The Truth or Trueness of Being

Article 2. The Truth or Trueness of Being

c) Falsity

a) Meaning of Truth

Truth is the relation of equality, of adequation, of equalization, of exactitude and justness, which exists between a thing and the mind which knows that thing. Thus truth may be roughly compared to a line that is stretched, straight and taut, between two posts. The one post is a knowing mind, a mind not deceived or misinformed. The other post is a reality about which the mind possesses adequate and justified knowledge. And the taut line between the posts is an illustration of the direct, unequivocal, clear-cut relationship between the knowing mind and the reality known; in other words, it is an illustration of truth. Let us choose another simile, less clumsy perhaps than that of the two posts and their connecting line. Between a yard of cloth and a yard-stick there is equality; it is not the stick nor the cloth but the relation of equality in measurement between the stick and the cloth which determines a true yard of cloth. Now, it is not the knowing mind nor the thing known which constitutes truth, but the relation of equality, or “the adequation,” between the mind and the thing known. Truth is therefore accurately defined as “the adequation of the mind and the thing known by the mind.” Truth is thus seen to consist in a relation between a knowing mind (that is a judging mind, a mind which judges the thing known to be what it really is) and an object, a reality known. The ancient Latin definition of truth is adequatio rei et intellectus, that is, “the adequation, the squaring-up, of a thing and the mind that knows it.”

Truth involves, of necessity, not only things, but mind. Now, the relationship of reality to the mind is twofold. Things (i. e., reality) may stand in a relation of dependency upon mind for their being and existence, nay, for their very possibility. Such a complete dependence of things is ascribable to no finite mind, no created mind. But there is necessarily such a complete dependence of creatural reality upon the Divine Mind, the Infinite Mind, the Creator. Finite reality ultimately depends upon God for its being and for its possibility (C/. Book First, Chap. II, Art. 2, c). Finite things exist as the product of their causes, and they are ultimately the product of the First Cause, which is God. Now, God is Infinite Knowledge; He knows all things in Himself, in His own essence, from eternity. Hence God perfectly knows all creatures before they come into existence. He holds in Himself, so to speak, the plans and models and patterns (called “archetypal ideas”) according to which creatures are to come into existence, and according to which they do, as a fact, come into existence. Thus, the first relationship of reality to mind is the relationship of created reality to the Creating Mind. This is a complete, per se, dependency. Things (finite realities) are what they are because of the Mind which knows them, for what they are and gives them existence in accordance with that perfect and eternal knowledge. Now, the relationship of things to the Divine Mind is called absolute truth, or ontological truth. In a manner analogous to that in which things depend for existence on the First Cause, they may be said to depend upon their efficient secondary causes. Thus, a house must be first known in plan and specification (at least in a general way) before it can be built. The knowledge precedes the production of the reality; the knowledge is the norm or measure to which the reality is to measure up. Here again is a dependency (less absolute indeed than the dependency of things on the Divine Mind) of certain creatures upon secondary causes. And the relationship of such creatures to the finite mind, the knowledge, of their producing (secondary) causes is truth, and ontological truth.

The second way in which reality may be said to stand related to mind, or even to depend upon mind, is that of dependency for being known. In so far as this involves the First Cause, it is the identical relationship we have already considered, for things must be known to the Divine Mind if they are to be existible. But things in this universe can exist whether creatures know them or not. There are objects on earth, and areas of the earth’s surface, that have never been seen by any human being; but these objects are not deprived of existence by that fact. Things can exist whether man knows them or not. Yet to exist as humanly known objects do depend upon man’s knowing them. They have a dependency, therefore, not for being, but for being known, which relates them to the creatural mind. This is. not a per se dependency, but an accidental one, a per accidens dependency. And in this dependency, this relationship, we discern truth: that is, this dependency indicates that there can be an adequation, a squaring-up of objects thus knowable and the mind thus able to know them, and when this adequation is verified, we have truth.

Truth, we repeat, involves not only reality but mind. And yet there is no real distinction between reality as being and reality as true. Being itself, inasmuch as it is knowable, is the true. And being, inasmuch as it is being at all, must be knowable and known to the Infinite Mind. The aspect of the true (or simply of trueness or truth) adds nothing new, nothing alien, to the concept of being when fully understood. Thus being and the true are synonymous terms. For a being is what it is; the Infinite Mind necessarily knows it for what it is; the being depends for its being-ness (its very possibility) upon the Infinite Mind. Hence, being as such is necessarily present in the Infinite Mind as true, as truly known, as known and judged upon in the completes!, most essential, most exact, most exhaustive manner. Being and the true are therefore only two aspects of one and the same thing; there is but a logical distinction between them, not a real distinction. For this reason we say: “Every being is true; the true and being are interchangeable terms,” or, in the old Latin formula, omne ens est verum; ens et verum convertuntur. The truth of being, or, more precisely, the aspect of being as the true is a transcendental concept, even as being, its synonym, is a transcendental concept. And the truth here designated is, as we shall see, absolute or metaphysical truth.

b) Classification of Truth

Truth is classified as ontological, logical, and moral.

