Selected Bibliography on the History of Truth in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
A) GENERAL STUDIES
La vérité. Antiquité - Modernité
. Edited by Aenishanslin Jean-François, O'Meara Dominic, and Schüssler Ingeborg. Lausanne: Payot 2004.
Die Geschichte des philosophischen Begriffs der Wahrheit
. Edited by Szaif Jan and Enders Markus. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2006.
Allen Barry.
Truth in philosophy.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1993.
See in particular
Part One. Historical introduction 1. Classical philosophy of truth
pp. 9-28
; 2. Modern truth
pp. 29-37, for a brief sketch of the history of theories of truth.
"I begin with a historical introduction. What I call the classical philosophy of truth is an ensemble of four interdependent ideas in ancient philosophy (Greek and Christian) concerning truth's relation to nature, language, being, and the good. Together they define the historical discourse on truth I call onto-logic. The first principle of onto-logic is that the "logical" possibility of sentential truth-value derives from the "ontological" possibility of beings that "are what they are," that have an identity of their own. For onto-logic, truth is true to such beings; it takes its measure from what is, whose nature truth discloses.
In Part One, I look at versions of onto-logic first in Greek and Christian sources, then in modern philosophy. But it is not my intention to write the history of Western truth. The historical studies in Part One merely establish some context for the discussion of six philosophers which follows: Nietzsche and William James (Part Two); and Heidegger, Derrida, Wittgenstein, and Foucault (Part Three)."
Annas Julia E. Truth and knowledge. In
Doubt and dogmatism. Studies in Hellenistic epistemology.
Edited by Schofield Malcolm, Burnyeat Myles, and Barnes Jonathan. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980. pp. 84-104
Brague Rémi et al. Vérité. In
Vocabulaire Européen des Philosophies. Dictionnaire des intraduisibles.
Edited by Cassin Barbara. Paris: Le Robert - Seuil 2004. pp. 1342-1364
Campbell Richard.
Truth and historicity.
Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992.
Contents: 1. Introduction: Our contemporary intellectual predicament 1; 2. Doing philosophy historically 7; 3. Truth as Divine norm 18; 4. Timeless truth 40; 5. Truth and the Divine Intellect 75; 6. Doing the truth 101; 7. Truth and Judgements 120; 8. The forms fracture 145; 9. Truth as the positive reality of ideas 170; 10. Truth and the new way of ideas 203; 11. Truth in a contingent world 222; 12. The emergence of historicity 251; 13. The True as a historical result 269; 14. Individual existence and the appropriation of truth 292; 15. Truth as a social construct 322; 16. Truth and the analysis of logical form 355; 17. The historicity of truth 395: 18. Truth in action 412; Select bibliography 441; Index 449-463.
Colish Marcia L. The Stoic theory of verbal signification and the problem of lies and false statements from Antiquity to St. Anselm. In
Archéologie du Signe.
Edited by Brind'Amour Lucie and Vance Eugène. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies 1983. pp. 17-43
Fleischer Margot.
Wahrheit und Wahrheitsgrund. Zum Wahrheitsproblem und zu seiner Geschichte.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1984.
Florensky Pavel Aleksandrovich.
The Pillar and Ground of the Truth.
Princeton: Princeton University Press 1997.
See:
III. Letter Two: Doubt
(on the words for "truth" in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Russian).
Nuchelmans Gabriel.
Theories of proposition. Ancient and medieval conceptions of the bearers of truth and falsity.
Amsterdam : North-Holland 1973.
Pisani Vittore, "Parole indo-europee per "vero" e "falso","
Rivista Indo-Greco-Italica di Filologia, Lingua, Antichità
20: 111-112 (1936).
Schaerer René.
Alétheia
. Héritage antique et verité d'aujourd'hui. In
Actes du XIIe Congrés des Sociétés de Philosophie de langue française (Bruxelles et Louvain 22-24 août 1964. Thème principal: la verité.
Paris: Béatrice-Nauwelaerts 1964. pp. 87-106
Vol. II
Williams Bernard.
Truth and truthfulness. An essay in genealogy.
Princeton: Princeton University Press 2002.
See:
Endnote. The vocabulary of truth: an example
pp. 271-278.
Wolenski Jan. Contributions to the history of the classical truth-definition. In
Logic, methodology and philosophy of science Vol. IX.
Amsterdam: Elsevier 1994. pp. 481-495
Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, Uppsala, Sweden, August 7-14, 1991.
Reprinted in: Jan Wolenski -
Essays in the history of logic and logical philosophy
- Cracov - Jagiellonian University Press 1999 pp. 139-149.
"Although truth belongs to the family of crucial philosophical categories, writing its general history still remains a serious challenge for historians of philosophy. Also historical accounts of particular truth-theories are rather fragmentary. Since the classical (also called 'the correspondence') theory of truth has become the most popular and influential among all hitherto proposed answers to the philosophical problem of truth, a lack of its written history is specially strange, more than in the case of their various rivals; this theory maintains, roughly speaking, that truth consists in a relation of correspondence (agreement, adequacy or conformity) which holds between so-called bearers of truth (judgements, ideas, thoughts, propositions, statements or sentences) and reality.
