Abstract

A cognitive relation presumes the presence of two terms: the subject and the object. The process of cognition can be realized only in forms characteristic of the subject. However, cognition faces the task of reproducing the properties of the object "in itself," and not in its relation to any given "point of view" of the subject. Lenin singles out objectivity of examination as the first, the starting element in scientific dialectics . This is also testified to by the very meaning of the concept "knowledge": one can only know something that is outside knowledge; knowledge points to some external reality. This is confirmed by the very nature of sensorily elementary forms of cognition: "The luminous effect of any thing upon the optic nerve is perceived not as the subjective stimulus of the optic nerve itself, but as the objective form of a thing outside the eye" . In activity in the realm of scientific theory, the principle of objective reproduction of an object is formulated as a conscious methodological requirement. But are there rationally formulable criteria permitting the discrimination of objective knowledge from all sorts of subjective psychological forms ?