Is the absolute truth available to us?

"I only know that," the ancient Greek sage Socrates used to say, "that I do not know anything." Whether the philosopher was modest, or by that same spoke another wisdom: our beliefs in the truth of something are always shaky, always relative and can collapse in one moment. Then can we assert that absolute truth is complete nonsense in our relativistic, volatile world? How can we know the surrounding reality, if we are not sure of the correctness of the initial positions, from which we are going to come to some logical conclusion? After all, even the date of our birth (provided that our parents did not mix up anything), too, can be different depending on the chronology.

But, nevertheless, in our knowledge of the world there is such a concept - "absolute truth". A certain criterion by which we can judge that some statements are absolutely correct is the logic: if we assert that A is not identically B, then it is also perfectly correct that B is not the identity of A. But is A really not identically B - that is the question! Often our reasoning is incredibly logical, but it turns out to be wrong, shaky, like a beautiful house built on sand. Remember: "Winds blow, water rises ..."? So our findings are sometimes demolished, like chips, with mighty new discoveries, which are turned upside down by our scientific paradigm.

However, we are somehow oriented in this objective reality, opening up new horizons. The fundamental laws of the world are replaced by other fundamental laws, which sometimes supplement the former, and sometimes show their complete failure. This dialectic of absolute and relative truth and guides our knowledge. The main sign that our concept of something as completely correct is being questioned is the inconsistency of our practice.

Here is a simple example: while the ancient Greeks sailed only between the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, the curvature of the Earth's surface did not play a big role in drawing up maps. The cartographers transferred the contours of the shores and archipelagoes to a flat surface and did not receive much distortion in this case. However, now that we know about the spherical shape of our planet, looking at the world map, we take into account distortions (in this sense, the outlines of Greenland are not absolute truth). Examples of the transformation of absolute truth into relative truth can also be found in modern times. Many generations of seafarers considered the North Star a reliable landmark pointing north. Practically it is true now. But, given the movement of our solar system relative to other stars and galaxies, one can not say that this state of affairs will remain in thousands and tens of thousands of years.

In addition, since in our practice the Polar Star does not shift during the whole night and its direction coincides with the direction of the magnetic needle of the compass, we say: "The fact that the North Star points to the north is absolute truth". The same can be said about things that are true in a certain coordinate system: for example, that Moscow is at 56 degrees north latitude and 38 degrees east longitude (here we leave behind brackets what exactly is in the indicated coordinates: the Kremlin, Mytischi or Lyubertsy ). Or, for example, that the Battle of Borodino occurred in 1812 (if we take the Christmas as the basis for the chronology ).

There are cases when the relative and absolute truth are objective, that is, in one way or another, truly reflect the existing reality. If we abstract out of non-Euclidean geometry, then the statement "parallel lines do not intersect" will be completely true. However, there are other seemingly correct theories that, with the development of our knowledge of the world, are false. So, the man's idea of the geocentric structure of the world collapsed. The replacement of old concepts with new ones occurs in all sciences, not only accurate, but also humanitarian ones. For example, historians for a long time considered heretic Cathars to be Manichaeans and people from the East; Now it is not a secret for scientists that these religious dissidents were European Christians, with only some peculiarities. The approach in which the theories known to us are declared absolute leads to dogmatism, inhibits the development of science, but also the view that all the allegations are false, leads to relativism and makes our knowledge impossible.