ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE TRUTH are categories of dialectical materialism that characterize the process of development of knowledge and reveal the relationship between: 1) what has already been known and what will be known in the further process of development of science; 2) the fact that the composition of our knowledge can be changed, clarified, refuted in the course of further development of science, and that which will remain irrefutable. The doctrine of Absolute and relative truth provides an answer to the question: “...can human ideas expressing objective truth express it immediately, entirely, unconditionally, absolutely, or only approximately, relatively?” (Lenin V.I.T. 18. P. 123). Due to this absolute truth is understood as complete, exhaustive knowledge about reality (1) and as that element of knowledge that cannot be refuted in the future (2). Our knowledge at each stage of development is determined by the achieved level of science, technology, and production. With the further development of knowledge and practice, human ideas about nature deepen, clarify, and improve. Therefore, scientific truths are relative in the sense that they do not provide complete, exhaustive knowledge about the field of subjects being studied and contain elements that will change, become more precise, deepen, and be replaced by new ones in the process of development of knowledge. At the same time, each relative truth means a step forward in the knowledge of absolute truth; if it is scientific, it contains elements, grains of absolute truth. There is no uncrossable line between absolute and relative truth. The sum of relative truths creates the absolute truth. The history of science and social practice confirms this dialectical nature of the development of knowledge. In the process of development, science reveals deeper and more fully the properties of objects and the relationships between them, approaching the knowledge of absolute truth, which is confirmed by the successful application of theory in practice (in public life, in production, etc.). On the other hand, previously created theories are constantly refined and developed; some hypotheses are refuted (for example, the hypothesis about the existence of ether), others are confirmed and become proven truths (for example, the hypothesis about the existence of atoms); Some concepts are eliminated from science (for example, “caloric” and “phlogiston”), others are clarified and generalized (cf. the concepts of simultaneity and inertia in classical mechanics and in the theory of relativity). The doctrine of absolute and relative truth overcomes the one-sidedness of metaphysical concepts that declare every truth eternal, unchanging (“absolute”), and the concepts of relativism, which claim that every truth is only relative (relative), that the development of science indicates only a change in successive misconceptions and that therefore there is not and cannot be absolute truth. In reality, as Lenin put it, “every ideology is historical, but what is certain is that every scientific ideology (unlike, for example, a religious one) corresponds to an objective truth, an absolute nature” (Vol. 18, p. 138).

Philosophical Dictionary. Ed. I.T. Frolova. M., 1991, p. 5-6.

Both in the past and in modern conditions three great values remain the highest measure of a person’s actions and life itself - his service to truth, goodness and beauty. The first personifies the value of knowledge, the second - the moral principles of life and the third - service to the values of art. Moreover, truth, if you like, is the focus in which goodness and beauty are combined. Truth is the goal towards which knowledge is directed, for, as F. Bacon rightly wrote, knowledge is power, but only under the indispensable condition that it is true.

Truth is knowledge that reflects objective reality object, process, phenomenon as they really are. Truth is objective, this is manifested in the fact that the content of our knowledge does not depend either on man or on humanity. Truth is relative - correct knowledge, but not complete. Absolute truth - complete knowledge about objects, processes, phenomena that cannot be rejected by the subsequent development of our knowledge. Absolute truths are formed on the basis of relative ones. Each relative truth contains a moment of absoluteness - correctness. Concreteness of truth - every truth, even absolute, is concrete - it is truth depending on conditions, time, place.

Truth is knowledge. But is all knowledge truth? Knowledge about the world and even about its individual fragments, for a number of reasons, may include misconceptions, and sometimes even a conscious distortion of the truth, although the core of knowledge is, as noted above, an adequate reflection of reality in the human mind in the form of ideas, concepts, judgments , theories.

What is truth, true knowledge? Throughout the development of philosophy, a number of options for answering this most important question in the theory of knowledge have been proposed. Aristotle also proposed his solution, which is based on the principle of correspondence: truth is the correspondence of knowledge to an object, reality. R. Descartes proposed his solution: the most important sign true knowledge is clarity. For Plato and Hegel, truth appears as the agreement of reason with itself, since knowledge is, from their point of view, the revelation of the spiritual, rational fundamental principle of the world. D. Berkeley, and later Mach and Avenarius, considered truth as the result of the coincidence of the perceptions of the majority. The conventional concept of truth considers true knowledge (or its logical basis) to be the result of a convention, an agreement. Some epistemologists consider knowledge that fits into a particular system of knowledge as true. In other words, this concept is based on the principle of coherence, i.e. reducibility of provisions either to certain logical principles or to experimental data. Finally, the position of pragmatism boils down to the fact that truth lies in the usefulness of knowledge, its effectiveness.

