Error (error) is the unconscious non-correspondence between the state of affairs asserted by a judgment and the state of affairs obtaining in reality — in contrast to the lie, which constitutes a conscious non-correspondence. It is possible because human cognition is fallible. At the same time, the capacity to recognize error attests to the fundamental capacity for truth of the person: only one who can fundamentally know the truth can also see through error as error (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 40–46).
Error and Judgment
Error presupposes judgment. Thomas Aquinas distinguishes two acts of the intellect: the simple apprehension of essence (simplex apprehensio), in which the intellect grasps the whatness (quidditas) of a thing and cannot err in doing so, and judgment (compositio et divisio), in which the intellect attributes something to a thing or denies it of it. Only in judgment do truth or falsity become possible — and with them, error. Aristotle formulates the principle: one speaks truly who says of what is combined that it is combined (synthesis), and of what is separated that it is separated (diairesis); falsely, one who asserts the contrary (Metaphysics IV, 7). Without judgment there is no error — a stone does not err, because it does not judge.
Error and the Capacity for Truth
The possibility of error is precisely not an argument against the capacity for truth, but presupposes it. Spaemann emphasizes: the person is a “free, finite, yet truth-capable being.” The capacity to err attests that the person is ordered toward truth (ordinatio ad verum). Even in error the formal ordination toward truth is preserved — Aquinas calls this the “truth of error” (veritas erroris): the one who errs always grasps his object “under the formality of truth” (sub ratione veri), even when he misses the matter. It is precisely this dialectic that distinguishes the personal error from the mere malfunction of a machine.
Error and the Person
Only persons can err in the proper sense. An animal can be deceived — for instance, mistaking a decoy for prey — but it does not judge in the sense of compositio et divisio and therefore cannot err. A machine can operate faultily, but it lacks the ordination toward truth that first makes error intelligible as the failing of a goal. A computational error of a machine is not an error but a malfunction. The person, by contrast, is “someone” and not “something” — and only a “someone” can err, because only a “someone” makes judgments and is directed toward truth.
Error and Truth
Error and the truth of judgment stand in the relation of contrary opposition. A statement is true precisely when the state of affairs it asserts corresponds to the state of affairs obtaining in reality. This formulation makes precise the well-known Thomistic formula adaequatio intellectus et rei by determining what corresponds on the side of the intellect — the asserted state of affairs — and what on the side of the thing — the obtaining state of affairs. Error is their failure: the non-correspondence. Yet both presuppose the same fundamental structure — a knowing subject that directs itself toward reality. Whoever denies the possibility of error thereby denies the possibility of truth — for both are intelligible only as poles of the same relation.
Correction of Error
Error is correctable, because the intellect is ordered toward truth. Cognition can correct error — through being bound back to the thing itself (res), through advancing experience, and through insight into error as error. Descartes shows in the Fourth Meditation that error can be avoided if the will (voluntas) does not extend itself beyond the intellect (intellectus) — if one withholds judgment (suspensio iudicii) as long as no clear and distinct insight is present. Education and the unfolding of reason serve to reduce susceptibility to errors and to enable the person to exercise responsible judgment.
Error and Knowledge
Error and knowledge mutually exclude one another: one cannot at once err about and know the same state of affairs. Knowledge is justified, true conviction; error is unjustified or falsely justified holding-to-be-true. Yet the boundary between the two is not always transparent for the finite person — the so-called Gettier problem shows that a conviction can be true and justified without constituting genuine knowledge. The contingency of human cognition remains, without negating the fundamental capacity for truth.
Error and Conscience
Thomas Aquinas treats the problem of the erring conscience (conscientia errans) with particular depth. Conscience obligates categorically — even when it errs — because the formal orientation toward truth remains morally constitutive. Aquinas distinguishes the excusable error of fact (ignorantia facti) from the culpable error of norm (ignorantia iuris), in which the human being “can and ought to know” the norm (potest scire et debet). The erring conscience paradoxically attests to the capacity for truth of the person: it errs about the truth, but it errs for the sake of the truth.
Ontological classification:
- Superordinate concept: State
Ontological relations:
- presupposes: judgment, capacity for truth
- contradicts: truth
- concerns subject: person
- is mutually exclusive with: knowledge
- is corrected through: cognition
Chapter assignment: Chapter 2: How does one think about such questions?
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Aristotle: Metaphysics IV, 7, 1011b (truth and falsity in judgment)
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae I, q. 17 (De falsitate — On Falsity)
- Thomas Aquinas: De veritate q. 1, a. 1 (veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus)
- Descartes, René (1641): Meditationes de prima philosophia, IV (error as the overreaching of the will)
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons. The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’, transl. Oliver O’Donovan, Oxford University Press 2006 (person and capacity for truth)