Truth and its criteria in the theory of knowledge

The core of the theory of knowledge has always been the problem of truth and its criteria. All philosophical schools and directions tried to formulate their understanding of these issues. Aristotle was the thinker who gave the world a definition that has become classics: truth is that by which we understand whether our knowledge corresponds to the actual state of things. It can be said that this definition satisfied the philosophers of all, even opposing camps - both metaphysicians, dialecticians, materialists, and idealists. It was recognized by most theorists engaged in epistemology, from Thomas Aquinas to Karl Marx. The only difference was that they believed it was a reality, and what mechanism of conformity of reality they recognized.

Truth and its criteria in the traditional sense can be analyzed on the basis of the following components. First, the reality, which corresponds to the correct knowledge, is recognized as objective and existing regardless of our consciousness, and the essence of the knowable is comprehended through the phenomenon. Secondly, the truth is the result of knowledge and is connected with the activity of a person, with his practice, and how far we have managed to understand the essence, studying the phenomenon, sooner or later it turns out in practice. From this point of view, the truth must adequately reflect the object of cognition in the form in which it exists independently of the subject. But this connection is only available to logic, and therefore the traditional criterion of knowledge is the logical proof.

On the other hand, Kant also advanced the idea that truth and its criteria can not be determined within the framework of the development of theoretical science, since this science itself can not give full knowledge even about nature in connection with the limitations of the human mind. Moreover, Kant believes that man lives in two worlds simultaneously - natural and cultural. The natural world obeys the laws of causality and necessity, it is learned by theoretical reason, but this mind is powerless to know the essence of phenomena and only passes from one system of errors to another. And the world of culture is a world of freedom, known by practical reason, that is, a will that obeys the laws of morality, and does not miss, but acts almost unmistakably. Therefore, for Kant, the main criterion is the moral requirement.

The problem of the criterion of truth is not alien to modern understanding, only it has its own specifics. From the standpoint of materialism and positivism, such a criterion can be determined through the dialectical connection of such concepts as objective, absolute, relative and concrete truth. The concept of objectivity, applied to the content of a person's knowledge of reality, means that we are talking about the independence of this content from both man and society. In connection with this, any objective truth can be called absolute, but only to a certain extent. The enrichment and development of knowledge leads to a change and expansion of the content of our ideas about the world, and therefore objective truth is also relative. The term "concreteness" allows you to define the boundaries of absoluteness and relativity, and the criterion of correctness is practice.

It can be said that the truth and its criteria became the section that as a whole divided the philosophers of our time into the supporters of the postpositivist Karl Popper and the founder of the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans Georg Gadamer. Popper considered most of the concepts of philosophy, ethics, aesthetics and theology - emotional categories that justify certain ideologies. Therefore, the modern classic considered rational analysis the main instrument of analysis, using which philosophy can conduct a "line of demarcation" between science and pseudoscience, truth and error. Indeed, there are no absolutely correct scientific theories, but there are conditional hypotheses true for their level of science, but they become such only when they are subjected to critical verification (falsification). Thus, from the standpoint of Popper, the main criterion for the difference between science and metaphysics is the critical principle of falsification.

Truth and its criteria are the main theme of the acclaimed work of Hans-Georg Gadamer "Truth and Method". In it, the philosopher shows not the connection between these two categories, but their complete incompatibility. The scientific way of knowing, known as a method, is neither universal nor unique. The scientific-theoretical mastery of the world is not applicable to language, or to aesthetics, or to history; it only narrows and depletes the experience of truth, accessible not through study, but through understanding. The latter is only available when the "horizon of understanding" of the author and the interpreter merges, fuses, and a dialogue takes place between them. The existence of such a dialogue and the search for a common language between different cultural traditions is a criterion of the truth of humanitarian knowledge.