40. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH CONSIDERED FROM ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE.—We have seen
that when the mind thinks of any reality it apprehends it as “one,” that
ontological unity is a transcendental attribute of being; and this
consideration led us to consider the manifoldness and the distinctions
which characterize the totality of our experience. Now man himself is a
real being surrounded by all the other real beings that constitute the
universe. Moreover he finds himself endowed with faculties which bring him
into conscious relations both with himself and with those other beings;
and only by the proper interpretation of these relations can he understand
aright his place in the universe. The first in order of these relations is
that of reality to mind (25). This relation between mind and reality is
what we understand by _Truth_.
Now truth is attributed both to knowledge and to things. We say that a
person thinks or judges _truly_, that his knowledge is _true_ (or correct,
or accurate), when things really are as he thinks or judges them to be.
The truth which we thus ascribe to knowledge, to the mind interpreting
reality, is _logical_ truth: a relation of concord or conformity of the
mind interpreting reality—or, of the mind’s judgment about reality—with
the reality itself.(162) Logical truth is dealt with in Logic and
Epistemology. We are concerned here only with the truth that is attributed
to reality, to things themselves: ontological, metaphysical,
transcendental truth, as it is called. There is nothing abstruse or
far-fetched about the use of the terms “true” and “truth” as equivalent to
“real” and “reality”. We speak of “true” gold, a “true” friend, a
“veritable” hero, etc. Now what do we mean by thus ascribing truth to a
thing? We mean that it corresponds to a mental type or ideal. We call a
liquid true wine or real wine, for instance, when it verifies in itself
the definition we have formed of the nature of wine. Hence whenever we
apply the terms “true” or “truth” to a thing we shall find that we are
considering that thing not absolutely and in itself but in reference to an
idea in our minds: we do not say of a thing simply that it is true, we say
that it is _truly such or such_ a thing, _i.e._ that it is really of a
certain nature already conceived by our minds. If the appearance of the
thing suggests comparison with some such ideal type or nature, and if the
thing is seen on examination not really to verify this nature in itself,
we say that it is not really or truly such or such a thing: _e.g._ that a
certain liquid is not really wine, or is not true wine. When we have no
such ideal type to which to refer a thing, when we do not know its nature,
cannot classify and name it, we have to suspend our judgment and say that
we do not know what the thing _really_ is. Hence, for example, the new
rays discovered by Röntgen were called provisionally “X rays,” their real
nature being at first unknown. We see, then, that real or ontological
truth is simply reality considered as conformable with an ideal type, with
an idea in the mind.
Whence does the human mind derive these ideal types, these concepts or
definitions of the nature of things? It derives them from actually
experienced reality by abstraction, comparison, generalization, and
reflection on the data of its experience.(163) Hence it follows that the
ontological truth of things is not known by the mind antecedently to the
formation of the mental type. It is, of course, in the things antecedently
to any judgment we form about the things; and the logical truth of our
judgments is dependent on it, for logical truth is the conformity of our
judgments with the real nature of things. But antecedently to all exercise
of human thought, antecedently to our conception of the nature of a thing,
the thing has not for us _formal_ or _actual_ ontological truth: it has
only fundamental or _potential_ ontological truth. If in this condition
reality had actual ontological truth for us, there would be no ground for
our distinguishing mentally between the reality and the truth of things;
whereas the existence of this mental or logical distinction is undeniable.
The concept of reality is the concept of something absolute; the concept
of ontological truth is the concept of something relative, not of an
absolute but of a relative property of being.
But if for the human mind the ontological truth of things is—at
least proximately, immediately, and in the first place—their
conformity with the abstract concepts of essences or natures,
concepts derived by the mind from an analysis of its experience,
how can this ontological truth be one for all men, or immutable
and necessary? For, since men form different and divergent and
conflicting conceptions as to the natures of things, and so have
different views and standards of truth for things, ontological
truth would seem, according to the exposition just outlined, to be
not one but manifold, not immutable but variable: consequences
which surely cannot be admitted? The answer to this difficulty
will lead us to a deeper and more fundamental conception of what
ontological truth really is.
