Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

III
ON THE THESIS:
“VERITAS EST ADAEQUATIO
REI ET INTELLECTUS”
(5 March, 1915)
1. To the question, what is to be understood by truth, one usually replies: truth is an
agreement between the intellect and a thing. And then one tries to draw important
metaphysical conclusions. Some have even supposed that we have here a criterion of what
is true and what is false. But this is to overlook the fact that we cannot possibly know that
there is an agreement between things unless we know each of the things between which the
agreement holds. Hence if all knowledge were thought of as knowledge of agreement, we
would be required to complete an impossible regressus ad infinitum. The real guarantee of
the truth of a judgement lies in the judgement’s being evident; if a judgement is evident,
then either it is directly evident or it is evident as a result of a proof connecting it with other
judgements which are directly evident. It is possible to distinguish certain classes of evident
judgements. By referring to the characteristics which are peculiar to these classes, using
them as a kind of rule, we may be able to orient ourselves in those cases, all too frequent,
in which the weakness of the human intellect leads us to confuse apparent evidence with
real evidence. 26
2. But what about the definition of truth above? What does it mean? Is it really an adequate
criterion, and is it meant to be such? It speaks of an agreement between the intellect and
a thing; truth has to do with someone who judges and who, in judging, relates himself
to a thing; and this, in my opinion, is undeniable. We can speak of truth only in the case
of someone who is judging correctly, and we can speak of falsehood only in the case of
someone who is judging incorrectly. 27 In judging we relate ourselves to something, either
by accepting it or by rejecting it, and this “something” is to be understood as a thing. But
although the one who judges must exist, this something need not exist. For the one who
judges may refer to the thing either by accepting it or by rejecting it. And there are other
cases where the concrete thing need not exist. Some of the things-referred to by the person
who judges are thought of only in modo obliquo, though always in relation to something
which is itself thought in modo recto; for such an affirmative judgement to be true, the thing
that is thought in modo obliquo need not exist. Thus I might judge that there is someone
who believes that the devil exists. 28 Or, again, I might say that a certain event took place
100 years ago. The event need not exist for the judgement to be true; it is enough that I, who
exist now, be 100 years later than the event. If I judge that a thing is impossible, the thing
need not exist in order for my judgement to be correct. And if I say that a thing is possible, I
do not thereby accept or affirm the thing; what I do is to deny, of anyone who apodictically
rejects the thing, that he judges correctly. 29 We see, then, that the great variety of ways