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3. A Terminological and Metaphorological Cross Section of the Idea of Truth
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III A Terminological and Metaphorological Cross Section of the Idea of Truth In our investigations into truth metaphors, we have proceeded so far by placing longitudinal sections, or rather—to emphasize the deficiency of our material (which of course can only be measured against the inevitable deficiency of all historical material)—we have provided a series of points through which a curve may be drawn. Even if we disregard the factual density of the material offered in evidence , this procedure is as contestable as it is indispensable for the development of a metaphorology. But we want to illustrate what makes it contestable by seeking to satisfy the ideal postulate of a complementary method on at least one point of our longitudinal section. What leaps to the eye when selecting the appropriate metaphorical material needs for its part, before it can really be fixed on that curve, to be interpreted from the conceptual context in which it stands and functions, and from which it receives its contours and distinctive coloration. To stick with our first methodological image, we will need to place cross sections, ideally at each relevant point of our longitudinal section, in order to make completely comprehensible what the selected metaphors signify in each case. Seen for themselves, such cross sections can no longer be purely metaphorological; they must take concepts and metaphors, definitions and images, as the unity of the expressive sphere of a thinker or an age. Since complete availability of the material must be reconciled with the demands 32 Paradigms for a Metaphorology of space, my choice—about which I do not intend to argue with anyone—falls on Lactantius. Precisely the fact that he is not a thinker of the first order makes him a suitable case study for our investigations into epochal (not epoch-making) historical structures. Excellence calls for standards of singular immanence and cannot be regarded as mere expressive objectivization. Minds like Lactantius’s have enough ‘suction power’ to soak up the nutrient solution of the historical current; yet because they also stand authentically in relation to the new crystallizations that, in the horizon of meaning of their age, correspond to its problems and needs, they can actively participate in the historical current without intervening to change its course. Lactantius has a fondness for the metaphor of the force of truth (vis veritatis); two examples of this have already been cited. But this ‘natural’ characteristic of truth is not directly converted into potency; it is constrained by an order that comes to expression in a metaphorics of law superimposed on the metaphorics of force. Truth ‘belongs’ to God, “who has made everything,” which for Lactantius must also be understood to mean “because he has made everything.” This train of thought differs from the one we have encountered in Thomas Aquinas and Vico, where the absolute connection to truth is guaranteed by the creator’s insight into the inner structure of his work; here, the legalistic idea of ownership by virtue of authorship predominates, and with it the sovereign right of the author to dispose his property as he pleases.1 In the rhetorically fully orchestrated opening sentences of the “Divinae institutiones,” Lactantius draws a sharp contrast between the strenuous exertions for truth of the 1. The property analogy quite obviously plays a fundamental motivating role in the modern foundational order of labor and truth. Late medieval nominalism, with its extreme theological idea of sovereignty , bequeathed the modern spirit a strong aversion to ideas of ‘grace’ and ‘gift’. The origin of the modern age’s acute methodological reflection thus essentially lies in the need not to have to accept and passively receive the truth, but to ground it funditus denuo [totally anew]—‘ground’ understood not just in the sense of coming up with grounds for a thesis, but of producing the thesis itself from its grounds. For produced truth is truth that is legitimately one’s own. Here, too, we see a marked connection with the modern critique of teleology, whose robust aggressiveness stands in no relation to its purely theoretical significance, for instance in the contestation of the Aristotelian doctrine of the four causes. The principle of universal anthropocentric teleology makes a metaphysical foundation of private property impossible ; that can be seen in the Stoic conception of privata nulla natura noted by Cicero, De officiis I 7, 21–22 [Cicero, The Offices, trans. Thomas Cockman (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1955), 10–11]. If nature looks after the basic needs of all human...