Objective, Transcendental, Formal Truth: The Question on Truth in the Early Modern Jesuit Metaphysics and Scholastic Theology

The article studies the transformation of the traditional Peripatetic concept of truth in the Jesuit metaphysics and scholastic theology of the Early Modern period. The essence of this transformation is described as an increasing tendency towards a convergence of the classical scholastic concept of the "transcendental truth of things" and the new concept of "objective truth” and to replace the first concept with the second. First, the article describes and analyzes the classic for the later Jesuit tradition disposition of the concept of truth in a metaphysical treatise on truth within the framework of the VIIIth Metaphysical Disputation by Fr. Suárez and shows the traditional opposition of the formal truth of knowledge or judgment and transcendental truth as an attribute of being as such. Secondly, the article shows that an essential characteristic of Suárez's metaphysical concept of truth is the reality of truth, and not objectivity as conceivability, not limited to real entity. It is indicated that Suárez is quite familiar with the concept of “objective truth”, but applies it only in his theology, while excluding it from metaphysics. Thirdly, the article looks into the theological motives for the formation of the concept of objective truth as key for the Jesuit theology of ‘scientia media’. Finally, the article analyzes the content of the treatise on the "objective truth" of things in the Pharus scientiarum by S. Izquierdo, and also demonstrates the motives and consequences of the identification of objective and transcendental truth in Izquierdo’s ontology.