{138} (cont'd)


3. Truth as transcendental

There is a third stratum, which is much more radical, and definitely, much more problematic that the first two, but to which Descartes expressly appeals.

Descartes tells us that everything I see with a clear and distinct perception is procul dubio (without doubt) aliquid, “something”. When I objectively think a series of evident truths, that which I think, objectively, procul dubio —without doubt, Descartes says— is something, is aliquid¹. And here is where the tradition of the previous metaphysics intervenes. This aliquid, is precisely converted with the ens, this is the conversion of transcendentals. That is why for Descartes, understanding truth that way, as the terminus of a perceptio clara ac distincta, is ens, but ens precisely {139} because it is true². This is the transcendental “verification” of entity. Everything that is clearly and distinctly perceived is aliquid and by being aliquid, is a res that is converted with the ens. That is why by this conversion, which is transcendental and evident, this third concept of truth is the concept of a truth, strictly speaking, transcendental. “Transcendental” because it is converted with ens, but starting from the intelligence. And right here is the serious decisive inflexion to which Descartes has subjected all the previous philosophy.

When the previous philosophy has spoken of the conversion of ens with the verum, it has always appealed and started from entity; it is entity qua entity what convenes with the divine intelligence and what is called to convene, in one form or another, with human intelligence. But St. Thomas does something more, he fuses these two dimensions of the truth —I shall come back immediately upon this idea—; he fuses them precisely into the intrinsic entity of the real. The real, ens, is intelligible by itself. This means that for the previous philosophy the problem of the verum transcendentale has been oriented towards ens. Hence, Descartes does not orient it towards ens; he orients it towards intelligence. That is the serious, decisive inflexion with which modern philosophy is going to be born.

Truth is the first transcendental. The first transcendental is not ens; for me, a thinking intelligence, what we call ens is that which meets with the transcendental conditions of what the verum is, of what truth is. The first transcendental is to be an aliquid verum, i.e., insofar as clearly and distinctly perceived. It is, in the transcendental order, the perfect communication for the verification of entity.

{140} While for the previous philosophy being has consisted in the entification of the real that afterwards is trans-fundamented to intelligence, which knows the real, here we have exactly the opposite position. It is the verum transcendentale, insofar as verum, the one that precisely involves the entity of an aliquid that is converted with the res. That is why the philosophy of Descartes is not only an egology; it will be something deeper and radical, a transcendental egology. “Transcendental” because truth is now left inscribed on certainty, and in turn entity is left inscribed on truth. The result is that the certainty of the ego cogitans is the ultimate and radical fundament of the transcendental order for me. The transcendental order is not based on entity; it is based on the ego insofar as it has certainties and clear and distinct perceptions of something. Of course, this is for me, for my ego, because I am a thinker; but we still have to consider things. Truth not only consists in the fact that I may think with truthfulness objective contents of a concept, but it consists in something more, it consists in the fact that things may really be what I say about them.


4. Truth as transcendent

We still have to cover a fourth concept of truth, which we must analyze carefully. Descartes does not use the expression I am going to use, but it does not matter. Let us call it “transcendent truth”, because it means not only the truth of some objective contents, clearly and distinctly perceived in the mind, but also that those objective contents, clearly and distinctly perceived by my mind (i.e., the whole transcendental order), express the reality of things beyond this order. After all is said and done, reason, {141} thinking and intelligence with all its concepts, is moving primo et per se in the order of the objective. The real, as such, remains in principle beyond reason. If reason is going to reach the real, it will have to be in a different manner than the one we have just mentioned.

This transcendent truth is the one that interests Descartes most. Descartes wishes to fundament knowledge as science, not only of God, but also of man and things; it is a transcendent truth. This is what is most important to him, but it is also the most complex.

Indeed, let us think carefully on what Descartes is going to tell us. Descartes is moving a limine on the horizon of nothingness. From this horizon is born, not only at the first level, the uncertainty of my own reason, but above all the radical uncertainty of what things are as they face this reason. Of course, Descartes has already proven through his ontological argument the existence of God (we are not going to enter now the question of the rest of His attributes) and considers —reasonably, up to a certain point— that Creation is a most free act of God. But then, this freedom, as Descartes understands it, radically affects my reason and things.

