In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

I Metaphorics of the ‘Mighty’ Truth Anyone who set out to write a history of the concept of truth, in a strictly terminological sense aimed at definitional stringency, would have little to show for his efforts. The most popular definition, purportedly lifted by Scholasticism from Isaac ben Salomon Israeli’s book of definitions—veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus [truth is the match of thing and intellect]1 —provides leeway for modification only in the shortest of its elements, in the neutrality of the ‘et’. While the definition 1. Thomas Aquinas cites the definition thus, adding Isaac dicit in libro De definitionibus [Isaac says in his book of definitions]; Summa theol. 1 q. 16 a. 2 ad 2 and in De veritate q. 1a. 1. This wording is not to be found in the corresponding §24 of Isaac’s book of definitions, however. Cf. A. Altmann, and S. M. Stern, Isaac Israeli: A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century; His Works Translated with Comments and an Outline of His Philosophy (Oxford, 1958), 58: Definition of ‘true’ (haqq): That which the thing is. D. H. Pouillon (in Revue Néoscholastique de Philosophie (1939): 57ff.) has investigated how the misattribution of the definition arose. He shows that the formula originates in Avicenna and was initially cited without acknowledgement by William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, Alexander of Hales, and others. Philip the Chancellor also quotes Isaac’s definition, although he takes it from Augustine’s “Soliloquies ” (II 5, 8: quidquid est, verum est [whatever is, is true]); in doing so, he mistakenly attributes the book of definitions to Augustine as well: Item Augustinus in Libro soliloquiorum ‘verum est’, inquit, ‘id quod est’. Item Augustinus in libro De definitionum collection idem dicit. [Likewise, Augustine says in his Soliloquies: “What is, is true.” Augustine says the same thing in his book of definitions.] Albertus Magnus subsequently mentioned Isaac in citing his authentic definition: secundum Isaac et secundum Augustinum verum est id quod est [According to Isaac and according to Augustine, truth is that which is], but now it seemed only natural to connect the previously anonymous formulation with the wrong name. Metaphorics of the ‘Mighty’ Truth 7 should be understood, in keeping with its Aristotelian origins, as leaning toward the adaequatio intellectus ad rem [match of the intellect to the thing], the Middle Ages was to discover in it the supplementary possibility of determining absolute truth in the divine spirit as the adaequatio rei ad intellectum [match of the thing to the intellect]. This latitude in the concept of truth has basically sufficed for all philosophical systems. But is the demand voiced in the age-old question “What is truth?” thereby satisfied? The terminological material tells us precious little about the full import of this question. If, however, we pursue the history of the metaphor most closely linked to the problem of truth, the metaphor of light, the question explicates itself in a concealed plenitude never yet hazarded by any system.2 The metaphorics of light cannot be translated back into concepts; analysis seeks to disclose the questions to which answers are sought and risked, questions of a presystematic nature whose intentional fullness ‘provoked’ the metaphors, as it were. We should not shrink from the supposed naïveté of spelling out these fundamental questions, regardless of whether they were ever actually posed in so many words. To what extent does mankind partake of the whole truth? What situation do those who seek the truth find themselves in? Can they feel confident that what exists will freely reveal itself to them, or is knowledge to be acquired only through an act of violence, by outwitting the object, extorting information from it under duress, interrogating it on the rack? Is our share in truth meaningfully regulated by the economy of our needs, for example, or by our aptitude for superabundant happiness in accordance with the idea of a visio beatifica? These are all questions that barely a philosophical school has attempted to answer with systematic means; we nonetheless maintain that everywhere in the language of philosophy, indications can be found that answers to these questions have always already been given in a subterranean stratum of thought, answers that, although they may not be contained in the systems in propositional form, have never ceased to pervade, tincture, and structure them. The categorial equipment needed to grasp and describe such indications is still far from complete and methodologically operational. When we classify philosophical ‘dispositions’ as optimistic or...

Share