PATHMARKS
[stimmt nicht]. On the other hand, we say of whatever is "as it should be": "It is in accord." The matter is in accord [Die Sache stimmt].
However, we call true not only an actual joy, genuine gold, and all beings of such kind, but also and above all we call true or false our statements about beings, which can themselves be genuine or not with regard to their kind, which can be thus or otherwise in their actuality. A statement is true if what it means and says is in accordance with the matter about which the statement is made. Here too we say, "It is in accord." Now, though, it is not the matter that is in accord but rather the proposition.
The true, whether it be a matter or a proposition, is what accords, the accordant [das Stimmende]. Being true and truth here signify accord, and that in a double sense: on {GA 9: 180} the one hand, the consonance [Einstimmigkeit] of a matter with what is supposed in advance regarding it and, on the other hand, the accordance of what is meant in the statement with the matter.
This dual character of the accord is brought to light by the traditional definition of truth: veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus. This can be taken to mean: truth is the correspondence [Angleichung] of the matter to knowledge. But it can [76] also be taken as saying: truth is the correspondence of knowledge to the matter. Admittedly, the above definition is usually stated only in the formula veritas est adaequatio intellectus ad rem [truth is the adequation of intellect to thing]. Yet truth so conceived, propositional truth, is possible only on the basis of material truth [Sachwahrheit], of adaequatio rei ad intellectum [adequation of thing to intellect]. Both concepts of the essence of veritas have continually in view a conforming to ... [Sichrichten nach ...], and hence think truth as correctness [Richtigkeit].
Nonetheless, the one is not the mere inversion of the other. On the contrary, in each case intellectus and res are thought differently. In order to recognize this we must trace the usual formula for the ordinary concept of truth back to its most recent (i.e., the medieval) origin. Veritas as adaequatio rei ad intellectum does not imply the later transcendental conception of Kant - possible only on the basis of the subjectivity of the human essence - that "objects conform to our knowledge." Rather, it implies the Christian theological belief that, with respect to what it is and whether it is, a matter, as created (ens creatum), is only insofar as it corresponds to the idea preconceived in the intellectus divinus, i.e., in the mind of God, and thus measures up to the idea (is correct) and in this sense is "true." The intellectus humanus too is an ens creatum. As a capacity bestowed upon human beings by God, it must satisfy its idea. But the understanding measures up to the idea only by accomplishing in its propositions the correspondence of what is thought to the matter, which in its turn must be in conformity with
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