Absolute truth and relative truth. Definition of truth

Absolute and relative truth are important categories in the conceptual apparatus of dialectical-materialist teaching.

They serve as a reflection of the dialectical nature of cognition, interpret the achievability

Surrounding a person the world, which opens in knowledge and is subject to transformation, is distinguished by the properties of inexhaustibility and infinity.

The peculiarity of its structure is its extreme complexity.

His interactions, relationships and connections are limitless.

When trying to describe and understand these properties and features, problems arise that have been around for many millennia.

They are connected with the fact that not a single researcher has been able to express all the richness of the world in any description since the beginning of time.

At the same time, in many vivid and deep testimonies one can find magnificent descriptions of the partially known side of the world.

Dialectics recognizes that truth is, beyond any doubt, objective. It is in this quality that it (the truth) is known.

However, on the path of knowledge a very specific question arises: “What is the relationship between the two things that are subject to knowledge: absolute and relative?”

The answer should give an idea of ​​how exactly the truth is learned: instantly and holistically, immediately and completely, or, on the contrary, located in time, in parts, gradually and progressively?

By providing this answer, philosophy reminds us that the human mind is different situations penetrates into the understanding of reality to different depths. Knowledge corresponds to reality with varying degrees of accuracy.

Some reflect reality in its entirety. Others do this only partly.

Every single person, as well as every single generation, is limited in knowledge. Limiting factors are historical conditions, a certain level of development of technology and technology in experiments, science and production at various stages of their development.

For these reasons human knowledge on any arbitrary segment historical development appears in uniform relative truth.

Relative truth is knowledge that does not fully correspond to reality.

Such a truth is only a relatively true reflection of an object that is independent of humanity.

Reflects reality extremely accurately. It is not just objective, but completely objective.

Relative truth, in principle, cannot claim to reflect the world in its entirety.

Is it possible to demand from absolute truth such cognition that relative truth is incapable of?

To answer this question correctly, one must remember that many provisions of materialist dialectics contain contradictions.

On the one hand, absolute truth could be known as a holistic and complete phenomenon in all its manifestations and in full versatility. After all, things are completely knowable, and the capacity of human knowledge is limitless.

But on the other hand, the very presence of relative truth complicates the possibility of knowing absolute truth. After all, relative truth is ahead of absolute truth whenever knowledge is placed in certain, specific conditions.

However, in this case, can the knowledge of absolute truth even take place?

Simultaneously and comprehensively, completely and in all its versatility - no.

In the cognitive process, which is endless - undoubtedly, yes.

The development of more and more new aspects, links, and truth occurs as one approaches it with scientific achievements.

Relativity of truth - driving force in history.

In the knowledge of relative truths, people come to know the absolute truth. This is precisely the essence of progress.

Absolute truth and the absolute in truth

Speaking about the relative nature of truth, we should not forget that we mean truths in the sphere of scientific knowledge, but not knowledge of absolutely reliable facts, such as the fact that today Russia is not a monarchy. It is the presence of absolutely reliable and therefore absolutely true facts that is extremely important in the practical activities of people, especially in those areas of activity that are related to decisions human destinies. Thus, the judge has no right to reason: “The defendant either committed a crime or not, but just in case, let’s punish him.” The court does not have the right to punish a person if there is no complete certainty that a crime exists. If the court finds a person guilty of committing a crime, then there is nothing left in the verdict that could contradict the reliable truth of this empirical fact. Before operating on a patient or using a potent medicine, a doctor must base his decision on absolutely reliable data about the person’s disease. Absolute truths include reliably established facts, dates of events, births and deaths, etc.

Absolute truths, once expressed with complete clarity and certainty, no longer meet with demonstrative expressions, such as, for example, the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to the sum of two right angles, etc. They remain truths completely regardless of who claims them and when. In other words, absolute truth is the identity of concept and object in thinking - in the sense of completeness, coverage, coincidence and essence and all forms of its manifestation. These are, for example, the provisions of science: “Nothing in the world is created from nothing, and nothing disappears without a trace”; “The Earth revolves around the Sun,” etc. Absolute truth is the content of knowledge that is not refuted by the subsequent development of science, but is enriched and constantly confirmed by life. By absolute truth in science they mean exhaustive, ultimate knowledge about an object, as if reaching those boundaries beyond which there is nothing more to know. The process of development of science can be represented as a series of successive approximations to absolute truth, each of which is more accurate than the previous ones. The term “absolute” also applies to any relative truth: since it is objective, it contains something absolute as a moment. And in this sense we can say that any truth is absolutely relative. In the total knowledge of mankind specific gravity absolute is constantly increasing. The development of any truth is an increase in moments of the absolute. For example, each subsequent scientific theory is, in comparison with the previous one, more complete and profound knowledge. But new scientific truths do not at all derail the history of their predecessors, but complement, specify or include them as moments of more general and deeper truths.

