Essay on the topic of:

« What is love?"

Prepared by a student of 11 "A" class

MBOU - secondary school No. 28 of Yekaterinburg

Vichkanova Natalia

Supervisor: , teacher of Russian language and literature, 89022670748

What is love? Is it possible to give precise definition this word? Perhaps this is a rhetorical question.

Love is a special, strange feeling, invisible, very personal. It's coming

from the inside, like everything else. This is one of those feelings that a person is given to experience in life. Feel it with every cell of your body.

All our life we ​​love, consciously or not. As a child, we experience feelings of sincere affection for the mother.

Growing up, we show love for the knowledge of the world around us. Soon we will learn love for our native language, for our home, for our Motherland.

Later comes love for the opposite sex. The older we become, the more we discover the meanings of this word - love,

We understand its immensity and originality. It cannot be said that I love something more, something less, love has no limits. We just love always

We show our feelings in different ways and not in a pattern.

Love, intimate and deep feeling, aspiration to another person, human community or idea. Love necessarily includes the impulse and the will to constancy, which take shape in the ethical requirement of fidelity. Love arises as the freest and so far "unpredictable" expression of the depths of personality; it cannot be compulsorily invoked or overcome. The importance and complexity of the phenomenon of Love are determined by the fact that in it, as in a focus, the opposites of the biological and spiritual, personal and social, intimate and universally significant intersect. On the one hand, sexual parental love includes healthy biological instincts common to humans and animals, and is unthinkable without them. On the other hand, Love for an idea can represent an intellectual delight, possible only at certain levels of culture. But no matter how different in their psychological material, the Love with which a mother loves her newborn baby, the Love with which a lover loves his beloved, and the Love with which a citizen loves his homeland, all this is Love that differs from everything that only “looks like” on it - from the egoistic "attraction", or "preference", or "interest". “The true essence of love is to renounce the consciousness of oneself, to forget oneself in another self and, however, in the same disappearance and oblivion for the first time to find oneself and possess oneself” (Hegel, Works, volume 13, M., 1940, p. 107).

Since ancient times, this wonderful feeling has been sung, which is probably why all world literature is somehow saturated with the theme of love.

This topic is so great and boundless that writers and poets have addressed it for many thousands of decades.

"Love jumped out in front of us,

Like a killer jumping around the corner

And instantly hit us both."

This is what Bulgakov wrote in his novel The Master and Margarita. How right he was! We don't choose the place and time, we don't choose who we love and for how long.

Love breaks into the heart and soaks it through like poison. And from now on, we are in her power.

She can force the proudest and most hypocritical person to kneel, she will not ask the status in society or the pedigree of the family.

It will simply open the door to your heart without any knock or key and stay there against your will. Let that feeling in and enjoy it. Let it burst into your heart with a stormy stream, fill your soul with a spring melody.

Lovers are always so infatuated that they don't notice anything but this feeling. She inspires them and makes them smile like children, sincerely, for real.

Anna Akhmatova, in one of her poems, called love "an extraordinary fifth season", with the help of which the other ordinary four were noticed to her.

And indeed, when a person loves, he is happy, he sees the world a little differently, in brighter and light colors. Everything ordinary becomes extraordinary.

To say: “I love you” means to say: “you will never die,” the French poet Albert Camus once remarked.

This means to capture a person in your thoughts, memories, in your heart. Thus making him immortal.

An example of such "immortal" love is considered to be William Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet".

Two equally respected families

In Verona, where events meet us,

Conduct internecine battles

And they don't want to stop the bloodshed

The children of the leaders love each other,

But fate sets up intrigues for them.

And their death at the coffin doors

Puts an end to irreconcilable strife.

The girl and the boy fought for their love, regardless of the consequences. Romeo was ready to renounce his name, and Juliet to part with her life in the name of a high feeling. After all, the mind is powerless before the cry of the heart.

"There is no sadder story in the world,

Than the story of Romeo and Juliet."

Shakespeare, having told the world this drama, won the hearts of millions of readers with his heroes, and their heartfelt and unfeigned love for each other, for which they gave their lives.

How many examples can be given when feelings, it would seem, should bring joy and happiness, but bring only grief and sadness, pushing to crazy actions, forcing a person to suffer from pain, which he calls love.

Everyone has to go through love disappointments: resentment, betrayal, lies, the loss of something dear, very personal, and in the heart, as if through a hole. And it seems that the wound has almost healed, almost healed. But this is the "almost". Quite a bit, a little more, and everything will pass, but no, nothing passes, and the wound aches, just like yesterday, remaining a memory in your heart.

To date, love has changed a little, but this fabulous feeling continues to inspire new achievements, exploits and undertakings.

Sometimes it makes you soar above the ground, and sometimes it throws a stone down without a parachute, but, in spite of everything, as they used to fight for castles, land and resources, now people are fighting for that real, genuine feeling that everyone calls love.

After all, the most precious thing on earth is the love that we give to each other.

Love, we talk so much

We understand so little

After all, there are so many legends about her,

And we haven't felt it for a long time.

It's like she doesn't exist anymore

And anyone who tells me otherwise

He is either a liar or a lucky man.

After all, only love lives

That in our heart sometimes brings happiness forever.

Tolstoy wrote that there is no such grief,

That can't be moved, but I'm sure

Love is salt

What pours into the heart from the inside.

She is gentle, timid, passionate,

And eyes glow with joy

When you understand sensibly, clearly.

Love is everywhere around you.

In everything: in all passersby faces

And in the singing of birds on the street in the spring,

And most importantly, notice, grab,

understand that there are miracles in the world

Don't be sad, love is like a bird

That flies straight into our hearts.

With only one difference: Love, she is the queen

I haven't heard her heartbeat for a long time.

She bursts, silently, passionately,

And ignite the fire inside of you.

You know that if anything, then the ashes of obscure love,

Like a phoenix bird, it will flare up one day,

Even at sunset.

believed that “Love is the only rational activity of man” and warned: “This love, in which there is only life, manifests itself in the soul of a person, like a barely noticeable, tender sprout among coarse sprouts of weeds similar to it, various lusts of a person that we call love. At first, it seems to people and to the person himself that this sprout, the one from which the tree in which birds will take refuge, and all other sprouts are all one and the same. People even prefer weeds first, which grow faster, and the only sprout of life dies and dies; but what is even worse is that it happens even more often: people have heard that among these shoots there is one real, vital, called love, and instead of it, trampling on it, they begin to nurture another sprout of weed grass, calling it love. But what is even worse: people seize the very sprout with rough hands and shout: “here it is, we have found it, we now know it, we will grow it. Love! Love! the highest feeling, here it is! ”, And people begin to transplant it, correct it and seize it, crush it so that the sprout dies without blooming, and the same or other people say: all this is nonsense, trifles, sentimentality. The sprout of love, in its manifestation tender, not enduring touch, is powerful only in its growth. Everything that people will do to him will only make it worse for him. He needs one thing - that nothing hides from him the sun of reason, which alone returns him.

Love as the highest truth

For many centuries people have been tormented by a strange phenomenon - love. No one knows where it came from, why even animals sometimes fall in love. Since ancient times, poets have written poems, poems, stories and other literary works about love. Love does not disappear even in war. Soldiers, when they go into battle, remember their loved ones. How many feats are performed for the sake of love! No feeling brings as many emotions as love.

