Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

A clear title, among those who hold that the intellect composing and dividing does not signify a substance or any power; but it names an operation of the intellect called composition and division in Book III On the Soul ¹

II. In the body there is a single conclusion, answering the question affirmatively: Truth, properly speaking, is only in the intellect composing and dividing. - This conclusion has two exponents, namely: truth, properly speaking, is in the intellect composing and dividing; and, that it is in nothing else. And both are proved together in the text, thus. Every thing is true according as it has its own form of its nature: therefore the intellect, as knowing, is true, according as it is assimilated to the thing known: therefore truth is the conformity of intellect and thing: therefore to know truth is to know the conformity of cognition to the thing cognized: therefore neither sense, nor the intellect with respect to what a thing is, but the intellect judging it to be so as it is apprehended, knows truth first and says what is true: therefore the intellect composing and dividing knows truth: therefore in it alone is truth according to the proper mode of the name true as imported: therefore in it alone is truth, properly speaking.

The first consequence is proved: because the likeness of the thing known is the proper form of the intellect as knowing. - The second indeed holds manifestly from its antecedent, already proved, together with that proposition placed at the beginning of the body of the article, namely, truth, according to its first ratio, is in the intellect. For if it is thus, and the truth of the intellect is considered according to its likeness to the thing, it follows that truth is to be defined by the conformity of intellect and thing. - The third, however, is left as known. And truly it is known: since, if the truth of cognition consists in the likeness or conformity of intellect and thing, it must be that to know truth is to know this conformity, namely of intellect and thing; and conversely, to know this conformity is to know truth. - The fourth, however, as regards its negative parts, is declared in sight and simple intellection. As regards the affirmative part, however, it needs neither proof nor manifestation. - The fifth, however, is proved: because in every proposition one applies some form signified by the predicate to the thing signified by the subject, or removes it from it. - The sixth, however, is proved: because the true is the perfection of the intellect as known. And it is made manifest from the difference, following from what was said above, between the knower's being true and the knower's knowing the true. For the former is for the knower to be true as a certain thing: and therefore it belongs to sense, to the intellect grasping what a thing is, and to uncomplex utterances. The latter, however, is to have the true as known in the knower: and therefore it belongs to the intellect composing and dividing, and to complex utterances as signs, etc. - Finally, the last consequence is self-evidently known, as is clear.

III. For the evidence of these things, note that the plain sense which the surface of this text shows at first glance: it seems that, because the cognition of a sense, say sight, or even of simple intellect, is conformed to the thing, it can therefore be called true: but because it cannot know that conformity which exists between the simple cognition itself and the thing, therefore ² it does not know truth: and because the composing intellect knows that conformity, it therefore knows truth. - But such a sense is foreign to this text, in truth. First because it is false that simple intellect does not know that conformity: since that conformity is something definable, and consequently is known by simple intellect. Second because that conformity is not known except reflexively by intellect: but truth is known directly, and not merely reflexively. Third because the middle term adduced in the text to prove that the conformity in which truth consists is known by intellect composing or dividing would not be to the point, as is clear to one who applies it.

IV. Therefore, so that the present text may be clear, along with any similar to it, four points are noted. First, that it is one thing to speak of intellect even in act second, and another to speak of intellect insofar as it is knowing; and likewise, it is one thing to speak of the truth of the former, and another of the truth of the latter. For no more is required for the truth of intellect in act second than for the truth of sense in act second: hence both intellect and sense in act are said to be true as a certain true thing, when their cognition is informed by assimilation to the known. But for the truth of intellect insofar as it is knowing, it is required that truth be in it insofar as it is knowing; and this is only if it be in it insofar as it has cognized. And therefore the text, investigating where the true properly resides, proceeds from the proper form of intellect not in first or second act, but insofar as it is knowing; and it holds that its proper form and perfection is the likeness of the thing known—not that which is the principle of cognition, but that which is the term or as it were the term, or the perfection toward which, upon being attained, cognition is perfected.

V. Wherefore note second, that the likeness of the thing known is taken in two ways, as far as the matter at hand is concerned. First, for the intelligible or sensible species simple, that is, representing in the manner of an incomplex, whatever that species may be. Second, for the species representing the thing known as such, whether incomplex or complex, whatever it may be, whether impressed species, expressed species, or the very cognition itself: for these do not vary the matter at hand. In the present passage the likeness of the thing known is not taken in the first way, as the superficial exposition understands³, but in the second. So that the sense of the text is that the likeness attained or acquired by cognition is the proper form and perfection of the intellect insofar as it is knowing; and ⁴ that cognition which knows its own conformity with the thing known—that cognition knows the true, and no other; in whatever way that conformity may be, namely, whether in the manner of a complex or of an incomplex.

