PART TWO

APPLICATION OF THE CRITERION TO DEMONSTRATE
THE TRUTH OF PURE KNOWLEDGE

CHAPTER 3

Possible(91) application of the idea of being

1136. As soon as the idea of being is applied to things, it changes into the principle by means of which we know things (cf. vol. 2, 558 ss.). According to the aspect under which this application is considered and the difference in the applications themselves, the idea of being, although one, is expressed in several principles and even seems to multiple itself (cf. vol. 2, 570 ss.).
The first four principles were deduced from the idea of being in New Essay, vol. 2, 557 ss. They are 1. the principle of knowledge; 2. the principle of contradiction; 3. the principle of substance; and 4. the principle of cause. It was shown that these principles are simply the applied idea of being. The justification given for the idea of being is therefore valid for these principles also, and the certainty of the idea is equally the certainty of the principles.(92)

1137. What has been said so far already includes the principle mentioned in the title of this article. My intention therefore is not to indicate something new, but to express more clearly and explicitly what I have already noted. In fact, when I showed that the idea of being is objective, I also proved its power of arriving with certainty at conclusions about things outside the mind which are known by us in that idea. Kant and his followers denied this power to human intelligence.

Kant did not note the principle by which the application of the idea of being becomes valid when made to things not apparent to the senses but considered simply in themselves. This principle states: 'That which my internal reasoning concludes about exterior things through necessary deduction must be true relative to the things themselves. If it were not true, my internal reasoning could not exist. But it does exist.'

1138. Let me explain. My internal reasoning exists, and possesses an intrinsic necessity. This is granted by Kant himself. But he goes on to add that this intrinsic necessity is altogether ideal, and cannot therefore be applied to things considered in themselves. My reply is that our internal reasoning, if presumed to have no force relative to things considered in themselves, cannot be true and necessary even in the simple order of ideas.

We are certain of external things, therefore, because this certainty is a necessary condition already included in the certainty we have about ideal relationships. The internal, ideal order is necessary of its own nature. It cannot be doubted; it must be granted. The external, real order is a condition without which the ideal order could not be what it is. By means of our necessary certainty in the ideal order, therefore, we are also certain of what we know in the order of real things.

The opposite seemed true because certainty, which is one, had been divided in two by the distinction made between internal and external certainty. It was not noticed that internal certainty would not be in any way, unless that which is pronounced internally is verified externally. Certainty, therefore, is one, and consists in the correspondence between what is thought and what is.

1139. This results from the essential objectivity of knowledge, as we explained earlier. But I ask once more, what is the meaning of objective? It means that knowledge terminates in an object, that knowledge does not finish in itself or in an act of one who knows, but in some different entity which may be ideal or real. Because knowledge is objective, the truth of this object is essential to knowledge. There are not, therefore, two certainties, one belonging to knowledge and the other to the object of knowledge. Object and knowledge are synthesized so that when I make my judgment and affirm that my knowledge has the object it actually possesses, certainty is an attribute of my judgment. To say 'My judgment is necessary' is equivalent to stating that the object known by me must necessarily be in the way knowledge presents it to me, and cannot be otherwise. The intrinsic, essential necessity that I experience in my knowledge is therefore certain proof of the truth of the objects of my knowledge itself.

1140. The principle of knowledge(93) and that of contradiction(94) presuppose possible being as a different essence from that of the subject, and as opposite to the subject. The intrinsic necessity felt in these principles, therefore, enables us to draw conclusions about being considered in itself and separate from every affection of our own. In other words, what our knowledge affirms as necessary is as follows: 'The act by which we exist subjectively is altogether different from the act by which being exists as thought.' This knowledge, therefore, can only be necessary if the essential distinction between being and ourselves is also necessary.

1141. The same can be said about the other two principles of substance and cause.
As a result of perceiving some accident, I conclude that a substance exists; as a result of some happening, I conclude that a cause really exists. That this substance and this cause really subsist is contained in the necessity proper to my first cognition. Let us grant that I have not perceived the substance with my senses, nor perceived the cause directly; it is nevertheless sufficient for me to have perceived the accident and the event or happening. If I am certain of what I have perceived, I am also certain about that which I have not perceived with my senses (that is, the substance and cause) simply because what I have not perceived is a necessary condition of my knowledge. The truth of external things is assured at the same level as my internal knowledge because it is a necessary condition of my internal knowledge. In fact, if the external substance and cause were not real, the internal proposition, 'Given the accident or happening, the substance or cause must exist', would be false. But this proposition is as true and necessary as the principles of contradiction and knowledge. These principles, in turn, are as true and necessary as the idea of being, the source of necessary certainty. If, therefore, it is agreed that these principles are essentially true, it must also be agreed that they are valid for application to things different from the mind and noted in themselves. The second conception is the same as the first, or at least indivisible from it.

1142. It will be maintained that this whole argument supposes that the perception of real sensible things is true. This is of course correct, but it cannot be impugned by those who agree about the internal value of knowledge. Perception is internal, and it is in our internal experience that we find both 1. modifications of ourselves, and 2. something which is not ourselves. This second element, foreign to ourselves, is revealed to us in a fact internal to ourselves, that is, in the fact of our experience, an extraordinary fact that reveals in us something different from us.

(91) Note that in this chapter we are still not dealing with the application of the idea of being to exterior things, but with the explanation of the possibility of this application. We are speaking of a possible, not an actual application.

(92) St. Thomas notes in a certain passage the very strict union that exists between the first principles and being. Sometimes he affirms that the intellect cannot err about the first principles, just as it cannot err about the being of things: Intellectus semper est rectus secundum quod intellectus est principiorum, circa quae non decipitur EX EADEM CAUSA, qua non decipitur circa quod quid est [The intellect is always right in so far as it is that which understands principles. It is not deceived relative to the principles for the SAME REASON that it is not deceived about that which is] (that is, about the quiddity, the being of things) (S.T., I, q. 17, art. 3, ad 2).

(93) I formulated it as: 'The object of thought is being' (vol. 2, 559 ss.).

(94) 'Being and non-being is not the object of thought' (ibid.).