So, it's more by nature than by knowledge that they're doing this. because nature is determined to one and by knowledge it's open to both, and so in ethics it's the same knowledge which we learn about virtue and vice and in logic you learn about, I'm reading looking at Albert again on the his physical refutations, right? So you learn how to reason well and how to reason what? Badly, right? And in grammar you learn how to speak correctly and incorrectly, right? And in medicine you learn how to make a man sick as well as healthy. And it's not that your intention should be for both but the knowledge gives you both, right? So it's kind of a famous thing. So it's appropriate to talk about falsity after he talks about what? Truth, yeah. Then as I mentioned he's going to talk about the life of God afterwards, but in the Summa Congentia it talks about the life of God after he's talked about the will as well, right? But here you can talk about right after you talk about the mind, right? And that's the way you have to kind of understand the appropriation there in the words of Christ that I am the way, the truth and the life, right? He puts those two together, the truth and the life, right? And because he proceeds, right? He has the word of God, right? And God is alive because he understands that's what he proceeds he's alive. But that's a kind of life so life is considered as a point then where he gets through talking about truth and falsity, right? So it's we can take a little break. okay question 17 on falsity then one asks about falsity or falsehood and about this four things are asked or sought first whether falsity is in things secondly whether it is in the senses third whether it is in the understanding and fourth about the opposition of true and what false there being four kinds of opposite what kind of opposites are they same question you can ask about the good and the bad right and about the one and the many and something and nothing and be and unbeing and they may not be opposed in the same way these different ones kind of unusual way turns out to the first when it proceeds thus it seems that falsehood is not in things for augustine says in the book on talking to himself right it's a little squeeze they really fairly early work of custom during his conversion I think around that time if the true is that which is right then the false is not what anyway although this is what repugnant right okay let's get followed the grammar too well but if the true is what is the false would be what is not right so there's no false amount things more where the false is said from what deceiving right but things do not deceive as augustine says in the book on true religion because they do not show anything other than their own what form therefore false is not found in things moreover truth is said to be in things by comparison to the divine understanding this has been said above but each thing insofar as it is in the taste god he is i am who am right so all things that are so as they are in the taste god therefore each thing is true without falsity and thus no thing is what false i'm convinced now aren't you wish that last time you don't like but against this is what augustine says in the book on true religion that everybody is what true body and a false what unity because it imitates unity and is not unity just as each thing imitates the divine goodness and follows short from it therefore in all things there is what falsity can't you have goodness here divine goodness this text says divine unity in the last sentence well no the second or the last sentence has yeah goodness the second or the last sentence has divine goodness well okay this one has divine unity okay yes answer it should be said that since true and false are opposed and opposites are about the same thing it is necessary that there first is found falsity where truth is first what found right and that is in the understanding right and so when i'm talking logic i'll sometimes say where where do you find truth same place you find falsity in statements right maybe not the same statement but in general the same place in statements but in things there is neither truth nor falsity except in order to what the understanding itself and because each thing according to that which belongs to it to itself or as such to itself or as such is simply what named but according to that which belongs to it by happening is not named except what it couldn't have quit somebody a thing is simply false or can be said to be false simply in comparison to the understanding upon which it depends which it is compared to which it is compared per se or as such but in order to another understanding to which is compared by happening it is not said to be false except but it couldn't have quit that's the old distinction that you've got the kind of distinction you've got again and again in here now natural things depend upon the divine understanding understanding as artificial things depend upon the human understanding artificial things are said to be what false simply and as such insofar as they fall short of the form of the what art whence that is said um some artists what to make a what false work right when it falls short of the operation of the art that's not really a bottle of wine i'll tell you that what you've made my father-in-law used to pick home you know sometimes a bottle of wine with his buddies you know a page you know a lot of times it tastes like vinegar you know this is a false not putting up the requirements of the art thus however in things depending upon god falsity is not able to be found in comparison to the divine understanding since whatever happens in things right it proceeds from the ordering of the divine understanding except what perhaps in voluntary agents you might have a mind in whose power it is right to lead themselves out from under right the ordering of the divine understanding in which the evil of what guilt right consists according to which sins themselves are called what falsities and falsehoods and lies according in the scriptures according to that of the fourth song why do you love vanity and seek a lie the sinner's life is a lie just as by opposite virtuous operation right is called the truth of what life that's kind of unusual use the word truth but it's the truth of life insofar as it is under the order of the divine understanding as is said in john the gospel of john i guess chapter 3 verse 21 who does truth comes to the light but by order to our understanding to which natural things are compared by happening things are said to be false not simply but in some imperfect way and this in two ways in one way by reason of the signify as that is said to be false in things that is signified or presented by a false speech or a false understanding by in which way each thing is able to be false as regards that which is not in it just as if we say the diameter is falsely what commensable with the side it's a philosophy says in the fifth book of wisdom or metaphysics and just as