Truth in science and its criteria. The concept of scientific truth

Philosophy as spiritual doing (collection) Ilyin Ivan Alexandrovich

[Lecture 7], hours 13, 14 Scientific truth

[Lecture 7], hours 13, 14

scientific truth

Scientific truth is a systematically coherent collection of true meanings: true concepts and true theses.

This connection is systematic, i.e., one in which only semantic quantities can enter. Such are the classifications of concepts and the classifications of theses.

6) Finally: truth is not just meaning, but theoretically-cognitive- valuable meaning, i.e. true.

The truth is value.

Not all value is truth.

Value in everyday life, and even in vulgar philosophy, is called any hedonistic or utilitarian plus: quantitative, or qualitative, or intensive profit in pleasure or in usefulness.

Value in cultural creativity and in the sciences of culture is referred to as the general and basic essence of economic goods, as well as any practically expedient element of life.

Finally, philosophy, as the science of the Spirit, understands by value either truth, or goodness, or beauty, or Divinity.

From all these kinds of value we delimit the idea of ​​scientific truth by the fact that by truth we mean the specifically cognitive value of meanings. Scientific truth there is a cognitive value meaning. However, this does not move us on the question of what is cognitive value.

[The developed definition of value is generally postponed until the next time. For today it is enough for us to say:] 63 philosophical value is not something subjective, relative, temporary; the meaning of philosophical value is objective, unconditionally, supertemporal. Truth is not truth because we recognize it as such, but vice versa. Not only meaning her such; its value value, its truth is this.

Meanings in terms of content all different; but in his clean form, beyond consideration of their cognitive merit, they are all equally neither are true neitheruntrue are neither good nor bad. The concept of an "equilateral triangle" or "electron" has no purely semantic advantages over the concepts from Andersen's fairy tale: "a cat with eyes the size of a mill wheel." In the same way, there are no purely semantic advantages to the thesis “the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection” or “law in the subjective sense is a set of powers derived from legal norms” over the thesis: “all cabbies have long noses” (taste deliberately).

Only when meaning begins to be considered from this point of view of its cognitive value does it become true or untrue. This approach to a new point of view is a transition from one methodological series 64 to another: from the logical and semantic to the value, the transcendental. From general logic to transcendental.

Here arises between meanings, precisely between theses, the possibility of a new, transcendental connection. The transcendental connection between theses is that the truth of one thesis is based on and guaranteed by the truth of another thesis. Here each thesis receives its cognitive value; an irrevocable sentence is pronounced over him 65 .

(The first version of the continuation of the lecture. - Y. L.)

Either it is true, or it is not true as a single, inalienable, individual semantic unity.

Of course, in process knowledge, we can consider the signs of the concept separately; find in them that they are true, while others are untrue, and accordingly even speak of greater or lesser proximity to the truth. But this will no longer be a semantic consideration, but a normative one. (This assertion, like many others, I cannot develop here; see the work of N. N. Vokach 66 .)

7) I cannot consider here the question of guarantees truth, about its criterion, of the whole doctrine of proof and evidence. But one thing, and a very important one, I can add here.

By truth is meant always a known correspondence of something to something. And not just compliance, but adequate, i.e., unconditionally exact, perfect correspondence. This correspondence, as it is easy to understand after all that has been said, is the correspondence of rational meaning to what is given as a cognizable content. Or: the correspondence between the meaning of the constructed concept and judgment, on the one hand, and the meaning of the object given for cognition. This object can be: a thing in space and time, emotional temporal experience, a thesis, a concept - it doesn't matter.

A cognizable object has its own stable, objective, identical meaning; the constructed concept or its thesis is its own meaning. If the correspondence between the meaning of the thesis and the concept and the meaning of the object given to the concept is adequate (Hegel and Husserl call this correspondence, Hamilton - harmony), then the thesis and the concept are true. And back.

I don't point it out criteria to determine this adequacy or not adequacy, this identity. I give only what is important to a lawyer-methodologist. Adequate match rational sense to a given sense - this is the formula with which we will inevitably meet in the future and which we will keep in mind.

Such is the nature and such is the essence scientific knowledge in general and its objectivity.

(The second version of the continuation of the lecture. - Y. L.)

Either it is true or untrue as a single, inalienable, individual semantic unity.

True, it may also be that this irrevocable, indivisible sentence will seem to fall apart into parts and degrees: for example, when one speaks of greater or lesser truth. But this is only the appearance of a fact.

In fact, truth is always complete truth; not-truth.

Incomplete truth is untruth.

The whole conversation about greater or lesser truth is due to difficult the nature of the many meanings of which I have spoken to you. In terms of " ABC”, consisting of signs a, b, c, signs a and in can be set to true, and the sign With untrue. And then the idea arises that the meaning ABC half true or 2/3 true and the other third not true.

Scientific consideration of this division not knows. It says meaning ABC how does it make sense ABC is not true, individual elements of this semantic unity may be true, but this truth of the parts is not a partial truth of the whole.

True - or Yes, or No; tertium non darum 67 .

And he who, out of justice or courtesy, will hesitate in judging such a dubious or unfortunate compound sense, will confirm the dilemmatic nature of the verdict we have indicated, moving from the whole to its elements in order to say something about them, in any case categorically “yes” or “no”.

Examples: "yellow ball - there is a round, heavy, metal liquid body”, “conditions of acquisition by prescription are res habilis, titulus, fides, possession, tempus (spatium) 68”.

Thus, the justice of the trial of the defendant meaning may prompt us to abandon the trial of the meaning in toto 69 and go to the semantic elements that make up its composition, or even to the elements of its elements; but, once we start judging, we will say either "yes, true" or "no, not true." Tertium non darum.

For those who are unconvincing, let them verify this phenomenologically.

Truth always means a certain correspondence of something to something. And not just compliance, but adequate, i.e. unconditionally exact, perfect, similar to mathematical equality.

The slightest deviation of one side from the other already gives the lack of adequacy, and hence (inexorably) untruth.

Let us now ask ourselves: what corresponds to what?

Two sides: corresponding and the one to which it corresponds.

First: reaching, aspiring, catching, expressing, knowing.

Second: reachable, sought, caught, expressed, cognized.

All these are only figurative expressions, for dynamic, real, psychic-relative, to meaning as such.

And yet, from all our investigations, it is clear that the truth is true meaning. From this it is clear that the first relevant side is the meaning formulated in the form of concepts or thesis by the cognizing soul of man. It is this meaning that may or may not be adequate to the other, cognizable, side. This meaning, understood in our cognitive acts, is defendant meaning.

Well, what about the other side? What does he/she fit? What is the knowable?

Ordinarily, to this question we might get the following answer: “The knowable is an external thing. Perhaps, in psychology - emotional experience. Well, perhaps in mathematics - quantities and ratios. And quite reluctantly - thoughts in logic. This is how any empiricist will answer us.

We'll say something [completely] 70 other:

The knowable is always nothing but the meaning of the objective situation or meaning subject circumstances. circumstance I call what this is the case. The situation is: thing in space and time (earth, sun, bird, mineral, backbone of hominis heidelbergiensis 71); experience human soul in time (Napoleon's volitional state, the mood of Duma circles, my mental experience). This is the relationship of quantities in mathematics or the relationship of mathematical functions. There is a connection of meanings, concepts and judgments. The essence of goodness or beauty is in its content, etc. All this is what it is. It is the subject of the concept.

