Contingency, Possibility, and Verisimilitude in Lorenzo Valla : Dialectics and Philology

This article analyses Lorenzo Valla’s dialectics in order to uncover an epistemological
theory of truth undergirding Valla’s production. Based on the analysis of Valla’s
Retractatio totius dialecticae, I argue that Valla rejects the notion of one-sided possibility,
and considers both possibility and contingency as incompatible with necessity and
absolute truth. This assumption inevitably hinders inquiries in fields of knowledge that
deal with inherently possible or particular data. Analysing Valla’s philological works, this
article shows that, in specific cases, Valla tries to overcome this obstacle thanks to the
notion of intellectual acumen, a faculty that transcends the rules of logical inference and
puts the inquirer in contact with truth.