VI. Third, note that knowing the conformity of oneself to the thing known occurs in two ways: namely, in signified act and in exercised act. To know conformity in signified act is for the cognition to terminate in the relation of conformity. To know conformity in exercised act, however, is to know something in itself as conforming to what is known. That this may be perceived more clearly, it is made manifest in the act of speaking, since the point in question appears more clearly in it. Someone states the conformity of intellect and thing in signified act when he utters these words, or their meanings, either in general or with respect to the particular matter he understands, mentally or vocally; but he states it in exercised act when he says something as conforming to things. Now one never says anything as conforming to or discordant from a thing so long as he says something incomplex: for in saying man, or centaur, or void, I say nothing as conforming to or discordant from any thing. But when he first says a man is, he says something as conforming to or discordant from a thing, since he says something signifying a man to be, as is evident of itself. And it is similar with believing and knowing. Therefore, to know one's own conformity to a thing is nothing other than to know something in itself as conforming to the thing. And this is nothing other than to apprehend some complex: for in apprehending the word a man is, one apprehends something as conforming.

In the matter at hand, conformity is not taken in the first way, as that superficial exposition accepted⁵, but in the second. And therefore in the text it is proved that to know one's conformity to a thing belongs properly to the intellect composing and dividing, on the ground that every enunciation posits or removes something from a subject. For if to know one's own conformity to a thing is to know something in oneself as conformed to the thing; and something is never known in oneself as conformed except when an enunciation is known, which is admittedly present in the one enunciating, and imports conformity or non-conformity to the thing ⁶; it follows that only the enunciating intellect knows and says what is conformed or non-conformed as such. And because this alone is to say and know truth in exercised act, therefore only the intellect composing and dividing knows and says truth; and truth in exercised act is in the intellect alone that composes and divides, as known and said in the knower and sayer. For the knowledge of truth in exercised act and in signified act must be distinguished just as the things said above. If you do not grasp this distinction, even any novice will perceive it from this distinction, as regards its meaning. For "to signify truth," as is found in the instructions of logic, occurs in two ways: namely in exercised act and in signified act. For the word true signifies truth, but does not exercise it: but the words man is a biped signify truth, because they exercise truth itself. And the words man is winged signify falsehood in exercised act, etc. And therefore in I Perihermeneias ⁷ it is said that an enunciation is speech signifying truth or falsehood, namely in exercised act; which is to signify what is conformed to the thing or non-conformed as such.

VII. From these considerations, however, the fourth point is evident, which introduces great obscurity into this matter, namely that truth is a conformity of intellect and thing. For this can be understood of the truth of a thing, or of truth absolutely. And in the first way it is very well said: since the truth by which every thing is said to be true in its own degree of being (esse), whether or not anything knows it, consists in the conformity of these two, as is clear from this passage and the preceding one. In the second way, however, as appears at first sight, it is well said, but must be understood particularly: because not the conformity of any intellect whatever, but only of a complex intellect, is truth, as is clear from what was said ⁸. But if we have examined this definition more deeply, we shall find that, speaking universally and properly, this definition belongs to truth alone in the absolute sense; and not to the truth of a thing, except extensively. For the conformity of an intellect to a thing can be found in the intellect in two ways: in one way per accidens, in another way per se. For no simple (incomplex) intellect, as such, has conformity to a thing per se: because the simple, as such, exercises no relation of equality or inequality to another ⁹, even though perhaps it is in fact adequate to another, as is clear by induction. But every complex mental proposition exercises ¹⁰, in its proper character, being equal or unequal to the thing enunciated: since essentially it is a likeness consisting in this, that something is or is not in that thing; and if indeed what it represents as present is present, it is called conformate; but if not, difform. Therefore, since some intellect is conformate or difform from its own proper character; and since the conformity of intellect is of the character of truth absolutely; it is consistent that the discussion concerns the intellect to which conformity belongs per se. So that the sense is: truth is a conformity of intellect and thing, that is: truth is an intellect conformate to a thing per se; or, the conformity of an intellect that is per se the subject of conformity: so that in the definition of truth the intellect is posited as subject not per accidens, but per se. Such is the composing intellect, as was said ¹¹. Hence Aristotle, in Book IV of the Metaphysics, text 27 ¹², defined true and false by means of the enunciable, saying that the true is for being (ens) to be (esse) and non-being not to be, while the false is for being not to be and non-being to be. So that he defines the enunciable by the true, and the true by the enunciation: so that it may be shown that the true is found properly only in this composition, as truth exercised.