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Correspondent truth concept. Correspondent theory of truth. Absolute and relative truth

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1. Classical (correspondent) interpretation of truth.............................. 3

2 Non-classical concepts of truth: coherent, pragmatic and conventional concepts........................................................................................................ 5

3 Truth and its "antipodes"............................................................................... 9

4 The problem of the objectivity of truth.............................................................. 11

Essay................................................................................................................ 12

LIST OF USED SOURCES..................................... 13

Classical (correspondent) interpretation of truth

Begin answering first a question with the most general definition of truth, in which it is necessary to show its difference from reliability, correctness, truth. In illuminating the classical concepts of truth, refer to the analysis of the views of Aristotle, Fr. Bacon, French philosophers and educators, L. Feuerbach, representatives of Marxist philosophy, A. Tarski.

The problem of truth occupies a central place in the theory of knowledge in general, and in epistemology - the theory of scientific knowledge - in particular, since all their problems relate either to the means, ways of achieving truth (methodology, sensory and rational, empirical and theoretical), or to the forms of its existence (fact, problem, hypothesis, theory). The content of the problem of truth lies in the ambiguity of its interpretations, discrepancies in the definition of its role in cognition, the diversity of forms of existence.

The multidimensionality of truth and its various hypostases are due to the variety of types of spiritual production and methods of active development by a person of the surrounding world. Therefore, human thinking can take on different forms (verbal, symbolic, pictorial, musical, etc.), for each of which there is a problem of distinguishing between truth and error, reliability and illusion.

In classical philosophy, two fundamentally alternative paradigms of the interpretation of truth are formed. One of them is based on the principle of correspondence as the correspondence of knowledge to the objective state of affairs of the objective world (Aristotle, F. Bacon, Spinoza, Diderot, Helvetius, Holbach, Feuerbach, Lenin, etc.), the other - on the principle of coherence as the correspondence of knowledge to the immanent characteristics of the ideal sphere ...

The origins of the classical concept of truth go back to ancient philosophy. The first attempts at its theoretical understanding were undertaken by Plato and Aristotle.

The following characteristic of truth belongs to Plato: "... the one who speaks about things in accordance with what they are, speaks the truth, the one who speaks about them differently, lies ...". In a similar way, Aristotle characterizes the concept of truth in his Metaphysics: “... to speak about a being that it does not exist, or about a non-existent that it is, is to say false; and to say that the being is and the non-being is not is to say the true. " “It must be borne in mind - not because you are white because we correctly consider you white, but on the contrary - because you are white, we, who assert this, are right” 30.

It would seem that the classical theory of truth is so clear that it cannot give rise to any serious problems. And for a long time they appealed to her as to something obvious and self-evident. This concept is most commonly used in experimental science. The requirement for the theory to correspond to experimental data is one of the main requirements for accepting a particular hypothesis. Neopositivists believed that experiment is an exhaustive factor in establishing the correctness of a theory (the principle of verification). However, the weaknesses of this concept gradually began to emerge. Karl Popper was one of the first to notice the limitations of this line of reasoning. Theories are refuted sooner or later, so their previous agreement with the experiment cannot be considered true tests. And although there are vulnerabilities in Popper's position - if a theory is in contradiction with some experimental data, then it is inapplicable for their interpretation, but retains its significance for other experimental data - he made us think about the problems faced by the classical concept of truth.

First of all, in his cognition, a person deals not with the objective world "by itself", but with the world in its form, as it is sensibly perceived and conceptually comprehended by him. This raises the question - what reality does our knowledge answer (should answer)? In addition, the classical concept of truth in its "naive" form considers the correspondence of knowledge to reality as a simple copying of reality by thoughts.

A. Tarski made an attempt to improve and rationalize the classical concept of truth. First of all, he strove to overcome the so-called paradox of the liar, which the classical concept of truth is faced with, in the case when truth is considered as a correspondence not only to objective reality, but also to any reality. This paradox seemed to be a serious logical contradiction in the doctrine of truth.

To overcome the liar's paradox and make the definition of truth logically consistent, it is necessary, according to Tarski, to move from the natural to the formalized language. The latter should include a specific vocabulary and strict syntactic rules for composing "correct" expressions from the words listed in the dictionary. Within the framework of this normalized language, one cannot discuss the semantics of this language and, in particular, the question of truth. In order to discuss the truth of the expressions of a given formalized language, a special metalanguage is needed. Tarski's concept of truth is called the semantic concept of truth.

In the general philosophical sense, the problem of truth is broader than the problem of the truth of knowledge. You can talk about "true friendship", "true values", "the truth of human existence", etc. This - ontological - understanding of truth can be found in Plato, who understood truth as a separate "idea" and at the same time as a characteristic of the existence of "ideas" , in other words, in his teaching it was identified with a certain true dimension of reality, which for its discovery does not need a person and his cognitive abilities. A fundamentally different understanding is given by the epistemological approach, from the point of view of which truth is a property not of being, but of knowledge.

Historically, the first and most widespread interpretation is the classical understanding of truth, dating back to Aristotle, as the correspondence of our knowledge of reality to reality itself. Subsequently, this concept was called the "correspondence theory of truth."

Correspondent theory of truth for a long time dominated in scientific knowledge and is the most acceptable from the point of view of everyday experience. However, it relies on a number of premises that are problematic enough in themselves. Understanding truth as a correspondence between knowledge and reality presupposes: firstly, that an adequate reflection of an object in consciousness is possible in principle, that various types of agnosticism are questioned, and secondly, that this correspondence can be established, that is, consciousness is able to go beyond its own limits and to compare reality with its own image, thirdly, that there is a certain infallible criterion that allows you to fix the correspondence and inconsistency between knowledge and the real state of affairs.