So, science has not only absolute truths, but to an even greater extent relative truths, although the absolute is always partially realized in our current knowledge. It is unreasonable to get carried away with asserting absolute truths. It is necessary to remember the immensity of the still unknown, the relativity and once again the relativity of our knowledge.

Concreteness of truth and dogmatism

The concreteness of truth - one of the basic principles of the dialectical approach to cognition - presupposes an accurate account of all conditions (in social cognition - concrete historical conditions) in which the object of cognition is located. Concreteness is a property of truth based on knowledge of real connections, the interaction of all aspects of an object, the main, essential properties, and trends of its development. Thus, the truth or falsity of certain judgments cannot be established if the conditions of place, time, etc., in which they are formulated are not known. A judgment that correctly reflects an object under given conditions becomes false in relation to the same object under other circumstances. A true reflection of one of the moments of reality can become its opposite - a delusion, if certain conditions, place, time and the role of what is reflected within the whole are not taken into account. For example, a separate organ cannot be comprehended outside the whole organism, a person - outside of society (moreover, a historically specific society and in the context of the special, individual circumstances of his life). The proposition “water boils at 100 degrees Celsius” is true only if we're talking about about ordinary water and normal pressure. This position will no longer be true if the pressure is changed.

Each object along with general features endowed with individual characteristics and has its own unique “life context”. Because of this, along with a generalized approach, a specific approach to the object is also necessary: There is no abstract truth, truth is always concrete. Are the principles of classical mechanics, for example, true? Yes, they are true in relation to macrobodies and relatively low speeds of movement. Beyond these limits they cease to be true. The principle of concreteness of truth requires approaching facts not with general formulas and diagrams, and taking into account the specific situation, real conditions, which is in no way compatible with dogmatism. The specific historical approach acquires particular importance when analyzing the process social development, since the latter occurs unevenly and, moreover, has its own specifics in different countries.

Objective truth

Let us turn to the main characteristics of true knowledge. Key Feature truth, its main feature is its objectivity. Objective truth is the content of our knowledge that does not depend on either man or humanity. In other words, objective truth is such knowledge, the content of which is as it is “given” by the object, i.e. reflects him as he is. Thus, the statements that the earth is spherical, that +3 > +2, are objective truths.

If our knowledge is a subjective image of the objective world, then the objective in this image is the objective truth.

Recognition of the objectivity of truth and the knowability of the world are equivalent. But, as V.I. noted. Lenin, following the solution to the question of objective truth, a second question follows: “...Can human ideas that express objective truth express it immediately, entirely, unconditionally, absolutely, or only approximately, relatively? This second question is the question of the relationship between absolute and relative truth.”

Absolute truth and relative truth

The question of the relationship between absolute and relative truth could arise fully as a worldview question only at a certain stage of development of human culture, when it was discovered that people are dealing with cognitively inexhaustible, complexly organized objects, when the inconsistency of claims of any theories for the final (absolute) comprehension of these objects was revealed .

Absolute truth is currently understood as that kind of knowledge that is identical to its subject and therefore cannot be refuted by further development knowledge. This is the truth:

• a) the result of knowledge of individual aspects of the objects being studied (statement of facts, which is not identical to absolute knowledge of the entire content of these facts);
• b) definitive knowledge of certain aspects of reality;
• c) the content of relative truth that is preserved in the process of further cognition;
• d) complete, actual, never entirely achievable knowledge about the world and (we will add) about complexly organized systems.

When applied to a sufficiently developed scientific theoretical knowledge absolute truth is complete, exhaustive knowledge about an object (a complex material system or the world as a whole); relative truth is incomplete knowledge about the same subject.

An example of this kind of relative truths is the theory of classical mechanics and the theory of relativity. Classical mechanics as an isomorphic reflection of a certain sphere of reality, notes D.P. Gorsky, was considered a true theory without any restrictions, that is, true in some absolute sense, since with its help real processes were described and predicted mechanical movement. With the emergence of the theory of relativity, it was found that it could no longer be considered true without restrictions.

This idea of ​​absolute, and also of relative truth, associated with access to the process of development of scientific knowledge, the development of scientific theories, leads us to the true dialectic of absolute and relative truth.

Absolute truth is made up of relative truths.

Scientific knowledge, including the most reliable and accurate, is relative. The relativity of knowledge lies in its incompleteness and probabilistic nature. Truth is therefore relative, because it does not reflect the object completely, not completely, not exhaustively. And within certain limits, conditions, relationships that are constantly changing and developing. Relative truth is limitedly true knowledge about something.

Paradoxical but true: in science, every step forward is a discovery and new secret, and new horizons of ignorance. This is a process going on to infinity. Humanity has always strived to get closer to the knowledge of absolute truth, trying to narrow as much as possible the “sphere of influence” of the relative in the content of scientific knowledge. However, even the constant expansion, deepening and refinement of our knowledge, in principle, cannot completely overcome their probability and relativity. But one should not go to extremes, as, for example, K. Popper, who argued that any scientific position is just a hypothesis. It turns out that scientific knowledge is just a chain of guesses stretching from the depths of centuries, devoid of a stable support of reliability.

