Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

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The True and the Evident
that res is to be thought of as the totality of things that exist. Anyone acquainted with this
totality would have the means of passing upon the truth of every judgement, negative as
well as affirmative—a negative judgement being true if the object which it denies is not
to be found in the totality of things, and false if the object is to be found in the totality of
things.
And (one might continue) this known totality of existing things would also provide the
means of determining the truth of judgements in other tenses, for these things would be
related causally to what is past and what is future.
But this interpretation would seem to be entirely forced (one would have to speak of
“rerum” rather than “rei”). The adaequatio principle would now have to be made secure
by all kinds of explication—for example, it would be necessary to refute indeterminism
and to prove that a given state cannot be brought about in a variety of different ways. 23 And
in any case the principle would be of no practical value whatever, since no human being
has the wealth of knowledge which its application would presuppose.
8. Some of those, who have been unclear with respect to the meaning of the principle
and with respect to the fact that its practical significance is relatively minor, have simply
rejected it and replaced it by another: truth is now said to consist in the agreement of
thought with the rules of thought. But this is certainly no improvement. 24 It is well known
that false premises, by means of a paralogism, may lead to a true conclusion; but since the
conclusion is attained by an improper method, it cannot be said to be known. In such a case,
the thinking—though true—does not at all correspond to the rules of thinking.
9. One would have to take the new definition of truth in a different way. “Rules of thinking”
could be interpreted by reference to a judgement which is evident and which related to
the thing in question and in the same temporal mode; thus even a blind judgement, which
agrees in content with one that is evident, would be said to be true despite the fact that it is
not itself knowledge. Clearly, if it were not for that which is evident, no judgement about
the truth of an assertion would be possible to us. And if a man judges with evidence, then
he knows his judgement to be true without having made any comparison.
And so we may stay with the old thesis. 25 But we must resist the temptation to think of
it as a profound truth from which we can draw a wealth of metaphysical consequences.
Indeed its most important consequence for psychology and logic was drawn by Aristotle:
he pointed out that existential statements should not be interpreted as categorical statements
ascribing the attribute of existence to things. An existential statement is concerned with a
simple thing, which it affirms or denies; it does not combine things and therefore it does
not involve a synthesis of thought (Metaphysics, IX, 10).