This paper presents a sketch of how the gap could be filled with respect to the classical concept of truth
(CCT
for briefly). It is just a sketch which by no means pretends to any completeness. The history of the classical (as well as every other) theory of truth requires taking into account at least four points, namely:
(A) Statements which have been explicitly intended as definitions (or other explications) of
CCT.
(B) Formulations which could be interpreted as definitions (or rather explications) of
CCT
independently of the intentions of their authors.
(C) The philosophical environment of formulations collected under (A) and (B); it is especially important for cases falling under (B).
(D) Criticism of
CCT
and its defenses against raised objections.
I would like to touch each of (A)-(D) but my principal goal is to contribute to (A) and (B)." p. 139 of the reprint.
B) TRUTH IN ANCIENT GREEK THOUGHT
Barnes Jonathan. Truth, etc. New York: Oxford University Press 2007.
Basset Louis. La syntaxe de l'imaginaire. Étude des modes et des
négations dans l'Iliade et l'Odyssée. Lyon: Maison de l'Orient 1989.
Boeder Heribert, "Der frühgriechische Wortgebrauch von Lógos und
Alétheia," Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte.Bausteine zu einem Historischen
Wörterbuch der Philosophie 4: 82-112 (1959).
Reprinted in: Heribert Boeder - Das Bauzeug der Geschichte. Aufsätze un Vorträge
zur griechischen und mittelalterlichen Philosophie - (Edited by Gerald Meier) -
Würzburg, G. Meier, 1994.
"Die folgenden Untersuchungen beabsichtigen eine Klärung des Wortgebrauchs von
Lógos und Alétheia in den frühgriechischen Sprachwerken - die
philosophischen ausgenommen. Gemäß der Eigenart der Zeugnisse und der
entsprechenden zeitlichen Verteilung ist die Darstellung in zwei Abschnitte
gegliedert, deren erster den Bereich des frühgriechischen Epos behandelt, der
andere die Folgezeit bis zur Mitte des fünften Jahrhunderts etwa. Dabei wird das
Wort Lógos jeweils vor dein Wort Alétheia erörtert, weil es so
der innere Zusammenhang beider nachleget." p. 82
Böhm Thomas. Das Wahrheitsverständnis in Bibel und Früher Kirche. In La
verité. Antiquité - Modernité. Edited by Aenishanslin Jean-François, O'Meara
Dominic, and Schüssler Ingeborg. Lausanne: Payot 2004. pp. 49-64
Bultmann Rudolf, "Untersuchungen zum Johannesevangelium," Zeitschrift für
die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 27: 113-163 (1928).
Reprinted in: R. Bultmann - Exegetica. Aufsätze zur Erforschung des Neuen
Testaments - Tübingen, J. C. B. Mohr P. Siebeck, 1967, pp. 124-173.
See in particular the section: "Alétheia in der griechischen und
hellenistischen Literatur" pp. 134-163 (144-173 of the reprint).
Bultmann Rudolf. Alétheia. In Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament. Vol. I. Edited by Kittel Gerhard. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1964.
pp. 232-247
Original German edition 1933.
Cassin Barbara. Les Muses et la philosophie. Élements pour une histoire du
pseudos. In Études sur le Sophiste de Platon. Edited by Aubenque
Pierre. Napoli: Bibliopolis 1991. pp. 291-316
Cherubin Rose. Aletheia from poetry into philopsophy. Homer to
Parmenides. In Logos and Muthos. Philosophical essays in Greek literature.
Edited by Wians William. Albany: State University of New York Press 2009. pp.
51-72
Cole Thomas, "Archaic truth," Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica
64: 7-28 (1983).
Darbo-Peschanski Catherine. Le discours du particuler. Essai sur
l'enquête hérodotéenne. Paris: Seul 1987.
Préface de Paul Veyne.
Table: Introduction 11; 1. Le domain de l'enquête. 1. Les dieux, les hommes,
l'enquêteur 23; 2. Les limites de l'information 84; 2. La voix de l'enquêteur;
1. L'enquêteur et les autres 107, 2. Les raisonnements 127; 3. Le règne de
l'opinion 154; 1. La part de la vérité 165; 2. L'opinion 184; Conclusion 193;
Notes 197; Bibliographie 223; Index 239-240.
Voir en particuler 3.1 La part de la vérité. L'aletheia et les autre
façons de dire la vérité pp. 165-183
Denyer Nicholas. Language, thought and falsehood in ancient Greek
philosophy. London: Routledge 1991.
Detienne Marcel, "La notion mythique d'Alétheia," Revue des Études
Grecques 73: 27-35 (1960).
Detienne Marcel. The masters of truth in Archaic Greece. New York:
Zone Books 1996.
Foreword by Pierre Vidal-Naquet; translated by Janet Lloyd.
With a new preface to the American edition.
Original French edition: Les Maîtres de vérité dans la Grèce archaïque -
Paris. Maspéro 1967 (reprinted 1981, 1990).