That's the way it is. How is it? Here is something how is it and tries to establish knowledge 72 .

It can set it appropriately and inappropriately. True or untrue(for example, by understanding a generic concept as a specific one, attributing a suspension veto to the Danish king, 73 omitting the sign of a gratuitous donation, etc.).

And so everything that we recognize as knowable is not only given to us as an objective condition; but this situation has its own meaning, which we will call the meaning of the subject or even better - objective sense. The task of the concept is to ensure that the meaning of the thesis or the concept of the subject would coincide with the objective meaning of the situation.

Everything that we think of as a possible object of knowledge, we think thereby as a situation that has its own meaning (it makes no difference whether it is an external fact or internal state, or connections of quantities, or connections of concepts and values).

To know is to know meaning. For it is impossible to know not thought. And the thought takes possession only of the meaning. We take things with our hands. By memory we fix the state of mind. But the meaning is given only thoughts. Knowledge is knowledge thought. Thought can only think the meaning of a thing.

Therefore, we need to discard our common philistine belief that we we know, i.e. scientific, intellectual we know things or experiences.

Scientific knowledge is knowledge thought - meaning(be it the meaning of things, or experiences, or other objective conditions). Hence our confidence in scientific knowledge: whatever it touches, whatever it turns to, everything turns out to have meaning.

The meaning of the situation is given to our knowledge. In trying to formulate it, we establish a concept or a thesis. This concept or thesis has its [objective] 74 identical meaning. These two meanings will coincide - and knowledge will reveal the truth to us. They are not coincide - and our knowledge will be false. Truth is, therefore, the thinking of meaning - up to the adequacy of the cognizable situation equal to the meaning. But we know what adequate equality in the sphere of thought is identity. Therefore: truth is the identity of the formulated meaning and the objective meaning. Coincidence is impossible either with a thing or with the psyche.

A cognitive object has its own stable, objective, identical meaning; the formulated concept or thesis is its own meaning. Their identity gives truth.

Hegel and Husserl call this state correspondence, Hamilton - harmony. We know that this complete harmony of meanings is their identity.

I do not indicate by this criterion for determining this adequacy and coincidence. I only outline here the main definition of the theory of knowledge and pass by, because we are not epistemologists here, but legal methodologists. But this formula, in my opinion, is the same for all sciences.

And I will also point out for those who are interested: only meanings may coincide in identity; and without this identity - reject it - and the truth will be nowhere and completely inaccessible to man. And then we have before us the path of consistent skepticism. And then - take the trouble to doubt the law of contradiction and admit that two opposing judgments can and be true together.

This text is an introductory piece.

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[Lecture 8], hours 15, 16 Value. Norm. [Purpose]75 1) Today we are going to expand on the definitions of value, norm, and purpose. This series of categories is of particular importance to the lawyer; not only because the jurist is a scientist, and that, consequently, he constantly faces

1. Truth as a scientific system An explanation, in the form in which it is customary to preface a work in a preface, about the goal that the author sets himself in it, as well as about his motives and the attitude in which this work, in his opinion , stands to others,

Scientific and philosophical truth That which is truth in science is represented by Nietzsche as a kind of direct primary source. Although in the future he will declare this primary source to be derivative, i.e., he will question it, but in fact, at his level, for Nietzsche he will not lose his

2. The Truth of Faith and Scientific Truth There is no contradiction between faith in its true nature and reason in its true nature. And this means that there is no essential contradiction between faith and the cognitive function of the mind. Knowledge in all its forms is always

Under truth is understood as an adequate reflection of reality in the mind of a person, not depending on certain features of the cognizing subject. There is an inadequate reflection of reality delusion.

Truth Criteria- that which certifies the truth and distinguishes it from error:

• compliance with the laws of logic;
• compliance with previously discovered laws of science;
• compliance with fundamental laws;
• simplicity, economy of the formula;
• paradoxical ideas and practice.

Truth in Philosophy

The main objective - achievement of scientific truth.

In relation to philosophy, truth is not only the goal of knowledge, but also the subject of research. It can be said that the concept of truth expresses the essence of science.

What is truth?

The origins of the so-called classical philosophical concept truths date back to antiquity. For example, he believed that "the one who speaks about things in accordance with what they are, speaks the truth, the same one who speaks about them differently, is lying." For a long time the classical concept of truth dominated the theory of knowledge. In the main, she proceeded from the position: what is affirmed by thought really takes place. And in this sense, the concept of the correspondence of thoughts to reality coincides with the concept of “adequacy”. In other words, truth is a property of the subject, consisting in the agreement of thinking with itself, with its a priori (pre-experimental) forms. So, in particular, believed I. Kant. Subsequently, truth began to mean the property of the ideal objects themselves, regardless of human knowledge, and a special kind of spiritual values. Augustine developed the doctrine of the innateness of true ideas. Not only philosophers, but also representatives of private sciences are faced with the question of what is meant by reality, how to perceive reality or the real world? Materialists and idealists identify the concept of reality, reality with the concept of the objective world, i.e. with what exists outside and independently of man and humanity. However, man himself is part of the objective world. Therefore, without taking into account this circumstance, it is simply impossible to clarify the question of truth.

Taking into account the directions in philosophy, taking into account the originality of individual statements expressing the subjective opinion of a particular scientist, truth can be determined as an adequate reflection of objective reality by the cognizing subject, during which the cognized object is reproduced as it exists outside and independently of. Consequently, truth enters into the objective content of human knowledge. But as soon as we are convinced that the process of cognition is not interrupted, then the question arises about the nature of truth.

True- adequate reflection of the object by the cognizing subject; reproduction of it as it exists on its own, regardless of human consciousness; the objective content of sensory empirical experience. Also, truth is understood as knowledge corresponding to the object of knowledge, coinciding with it.

After all, if a person perceives the objective world in a sensual way and forms ideas about it in the process of individual cognition and his mental activity, then the question is natural - how can he make sure that his statements correspond to the objective world itself? Thus, we are talking about the criterion of truth, the identification of which is one of the main tasks of philosophy. There is no consensus among philosophers on this issue. The extreme point of view boils down to a complete denial of the criterion of truth, because, according to its supporters, truth either does not exist at all, or, in short, it is characteristic of everything and everyone.

idealists- supporters of rationalism - thought itself as a criterion of truth, since it has the ability to clearly and distinctly present an object. Philosophers such as Descartes and Leibniz proceeded from the idea of ​​the self-evidence of the original truths comprehended with the help of intellectual intuition. Their arguments were based on the ability of mathematics to objectively and impartially reflect the diversity of the real world in its formulas. True, this raised another question: how, in turn, to be convinced of the reliability of their clarity and distinctness? Logic, with its rigor of proof and its irrefutability, should have come to the rescue here.

So, I. Kant allowed only a formal-logical criterion of truth, according to which knowledge must be consistent with the universal formal laws of reason and reason. But the reliance on logic did not eliminate the difficulties in the search for a criterion of truth. It turned out to be not so easy to overcome the internal consistency of thinking itself, it turned out that sometimes it is impossible to achieve formal-logical consistency of judgments developed by science with initial or newly introduced statements (conventionalism).

