TRUTH.

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Logical truth, therefore, is an attribute not of things in

the absolute, or of objects of thought, but of judgments, i.e. of

relations between objects of thought. The formal object of the

act of judgment is a relation of identity or diversity between two

formally distinct objective concepts or aspects of reality : i.e.

what the mind apprehends, through the act of judgment, is a

1 Cf. MGR. SENTROUL, La Verite et le progres du savoir, in the Revue neo-

scolastique, May and August, 191 1 (pp. 212-30, 305-28) : two very instructive

articles, in which, however, the author s definitions apply only to affirmative

judgments. Defining logical truth as " the conformity of a judgment with a real

identity" (p. 177), and the judgment itself as " a real identification" (p. 305), he

illustrates the latter description in the following terms: " The judgment (of the

ideal, or of the existential order) declares that a thing (intrinsically possible or

actually existing, and) signified by the subject (abstract or concrete, respectively) is

identical with the thing that is signified 1 y the predicate. Take, for instance, this

judgment of the ideal order : the triangle is a figure in which a circle can always be

inscribed. To assert that judgment is to assert that once a triangle is realized in

the existing world you have ipso facto a figure which is not only triangular (as the

subject itself already states) but is also endowed with the property signified by the

predicate. Or, take a judgment of the existential order : to assert that " this horse

is young " is to assert that there is here a single being which is both " horse" and

"young". ... It is in this sense that judgment is always a real identification.

We prefer the term real to the term objective which seems to refer to the formal ob

ject of a cognition rather than to the reality signified by the cognition, and which in

any case seems restricted rather to the identification proper to judgments of the ideal

order " (p. 305). " Judgments which are not of the ideal order we prefer to describe

as of the existential order rather than of the real order. The matter of designation

is of minor importance provided we make our meaning clear : that all judgments

ate real identifications, and are either of the ideal or of the existential order " (ibid.,

n. Cf. 10. JEANNIERE, op. cit., p. 310).

2 5 2 THEOR Y OF KNO W LEDGE

relation of real identity or of real diversity between the reality

signified by the subject, and that signified by the predicate, of

the judgment. Something " actually perceived or imagined re

veals itself to thought as identical with another object already

conceived by the intellect, so that the former must be placed

under the extension of the latter, and the latter applied to the

former. This attribution is the function of the act of judgment."

Such are the terms in which Mercier describes the affirmative

judgment. 1 And after explaining briefly the nature of the

" identity " or " agreement " expressed by the logical copula, 2 he

says that " logical truth characterizes the judgment when the

mind asserts the union or disunion of two terms in conformity

with objective truth : the judgment is true when the mind unites

terms which agree or disjoins terms which disagree ; in the

opposite event the judgment is erroneous ". 3 By the expression

"objective truth" in this statement Mercier means "ontological

truth," i.e. the reality itself as present or presented to the mind

and as having a nature which can be "understood," "known,"

" represented " only by the affirmative and negative judgments,

the real identifications and discriminations, which that nature

demands. 4 When the judgment, therefore, whether affirmative

or negative, the real identification or separation of objective

concepts or aspects of reality, takes place in conformity with the

real exigencies of the datum presented for interpretation, with

what its concrete reality demands as an intelligible representation

of it, then the judgment is true; otherwise it is false. "And if

we are finally asked," he continues, "what are these exigencies

whereby the subject demands from our intellects such or such

attributes, and not others, we would reply that they spring from

the indivisible unity proper to each subject and by virtue of which

it presents itself to the mind with a certain group of attributes,

rather than any other group, and consequently demands such and

1 Op. dt., 13, p. 20. His whole treatment of the subject ( 10-17) marks a

distinct advance from the traditional scholastic treatment which approached the

question from an exclusively dogmatic and synthetic standpoint.

2 Cf. Science of Logic, i., 78-80; 99-109. :! O/>. /., p. 26.

4 The author rightly observes (ibid., p. 24) that the objective or ontological

truth of reality implies a relation of reality to some mind. Apart from such relation

things have ontological truth only fundamentally or potentially, not actually or

formally. As St. Thomas says (De Veritate, Q. i., a. i), " Etiamsi intellectus

humanus non essct, adhuc res dicerentur verae in ordine ad intellectum divinum.

Sed si uterque intellectus, quod est impossibile, intclligeretur auferri, nullomodo

veritatis ratio remaneret ". Cf. Ontology, 41.

TRUTH AND EVIDENCE 253

such predicates to the exclusion of others?- But there reflection

reaches its limit : for, as St. Thomas somewhere remarks, to

demand why a man is a man is to ask an unmeaning question,

quaerere cur homo est homo est nihil quaerere ." 2

Thus, then, the reality with which the mind is conformed by

a true judgment is on the one hand extramental or objective in

the sense that it is something beyond, distinct from, and in

dependent of the judicial, interpretative, representative act itself; 3

but on the other hand it is this something not as standing out

of all cognitive relation to the knowing subject, but as present

or presented to the knowing subject : and, consequently, since

both terms of the truth-relation are consciously apprehended, the

task of justifying our reflex conviction that we know some at

least of our judgments to be true is at least not prima facie an

impossible task.

Nor can it be objected that on this view both terms of the

"truth" or "conformity" relation are subjective, and that there

fore all truth, all knowledge is subjective, which is Idealism.