1. Ontological truth (called also absolute truth, metaphysical truth, the truth of things) is the squaring-up of things with the Divine Mind. In a secondary way, ontological truth is the adequation or squaring-up of things with the human or the angelic mind (i. e., the creatural mind). When we speak of “true friends” or “a true circle” or “true gold” we indicate ontological truth. We have seen that all truth is a relation between a mind and reality. Now, when the mind is in possession of knowledge, and when it uses this knowledge as a test or standard to which an object must measure up, the object so measuring is called true with ontological truth, or the truth of things. Thus, if I know what gold is, I am in possession of knowledge which serves me as a measure or standard by which I judge whether a given bit of metal is true gold. If I know what friendship is, I know my “true friends.” If I know what a circle is, I use that knowledge as the test or measure whereby I judge a given plane figure as a true circle or not a true circle. Ontological truth is the truth of things inasmuch as these measure up to the knowledge of the judging mind. Now, things must measure up to the knowledge of the Divine Mind; there is no possibility of their not so measuring, since things depend for their being (i. e., for their very possibility) upon the Divine Mind. Hence, ontological truth, inasmuch as it is understood in its primary sense as an adequation of things with the Divine Mind, is necessary truth, absolute truth. It is the truth of things, the truth whereby being is necessarily true.

2. Logical truth (called also conceptual truth, truth of thought) is the adequation or squaring-up of the mind with reality. Properly, logical truth is the truth possessed by a finite mind, a mind that has learned what a reality is. In ontological truth, the knowledge is the standard to which reality must measure up and by which it is judged; in logical truth, the reality is the standard to which the creatural mind must measure up. Ontological truth is the truth of things; logical truth is the truth about things, the truth of thought or judgment about what things are. When you say, “This is true gold,” you mean, “I know what gold is; my knowledge is the standard to which this substance must measure up or it is not gold at all; I find that it does measure up to my knowledge, and therefore I pronounce it gold”; you declare that the object, the thing, squares with the judgment of your informed mind; you indicate ontological truth, the truth of things. When you say simply, “I know what gold is,” you mean, “I have learned from the object (i. e., gold) what it is; my mind has conformed itself to that object and laid hold of it cognitionally; my knowledge about it is true knowledge”; you declare that the judgment of your mind squares with the objective thing judged; you indicate logical truth, the truth of thought about things, the truth of knowledge.

3. Moral truth (called also ethical truth, truthfulness, truth of speech, veracity) is the adequation, the squaring-up, the agreement, of the words of a speaker or writer with his mind, his state of knowledge. Moral truth is fully discussed in that part of philosophy which is called Ethics or Moral Philosophy.

The root and basis of all truth (ontological, logical, moral) is God, the First and Eternal Truth. Moral truth (truth of speech) requires knowledge; one cannot speak intelligently without knowing what one says. Thus moral truth in its perfection requires logical truth as prerequisite. But truth of knowledge, truth about things, presupposes the truth of things; there is no true knowledge that is not based on reality as it is; knowledge cannot square with reality unless reality is there to be known. Thus moral truth depends on logical truth; logical truth depends on ontological truth; ontological truth, as we have seen, depends upon the Divine Mind, upon God, who knows all reality from eternity and in full perfection, and who is Himself the root principle of possibility. Therefore, upon God, the Infinite Mind, all truth ultimately depends.

c) Falsity

Falsity is the absence of truth. Academically speaking, therefore, there are as many types or classes of falsity as there are classifications of truth. Thus we distinguish ontological, logical, and moral falsity.

I. Ontological falsity would be,—were it possible, —the lack of conformity between reality and the Divine Mind. Such lack of comformity, however, is utterly impossible. For reality or being is possible only in so far as it is known; the Divine Knowledge, or the Divine Mind, is the root of possibility, as we have seen. Being as such is necessarily true with ontological truth. Hence there is really no such thing as ontological falsity. Yet we do speak of the falsity of things, as, for instance, of false teeth, or false whiskers, or false friends. But this is merely a trick of speech; we do not really mean that the things called false are not what they are,—a manifest contradiction in thought and in terms; we merely mean that certain things have an appearance which may easily lead the unwary to a false judgment about them. But a false judgment is logical falsity, not ontological falsity.

Logical falsity is the lack or absence of logical truth. It is not the mere absence of knowledge, for such absence is not falsity, but ignorance. Rather it is a misapplication of knowledge; a judgment made with the conviction that it squares with the thing judged, whereas it does not. Logical falsity is error; it is erroneous judgment. Logical falsity is quite possible, and indeed it is a common weakness of mankind. True education seeks to dispel both ignorance and error; its aim and purpose, as far as the mind is concerned, is to afford logical truth and dispossess the intellect of the disease of logical falsity. The point here to remember is this: error is always logical, never ontological. It is always error in the judging mind (of a creature), never error in the essence of things. Things are what they are, inevitably and infallibly; they have ontological truth; nothing is self-contradictory or erroneous in itself.

5. Moral falsity (called also lying, mendacity, untruthfulness, ethical falsity) is the conscious lack of conformity between the statement of a speaker or writer and his knowledge. Like moral truth, moral falsity is discussed in the science of Ethics.

Summary of the Article

This short Article has brought to our attention some important points of doctrine. We have learned the nature of truth as an adequation or conformity which exists between mind and reality. We have seen that this adequation is necessarily present when there is question of the Divine Mind, and this necessary truth we have called ontological or metaphysical or absolute truth; it is the truth of things; it is the truth that necessarily belongs to being and is synonymous with being. Thus we have learned the axiom, omne ens est verum; ens et verum convertuntur. We have discussed the truth about things, which can be possessed by the creatural mind; this we have called logical truth; it is the truth of thought, the truth of knowledge, the truth of judgment, With truth we have contrasted falsity, and have found that ontological falsity is utterly impossible.