Whether truth is best understood as a translation of reality into ideas (concepts), thought, and language

One of my pet thoughts. Not sure I can make sense of it.

Objection 1.

It seems misleading to call truth a translation. Translation concerns words passed from one language to another, while truth concerns the relation between thought and what is.

 

Objection 2.

Further, every translation changes the original in some way. If truth is a translation, then every act of knowing would involve distortion.

 

Objection 3.

Moreover, translation depends on the practices and culture of the translator. If truth is a kind of translation, it would vary with forms of life and thus be relative.

 

Objection 4.

Also, translation suggests that reality is already in linguistic form prior to being translated. But things are not linguistic. They exist independently of words.

 

Objection 5.

Further, essence seems to remove the need for translation. An essence can often be expressed in a clear definition. A geometrical circle is the same in English and German, and both “circle” and Kreis refer to the same structure without variation. If essence is already fully captured in a definition, the mind does not need to translate reality into thought. It only needs to apply the concept correctly. Translation, then, is unnecessary.

Objection 6.

Further, if the being of a thing such as a tree is disclosed not only through its definitional essence but also through the emotional responses, cultural meanings, and practical uses associated with it, then its being would seem to vary with the different ways in which it is experienced or interpreted. For one person, the tree may appear as beautiful or sheltering; for another, as an obstacle or a source of timber. If such responses are taken to disclose the being of the thing itself, rather than merely subjective attitudes toward it, then the being of the tree would appear to depend upon human perception or practice. Truth would no longer consist in the intellect’s adequation to what is, but in the adequation of what is to the interpreter’s response.

Objection 7.

   Further, if the being of a thing may be disclosed in a plurality of affective, cultural, or practical engagements, then it becomes difficult to distinguish between genuine disclosures and distortions. For an object may be encountered as beautiful, useful, sacred, or as merely a resource to be exploited, depending on the practices and interpretive frameworks within which it appears. If each such encounter is understood as a translation of the being of the thing into a particular conceptual or linguistic medium, then it would seem that no principled distinction can be drawn between understandings that reveal what the thing is and those that obscure or reduce it. Thus, the reduction of a tree to a quantity of timber available for extraction would appear no less a disclosure of its being than the perception of it as living or beautiful. Truth as adequation would then collapse into whatever mode of interpretation happens to prevail, and the forgetfulness of being could not be distinguished from knowledge of it.

 

Sed contra.

   Aquinas says that truth is the mind’s “adequation” to the thing. Adequation means the mind receives what is understood according to its own mode. Translation clarifies this reception for finite knowers.

 

Respondeo.

   I answer that truth in human understanding may be understood as the successful translation of the form of a thing from its natural mode of being in reality into its intelligible (cognitive) mode of being in the intellect, which is what Aquinas means by the adequation of mind and thing. One translation of a great poem into another language, for example, does not exhaust the full being (meaning) of the poem. Not even the greatest translations can be definitive. But each good or great translation always discloses some aspect of the poems reality, its being, its meaning as well as disclosing something about the person and the culture of the translator. A bad translation, either through lack of competence or ideological bias, distorts the being of the poem. The person and the culture of the translator both limit understanding and open up new areas of the poem that were hidden from others (cf. Heidegger on truth as disclosure). A translation of a poem is a more or less strong or weak analogy of the original, which transcends any particular translation – or reading in the original, for that matter. Thus our conceptions of trees, water, night, human beings, nature, justice, children, or ethics are translations of the things themselves.

      This does not replace the account of truth as adequation. It explains how adequation occurs in beings who do not know by simple intuition but through concepts, speech, and practices belonging to a form of life. “Being adequate to” or “being appropriate” is the general structure: the mind is directed to what is and seeks to understand it as it is. Translation describes the human mode of this relation. The mind does not reproduce things but carries over their intelligible structure into its own manner of expression.

      Aquinas says that the form of the tree is in the intellect. This becomes intelligible once we see that knowing is not the reproduction of a second tree but the reception of the same form according to a different mode of being. In the tree, the form exists with matter, in natural being. In the intellect, the same form exists without matter, in intentional being. What is received is not the tree’s wood or leaves but the intelligible structure that makes it to be a tree. This structure is carried over into the medium of thought according to the mode of the knower. Aquinas formulates the general principle: whatever is received is received according to the mode of the recipient. The intellect therefore does not duplicate reality but translates its form into its own immaterial manner of existence. Truth as adequation consists in this successful carrying-over. The intellect is adequate to the thing when what exists naturally in the object exists intelligibly in thought without distortion. Human knowing is thus neither copying nor construction but an ontological translation from natural being into finite intelligible being.

     This analogical character can be seen more simply. A tree can be understood as living, rooted, sheltering, solid, or changing with the seasons. These features belong to the same essence. Yet a language often gives more weight to some than others. An English speaker may think of branches and shade; a German speaker of the strength or age of a Baum. These differences are not errors but natural variations in how people meet the same reality within their own practices. The mind receives the same essence, and language expresses it through related meanings. This is analogy. It allows one essence to be carried over in different languages without ceasing to be the same.