Translated in Italian as: I maestri di verità nella Grecia arcaica -
Bari, Laterza 1983.
Detienne Marcel. The Greeks and us. A comparative anthropology of Ancient
Greece. Boston: Polity 2007.
See Chapter 4: The wide-open mouth of truth pp. 60-75
DuBois Page. Torture and truth. New York: Routledge 1991.
Chapter 9: Some Presocratics 93-106; Chapter 10: Plato's Truth
107-122; Chapter 12: Plato and Heidegger 127-140.
"The truth of the pre-Socratics is not the truth of integrity, of the monumental
wholeness of the text of Homer and Plato. In fact, we now know the monumental
Homeric corpus to have its own fragmentariness, not the fragmentation of the
Analysts, who wanted to discard parts of the received text as interpolations,
but a sedimentation, a complicated series of origins, an unevenness due to its
oral composition that prevents it from being what was once considered the
seamless, intentional production of an "author." So from the beginning, as we
approach the pre-Socratics' work, their aphorisms, bits and pieces recorded in
later philosophers, traces of their reputation shaping even in their absence the
work of others, we cannot yet-perhaps we can never- achieve a sense of
coherence, of systematic development of philosophical ideas, such as is perhaps
possible with the works of Kant or Hegel.
I want to approach the notion of truth in the pre-Socratics fragmentarily, then,
by looking at truth in the fragmentary remains of the work of Herakleitos and
Parmenides, two radically different thinkers. I have not attempted here to
present an encyclopedic survey of all occurrences of alêtheia in Homer, Hesiod,
all the pre-Socratics. Rather, I want to give a sense of a cultural paradigm, of
the ways in which the word alêtheia works within a semantic field, in its
contrasts, for example, with other words for truth, and as it fits into a
cultural and social field of seeking out the genuine, the true. Herakleitos
seems to offer a suggestive and idiosyncratic notion of truth that has certain
affinities with the dialogical practices of the later democracy, while
Parmenides' sense of truth is more compatible with the traditions of epic and of
the consultation of oracles." p. 96
"Plato returns to the pre-classical notion of the basanos as a proof of
loyalty and truth; but even more importantly, he presents both a paradigm of
truth as recollection, the recalling of time -- buried truth -- and a paradigm
of the production of truth through the elegkhos, the philosophical
conversation, a version of truth as dialectic, as process, as the making of a
truth in time, between people, not as the revelation of something lost in the
past but as the production of something in the present. This latter element
seems to me the trace of the democratic in Plato, a trace that may be
represented only to be disavowed within the larger corpus of Plato's arguments."
p. 107
Finkelberg Margalit. The birth of literary fiction in ancient Greece.
Oxford: Clarendon Press 1998.
See Chapter V: 'Lies resembing truth' pp. 131-160.
Fiorentino Fernando. Il problema della verità nei filosofi antichi.
Napoli: Editrice Domenicana italiana 2002.
Fladerer Ludwig. Der Wahrheitsbegriff im griechischen Neuplatonismus. In
Die Geschichte des philosophischen Begriffs der Wahrheit. Edited by Szaif
Jan and Enders Markus. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2006. pp. 33-48
Frisk Hjalmar. "Wahrheit" und "Lüge" in den indogermanischen Sprachen.
Einige morphologische Beobachtungen. Göteborg: Wettergren & Kerbers Förlag
1936.
With an Appendix: "Anhang: die Wörter für 'Lüge' und 'Wahrheit' in den Dard- und
Kafirsprachen" (p. 35-38) by Georg Morgenstierne.
Reprinted in: Hjalmar Frisk - Kleine Schriften zur Indogermanistik und zur
griechischen Wortkunde - Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1966 pp. 1-35.
Heitsch Ernst, "Die nicht philosophische Alétheia," Hermes 90:
24-33 (1962).
Heitsch Ernst, "Wahrheit als Erinnerung," Hermes 91: 36-53 (1963).
Heitsch Ernst, "Das Wissen des Xenophanes," Rheinisches Museum für
Philologie 109: 193-235 (1966).
Contains a brief history of alétheia from Hesiod to Parmenides
Heitsch Ernst. Der Ort der Wahrheit. Aus der frühgeschichte der
Wahrheitsbegriffs. In Parmenides und die Anfänge der Erkenntniskritik und
Logik. Donauwörth: Ludwig Auer 1979. pp. 33-69
Reprinted in: Ernst Heitsch - Gesammelte Schriften - vol. II. Zur
griechischen Philosophie - München / Leipzig - K. G. Saur, 2001 pp. 89-116
Hoffmann Philippe. La triade Chaldaïque eros, aletheia, pistis: de
Proclus à Simplicius. In Proclus et la Théologie platonicienne. Edited by
Segonds Alain-Philippe and Steel Carlos. Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2000. pp.
459-489
Actes du colloque international de Louvain (13-16 mai 1998) en l'honneur de H.
D. Saffrey et L. G. Westerink
Hommel Hildebrecht, "Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit. Zur Geschichte und Deutung
eines Begriffspaares," Antike un Abendland.Beiträge zum Verständnis der
Griechen und Römer und ihres Nachlebens 15: 159-186 (1969).