The problematic nature of these premises was already fixed within the framework of the classical and clearly manifested itself in non-classical philosophy, which formulated a number of alternative approaches to understanding truth - a coherent, pragmatic and conventional concept of truth.

Coherent concept of truth(from lat. cohaerentia - connection, cohesion) focuses on such properties of knowledge as self-consistency and logical consistency. To solve the question of the truth (or falsity) of a certain statement means to establish its consistency (or inconsistency) with a certain system of statements, that is, unlike the classical concept, the statement is compared not with reality, but with other statements. The coherence of knowledge can be established not only within the framework of one theory, but also between theories within a certain branch of science, between science as a whole and the ideological attitudes of culture.

The pragmatic concept of truth(from the Greek. pragma - deed, action) in the clearest form is presented by the representative of pragmatism W. James, from the point of view of which the measure of the truth of knowledge is determined by its practical usefulness, efficiency in achieving the goals that a person sets and achieves. The question of the real state of affairs, regardless of our practical needs, in this case does not make sense. In the Marxist theory of knowledge, which is generally based on the correspondent concept of truth, there are also elements of a pragmatist approach, since practice is proclaimed as the most important criterion of truth.

Conventionalist concept of truth(from Lat. conventio - agreement). In their understanding of truth, the supporters of this concept (A. Poincaré, R. Carnap, K. Aydukevich and others) proceed from the premise that what is recognized in science as a “fact” is largely a theoretical construct, that is, the very picture of scientific reality depends on the used conceptual and logical apparatus, the choice of which, in turn, is determined by agreement (explicit or implicit) among the members of the scientific community. Thus, the very definition of truth and its specific content are conditionally contractual in nature and are derived from the choice of conceptual tools used in research.

Analytical concept of truth

Science

Topic 2. The concept of truth and its application in modern philosophy

The concept of truth in the concept of meaning as truth conditions must obviously correspond to its general functional purpose, i.e. must match the definition:

(D1) Truth is such a property of sentences (or other carriers of truth), thanks to which we know their meaning.

The challenge is to match this functional definition with some structural one.

Alan White begins his famous book, The Truth, by remarking:

"What is truth?" ("What is truth?") And "What is true?" (“What is the truth?” Are two very different questions. The second is the question of which things are true; the first is what it means to say that they are true.

We can characterize the latter by supporting the thesis, more or less generally accepted both in modern analytical philosophy and in epistemology, that knowledge is true grounded belief... In this case, we can give the following definition of truth:

(D2) Truth is a property of justified beliefs (or other carriers of truth), thanks to which we know them ( dere or dedicto ).

Keeping the idea of the relationship between truth and meaning, i.e. within the concept of meaning as truth conditions, we say:

(D3) Truth is the property of justified beliefs (or other truth bearers) by which we know their meaning.

By comparing this definition with (D1), we see that adopting this approach will oblige us to show how equivalence can be established between sentence tokens and justified beliefs as truth bearers. But first let us consider the possibilities of applying various theories of truth for the purposes of this study.

In this case, those theories that are obviously inapplicable in the concept of meaning as conditions of truth will remain outside the scope of consideration. This is primarily:

1) the theory of eliminativism - when truth is achieved, propositions disappear and only reality remains;

2) the theory of identity - when the bearer of truth (for example, a proposition) is true, then it is identical to its truth factor (for example, a fact), and truth consists in this identity.

The basic idea of correspondence truth is deceptively simple: a sentence is true if and only if it matches the facts (or reality).

According to this theory, a sentence (proposition, belief, utterance, or whatever it is that we take in our theory as the bearer of truth) is true if there is something due to which it is true - something that corresponds in reality to what is said. In other words: if R is true, then this corresponds to the fact that R ... Or: that which corresponds to the facts is true. If R true if and only if R , then when something - for example, R - is affirmed truly, then there must be something additional, something other than what is said - something to which what is affirmed refers to. The obvious and, perhaps, the only full-fledged candidate for the role of this "something" - fact ; for example, the fact that R .

Classical attempts to explain the concept of correspondence truth quickly ran into insurmountable difficulties. If the sentence is true by virtue of its correspondence with the fact, then we need an explanation of this "correspondence" and these "facts". Attempts to reveal the basic concept of correspondence-correspondence quickly got bogged down in metaphors: "picture", "mirror" or "reflection of reality." Sentences, from this point of view, in some way not defined further, "display" or "depict" facts- in turn, obscure entities (something requiring clarification) with dubious identity conditions. In any case, a fact is understood to mean something independent of what is said about it and, in addition, something that can be described in other words. Therefore, not only about two different sentences, we can say that they describe the same fact, but also, for example, about two different propositions, if we consider them the meanings of sentences - since some correspondentists have created an additional problem, assuming that the carriers of truth are not sentences , but the propositions that express these sentences. The most common problems associated with representing truth as correspondence are as follows.

 A question about a truth operator or factor. Does the fact appear here - a real situation or an ideal state of affairs, where only the relationship between individual objects is essential?

 A question about the bearer of truth. What exactly corresponds to the fact - a sentence, a proposition, a belief, or something else?

 A question about the relationship of correspondence. What exactly does it mean - is it that the proper names and / or subjective terms in the sentence (or the corresponding elements in the proposition) correspond to real entities connected with each other by the very relationships that are somehow expressed in what is said (for example , named), or do the sentences reflect the general structure of the fact?

 Question about verification. If a fact can be represented only in a sentence or proposition, then is it not then a verification of the truth by comparing what is said with facts, in essence, a comparison of this sentence or proposition with other sentences or propositions, and not with the facts to which we are in in the end we don't get there?