In the first place, affects my reason. It is not the case that God has been free to create beings that may have intelligence; this, of course, is a triviality about which there is no need to insist. Descartes tells us something much more important, that the entire objective order of reason, not my faculty of thinking, but the objective order of thinking and reason could have been different than it objectively is. The entire objective order of my reason, the whole transcendental order, depends on a most free act of the will of God, who has willed that a reason may have this objective order. Probably here, Descartes (with a very logical exaggeration on the other hand) has {142} continued the tradition of the previous philosophy; after all, for Ockham everything except the principle of contradiction could have been radically different than it is. Descartes estimates that even contradiction —he is not aware of this— is an act of the most free will of God.

But then, supposing He may have created the objective order of my reason, Descartes says that this is procul dubio aliquid, that it is something, and precisely by being something it has been created by God, has God for its author. He tells us literally, “est aliquid, et a nihilo esse non potest et necessarium Deum auctorem habet”³. The transcendental order, the objective order of my reason is a creation by God. Precisely by being positive it has God as ultimate creative cause. God is, from this point of view, the transcendent principle of the transcendental order.

In the second place, there is the real world. Let us put reason aside now. This real world has also been created by God as freely as He has created my reasoning reason and my objective reason. If we wish to follow a particular order, first we would have to say that Descartes considers —and it is the reason why the objective order of reason, definitely, is for him something freely willed by God— that God has created the world in conformity with some ideas He had in His mind. But, in addition, Descartes probably considers that these ideas are, in God, an act of His most free will. Here, Descartes abysmally separates himself from the philosophy of St. Thomas and accepts the decisive influence of Duns Scotus.

For St. Thomas, the essence of God considered as subsisting being involves in itself, formally, an intrinsic {143} imitativeness ad extra; this imitativeness is precisely each one of those possible imitations, it is precisely an idea. In such fashion that with the same necessity with which God is the Supreme Entity, He is also the Entity that through His ideas makes possible that which is not Him, that which is imitable ad extra. The ideas preexist in a certain way in the divine essence, and only because of that God knows them intellectually as He knows himself intellectually.

The point of view of Scotus is completely different. Scotus will tell us that inside the divine essence there is an act of fontanal will, so to speak, internal to the divine mind and this act of internal will precisely consists in creating, inside His mind, the very ideas. The ideas are an act of the most free creation of God inside His own mind; because of this the ideas do not preexist the intelligence, but rather definitely intelligence sees them as terminus of an internal creative will of God. It is a completely different point of view. Scotus, particularly at the hands of Descartes, has consigned freedom and the contingency of reality to the very bosom of the divine essence. In His act of free internal will is how God has created the ideas, has produced the ideas inside himself in conformity to which He is going to create the real world.

A second point to be taken into consideration would be that this world, which God is going to create, is in conformity with His ideas and Descartes will not abandon this point of view. In this sense, insofar as reality is pre-intellected —even though consequent to an act of will—, it has a verum transcendentale. Actually, it is adequate to the idea God has had of reality when He has created or has willed to create, and has effectively created the reality in question. Therefore, this reality possesses a verum transcendentale.

In the third place, we must keep in mind the absolute {144} independence of these two vera transcendentalia, the transcendentality in the objective order of my concepts, and the transcendentality according to which reality is in accordance with the divine ideas. That is the crucial question. They are, therefore, two transcendental truths absolutely independent.

God could have created a world that had nothing to do with the most evident and most transcendental truths of my own reason. In that case, there would not be transcendent truth; the world would not be, nor would have anything to do with what my objective concepts say. The one of my mind is a verum transcendentale that has no reason why it should coincide with the verum transcendentale of reality.

But, in addition, Descartes does not stop here. He says that God makes them coincide freely, why?

One might think of the entified attributes of God. But that is not the case. Descartes keeps working with his favorite idea of the verification of reality, and in this case, of the divine reality. However, the truth of the divine entity, of the divine reality, acquires here a special characteristic that classical theology would call the potentia Dei ordinata not absolute, which Descartes calls “veracity”. Actually God is truthful and precisely by being truthful He cannot deceive me; therefore, although He has made a real order that might have nothing to do with the transcendental order, in fact, however, He has made them coincide. He has made that the order of reality may coincide precisely with the objective order of concepts, and that the verum transcendentale of reality may coincide with the verum transcendentale of understanding.