Jens Walter, "Das Begreifen des Wahrheit im frühen Griechentum," Studium
Generale 4: 240-246 (1951).
Kahn Charles H. The verb 'be' in ancient Greek. Dordrecht: Reidel
1973.
Volume 6 of: John W. M. Verhaar (ed.) - The verb 'be' and its synonyms:
philosophical and grammatical studies - Dordrecht, Reidel
Reprinted by Hackett Publishing, 2003 with new introduction and discussion of
relation between predicative and existential uses of the Greek verb einai.
Kahn Charles H., "A return to the theory of the verb Be and the
concept of Being," Ancient Philosophy 24: 381-405 (2004).
Käetzler Joachim, "Pseudos, dolos, mechanema in der griechischen
Tragödie", 1959.
PH. D. dissertation.
Krischer Tilman, "Etymos und Aléthes," Philologus 109:
161-174 (1965).
Kurz Dietrich. Akribeia. Das Ideal der Exaktheit bei den Griechen bis
Aristoteles. Göppingen: A. Kümmerle 1970.
Ledbetter Grace M. Poetics before Plato. Interpretation and authority in
early Greek theories of poetry. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2003.
Lee Mi-Kyoung. Epistemology after Protagoras. Responses to relativism in
Plato, Aristotle, and Democritus. Oxford: Clarendon Press 2005.
Chapter 2: Protagora's Aletheia - pp. 8-29.
Levet Jean-Pierre. L'expression du vrai et de la vérité dans les
Posthomerica de Quintus de Smyrne. In Des Géants à Dionysos. Mélanges
offerts à Francis Vian. Edited by Accorinti Domenico and Chuvin Pierre.
Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso 2003. pp. 357-384
Levet Jean-Pierre. Le vrai et le faux dans la pensée grecque archaique
d'Hésiode à la fin du Ve siècle. Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2008.
"Ce livre forme un ensemble avec la première partie d'une thèse de doctorat
d'État soutenue à la Sorbonne en 1974 et parue en 1976." (Avant-Propos).
"L'analyse lexicale de la conception et de l'expression du vrai et du faux fait
apparaître, dans l'Iliade et dans l'Odyssée, l'existence d'un
système ancien, qui repose sur des énoncés subjectifs se révélant conformes au
réel objectif (familles d'etéos, etmos,et etétumos, d'atrekéos et de ypertés)
ou procédant de l'invention de pures fictions (pseudos, pseudomai).
Indépendamment de lui, l' alethein ancienne correspond à une révélation
véridique prenant la forme d'un non-voilé-dévoilant.
Avec des prodromes déjà perceptibles chez Homère, la mutation de la psychologie
de la connaissance tend progressivement à conduire à voir dans la vérité, dont
le faux devient une déformation, le réel objectif connu, convenablement
interprété par l'intelligence et fidèlement transmis.
Les catégories du faux et du vrai qui apparaissent alors relèvent dans le
lexique de pseudos et d'aletheia, le terme, compatible, dès
l'origine, avec la démarche décrite (un contenu objectif est communiqué), étant
pourvu de nouvelles valeurs sémantiques. L'évolution est lente et considérable.
Elle se fait par une série d'étapes successives.
D'Hésiode au Ve siècle, traits anciens et caractères nouveaux coexistent, mais
petit à petit ceux-ci éliminent ceux-là. Un équilibre relatif est encore
perceptible chez Hésiode, mais rapidement notions et mots archaïques s'effacent
au profit de ce que représentent alethés et aletheia, pseudos
et pseudomai, ainsi que les termes qui leur sont apparentés, tandis que
se développent parallélement des concepts et des vocables nouveaux. Ils entrent
dans les structures évoluées de la cognition et de la communication du vrai
et du faux telles que alethés et aletheia, pseudos
et pseudomai en montrent l'existence et la nature.
C'est l'histoire de cette évolution majeure, considérée comme formant un
ensemble cohérent, que décrit le présent livre, dans la continuité de l'apport
homérique, sur le fondement d'une étude sémantique menée à partir d'une analyse
des textes littéraires, rédigés en vers ou non, d'Hésiode à la fin de l'âge
archaique et avant la grande floraison de la prose classique.
Le critère permettant d'opposer archaique et classique est celui
que fournit, au moins en ce qui concerne l'attique, la disparition de l'usage
vivant des concepts les plus anciens et de leurs supports linguistiques."
(Présentation Générale).
Lotz Johannes B., "Aletheia und Orthotes. Versuch einer Deutung im Lichte
der Scholastik," Philosophische Jahrbuch 68: 258-268 (1960).
Reprinted in: Johannes B. Lotz - Sein und Existenz. Kritische Studien in
systematischer Absicht - Freiburg, Herder, 1965, pp. 120-134
Luther Wilhelm. "Wahrheit" und "Lüge" im ältesten Griechentum.
Leipzig: Verlag Robert Noske 1935.
Luther Wilhelm. Weltansicht und Gestesleben. Versuch einer
wissenschaftlichen Grundlegung der philosophischen Sprachanalyse an Beispielen
aus der griechischen Geistesgeschichte von Homer bis Aristoteles. Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1954.
