Truth is the adequate reflection of objective reality by an individual in the process of cognition, a reflection which reproduces the object being cognized as it exists outside of and independent of cognition; it is the objective content of human perceptions, concepts, sensations, judgments, deductions, theories, as verified by societal experience. Truth is the infinite associated sequence and continuity of the results of acquiring knowledge, the increasingly all-sided and profound reflection of interacting, changing, contradictory objects. This historical concept of truth (...) is the foundation of the dialectical materialist distinction between relative and absolute truth. Also associated with this is the Marxist understanding of cognition as the dialectical movement from relative to absolute truth. The problem of truth is one of the principal problems of dialectical logic. Truth must not be identified with logical truth in the sense of an epistemo-logical description of an adequate relation between the objective content of knowledge and objective reality, or as the concept of the formal conditions for the expression of truth. (shrink)

A discussion of the problem of contradiction in mechanical motion has been in progress for a long time in the pages of Filosofskie nauki. The attention given that problem is no accident. In our day, problems concerning contradictions involved in rest and motion, the continuous and the discontinuous, the finite and infinite, etc., have moved from the realm of abstract consideration to that of the concrete and current handling of the subject matter of modern physics, mathematics, and other fields. It (...) is natural that the present stage of knowledge of objective reality should occasion a revived interest on the part of logicians and philosophers in these problems, including the question of how objective contradictions may be expressed in scientific theories. (shrink)

Many methods are conceivable for resolution of the difficulties arising when motion is depicted in the logic of concepts. We shall set forth some of these methods, presenting them within the framework of the discussion in which V. I. Sviderskii, B. A. Dragun, and I. S. Narskii have already participated. In our opinion, attention must be directed primarily to the fact that in resolving the contradictions in the presentation of motion by means of ideal mathematical abstractions, it is impossible to (...) base ourselves directly upon that which is occurring in the sphere of the things which we perceive with our senses. It is particularly when one forgets this fact that contradictory situations usually result. However, this does not at all mean that these data are of little value in treating of motion. Furthermore, the refinement of the meaning of the concepts in terms of which motion is described, taken together with the requirement that there be a rigorous differentiation between theories based on ideal abstractions and theories based on concepts derived from the sphere of empirical existence, may lead to the resolution of Zeno's paradoxes. (shrink)