In St. Thomas —here is the difference— there is a necessary coincidence between both orders. The entity is for St. Thomas intrinsically intelligible because it has been pre-intellected by God and because, as such, is offered to my mind. {145} For Descartes, the entity, as also my reason, is referred to a free act of divine will; that is why its coincidence is not founded on the intrinsic intelligibility of the real. That the real may be intelligible for my mind, is not an intrinsic characteristic of reality or the entity; it is simply a contingent fact, the truthful veracity of God. There does not exist a parte rei an intrinsic and a priori intelligibility of the real. With this, the unity of the transcendental order has been broken. It is true that for Descartes it is based on the divine veracity, but we shall see what happens to that divine veracity in the course of history.

At any rate, if it is true that in Descartes we are present to the dawn of rationalism, it is, however, a rationalism that often has usually been called voluntaristic rationalism. The whole Cartesian rationalism is based on a radical voluntarism; this is the will to reason. “Will” from the part of God free to create an objective order in a finite and created reason as the one we all have. Will to a free “reason” when creating a world whose internal structures may effectively coincide with the evident and transcendental structures of my reason.

But then, who does not see that the two dimensions of the verum transcendentale that the philosophy of St. Thomas had offered to us have been internally dissociated? For St. Thomas, the same reality, in its intrinsic condition insofar as entity, on the one hand is subject, so to speak, of a verum transcendentale referred to God; that entity, actually, is the pre-intelected reality on the part of the divine intellect. That entity is, on the other hand, the transcendental order referred to finite intelligence, because it is the capacity the entity has to inform every intelligence that may approach reality. Descartes does not consider things from this point {146} of view. For him, there is a strict dissociation between these two dimensions because the first transcendental for Descartes is not ens, but the verum. And as truth, this truth emerging out of a free act of God is completely different (or in principle, could be) for real things and for the human mind. If actually things are intelligible, they are so in fact through an act of freest will, but not by the intrinsic condition of their entity. The two dimensions of the verum transcendentale have been definitely dissociated. What is going to happen in the subsequent philosophy is precisely the breakdown of the unity of the transcendental order, and the radical dissociation of the two dimensions of this verum transcendentale.

The verification of reality is an operation as serious as the entification of reality. Descartes had skidded over the real characteristic of thought insofar as a reality that is there now, and has been led inexorably to dissociate the two slopes of the verum tanscendentale, referred to an act of freest divine will. That divine will, on the one hand, creates various things, and on the other hand, my reason. If God places them in accord it is precisely by the principle of intrinsic veracity; in the end, by an attribute we might call transcendental, but of a purely moral order, that God cannot deceive me.

Consequently, we definitely find: 1) The first transcendental is not being, for Descartes it is the verum; either in the case of man, who moves precisely in the order of objective evidences, or in the case of God, precisely as terminus of veracitas, His veracity.

2) Transcendent truth is not founded on the intrinsic intelligibility of entity, but is a characteristic freely willed by God; if things are intelligible, it is {147} because God has freely willed them to be so, not through an internal and intrinsic characteristic of their entity.

3) Transcendent truth is a veritas facti, it is a factual truth, the fact of the freest creation on the part of God.

4) This means, metaphysically enunciated, that against what St. Thomas intended when referring to the necessary order, to the necessary characteristic of the transcendental order, here the transcendental order is perforated by a radical contingency, this is the radical contingency of the transcendental order. The transcendental order is lacking a necessary unity taken integrally; it is purely and simply a contingent fact. I consider it importat to underline this in the vision of Descartes.

Contrary to what is commonly said, the philosophy of Descartes does not move simply in a play of certainties and insecurities; it reaches much deeper, it reaches precisely to the transcendental characteristic of the ego and the transcendental characteristic of the free divine will. From this we get four fundamental concepts of truth: firmness, manifestation, transcendentality and transcendence. Manifestation is founded on firmness; transcendentality is founded on the objective manifestation, and transcendence is a characteristic most freely willed by God. That is why Descartes moves a limine precisely on the horizon of nothingness.

