Correlation Of Truth And Values In Modern Society

Abstract

The problem of the correlation of truth and values is relevant in the modern humanitarian discourse of the beginning of the 21^st century. This is due to the cultural transformations experienced by contemporaries. The current century casts doubt on many of the values of the past. Meanwhile, reality is founding a new understanding of the known truths. In the context of the changing format of human-human interaction, attention is drawn to the fact that the evolution of human thinking is due to the transformations of communications that develop the conditions for a new sociality. Subject-object interaction provides new parameters for assessing the value-based culture context. The interpretation of the essence of the concepts “truth” and “value”, conditioned by historical experience and historical memory, laid the foundation for numerous axiological approaches. The purpose of the work is to study the correlation of truth and values in the mental culture of the subject of social cognition. With all the importance of the cognitive attitude to the world, it cannot be considered more significant because cognition is impossible outside the value position of the subject, who sets the basis for cognitive activity. The natural attitude producing cultural artifacts presupposes the existence of an objective reality identical to the images manipulated by our consciousness. Mental uniqueness genetically inscribed in the expression of a person as a special species determines the intention of their attitude, in which both truth (existence) and value (due) are expressed.

Keywords: Concept, meaning, truth, value, word

Introduction

The problem of the correlation of truth and values is relevant in the modern humanitarian discourse of the beginning of the 21st century. This is due to the cultural transformations experienced by contemporaries. The current century casts doubt on many of the values of the past. Meanwhile, reality is founding a new understanding of the known truths. As noted by Mikeshina (2020), reality requires an approach to real cognition, which is possible only when the abstraction degree of the subject of cognition is reduced. Within the framework of the Marxist-Leninist theory of reflection in the interaction of a subject and an object, which dominated in Soviet philosophy, the emphasis was placed on the fact that the object of cognition does not depend on the subject, and the subject of cognition, in turn, passively reflects objectively true knowledge.

Amidst the changing format of human-human interaction, attention is drawn to the fact that the evolution of human thinking is due to the communications transformations setting the conditions for a new sociality (Betilmerzaeva, 2020a; Betilmerzaeva, 2020b). Subject-object interaction substantiates new parameters for assessing the value-based culture context.

Problem Statement

The problem of the correlation of truth and values in various cultural and temporal aspects has long been the subject of research by scientists having different positions: scientific, philosophical or religious. The interpretation of the essence of the concepts of “truth” and “value”, conditioned by the culture of space and time, historical experience and historical memory, laid the foundation for numerous axiological approaches. And, accordingly, there are already established boundaries of acceptance or rejection of both the truth of values and the value of truth. In modern philosophical discourse, the concepts of “truth” and “value” retain their relevance in the context of the globalizing metamorphoses experienced by humanity.

Research Questions

In the latest studies of Russian thinkers, the correlation between truth and values has become the subject of active discussion. For example, on November 30, 2012, a round-table conference “Truth and values as guidelines for social cognition” was held by the Faculty of Philosophy of Lomonosov Moscow State University (Barash, 2013, para. 3). In his speech, Mironov, the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy reminded about the need for disciplinary differentiation to distinguish knowledge about the social from the knowledge about what should be and, thereby, highlight the subject field of social epistemology (Barash, 2013). According to Kasavina, any absolute distinctions are just a philosophical abstraction that has a sociocultural content, it is required not only to analyze the social context of cognition as such, but to study cognitive and cultural ensembles in which a variety of forms of sociality are intertwined (Barash, 2013). Discussing the relationship between truths and values in social cognition, Momdzhyan (Barash, 2013, para. 8), interprets values not as the objects capable of satisfying human needs, and not as a relation of the object’s significance for the subject but as motivational preferences (associated with the choice of existence priority goals) immanent in the subject. According to Momjian, the value is not truth in itself but a person’s motivational attraction to truth, which Foucault called “the will to truth”. At the same time, Krzhevov, another participant in the discussion, does not share the views tracing Kant’s philosophy, according to which truths and values are on different planes since they belong to spheres of being and due, which are completely independent from each other (Barash, 2013, para. 11). Their combination is possible if both of them are perceived as specific components of information programs, directing the actions of people as social individuals. According to Krzhevov, a human always remaining the subject of reasonably directed activity, certainly follows necessity; their activity can become free only when it is guided by objectively true knowledge, which asserts a universally significant idea of truth as a value (Barash, 2013).