Even the rapid development of logic, its mathematization and division into many special areas, as well as attempts at a semantic (semantic) and semiotic (sign) explanation of the nature of truth, did not eliminate the contradictions in its criteria.

Subjective idealists- supporters of sensationalism - saw the criterion of truth in the direct evidence of the sensations themselves, in the consistency of scientific concepts with sensory data. Subsequently, the principle of verifiability was introduced, which got its name from the concept of verification of a statement (checking its truth). In accordance with this principle, any statement (scientific statement) is meaningful or meaningful only if it can be verified. The main emphasis is placed on the logical possibility of clarification, and not on the actual one. For example, due to the underdevelopment of science and technology, we cannot observe the physical processes taking place in the center of the Earth. But by means of assumptions based on the laws of logic, one can put forward a corresponding hypothesis. And if its provisions turn out to be logically consistent, then it should be recognized as true. It is impossible not to take into account other attempts to identify the criterion of truth with the help of logic, which are characteristic especially for philosophical direction called logical positivism.

Supporters of the leading role of human activity in cognition tried to overcome the limitations of logical methods in establishing the criterion of truth. The pragmatic concept of truth was substantiated, according to which the essence of truth should be seen not in accordance with reality, but in accordance with the so-called “final criterion”. Its purpose is to establish the usefulness of truth for practical actions and actions of a person. It is important to note that from the point of view of pragmatism, utility in itself is not a criterion of truth, understood as the correspondence of knowledge to reality. In other words, the reality of the external world is inaccessible to a person, since a person directly deals with the results of his activity. That is why the only thing that he is able to establish is not the correspondence of knowledge to reality, but the effectiveness and practical usefulness of knowledge. It is the latter, acting as the main value of human knowledge, that deserves to be called truth. And yet philosophy, overcoming extremes and avoiding absolutization, has approached a more or less correct understanding of the criterion of truth. It could not have been otherwise: if humanity faced the need to question not only the consequences of the momentary activity of this or that person (in some, and often, cases very far from the truth), but also to deny their own centuries-old history, life would be impossible to perceive differently, how absurd. Only the concept of objective truth, based on the concept of objective reality, allows us to successfully develop philosophical concept truth. We emphasize once again that the objective or real world exists not just by itself, but only when it comes to knowing it.

Objectivity and subjectivity of truth

Objectivity truth is due to the real existence of the knowable object. That information about a real object, which has become the property of consciousness and gives knowledge an objective character. At the same time, being reflected in consciousness, information inevitably takes the form of abstract thinking, having passed through the "filters" of the sense organs. Thus, knowledge inevitably has subjective component. Objectively existing objects - "student", "home", "college" - in the mind of a person can acquire different shades. They can also be reflected by different concepts: “a student of a secondary specialized or higher educational institution”, “ architectural structure for residence or placement of any organizations”, “secondary special educational institution”; in the end, these concepts can be completely different in sound in different languages.

Thus truth is objective in content and subjective in form.

Relative and absolute truths

The limited practical capabilities of a person is one of the reasons for the limitedness of his knowledge, i.e. it is about the relative nature of truth.

is knowledge that reproduces the objective world approximately, incompletely. Therefore, the signs or features of relative truth are proximity and incompleteness, which are interconnected. Indeed, the world is a system of interconnected elements, any incomplete knowledge about it as a whole will always be inaccurate, coarsened, fragmentary.

At the same time, the concept of absolute truth is also used in philosophy. With its help, an important aspect of the development of the process of cognition is characterized. Note that the concept of absolute truth in philosophy has not been sufficiently developed (with the exception of its metaphysical, idealistic branch, where absolute truth, as a rule, correlates with the idea of ​​God as the original creative and creative force). The concept of absolute truth is used to characterize one or another specific aspect of any true knowledge, and in this sense it is similar to the concepts “ objective truth" and " relative truth". The concept “ absolute truth”should be considered inextricably linked with the process of cognition itself. The same process is, as it were, a movement along the steps, which means the transition from less perfect scientific ideas to more perfect ones, however, the old knowledge is not discarded, but at least partially included in the system of new knowledge. It is this inclusion, reflecting the continuity (in the historical sense), the internal and external integrity of knowledge and representing truth as a process, that constitutes the content of the concept of absolute truth. Let us remind once again that, first of all, the material activity of man has an impact on the material world. But when it comes to scientific knowledge, it means that out of the whole variety of properties inherent in the objective world, only those that constitute the historically conditioned object of knowledge stand out. That is why practice, which has absorbed knowledge, is a form of their direct connection with objective objects and things. This is where the function of practice as a criterion of truth manifests itself.

The concreteness of truth

concreteness truth lies in the fact that it arises in the process of cognition of specific objects and expresses the idea of ​​specific objects.

abstract truth is due to the fact that it is formed within the framework of abstract thinking and is a kind of generalization (for example, “swans are white or black”; “in the spring in the northern hemisphere, the air temperature begins to rise gradually”).

In order to prove the truth of a statement, it is necessary to somehow verify it. The means of such verification is called the criterion of truth (from the Greek. kriterion - a measure for evaluation).

Basic concepts of truth

Scientists have proposed various criteria for how to distinguish true from false:

• Sensualists rely on the data of the senses and consider the criterion of truth sensory experience. In their opinion, the reality of the existence of something is verified only by feelings, and not by abstract theories.
• Rationalists believe that the senses are capable of misleading us, and see the basis for testing propositions in the mind. For them, the main criterion of truth is clarity and distinctness. Mathematics is considered an ideal model of true knowledge, where each conclusion requires clear evidence.
• Rationalism finds further development in the concept of coherence (from Latin cohaerentia - adhesion, connection), according to which the criterion of truth is consistency reasoning with a common system of knowledge. For example, "2x2 = 4" is not true because it matches real fact, but because it is in agreement with the system of mathematical knowledge.
• Supporters of pragmatism (from the Greek pragma - business) consider the criterion of truth efficiency knowledge. True knowledge is proven knowledge that successfully "works" and allows you to achieve success and practical benefits in daily affairs.
• In Marxism, the criterion of truth is declared practice(from the Greek praktikos - active, active), taken in the broadest sense as any developing social activity of a person to transform himself and the world (from everyday experience to language, science, etc.). Only a statement verified by practice and experience of many generations is recognized as true.
• For supporters of conventionalism (from Latin convcntio - agreement), the criterion of truth is universal consent about the statements. For example, scientific truth is what the overwhelming majority of scientists agree with.

Some criteria (consistency, efficiency, agreement) go beyond the classical understanding of truth, therefore, they speak of a non-classical (respectively, coherent, pragmatic and conventional) interpretation of truth. The Marxist principle of practice attempts to combine pragmatism and the classical understanding of truth.

Since each criterion of truth has its drawbacks, all criteria can be considered as complementary. In this case, only that which satisfies all the criteria can be unequivocally called true.

There are also alternative interpretations of truth. Thus, religion speaks of a supramental truth, the basis of which is Holy Scripture. Many modern movements (for example, postmodernism) generally deny the existence of any objective truth.

Modern science adheres to the classical interpretation of truth and believes that truth is always objective(does not depend on the desires and moods of a person), specific(there is no truth "in general", without clear conditions), procedural(is in the process of constant development). The last property is revealed in terms of relative and absolute truth.

