Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In the title, "ly" true is taken in the community of its analogy, as is evident from the response to the first question.

In the body, one conclusion, answering the question affirmatively: Truth and being are convertible. — It is proved by a reason that includes at once the force of the middle term and a manifestation drawn from the proportional likeness of truth and goodness. The force of the middle term is: each thing, insofar as it has esse, to that extent is knowable; therefore ens and truth are convertible. — The antecedent is made manifest from the authority of Book III On the Soul, in which it is said that the soul is all things, because it is all things knowable; for this would not be true unless knowability matched esse, as is evident. But the consequence is proved: because truth imports an order to cognition, that is, the knowable.

Proportional similarity, however, consists in three things. First, in this: as the good signifies the appetible, so the true signifies the intelligible. Second, that as the good is convertible with being (ens), so is the true. Third, as the good adds over and above being (ens) an ordination to appetite, so the true adds an ordination to intellect.

II. On this point there is one doubt. For the force of the medium consists in this, that the true signifies the knowable in general, as is clear both from the words of the text and from the authority cited from Book III of the Soul. But the text itself declares this to be false at the end, since it says that the true signifies an ordination to the intellect; and thereby it signifies the knowable in this way, namely through the intellect, and not the knowable in general. And truly it is so: for, as was said in the first article, the true signifies that toward which the intellect tends.

III. To this it is briefly answered by denying that the force of the medium requires that "true" signify "knowable in common." For it is sufficient either that it signify knowable in common, or that it signify in such a way that the mode of signifying be so ample as to extend to all things to which knowable in common extends. For it makes no difference to the force of the argument whether "true" imports knowable in common, or something equivalent to it: in either case there follows the convertibility of the true with being. And so it is in the case at hand: since intelligibility extends to all things to which knowability extends—for everything knowable is intelligible, and each thing has as much intelligibility as it has of esse—he began from the knowable in the letter and arrived at the intelligible, so as to hand on the teaching from the easier matters, leaving what we have said to be understood implicitly. So too, when he says each thing insofar as it has of esse, to that extent is knowable, he leaves out and conversely, which nevertheless must be understood implicitly, so that ens and the true follow upon one another convertibly.

IV. In reply to the third point, a difficulty arises: because this reply seems to conflict with things said above and elsewhere by St. Thomas. For it was said in the first article that the true is that toward which the intellect tends, just as the good is that toward which the appetite tends; and elsewhere ¹ it is said that the true is the object of the intellect. But now it is said that the notion of the true attains upon the apprehension of ens. For the object of the intellect does not follow intellection, but rather precedes it. — It also seems contrary to the truth. For ens is not true because it is apprehended; rather, conversely, because it is true, therefore it is apprehended, whether actually or potentially. V. To this it is said that the true is taken in two ways, as is clear from what has been said ²: namely, for the truth of the thing, and properly. And that which is properly true is the intrinsic terminus of intellection, and its intrinsic object, indeed the proper objective perfection of the one understanding. And thus the true neither follows nor precedes intellection, but is simultaneously that which perfects it. And of this the present text is not speaking, but rather the text of the first article, which infers that the true is in the intellect. — The true of the thing, however, is indeed posterior to ens, but prior to cognition; and it is the object of the intellect not formally, since that is ens, but it is the proper condition of the formal object. For ens, although according to all conditions and modes and notions it terminates the intellect, since all things are understood actually or potentially, nevertheless requires a certain general condition by which it exercises this function of objectively perfecting the intellect: and this the true adds over and above ens. For it does not perfect the intellect in just any way; just as neither does it perfect the appetite in just any way, nor act in just any way. Hence between the true and the good, although they agree in this, that each is an object and terminates, etc., there is this difference: that the good seems to signify the formal object of the will, whereas the true seems to signify a condition of the formal object. And therefore every appetition is an appetition of the good formally; but not every intellection is an intellection of the true formally, as is said in the text, but of a true thing; so that the word thing denotes the thing understood, and the word true the condition by which the thing is understood. On this account, the arguments of Scotus in I, dist. III, qu. III or V, by which he attacks the claim that the true is the proper object of the intellect, need not be solved: because they speak of the formal object, which in this text is taught not to be so. VI. To the opposing arguments ³, therefore, it must be said that the statements of St. Thomas are contrary neither to one another nor to the truth. For this text does not mean, speaking of the truth of the thing, that the notion of the true follows apprehension; but that the notion of the true stands by or assists apprehension. For this is what he intends by the word attains upon: for to attain upon, properly speaking, is not to follow, but rather to reach. For the text clearly shows that it intends nothing else than that there is something true when ens is understood and yet the true is not understood; as also the example of intelligibility shows; for it is established that the object is intelligible before it is apprehended. Nor for that reason do we posit the true in the thing without an order to the intellect; rather, we posit first ens, then ens as perfective of the intellect, and third the intelligible; because it is intelligible because it is true, and not conversely. But in this, namely in being perfective of the intellect, an order to the intellect is manifestly evident.