Capítulo 8. Chapter VIII.—Of The True And Truth
[2.8.80] Even were we to grant, by way of hypothesis, that a criterion of truth exists, it is found to be useless and vain if we recall that, so far as the statements of the Dogmatists go, truth is unreal and the true non- substantial.[202]
[2.8.81] The passage we recall is this: ‟The true is said to differ from truth in three ways—in essence, composition, potency. In essence, since the true is incorporeal (for it is judgement and ‟expression”[203]), while truth is a body (for it is knowledge declaratory of all true things, and knowledge is a particular state of the regent part, just as the fist is a particular state of the hand, and the regent part is a body; for according to them it is breath).
[2.8.82] In composition, because the true is a simple thing, as for example ‘I converse,’ whereas truth is a compound of many true cognitions.[204]
[2.8.83] In potency, since truth depends on knowledge but the true does not altogether so depend. Consequently, as they say, truth exists only in the good man, but the true in the bad man as well; for it is possible for the bad man to utter something true.”
Such are the statements of the Dogmatists.
[2.8.84] But awe,—having regard here again to the plan of our treatise,—shall confine our present discussion to the true, since its refutation entails that of truth as well, it being defined as the ‟system of the knowledge of things true.” Again, since some of our arguments, whereby we dispute the very existence of the true, are more general, others of a specific kind, whereby we prove that the true does not exist in utterance or in expression or in the movement of the intellect, we deem it sufficient for the present to set forth only those of the more general kind. For just as, when the foundation of a wall collapses, all the super- structure collapses along with it, so also, when, the substantial existence of the true is refuted, all the particular inventions of the logic of the Dogmatists are included in the refutation.