Luther Wilhelm, "Der frühgriechische Wahrheitsgedanke im Lichte der
Sprachen," Gymnasium 65: 75-107 (1958).
Luther Wilhelm, "Wahrheit, Licht und Erkenntnis in der griechischen
Philosophie bis Demokrit. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung des Zusammenhangs von
Sprache und philosophischen Denken," Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte.Bausteine
zu einem Historischen Wörterbuch der Philosophie 10: 1-240 (1966).
Marincola John. Alétheia. In Lexicon Historiographicum Graecum et Latinum
(LHG&L). Edited by Porciani Leone. Pisa: Edizioni della Normale 2007. pp.
7-29
Fascicle II.
Matthen Mohan, "Greek ontology and the 'Is' of truth," Phronesis 28:
113-135 (1983).
Mette Hans Joachim. Alethein, alethes. In Lexicon des
frühgriechischen Epos. Vol. I. Edited by Snell Brunoi. Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1955. pp. 476-477
Mielert Ernest. Ausdrücke für Wahrheit und Lüge in der attischen
Tragödie. München: Otto Brunn 1958.
Nagy Gregory. The crisis of performance. In The ends of rhetoric:
history, theory, practice. Edited by Bender John B. and Wellbery David E.
Stanford: Stanford University Press 1990. pp. 43-59
On Alethéia see pp. 47-53.
Perceau Sylvie. La parole vive. Communiquer en catalogue dans l'épopée
homérique. Louvain: Peeters 2002.
Voir le Chapitre III. Une éthique et une approche du monde § 2.3
Katalegein et alétheia pp. 279-287
Pratt Louise H. Lying and poetry from Homer to Pindar. Falsehood and
deception in archaic Greek poetics. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press
1993.
Prier Raymond Adolph. THAUMA IDESTHAI. The phenomenology of sight and
appearance in archaic Greek. Tallahassee: The Florida State University Press
1989.
"This work is a study of the archaic phenomenology of Homer. Particular
attention is paid to linguistic and stylistic characteristics of signification.
Comparisons are made between Homeric and Aristotelian thought.
Also the author critically examines contemporary readings of Homer including
those of Heidegger, Foucault, and Derrida."
Puelma Mario, "Der Dichter und die Wahrheit in der griechischen Poetik von
Homer bis Aristoteles," Museum Helveticum 46: 65-100 (1989).
Ruggenini Mario, "Veritas e aletheia. La Grecia, Roma e l'origine della
metafisica cristiano-medioevale," Quaestio.The Yearbook of the History of
Metaphysics 1: 83-212 (2001).
Santos José Trinidade, "El nacimiento de la verdad," Méthexis 17:
7-23 (2004).
Scalera McClintock Giuliana, "Alétheia nel pensiero orfico. II.
Alétheia nelle tavolette di Olbia Pontica," Filosofia e Teologia 4:
78-83 (1990).
"II. In the context of the Bacchic mysteries, the bone tablets from Pontic Olbia
open up space for theological meditation, documenting with direct sources from
the mid-fifth century B.C. the belief in immortality seen darkly in the mania,
the disembodiment of the concept of the soul, and an idea of truth so strong
that it cannot be attributed only to a religion which defines itself in respect
to others. Thus a new tessera can be added to the comprehension of the relation
between Orphic thought and the initiation rites in which the first philosophy
takes root."
Segal Charles, "Naming. truth, and creation in the poetics of Pindar,"
Diacritics 16: 65-83 (1986).
Reprinted in: C. Segal - Aglaia. The poetry of Alcman, Sappho, Pindar,
Bacchylides, and Corinna - Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, as Chapter 6
pp. 105-132
Simondon Michèle. La Mémoire et l'oubli dans la pensée grecque jusqu'à la
fin du 5. siècle avant J.-C. Psychologie archaïque, mythes et doctrines.
Paris: Belles Lettres 1982.
Siorvanes Lucas. The problem of truth in the Platonic Theology. In
Proclus et la Théologie platonicienne. Edited by Segonds Alain-Philippe and
Steel Carlos. Paris: Les Belles Lettres 2000. pp. 47-63
Actes du colloque international de Louvain (13-16 mai 1998) en l'honneur de H.
D. Saffrey et L. G. Westerink
Snell Bruno, "Aletheia," Würzburger Jahrbucher für die
Altertumswissenschaft 1: 9-17 (1975).
Festschrift Ernst Siegmann
Snell Bruno. Der Weg zum Denker und zur Wahrheit. Studien zur
frühgriechischen Sprache. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1978.
Chapter 5: "Der Entwicklung des Wahrheitsbegriffe bei den Griechen" pp. 91-104.
Translated in Italian as: Il Cammino del pensiero e della verità: studi sul
linguaggio greco delle origini - Ferrara, Gallio Editori 1991 pp. 105-120.
Spicq Ceslas. Alétheia. In Theological Lexicon of the New Testament.
