ИСТИНА АБСОЛЮТНАЯ И ОТНОСИТЕЛЬНАЯ

Truth, Absolute and Relative

Categories of dialectical materialism that define the development of knowledge and the relation that is revealed between (1) that which is known and that which will become known as science develops; (2) that part of our knowledge which may be changed, made more precise or refuted as science develops, and that which is irrefutable.

The theory of Absolute and Relative Truth provides the answer to the question "Can human ideas which give expression to objective truth, express it all at one time, as a whole, unconditionally, absolutely, or only approximately, relatively?" (Lenin, Vol. 14, pp. 122–23). Absolute Truth is understood (1) as complete, exhaustive knowledge of reality and (2) as knowledge which will not be refuted in the future. At every stage of development our knowledge is conditioned by the level achieved in science, technology and production. As knowledge and practice (experience) develop, man's conception of nature is deepened, perfected and made more exact.

Scientific truths, therefore, are relative in the sense that they do not give complete, exhaustive knowledge of the subjects being studied and contain elements that will be changed and made more exact and profound as knowledge develops or will be replaced by others. At the same time every Relative Truth is a step forward in the cognition of Absolute Truth and will contain, if it is truly scientific, elements or grains of Absolute Truth. There is no impassable barrier between Absolute Truth and Relative Truth. Absolute Truth is composed of the totality of Relative Truths.

The history of science and social experience confirm that knowledge develops in this dialectic way. As scientific knowledge develops the properties of objects and relations between them become known more fully and profoundly and we draw nearer to Absolute Truth, which is confirmed by the application of theory in practice. On the other hand, theories that have been elaborated are constantly being developed and made more exact; some hypotheses are refuted (e.g., the hypothesis of the existence of the ether), others are confirmed and become proved truths (e.g., the hypothesis of the existence of the atom); some conceptions are excluded from science (e.g., thermogen and phlogiston), others are made more exact and summarised (cf. the concepts of simultaneity and inertia in classical mechanics and in the theory of relativity), etc.

The theory of Absolute and Relative Truth is given concrete form in science in the principle of correspondence. This principle is opposed to metaphysics, which declares every truth to be eternal and immutable ("absolute"), and to the various idealist conceptions of relativism which maintain that all truth is only relative and that the development of science is only evidence of a series of errors that replace each other in sequence so that there cannot be any objective truth. Actually, to use Lenin's words, "Every ideology is historically conditional, but it is unconditionally true that to every scientific ideology (as distinct, for instance, from religious ideology) there corresponds an objective truth, absolute nature". (Vol. 14, p. 136.)

Абсолютная и относительная хронология

(В археологии) см. Археологическая датировка.