First, then, we must consider that all men are endowed with the
same sort of intellect, an intellect capable of some insight at
least into the nature of things; that therefore they abstract the
same transcendental notions and the same widest concepts from
their experience: transcendental concepts of being, unity, truth,
goodness; generic concepts of substance, matter, spirit, cause, of
accident, quantity, multitude, number, identity, similarity,
distinction, diversity, etc. They also form the same _specific_
concepts of possible essences. Although, therefore, they may
disagree and err in regard to _the application_ of those concepts,
especially of the lower, richer and more complex specific
concepts, to the actual data of their experience, they agree in
the fact that they have those common concepts or idea-types of
reality; also in the fact that when they apply those concepts
_rightly_ (_i.e._ by _logically true_ judgments) to the things
that make up their experience, they have so far grasped the real
natures of these things; and finally in recognizing that the
ontological truth of these things lies in the conformity of the
latter with their true and proper mental types or essences. And
just as each of these latter is one, indivisible, immutable,
necessary and eternal (14, 15), so is the ontological truth of
things, whether possible or actual, one, indivisible, immutable,
necessary and eternal. Of course, just as the human mind does not
constitute but only apprehends reality, so the human mind does not
constitute the ontological truth of reality, but only apprehends
it. Every reality is capable of producing in the human mind a more
or less adequate mental representation of itself: in this lies
what we may call the potential or fundamental ontological truth of
reality. When it does produce such a mental concept of itself its
relation of conformity to this concept is its formal ontological
truth. Of course the human mind may err in applying to any reality
a wrong concept; when it does it has so far failed to grasp the
real nature of the thing and therefore the ontological truth which
is really identical with this nature. But the thing still has its
ontological truth, independently of the erring mind; not only
fundamental truth, but also possibly formal truth in so far as it
may be rightly apprehended, and thus related to its proper mental
type, by other human minds. Reality itself, therefore, is not and
cannot be false, as we shall see more fully later; error or
falsity is an accident only of the mind interpreting reality.
41. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH CONSIDERED SYNTHETICALLY, FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ITS
ULTIMATE REAL BASIS.—So far we have explained ontological truth as a
relation of reality to the human intelligence; but this relation is not
one of dependence. The objective term of the relation, the reality itself,
is anterior to the human mind, it is not constituted by the latter. The
subjective term, the abstract concept, is indeed as a vital product
dependent on the mind, but as representative of reality it is determined
only by the latter. Is there, however, an Intelligence to which reality is
_essentially_ conformed, other than the human intelligence? Granted the
actual existence of contingent realities, and granted that the human mind
can derive from these realities rational principles which it sees to be
necessarily and universally applicable to all the data of experience, we
can demonstrate the existence of a Necessary Being, a First and
Self-Existent Intelligence. Realizing, then, that God has created all
things according to Infinite Wisdom, we can see that the essences of
things are imitations of exemplar ideas in the Divine Mind (20). On the
Divine Mind they depend essentially for their reality and intelligibility.
It is because all created realities, including the human mind itself, are
adumbrations of the Divine Essence, that they are intelligible to the
human mind. Thus we see that in the ontological order, in the order of
real gradation and dependence among things, as distinct from the order of
human experience,(164) the reason why reality has ontological truth for
the human mind is because it is antecedently and essentially in accord
with the Divine Mind from which it derives its intelligibility. Although,
therefore, ontological truth is for us proximately and immediately the
conformity of reality with our own conceptions, it is primarily and
fundamentally the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine
Mind. All reality, actual and possible, including the Divine Essence
itself, is actually comprehended by the Divine Mind, is actually in
conformity with the exemplar ideas in the Divine Mind, and has therefore
ontological truth even independently of its relation to created minds; but
“in the (impossible) hypothesis of the absence of all intellect, such a
thing as truth would be inconceivable”.(165)
The reason, therefore, why things are ontologically true for our minds,
why our minds can apprehend their essences, why we can have any true
knowledge about them, is in fact because both our minds and all things
else, being expressions of the Divine Essence, are in essential conformity
with the Divine Intellect. Not that we must know all this in order to have
any logical truth, any true knowledge, about things; or in order to
ascribe to things the ontological truth which consists in their conformity
with our conception of their nature. The atheist can have a true knowledge
of things and can recognize in them their conformity with his mental
conception of their nature; only he is unaware of the real and fundamental
reason why he can do so. Nor can he, of course, while denying the
existence of God, rise to the fuller conception of ontological truth which
consists in the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine
Intellect, and its essential dependence on the latter for its
intelligibility to the human intellect.