Depending on the answers to these questions, different versions of the correspondence theory will differ. However, the basic assumption in the discussion of the correspondence theory - which is common to its supporters and opponents - is that both relata , between which the correspondence relationship is established, are separately existing objects of one kind or another (and, moreover, of different kinds); respectively, truth is a relational property.

The carriers of truth in the correspondence theory can easily be recognized such mental entities as positing or judgment, or such an entity that is not clarified by its ontological status as a proposition, as well as sentences or utterances. An event, situation, or state of affairs can be taken as a truth operator.

This view owes its credibility mainly to examples where the bearer of the truth takes the form of a categorical affirmative statement about some such event or situation.

Thus, we can deduce from these classical discussions the following signs of the concept of correspondence truth:

(1) It is inherent in sentences or propositions (at least in part) due to the structure of the sentence.

(2) It is inherent in sentences (at least in part) due to the relationship of sentences to reality.

(3) It is inherent in sentences (at least in part) due to the objective nature of reality, independent of consciousness. This feature is intended to capture the typical correspondence view that the sentence is "made by a true independent reality".

(1) follows from the fact that correspondence truth may be inherent in some sentences, but not others. This, in turn, is due to the fact that it can be implicitly used in our daily cognitive practice. several concepts of truth, and asymmetrically: for example, adhere to physical correspondence truth when rejecting ethical (moral or other axiologically determined) correspondence truth.

(3) contains a serious ontological requirement, but it is at least clear and unambiguous.

The most vulnerable here (2) is the "relation of proposals to reality". What is this attitude? Through what can it be described?

Those defenders of correspondence theory who have in mind the first type of relationship use the metaphors of "display" or "picture". According to this interpretation, correspondence is a relation of copying or an image, or the identity of a structure that does not lend itself to further analysis and satisfies the definition of the form "This expression (or another carrier of truth, as well as their many - for example, history, explanation, theory, etc.) fits the facts. " However, such a study of the relationship of correspondence is very limited. What is depicted (copied, identically structured) must be a situation or event - for example, the statement "Cat on the rug" is supposed to represent a cat on the rug. We have seen, however, that the second member of the correspondence relation must be fact that the cat is on the mat. In addition, it is difficult to see what image, copying, or structural relationship is possible for negative, conditional, or disjunctive true statements and what makes them true. For example, what do the true statements "If the cat is on the mat, then it is warm" or "There is no cat on the mat," for example? Finally, what is said is usually so different in nature from what makes what is said true that no obvious relationship of conformity, fitness to each other, or structural similarity is possible between them. A correspondence theory of this form (for example, in the spirit of early Wittgenstein) would serve to explain the truth of only translinguistic entities, but would not stand up to the requirements of linguistic relativity. Thus, the application of the correspondence theory in the concept of meaning as truth conditions turns out to be very limited.

The very ideas about the truth of correspondence arose (in Aristotle) precisely as a theory of reference, indicating through linguistic expressions to objects in the world, and not to something else and not somewhere else. This is essentially an extensional theory, since its application in the concept of meaning as truth conditions will be aimed at expressing the semantic in the non-semantic.

By ascribing possible states of affairs or facts to indicative sentences, correspondence theory assigns extensional truth conditions to them and thus entails the whole range of problems associated with referentially opaque contexts. For example, it will assign the same truth conditions to the sentences "Cicero is bald" and "Tullius is bald". If the subject does not know that Tullius is the generic name of Cicero, then these two sentences will not be synonymous for him; for verification, he will have to turn to other proposals.

So, the application in the concept of meaning as conditions of truth of the correspondence theory is limited and does not meet the requirement of ontological neutrality.

“Truth is simple through and through, pure through and through and cannot stand the admixture of anything extraneous. She is stern and adamant about any incidental interest; and such must also be reason, the significance and superiority of which lies in the fact that it conforms to the truth. Thinking about each thing exactly as it is in itself - this is the real purpose of the mind, although people do not always use it for this. "
-- John Locke

The category of truth is perhaps one of the most demanded and contradictory things in our time. This is not to say that there is one single concept of truth that is accepted by all people in the world, so often disputes become unproductive, and discussions turn into idle talk. How can you strive for the truth if you do not fully understand what it is? In this paper, various views on the category of truth will be considered and an attempt will be made to criticize these views. Unfortunately, within the framework of this work, it is not possible to consider all the variations of the concepts of truth among each individual philosopher, therefore, only some of the generalizations that are made in encyclopedias or various educational materials will be considered.

Classic views of truth

Correspondent or classical concept of truth

"Truth is the correspondence of thought and reality, knowledge and its subject."
- Aristotle

This concept is called classical because it turns out to be the oldest of all concepts of truth: it is with it that the theoretical study of truth begins. The classical definition of truth, which is accepted by many philosophers: truth is an adequate reflection of objective reality by a cognizing subject, reproducing the cognized object as it exists outside and independently of consciousness. "Adequacy" (or "fidelity" of reflection) means that the result of cognition itself is a reflection, causally conditioned by the displayed one. In other words, truth here is understood as the correspondence of human knowledge to the real state of affairs, objective reality.

There are three terms. True (false), truth (false), true (delusion). We sometimes do not notice the differences between these three terms. It is believed that with these three words we mean the same thing. Below we will consider how these words should be understood within the framework of the classical concept of truth:

True- some form of thought. For example, judgment. Most philosophers believe that the only form of thinking that carries truth is judgment. Only judgment can be characterized as true and false. This is not applicable to the concept. This is not to say that the concept is true or false. But I must say that there are other carriers of truth - ideas, theories, holias. That is, we give them a characterization. Here we come to the concept of truth.
The truth- a sign, the presence of which makes this thought true. Truth is the correspondence (coincidence) between this thought and the objective world. This correspondence is called truth.
True- this is the quality of some thought, the relationship between the world and thought.

