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.