Naturally, it is this latter and fuller conception of ontological truth
that has been at all times expounded by scholastic philosophers.(166) We
may therefore, define ontological truth as _the essential conformity of
reality, as an object of thought, with intellect, and primarily and
especially with the Divine Intellect_.
The conformity of reality with the Divine Intellect is described
as _essential_ to reality, in the sense that the reality is
dependent on the Divine Intellect for its intelligibility; it
derives its intelligibility from the latter. The conformity of
reality with the human intellect is also essential in the sense
that _potential_ conformity with the latter is inseparable from
reality; it is an aspect really identical with, and only logically
distinct from, the latter. But inasmuch as the _actual_ conformity
of reality with our human conception of it is contingent on the
existence of human intelligences, and is not _ultimately_
dependent on the latter, inasmuch as reality does not derive its
intelligibility _ultimately_ from this conception—seeing that
rather this conception is derived from the reality and is
ultimately dependent on the Divine Exemplar,—this conformity of
reality with the human mind is sometimes spoken of as _accidental_
to reality in contrast with the relation of dependence which
exists between reality and the Divine Mind.
Bearing in mind that reality derives its intelligibility from its
essential conformity with the Divine Mind, and that the human mind
derives _its_ truth from the reality, we can understand how it has
been said of truth in general that it is first in the Uncreated
Intellect, then in things, then in created intellects; that the
primary source and measure of all truth is the Divine Intellect
Itself Unmeasured, “mensurans, non mensuratus”; that created
reality is measured by, or conformed with, the Divine Intellect,
and is in turn the measure of the human intellect, conforming the
latter with itself, “mensurans et mensurata”; and that, finally,
the human intellect, measured by created reality and the Divine
Mind, is itself the measure of no natural things but only of the
products of human art, “intellectus noster ... non mensurans
quidem res naturales, sed artificiales tantum”.(167)
Is truth _one_, then, or is it _manifold_? Logical truth is
manifold—multiplied by the number of created intelligences, and by
the number of distinct cognitions in each. The primary ontological
truth which consists in the conformity of all reality with the
Divine Intellect is one: there is no real plurality of archetype
ideas in the Divine Mind; they are manifold only to our imperfect
human mode of thinking. The secondary ontological truth which
consists in the conformity of things with the abstract concepts of
created intelligences is conditioned by, and multiplied with, the
manifoldness of the latter.(168)
Again to the question: Is truth _eternal_ or _temporal_?—we reply
in a similar way that the truth of the Divine comprehension of
reality, actual and possible, is eternal, but that no other truth
is eternal. There is no eternal truth outside of God. Created
things are not eternal; and truth is consecutive on reality: where
there is no reality there is no ontological truth: the conformity
of things with human conceptions and the logical truth of the
latter are both alike temporal.(169)
Finally, we may say that the truth of the Divine Intellect is
_immutable_; and so is the essential conformity of all reality
with the Divine Intellect. The change to which created reality is
essentially subject is itself essentially conformed with the
Divine Mind; it is, so to speak, part and parcel of the
ontological truth of this reality in relation to the Divine Mind,
and cannot therefore interfere with this ontological truth. When
the acorn grows into the oak the whole process has its ontological
truth; that of the acorn changes, not into falsity, but into
another truth, that of the oak.(170) We see, then, that as things
change, their truth does not change in the sense of being lost or
giving place to falsity: the truth of one state changes to the
truth of another while the ontological truth of the changing
reality perseveres immutably.
The same immutability attaches to the truth of things in relation
to the human mind: with the qualification, to which we shall
return (43), that they may occasion false judgments in the human
mind, and on that account be designated “false”.
Finally, the logical truth which has its seat in created
intelligences is _mutable_: it may be increased or diminished,
acquired or lost.
42. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH A TRANSCENDENTAL ATTRIBUTE OF REALITY.—From what has
been said it will be apparent that ontological truth is a transcendental
attribute of reality. That is to say, whatever is real, whether actual or
possible, is ontologically true; or, in scholastic terminology, “_Omne ens
est verum; Ens et verum convertuntur_: All being is true; The real and the
true are convertible terms”. For in the first place there is no mode or
category of real being, of which the human mind actually thinks, to which
it does not attribute ontological truth in the sense of conformity with
the right human conception of it. Moreover, the proper object of the human
intellect is reality; all true knowledge is knowledge of reality. Reality
of itself is manifestly knowable, intelligible, and thus potentially or
fundamentally true; and, on the other hand, intellect is, according to the
measure of its capacity, a faculty of insight into all reality, into
whatever is real: _intellectus potens fieri omnia; anima ... quodammodo
fit omnia_.(171) Deny either of these postulates regarding the terms of
the ontological relation, reality and mind, and all rational thought is
instantly paralysed. Hence, in so far as a reality becomes an actual
object of human knowledge it has formal ontological truth in relation both
to the human mind and to the Divine Mind; while antecedently to human
thought it is fundamentally true, or intelligible, to the human mind, and
of course formally true in relation to the Divine Mind.