Peabody: Endrickson 1994. pp. 1-67
Translated and edited by James D. Ernest from: Notes de lexicographie
neo-testamentaire. Vol. III: Supplément, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1982, pp. 16-37.
Starr Chester G., "Ideas of truth in early Greece," La Parola del Passato
23: 348-359 (1968).
Reprinted in: C. G. Starr - Essays on ancient history. A selection of
articles and reviews - Edited by Arther Ferrill and Thomas Kelly - Leiden,
Brill, 1979 pp. 163-174.
"In the modern world truth is a fundamental intellectual and moral virtue.
Courts of law demand, in a famous phrase, the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth; statesmen must appear to be devoted to the truth;
scholarly work is judged first on its truth and only thereafter for other
qualities. The historian, for example, seeks to say true things, and hopes to
guarantee the reputation of his work by amassing verified, precise detail, the
hallmark of which is the learned footnote.
Recently I have been investigating the origins of this attitude along with other
aspects of the incipient historical spirit, during the archaic period of Greek
history (700-500 B.C.). (1) To my surprise there seems to have been only limited
consideration of what the Greeks in this era generally meant by truth '.
Correspondingly, the fact that their ideas of truth often differed markedly from
modern concepts has not been stressed, even though early Greek views on the
matter had a lasting influence not only on ancient historiography but also on
classical thought. The following remarks are intended as a sketch of the
evidence which may hopefully encourage more intensive discussion; my intent, let
me be clear, is to suggest how varied were the meanings of truth at the time,
not to analyze their relations to modern epistemological theories.
A cynic, indeed, might argue that here as elsewhere, the Greeks were simply more
honest; for truth only slowly became a conscious, abstract virtue in Greek
civilization, and never gained that unquestioned priority which we theoretically
assign to it today. While Homer assessed the reality of events and
distinguished' true statements from prevarications, the words which he and other
early Greeks used to express these ideas initially lacked the absolute quality
implicit in the modern truth ' and lie '. In time the verbal distinctions became
theoretical and general; otherwise history and philosophy could scarcely have
emerged. Yet thinkers had a cankering fear that only the gods could really know
the truth, and rarely felt passionately the need for truth.
By 400 B.C. - the boundary of this essay - two modes of establishing verity, the
speculative and the empirical, had emerged, but so. too had conscious
intellectual scepticism; only thereafter did epistemological analysis begin to
develop. Perhaps even more devastating in its effects, as regards the mastery of
the ideal of truth, was the emphasis upon form as a mode of evaluating the truth
of a work."
(1) Chester G. Starr, The Awakening of the Greek Historical Spirit (New
York, 1968).
Storz Gerhard. Gebrauch und Bedeutungsentwicklung vonvon Alétheia und
begriffsverwandten Wörten in der griechischen Literatur von Platon.
Tübingen: 1922.
Ph.D. Dissertation
Striker Gisela. Kriterion tes aletheias. In Essays on hellenistic
epistemology and ethics . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1996. pp.
22-76
Originally published in German: Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften zur
Göttingen, I. Philosophische-historische Klasse, 2,1974 pp. 48-110.
Szaif Jan. Die Geschichte des Wahrheitsbegriffs in der klassischen Antike.
In Die Geschichte des philosophischen Begriffs der Wahrheit. Edited by
Szaif Jan and Enders Markus. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2006. pp. 1-32
Thiselton Anthony C. Truth. In The New international dictionary of New
Testament theology. Vol. III. Edited by Brown Colin. Exeter: Paternoster
Press 1978. pp. 874-902
Thiselton Anthony C. Does lexicographical research yield "Hebrew" and
"Greek" concepts of truth? (1978) and How does this research relate to
notions of truth today? (New summary). In Thiselton on hermeneutics.
Collected works with new essays. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans 2006. pp.
267-286
"Although this was originally written as a dictionary article, this work is
neither merely didactic nor merely a lexicographical survey. With the editor's
agreement it entirely replaced the German- language article that it was first
designed only to supplement, The article in the German edition had presupposed
the dichotomy between "Hebrew" and "Greek" concepts of truth in ways that were
open to question in the light of both semantic theory (not least in the work of
James Barr), and actual lexicographical research, which invited fresh
evaluation. The inclusion of the classical and Old Testament backgrounds makes
the fallacies of the older approach clearer. (...)
The article, comes from Colin Brown (ed.), The New International Dictionary of
New Testament Theology, volume 3 (Exeter Paternoster Press, 1978), pp. 874-902,
but has been abbreviated in order to omit material that may not bear directly on
the argument. The breadth of lexicographical data might seem at times to verge
on the tedious, but the argument depends on covering a fair range of specific
cases and evidence, The original article concluded with a substantial discussion
of modern philosophical theories of truth. This is too lengthy to retain here,
but a brief summary has been rewritten for this volume (2004) to demonstrate the
role of the argument for the "second horizon" of hermeneutics."
Tortorelli Ghidini Marisa, "Alétheia nel pensiero orfico. I. "Dire la
verità": sul v. 7 della laminetta di Farsalo," Filosofia e Teologia 4:
73-77 (1990).