There is no single definition of love, everyone perceives it in their own way. To prove it, I asked a few friends what "love" means to them. Here are some of the answers: 1. "Happiness and sorrow" 2. "Serene feeling of flight and tenderness that gives warmth and happiness" 3. "Love is a feeling that warms your heart every day." Of course, love most often gives joy, warmth, tenderness, but sometimes there is tragic love. The most striking example of a tragedy due to love in literature is the play Romeo and Juliet. The main characters love each other, but because of the enmity of their parents, they die. For love. There are many such cases in life too. Death for love ... or because of unhappy love. This is the mystery of this feeling - why can a person value love more than his life ?! After all, there is only one life, and there are 6 billion more people in the world to love! Why do we sometimes need only one single person, why sometimes we want to hear the voice of this particular person, and not any other?! All these questions will remain a mystery forever. No scientist can explain this strange feeling. Here is the interpretation of the word "love" in Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary - "Deep emotional attraction, strong heartfelt feeling." In principle, the interpretation is quite clear and correct, but not complete ... It is impossible to express in words what almost all people on Earth feel.

Here is another answer to my question - “Love is waves. Tides are tides. But even when there are no waves and the sea is calm, the close presence of the ocean is felt.” This means that there is no complete absence of love. It is in each of us, some just hide it, some just haven't realized its presence yet.

Too many people put the love of money or themselves above the love of other people these days. This is what causes tragedies. There are many cases of suicide on the basis of unrequited love. It's all so scary and sad! What if soon people will start loving only themselves?! There will no longer be such happy families, each person will create personal happiness. What will happen then? Nothing. Absolute emptiness inside everyone.

Man was created to live in a tribe; he cannot live alone. Everyone needs a "second half". Lovers accept each other for who they really are. They do not need masks, makeup, outfits. They are soul bound to each other.

"True love cannot have a happy ending because it is endless." True love always exists, it can conquer everything in its path and lovers will be happy! “Everyone sees what you seem to be, but few feel what you are…” Only the person who loves you can understand what you really are. That's why we love and want to be loved - we need a person who would understand us! The person to whom you could tell everything. A person who will never leave, who will always support. The person for whom you would become the whole world. And he would be the world for you. Each family is a small world with its own life.

Love and be loved…

Love for truth

(Fragment from the book APOCALYPSE OF LOVE. Philosophical essay)

The process of cognition of the world by a person is social in nature and one of the main ideals of this process - the pursuit of truth is also social in nature.

It is natural to begin the discussion of the love of truth by trying to clarify the concept of truth itself. It is one of the most important not only in philosophy, but also in ordinary life. At the same time, it refers to concepts that cause fierce debate.

It is best to illustrate the differences in the interpretation of truth on the most seemingly simple and transparent example - on the concept of scientific truth. And if it turns out that even in science, which, as is customary to think, is exclusively engaged in the search for truth and is not distracted by anything else, there is no unambiguous understanding of what truth is, all the more such unambiguity should not be expected in other areas. Especially in those in which the feelings and interests of a person or social groups are directly affected.

Let this not seem surprising, but in the philosophy of science the opinion is sometimes expressed that the description of scientific theories and their development may well do without - and perhaps even should do - without the concept of truth.

Truth in its usual sense carries a certain absolute content: what is true once remains true at all times. But science provides only problematic knowledge, which over time will inevitably be revised, changed and refined. How can one use the concept of truth in such a case?

The replacement of some scientific theories by other, more advanced theories, the ever-increasing detail and deepening understanding of the world are sometimes interpreted as a process of gradual, but never ending (as is sometimes expressed, asymptotic) approximation to the truth. But such an understanding makes the process of development of science directed towards a certain goal and gives the evolution of science an unacceptable teleological character for it.

“Should we really consider,” asks the American historian and philosopher of science T. Kuhn, “that there is some complete, objective, true idea of ​​nature and that the appropriate measure of scientific achievement is the degree to which it brings us closer to this ultimate goal? If we learn to replace "evolution towards what we hope to know" with "evolution from what we know," then a lot of the problems that irritate us can disappear" 1 . Kuhn suggests that the problem of induction (inferences that give only probable, problematic conclusions), which has long been controversial, is internally related to the interpretation of science as an activity directed towards a certain and, in general, never achievable goal.

The guarantee that the list of problems solved by science and the accuracy of solutions to individual problems will increase more and more, Kuhn is looking for not in the pursuit of science for truth, but in the characteristics of the community of scientists engaged in scientific research in this field of knowledge. “At least the nature of the community provides such a guarantee, if there is any way at all that it can be provided. What criterion can be more accurate than the decision of the scientific group? 2. Science needs no other kind of progress. “We may, for greater accuracy, drop here the additional assumption, explicit or implicit, that changes in the paradigm (exemplary theory) lead scientists and students and bring them closer and closer to the truth” 3 .

Comparing his non-teleological vision of the development of science with Darwin's theory of evolution, Kuhn notes that the concepts of "evolution", "development" and "progress" can be given meaning in the absence of a specific goal. Modern scientific knowledge is the pure result of gradual selection. Successive stages in this process of development are marked by an increase in concreteness and specialization. "And this whole process can be carried out, as we now imagine biological evolution, without the help of any common goal, a constantly fixed truth, each stage of which in the development of scientific knowledge provides an improved model" 4 .

L. Laudan, an American specialist in the philosophy of science, considers the continuous growth of knowledge to be one of the main characteristics of science. The progress of science involves the formulation and solution of problems. Defining science as a problem-solving activity, Laudan interprets its development as an increase in the ability of research programs to solve empirical and theoretical problems 5 . If scientific research is described in terms of problem solving, there is no need to use the concept of truth. Laudan does not deny the existence of truth, but, like Kuhn, he believes that the introduction of this concept gives rise to a number of confusing questions.

The idea that the development of science can be described without using the notion of truth is thus a fairly common one. In connection with the fact that with the introduction of truth as the goal of scientific knowledge, an aspect of teleology alien to it is introduced into science, it can be assumed that the progress of science in general should be described without reference to truth as the goal of scientific knowledge. And yet, the concept of truth is constantly used both in science itself and in the philosophy of science. This shows that the role of this concept in scientific knowledge is still not particularly clear. It is generally accepted that truth is a property of propositions. For example, the statement "Snow is white" is true, while the statement "Snow is black" is false. More precisely, truth is usually regarded as a property of those thoughts, or judgments, which are expressed by statements. Truth is not applicable to concepts, representations, images, etc.

Comparison of the concept of truth with the concept of (positive) value shows, however, that truth is not a property of the statement, but a relation between the statement and the fragment of reality compared with it. Value is also a relation, not a property. In common usage, truth and (positive) value are asymmetrical. If the statement compared with reality corresponds to it, then the property of being true is attributed to the statement. When reality conforms to the proposition (to the standard that it expresses), a (positive) value is assigned to the fragment of reality itself, not to the proposition.

In order not to complicate the language, we will, as usual, say that propositions are those objects that are capable of being true. Not all statements can be true or false, but only those that relate to the so-called "passive use of language." The question of possible uses of the language, however, requires a more detailed discussion. This is all the more necessary since this question concerns not only the concept of truth, but also the concept of value considered later.

Language pervades human life, and it must be as rich as it is. With the help of language, we can not only describe a variety of situations, but also evaluate them, give commands, warn, promise, formulate norms, pray, conjure, etc. Is it possible to list all those tasks that a person solves through language? Which of the uses, or functions, of the language are the main ones, and which ones are secondary, reducible to the main ones? Oddly enough, these questions arose only at the beginning of the last century.

