On the Three Truths – Certainty v Truth of Things:

Since Descartes, there have been many battles over the certainty of our knowledge [1.1]– of things and our thoughts. Today’s understanding of ‘what’s true’ seems to involve only one criterion– certainty.

I argue/maintain/propose there are three types of truth. Each truth has different certainties which flow from its nature. I offer the following table as an explanation of my position.

The table below illustrates the three truths and their relation to ‘certainty.’

The post-modern intellectuals of our last century view this 3rd truth as meaningless. Yet, to deny this level of truth serves to slice reality into an unbounded thing. Reality cannot be divorced from understanding, which is the nature of the universal – the 3rd truth.

To uncouple understanding from knowledge (epistemology) may be adequate for some philosophical discussions, but it will not provide answers reaching for the truth and order of all things. When an object is considered without understanding the structure of things surrounding, form, and nature, your conclusions will be inadequate and biased toward dualistic conundrums like the mind/body issue.[2.1] You also fall into the epistemological trap of holding truth to knowledge of causes, effects, and events.

“A wise man is one who savors all things as they really are.”  Bernard of Clairvaux

As Aquinas states: “The intellect receives its measure from objects; that is, human knowledge is true not of itself, but it is true because and insofar as it conforms to reality.” ST I, II, 93, ad 3. Via Josef Pieper’s, Reality and The Good, Josef Pieper, © 1989

St. Thomas Aquinas, Ver. I, 1 and 3. “Ens non potest intelligi sine vero.”
Transcendent truths- operate in multiple planes. We arrive at them not just by rational, discursive thought nor by only contemplative, intellectual thought. They are apprehended via triads of interferential coherence – best illustrated by those Aquinas and Aristotle discussed. From Aquinas – acts of the intellect (concept, judgment, reasoning) with Aristotle’s transcendentals of being (unity, truth, goodness), along with the universal requisites of the beautiful (wholeness, harmony, radiance), these triads are all involved in grasping a whole perception of the subject and objects confronting.

Thus, transcendent truths are about a whole understanding, not just certainty of measurable caused results (knowledge). These ‘revealed’ truths arise from the Structure of our being and not just what’s on our mind.

Transcendent truths reveal the whole truth, “All being is true (omne ens est verum).” [Pieper 1989] This means all things that have existence can be known and intelligible. Therefore, transcendent truths – especially the highest Truth of all things – is an understanding beyond just knowing. Such revealing truth involves things (objects), the senses, a knowing mind (person -subject), and our given Structure- all to order and apprehend reality.

Hence, insight, perception, apprehension, the ‘ah’ of revealed truth, and the joy of arrival at the Truth.

If we consider the way or how of our thinking – in its whole – the realm of the 3rd Truth may be a little clearer.

We Think in Toto

The table below represents       the whole of our continual dynamic process of evaluation. We typically do not recognize our whole thought process. This oversight is highlighted in a quote from Henri Bergson – Matter and Memory (1911), pg. 194:

“Our reluctance to admit the integral survival of the past has its original, then, in the very bent of our psychic life, — an unfolding of states wherein our interest prompts us to look at that which is unrolling, and not that which is entirely unrolled.”

Note, In the table below, I do not address the interplay of images, memory and matter, which Bergson explores in Matter and Memory. This will be separately presented.

Triad of How We Think – We call this triad of The Phenomenon Gate:

Intellectus – primus

“It is possible to distinguish ratio from intellectus by defining ratio as reason engaged in a discursive movement of causal relations, and intellectus as reason resting in the understanding of the ultimate meaning.” (Stein, 2002) Pg. 64-65 Ratio = (practice procedure)

Thomas Aquinas said that Being is a simple concept to which all predicates and transcendentals add something and are resolved, which is the first known. “That which the intellect first conceives as the most known and into which it resolves all its concepts is being… Hence it follows that all other concepts of the intellect are obtained by an addition to being.” de Veritate, q.1, a.1

Ordering & Naming – secundus (ordinal) – this is our initial efforts at understanding

Understanding is superior to knowing . In arguments or discussions with people – how many times have you said or heard, “I see that, but I don’t understand it.” This common example points toward the idea that understanding is higher . Understanding is a grasping which is first about identity and ordinal affirming. When we confront, we are orienting it first, placing it where it can be grabbed. “Thus, to be an object (objectivity) always involves a relation to a subject” (Y. Simon). We adopt ourselves as the initial pseudo reference point and dictionary. From this we ‘sort it out’ in terms of identity and its place in space and priority. Once even generally established, we then go into the more causal thinking and measurements.

We seek from or with a unity of thought, which seems to understand that parts are quantities of things, but qualities proceed from a certain form (Aquinas). For example, a fruit vendor arranging fruit to be most attractive leads to a disposition of arrangement that has an appealing quality when taking in the whole (Y. Simon).

Yves Simon states that every disposition of parts of a whole (a unity) is relative to an end. The order of them that is fitting to form and end. This is the nature of quality.

1) the whole of it as it is
2) the whole beyond it as it should be
3) the reference of the whole to other wholes

Functional thinking- Ratio

Third, this is our confrontation and evaluation of things and their elements as they are in the geophysical boundaries of nature. These are best described as occurring in circles and cycles. At this point or even starting from here we are engaging in dealing with Aristotle’s third -efficient cause. In this area of thought measurement, certainties, and repeatability are paramount.[4