"I. The Homeric formula 'to tell the truth' involves the idea of starting from
beginning and proceeding, point by point, to the end. In the Orphic Pharsalos
tablet, that epic formula occurs again but the meaning turns out to be
completely modified. According to this religious context 'telling the truth' and
'drinking at the spring of Mnemosyne' are identical: the truth, associated with
a cosmic Memory, becomes a fundamental religious virtue. The link between
religious and logical truth arises here."
Wolenski Jan, "Aletheia in Greek thought until Aristotle," Annals
of Pure and Applied Logic 127: 339-360 (2005).
"This paper investigates the concept of aletheia (truth) in ancient
philosophy from the pre-Socratics until Aristotle. The meaning of aletheia
in archaic Greek is taken as the starting point. It is followed by remarks about
the concept of truth in the Seven Sages. The author discusses this concept as it
appears in views and works of philosophers and historians. A special section is
devoted to the epistemological and ontological understanding of truth. On this
occasion, influential views of Heidegger are examined. The paper is concluded by
a review of various meanings of truth in Aristotle."
C) TRUTH IN THE LATIN MIDDLE AGES (to be completed)
Adams Marilyn McCord, "Ockham on truth,"
Medioevo
15: 143-172 (1989).
Aertsen Jan Adrianus.
Medieval reflections on truth. Adaequatio rei et intellectus.
Amsterdam: VU Boekhandel 1984.
Inaugural address on the occasion of his taking up the chair of Medieval philosophy of the Free University in Amsterdam on November 9, 1984.
Aertsen Jan Adrianus.
Nature and creature. Thomas Aquinas's way of thought.
Leiden: Brill 1988.
Chapter 4: The way of truth (
Via veritatis
) pp. 141-190.
Aertsen Jan Adrianus, "Truth as transcendental in Thomas Aquinas,"
Topoi.An International Journal of Philosophy
11: 159-171 (1992).
"Aquinas presents his most complete exposition of the transcendentals in
De veritate 1, 1, that deals with the question "What is truth?". The thesis of this paper is that the question of truth is essential for the understanding of his doctrine of the transcendentals.
The first part of the paper (sections 1--4) analyzes Thomas's conception of truth. Two approaches to truth can be found in his work. The first approach, based on Aristotle's claim that "truth is not in things but in the mind", leads to the idea that the proper place of truth is in the intellect. The second approach is ontological: Thomas also acknowledges that there is truth in every being. The famous definition of truth as "adequation of thing and intellect" enables him to integrate the two approaches. Truth is a relation between two terms, both of which can be called "true" because both are essential for the conformity between thing and intellect.
The second part of the paper (sections 5--7) deals with the manner in which Thomas gives truth a place in the doctrine of the transcendentals, and shows that his conception of truth leads to important innovations in this doctrine: the introduction of relational transcendentals and the correlation between spirit and being. If "truth" is transcendental, it must be convertible with "being". Sect. 6 discusses objections that Thomas advances himself to this convertibility.
Sect. 7 deals with a difficulty in his account of truth as a relational transcendental. Ontological truth expresses a relation to an intellect but the relation to the human intellect is accidental for the truth of things. Essential for their truth can only be a practical intellect that causes things. In this way, Thomas argues, the divine intellect relates to all things."
Aertsen Jan Adrianus.
Medieval philosophy and the transcendentals. The case of Thomas Aquinas.
Leiden: Brill 1996.
Chapter Six: True as Transcendental pp. 243-289.
Beierwalter Werner. Deus est veritas. Zur Rezeption des griechischen Wahrheitsbegriffes in der frühchristlichen Theologie. In
Pietas. Festschrift für Bernhard Kotting.
Edited by Dassmann Ernst and Frank K.Suso. Münster: Aschendorff 1980. pp. 15-29
Boehner Philotheus, "Ockham's theory of truth,"
Franciscan Studies
5: 138-161 (1945).
Reprinted in: P. Boehner -
Collected articles on Ockham
- Edited by E. Buytaert - Louvain, Nauwelaerts, 1958 pp. 174-200.
Brouwer Christian and Peeters Marc. Thomas d'Aquin. Première question disputée
De veritate. Analyse méréologique, constitution historique et principes de traduction. In
Éditer, traduire, interpréter. Essais de méthodologie philosophique.
Edited by Lofts Steve G. and Rosemann Philip W. Louvain-la-Neuve: Éditions Peeters 1997. pp. 105-141
Conti Alessandro. Complexe significabile and Truth in Gregory of Rimini and Paul of Venice. In
Medieval theories on assertive and non-assertive language.
Edited by Maierù Alfonso and Valente Luisa. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki 2004. pp. 473-494
Decorte Jos, "Henri de Gand et la définition classique de la vérité,"
Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales
68: 34-74 (2001).
Enders Markus.
Wahrheit und Notwendigkeit. Die Theorie der Wahrheit bei Anselm von Canterbury im Gesamtzusammenhang seines Denkens und unter besonderer Berücksichtigung sener antiken Quellen (Aristoteles, Cicero, Augustinus, Boethius).
Leiden: Brill 1999.