Among the uses of language, a special place is occupied by a description - a statement, main function which is a report of the real state of affairs and which is true or false.
A description that corresponds to reality is true. A description that does not correspond to the real state of affairs is false. For example, the description "Soot black" is true, but the description "Oxygen is a metal" is false. It is sometimes allowed that the description may be vague, lying between true and false. Indefinite are, in particular, many descriptions of the future (“In a year this day will be cloudy”, etc.). Sometimes the descriptions use the words "true", "true", "actually", etc.

For a long time it was believed that description is the only function of language, or at least the one to which any other use of it can be reduced. Any grammatically correct declarative sentence was assumed to be descriptive and therefore true or false. As it turned out on closer analysis, description, despite all its importance, is not the only task solved with the help of language. It is not even its main task. Language faces many tasks that cannot be reduced to description.

In the 20s. of the last century, C. Ogden and A. Richards wrote a book in which they drew attention to expressives - expressions using the language of various kinds of feelings - and convincingly showed that the emotive (expressive) use of language is not reducible to its denoting, descriptive meaning. The phrases “I’m sorry I woke you up”, “I congratulate you on the holiday”, etc. not only describe the state of the speaker's feelings, but also express certain mental states associated with a particular situation.

For example, I have the right to congratulate you on winning a competition if you really won and if I am really happy with your victory. In this case, the congratulation will be sincere, and it can be considered true, i.e. according to external circumstances and my feelings. If I congratulate you on the fact that you look good, although in fact you do not look well, my congratulations are not sincere. It does not correspond to reality, and if I know about it, it does not correspond to my feelings either. Such a congratulation may well be assessed as false. It would also be false to congratulate you on having discovered the universal law of gravitation: everyone, including you, obviously knows that this is not so, and congratulations would sound like a mockery.

Of particular importance for the development of the theory of language use were the ideas of the English philosopher J. Austin. In particular, he drew attention to the unusual fact that language can be directly used to change the world. It is this task that is solved, for example, by expressions called by Austin declarations: “I appoint you chairman”, “I resign”, “I declare: our contract has been terminated”, “I betroth you” (“I declare you husband and wife”), etc. .P. A declaration can be defined as a statement that changes the state of affairs that existed before it was uttered.

When, say, I successfully perform the act of appointing someone as chairman, he becomes chairman, and before that act he was not. If the act of production into generals is successfully performed, the world immediately becomes one more general. When the football referee says, "You're out of the field," the player is out of the game, and it apparently changes.

Declarations do not explicitly describe some existing situation. They directly change the world, namely the world of human relations, and do this by the very fact of their utterance. Obviously, declarations are not true or false. They may, however, be justified or unjustified (I can appoint someone to chair if I have the right to do so).

Another use of language is normative. With the help of language, norms are formulated by which the speaker wants to ensure that the listener performs certain actions. Normative statements, also called "deontic" or "prescriptive", are usually contrasted with descriptive statements, sometimes called "descriptive".

Norm (normative, or deontic, statement) - a statement that obliges, permits or prohibits doing something under the threat of punishment.
The norms are extremely diverse and include commands, orders, requirements, regulations, laws, rules, etc. Examples are the expressions: “Stop talking!”, “Try to bring maximum benefit to as many people as possible”, “You should be persistent”, etc. Norms, unlike descriptions, are not true or false, although they may be justified or unjustified.

The language can also be used for promises, i.e. for the speaker to assume an obligation to perform some action in the future or adhere to a certain line of behavior. Promises are, for example, expressions: “I promise to behave approximately”, “I swear to tell the truth and only the truth”, “I will always be polite”, etc. Promises can be interpreted as norms addressed to the speaker himself and in some way predetermining his behavior in the future. Like all norms, promises are not true or false. They may be deliberate or hasty, expedient or inexpedient, etc.

The language can also be used for ratings. The latter express a positive, negative or neutral attitude of the subject to the object in question or, if two objects are compared, to express a preference for one of them over the other. Estimates are, for example, the expressions: “It is good that the light spreads in a straight line”, “It is bad when there are no conditions for democratic elections”, “It is better to start economic reforms earlier than to be late”, etc. Estimates are just as fundamental and irreducible as descriptions. However, unlike descriptions, they are not true or false.

There are thus a large number of different uses of language: reporting a state of affairs (description), trying to get something done (norm), expressing feelings (expressive), changing the world with a word (declaration), making an obligation to do something (promise ), expressing a positive or negative attitude towards something (assessment), etc.

The Austro-English philosopher L. Wittgenstein even believed that the number of different uses of the language (different "language games", as he said) is unlimited. How could the diverse uses of language be brought into a system? Is it possible to single out some uses of the language as the main ones and establish their connection with all its other uses?

Within the framework of linguistics, the so-called "theory of speech acts" was developed, which is a simplified classification of language use (J. Austin, J. Searle, P. Strawson, and others) 6 . This theory played big role in the study of language use. However, now it does not seem to be particularly successful. It omits a number of fundamental uses of the language (evaluations, language expressions that inspire some feelings, etc.), does not trace the connections between different uses of the language, does not reveal the possibility of reducing some of them to others, etc.

From the point of view of logic, the theory of argumentation and the philosophy of science, it is important, first of all, to distinguish between the two main uses of language: description and evaluation. In the case of the first, the starting point for comparing the statement and reality is the real situation, and the statement acts as its description, characterized in terms of the concepts of "true" and "false". With the second function, the original statement is a statement that acts as a standard, perspective, plan. The correspondence of the situation to this statement is characterized in terms of the concepts of “good”, “indifferent” and “bad”.
Description and evaluation are two poles between which there are many transitions. Both in everyday language and in the language of science there are many varieties of both descriptions and assessments. Pure descriptions and pure evaluations are quite rare, most linguistic expressions are of a dual, or "mixed", descriptive-evaluative nature. All this must be taken into account when studying the many "language games" or uses of language. It is likely that the set of such "games" is, as Wittgenstein believed, unlimited. It must be borne in mind, however, that a more subtle analysis of the use of language moves within the framework of the initial and fundamental opposition of descriptions and evaluations and is only its detailing. It can be useful in many areas, in particular in linguistics, but, most likely, it is devoid of interest in logic, in the theory of argumentation, etc.
Further important is the difference between expressives that are close to descriptions and orectives that are similar to evaluations.

Orative - a statement used to excite feelings, will, induce to action. The directives are, for example, the expressions: “Pull yourself together”, “You will overcome difficulties”, “Believe in your rightness and act!” and so on. A special case of the oretic use of language can be considered the so-called numinous function - enchanting the listener with words (spells of a sorcerer, words of love, flattery, threats, etc.).

To systematize the uses of the language, we will use two oppositions. Let us oppose thought to feeling (will, aspiration, etc.), and the expression of certain states of the soul to the suggestion of such states. This will give a simple coordinate system within which all basic and derivative uses of the language can be placed.
Descriptions are expressions of thoughts, expressives are expressions of feelings. Descriptions and expressives refer to what may be called passive use of language and characterized in terms of truth and falsehood. Estimates and directives refer to the active use of the language and do not have a truth value.

Norms are a special case of assessments, norms are assessments accompanied by the threat of punishment (sanction) if the positively assessed state of affairs is not realized. Promises - a special, or degenerate, case of norms are norms that are promised by the speaker to himself. Declarations are special occasion the magical function of language when it is used to change the world of human relationships. As such, declarations are a kind of prescription, or norm, concerning the behavior of people. Promises are a special case of the postulate function, covering not only promises in the truest sense of the word, but also the acceptance of conventions, postulates of newly introduced theories, and so on.