Speaking about the relative nature of truth, we should not forget that we mean truths in the sphere of scientific knowledge, but not knowledge of absolutely reliable facts, such as the fact that today there is no king of France. It is the presence of absolutely reliable and therefore absolutely true facts that is extremely important in the practical activities of people, especially in those areas of activity that are associated with the decision of human destinies. Thus, the judge does not have the right to reason: “The defendant either committed a crime or not, but just in case, let’s punish him.” The court does not have the right to punish a person if there is no complete certainty that a crime exists. Before operating on a patient or using a potent medicine, a doctor must base his decision on absolutely reliable data about the person’s disease. Absolute truths include reliably established facts, dates of events, births, deaths, etc.

Absolute truths, once expressed with complete clarity and certainty, no longer meet demonstrative objections. In other words, absolute truth is the identity of concept and object in thinking - in the sense of completeness of coverage, coincidence and essence and all forms of its manifestation. These are, for example, the provisions of science: “Nothing in the world is created from nothing, and nothing disappears without a trace”; “The earth revolves around the sun,” etc. Absolute truth is the content of knowledge that is not refuted by the subsequent development of science, but is enriched and constantly confirmed by life.

By absolute truth in science they mean exhaustive, ultimate knowledge about an object, as if reaching those boundaries beyond which there is nothing more to know. The process of scientific development can be represented as a series of successive approximations to the truth, each of which is more accurate than the previous one.

The term “absolute” also applies to any relative truth: since it is objective, it contains something absolute as a moment. And in this sense, we can say that any truth is absolutely relative. In the total knowledge of mankind, the share of the absolute is constantly increasing. The development of any truth is an increase in moments of the absolute. For example, each subsequent scientific theory is, in comparison with the previous one, more complete and profound knowledge. But new scientific truths do not at all derail the history of their predecessors, but complement, specify or include them as moments of more general and deeper truths. The previous theory is interpreted as part of the new one as its special case.

So, science has not only absolute truths, but to an even greater extent relative truths, although the absolute is always partially realized in our current knowledge. It is unreasonable to get carried away with asserting absolute truths. It is necessary to remember the immensity of the still unknown, the relativity of our knowledge.

True traditionally understood as correspondence of thoughts and statements to reality. This concept of truth is called classical and goes back to the ideas of ancient Greek philosophers and. Here are their statements on this matter:

Plato: He who speaks of things in accordance with what they are speaks the truth, but he who speaks of them differently lies. Aristotle: To say of a being that it does not exist, or of a non-existent that it is, is to speak falsely; and to say that what exists and what does not exist is not means to say what is true.

Polish-American logician and mathematician Alfred Tarski (1902-1984) expressed the classical formula of truth this way: The statement “P is C” is true if P is C. For example, the statement “Gold is a metal” is true if gold really is a metal. Thus, truth and falsity are characteristics of our thoughts and statements about reality and are impossible outside cognitive activity person.

Relative and absolute truths

Relative truth- this is knowledge that approximately and limitedly reproduces reality.

Absolute truth- this is complete, exhaustive knowledge of reality that cannot be refuted.

Development is characterized by the desire for absolute truth as an ideal, but the final achievement of this ideal is impossible. Reality cannot be completely exhausted, and with each new discovery new questions arise. In addition, the unattainability of absolute truth is due to the imperfection of the means of knowledge available to man. At the same time, each discovery is simultaneously a step towards absolute truth: in any relative truth there is some part of the absolute truth.

In a statement ancient Greek philosopher Democritus (5th century BC) “the world consists of atoms” contains a moment of absolute truth, but in general the truth of Democritus is not absolute, since it does not exhaust reality. Modern representations about the microcosm and elementary particles are more accurate, however, they do not exhaust reality as a whole. Each such truth contains elements of both relative and absolute truth.

Approaches according to which truth is only relative lead to relativism if it is believed that it is only absolute, then dogmatism.

Absolute truth in its broadest sense must not be confused with eternal or banal truths, such as “Socrates is a man” or “The speed of light in a vacuum is 300 thousand km/s.” Eternal truths are absolute only in relation to specific facts, and for more essential provisions, for example for scientific laws, and even more so for complex systems and reality in general, there are no complete and exhaustive truths.

In Russian, in addition to the concept of “truth”, the concept is also used "Truth", which is much broader in its meaning: truth is the combination of objective truth and moral justice, the highest ideal not only for scientific knowledge, but also for human behavior. As V.I. Dal said, truth is “truth in practice, truth in good.”

Lies and deception

Lies and deception act as the opposite of truth and indicate a discrepancy between judgment and reality. The difference between them lies in the fact of intentionality. So, delusion there is an unintentional discrepancy between judgments and reality, and lie - deliberately elevating misconceptions into truth.

The search for truth can thus be understood as a process constant struggle against lies and delusion.