The concept of truth.

The question of what is truth and whether it exists is one of the eternal questions of epistemology. Its decision depends on common worldview positions. Materialists and idealists answer it differently.
The question of scientific truth is a question of the quality of knowledge. Science is only interested in true knowledge. The problem of truth is connected with the question of the existence of objective truth, that is, truth that does not depend on tastes and desires, on human consciousness in general. Truth is achieved in the interaction of subject and object: without an object, knowledge loses its content, and without a subject, there is no knowledge itself. Therefore, in the interpretation of truth, one can distinguish between objectivism and subjectivism. Subjectivism is the most common point of view. Its supporters point out that truth does not exist outside of man. From this they conclude that objective truth does not exist. Truth exists in concepts and judgments, therefore, there can be no knowledge independent of man and mankind. Subjectivists understand that the denial of objective truth casts doubt on the existence of any truth. If the truth is subjective, then it turns out: how many people, so many truths.

Objectivists absolutize objective truth. For them, truth exists outside of man and humanity. Truth is reality itself, independent of the subject.

But truth and reality are different concepts. Reality exists independently of the cognizing subject. In reality itself there are no truths, but there are only objects with their own properties. It appears as a result of people's knowledge of this reality.

True objective. The object exists independently of the person, and any theory reflects precisely this property. Objective truth is understood as knowledge dictated by an object. Truth does not exist without man and humanity. Therefore truth is human knowledge, but not reality itself.

Truth is never given all at once. There are concepts of absolute and relative truth. Absolute true is the knowledge coinciding with the displaying object. Achieving absolute truth is an ideal, not a real result. Relative truth is knowledge characterized by relative correspondence to its object. Relative truth is more or less true knowledge. Relative truth can be refined and supplemented in the process of cognition, therefore it acts as knowledge subject to change. Absolute truth is knowledge that does not change. There is nothing to change in it, since its elements correspond to the object itself.

1. Abs. and Rel. Truths seem to exclude each other, but in fact they are interconnected. Path to Abs. truth lies through the series Rel. Truth. \discovery of the atom\.
2. In each Rel. Truth has a particle of Abs. Truths are two tendencies in the development of knowledge.

Is ABS achievable? true?

There is an opinion that Abs. truth is unattainable. This view reinforces the position of agnosticism.
At any moment in the development of science, there are things that are not known to people. Cognition depends on the complexity of the object being known. Cognition goes from simple to complex: CONCLUSION: Abs. the truth about the world as a whole exists only as a limit and an ideal to which mankind aspires.

The boundaries of scientific knowledge.

Science develops unevenly. There are two trends in its development: differentiation and integration. Diff. - division and reproduction of scientific areas. Int. - association of scientific directions. Science develops by posing problems, and every problem limits the field of research. Unknowability means the inaccessibility of knowledge, and the limitation of scientific knowledge - that the object is highlighted in a certain perspective.

faith and knowledge.

Along with scientific methods of cognition, there are different kinds unscientific. It reflects the immediate conditions of human existence - the natural environment, life, state processes. The basis of everyday knowledge is elementary correct information about the world, which is called common sense. This type also includes beliefs, ideals of a person, his beliefs, folklore as a concentrated knowledge about the world.

mythological knowledge.

M. P. arose in ancient times when there was no individual man, but only the consciousness of the genus existed. Myth is an emotional-figurative perception of the world, a legend, a legend and a tradition. The myth is characterized by the humanization of the forces of external nature, which are incomprehensible to man. Religious knowledge is a complex of ideas about the world, which is based on belief in the supernatural. Artistic knowledge is the imaginative thinking of a person, embodied in various forms of art. Its purpose is to express an aesthetic attitude to the world. Philosophical knowledge - the desire for the synthesis of all other forms of cognitive activity and personal attitude to the world. Philosophy is an organic unity of scientific knowledge and worldly wisdom.

CONCLUSION: Forms and methods of cognition are diverse and sufficiently perfect. They characterize man as a unique phenomenon that has intellectual power and, almost endlessly, expanding the range of its research and possibilities.

Importance of the criterion

In reality, a person in the process of cognition is constantly faced with a large number of problems, the very existence of which refutes the classical concept of truth, such as:

Problem nature knowable reality and subjectivity of thought. Man in his cognition directly deals not with the objective world "in itself", but with the world in its form, as it is perceived and comprehended by the senses. That is, subjectivity is inherent in the human understanding of truth, and various questions arise from this statement, for example: different people think differently - does this mean that the truth is different for everyone? Can it be that for a certain number of people the understanding of the truth is common? And, of course, how to achieve this generality and is it necessary?

Problem character compliance thoughts reality. The classical concept of truth in its "naive" form sees this correspondence as a simple copying of reality by thoughts. Studies of the correspondence of knowledge to reality show, however, that this correspondence is not simple and unambiguous. After all, there are always properties of an object that, perhaps, people simply cannot understand directly. Our knowledge of such properties is reduced only to the readings of instruments, but is this really an absolute copy of reality? This means that such evidence, which the adherents of the classical theory speak of, may not be.

Relativity and absoluteness truth. In my opinion, each person in his judgment about the truth is still purely subjective, and therefore it is necessary to distinguish the concept of general, in other words, absolute truth from the concept of the truth of each specific individual. And in the classical theory, such a distinction is actually absent.

So what is relative true? Perhaps it can be characterized as knowledge that approximately and incompletely reproduces the objective world. Precisely approximateness and incompleteness are the specific properties of relative truth. If the world is a system of interconnected elements, then we can conclude that any knowledge about the world, abstracting from some of its aspects, will be obviously inaccurate. Why? It seems to me that because a person cannot cognize the world without fixing his attention on some of its sides and without being distracted from others, proximity is intrinsic to the cognitive process itself.

On the other hand, the search for absolute truth is being undertaken within the framework of the knowledge of specific, and even single facts. As examples of eternal truths, sentences that are a statement of fact usually appear, for example: "Napoleon died on May 5, 1821." Or the speed of light in vacuum is 300,000 km/s. However, attempts to apply the concept of absolute truth to more essential provisions of science, such as universal laws, are unsuccessful.

Thus, a kind of dilemma arises: if absolute truth is considered as absolutely complete and accurate knowledge, then it lies outside the limits of real scientific knowledge; if it is considered as a set of eternal truths, then the concept of absolute truth is inapplicable to the most fundamental types of scientific knowledge. This dilemma is the result of a one-sided approach to the problem, expressed in the fact that absolute truth is identified with a kind of knowledge that is separate from relative truth.

The meaning of the concept of "absolute truth" is revealed only in the process of development of scientific knowledge. It consists in the fact that during the transition of scientific knowledge from stage to stage, for example, from one theory to another, the old knowledge is not completely discarded, but is included in one form or another in the system of new knowledge. It is this inclusion, continuity, which characterizes truth as a process, that perhaps constitutes the content of the concept of absolute truth.

Thus, many unresolved problems have arisen, each of which is somehow connected with the need to determine the degree of correspondence between human ideas and the real world. From this follows the need to search for the most stringent criterion of truth, that is, a sign by which one could determine the truth of this or that knowledge.

In addition, only after the establishment of the criterion of truth, many categories with which a person has to interact in one way or another become meaningful. Among them, I singled out two that seemed to me the most important.