One term (the subjective or mental term) of the relation is the

mental state produced by the judgment, or interpretation, or

" representation ". The other term is not a mental state, the state

produced by the " presentation " of the reality to consciousness ;

nor is it this "presentation" itself, for this presentation itself is

not an object but a process, just as the " representation " is not

an object but a process : the whole process, both of presenting

and representing, constitutes the esse ideale of the reality, or

gives the reality its esse ideale^ which esse ideale is not an object

1 C/. vol. i., 92.

z lbid., p. 25 (italics ours). The student will recognize in those sentences an

affirmation of the influence of objective "affinities" urged against Kant s formalism

(vol. i., 92, 93) ; and also of the doctrine that the truth of our judgments is de

termined, and our assent to them motived, by the ontological exigency of the pre

sented reality to have certain predicates affirmed or denied of it, in other words, by

" objective evidence ".

3 This holds good even when the realities which we interpret are our own judg

ments, or our other conscious, mental processes. For these processes are also

realities, and by introspective reflection we make them the objects of inquiry, in

vestigation, interpretation, judgment, etc. The distinctive feature of the judicial

act, the feature which characterizes it as a representation or interpretation of reality,

and which has been described as its " objective reference " or its " claim to truth "

(cf. Science of Logic, i., 79, 80) has been emphasized in many modern definitions.

Thus, BRADLEY defines judgment as " the act which refers an ideal content, re

cognized as such, to a reality beyond the act" ; and BOSANQUET, as " the reference

of a significant idea to a subject in reality by means of an identity of content be

tween them " (ibid., % 80).

2 5 4 THE OR V O F KNO 1 VL FDGE

of cognition or objection cognituui at all, but is only the psychic

means, -the medium quo, by which the reality is mentally appre

hended. The other term of the truth or knowledge relation, the

objective or real term, is the extramental reality itself present or

presented to consciousness immediately, i.e. without the inter

vention of any mentally fabricated product or object intervening

as a substitute or tertium quid between the knowing mind and

the known reality. And we have shown already that there is

absolutely no ground for supposing that in the process of pre

sentation or manifestation the reality is transformed or dis

figured by any mental forms of the knowing subject. The

reproach of Idealism against our definition of truth or true

knowledge therefore falls to the ground.

When a judgment is true, the identification or discrimination

which it makes is in conformity with what the intelligible nature

of the presented reality demands : this latter so appears to in

tellect that it reveals subject and predicate as aspects of it and

demands their identification, or as such that it demands the

exclusion of the predicate from the subject which represents it.

Not that the reality itself, apart from its relation or presence to

the intellect, is formally an identity of distinct aspects (subject

and predicate), or a unity which (as subject) formally excludes

some aspect of reality (as predicate) ; for these identities, dis

tinctions, comparisons, affirmations and denials are formally

logical relations, forms or modes of thought, modalities of the

judgment which is itself a form of thought. But that the reality

presented for interpretation has an objective, real, ontological

exigency, as intelligible, for representation by intellect through

the instrumentality of such relations : these have their founda

tion in the presented reality ; they are in it fundamentally,

potentially ; and it is precisely because of this that reality is

intelligible, i.e. capable of being known or understood through our

human modes of thought. We may err in judging, interpreting,

representing the real ; but when our judgments are true it is with

reality that they are in conformity.

Now Kant likewise recognizes the distinction between truth

and error in the judgments of our speculative reason (33, 125,

128-9). For him, too, the true judgment is the one that is in con

formity with something, something with which it ought to be in

conformity. He admits, moreover, that this something is the

same for all human minds, that the true judgment is neces-

TR UTH AND E VIDENCE 2 5 5

sarily and universally true because of its determination by,

and conformity with, this something. But the necessity and

universality are, as we have seen, subjective, because the "some

thing" which determines them is subjective. In his view the

" something " which is the standard of the conformity or truth

of our judgments is not reality. For reality itself, in its pre

sentation to the mind in perception and conception, is

" moulded " into " objects " by transcendental, a priori forms

which belong to the mind s own constitution. The true judg

ment, therefore, is the judgment which is in conformity with

these mental products or objects ; and it is in conformity with

these when it expresses what those transcendental , a priori mental

laws demand that the judgment should express. Truth, in the

sense of conformity of our judgments with reality, is unattainable

by the speculative reason, because reality is unknowable. But

truth in the sense of conformity of our judgments with the laws

which constitute our own understanding is attainable, because

these determining principles of reason, which likewise construct

or create the universe of intelligible phenomena or appearances,

are discoverable by a critical investigation of the a priori con

ditions of the possibility of speculative knowledge.

Our criticism of this view is simply that such knowledge is

riot worthy of the name. If the object with which the true judg

ment is conformed, and into which it is supposed to give an

insight, be not reality, then the judgment is not a form of know

ledge at all. Kant s theory that the objects which determine our

knowledge are not realities, but mental constructions, themselves

determined by a priori forms of the mind, we have already seen

to be fundamentally unsound and wholly indefensible. As

Jeanniere observes : x " The mental causality whereby we form

and compare concepts does not consist in constructing reality,

but in apprehending it through inadequate conceptions which

we so co-ordinate with one another, according to ontological

exigencies, that we gradually attain to the genuine knowledge

which we embody in real definitions ".