Chapter 10: How to Bring Truth and Politics Closer Again? According to Saint Thomas Aquinas

This work aims to present, from the Thomist synthesis, an attempted response to the current crisis marked, among other aspects, by the separation between truth and politics. More precisely, we will approach the problem from the application to the political field of the notion of “practical truth”—or truth of practical understanding—developed by Aristotle and later developed by Saint Thomas. This peculiar kind of truth, which in a certain way transcends the idea of adaequatio rei et intellectus by including within itself the note of conformitas ad appetitum rectum, points out a horizon of integration of the human person, both at the individual level and in its projection toward the society.

Our presentation has three parts. In the first one we will try to explain briefly the notions of practical truth and falsehood and their extension into the political sphere. Next, we will present how in the current context, named by some as the “post-truth era” what would be “political falsehood” is reflected, understood as a contempt or departure from the truth of things in the field of political action. Finally, we will point out, from the thought of Aquinas—especially from his political writings—some guidelines that we consider necessary for the reestablishment, in the political sphere, of the conditions of practical truth.