Thus we see that whatever is real is ontologically true; that ontological
truth is really identical with real being; that, applied to the latter, it
is not a mere extrinsic denomination, but signifies an intrinsic, positive
aspect of reality, _viz._ the real, essential, or transcendental relation
of all real being to Mind or Intellect: a relation which is logically or
conceptually distinct from the notion of reality considered in itself.
43. ATTRIBUTION OF FALSITY TO REAL BEING.—If ontological truth is really
identical with real being, if it is an essential aspect of the latter, a
transcendental relation of reality to mind, it follows immediately that
there can be no such thing as transcendental falsity: if whatever is real
is ontologically true, then the ontologically false must be the unreal,
must be nothingness. And this is really so: ontologically falsity _is_
nothingness. We have, therefore, to discover the real meaning of
attributing falsity to things, as when we speak of a false friend, false
gold, false teeth, a false musical note, a false measure in poetry, etc.
First of all, then, it will be noted that each such object has its own
real nature and character, its proper mental correlate, and, therefore,
its ontological truth. The false friend is a true or real deceiver, or
traitor, or coward, or whatever his real character may be; the false gold
is true or real bronze, or alloy, or whatever it may be in reality; the
false teeth are true or real ivory, or whatever substance they are made
of; a false musical note is a true or real note but not the proper one in
its actual setting; and so of a false measure in poetry. Next, when we
thus ascribe falsity to a friend, or gold, or such like, we see that the
epithet “false” is in reality merely transferred from the false judgment
which a person is liable to make about the object. We mean that to judge
that person a friend, or that substance gold, or those articles real
teeth, would be to form a false judgment. We see that it is only in the
judgment there can be falsity; but we transfer the epithet to the object
because the object is likely to occasion the erroneous judgment in the
fallible human mind, by reason of the resemblance of the object to
something else which it really is not. We see, therefore, that falsity is
not in the objects, but is transferred to them by a purely extrinsic
denomination on account of appearances calculated to mislead. We commonly
say, in such cases that “things mislead us,” that “appearances deceive
us”. Things, however, do not deceive or mislead us _necessarily_, but only
_accidentally_: they are the _occasions_ of our allowing ourselves to be
deceived: the fallibility and limitations of our own minds in interpreting
reality are the real cause of our erroneous judgments.(172)
Secondly, there is another improper sense in which we attribute falsity to
works of art which fail to realize the artist’s ideal. In this sense we
speak of a “false” note in music, a “false” measure in poetry, a “false”
tint in painting, a “false” curve in sculpture or architecture. “False”
here means defective, bad, wanting in perfection. The object being out of
harmony with the ideal or design in the practical intellect of the artist,
we describe it as “false” after the analogy of what takes place when we
describe as “false gold” a substance which is out of harmony with the idea
of gold in the speculative intellect. It is in relation to the
speculative, not the practical, intellect, that things have ontological
truth. All created things are, of course, as such, in conformity not only
with the Divine Intellect considered as speculative, but also with the
Divine Intellect considered as practical. For God, being omnipotent, does
all things according to the designs of His Wisdom. For Him nothing is
accidental, nothing happens by chance. But the world He has freely willed
to create is not the best possible world. Both in the physical and in the
moral order there are things and events which are defective, which fall
short of their natural perfection. This defectiveness, which is properly
physical or moral evil, is sometimes described as falsity, lying, vanity,
etc., on account of the discrepancy between those things and the ideal of
what they should be. But all such defective realities are known to be what
they are by the Divine Mind, and may be known as they really are by the
human mind. They have, therefore, their ontological truth. The question of
their perfection or imperfection gives rise to the consideration of quite
a different aspect of reality, namely its _goodness_. This, then, we must
deal with in the next place.