Sometimes a thought is called truth, but since all thoughts are created by people, it turns out that people create truth. Of course, all forms of truth are created by people, but they cannot create their truth. Truth is not created, it is revealed. When we say that truth is a coincidence between the world and consciousness, how can we achieve this correspondence? You can fit reality to our truth, or you can fit thought to reality. What does fit mean? This means that in our thought there is an objective taken from the world of consciousness. And when our thought has an objective content, then it corresponds to the world. And if there is no such content, then there is no truth. It turns out that truth does not exist without humanity. If there is no thinking, then there is no correspondence between the world and thinking. Truth does not depend on man and humanity. We can see a thought false, but if it matches, then it is true. What is objective truth? This is the objective content of our consciousness. That is, the kind of content that is consistent with the outside world. So, in accordance with the correspondent concept of truth, truth can only be objective. It does not depend on anything, although it does not exist without a person. And we must learn this truth.

This concept looks somewhat contradictory, since, on the one hand, it claims that truth does not depend on man and humanity, but on the other hand, it says that it does not exist without man and humanity. It turns out that there is still dependence. After all, what is dependence is a certain coherence of phenomena, which presupposes their existence or coexistence, conditioning. It turns out that the truth depends on the person and the subject of knowledge, and this concept is incomplete, since it does not take into account the subjectivity of truth.

This concept speaks of "objective reality", but in fact immediately declares that there is no objective reality, there is only the content of objective reality in our consciousness. For example, every sighted person perceives the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, what should we perceive "objectively"? We should see only multi-colored spots and nothing more, but our consciousness is arranged in such a way that it organizes the perceived information and tries to highlight some patterns, images, silhouettes. As a result, some stable schemes are formed, which we already take for some "objective reality". It turns out that "objective reality" is something disordered, chaotic, and we cannot correlate our ordered images with something chaotic, this is a comparison of qualitatively different things. This means that we cannot determine the truth either.

For some reason, this definition narrows the understanding of truth only to the consciousness of a person. At the same time, it is obvious that truth, as a kind of objective phenomenon, exists not only for a person, since more than one person has consciousness and the ability to think. If there were no man, then the truth would remain for less developed forms of consciousness, for example, animals. This concept does not take this into account.

Authoritarian concept of truth

The thoughts, sayings and deeds of the prophets collected in the Koran and Sunnah are memorized by specially trained people, so that in case of disputes and disagreements, they can have time to pull the trump card out of their sleeve and be the first to shout: Magister dixit. This is what the Prophet said - how dare you contradict him! "

Anyone can be substituted for the role of the Prophet - Aristotle, Adam Smith, Marx and Engels, and all of the above are only made worse by this. In order to make this mental game of "rock-paper-scissors" even more interesting, the origin and the entire chain of transmission of this or that establishment are taken into account.

This concept of truth gives rise to dogmatism, which in turn hinders the development of human civilization. As an example, consider the Europe of the Middle Ages, when only what was written in the Bible or Aristotle was true. As a chronologically closer example, we can cite the USSR, where what Marx, Engels or Lenin said could not be refuted a priori. Obviously, even the most authoritative people are wrong. Authority should not overshadow common sense, and what is put forward by authority should be checked in the same way as everything else. On the other hand, it cannot be said that the authority of someone in any area does not play a role at all. When there is some time limit for making a decision, it is better to listen to an authoritative person than not, as this can reduce the likelihood of a wrong decision.

« The masses call the truth the information that is most familiar. Ordinary people are usually much more primitive than we imagine. Therefore, propaganda, in essence, should always be simple and endlessly repetitive. Ultimately, the most outstanding results in influencing public opinion will be achieved only by those who are able to reduce problems to the simplest words and expressions and who have the courage to constantly repeat them in this simplified form, despite the objections of high-brow intellectuals.»
- Joseph Goebbels

Unfortunately, this concept is very common among ordinary people in society, who are not used to thinking about what their favorite authorities are saying. It is very difficult to argue with such people and come to constructive results. Often it comes to ardent fanaticism, when, in a dispute with such a person, he begins to behave like an impenetrable religious fanatic who has learned the truth in the words of his "God". The media that do not accept alternative views on what is happening in the world act as such a "God" in the 20th century. Vivid examples of the application of this concept of truth can be called the fuss of the media around the events of September 11, 2001, when planes with terrorists crashed into the twin towers. Later, enough alternative views on what happened appeared, but they were skillfully crushed by the official position of the state. Some scientists and engineers have expressed their doubts that the plane could destroy the structure of the building in such a way that it completely collapsed. They applied calculations, mathematical models, and common sense to their words.

The concept of obviousness

« The obvious is rarely true. "
- Confucius

"The thinker moves forward if he is not in a hurry with conclusions, even if they seem obvious to him."
- Albert Camus

Truth is that which is obvious, a clear, distinct idea. But do not think that this concept is only among the common people. There were philosophers (R. Descartes, F. Brentano, E. Husserl) who substantiate it. Presumably, an example can be the representations of R. Descartes, who considered true that which is perceived clearly and distinctly.

Descartes formulated the method of knowing the truth in the form of a set of external requirements:

“The first is to never accept as true anything that I would not admit so clearly, that is, carefully avoid haste and prejudice and include in your judgments only that which appears to my mind so clearly and distinctly that in no way can give cause for doubt.

The second is to divide each of the difficulties I am considering into as many parts as necessary in order to better resolve them.

The third is to arrange your thoughts in a certain order, starting with the objects of the simplest and easily recognizable, and ascending little by little, as by steps, to the knowledge of the most complex, allowing the existence of order even among those that do not precede each other in the natural course of things.

And last but not least - make lists everywhere so complete and reviews so comprehensive as to be sure that nothing is missing " .