What I have just said is something I have not invented. Descartes, towards the end of his Fourth Meditation (De vero et de falso), tells us there will not be error —we shall explain why— as long as the will “when issuing its judgments limits itself to what clearly and distinctly is manifested to the intellect”. It will be immovably true —this is the first concept of truth— inasmuch as it may limit itself precisely to the clear and {148} distinct perception, because —he adds, and here appears the third concept of truth— every clear and distinct perception is, without doubt, something, and therefore, cannot issue from nothing, but necessarily has God for its author” (in judiciis ferendis ita contineo, ut ad tantum se extendat quae illi clare et distincte ab intellectu exhibentur [fieri plane non potest ut errem], quia omnis clara et distincta perceptio procul dubio est aliquid ac proinde a nihilo esse non potest sed necessarium Deum autorem habet)⁴.

Precisely here appears the transcendental dimension of truth, where truth is no longer convertible with entity because it is the intrinsic expression of its own intelligibility. But quite the other way around, because the entity freely verifies what the objective truth of reason is, which God has willed to grant me, “God, that supremely perfect entity who finds it repugnant to be fallatious” (Deum inquam illum sumum perfectum quam fallacem esse repugnat). Here we have the fourth concept of truth, “ideoque procul dubio est vera”, it is, therefore, true without any doubt at all⁵.

These four concepts of truth appear, then, mingled in Descartes. But it was necessary to see them one after the other, in their internal structure, to see the metaphysical texture of the thought of Descartes. Against all appearances the thought of Descartes is not moving in a play of certainties and doubts, evidences and non-evidences, but touches {149} the most serious problems and dimensions of the very texture of the transcendental order.

Indeed, these four concepts are moving a limine on the horizon of nothingness. Descartes clearly tells us, “I am something between God and nothing, i.e., between the Highest Entity and non-entity, inasmuch as I have been created by the Highest Entity, the Supreme Entity” (me tanquam medium quid inter Deum et nihil, sive inter Sumum Ens et non ens [ita esse constitutum, ut,] quatenus a Summo Ente sum creatus)⁶.

Based on this, Descartes will tell us that the assent the will grants to ideas (and to what for him judgment formally consists) has two possibilities. One, to rely on what the clear and distinct evidences tell us, and with them not only on my transcendental truth, but also on the transcendent truth of things, on what God has freely willed them to be. The second possibility is the opposite. If the will precedes the order of their evidences, in that case —he tells us— I not only err or can err, but I have something more serious. In that case, I am falsifying the essence of the will, and at least the act of the will in order to reason. Because of this, for Descartes, the contrary to truth is not simply an error, but a falsum, i.e., a sin against reason. Not only has he verified truth, but also with respect to judgment —to put it in some form— he has moralized, in a transcendental sense, the very structure of judgment.

The horizon of nothingness is, that way, not only the result, but the very principle of Cartesian philosophy. I am uncertain and insecure, because I am that singular unity {150} of nothing and God, because I am a free creature of God. Uncertainty is not only, as in Ockham, a fringe of insecurity that accompanies the great majority of our knowledge, but something graver. It is something that constitutes the very condition of the ego; it is the intrinsic condition of the ego insofar as thinker. Nothingness places at the first level, as we can see, not the finitude of entity as in St. Thomas, but uncertainty and with it the essentially contingent characteristic of the transcendental order as such.

On this horizon of nothingness, first philosophy is a stepping march from nothingness to God full of uncertainty and anxious for evidences.

Philosophy then, is no longer theology, not even entifying theory of Creation, but anthropology open to theology. However, the inflexion has been consummated. From this moment on, philosophy will precipitously become transcendental anthropology and not theology.

_________________
¹ “omnis clara et distincta perceptio procul dubio est aliquid”, (A-T, VII, 62).
² “ideoque procul dubio est vera” (A-T, VII, 62).
³ “est aliquid, ac proinde a nihilo esse non potest, sed necessario Deum authorem habet” (A-T, VII, 62).
⁴ A-T, VII, 62.
⁵ “Nam quoties voluntatem in judiciis ferendis ita contineo, ut ad ea tantum se extendat quae illi clare et distincte ab intellectu exhibentur, fieri plane non potest ut errem, quia omnis clara et distincta perceptio procul dubio est aliquid, ac proinde a nihilo esse non potest, sed necessario Deum authorem habet, Deum, inquam, illum summe perfectum, quem fallacem esse repugnat; ideoque procul dubio est vera”, (A-T, VII, p. 62).
⁶ A-T, VII, 54.