Man has always been concerned about the world around him. Throughout its history, he strove to know the laws according to which nature around him develops, as well as himself. But how should real, truthful knowledge be distinguished from delusion? Answering this question, philosophers began to form such a fundamental concept as truth.
What is truth? Basic definitions
The modern and generally accepted interpretation of truth goes back to the teachings of Aristotle. He believed that truth does not depend on the subject of knowledge and should be based only on the properties of the directly studied object. Otherwise, he argued, statements that were completely opposite in content could be considered true.
Two of its main definitions were formulated later. It is on the basis of these classical statements that we can single out the general concept of truth in social science.
According to F. Aquinas, “truth isidentity of thing and representation.”
R. Descartes wrote: "The word "truth" means the correspondence of a thought to an object."
So, the truth in social science means the correspondence of the acquired knowledge about a cognizable object to the object itself.
Truth Criteria
However, in order to understand whether this or that knowledge is true, a simple definition is not enough. That is why there was a need to clarify this concept and highlight the criteria for truth.
There are several basic approaches to solving this issue.
1. Sensationalism
Empiricists believed that a person learns the world around him primarily through the senses. The man himself, his consciousness was considered as a set of his sensations, and thinking - as his derivative.
They considered sensory experience to be the main criterion of truth.
The shortcomings of this view are pretty obvious. Firstly, the sense organs are far from always able to accurately convey information about the surrounding world, which means that they cannot be a reliable source. In addition, not all scientific theories can be tested by experience, which is especially true at the present time, when science has reached its new level.
2. Rationalism
There is also a completely opposite point of view. According to rationalists, it is reason that is the main criterion of truth. For the ideal of knowledge, they took mathematics and logic, with their strict and precise laws. Here, however, there was a serious contradiction - rationalists could not justify the origin of these fundamental principles and considered them"innate"
3. Practice
One more criterion of truth in social science stands out. If knowledge is true, it must be confirmed in practice, that is, reproduced under the same conditions with the same result.
There is a paradox, which lies in the inequality of confirmation and refutation of actions. A scientific conclusion can be confirmed by many experiments, but if at least once its results are different, this statement cannot be true.
For example, in the Middle Ages it was believed that only white swans existed. This truth was easily confirmed - people saw around them a lot of birds with white plumage and not a single one with black. But after the discovery of Australia, it was black swans that were discovered on the new mainland. Thus, knowledge that seemed to be the result of centuries of observation was refuted overnight.
Can the truth be reached?
So, each of the criteria of truth has some contradictions or shortcomings. Therefore, some philosophers began to wonder if the truth is achievable or if the pursuit of it is pointless, since it will never be comprehended anyway.
The emergence of such a philosophical trend as agnosticism is connected with this. It denied the possibility of reaching the truth, since its followers considered the world unknowable.
There was also a less radical direction of philosophy - relativism. Relativism asserts relativenature of human knowledge. According to him, truth is always relative and dependent on the momentary state of the cognized object, as well as the optics of the cognizing subject.
Types of truth in social science
However, to fully recognize the unknowability of the surrounding world and abandon attempts to study it turned out to be impossible for a person. There was a need to "divide" truth into two levels - absolute and relative.
Absolute truth in social science is a comprehensive knowledge about the subject, which reveals all its aspects and cannot be supplemented or refuted. Absolute truth is not achievable, since its concept largely contradicts the basic principle of cognition - criticality. It is important to understand that this is rather an impossible ideal, a certain theoretical philosophical concept.
In practice, relative truth is more often used. These are intermediate conclusions that people receive in their quest to achieve complete knowledge of the object.
The relativity of truth in social science is due to many reasons. Firstly, the world is constantly changing, and a person does not have the resources to describe it in all its diversity. In addition, human cognitive resources themselves are limited: despite the constant development of science and technology, our methods remain imperfect.
Truth and Falsehood
In contrast to the truth in social science there is the concept of delusion. A delusion is a distorted knowledge about a subject that does not correspond to reality. But if a person is so eager to obtain accurate information, whymisinformation appearing?
First of all, this is due to the imperfection of the technique with which we obtain our knowledge.
Secondly, the medieval philosopher F. Bacon wrote about the so-called "idols" - ideas about the world, embedded deep in human nature, which distort our ideas about reality. It is because of them that a person can never be an objective observer, but will always directly influence the result of his research.
Ways of knowing the world
There are many different ways to learn about the world.
The most common ways to get truth in social science are:
- Mythology.
- Experience daily life.
- Folk wisdom and common sense.
- Knowledge through art.
- Parascience.
Scientific knowledge as the main way to get the truth
However, the most common and "respected" way to achieve the truth is science.
Scientific knowledge consists of two levels: empirical and theoretical.
Theoretical level includes the identification of patterns and hidden connections. Its main methods are the construction of hypotheses, theories, the formation of terminological apparatus.
In turn, the empirical level consists of direct experiments, classification, comparison and description.
In aggregate, these levelsallow science to reveal relative truths.
So, the topic of truth in social science is very extensive and requires careful and detailed study. In this article, only its main, basic aspects were touched upon, which can serve as an introduction to the theory for subsequent independent study.
