Truth is the correspondence of thought with reality. Aristotle gave this definition: “It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth. For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action.” Truth does not depend on whether anyone holds it to be correct. It holds whether human beings acknowledge it or not. Whoever asserts that there is no truth contradicts himself — for he claims it to be true that there is no truth. This is the “relativist contradiction”: even the renunciation of truth presupposes truth.
The book distinguishes two fundamental dimensions of truth (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 30—50):
- Truth of judgment (veritas logica): A statement is true if and only if the state of affairs it asserts corresponds to the state of affairs obtaining in reality. Its opposite is error: the non-correspondence of the asserted with the obtaining state of affairs.
Explication of the Thomistic formula
The well-known Thomistic formula veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei says that intellect and thing correspond — but it leaves open in what this correspondence consists. The state-of-affairs formulation makes this explicit:
- intellectus → the state of affairs asserted by the judgment
- res → the state of affairs obtaining in reality
- adaequatio → their correspondence
This is not a correction of the Thomistic formula but its explication: it makes explicit what Aquinas means.
- Ontological truth (veritas ontologica): the knowability and proper being of the being itself — that which a being truly is. Applied to the Person, this means the correspondence between what a human being is and what he does. In the third dimension of personhood, the human being realizes his ontological truth when he does the good and loves — or he becomes an “ontological lie” when his action contradicts his essence.
For the understanding of the person it is decisive that there is an apt (adequate) concept of the person — one that grasps the thing itself and is not merely an arbitrary stipulation. Spaemann adds: “The philosopher is not to hold true what prevailing opinion demands. He must, without any guarantee of success, contribute what he has recognized as true.” Insight into the truth about the person forms the basis for the Personalistic Norm and stands opposed to the oblivion of the person.
Ontological classification: Broader concepts: Objective Value, Archphenomenon
Ontological relations:
- is presupposed by: Capacity for Truth
- is contradicted by: Error
- has as its basis: State of Affairs
Chapter assignment: Chapter 2: How does one think about such questions? (German), Chapter 3 (German) (esp. 3.2.3)
Ontological truth
Ontological truth (veritas ontologica) is fundamentally different from the truth of judgment. Whereas the truth of judgment concerns the correspondence of the asserted with the obtaining state of affairs, ontological truth means the truth of the being itself: that which a being truly is. Applied to the human person, this means that personhood is an objective reality, independent of the knowing subject. The person is truly a person, regardless of whether this is acknowledged by others or not.
This ontological truth of personhood is grounded in the third dimension. The person is called to unfold his being in correspondence with what he truly is. The denial of the ontological truth of personhood is the deepest form of the oblivion of the person (cf. Bexten 2017, pp. 185 ff.).
Ontological classification: Broader concepts: Archphenomenon, Essential Characteristic
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Aristotle: Metaphysics, II, 1 (philosophy as the science of truth)
- Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, I, q. 16, a. 1 (Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus)
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons. The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’, transl. O’Donovan, Oxford UP 2006 (truth and the adequate concept of the person)
- Bexten, Maria Katharina: Was ist menschliches Personsein?, 2017, pp. 40–46, 85–86, 188–190, 275, 281 (truth and cognition) (German)
See also: