The Search for Truth in the Trial. The Lesson of Aquinas

Abstract

This essay intends to show the relevance of the Thomasian doctrine of adaequatio, illustrating its contribution to the contemporary debate on the knowability of the truth in trials. In fact, by virtue of its ontological and epistemological foundations, it appears able to account for the presumption of objectivity of judicial assessment without succumbing to anticorrespondence objections.  In particular, the Thomasian doctrine proves capable of providing an adequate justification of the epistemic quality of the results of the search for truth in the procedural context, above all because, in combination with the reflection on the certitudo probabilis of testimonies, it allows us to combine the awareness that in the judicial field, as in any variable and contingent matter, we cannot reach absolute certainties, with the belief that we can nevertheless know what most likely actually occurred.