Part 8 (2/2)

they mean not merely the individual, but also any positive thought-object which, though it may not be capable of existing apart, can really appear in, or disappear from, a thing which can so exist: for instance, the essential factors of a really composite essence, its accidental modes, and its real relations. By ”formality” they mean a positive thought-object which is absolutely inseparable from the thing in which it is apprehended, which cannot exist without the thing, nor the thing without it: for instance, all the metaphysical grades of being in an individual, such as substantiality, corporeity, life, animality, rationality, individuality, in an individual man. The distinction is called ”formal” because it is between such ”formalities”-each of which is the positive term of a separate concept of the individual. It is called ”_actual_ on the side of the thing” because it is claimed to be _actually_ in the latter apart from our mental apprehension of the individual. What has chiefly influenced Scotists in claiming this distinction to be thus _actually_ in the individual, independently of our mental activity, is the consideration that these metaphysical grades are grounds on which we can predicate contradictory attributes of the same individual, _e.g._ of an individual man that ”he is similar to a horse” and that ”he is not similar to a horse”: whence they infer that in order to avoid violation of the principle of contradiction, we must suppose these grounds to be _actually_ distinct in the thing.

To this it is replied, firstly, that if such predications were truly contradictory we could avoid violation of the principle of contradiction only by inferring a _real_ distinction-which Scotists deny to exist-between these grounds; secondly, that such predications are not truly contradictory inasmuch as ”he is similar” really means ”he is partially similar,” and ”he is not similar” means ”he is not completely similar”; therefore when we say that a man's rationality ”_is not_ the principle whereby he resembles a horse,” and his animality ”_is_ the principle whereby he resembles a horse,” we mean (_a_) that his rationality is not the principle of complete resemblance, though we know it is the principle of partial resemblance, inasmuch as we see it to be really identical with that which is the principle of partial resemblance, _viz._ his animality; and we mean (_b_) that his animality is the principle of his partial resemblance to a horse, not of total resemblance, for we know that the animality of a man is not perfectly similar to that of a horse, the former being really identical with rationality, the latter with irrationality. When, then, we predicate of one thing that ”it is similar to some other thing,” and that ”it is not similar to this other thing” we are not really predicating contradictories of the same thing; if we take the predicates as contradictories they are true of the same reality undoubtedly, but not under the same aspect. Scotists themselves admit that the _real ident.i.ty_ of these aspects involves no violation of the principle of contradiction; why, then, should these be held to be _actually_ distinct formalities independently of the consideration of the mind? How can a distinction that is actual independently of the mind's a.n.a.lysis of the reality be other than real? Is not predication a work of the mind? And must not the conditions on which reality verifies the predication be determined by the mind? If, then, we see that in order to justify this predication-of ”similar” and ”not similar”-about any reality, it is merely necessary that the mind should apprehend this reality to be in its undivided unity equivalent to manifold grades of being or perfection which the mind itself can grasp as mentally distinct aspects, by distinct concepts, how can we be justified in supposing that these grades of being are not merely _distinguishable_, but _actually distinct_ in the reality itself, _independently of the mind_?

The Scotist doctrine here is indicative of the tendency to emphasize, perhaps unduly, the a.s.similation of reality as a datum with the mind which interprets this datum; to regard the const.i.tution of reality itself as being what abstract thought, irrespective of sense experience, would represent it; and accordingly to place in the reality as being actually there, independently of thought, distinctions which as a matter of fact may be merely the product of thought itself.

Scotists, by advocating an _actual_ distinction between these grades of being, as ”formalities” in the individual, have exposed themselves to the charge of extreme realism. They teach that each of these ”formalities” has, for abstract thought, a _formal_ unity which is _sui generis_. And this unity is not regarded as a product of thought, any more than the distinction between such unities. Thus, the materiality apprehended by thought in all material things is one, not because it is made one by the abstracting and universalizing activity of thought, as most if not all other scholastics teach; it is not merely _conceptually one_ through our thought-activity, it is _formally one_ apart from the latter; and it thus knits into a ”formal” unity all material things. And so does ”life” all living things; and ”animality” all animals; and ”rationality” all men. Now, if this ”formal unity” of any such essential or metaphysical grade of being were regarded as a real unity, monism would be of course the logically inevitable corollary of the theory.

But the ”formal” unity of any such essential grade of being Scotists will not admit to be a real unity, though they hold it to be characteristic of reality independently of our thought. They contend that this unity is quite compatible with the _real plurality_ conferred upon being by the principles which individuate the latter; and thus they cannot be fairly accused of monism. Their reasoning here is characteristically subtle. Just as any metaphysical grade of being, considered as an object of thought, is in itself neither manifold individually nor one universally-so that, as Thomists say, designating it in this condition as the _universale dir.e.c.t.u.m_, or _metaphysic.u.m_, or _fundamentale_, or _quoad rem conceptam_, we can truly affirm of it in this condition neither that it is one (logically, as a universal) nor that it is manifold (really, as multiplied in actual individuals),(160)-so likewise, Scotists contend, it is in this condition _ontologically_, as an ent.i.ty in the real order independently of thought, and as such has a unity of its own, a formal unity, which, while uniting in a formal unity all the individuals that embody it, is itself incapable of fitting this grade of being for actual existence, and therefore admits those ultimate individuating principles which make it a real manifold in the actual order.(161)

Thus, the metaphysical grade of being, which, as considered in itself, Thomists hold to be an abstraction, having no other unity than that which thought confers upon it by making it logically universal, Scotists on the contrary hold to be as such something positive in the ontological order, having there a ”formal” unity corresponding to the ”conceptual” or ”logical” unity which thought confers upon it by universalizing it. The metaphysical grade of being, thus conceived as something positive in the real order, Scotists will not admit to be a ”reality,” nor the unity which characterizes it a ”real” unity. But after all, if such a ”formality” with its proportionate ”unity,” is independent of thought; and if on the other hand ”universality” is the work of thought, so that the universal as such cannot be real, it is not easy to see how the Scotist doctrine escapes the error of extreme realism. The metaphysical grade of being is a ”formality” only because it is _made abstract_ by thought; and it has ”unity” only because it is _made logically universal_ by thought; therefore to contend that as such it is something positive in the real order, independently of thought, is to ”reify” the abstract and universal as such: which is extreme realism.

CHAPTER V. REALITY AND THE TRUE.

40. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH CONSIDERED FROM a.n.a.lYSIS 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 const.i.tute 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 cla.s.sify 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 Rontgen 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 distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 a.n.a.lysis 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, quant.i.ty, mult.i.tude, number, ident.i.ty, 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 const.i.tute but only apprehends reality, so the human mind does not const.i.tute 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 const.i.tuted 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d. 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”.

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