Thus, there are four main uses of language: description, expressive, evaluation and orative, as well as a number of intermediate uses of it, more or less gravitating towards the main ones: normative, magic, postulate, etc.

It is customary to distinguish between the nature of truth and the criterion of truth. The nature of truth is the question of what is the essence of truth and how the concept of truth can be defined. Truth criteria relate to how the truth of propositions is established. different type, starting with empirical statements and ending with abstract theoretical statements, the principles of mathematics and the laws of logic.

Three traditional theories are well known that claim to reveal the nature of truth: truth as correspondence (correspondence), truth as agreement (coherence), and truth as utility. Each of these theories has various modifications.
According to the correspondence theory, a statement is true if it corresponds to the described situation, i.e. presents her for who she really is. For example, the statement "Metals conduct current" is true because all metals actually conduct electricity; the statement "Metals are not plastic" is false, since in reality all metals are plastic.
The concept of truth as correspondence is a concretization of more general concept adequacy in the case of descriptive statements.

A representation of the world is adequate if it corresponds to the things to which it refers; a means is adequate when it actually contributes to the achievement of the goal; an assessment is adequate if it is consistent with the standards of assessment accepted in the field or if the actions taken on its basis bring the desired result.

The concept of adequacy is wider than the concept of truth: truth characterizes only descriptive statements; both descriptions and assessments, directives and even human actions can be adequate.

The interpretation of truth as a correspondence of thought to reality dates back to antiquity and is usually called the classical concept of truth. All other understandings of truth are called non-classical.

The one who speaks about things in accordance with what they are, wrote Plato, speaks the truth, the same one who speaks about them differently is lying. Aristotle interpreted the truth in the same way: “... The truth is said by the one who considers the disconnected to be disconnected, and the connected - connected, and the false - the one who thinks the opposite of how things are with things” 7 . Sometimes the classical definition of truth is called "Aristotelian", which is not entirely accurate.

Truth as correspondence is objective and exists outside and independently of a person and his intentions, whether it is recognized in a certain period of time or not.

According to the theory of coherence, truth is the systematic agreement of the put forward position with the already accepted statements.
Such agreement is stronger than logical consistency: not every statement that does not contradict previously accepted statements can be classified as true. Only the proposition is true, which is necessary element systematic, holistic concept. "Integrity" is usually understood in such a way that not a single element can be removed from it without destroying it.

Strictly speaking, with such an interpretation of the truth, if it is carried out consistently, the truth turns out to be a characteristic, first of all, of the "integrity" itself, and not of its individual elements. In this case, "integrity" acquires an absolute character: it is not evaluated from the point of view of its correspondence to something else, for example, external reality, but gives the statements included in the system one or another degree of truth. At the same time, the degree of truth of the statement depends only on its contribution to the systematic coherence of the elements of "integrity".

The theory of coherence starts from an important feature of any knowledge, and first of all scientific, - its systemic nature. In science, systematized knowledge takes the form of a scientific theory. It is reasonable to assume that the new proposition, which makes it possible to give the theory a greater internal unity and provide for its clearer and more diverse connections with other reliable theories, may turn out to be true also in the classical sense.

In mathematics and logic, which have no direct connection with experience, such an assumption is common. In these disciplines, truth, as the reconciliation of a new position with already accepted statements, turns out to be an important working tool. Most of the "logical" and "mathematical truths" never go beyond the limits of their agreement with the already accepted logical and mathematical theories and the criteria by which the latter are evaluated.

The situation is different with theories that lie outside the formal sciences. These theories are valuable only insofar as they are consistent with observed facts. The only source of truth here is experience. The internal consistency of the statements of such theories turns out to be only an auxiliary means. Its effectiveness largely depends on the degree of abstractness of both the theory itself and the new provisions introduced into it.

“Universal consent or the consent of the majority,” writes the French economist M. Allais, “cannot be considered as a criterion of truth. Ultimately, the essential condition for the progress of science is complete submission to the lessons of experience, the only real source of our knowledge. There is not, and cannot be, any other criterion for the truth of a theory other than its more or less complete correspondence to specific phenomena.

Notes:

1 Kuhn T. The structure of scientific revolutions. M., 1975. S. 215.
2 Ibid. S. 214.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid. S. 217.
5 See: Laudan L. Progress and its Problems. Berkeley, 1977. P. 16, 25.
6 A detailed criticism of this theory is given in the work: Ivin A.A. Theory of argumentation. M., 2000. Ch. 1. The presentation of the new theory of language use is contained in the book: Ivin A.A. Rhetoric. M., 2002. Ch. 1.
7 Aristotle. Metaphysics. 1051v10.
8 Alle M. Philosophy of my life // Economics as a science. M., 1995. S. 101.

© Alexander Ivin. APOCALYPSE OF LOVE. Philosophical essay//Chapter 1. The variety of love/§ 12. Love for truth. - Moscow. 2011.

Nudity and alienation. Philosophical essay on human nature Ivin Alexander Arkhipovich

13. Love for truth

13. Love for truth

It is natural to begin the discussion of the love of truth by trying to clarify the concept of truth itself.

This concept is one of the most important not only in philosophy, but also in everyday life. At the same time, it refers to concepts that cause fierce debate.

It is best to illustrate the differences in the interpretation of truth on the most seemingly simple and transparent example - on the concept of scientific truth. And if it turns out that even in science, which, as is customary to think, is exclusively engaged in the search for truth and is not distracted by anything else, there is no unambiguous understanding of what truth is, all the more such unambiguity should not be expected in other areas. Especially in those in which the feelings and interests of a person or social groups are directly affected.

Let this not seem surprising, but in the philosophy of science the opinion is sometimes expressed that the description of scientific theories and their development may well dispense with - and perhaps even should dispense with - the concept of truth.

Truth in its usual sense carries a certain absolute content: what is true once remains true at all times. But science provides only problematic knowledge, which over time will inevitably be revised, changed and refined. How can one use the concept of truth in such a case?

The replacement of some scientific theories by other, more advanced theories, the ever-increasing detail and deepening understanding of the world are sometimes interpreted as a process of gradual, but never ending (as is sometimes expressed, asymptotic) approximation to the truth. But such an understanding makes the process of development of science directed towards a certain goal and gives the evolution of science an unacceptable teleological character for it.

“Should we really consider,” asks the American historian and philosopher of science T. Kuhn, “that there is some complete, objective, true idea of ​​nature and that the appropriate measure of scientific achievement is the degree to which it brings us closer to this ultimate goal? If we learn to replace "evolution towards what we hope to know" with "evolution from what we know," then a lot of the problems that irritate us can disappear." Kuhn suggests that the problem of induction (inferences that give only probable, problematic conclusions), which has long been controversial, is internally related to the interpretation of science as an activity directed towards a certain and, in general, never achievable goal.

The guarantee that the list of problems solved by science and the accuracy of solutions to individual problems will increase more and more, Kuhn is looking for not in the pursuit of science for truth, but in the characteristics of the community of scientists engaged in scientific research in this field of knowledge. “At least the nature of the community provides such a guarantee, if there is any way at all that it can be provided. What criterion can be more accurate than the decision of the scientific group? . Science needs no other kind of progress. “We may here, for greater precision, drop the additional assumption, implicit or explicit, that paradigm changes (exemplary theory) lead scientists and students and bring them closer and closer to the truth.”