« There is nothing more obscure than an obvious fact. "

Sherlock Holmes

It must be said that the method of knowing the truth outlined by Descartes works great in the exact sciences, but is inapplicable in the experienced sciences. And in the same way, the method of induction, which empiricists rely on, does not work in the exact sciences.

The Theory of Truth as Experimental Verifiability

The best evidence of all is experience.- Francis Bacon

« No amount of experimentation can prove a theory; but one experiment is enough to refute it. "
-- Albert Einstein

Truth is experienced verifiability. Logical positivists (Moritz Schlick and others) can be named as representatives of this concept.

Schlick called his philosophical concept "consistent empiricism." He believed that the problem of cognizing the essence of being is meaningless, because the subject of philosophy is not the search for truth, but "the study of meaning" or, in other words, "clarification of the content of scientific judgments." Schlick believed that only experience is the source of knowledge. On the basis of his philosophy, he formulated a criterion of verifiability. Its essence is simple, only those that are accessible to empirical verification can be considered scientific statements, that is, they can be evaluated using facts as true or false.

Obviously, not everything can be verified by experience due to different conditions. For example, for the most part, we cannot test historical theories in practice, since the very conditions for an experiment cannot be repeated. The same can be said about Darwin's evolutionary theory.

We are unable to conduct some experiments due to ethical or environmental considerations. We will not detonate hydrogen bombs or cross genes just to prove some theory or statement. To do this, it is best to find more elegant ways that do not violate ethical or environmental principles, for example, mathematical modeling.

Non-classical views of truth

Coherent theory of truth

"Two conflicting judgments cannot be true at the same time."
- Franz Brentano

The truth is the concept where all the parts fit together perfectly. Where there are no internal contradictions. The more connected, or consistent with each other, our statements, the more they are true: the truth of any true statement consists in its coherence (from the Latin cohaerens - "in connection") with a certain set of statements. The elements of such a system should be connected with each other by relations of logical implication or succession: in this connection, the meaning of the coherence relation consists. To be coherent to the system for approval means to be connected with the rest of the members of the system by the same logical relations in which they are connected with each other. To check the truth, therefore, means to check by what relations a given judgment is connected with the rest in the system, whether it is compatible with the system - for example, with the generally accepted scientific picture of the world.

A coherent theory of truth is characteristic of the great rationalistic systems of metaphysics — Leibniz, Spinoza, Fichte, Hegel, Bradley; according to Ralph Walker, Descartes, Kant, Wittgenstein, and even Quine have coherent representations.

This concept comes from rational intuition, which was beautifully expressed, for example, by R. Collingwood: "The criterion of truth that justifies his (the historian's) statements is never the fact that their content was given to him by the source." That is, he meant that the chronicler (historian) should not only find historical facts, but also check these facts for "reliability".

For example, Collingwood quotes the following:

“Suetonius tells me that Nero at one time intended to remove the Roman legions from Britain. I reject this testimony of Suetonius not because some more perfect source contradicts it, for, of course, I do not have such sources. I reject it, because, while reconstructing Nero's policy based on the works of Tacitus, I cannot believe that Suetonius is right ... I can include what Tacitus told about into my own coherent and integral picture of events, and I cannot do this with Suetonius's stories. "

That is, in fact, Collingwood built some integral picture of the world based on the works of Tacitus, and then gradually begins to include some new elements there. He, as it were, begins to check them purely logically, but not with the help of formal logic, but with the help of logic in general and common sense. Collingwood goes on to write:

“... any source can be corrupted: this author is prejudiced, he received false information, this inscription was misread by a poor specialist in epigraphy, this shard was displaced from its temporary layer by an inexperienced archaeologist, and that one - by an innocent rabbit. The critical-minded Historian must identify and correct all such distortions. And he does this only by deciding for himself whether the picture of the past, created on the basis of this evidence, is a coherent and continuous picture that has historical meaning " .

But can we say that such an approach is justified only in history or other humanities? It should be assumed that no. Suffice it to recall the dispute between Einstein and Bohr. First, it is interesting to note that the very postulates that Bohr put forward were contrary to classical mechanics, but consistent with common sense and logic. They could not be deduced in any rigorous way from more general assumptions, and proceeding from extremely fragmentary and, it seemed, unrelated experimental data. It turns out that Bohr was able to look at all the facts with an open mind, in a new way. He realized that his inner picture of the world, based on classical mechanics, does not explain all these facts. What was he supposed to do? Either play with facts so that they fall into the theory, or change the theory itself, as geocentrists once did, or admit that the theory is fundamentally inapplicable to these facts and a new theory is needed. For example, here is what Einstein recalled about Bohr's discovery:

“It was as if the earth had disappeared from under our feet and nowhere was there any solid ground on which to build. It always seemed to me a miracle that this fluctuating and full of contradictions basis was enough to allow Bohr - a man with a genius intuition and a keen instinct - to find the main laws of spectral lines and electronic shells of atoms, including their significance for chemistry. It seems to me a miracle even now. This is the highest musicality in the field of thought. "

Second, let us now look at the contradiction that arose between two people, that is, Bohr and Einstein. Quantum theory amazed the minds of all physicists with its paradox. This paradox did not fit in their minds and not everyone was able to accept it. Einstein saw or intuitively felt that the explanation of Bohr's paradoxical postulates would lead to even more general paradoxes, that they would break or limit that ideal, harmonious and rational picture of the world, which shone through the lines of the philosophical treatises of Descartes and Spinoza, received powerful support (but with it absolutes alien to such a picture) in Newtonian mechanics and eventually acquired a harmonious form in Einstein's theory of relativity. Developing such a picture was the essence of physics for Einstein. Therefore, he spoke of Bohr's theory: "If all this is correct, then here is the end of physics."... In the years when Bohr's model of the atom was discussed from various sides (for example, from the point of view of its applicability to atoms more complex than the hydrogen atom), Einstein saw in the new theory a much more general and deeper feature - the collapse or at least a limitation of that ideal , which in the eyes of the creator of the theory of relativity was the mainstay of the very existence of physics. As you know, Einstein remained unconvinced, he did not accept Bohr's point of view and went to the grave convinced that he was right, but time has shown that Bohr was right and Einstein was not.