Scientific true. Scientific truth is knowledge that meets the double requirement: first, it corresponds to reality; secondly, it satisfies a number of scientific criteria. These criteria include: logical harmony; empirical verifiability, including the test of time; the ability to predict new facts based on this knowledge; consistency with the knowledge whose truth has already been reliably established, and so on. These criteria, of course, should not be regarded as something fixed and given once and for all. They are a product of the historical development of science and may be replenished in the future. Such an understanding of truth in general is extremely important for the development of science, since if the data obtained with the help of a particular science meet all of the above criteria, one can conclude that such data are useful. That is, there is an incentive for the further development of science.

True in everyday life. The problem of the criterion of truth is of great importance even in the daily life of people, as it is one of the foundations of the human worldview system. Answering the question of what is the criterion of truth, a person largely determines his own place in the world and his ideals and values. For many, the concept of "truth" (as justice, fairness and completeness of knowledge) is closely connected with the concepts of "sincerity, calmness, well-being, happiness." Thus, this so-called everyday truth is the highest social and personal value.

True and criteria

In exploring the problem of truth, two questions arose for me. 1) What is truth? 2) What is the criterion of truth? The answer to the first question is the definition of the concept of truth, the answer to the second is the formulation of methods that allow you to establish the truth of a given thought and distinguish a true thought from a false one.

But first, a few words about the structure of this article and the method of presenting the material. Those thoughts that will be brought to your attention below are taken by me from such a philosophical direction as dialectical materialism (hereinafter diamat). The sources of these ideas were the works of the founders of diamat K. Marx"Theses on Feuerbach", F. Engels"Anti-Dühring", V. Lenin"Materialism and Empiriocriticism", as well as some other books that I will talk about in the course of the story. I understand that my work may seem one-sided to you. it will present only Diamat's view of the problem of truth and its criterion. But try to understand me. "We are tolerant of other people's opinions as long as we don't have our own," is what Solzhenitsyn said, in my opinion. Therefore, here you will not find either the coherent theory of truth, or the pragmatic or semantic theory of truth of Tarski, or the views of neopositivists, etc. My merit in the creation of this work lies in the fact that from the above books and textbooks on diamat I singled out everything that relates to the truth; then got rid of the taint of ideology and put it in a simple and clear (I hope) form.

TRUE- correct, adequate reflection of objects and phenomena of reality by the cognizing subject. I took this definition from the philosophical encyclopedic dictionary of 1997. Strictly speaking, the concept that truth is the correspondence of thoughts to reality is called classical. It is so called because it is the oldest of all conceptions of truth. Plato owns the following characteristic of the concept of truth "... the one who speaks about things in accordance with what they are, speaks the truth, the same one who speaks about them otherwise, lies ...".

Similarly characterizes the concept of truth and Aristotle in his" Metaphysics": "... to speak of the existent that it does not exist, or of the non-existent that it is, is to speak false; but to say that what is and what is not is is to say what is true.

Proponents of the classical concept of truth at first believed that its defined goal - the correspondence of thoughts to reality - can be achieved relatively simply. They explicitly or implicitly proceeded from the following assumptions: the reality with which a person directly deals and which is the subject of his knowledge does not depend on knowledge itself; thoughts can be brought into a simple one-to-one correspondence with reality; there is an intuitively clear and unquestionable criterion for determining whether thoughts correspond to reality or not.

However, this concept faced a number of problems that led to its critical revision:

The problem of the nature of cognizable reality. Man in his cognition directly deals not with the objective world "in itself", but with the world in its form, as it is perceived and comprehended by the senses.

The problem of the nature of the correspondence of thoughts to reality. The classical concept of truth in its "naive" form sees this correspondence as a simple copying of reality by thoughts. Studies of the correspondence of knowledge to reality show, however, that this correspondence is not simple and unambiguous.

Problem criteria truth. This problem played an exceptionally important role in the development of the classical concept. Partly it is connected with the first problem. If a person is in direct contact not with the world "in himself", but with the sensually perceived and conceptualized world, then the question is: how can he check whether his statements correspond to the world itself?

The problem of the criterion of truth is not exhausted, however, by the mentioned aspect. Even the ancient skeptics drew attention to the fact that posing the question of the criterion of truth leads to the paradox of infinite regress. Sextus Empiricus believed that in order to prove the truth of a statement, it is necessary to accept some criterion of truth. However, this criterion itself, which is a method for recognizing true statements, must be proved on the basis of another criterion of truth, and so on ad infinitum.

The classical concept in its version, in which truth is considered as a correspondence not only to objective, but also to any other reality, leads to a logical contradiction, called the liar's paradox. This paradox, known to the ancient Greeks (Epimenides, Eubulides) is as follows.

Imagine that I am a lawyer. And I declare: all lawyers are liars. The question arises: is this statement true or false?

I think that I do not need to explain this paradox to you. The problem with this theory is that it does not restrict the choice of referents for an utterance. And thus the referent of a given statement can be the statement itself. I want to emphasize that the paradox of the liar, which has played a significant role in the development of modern logic, is a paradox of the classical concept of truth.

What is the relation of the classical conception of truth to diamat? In the most general form, the answer to this question can be formulated as follows: the diamatic doctrine of truth, in my opinion, is the successor of the classical concept and at the same time represents something new. This is the "something" I'm going to try to explain.

Objectivity truth. Here I am forced to quote Lenin (I generally believe that the contribution of Marxism-Leninism to philosophy is now unjustifiably forgotten; another question is what Marx and Lenin were greatly mistaken with historical materialism and the economics of communism): "... the concept of objective truth characterizes such a content of human ideas that does not depend on the subject, does not depend either on man or on humanity. This does not mean that objective truth is an element of the objective world "Characterizing human knowledge, it manifests itself in a subjective form. But it characterizes human knowledge not from the point of view of this subjective form, but from the point of view of their objective content." From this quotation, one can understand that a person in his cognitive activity is able to establish a connection between logical structures not just with the world of sensations, but with the objective world lying outside him. And here the most important place is occupied by the concept of practice. The role of practice as a factor that connects and compares human knowledge with the objective world is manifested in the fact that it acts, on the one hand, as a material activity that forms the objective object of knowledge by highlighting certain properties of the objective world, and on the other hand, as an activity that forms the subject knowledge. In diamat, truth is not just the correspondence of thoughts to the objective world, but the correspondence of thoughts to the objective world, set through practice (despite the fact that these "thoughts" must also meet certain criteria, but more on that later).

O quality of things, items mat. world, what they are can be judged only by those properties in which these qualities are manifested. But the properties of a given object can be revealed through its interaction with other objects. Moreover, the nature of this interaction depends on what properties of the object are revealed. It is these properties that form the object of our statements about the external world, the object of objective truth, formed by practice.

Relativity and absoluteness truth.

Diamat combines such aspects of knowledge as truth and variability. This synthesis finds its embodiment in the concept of relative truth.

Relative true- this is knowledge that approximately and incompletely reproduces the objective world. Approximation and incompleteness are specific properties of relative truth. If the world is a system of interconnected elements, then it follows that any knowledge about the world, abstracted from some of its aspects, will be obviously inaccurate and coarse. Since a person cannot cognize the world without fixing his attention on some of its sides and without being distracted from others, proximity is inherent in the cognitive process itself.