In his book on the development of scientific theories, Kuhn uses the term "truth" only in a quotation from F. Bacon. And even here, the term is used only as a source of the scientist's conviction that incompatible rules of scientific activity cannot coexist, except during the period of the scientific revolution, when the main task of scientists is precisely to abolish all but one set of rules.

Comparing his non-teleological vision of the development of science with Darwin's theory of evolution, Kuhn notes that the concepts of "evolution", "development" and "progress" can be given meaning in the absence of a specific goal. Modern scientific knowledge is the pure result of gradual selection. Successive stages in this process of development are marked by an increase in concreteness and specialization. “And this whole process can be carried out, as we now imagine biological evolution, without the help of any common goal, a constantly fixed truth, each stage of which in the development of scientific knowledge provides an improved model.”

L. Laudan, an American specialist in the philosophy of science, considers the continuous growth of knowledge to be one of the main characteristics of science. The progress of science involves the formulation and solution of problems. Defining science as a problem-solving activity, Laudan interprets its development as an increase in the ability of research programs to solve empirical and theoretical problems. If scientific research is described in terms of problem solving, there is no need to use the concept of truth. Laudan does not deny the existence of truth, but, like Kuhn, he believes that the introduction of this concept gives rise to a number of confusing questions.

The idea that the development of science can be described without using the notion of truth is thus a fairly common one. In connection with the fact that with the introduction of truth as the goal of scientific knowledge, an aspect of teleology alien to it is introduced into science, it can be assumed that the progress of science in general should be described without reference to truth as the goal of scientific knowledge.

And yet, the concept of truth is constantly used both in science itself and in the philosophy of science. This shows that the role of this concept in scientific knowledge is still not particularly clear.

It is generally accepted that truth is a property of propositions. For example, the statement "Snow is white" is true, while the statement "Snow is black" is false. More precisely, truth is usually regarded as a property of those thoughts, or judgments, which are expressed by statements. Truth is not applicable to concepts, representations, images, etc.

Comparison of the concept of truth with the concept of (positive) value shows, however, that truth is not a property of the statement, but a relation between the statement and the fragment of reality compared with it. Value is also a relation, not a property. In common usage, truth and (positive) value are asymmetrical. If the statement compared with reality corresponds to it, then the property of being true is attributed to the statement. When reality conforms to the proposition (to the standard that it expresses), a (positive) value is assigned to the fragment of reality itself, not to the proposition.

In order not to complicate the language, we will, as usual, say that propositions are those objects that are capable of being true.

Not all statements can be true or false, but only those that relate to the so-called "passive use of language." The question of possible uses of the language, however, requires a more detailed discussion. This is all the more necessary since this question concerns not only the concept of truth, but also the concept of value considered later.

Language pervades human life, and it must be as rich as it is. With the help of language, we can not only describe a variety of situations, but also evaluate them, give commands, warn, promise, formulate norms, pray, conjure, etc.

Is it possible to list all those tasks that a person solves through language? Which of the uses, or functions, of the language are the main ones, and which ones are secondary, reducible to the main ones? Oddly enough, these questions arose only at the beginning of the last century.

Among the uses of language, a special place is occupied by a description - a statement whose main function is to report on the real state of things and which is true or false.

A description that corresponds to reality is true. A description that does not correspond to the real state of affairs is false. For example, the description "Soot black" is true, but the description "Oxygen is a metal" is false. It is sometimes allowed that the description may be vague, lying between true and false. Indefinite are, in particular, many descriptions of the future (“In a year this day will be cloudy”, etc.). Sometimes the descriptions use the words "true", "true", "actually", etc.

For a long time it was believed that description is the only function of language, or at least the one to which any other use of it can be reduced. Any grammatically correct declarative sentence was assumed to be descriptive and therefore true or false. As it turned out upon closer analysis, description, despite all its importance, is not the only task solved with the help of language. It is not even its main task. Language faces many tasks that cannot be reduced to description.

In the 20s. of the last century, C. Ogden and A. Richards wrote a book in which they drew attention to expressives - expressions using the language of various kinds of feelings - and convincingly showed that the emotive (expressive) use of language is not reducible to its denotative, descriptive meaning. The phrases “I'm sorry I woke you up”, “I congratulate you on the holiday”, etc., not only describe the state of the speaker's feelings, but also express certain mental states associated with a particular situation.

For example, I have the right to congratulate you on winning a competition if you really won and if I am really happy with your victory. In this case, the congratulation will be sincere, and it can be considered true, i.e. according to external circumstances and my feelings. If I congratulate you on the fact that you look good, although in fact you do not look well, my congratulations are not sincere. It does not correspond to reality, and if I know about it, it does not correspond to my feelings either. Such a congratulation may well be assessed as false. It would also be false to congratulate you on having discovered the universal law of gravitation: everyone, including you, obviously knows that this is not so, and congratulations would sound like a mockery.

Of particular importance for the development of the theory of language use were the ideas of the English philosopher J. Austin. In particular, he drew attention to the unusual fact that language can be directly used to change the world.

It is this task that is solved, for example, by expressions called by Austin declarations: “I appoint you chairman”, “I resign”, “I declare: our contract has been terminated”, “I betroth you” (“I declare you husband and wife”), etc. A declaration can be defined as a statement that changes the state of affairs that existed before it was uttered.

When, say, I successfully perform the act of appointing someone as chairman, he becomes chairman, and before that act he was not. If the act of production into generals is successfully performed, the world immediately becomes one more general. When the football referee says, "You're out of the field," the player is out of the game, and it apparently changes.

Declarations do not explicitly describe some existing situation. They directly change the world, namely the world of human relations, and do this by the very fact of their utterance. Obviously, declarations are not true or false. They may, however, be justified or unjustified (I can appoint someone to chair if I have the right to do so).

Another use of language is normative. With the help of language, norms are formulated by which the speaker wants to ensure that the listener performs certain actions. Normative statements, also called "deontic" or "prescriptive", are usually contrasted with descriptive statements, sometimes called "descriptive".

Norm (normative, or deontic, statement) is a statement obliging, allowing or forbidding something to be done under the threat of punishment.

Norms are extremely diverse and include commands, orders, demands, prescriptions, laws, rules, etc. Examples include the expressions: “Stop talking!”, “Try to bring maximum benefit to as many people as possible”, “One should be persistent” and etc. Norms, unlike descriptions, are not true or false, although they may be justified or unjustified.

Language can also be used for promises, i.e., for the speaker to commit himself to perform some action in the future or adhere to a certain line of behavior. Promises are, for example, expressions: “I promise to behave approximately”, “I swear to tell the truth and only the truth”, “I will always be polite”, etc. Promises can be interpreted as norms addressed to those who speak to themselves and in some way predetermine his behavior in the future. Like all norms, promises are not true or false. They may be deliberate or hasty, expedient or inexpedient, etc.

The language can also be used for ratings. The latter express a positive, negative or neutral attitude of the subject to the object in question or, if two objects are compared, to express a preference for one of them over the other.

Estimates are, for example, the expressions: “It is good that the light spreads in a straight line”, “It is bad when there are no conditions for democratic elections”, “It is better to start economic reforms earlier than to be late”, etc. Estimates are just as fundamental and do not which are not reducible, as are descriptions. However, unlike descriptions, they are not true or false.

There are thus a large number of different uses of language: reporting a state of affairs (description), trying to get something done (norm), expressing feelings (expressive), changing the world with a word (declaration), making an obligation to do something (promise ), expressing a positive or negative attitude towards something (assessment), etc.

