PART ONE

THE CRITERION OF CERTAINTY

CHAPTER 8

A very simple way of refuting scepticism

1062. The sole form of human reason is being in all its universality (cf. vol. 2, 385–1039), which is both the principle of knowledge and of certainty.(21)
Being in all its universality, considered as the principle of knowledge, is called IDEA, the first or mother-idea; considered as the principle of certainty, it is generally called ‘final reason’, and TRUTH of our intellections (cf. 1048–1049).
This is sufficient to justify what I wrote in Saggio sui confini della ragione: ‘TRUTH is the sole form of human reason’ (Teodicea, 151).

1063. We must note carefully that this correct way of speaking is sufficient of itself to offer an easy refutation of the sceptics. Common sense is indeed immune from the assaults of sophists who, although they think they are attacking it, do not even direct their blows against it. When we confront the sceptics with the whole of mankind, they can be shown to be fighting their own phantasies rather than common sense.

Any dialogue between common sense and scepticism will develop more or less as follows. Common sense says that the truth and falsity of some propositions can be known; scepticism maintains that no human being can know the truth.

Common sense asserts that we reason continually; we have ideas, join ideas to make judgments, and link judgments to form arguments; these different actions of our spirit allow us to know whether a proposition is reasonable or not, true or false. For scepticism this is a waste of time; the ideas obtained by reasoning are illusions and always devoid of truth.

Although common sense admits that it may not be as sophisticated or far-seeing as scepticism and cannot therefore desire to be on a level with it, it attains satisfaction before scepticism does. For its part, scepticism despises the entire cause of common sense’s complete satisfaction and contentment. It despises truth, and seeks something beyond it. In any case, it believes that common sense can never find truth.

Scepticism readily accepts that the human spirit reasons, but considers such actions valueless. Common sense, however, is not concerned about the value of reasoning, but that it is in fact carried out. By means of reasoning, common sense arrives at an ultimate reason for propositions whose truth or falsity it wishes to ascertain. Scepticism considers of no authority or value whatsoever the ultimate reason to which common sense reduces all its reasoning; reasoning is valueless precisely because its foundation is a gratuitous, unproven and unsupported ultimate reason to which assent must be given gratuitously.

At this point common sense, baffled by the subtlety of the sceptics’ argument, asks if they know the correct name for the ultimate reason of reasoning. They reply that words have no importance; the problem concerns things, not words. Common sense points out that without agreement on the meaning of words the parties to a discussion cannot know what is being discussed, and insists that the ‘ultimate reason’ under discussion is properly called TRUTH.(22)

Common sense proclaims therefore that the difference between the common mass of people and sceptics lies precisely in the people’s satisfaction with truth and the sceptics’ desire to go beyond it in their endeavour to find something more worthy of them than truth. Ordinary people are content to state the fact. Without deciding who is right or wrong, they simply want to clarify their position so that sceptics will at least know what they are attacking.

Common sense is aware that at this point the mass of people are reproached by sceptics for their misuse of words in calling ‘truth’ the ultimate reason in which all human reasoning terminates. According to sceptics, this misuse is particularly foolish because the difficulty lies precisely in knowing whether the ultimate reason is true or illusory. According to sceptics, the rest of mankind considers the question settled before it is discussed.

Common sense insists once more that mankind has difficulty grappling with the subtleties of sceptics whatever the question under discussion. Moreover, it is the people in general, educated and uneducated, who name things authoritatively. Even the sceptics, before becoming philosophers, were educated in human society, where they learnt the very language they now use in order to argue with people. This language had been formed before they began to philosophise, think, or were even born; they used it in common with all other people in order to express their ideas. It is impossible therefore for the word truth to be used with a meaning different from that given by society, past and present.

Nor can the whole human race be accused of misusing words. It is society that makes and sanctions the law of language, which must be obeyed by educated and uneducated alike if they wish to understand each other. Sceptics are guilty of extraordinary presumption in imposing on the human race a law controlling the meaning of the very words they themselves have received from mankind!