It can be concluded that the coherent concept of truth is precisely guiding us along the path that everyone should go. What if all our ideas about the world are wrong? What if what we do every day is false, but we are purely psychologically accustomed to this picture of the world and cannot refuse it? For example, people who drink alcohol can be cited as long as they want facts, research and evidence that alcohol is harmful, but they will still continue to drink. They do not notice the contradictions that are ripe between their inner picture of the world and the world itself. If the contradictions are not eliminated, then they will accumulate like a snowball that rolls down the mountain, and as a result, it will crash and crush the one who has not noticed their contradictions for so long.

Conventional theory of truth

A convention (Latin conventio) is an agreement. Accordingly, conventional truth is a truth that is established as a result of an agreement between the parties concerned. Relatively speaking, scientists gather for some kind of congress and decide that from this moment the truth is like this. Some may think that such a method is not scientific, that it is a manipulation of results instead of scientific research. However, if you look at it, in fact, in a number of cases such an approach is not only justified, but even more so - it is difficult for it to offer a sane alternative. For example, at what temperature does water boil? The true answer is, "At one hundred degrees Celsius." Why? Because one hundred degrees Celsius is the boiling point of water at standard pressure. Just by the definition of the Celsius scale. Obviously, in this case, the conventional approach is quite justified, since it is not so much about the objective properties of reality, but rather about the inner kitchen of scientists.

However, everything is not as simple as it might seem. After all, although the physical properties of the planets are quite objective, but what a “planet” is is determined precisely as a result of a conventional agreement. And the same statement can be both true and false, depending on how we define the concept of "planet". Moreover, history shows us that this concept was repeatedly revised, and sometimes this led to significant changes even on the part of an outside observer (the last example - astronomers gathered, thought and deprived Pluto of the status of a planet).

Supporters of conventionalism were Edouard Leroy (extreme conventionalism), Pierre Duhem, Henri Poincaré and others. Consider the conventional theory of Poincaré, who tried to correct Leroy's extreme approach to this issue.

Truth is the result of agreement. That is, a system of statements is declared true if it is logically consistent and, moreover, is easy to understand and useful in practice. There are no other restrictions on the choice of true statements. As an example, we can cite Poincaré's answer to the question about the nature of physical space: what is its nature - Euclidean or non-Cyclidean? What theorems should be used to describe physical space: Euclid or Lobachevsky and Riemann? Poincaré's answer is simple:

“Geometric axioms are not synthetic a priori judgments or experimental facts. They are the essence of a convention, our choice is made from all possible agreements. Guided by experimental evidence, this choice still remains free from the constraining need to avoid any contradiction. Thus, postulates can remain strictly true even when the experimental laws that determined our choice are nothing more than approximate. In other words, geometric axioms (not to mention arithmetic ones) are nothing more than disguised definitions. So what should be the answer to the question about the truth of Euclidean geometry? The question is meaningless ... One geometry cannot be truer than another; more convenient - yes, maybe " .

According to Poincaré's answer, we should choose those theories that suit us in a particular case for describing physical space. There is no theory that could formalize our real world, as it is too complex. For example, consider the laws of geometric optics. Within the framework of this section of optics, various postulates are introduced, which can both oversimplify reality, and vice versa, complicate it. What do simple postulates give? They allow us to derive simpler formulas and laws, but the downside will be a loss of accuracy or some inconsistency. On the other hand, geometric optics may not be applicable at all, for example, in the case of high energies, or the impossibility of neglecting the size of the light beam, or when light propagates in inhomogeneous media. In such cases, we build new postulates, on the basis of which we are already moving on. Of course, we could describe our world using the postulates as close as possible to reality, but as practice shows, the results of such calculations become simply immeasurable for human consciousness. Just take a formula that can take hundreds of pages of text. Of course, modern computer tools allow us to analyze even such complex cases, but all this is inconvenient, therefore, when solving some applied scientific problem, we can simply agree on which postulates we will use.

Conventionalism has a number of problems. First, the negotiators must have similar interests and motives that drive them, otherwise they simply will not be able to agree even on the most simple issues. Secondly, often, even having common motives and values, people take the position of group egoism and begin to defend the wrong agreement all together, because it is beneficial to them. Scientists can promote any one theory and crush an alternative, since on the basis of this theory they defended a number of their works, and rejection of it could cross out their entire scientific life. And this approach only leads to stagnation in science or to stagnation in the development of society in general.

The pragmatic concept of truth

- What is the use of your new invention?

- And what is the use of a newborn baby?

Benjamin Franklin

Truth is that which is beneficial. In the American version, what dollars do is true. The originator of the concept of pragmatism is Charles Sanders Pierce, an American by birth. Some philosophers believe that pragmatism is the only original idea that Americans have come up with. Let's look at it in more detail, because as already shown above, all these concepts are much more complicated than just one sentence of text.

In the classical pragmatism of Charles S. Pearce and his followers, the bearer of truth is recognized as an idea - a term freely used by these philosophers to denote opinions, beliefs, statements, and the like.

"Give any person enough information and the opportunity to think enough about any question, and the result will be that he reaches some definite conclusion - the same one that any other consciousness will reach."