The Austro-English philosopher L. Wittgenstein even believed that the number of different uses of the language (different "language games", as he said) is unlimited.

How could the diverse uses of language be brought into a system? Is it possible to single out some uses of the language as the main ones and establish their connection with all its other uses?

Within the framework of linguistics, the so-called "theory of speech acts" was developed, which is a simplified classification of language uses (J. Austin, J. Searle, P. Strawson, etc.). This theory has played a large role in the study of language usage. However, now it does not seem to be particularly successful. It omits a number of fundamental uses of the language (evaluations, language expressions that inspire some feelings, etc.), does not trace the connections between different uses of the language, does not reveal the possibility of reducing some of them to others, etc.

From the point of view of logic, the theory of argumentation and the philosophy of science, it is important, first of all, to distinguish between the two main uses of language: description and evaluation. In the case of the first, the starting point for comparing the statement and reality is the real situation, and the statement acts as its description, characterized in terms of the concepts of "true" and "false". With the second function, the original statement is a statement that acts as a standard, perspective, plan. The correspondence of the situation to this statement is characterized in terms of the concepts of “good”, “indifferent” and “bad”.

Description and evaluation are two poles between which there are many transitions. Both in everyday language and in the language of science there are many varieties of both descriptions and assessments. Pure descriptions and pure evaluations are quite rare, most linguistic expressions are of a dual, or "mixed", descriptive-evaluative nature.

All this must be taken into account when studying the many "language games" or uses of language. It is likely that the set of such "games" is, as Wittgenstein believed, unlimited. It must be borne in mind, however, that a more subtle analysis of the use of language moves within the framework of the initial and fundamental opposition of descriptions and evaluations and is only its detailing. It can be useful in many areas, in particular in linguistics, but, most likely, it is devoid of interest in logic, in the theory of argumentation, etc.

Orative - a statement used to excite feelings, will, induce to action. The directives are, for example, the expressions: “Pull yourself together”, “You will overcome difficulties”, “Believe in your rightness and act!” and so on.

A special case of the oretic use of language can be considered the so-called numinous function - enchanting the listener with words (spells of a sorcerer, words of love, flattery, threats, etc.).

To systematize the uses of the language, we will use two oppositions. Let us oppose thought to feeling (will, aspiration, etc.), and the expression of certain states of the soul to the suggestion of such states. This will give a simple coordinate system within which all basic and derivative uses of the language can be placed.

Descriptions are expressions of thoughts, expressives are expressions of feelings. Descriptions and expressives refer to what may be called passive use of language and characterized in terms of truth and falsehood. Estimates and directives refer to the active use of the language and do not have a truth value.

Norms are a special case of assessments, norms are assessments accompanied by the threat of punishment (sanction) if the positively assessed state of affairs is not realized. Promises - a special, or degenerate, case of norms are norms that are promised by the speaker to himself. Declarations are a special case of the magical function of language when it is used to change the world of human relationships. As such, declarations are a kind of prescription, or norm, concerning the behavior of people. Promises are a special case of the postulate function, covering not only promises in the truest sense of the word, but also the acceptance of conventions, postulates of newly introduced theories, etc.

Thus, there are four main uses of language: description, expressive, evaluation and orative, as well as a number of intermediate uses of it, more or less gravitating towards the main ones: normative, magic, postulate, etc.

Now, after a brief digression into the theory of possible uses of language, we can return to the topic of truth and distinguish between classical and non-classical understandings of truth.

It is customary to distinguish between the nature of truth and the criterion of truth. The nature of truth is the question of what is the essence of truth and how the concept of truth can be defined. The criteria of truth concern how the truth of propositions of various types is established, from empirical statements to abstract theoretical propositions, principles of mathematics, and laws of logic.

Three traditional theories are well known that claim to reveal the nature of truth: truth as correspondence (correspondence), truth as agreement (coherence), and truth as utility. Each of these theories has various modifications.

According to correspondence theory, a statement is true if it corresponds to the situation being described, i.e., represents it as it really is.

For example, the statement "Metals conduct current" is true because all metals actually conduct electricity; the statement "Metals are not plastic" is false, since in reality all metals are plastic.

The concept of truth as correspondence is a concretization of the more general concept of adequacy in the case of descriptive statements.

A representation of the world is adequate if it corresponds to the things to which it refers; a means is adequate when it actually contributes to the achievement of the goal; an assessment is adequate if it is consistent with the standards of assessment accepted in the field or if the actions taken on its basis bring the desired result.

The concept of adequacy is wider than the concept of truth: truth characterizes only descriptive statements; both descriptions and assessments, directives and even human actions can be adequate.

The interpretation of truth as a correspondence of thought to reality dates back to antiquity and is usually called the classical concept of truth. All other understandings of truth are called non-classical.

The one who speaks about things in accordance with what they are, wrote Plato, speaks the truth, the same one who speaks about them differently is lying. Aristotle interpreted the truth in the same way: “... The truth is said by the one who considers the disconnected to be disconnected, and the connected - connected, and the false - the one who thinks the opposite of how things are with things ". Sometimes the classical definition of truth is called "Aristotelian", which is not entirely accurate.

Truth as correspondence is objective and exists outside and independently of a person and his intentions, whether it is recognized in a certain period of time or not.

According to the theory of coherence, truth is the systematic agreement of the put forward position with the already accepted statements.

Such agreement is stronger than logical consistency: not every statement that does not contradict previously accepted statements can be classified as true. Only the proposition is true, which is a necessary element of a systematic, holistic conception. "Integrity" is usually understood in such a way that not a single element can be removed from it without destroying it.

Strictly speaking, with such an interpretation of the truth, if it is carried out consistently, the truth turns out to be a characteristic, first of all, of the "integrity" itself, and not of its individual elements. In this case, "integrity" acquires an absolute character: it is not evaluated from the point of view of its correspondence to something else, for example, external reality, but gives the statements included in the system one or another degree of truth. At the same time, the degree of truth of the statement depends only on its contribution to the systematic coherence of the elements of "integrity".

The theory of coherence starts from an important feature of any knowledge, and first of all scientific, its systemic nature. In science, systematized knowledge takes the form of a scientific theory. It is reasonable to assume that the new proposition, which makes it possible to give the theory a greater internal unity and provide for its clearer and more diverse connections with other reliable theories, may turn out to be true also in the classical sense.

In mathematics and logic, which have no direct connection with experience, such an assumption is common. In these disciplines, truth, as the reconciliation of a new position with already accepted statements, turns out to be an important working tool. Most of the "logical" and "mathematical truths" never go beyond the limits of their agreement with the already accepted logical and mathematical theories and the criteria by which the latter are evaluated.

The situation is different with theories that lie outside the formal sciences. These theories are valuable only insofar as they are consistent with observed facts. The only source of truth here is experience. The internal consistency of the statements of such theories turns out to be only an auxiliary means. Its effectiveness largely depends on the degree of abstractness of both the theory itself and the new provisions introduced into it.

“Universal consent or the consent of the majority,” writes the French economist M. Allais, “cannot be considered as a criterion of truth. Ultimately, the essential condition for the progress of science is complete submission to the lessons of experience, the only real source of our knowledge. There is not, and cannot be, any other criterion for the truth of a theory other than its more or less complete correspondence to specific phenomena.

In this opposition of internal coherence (coherence) and conformity to experience (correspondence), the words "ultimately" could be emphasized. Experience is indeed the source of scientific knowledge. But it is not always possible to directly compare a new, let alone an abstract, hypothesis with empirical data. In this case, its agreement with other statements of the theory in which it was put forward, the significance of the hypothesis in systematizing and clarifying the connections of this theory with other, well-founded theories, may well play the role of an auxiliary definition of truth.