Sceptics certainly have the right to subtle reasoning, but human society must be allowed its right over language, a right which cannot be taken away or violated with impunity. Human society, from the beginning of its existence until now, has always understood that, in affirming that it knows the truth of a proposition, it knows the final reason and element of the proposition. This is the only value human society has given to the word ‘truth’. Sceptics therefore cannot deny truth; they do not even attack it if they agree that human beings, on analysing every argument, reduce it to its ultimate element or reason of reasoning.(23) To call this reason false is a misuse of words, because what we call truth is this very reason. Truth therefore is immune from the sceptics’ attacks, and the difference between the sceptics and common sense is simply this: common sense, once it has attained the truth, is satisfied, and acknowledges its satisfaction, whereas scepticism is unaware of the truth it has attained and continues its search for something more elevated, arbitrarily and misleadingly called ‘truth’.(24)

1064. Anyone who appreciates the force of this confrontation will find that common sense has not only vindicated the existence of truth but put it beyond question.
He will also see that the origin of the sceptics’ harrowing mistake lies ultimately in a misuse of abstraction.
Error is very easy in any argument that considers abstractly, and not in itself, the object which is its sole concern. An abstract concept is not the perfect concept of an object, and therefore does not possess everything contained in the object. It lacks that which, as proper to the object, determines it to the exclusion of every other object. The lack of this important element must result in error and false reasoning.

This is the error made by the sceptics when discussing truth. They consider it abstractly, as a quality predicated of different propositions whose truth or falsehood is sought. In using this general, abstract concept of truth we distinguish between a proposition and its truth with the result that the proposition can always seem separate from its truth. Hence, the sceptics claim that no proposition is true, and that the union of the two elements, proposition and truth, can never be realised.

But they certainly could not have claimed this if they had formed the proper concept of truth by considering truth in itself, not abstractly. In this case, they would have seen that truth in all conclusion-propositions is indeed separate from the propositions themselves. Here the truth of the proposition is one thing and the proposition another. But truth is nothing other than a first proposition. With this in mind, they would have seen that there is a proposition which expresses truth itself, that is, a reason which everyone calls TRUTH. Having examined truth closely, not as some vague, abstract notion, but in itself, and discovered that it is an ultimate reason expressed in an ultimate proposition, they would have known clearly that it is absurd and contradictory to deny that truth is truth. Their error therefore consists in misusing words and neglecting to understand their value.

As a result, the problem posed by scepticism is entirely altered. We no longer ask, ‘Can we know truth?’ but ‘Must we be satisfied with truth?’, and assent to it? Is what the human race calls ‘truth’ so authoritative, so absolute that nothing more noble, satisfying or worthy can be found beyond it?
This new way of posing the question, which clearly indicates the correct solution vainly rejected by the sceptics, is the only one that can stand. We will see this better in the following chapters.

(21) Common sense accepts this as true also. The sceptics attack common sense, but I will defend it in the following chapters.

(22) We have shown that being constitutes what is generally called the ‘light of reason’, or, according to the Schoolmen, the ‘light of the acting intellect’; it is the ultimate reason through which all other things are known. St. Augustine himself calls this light and reason truth: Lux increata est ratio cognoscendi et lux sola increata EST VERITAS [Uncreated light is the reason for knowledge, and only uncreated light IS TRUTH] (De V. Relig., c. 34 and 36). He calls the reason for knowledge ‘uncreated’ because everything positive in it is uncreated and divine. The limits, however, with which it is manifested to human beings are co-created with human beings. Thus it can also be called ‘created light’, as St. Thomas calls it without disagreeing with St. Augustine.

(23) Sceptics do not deny appearances. Hence, they do not deny knowledge; they simply declare it devoid of certainty. They attack the truth of knowledge at its base, that is, at the ultimate principle of certainty [App., no. 2].

(24) The example I have given indicates the necessity of the correct study of words before we impugn the opinions of common sense, which are found solely in the use of words. Reflection on this important point reveals the intimate union between ideas and words, and shows how the latter alone contain the tradition proper to human opinions. Ancient thinkers considered etymology, or better, the study of the value of words, an extremely necessary part of logic. Cicero gives us the teaching of the Academicians and Peripatetics on the matter: Verborum etiam explicatio probabatur, qua de causa quaeque essent ita nominata: quam etymologiam appellabant [Words were explained to discover why things had received their particular names. They called this explanation ‘etymology’] (cf. Acad., bk. 1).