The question immediately arises, how to understand which idea works and which does not? According to pragmatists, the true idea is the one that "reveals reality." And truth, from their point of view, is the result of the agreement of an idea with reality. However, the disadvantage of this definition for pragmatists was its apparent inability to fully encompass all the different kinds of things we say and think and which pragmatists called ideas. The pragmatist definition of ideas is functional, not essential. So, the function of hypothesis in science is not to tell us what reality is, but to create predictions and proposals for research that are acceptable as long as they work. In everyday life, an idea usually takes the form of a plan of action, for example, to solve a problem, and its truth lies in its success in fulfilling a need. The function of ideas in pure mathematics systems is to avoid contradictions, not copy the world. Religious and metaphysical statements and systems must be judged not according to any criteria of copying reality or lack of formal contradiction, but according to their ability to satisfy their supporters. Therefore, "true" is a judgmental word that should be used in that case and insofar as the statement satisfies the research goal to which it owes its existence (or puts forward this goal).

It is worth noting another shortcoming of this concept of truth. In our time, everyone wants to get benefits quickly and right now, one can even say that in part such a concept of truth lies at the basis of the ideology of capitalist society (the race for the surplus value of the product). The disadvantage for science is that fundamental lines of research remain abandoned because they cannot be useful quickly. Who is ready to issue a huge grant and wait tens of years until it may pay off? Nowadays, they are much more willing to give money for applied research, since the result can be obtained in a couple of years.

Shared value concept

« Public Opinion ”is a contrived, non-existent phenomenon. Public opinion refers to the opinion of a person or a small group of people who have usurped society and act on its behalf. "
- Aron Vigushin

According to this concept, truth is what society recognizes. Delusion is something that no one recognizes. This concept was defended by Alexander Bogdanov. He was a prominent political figure, a member of the Bolshevik Party. He was an active fighter for the revolution. After the start of the reaction, he went over to the side of idealism and began to defend this concept.

Bogdanov wrote the following:

“The foundation of objectivity must lie in the realm of collective experience. Objective we call those data of experience that have the same vital significance for us and for other people, those data on which not only we build our activities without contradiction, but on which, in our opinion, other people should also be based in order not to come to a contradiction. The objective nature of the physical world lies. the fact that it does not exist for me personally, but for everyone and for everyone has a certain meaning, in my opinion, the same as for me. The objectivity of the physical bodies with which we meet in our experience is ultimately established on the basis of mutual verification and agreement of the statements of various people. In general, the physical world is a socially coherent, socially harmonized, in a word, a socially organized experience ".

This concept is contrary to historical practice. You never know what society recognizes there, because, as it is written in the epigraph, public opinion can be easily manipulated. You can immediately give an example of the tragedy in France, which happened in January 2015. Unexpectedly for everyone, two terrorists in full uniforms with two Kalashnikovs and an RPG make their way into the editorial office of Charlie Hebdo magazine. There they shoot about twelve people, and then leave the scene of the crime. The bandits are caught and killed, and after all the events, they hold a march, to which about 1.5 million people came out in Paris alone. Now it will not be difficult for politicians to persuade the French taxpayers and the French military to side with the United States and help them in their attack on the Islamic State and Islam in general. People recognize that Islam is dangerous and must be fought against. Now the whole society is consolidated and can fight the threat. Let's not argue that the entire terrorist attack could have been a simple falsification and a Hollywood show, since traces of editing were found on the video files that were found on the network, the question here is different, but is society capable of sensibly assessing anything by itself? Obviously not. Another example can be cited. In 1996, before the next presidential elections in Russia, there was a total campaign in favor of Yeltsin. The people then already realized that they had been deceived, so they did not want to vote for Yeltsin, but through the efforts of agitators and PR specialists, as well as using various means of manipulating consciousness, Yeltsin's rating was able to rise to the desired level, which ensured his victory in the elections.

If society was mistaken in fairly simple things, then how can it judge more complex ones? How can a person from the street correctly assess or appreciate any scientific achievement? People on the street like to repeat only loud scientific facts or discoveries without much understanding of the details and the meaning itself. How much kipish was around the Higgs boson? Will anyone remember this now? And do any of the common people understand the significance of this discovery? Unlikely. Therefore, people who understand the issue, but not the whole society, should judge the significance of something.

Reasonable concept of truth

Truth is a holistic view of the world in which subjective, ideal and objective components are consistently connected. This concept of truth develops within the framework of the concept of the transition to a reasonable society.

We have a certain subject with ideas about the world that are part of this subject. We are talking about the truth of these ideas. We also have something objective (an object or objects) and we have an interaction between a subject and an object. These three components will influence the formation of the subject's ideas about the world. The subject can be absolutely anything, in principle, that is, it is not necessarily a person, and the ideas that he will have, what he can perceive from interaction with the outside world, can be anything. It depends on what the subject is. The primary component on the basis of which ideas about the world are built is subjective perception. For example, a person builds their ideas about the world based on their sensations: sounds, visual images / contours, smells, and so on. An abstract subject may have different filters through which he passes information. There is a part of the world that the subject does not perceive at all, that is, it does not seem to exist for him, since his information filters do not allow receiving information from this part of the world in an explicit form. For example, visible electromagnetic radiation is available to human vision, but radiation in other ranges is not available. We can feel infrared radiation in the form of heat only if it reaches a certain intensity. Or another example, it is known that the frog is not able to notice stationary objects. If until the fly flies, the frog will not see it. That is, we see that different subjects perceive the world in different ways. Even two people may have different vision, the number of special hairs for sound perception, or the number of receptors on the tongue for taste. That is, the basis on which the idea of the world is formed is subjective. That is, there is no objective reality as such, it is present only in our consciousness. Representations depend not only on the subject, they also depend on the objective component, as well as the way of interaction. We receive any information in the course of interaction. Previously, in science, it was believed that we have some object, and we can receive objective information about it, but at the same time, the interaction itself seemed to be omitted, as if it did not affect anything. In quantum physics, scientists eventually came to capture the understanding that any attempt to obtain information about an object is an interaction and affects the information received. For example, when observing a particle, we try to find out the coordinates of the particle, then we lose information about the momentum and vice versa. And there are many such mutually exclusive things: energy and time, current and voltage, and others. Another example is the interference of an electron that interferes with itself. We are talking about the well-known experiment of Jung, which confirmed the wave properties of light. If we let an electron through the holes, then during the mass observation of electrons we see an interference pattern on the screen. If we try to see through which hole the electron has flown, then the interference pattern disappears, that is, the wave properties disappear, and on the screen we see the maxima in each hole. That is, the very fact of observation introduced distortions in the information received from the object.