There is no clear boundary between the formal sciences and the non-formal sciences. It is no coincidence that "pure mathematics" is usually contrasted with "applied mathematics". In logic, the situation is even more complicated, since even “pure logic” is made up of many competing concepts.

In the formal sciences, truth is understood primarily as coherence. In those branches of science that are close to the formal sciences, truth as correspondence also often fades into the background, giving way to truth as coherence.

According to the pragmatic theory, a statement is true if it works, is useful, brings success. This theory of truth, proposed by the American philosopher and logician C. Peirce at the end of the 19th century, was later developed by W. James, J. Dewey and others. “The efficiency of an idea,” or its usefulness, has been interpreted in different ways.

The rational meaning of a word or expression is comprehended, Peirce believed, only through its possible consequences for real life behavior. Our beliefs are for us the rules of possible action. Comprehension of an object is an understanding of the possible practical consequences of its application. Ideas that are supported by practical results are true. The latter are never, however, definitive or absolute. Peirce also defined truth as that which is clear, distinct, irrefutable at a given stage of research. Truth in this definition turns out to be a condition of practical utility that characterizes the meaning of truth, its reliability. Truth is relative, changing practice requires a constant renewal of truth.

Peirce thus did not reduce truth directly to utility, but rather put forward a methodological requirement to consider truth as something done. The criterion of truth is conformity with experience, but with experience open to the future and taking into account practical consequences and possible applications of ideas. This understanding naturally followed from Peirce's idea that philosophy should not be an abstract reflection on the first principles of being and cognition, but a general method for solving those problems that confront people in various life (“problematic”) situations, in the process of practical activities taking place in a constantly changing world. Ideas, concepts and theories are just tools, instruments or plans of action. Their significance boils down to possible practical consequences.

The expression "truth as utility" thus coarsens Peirce's interpretation of truth. It can be noted, however, that later Dewey, who developed Peirce's ideas, directly stated: "... truth is defined as utility ...".

If science is considered in statics as something that has already taken shape and is subject to evaluation, then there is no need for any theory of truth, except for the classical definition of truth as the correspondence of statements to the facts they describe. But when scientific knowledge is taken in dynamics and the fact that this knowledge is by its very nature an endless enterprise is taken into account, various auxiliary interpretations of truth can be used. The inevitability of using the latter is also dictated by the fact that not only scientific theories differ in the degree of their abstractness, remoteness from empirical reality, but also within the framework of specific scientific theories there are statements that do not allow comparison with experience at all and are evaluated only indirectly, on the basis of their contribution to the “integrity » theories, their usefulness within the theory, their ability to clarify the connections of a given theory with other accepted theories, etc.

Returning to the question of whether it is possible to describe the development of scientific theories without using the concept of truth, the following should be noted.

A characteristic feature of a person is that he sets himself certain goals and tries to find rational ways to achieve them. If truth is understood as a global, all-suppressing goal of science, scientific knowledge is given a teleological character, it turns out to be starting not so much from what has already been achieved, but moving towards the unattainable in principle. Such a description of the development of science can be called, using the terminology of M. Weber, "material rationality."

Science is directed, however, not so much by an abstract goal that lies in the future, but rather by what has already been achieved in the past: the existing level of knowledge, existing anomalies that have yet to be explained within the framework of the accepted concept, established scientific teams that solve the problems they face, accepted methods of research, the adopted manner of criticizing the concepts put forward, etc. This kind of "formal rationality" does not require any global goals, such as "comprehension of the truth."

Both material and formal rationality in describing the development of scientific theories are extremes between which it is necessary to find a golden mean. Material rationality, which usually resorts to the concept of truth as the goal of science, makes this development realizing a certain purpose, and therefore has a teleological character. Formal rationality presents the evolution of science as a web of historical accidents and deprives research activity of any clear general direction.

Those descriptions of the development of science given by Kuhn and Laudan are formally rational. These descriptions dispense with the notion of truth, but are clearly incomplete.

In particular, the description of the development of scientific theory in terms of the solution of scientific problems alone does not allow us to answer the seemingly simple question of the selection of scientific problems. Not all problems are considered by science. Scientists do not study why swans are green, why a freely moving body accelerates in the absence of force, and so on. There is a desire to answer that these are not genuine problems, because the statements posed in such statements in the form of a question are false, and it is known that it is false." Truth plays a regulatory role in science, and if truth is abandoned, the prohibition on the arbitrary formulation of problems disappears. But in practical scientific activity, theories oriented to solve problems that are known to be false are rejected precisely on this basis.

A description of the development of science that does not use the concept of truth takes into account the impact of the past on the present, but misses the impact of the future on the present, no less important from the point of view of the nature of human activity. The influence of the future on the present is constantly taken into account in the social and human sciences. The direct or indirect use of the concept of truth in describing the evolution of scientific theories refers precisely to the inevitable influence of the future of science on its present.

Truth as an ideal of scientific knowledge is the idea of ​​a regulative order. It indicates the direction to the goal rather than creates an image of the goal itself, and guides the researcher as a sense of the right direction, and not as a clear image of the result.

The most difficult moment associated with the interpretation of the love of truth is the ambiguity of the concept of truth and the ambiguity of all three of its main meanings.

Roman procurator Pontius Pilate asks Jesus Christ: "What is truth?" And, having asked a question, he immediately turns away in the firm conviction that not only his interlocutor, but no one else is able to answer this question.

As soon as we talk about truth, we have to clarify what exactly is meant: the correspondence of the stated statement to reality, its agreement with other accepted statements, or the usefulness of this statement from the point of view of our activity. Truth as correspondence, truth as agreement, and truth as utility do not explicitly coincide.

As already mentioned, a hierarchy of these truths is needed, but, however, even this does not always help. In addition, in many cases it simply cannot be installed.

To demonstrate the obscurity of the classical definition of truth, consider three related problems: the metaphorical nature of this definition, the relativity of all truth, and the relationship of truth with time.

The phrase “correspondence of thought to reality” is an obvious metaphor. Thought does not in any way resemble the real state of affairs to which it concerns. This is two completely different types being. What similarity can there be between the meaning of the statement “Water is boiling” and boiling water? Most likely, only some structural similarity can be seen here. The English philosopher B. Russell believed, in particular, that the harmony of thought and reality lies in the correspondence of those elements that make up the statement, those elements that form the fact. It is unlikely, however, that such an interpretation clarifies the nature of the correspondence that can exist between an incorporeal, immaterial thought and the material, perceived objects that it touches.

Further, one ideas about the world are replaced by new ones, in the light of which the old ones turn out to be false. Ch. Darwin's theory showed that the earlier theories of evolution by E. Cuvier and J. B. Lamarck are erroneous; A. Einstein's general theory of relativity refuted I. Newton's ideas about the nature of space and time; modern economic science has revealed the limitations and, ultimately, the fallacy of DM Keynes' recipes for preventing economic crises.

In the light of modern concepts, old ideas turn out to be a continuous chain of errors. How could pseudo-science alchemy be replaced by an incompatible chemistry? How could the erroneous geocentric astronomy of Ptolemy give rise to the heliocentric astronomy of Copernicus?

Answers to such questions require specification of the classical definition of truth.