On the other hand, the search for absolute truth within the framework of available knowledge is being undertaken. As shown by F. Engels in " Anti-Dühring", the status of eternal truth can only be attributed to a very small number of, as a rule, banal statements. As examples of eternal truths, sentences that are a statement of fact usually appear, for example: "Napoleon died on May 5, 1821." Or the speed of light in a vacuum is 300,000 km / s However, attempts to apply the concept of absolute truth to more essential provisions of science, such as laws, are unsuccessful.

Thus, a kind of dilemma arises: if absolute truth is considered as absolutely complete and accurate knowledge, then it lies outside the limits of real scientific knowledge; if it is considered as a set of eternal truths, then the concept of absolute truth is inapplicable to the most fundamental types of scientific knowledge. This dilemma is the result of a one-sided approach to the problem, expressed in the fact that absolute truth is identified with a kind of knowledge that is separate from relative truth. The referent of the concept "absolute truth" is revealed only in the process of development of scientific knowledge. It consists in the fact that during the transition of scientific knowledge from stage to stage, for example, from one theory to another, the old knowledge is not completely discarded, but is included in one form or another in the system of new knowledge. It is this inclusion, continuity, which characterizes truth as a process, that constitutes the content of the concept of absolute truth. Absolute true- this is not an eternal truth, passing from one level of knowledge to another, but a property of objectively true knowledge, which consists in the fact that such knowledge is never discarded. This kind of knowledge is always a prerequisite for deeper and more fundamental truths. Absolute truth is manifested in the growth of knowledge.

I will try to explain all this with an example. For the first time the hypothesis that matter consists of atoms was expressed by Democritus. He assumed that atoms are something like indivisible elastic balls. Even in this very relative representation of truth, there were elements of absolute truth. Such is the statement: "the atoms of matter really exist." All subsequent development of physics has not canceled and will not cancel this element of absolute truth. But in this relative truth there were elements of error, for example, the idea of ​​the indivisibility of the atom, the idea of ​​it as an elastic solid body, etc.

A new picture of the structure of the atom was created D. Thomson, according to which it consists of positively and negatively charged electrons. In this also relatively true picture of the structure of the atom, one cannot fail to notice new elements of absolute truth, which were not shaken or canceled by subsequent discoveries. This is the statement: "the atom consists of positively and negatively charged particles." But there were many elements of delusion in Thomson's model that were not confirmed by the subsequent development of science. Such, for example, is the assumption that positive electrons exist in an atom.

The third stage in the development of ideas about the atom is the model Resenford-Bora, according to which an atom consists of an atomic nucleus and electrons revolving around it. This model, on the whole more accurate than the previous ones, had new elements of absolute truth. Such moments were: ideas about the small size of the nucleus and electrons compared to the size of an atom, about the emission of light as a result of the transition of electrons from one energy level to another, etc. The subsequent development of science cannot cancel these statements, since they absolutely accurately displayed certain aspects the structure of the atom. But Bohr's theory also contained elements of error. For example, the notion of electrons as particles, borrowed from classical mechanics, is very inaccurate and therefore also incorrect in a certain sense. Bohr himself willingly abandoned this notion as soon as quantum mechanics was created.

The picture of the atom in today's physics is incomparably more accurate and complete than in Bohr's theory, and therefore contains more elements of absolute truth. But there is also no doubt that the modern picture of the atom will be changed, refined, concretized, that in the future inaccuracies and elements of error will be found in it, which we do not know about today.

I want to sum up what has been said. Relative and absolute moments in truth are inextricably linked: on the one hand, in relative truth there are always elements of absolute (private) truth, on the other hand, in the process of development of human knowledge, absolute (general) truth is formed from relative truths.

Scientific true.

Scientific truth is knowledge that meets two kinds of requirements: first, it corresponds to reality; secondly, it satisfies a number of scientific criteria. Of all the criteria, I would single out: logical harmony, empirical testability, including the test of time, the ability to predict new facts based on this knowledge, consistency with the knowledge whose truth has been established, etc.

These criteria, of course, should not be regarded as something fixed and given once and for all. They are a product of the historical development of science and may change in the future.

And, finally, the most important criterion for the truth of knowledge is practice.

Practice how criterion truth.

One of the main reasons for the failure of modern philosophy to solve the problem of the criterion of truth is their initial attitude, which focuses on the possibility of solving this problem within the framework of the knowledge system. This setting can be formulated as follows. If we have a system of knowledge that claims to describe the objective world, then we can learn about its correspondence to our subject by studying only the properties of the system itself. In contrast to this, diamat asserts that the indicated problem cannot be solved in this way, i.e., without going beyond the limits of knowledge. This ingenious thought throwing New World on the problem of the criterion of truth, was first formulated by K. Marx in his "Theses on Feuerbach". K. Marx stressed that the question of whether human thinking has objective truth cannot be resolved within the framework of thinking itself. In science, such prohibitions play an extremely important role. As examples, we can point to the impossibility of proving the fifth postulate of Euclid, established by Lobachevsky; the impossibility of proving the consistency of a formal system such as arithmetic within the framework of this system itself (Gödel's theorem), etc.

Neglect of such prohibitions leads not only to a futile search for evidence, but also to various kinds of paralogisms. Thus, attempts to prove the fifth postulate of Euclid were associated with the fact that, along with the axioms from which this postulate supposedly followed, assumptions were made that were equivalent to the fifth postulate itself. But diamat not only points out how it is impossible to solve the problem of the criterion of truth. He also tells us how it can be solved. To do this, you need to go beyond knowledge and compare it with the original. The form of such an exit and comparison of knowledge with an object is practice - the material activity of people.

If I try to give a brief description of the function of practice as a criterion of truth, then I would do it something like this. In practice, there is a material embodiment of knowledge that is subject to verification. At the same time, practice is an objective phenomenon that belongs to the material world and functions in accordance with its laws. This dual (dual) nature of practice provides it with the role of a criterion of truth: knowledge about the real world, embodied in practice, is controlled by the laws of this world.

There are two points to highlight here:

1. To establish the correspondence of knowledge to the objective world, it is necessary compare knowledge With by ourselves objective the world. How to do it? In epistemological terms, thought is the opposite of its subject. It is an ideal design, an information model of the object under study. To compare a thought with an object, it is necessary to make them of the same order. This is achieved in the process of material embodiment of thinking in human practice. It is practice that removes the epistemological opposition of the material and the ideal. Human thinking is not a special ideal substance divorced from matter. It is a property of matter (as, for example, speed is a property of a rapidly flying aircraft), which has material forms of its expression. These forms are language and practical activity. But there is a fundamental difference between them.

Knowledge in linguistic form is not limited to material embodiment. It only acts as a material code of ideal content - mental objects that represent the objects of the material world. The material embodiment of knowledge in practice is completely different. Here the material acts no longer as a code fixing the ideal content, but as the realization of this content. In essence, knowledge here loses the status of an ideal phenomenon. It becomes a phenomenon of the material world. Technical and technological procedures of human activity become the main form that implements knowledge.

