It is true that this concept is not free of a paradoxical aspect...

It is true that this concept is not free of a paradoxical aspect, but within the framework of Aristotelian philosophy it may be demonstrated to have full coherence. For us, for the moment, it already has an advantage, that is its connection with prudence. Practical truth, that is the truth that is made, is the result of the creative force arising from the protection of prudence.

But the Aristotelian concept of practical truth has, according to the most authorized interpreters, certain limitations. It appears in connection with prudence, but not with science or technology. In these areas, truth is traditionally established by the adaptation of ideas to things. In science, true ideas are those which, so to speak, imitate the things that they are about; in the production of artefacts, these follow the ideas.

The very truth of practice also has two poles, but neither dominates the other. Practical truth consists in the adaptation of wish to understanding. Here the characteristics of truth are different, because the adaptation of the two poles must happen via integration, with neither of them suffering any violence to adjust to the other, for at such a moment, man, who is intelligent desire and desiring intelligence, would be betraying himself, would cease to be authentic and true.

This happens both when desires are denied by extreme asceticism and when they rule without restriction over the intelligence to the point of clouding it and forging it. In other words, what is to be achieved is not previously granted by either of the poles in such a way that the other simply has to adjust to it, but what both have to adjust to must be made as something new at the same time as the adjustment is made.

Every human action consists in a creative task of this type (as does the very history of humanity), and their common result, if they are true, will be a life of fulfilment and the human being himself.

In this regard, it may be said without any doubt that there exists a type of truth that is not conceived as an abstract agreement, but which rather is made, comes into effect, or to be more exact, is actualized, because the way in which wish and understanding finally come to an agreement was potential in both, and is discovered. This is the objective aspect of practical truth. But this potentiality had to be actualized by the subject. This is the creative aspect of practical truth.