You can take a closer look at what each component is in our usual understanding. If we start only from subjective perception, then the information will be unstructured and the subject will not be able to distinguish anything. If we look at the world purely subjectively, then primarily we see a set of some colored spots of different colors, sizes and shapes. I turned my head and saw another set of spots, there were some changes in the outside world and the spot changed. What allows the subject to highlight truly objective information about the outside world? Following the subjective component, the ideal component develops.

The ideal component arises when the subject tries to find patterns in his perception and sensations. We have a colored spot, we try to classify them, build a certain scheme, and then this scheme becomes the basis for classifying what we will observe later. We see that some dog is running, and we are aware that the dog is running. We have a model in which there is a “dog” component that has certain characteristics (ideal component), that is, thanks to this model, we can determine that what is running is a dog. There are other signs that allow us to define something else in another cell, for example, a hare, a cat, or a tree. That is, the subject adds an ideal component to the subjective component, which is a certain model and scheme, and then he adds an objective component when he has learned to classify his feelings.

The objective component is facts. Using the constructed scheme / model, the subject begins to classify what he is facing and creates a certain picture of the world, putting everything “on the shelves”. That is, the subject develops ideas about the world. If the subject has no contradictions in these representations, then we call such representations true.

If the subject's ideas are not true, this means that there are some contradictions in them, that is, let's say that we have an idea that in such and such a place near such and such a house there is a monument to Pushkin. If we come to this street and do not see this monument, then we have a contradiction, which means we realize that our idea was false, and the true idea is that this monument is not there. Moreover, one cannot assume that some idea will be true forever and absolutely. If some information conflicts with our picture of the world, then we can begin to revise the objective component without changing the schema / model itself. This is the easiest option. We can revise the ideal component, that is, schemes, principles and laws. This is already a more complex case, and the most difficult case, when the subject begins to change himself, that is, to change his subjective component. The whole definition of truth can be explained with the help of a diagram (see the application Truth.png).

For a list of sources used, see the List.png appendix.

The basic idea of correspondence truth is deceptively simple: a sentence is true if and only if it matches facts (or reality).

This theory must first of all determine what is the truth of empirical or observation sentences, i.e. related to experience and not inferred from other proposals - but, on the contrary, those that themselves are basic for further knowledge. According to this theory, a sentence (proposition, belief, utterance, or whatever it is that we take in our theory as the bearer of truth) is true if there is something due to which it is true - something that corresponds in reality to what is said. In other words: if R is true, then this corresponds to the fact that R... Or: that which corresponds to the facts is true. If R true if and only if R, then when something - for example, R- is affirmed truly, then there must be something additional, something other than what is said - something to which what is affirmed refers to. The obvious and, perhaps, the only full-fledged candidate for the role of this "something" - fact; for example, the fact that R.

The basic assumption in the discussion of correspondence theory - common to its supporters and opponents - is that both relata, between which the correspondence relationship is established, are separately existing objects of one kind or another (and, moreover, of different kinds); accordingly, truth is a relational property.

The carriers of truth in the correspondence theory can easily be recognized such mental entities as positing or judgment, or such an entity that has not been clarified by its otological status as a proposition, as well as sentences or utterances. An event, situation, or state of affairs can be taken as a truth operator.

We can deduce from these classical discussions the following signs of the concept of correspondence truth.

(1) It is inherent in sentences or propositions (at least in part) due to the structure of the sentence.

(2) It is inherent in sentences (at least in part) due to the relationship of sentences to reality.

(1) follows from the fact that correspondence truth may be inherent in some sentences, but not others. This, in turn, is due to the fact that it can be implicitly used in our daily cognitive practice. several concepts of truth, and asymmetrically: for example, adhere to physical correspondence truth when rejecting ethical (moral or other axiologically determined) correspondence truth.

(3) contains a serious ontological requirement, but it is at least clear and unambiguous.

One version of the interpretation of the correspondence relationship between the statement that p and the fact that p- such a relation of correspondence, which is expressed by definitions of the form "Newton's theory corresponds to the facts". However, the second term of this last relation is always "facts X, Y, Z" and not "the fact that p", and the first term is usually some explanation, history or theory. Theory or history p is regarded by us as such, not because it corresponds to the fact that p, but because it corresponds to facts X, Y, Z, that is, satisfies them, is compatible with them, or perhaps explains them. For example, the theory of rectilinear propagation of light does not correspond to the fact that light travels in a straight line, but to various facts about its reflection, refraction and other optical phenomena; the suspect's statement that he was at home at the time of the crime will be considered true on the grounds that it does not correspond to the fact that he was at home at the time of the crime, but to various other facts known to the police - for example, that he was seen by a neighbor, fit to the phone, accurately described the film on television at the time, had dry shoes, etc. In short, the common expression "fits the facts" is used to express a non-relationship between the statement that p, and the correlating fact that p, and the relation between the statement that p, and various other facts - i.e. attracts also the relation of coherence, and not only and not so much correspondence.