The range of opinions is quite large, but the classical concept of truth, which originates from Aristotle and comes down to correspondence, the correspondence of knowledge to an object, has enjoyed and continues to enjoy the greatest authority and widest distribution. As for other positions, even if they have certain positive aspects, they contain fundamental weaknesses that make it possible to disagree with them even in best case scenario recognize their applicability only to a limited extent. The classical concept of truth is in good agreement with the initial epistemological thesis of dialectical-materialist philosophy that knowledge is a reflection of reality in human consciousness. Truth from these positions is an adequate reflection of an object by a cognizing subject, its reproduction as it exists on its own, outside and independently of man and his consciousness.

There are a number of forms of truth: ordinary or everyday, scientific truth, artistic truth and moral truth. In general, there are almost as many forms of truth as there are types of activities. A special place among them is occupied by scientific truth, characterized by a number of specific features. First of all, this is a focus on revealing the essence as opposed to ordinary truth. In addition, scientific truth is distinguished by systematicity, orderliness of knowledge within its framework and validity, evidence of knowledge. Finally, scientific truth is distinguished by repeatability, universal validity, and intersubjectivity.

The key characteristic of 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 statement that the earth is spherical is an objective truth. 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, the second question follows: “... Can human ideas that express objective truth express it immediately, entirely, unconditionally, absolutely, or only approximately, relatively? This second question is a question of correlation absolute and relative truth."

The question of the relationship between absolute and relative truth expresses the dialectic of knowledge in its movement towards truth, in the movement from ignorance to knowledge, from less complete knowledge to more complete knowledge. Comprehension of truth - and this is explained by the endless complexity of the world, its inexhaustibility in both big and small - cannot be achieved in one act of cognition, it is a process. This process goes through relative truths, relatively true reflections of an object independent of man, to absolute truth, an accurate and complete, exhaustive reflection of the same object. We can say that relative truth is a step on the way to absolute truth. Relative truth contains grains of absolute truth, and each step of knowledge forward adds new grains of absolute truth to knowledge about an object, bringing us closer to complete mastery of it.

So, there is only one truth, it is objective, since it contains knowledge that does not depend on either man or humanity, but at the same time it is relative, because does not provide comprehensive knowledge about the object. Moreover, being objective truth, it also contains particles, grains of absolute truth, and is a step on the path to it.

And at the same time, truth is specific, since it retains its meaning only for certain conditions of time and place, and with their change it can turn into its opposite. Is rain beneficial? There cannot be a definite answer; it depends on the conditions. Truth is concrete. The truth that water boils at 100C retains its meaning only under strictly defined conditions. The position on the concreteness of truth, on the one hand, is directed against dogmatism, which ignores the changes occurring in life, and on the other hand, against relativism, which denies objective truth, which leads to agnosticism.

But the path to truth is by no means strewn with roses; knowledge constantly develops in contradictions and through contradictions between truth and error.

Misconception. - this is the content of consciousness that does not correspond to reality, but is accepted as true - the position of the indivisibility of the atom, the hopes of alchemists for the discovery of the philosopher's stone, with the help of which everything can easily turn into gold. Misconception is the result of one-sidedness in reflecting the world, limited knowledge at a certain time, as well as the complexity of the problems being solved.

A lie is a deliberate distortion of the actual state of affairs in order to deceive someone. Lies often take the form of disinformation - substituting unreliable for selfish purposes, and replacing the true with false. An example of such use of disinformation is Lysenko’s destruction of genetics in our country on the basis of slander and exorbitant praise of his own “successes,” which was very costly for domestic science.

At the same time, the very fact of the possibility for cognition to fall into error in the process of searching for truth requires finding an authority that could help determine whether some result of cognition is true or false. In other words, what is the criterion of truth? The search for such a reliable criterion has been going on in philosophy for a long time. Rationalists Descartes and Spinoza considered clarity to be such a criterion. Generally speaking, clarity is suitable as a criterion of truth in simple cases, but this criterion is subjective and therefore unreliable - an error can also appear clear, especially because it is my error. Another criterion is that what is recognized as such by the majority is true. This approach seems attractive. Don't we try to decide many issues by majority vote by resorting to voting? However, this criterion is absolutely unreliable, because the starting point and in this case- subjective. In science in general, problems of truth cannot be decided by a majority vote. By the way, this criterion was proposed by the subjective idealist Berkeley, and later supported by Bogdanov, who argued that truth is a socially organized form of experience, i.e. experience recognized by the majority. Finally, another, pragmatic approach. That which is useful is true. In principle, truth is always useful, even when it is unpleasant. But the opposite conclusion: what is useful is always truth is untenable. With this approach, any lie, if it is useful to the subject, so to speak, to his salvation, can be considered the truth. The flaw in the criterion of truth proposed by pragmatism is also in its subjective basis. After all, the benefit of the subject is at the center here.

