As we continue to open the central theme of this text, which is awareness, it would be well to consider in what sense we are evaluating thoughts, according to what light we herein make judgements and statements.
It occurs that the mind assents to some thoughts. What is this experience? What is the source of this experience, both in general and in the particular? What differentiates the general condition of assent from the conditions of assent to a particular thought?
Assent differs from belief. Belief implies fixation and rigidity of mind holding fast to the content of thought. This in turn requires an epistemology of absolute truth, otherwise belief is absurd. Assent is more like allowing a thought to rest in the mind, being comfortable with the thought, not rejecting that thought, not sending it to the land of falsehood and, if appropriate, acting upon that thought.
A very common and basic form of assent is that which allows our daily lives to proceed. We are often aware of the fact that it is currently day or night without questioning or even noticing the fact. When we turn the key of an automobile ignition we usually expect the engine to start. When we pour a jug of water we expect the water to naturally tend to flow in a downward arc. These forms of assent are essential to our lives and they collectively have a philosophic value in giving us a model for an easy and natural form of assent.
Other forms of assent can be found in mathematics. If I think: 'the number 5 is prime', my mind assents to that thought essentially automatically, as if repeating a predetermined pattern. If I consider the number 237 and ask myself whether it is prime I might not have had an immediate answer, but after a quick perusal of the number I know that it is not divisible by any prime under 7 and I begin to suspect that it might be prime. Then I check for division by 7, 11, and 13 and each step brings me closer to assenting to the primeness of 237. After I consider that 237 is less than the square of 17 my mind assents to the thought that 237 is prime. A sequence like the following seemed to occur in the 237 example: A thought comes into the mind, one suspects the truth of the thought, one assents to the thought. In the 5 example the assent appeared to occur with the thought. In the 237 example the assent was delayed. Other sequences are possible.
In the elementary examples mentioned so far the phenomenon of assent may be psychologically complex but is philosophically simple, although the fact that such assent exists at all as well as the fact that it appears to be necessary to life leads into deep waters. For now let us look at some other forms of assent.
While in the preceding example the assent is simple and complete we also experience situations where assent is more complexly held, or withheld. Another example from mathematics is the Pythagorean Theorem: In a right triangle the sum of the squares of the lengths of the two shorter sides is equal to the square of the hypotenuse. Most readers will find this theorem familiar, many readers will have had occasion to apply it, some readers will be able to recall or generate a proof. In each case there is assent to the theorem but is not that assent different depending upon which of the above categories the reader occupies? Then when we recall that the Pythagorean Theorem fails in curved space we see a limit or boundary placed upon our assent.
When we turn to philosophical questions the nature and meaning of assent reaches another stage of subtlety. Consider the statement: 'Being is'. Can you assent to this statement? It seems a natural, almost trivial reflection of English usage. I can imagine a reader assenting to the statement at first glance but with a growing discomfort of the mind. Perhaps it is so trivial that to express it openly is ludicrous, perhaps its sets up an untenable relationship between the noun 'being' and the verb 'is'. It is a slippery thing to hold on to, perhaps it is false, but, if false, it would appear to be false at some more subtle level than the statements 'Two plus two is five', or 'It always rains on Sunday'.
We will try a definition: To assent to a thought means to treat the thought as if it were true. A vagueness in that definition appears to rest with the phrase 'treat the thought'; although idiomatic, that phrase is really quite close to what is intend ed. True, 'true' as an isolated word is even more indefinite than 'treat the thought', but it is in the nature of isolated words to be indefinite. We should find the phrase 'as if it were true' to be sufficiently clear in the context of the definition sentence. Sometimes, when we assent to an idea or thought, we mainly let the mind rest in accepting that thought as if it were true; sometimes we use that acceptance to continue a sequence of thoughts which depend upon the assent; sometimes we treat the thought assented to as if it were true by engaging in a physical action such as turning a key or making a speech. The definition is intended as a convenience and not as a replacement for the actual phenomena of assent, which we experience in our own beings.
While it is the case that our minds commonly assent to certain thoughts and ideas, there are various causes leading to such assent. In some cases a cause of assent to a thought is found in another thought which, so to speak, rests behind the original thought; in these cases the assent to the original thought is dependent upon assent to the thought which lies behind. My mind assents to the thought that today will be hot. Looking to the causes of that assent, I find three other thoughts that come readily to mind: that the date is September 5 in a mid northern latitude, that yesterday was hot and that I recall reading a weather service prediction that today would also be hot. These three thoughts are in some sense responsible for assent to the expectation that today will be hot; we might say that they are ‘prior’ to the expectation of today’s heat.
Truth is a goal, an attitude, a search. Truth is a direction, a path along which certain markers are observed. Philosophical truth shares the common property of all truth that it is not false, or does not appear to be false; it is what we assent to. Here we will clarify a distinction between two forms of truth, one of which we shall name 'assentual truth' and another which we name 'true truth'. Assentual truth is what the mind assents to at high priority; it is the truth, as we shall see, of unitary awareness. True truth is an idealization or objectification of truth. True truth requires an objective external reality to which thoughts in the mind approximate to and which thoughts are called true in so far as they most closely resemble the external objective reality. Unfortunately true truth is not true, because of its dependence upon the fiction of a knowable external objective reality. True truth can be useful as a normative goal of truth, as challenging us with some truth beyond our full grasp but not completely beyond our touch; the most useful normative function of true truth is as a mirror to show falsehood its own face. Assentual truth is more limited in its claim than true truth but the true advantage goes to assentual truth because, although limited, it is really true. Assentual truth may have less absolute truth than true truth claims to have but assentual truth also has the value of not being false, as true truth is. We may keep true truth as a figure of speech, even an attitude, but if we really seek philosophical truth then we also recognize the clearer truth value of an actually defined and delimited model of truth, for which we have defined and described assentual truth.