2. Practice, included in the system in the system of interaction with the objective world, itself turns out to be subordinate law this interactions. This circumstance makes it possible for practice to fulfill the criterion of truth. Being, on the one hand, the embodiment of knowledge about the material world, and on the other hand, a part of this world, subject to its laws, practice, by the very process of its functioning, checks the truth of knowledge. If a person in his knowledge correctly expressed the essence of the laws of the real world and built his activity in accordance with these laws, then practice as an objective process controlled by these laws turns out to be effective.

Its effectiveness is manifested in the fact that it is carried out in accordance with the ideal plan and implements this plan. On the contrary, if a person's ideas do not correspond to the laws of the objective world, and if practical activity is built in accordance with these ideas, then the laws of the objective world will make the practice ineffective - ineffective in the sense that it will not be able to implement an ideal plan. Roughly speaking, if an aircraft built in accordance with the theory of aerodynamics and strength of materials flies, then we can conclude that this knowledge is true.

And one more thing. Agnostics argue that man will never be able to know the actual structure of the world, because he (man) deals only with sensory experience, but not with the objective world in itself. B. Russell wrote in his book "Human Knowledge, Its Sphere and Limits": "I do not directly know tables and chairs, but only know certain actions that they produce in me." He almost verbatim repeated Yuma who argued something like this. All that I have is sense perceptions, and where these sense perceptions came from I do not know and cannot know. Perhaps things are hidden behind sensory perceptions, as the materialists assure. But something else is also possible: these perceptions are aroused in me by God, as the idealists assure. This argument may seem invulnerable. Indeed, a person is doomed to deal only with the world given to him in sensations. Therefore, his knowledge, it would seem, can relate not to the objective world, but only to sensory experience. However, a person does not just contemplate the external world. By his activity, in which his knowledge of the world is embodied, he "enters" the objective world, becomes a part of the latter. And the laws of this world control the correctness of his ideas about the world, on the basis of which his activity is built. It is the very fact that throughout its long history man has managed to adapt to the outside world, to survive in the struggle for existence, to survive biologically, testifies to the correctness of the ideas he has developed about the world. This assessment was made by the very laws of the external world, and a person could receive it only through his material activity - practice.

Systematization and communications

Dialectics

Scientific understanding of truth

· Initially, a person has no reason to doubt that a relative who left the apartment on the street to take out the trash to the trash or buy bread in the bakery really exists, and has not disappeared into nowhere. Also, science for the most part relies on this bold assumption - if the subject does not perceive the world of things around him in all its integrity and completeness, this does not mean that this world exists only within the focus of the subject's attention or is generally illusory. Atoms cannot be perceived by the eye, but their existence was eventually proven experimentally.

· Truth, as the essence of knowledge common to all, can also exist and become scientific when science distances itself from its arbitrary interpretation and seeks to know its objective, legitimate foundations. It is not for nothing that science constantly fixes such laws of nature and physical constants, under which only a person can exist as a part of this very nature. Thus, truth is conceived by science as the correspondence of knowledge about the existence of things to scientific facts that cannot be disputed by anyone and take place in being, regardless of whether this or that particular individual is aware of their existence or not. Accordingly, knowledge, confirmed by facts, automatically passes into the category of scientific truth, or at least becomes a guiding star in relation to it. This approach gives science quite a strong confidence that all its lost relatives will be found sooner or later. Philosophy holds the same conviction. dialectical materialism, which rose on the yeast of natural science and is still cultivated in higher educational institutions. By its very nature, diamat is the methodology of all natural science in general and of individual sciences in particular.

· From the concept of understanding the truth as the correspondence of knowledge to scientific facts naturally follows the desire of science to create the most general theory of everything, to find such a principle and law of being that would direct and determine all being, as well as knowledge about it. At least, such a dream is still cherished by physics, for which the creation of a general physical theory is a logically substantiated plan and a rather powerful incentive to action. This program unites scientists, subordinating their arbitrary fantasies common standards through a language of formulas and scientific concepts understandable to all. Philosophers often envy such unanimity in the private scientific environment and lament its absence in the philosophical environment. And they are also upset by the fact that more and more critics of philosophy (or rather, its practical inefficiency) begin to doubt that philosophy in general is a science in the full sense of the word. Apparently, enough reasons have accumulated for such claims.

· In fact, the facts themselves are already for science some local, obvious truths, the knowledge of which is tantamount to a simple establishment of these facts. The way to achieve the truth in the scientific view becomes, therefore, a process of constantly looking beyond the horizon of local truths known to science to even less obvious and more general ones, but at the same time requiring a better understanding of them, associated primarily with the need for an adequate expression of knowledge about them in a form understandable to all. Unfortunately, the farther science moves away from the mere observability of scientific facts, the more difficult it is for it to establish them, it puts even more effort into predicting facts, and their comprehension often becomes an impossible task at all, when knowledge about a fact can no longer be associated or connected with anything. with what human concepts, perhaps in some poetic way, on the verge of escaping meaning, like the delirium of a madman.

· In writing, such knowledge will look like something that cannot be decoded, at least for a person who is unfamiliar with the professional style of solving a particular scientific problem. It turns out that as the number of facts known to science expands, the quality of their comprehension by the scientific community becomes more and more narrow and special, and the private scientific knowledge of a person about being becomes less and less accessible to the understanding of the general population receiving higher education. It is not for nothing that the heliocentric system of the world, as opposed to the geocentric one, fought its way for so long. Moreover, the idea of ​​a plurality of worlds had a depressing effect on the psyche of many people who are accustomed to thinking in obvious truths. But it may also happen that even such a model of the Universe runs the risk of not being close enough to reality and will only reflect some next stage of a person’s understanding of this scientific fact, a stage of his own intellectual development, and not very advanced at that.

Educational continuity in the search for and knowledge of scientific truth is good, even better, when one scientific generation replaces another with a certain frequency and without special painful upheavals, like the courts of the Inquisition or the persecution of genetics, but scientific progress cannot always be the same like a snail crawling on a green leaf and seeing nothing but this leaf, it tends to speed up and at the present time its speed reaches a limit, after which disaster may follow for all who continue to believe that the most general scientific truth is a real thing and quite achievable. Of course, any scientist will say that scientific progress is endless, that a new vision inevitably comes to replace the old one. But when in the process of cognition of being, priority is given to experiment and the accumulation of scientific facts occurs faster than their comprehension, science simply dissolves in the stream of its division into highly specialized aspects of scientific consideration, where even theoretical conceptual design in its status already resembles some special scientific discipline, which slowly , but surely loses its scientific relevance.

· The specter of scientific truth has always attracted many new enthusiasts to the scientific ranks. But its essence is such that only a small part of it can be revealed to a scientist, and everything else will be hidden behind the horizon, in which you cannot drill holes, but you can go and go forward until your legs are worn to the knees, and to the ultimate truth in in the end it will be even further than it seemed at the beginning of the journey. However, modern science quite enough are those local truths that it has already developed and on the basis of which scientific theoretical creativity is built, the appearance of the movement of scientific thought towards the truth is maintained even more general, but also the least achievable. The scientific community, accustomed to the bonuses of a well-established branched system of academic science, does not need to doubt the likelihood of the existence of scientific truth, since it is precisely for its search that the state allocates funding funds and creates bureaucratic management structures for more and more scientific divisions. But this has little to do with the truth itself.

The concept of scientific theory. Classical and non-classical variants of the formation of scientific theory.