So what exactly is the criterion of truth? The answer to this question was given by K. Marx in his “Theses on Feuerbach”: “... Whether human thinking has objective truth is not at all a question of theory, but a practical question. The dispute about the validity or invalidity of thinking isolated from practice is purely scholastic question".

But why can practice act as a criterion of truth? The fact is that in practical activity we measure, compare knowledge with an object, objectify it and thereby establish how much it corresponds to the object. Practice is higher than theory, since it has the dignity of not only universality, but also immediate reality, since knowledge is embodied in practice, and at the same time it is objective.

Of course, not all scientific provisions require practical confirmation. If these provisions are derived from reliable initial provisions according to the laws of logic, then they are also reliable, because the laws and rules of logic have been tested in practice thousands of times.

Practice as a result of practical activity, which is embodied in specific material things that are adequate to ideas as a criterion of truth, both absolute and relative. Absolute, since we have no other criterion at our disposal. These ideas are truths. But this criterion is relative due to the limited practice in each historical period. Thus, practice for centuries could not refute the thesis of the indivisibility of the atom. But with the development of practice and knowledge, this thesis was refuted. The inconsistency of practice as a criterion of truth is a kind of antidote against dogmatism and ossification of thought.

Practice, as a criterion of truth, is both relative and absolute. Absolute as a criterion of truth and relative as a criterion of truth, because it itself is limited in its development at a certain stage of development (developmental practice).

The statement that all truth is relative, because we are talking about “my truth,” etc., is a fallacy. In reality, no truth can be relative, and talking about “my” truth is simply incoherent. After all, any judgment is true when what is expressed in it corresponds to reality. For example, the statement “there is thunder in Krakow now” is true if there is actually thunder in Krakow now. Its truth or falsity does not depend at all on what we know and think about the thunder roaring in Krakow. The reason for this error is the confusion of two completely different things: truth and our knowledge of truth. For knowledge about the truth of judgments is always human knowledge, it depends on subjects and in this sense is always relative. The very truth of the judgment has nothing in common with this knowledge: the statement is true or false completely regardless of whether someone knows about it or not. If we assume that thunder is really thundering in Krakow at this moment, it may happen that one person, Jan, knows about it, but another, Karol, does not know and even believes that there is no thunder in Krakow now. In this case, Jan knows that the statement “there is thunder in Krakow now” is true, but Karol does not know this. Thus, their knowledge depends on who has the knowledge, in other words, it is relative. However, the truth or falsity of a judgment does not depend on this. Even if neither Jan nor Karol knew that there was thunder in Krakow now, and in fact there was thunder, our judgment would be absolutely true regardless of knowledge of this fact. Even the statement: “The number of stars in the Milky Way is divisible by 17,” about which no one can say anything is true, is still either true or false.

Thus, talking about “relative” or “my” truth is incomprehensible in the full sense of the word; so is the statement: “In my opinion, the Vistula flows through Poland.” In order not to mutter something incomprehensible, a supporter of this superstition would have to agree that the truth is incomprehensible, that is, take a position of skepticism.

The same “relativity” can be found in pragmatic, dialectical and similar approaches to truth. All these misconceptions refer to certain technical difficulties, but in essence they are a consequence of skepticism, which doubts the possibility of knowledge. As for technical difficulties, they are imaginary. For example, they say that the statement “now there is thunder in Krakow” is true today, but tomorrow, when there is no thunder in Krakow, it will turn out to be false. They also say that, for example, the statement “it is raining” is true in Friborg and false in Tarnovo if it rains in the first city and the sun shines in the second.

However, this is a misunderstanding: if we clarify the judgments and say, for example, that by the word “now” we mean July 1, 1987, 10:15 pm, then the relativity disappears.

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 to varying degrees 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 arbitrarily taken segment historical development appears in the form of relative truth.

Relative truth is knowledge that corresponds to reality not in to the fullest.

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 cognitive process, which is infinite - 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.

Objective truth

Let us turn to the main characteristics of true knowledge. The key characteristic of 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 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 true theory without any restrictions, that is, true in some absolute sense, since with its help real processes of mechanical motion were described and predicted. 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 development process scientific knowledge, development scientific theories, leads us to the true dialectic of absolute and relative truth.

Absolute truth is made up of relative truths.