Nelson Ramirez

The purpose of this essay is to look at whether Aquinas teaches in De veritate [DV], q. 1, a. 4, that truth is a form inherent in things. I take up this investigation because I am examining Lawrence Dewan's account of Aquinas's teaching on truth.1 On Dewan's account, a significant development occurs in Aquinas's teaching as regards truth as it is found in things. Before the Summa theologiae [ST], Aquinas thought that in addition to truth being in the intellect, it was also in things. In ST, most explicitly in I, q. 16, a. 6, Aquinas no longer thinks that it is in things, but only in the mind. When Dewan says that before the ST truth is "in things" and in the ST it is not "in things," in both cases, by "in things," Dewan means "as a form inherent in things." What exactly this means for Dewan will be gradually brought out as I examine the text Dewan thinks most clearly teaches that truth is a form inherent in things: DV, q. 1, a. 4.

Most readers of Deely's Four ages volume encounter difficulty with his use of the terms “subject” and “object,” which are key to the book. In this essay I try to remove this difficulty by exploring and laying out in detail the notion of what “purely objective reality” becomes according to Deely's usage. Is there such a thing? This question can be answered only if one understands the meaning of the expression “purely objective reality”. My paper explores the expression in two ways: (1) from current ordinary usage of the terms making it up; (2) from a technical usage once common but now rare. According to the results of the first investigation into the terms of the expression, I attempt to put together what the whole expression might mean. Then, according to the results of the second exploration, I show that one can answer affirmatively to the question of this essay. However, I also point out how the common usage of the term “reality” holds within itself significant connections to the technical meaning of the term “purely objective reality,” and suggest that Deely's now technical usage may actually become a postmodern common usage.