Mikeshina (2020) investigates the problem of values in sociological science and refers to Weber, who carried out a reevaluation with the help of the methodology formed in the tradition of neo-Kantianism. As a result of reevaluation, value is that what matters to us, what we focus on in our life and what we take into account. Values appear as one of the ways of human thinking.

Wozniak (2020) considers the category of “value” in the philosophical and cultural dimension, in the context of distinguishing between sense and reason, revealing the one-sidedness of this concept (p. 32). Noting that the concept of value was introduced by Kant in the context of opposing the world of nature and the world of freedom, Wozniak writes that I. Kant calls values the notions which motivate human actions being generally valid principles. When prescribing what is due to a person, values belong to the ethical sphere. Later, in neo-Kantianism, the world of values appears as the foundation of the world of culture (Wozniak, 2020). According to Wozniak (2020), “value orientation” is inherent in understanding. A dialectical mind able to adequately work with the category of “ideal” does not need the interference of value thinking (p. 35). The relativity of the meaning of values is revealed in the opposition of truth and value due to the fact that there are true values and false values. In this context, the category “ideal” more accurately contains the ontological essence of value.

Bibler, in his brilliant metaphor, which Wozniak (2020) address as an exact “eidos” for understanding the way of entering into what is called “value”, into the very depths of subjective being, or the way of realizing values, writes: “This is not a bunch of hay in front of the muzzle of a donkey, but it is the “donkey” itself, striving not for “hay”, but for “saturation”, that is, for itself” (Bibler, 1992, p. 211).

In general, the discourse on the correlation of truth and values leads to the understanding that these categories are of a relative nature and determine subjective being in the context of a certain socio-cultural-historical dimension.

Purpose of the Study

Purpose of the work is to study the correlation of truth and values in the mental culture of the subject of social cognition. Naturally, let us first agree on the position of the authors in the interpretation of these concepts. Thus, we interpret the truth, according to the classical approach to its definition, as the compliance with reality. As Heidegger (1991) notes, “to be true and truth” mean, first, “the coincidence of a thing with what was thought about it before” and “the coincidence of the conceivable in the statement with the thing”. That is, the truth is interpreted as the identity of the thinkable and the thing, and in their coincidence we single out a certain criterion of the essence and the existing. In comprehending the truth, it is necessary, to start from what lies in the truth every time, for the being reveals to us what we are ready to perceive. This causes questions about whether the objective comprehension of the essence of the existing by the human consciousness is guaranteed and whether our thought is independent in the process of discovering the essence of the existing. The first question, in our view, has a metaphysical nature, while the second one enables to go beyond the theory and to hold discussion on the basis of empirical material.

Research Methods

When searching for answers to the questions of how autonomous the thinking of the subject is in the process of comprehending the surrounding reality and how the meanings of truth and cultural values are correlated in the consciousness of the individual, the authors used the method of dialectical analysis, which enabling to see the origins of the reducibility of truth to value, and vice versa. The systems approach directs us to studying truth and values as systems correlating with each other, representing an integral axiological object, having numerous types of quantitative and qualitative connections between its elements.

Findings

There is a “word” and “concept” that contain different information. The word itself is a verbal stereotype used by all native speakers. The perception of a word is formed on the basis of a usual act of coincidence of a word, thing, phenomenon, etc. In the process of learning a language, a child learns words but not concepts. And this habit of consciousness reflecting the surrounding world from the image of the world to the word has its own logic of forming thinking abilities. Words create the illusion of materiality like a card-castle. And the word “truth” in the stereotyped consciousness reflects what is available to our senses. The concept requires additional thought mechanisms. The concept is precisely the moment of grasping the essence of a thing, phenomenon and process. However, the concept is not identical with the word. In the well-known verse “we cannot predict the way our word will sound”, the doubt of the classic is precisely justified by the fact that the word is formed in the mind of a person in a certain practice of use. And there are as many practices as there are people. Therefore, it is important to agree on a concept. Power over the word is achieved when it is demarcated within certain limits of understanding. The word “truth” and the “concept of truth” are different formats of the existence of truth. Understanding the truth enables to delve into the essence of a thing or phenomenon. The word in this sense is neutral, not satiate with meanings for everyday cognition. However, there is a polysemy of the word, which is a consequence of not so much the actual satiety of the word meanings but the multivariate expression of a thing or phenomenon denoted by this word. Perceptual associations multiply the meanings of words being reflected at the level of concepts.