     The difference between technical and ordinary language shows how translation works. The essence of a circle can be given in a strict definition. For this reason, its expression in different languages changes little. “Circle” in English and Kreis in German refer to the same structure almost univocally. A tree is different. Its being is met through experience within a form of life. The English word “tree” and the German “Baum” both refer to the same actualization of being, but each does so through its own associations and uses. These expressions are not univocal but analogical: each highlights certain aspects of the same intelligible structure. When the mind understands a tree, it receives the essence and expresses it through the patterns of its own language; this act is already a translation. Thus tree has many different "connotations" and associations in different languages/cultures. When two languages refer to the same thing, each expresses that shared essence through its own analogical range of meaning. The differences do not break the unity of what is understood. They show how one essence may be expressed faithfully in different conceptual forms. Just as two somewhat different translations of a poem can both be faithful to it. 

     We see this in ordinary life. A person does not learn the word “tree” by learning a sound attached to an object. He learns a word that has grown through human experience: a child playing in its shade, a soldier remembering it before leaving home, a woodcutter seeing material to work with. These experiences shape the word within a form of life. The mind brings the tree into thought through concepts shaped by these uses. The understanding differs from the thing but conveys what is intelligible in it. This is the ordinary case of translation: the carrying over of essence into thought, expressed through language.

     Translation therefore clarifies adequation. The mind conforms to what is by receiving its being and expressing it in its own medium. Being only discloses itself to finite minds in this way. Finite minds articulate the same reality through analogical expressions rooted in human practices. Just as all the possible adequate translations of a great poem can be thought to express its full essence, thus all the possible non-distorting conceptualizations of a tree – poetic, in painting, in religion and myth, in philosophy, in science, in culture in general – together come closest to revealing the full being of the tree.

 

Replies to the Objections

Reply to Objection 1.

   Translation here is taken broadly as the carrying-over of meaning into a new medium. Human understanding works in this way. Thus a novel can be translated into a motion picture, an electrical impulse can be translated into an image or a sound, an emotion can be translation into colors or music, etc. These translations can be more or less “adequate” to the original. One meaning of wisdom is that the “translations” are deeply revealing of the “originals.”

 

 Reply to Objection 2.

    A translation differs from the original without being unfaithful. Finite knowing has this character: difference does not necessarily imply distortion.

 

Reply to Objection 3.

Forms of life shape how we express what we understand, but the measure of truth remains what is. Translation is guided by the thing known, not created by perspective.

 

Reply to Objection 4.

Translation does not imply that reality is linguistic. It means that human beings express what they understand in language. Reality is primary; the translation is our manner of grasping it.

 

Reply to Objection 5.

A definition expresses an essence, but the essence itself is not linguistic. The mind receives the essence by its own act and expresses it according to its own mode. Even when two languages use precise terms for the same essence, the understanding is first a translation from reality into thought. Only then is it expressed in a particular language. The words “circle” and Kreis differ little because the essence is expressed univocally in geometry. But “tree” and Baum belong to ordinary language, where analogy governs meaning. The unity of the thing understood remains stable, and the differences in expression arise from how human beings encounter the same reality in different practices.

Reply to Objection 6.

Emotional and practical responses do not constitute the being of the thing but may disclose intelligible aspects grounded in it. From the essence of a tree flow not only its biological structure but also its real capacities and relations: to offer shade, to sustain life, to appear as beautiful within an environment, or to serve as shelter. These perfections are not added by the observer but belong to the thing according to its nature. What varies with persons and cultures is not the being of the tree but the mode in which these aspects are received and articulated. A child, a carpenter, and a poet may each respond to different features of the same reality, not by projecting meaning onto it but by attending to real possibilities rooted in what it is. In this way, emotional and symbolic engagement may disclose modes of goodness or beauty convertible with being itself. The fullness of these perfections exceeds any finite grasp and is known completely only in the divine intellect. Human understanding therefore translates not only the definable structure of the thing but also, through emotion and practice, aspects of its participation in goodness and beauty. Such translations remain measured by the thing itself, which constrains the range of faithful disclosures without eliminating their plurality.

Reply to Objection 7

Plurality in the disclosure of being does not eliminate the distinction between truth and distortion, because translation remains governed by what the thing is. The essence of a tree grounds not only its biological structure but also its real perfections and relations. To encounter it as living, sheltering, or beautiful is to attend to intelligible features rooted in its nature. To regard it merely as a stock of material available for use is to abstract from these features and treat what belongs to it only accidentally as though it exhausted what it is. Such a reduction does not simply translate the being of the thing into another medium but narrows or occludes its intelligible structure. Judgment becomes distorting when it affirms of the thing predicates that do not correspond to its form, or when it treats derivative aspects of its being as primary. In this way, certain modes of understanding may cover over the fuller range of perfections grounded in the thing’s nature. The forgetfulness of being consists not in acknowledging one real aspect among others but in allowing a partial apprehension to function as if it were complete. Adequation therefore admits of degrees in finite knowing: some translations disclose more fully the intelligible form of what is, while others obscure it. The measure remains the being of the thing itself, which constrains both faithful articulation and ideological reduction.