Any theory is an integral developing system of true knowledge, which has a complex structure and performs a number of functions; as a form of scientific knowledge, it is aimed at discovering the patterns of one or another fragment of reality. In the process of building a scientific theory (a process coordinated by scientific goals and objectives), a network of basic concepts, a set of methods, methodological norms and principles, experimental data, generalizations of facts and conclusions of theorists and experts.

Developed theory contains information about the causal, genetic, structural and functional interactions of reality. In form, the theory appears as a system of consistent, logically interconnected statements. Theories are based on a specific categorical apparatus, a system of principles and laws. Developed theory open to the description, interpretation and explanation of new facts, and is ready to include additional metatheoretical constructions. Developed theory - not just a set of related provisions, but contains a mechanism for conceptual movement, internal deployment of content, includes a program for building knowledge (the integrity of the theory).

Methodologists identify three features Building a developed scientific theory : 1) “developed theories of a greater degree of generality in modern conditions are created by a team of researchers with a fairly distinct division of labor between them” - we are talking about the collective subject of scientific creativity, which is due to the complication of the object of study and the increase in the amount of necessary information. 2) “fundamental theories are increasingly created without a sufficiently developed layer of primary theoretical schemes and laws”, “intermediate links necessary for constructing a theory are created in the course of theoretical synthesis”. 3) application of the method of mathematical hypothesis: the construction of a theory begins with attempts to guess its mathematical apparatus (V. S. Stepin). When non-constructive elements were found within theoretical schemes, a kind of selection of idealized objects was carried out. The appeal to a thought experiment explained or refuted the supposed dependencies and necessary conditions.

Another feature is the role of language in the process of building a developed scientific theory. Language is a way of objectified expression of the content of science. The language of developed scientific theory is largely artificial. Building on top of natural language, it is subject to a hierarchy determined by the hierarchy of scientific knowledge. Ways of creating artificial languages ​​of theory: 1) terminology of natural language words, 2) tracing terms of foreign origin and 3) language formalization.

The strength of any theory lies in its explanatory and prognostic potential, its ability to explain and predict. Cases of competing theories, clashes between the old and the new testify to the development of scientific knowledge. The way theory is constructed changes historically.

For The classical stage of development of science the ideal of deductively constructed theories is characteristic. The classical version of the formation of a developed theory involves a theory that reflects closed-type systems. The ideal of such a theory is Newtonian physics. Descriptive theories are focused on ordering and systematizing empirical material. Mathematical theories that use mathematical formalism, when deploying their content, involve formal operations with signs of a mathematicized language that expresses the parameters of an object. "Closed" theories have a certain and limited set of initial statements, all other statements must be obtained from the original ones in a consistent way by applying the rules of inference. In science classical period developed theories were created by successive generalization and synthesis of particular theoretical schemes and laws: Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics, electrodynamics. Maxwell's theory is a theoretical generalization of private laws (theoretical models and laws of Coulomb, Ampère, Faraday, Biot and Savart). Formation of private laws and general theories is a process of collective creativity.

Classic scientific theories are basically deductive and describe closed systems (like mechanical systems): 1-Finalism-confidence in the final and complete nature of knowledge is expressed in these theories. 2-Impersonality - in relation to this knowledge, limitations of a personal, paradigmatic, chronological and other nature were not taken into account. 3-Visibility - knowledge was persuasive, because it could be presented. 4. Rigid determinism - that is, an indication of an alternative causal relationship of phenomena without an alternative, that is, probability and uncertainty are considered unacceptable within the framework of these theories. 5-monotherism - belief in the sufficiency of 1 theory for complete description class of homogeneous objects.

Non-classical version of theory formation is constructed by the method of "mathematical" hypotheses. The construction of a theory begins with the formation of its mathematical apparatus, and a theoretical scheme adequate to it is created after the creation of the mathematical apparatus. It focuses on open systems and such varieties of complex objects as statistical, cybernetic, self-developing systems. Theory as an open system contains the mechanisms of its development, triggered both through sign-symbolic operations and through the introduction of various hypothetical assumptions. There is a way of thought experiment with idealized objects. Each criterion alone is not self-sufficient. Used together, they occasionally come into conflict with each other. Accuracy may involve choosing, for one particular theory, the scope of its competitor. The accuracy of a theory depends on its explanatory and predictive power.

If there is a problem of choosing between theories, two researchers following the same set of criteria may come to different conclusions. Therefore, K. Popper's remark that any theory is falsifiable in principle, that is, subject to the refutation procedure, is legitimate. He proved that the principle of falsifiability is an alternative to the principle of verification, i.e. confirmation. The concept of falsifiability states that theoretical knowledge is only hypothetical and subject to error. The growth of scientific knowledge involves the process of putting forward scientific hypotheses with their subsequent refutation. The latter is reflected in the principle of "fallibilism". Popper believes that the scientific theories in the prince are wrong, their probability is zero, no matter how rigorously they are tested. In other words, "one cannot be mistaken only that all theories are wrong." Falsification means the refutation of a theory by reference to an empirical fact that contradicts the given theory.

The non-classical stage in the development of scientific and theoretical knowledge is characterized by the so-called linguistic turn, i.e., the sharply posed problem of the relationship between formal linguistic structures and reality. The relationship of language structures to the outside world is not limited to formal designation and coding. The language of science is responsible for the logical ordering and concise description of facts. At the same time, it is obvious that the implementation of the language function of ordering and logical concentration, a concise description of the factual material leads to a significant transformation in the semantic (semantic) respect, to a certain revision of the event itself or the chain of events.

For this reason, many scholars believe that modern stage The development of science is directly connected with the development of linguistic means, with the development of a more perfect language and with the translation of knowledge from the old language into a new one. In science, there is a clear tendency to move from using the language of observation and description to the language of idealized objectivity.

The non-classical stage in the development of scientific knowledge is associated with the discovery of new objects and processes in the micro, macro and meso world (extension and the presence of mass, impenetrability, eternity were refuted, the phenomenon of corpuscular-wave dualism was discovered, Einstein refuted classical ideas about the absolute nature of time and space). Features of non-classical theories: 1-Subject of study - evolving, self-organizing objects. 2-The principle of visibility has been lost. 3- the mathematical apparatus is widely used, based on non-linear systems of equations (Linear to the 1st degree!). 4-There is a rejection of finalism and monotheorism. 5-Knowledge is of a relativistic nature, i.e., it is forbidden to assume an absolute frame of reference of anything (You read a book while sailing on a ship, on land it remains in place ...). 6-There has been a change in ideas about the role of the subject and technical means in the process of cognition: no knowledge claims to be absolute objectivity, and all knowledge takes into account the error of technical means. 7-in addition to the dynamic laws that describe the behavior of a single object, statistical laws are used that describe the behavior of a set of objects and are of a probabilistic nature.

The interaction between the operations of putting forward a hypothesis and its constructive justification is the key point that allows you to get an answer to the question about the ways in which paradigm Problem Solving Samples . Having posed the problem of samples, western philosophy Science has not been able to find the appropriate means of solving it, since it has not identified and analyzed, even in the first approximation, the procedures for constructively substantiating hypotheses. When discussing the problem of samples, T. Kuhn and his followers focus on only one side of the issue - the role of analogies as the basis for solving problems. The operations of forming and substantiating the theoretical schemes that arise in this process fall outside the scope of their analysis.