One of the possible ways of such concretization was outlined in the Middle Ages. Its essence is to distinguish between absolute truth and relative truth. Absolute truth is the truth in the mind of an omniscient and omnipotent god. She is eternal and unchanging. Relative truth is the truth in the mind of a person with limited abilities, but trying to grasp the divine truth, to display it even in an incomplete and imperfect form. A person will never acquire absolutely true knowledge, but he will gradually, albeit for an indefinitely long time (“until the end of the ages,” that is, until the end of the course of time) approach such knowledge.

If the truth accessible to man is relative, then its opposite, delusion, is also relative. It almost always contains a grain of truth. However, a person is able to separate the right from the wrong only in the process of further knowledge. And even parting with old, erroneous ideas, he comes not to absolute, but only to a new relative truth, burdened with its own erroneous content.

The distinction between absolute and relative truth made it possible to abandon the idea of ​​the process of cognition as a series of unexpected and inexplicable transitions from error to truth. Cognition of the world is a chain of successive transitions from some relative, or partial, truths to other relative truths. The latter stand closer and closer to absolute truth, but can never completely coincide with it.

The theory of dual truth, which became widespread in the late Middle Ages, is connected with the distinction between absolute and relative truth. This theory began to take shape when it was discovered that some of the provisions of Aristotle's philosophy contradicted the tenets of Christianity and Islam. An attempt was made to overcome this difficulty with the help of the doctrine of the separation of philosophical and theological truths: what is true in philosophy can be false in theology, and vice versa. Theories of dual truth were adhered to by Averroes, John Duns Scotus, W. Occam, and others. The doctrine of the truth of certain descriptive statements in theology and their falsity in philosophy or in other areas of knowledge became widespread during the Renaissance. In an effort to delimit scientific research from theological reasoning, Galileo later adhered to this doctrine. Theological statements were presented as absolute truths; the provisions of philosophy and other areas of knowledge were conceived as relative truths containing an element of error and requiring further research and clarification because of this.

In the Middle Ages, the theory of dual truth was interpreted narrowly, as concerning, first of all, the mutual relations of the truths of philosophy and theology. In a broad interpretation, this theory applies to all descriptions, regardless of the field of knowledge in which they are received, and says that a descriptive statement can be true on one basis (i.e., the point of view, based on which, something described) and false on a different basis.

It is formally assumed that all descriptions (unlike estimates) have the same basis. This is the essence of the requirement of intersubjectivity - the independence of the use and understanding of descriptive statements from persons and circumstances. In reality, however, the grounds on which the descriptions of various states of affairs are given may be different. The transition from one relative truth to another can be interpreted as a change in the point of view from which the description is given. The new theory is, first of all, a new perspective of seeing reality, a change in the foundations of those descriptions that were given by the old theory.

Scientific truths, like all other truths, are relative. They are valid only for their time and for the range of empirical data on the basis of which they are established. In the process of deepening knowledge about the objects under study, some of these truths become more precise, others turn into analytical truths and lose the ability to compare with experience, and still others turn out to be false statements.

“In science, the concept of truth is completely relative,” writes the French economist M. Allais. - No theory, no model can claim to possess "absolute truth", and if such existed, it would remain inaccessible to us. There are models more or less well supported by observational data. And of the two models "the best" there will always be one that with this degree of approximation represents the observational data in the simplest possible way. Whatever its empirical evidence, the best that can be said of such a theory is that "everything happens as if its hypotheses really corresponded to the real nature of phenomena."

Although the concept of truth has always received much attention, there is one important question about truth that has almost completely fallen out of the view of modern researchers. This is a question about the connection of truth with time.

It is known that just this topic was very keenly interested in ancient philosophers, in particular Aristotle and the Stoics.

The lack of attention to the temporal aspect of truth is largely due to the absolutization of truth, dating back to the New Age, giving it a timeless or transtemporal character. If truth, like number and square, stands outside the flow of time, it is meaningless to ask how it behaves in this flow and what changes it undergoes over time. The connection with time is reduced as a result to the question of at what point the truth was first discovered. For herself, this is a casual and secondary matter.

The main task of the further presentation is to give a strict definition of the concept of truth for statements about past and future events and to connect the discussion of the problem of truth with the problem of determinism.

The causal definition of truth introduced below is a concretization of its classical interpretation. Attaching this definition to a complex theory that combines the logic of time and the logic of causality makes it possible, using the exact methods of modern logic, to investigate an important fragment of the theory of truth.

According to the classical definition, a statement is true if it is true, and false if it is not true. This definition is an abstract scheme, the application of which in particular cases presupposes a certain concretization of it, a refinement of the meaning that is embedded in the case under consideration in the idea of ​​“correspondence to reality”.

The need for such concretization is especially evident when discussing questions about the meaning of the truth of statements about past and future events, as well as statements about unobservable or non-existent objects, about changing situations, about transitional states, etc. Truth consists in the correspondence of thought and reality. But in reality there are no non-existent objects. What, then, are the statements about them compared to? Is every statement about such objects false? These and similar questions were vigorously discussed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. F. Brentano, G. Frege, B. Russell and others.

Similar questions arise in connection with statements about past and future events. There is no future reality yet. With what should the thought about it be compared, and is any such thought false? Will the statements “Tomorrow it will rain” and “In a hundred years at this time it will rain” be true now? How is the truth value of such statements established? What fragments of the present are they compared with? The past also does not exist alongside the present and cannot be explored independently of it. What allows us, having observations relating only to the present, to judge the truth value of statements about past events? With what exactly are these statements compared in the present?

These questions can be answered in different ways. The answer proposed below is based on the causal interpretation of existence in the past and future. The concretization of the classical definition of truth based on it can be named in accordance with this causal definition of (temporal) truth.

Let us accept the following propositions concerning past and future existence: there exists in the past that which has its consequences in the present; there exists in the future that which has its cause in the present.

The future is real only to the extent that it can be recognized as fixed, or determined, by the causes taking place in the present. Nothing can be said with truth that it will happen if there is no cause now for the occurrence of the event in question in the future. The statement "will be A" is true if and only if the statement "now there is a reason for the occurrence later" is true. A". An event happened in the past if the consequences of its existence have reached the present. What passed “without a trace” did not take place at all. The statement "was A" is true if and only if the statement "now there are consequences of what was previously A" is true.

It is clear that this causal theory of temporal existence reduces past and future to the present. Questions about the reality of certain phenomena in the past or future are reformulated by her as questions about the presence of consequences or causes of these phenomena in the present. It allows you to give a clear interpretation of phrases like “it was, it was”, “it will be, it always was”, etc. For example, according to it, the expression “it will be, what will be A” means that now there is a reason for at some later moment there was a cause for the occurrence of A, which means, in short, that there is a cause for the cause of the future event. The expression “was, that was A” indicates the presence of a consequence of the consequences of A, “it will be that there has always been A” asserts the existence in the present of a cause for the occurrence in the future of such a moment in which there are consequences of the fact that at any previous moment there was A.

In the XV century. followers of W. Ockham believed that phrases like “it was, what will be A",“It has always been that A will be”, etc., are in form statements about the past, but in meaning they are statements about the future. From the point of view of the causal interpretation of these phrases, they speak neither of the past nor of the future, but only of the present.

The past exists only in the form of its consequences in the present, so the study of the past is feasible only in the form of a study of the present. The phrase “knowledge of the past” is metaphorical. He assumes that not only the present can be known, but also the past, existing, as it were, along with the present and allowing analysis independent of the analysis of the present. The same is true of knowing the future. Future events are real insofar as they are determined by present causes, and the study of these events is possible only in the form of studying their existing causes.

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