From the fragments of the word existing in different contexts, a concept sharpening the attention to the essence of the existence of a thing or phenomenon is formed. Within the limits of one language, it seems possible to drive the logic of forming concepts into a certain cliché. However, each native speaker needs time of different duration to adequately reflect the essence of the concept in the coincidence of its essence with the existing one.

In this context, the following question arises: to what extent is the identity of the comprehensible essence towards the perceived existence guaranteed by our understanding of the truth? That is, the identity of the essence and the existing helps to reveal the objectivity of truth. Although, how is our confidence in the historical perspective of human existence where truth retains its objectivity justified?

The second important concept is “value”. The interpretation of “values” is conditioned by the way in which the meanings “word” or “concept” displayed in it are expressed in the user. Again, first we get acquainted with words that reflect certain things and phenomena of the surrounding reality. It is not for nothing that at the first stages of mastering speech, the child correlates the same word with different realities on the basis of acceptance/rejection of a thing or phenomenon. Value enters our life as a word carrying a meaning about our attitude to real things or phenomena, which reveals its subjective nature.

Kagan (1997) writes that “truth” and “value” fix two different types of attitudes generated by the activity of the subject. According to Kagan, the truth appears as an objective reality, cleared of “subjective refraction”, thereby allowing a person to rely on a certain common foundation of the unity of the reality being cognized. In the history of cognition, we already have the experience of eliminating the subject (classical rationality) and actualizing the subject (non-classical rationality), introducing value orientations into the process of cognition (post-non-classical rationality). Nevertheless, in the context of these reflections, it must be stated that truth in a historical perspective demonstrates the relative character of its nature. Then the question arises on the correspondence of the definition of truth as the coincidence of essence with the existence. If we answer it in the scope of our vision, then we come to the conclusion that the essence of what exists is inaccessible to man, and the meanings of things, the meanings imposed by us are not the essence of these things.

The processes of cognition, the discovery of truth, the value component of human existence are interdependent. In the structure of cognitive activity, not only a description of the object and its essence are realized but also a certain prescription of what it should be from the standpoint of an axiological attitude to the world. Any concept or judgment used in science is in fact both descriptive and prescriptive, which prevents from drawing a clear line between cognitive statements and value statements, whose unity is contradictory at first glance. The reason for this is that truth and value are characterized as oppositely directed vectors in mental activity. Truth defined as the correspondence of knowledge to objective reality and the value characterizing the object from the viewpoint of the “due” are produced in the consciousness of the subject and are equal components of their thinking.

Conclusion

For all the importance of the cognitive attitude to the world, it cannot be considered more significant. It is stipulated by the fact that cognition is impossible outside the value position of the subject, which sets the basis for cognitive activity. The natural attitude producing cultural artifacts presupposes the existence of an objective reality identical to the images manipulated by our consciousness. However, a person still does not have an answer to the following question: how is the world of consciousness produced? Our ego perceives the world being devoted to its existence. And our task is to cognize this world. However, our knowledge is initially limited not so much by the capabilities of the mind but by the boundaries of a person’s natural attitude. Mental uniqueness, genetically inscribed in the expression of a human as a special species, determines the intention of their attitude, in which both truth (existence) and value (due) are expressed. Within the framework of this attitude, the choice between the ontological being and the axiological due is paradoxical.

References

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• Betilmerzaeva, M. M. (2020a). On the question of the communicative nature of thinking. Society: philosophy, history, culture, 6(74), 18–23.

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• Bibler, V. S. (1992). From “notes for future use”. New circle (pp. 210–220). Kiev.

• Heidegger, M. (1991). On the essence of truth. In: Conversation on a country road (pp. 8–27). Higher school.

• Kagan, M. S. (1997). Philosophical theory of value. LLP TK Petropolis.

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• Wozniak, V. S. (2020). Category “value”: philosophical and cultural dimension. MGUKI Bulletinm, 2(94), 32-37.