Enders Markus. 'Wahrheit' von Augustinus bis zum frühen Mittelalter: Stationen einer Begriffsgeschichte. In
Die Geschichte des philosophischen Begriffs der Wahrheit.
Edited by Szaif Jan and Enders Markus. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 2006. pp. 65-102
Foucat Yves, "La vérité comme conformité selon saint Thomas d'Aquin,"
Revue Thomiste
104: 49-102 (2004).
Galluzzo Gabriele, "Il tema della verità nell' "
Expositio Libri Peryermeneias
" di Tommaso d'Aquino,"
Documenti e Studi sulla Tradizione Filosofica Medievale
11: 217-258 (2000).
Kann Christoph, "Wahrheit als
Adaequatio
: Bedeutung, Deutung, Klassifikation,"
Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales
66: 209-224 (1999).
Lotz Johannes B., "Aletheia und Orthotes. Versuch einer Deutung im Lichte der Scholastik,"
Philosophische Jahrbuch
68: 258-268 (1960).
Reprinted in: Johannes B. Lotz -
Sein und Existenz. Kritische Studien in systematischer Absicht
- Freiburg, Herder, 1965, pp. 120-134
Marrone Steven P.
William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste. New ideas of truth in the early Thirteenth century.
Princeton: Princeton University Press 1983.
Marrone Steven P.
Truth and scientific knowledge in the thought of Henry of Ghent.
Cambridge: Medieval Academy of America 1985.
Marrone Steven P.
The Light of Thy Countenance. Science and konwledge of God in the Thirteenth century.
Leiden: Brill 2001.
Two volumes.
Moody Ernest.
Truth and consequence in mediaeval logic.
Amsterdam : North-Holland 1953.
Reprinted in 1976 Westport, Greenwood Press
Muckle Joseph Thomas, "Isaac Israeli's definition of truth,"
Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age
8: 5-8 (1933).
Perler Dominik.
Der propositionale Wahreitsbegriffe im 14. Jahrhundert.
Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 1992.
Ruello Francis.
La notion de vérité chez saint Albert Le Grand et Saint Thomas d'Aquin de 1243 à 1254.
Paris: Béatrice-Nauwelaerts 1969.
Schulz Gudrun.
Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei. Untersuchungen zur Wahrheitslehre des Thomas von Aquin und zur Kritik Kants an einem überlieferten Wahrheitsbegriff.
Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers 1992.
Schüssler Ingeborg.
La question de la vérité. Thomas d'Aquin, Nietzsche, Kant, Aristote, Heidegger.
Lausanne: Editions Payot 2001.
Table des matières: Introduction 5;
Première partie: La questione de la vérité dans l'histoire de la philosophie. Thomas d'Aquin, Nietzsche, Kant, Aristote
Chapitre I. La fondation du concept traditionnel de la vérité chez Thomas d'Aquin.
De Veritate, Quaestio I, Articuli I-II
19; Chapitre II. L'expérience de la perte de la vérité chez Nietzsche
Fragments choisis
43; Chapitre III. La fondation transcendentale de la vérité chez Kant. L'essence des concepts
a priori
de l'entendement ou des catégories.
Critique de la raison pure, § 9 e § 10
80; Chapitre IV. La double essence de la vérité chez Aristote.
Métaphysique, Livre VI, chapitre 4; Livre IX, chapitre 10
119;
Seconde partie: La répétition de la question de la vérité dans la pensée postmétaphysique de Heidegger.
Textes choisis
167
Indications bibliographiques 287-297.
Vande Wiele Jozef, "Le problème de la verité ontologique dans la philosophie de saint Thomas,"
Revue Philosophique de Louvain
52: 521-571 (1954).
Vilalobos José.
Ser y verdad en Agustín de Hipona.
Sevilla: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla 1982.
Wippel John F., "Truth in Thomas Aquinas I,"
Review of Metaphysics
43: 295-326 (1989).
Reprinted in: J. F. Wippel - Metaphyscal themes in Thomas Aquinas - Vol. II - Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 2007, pp. 65-112.
Wippel John F., "Truth in Thomas Aquinas II,"
Review of Metaphysics
43: 543-567 (1989).
Reprinted in: J. F. Wippel - Metaphyscal themes in Thomas Aquinas - Vol. II - Washington, Catholic University of America Press, 2007, pp. 65-112.
Wülfing von Martitz Peter, "Verus, verum und veritas,"
Glotta
46: 278-293 (1968).
"Le latin ne connaissant pas la distinction moderne entre vérité et réalité,
verum
, de même que son équivalent dans la terminologie philosophique,
veritas
, peuvent se référer non seulement à ce qui est énoncé sur une chose, mais à la chose elle-même. Ainsi,
verum
désigne la vérité qui se révèle par la chose elle-même et s'oppose à
obscurum
. Toutefois, si
verum
exprime souvent un "état de fait", cela ne saurait être confondu avec l' "évidence" au sens extérieur; en effet,
verum
signifie aussi, notamment chez Varron et chez Cicéron: en principe, en théorie, contrairement aux apparences."
(click on the image to see the PDF file)