The problem-dialogical field of searching for scientific truth

Abstract

The path taken by the leading figures in global science has led them to realize that the meaning of the concept of “truth” has undergone significant changes at various historical stages in the development of the philosophy of knowledge. Starting from the times of Antiquity, the search for the cause of such changes invariably led to the realization that the most significant cause was traditionally considered to be the adherence to outdated principles, laws, methods (methods) and means of organizing thought that no longer correspond to the challenges of new historical periods in the development of science, yet persist and dominate for many centuries thereafter. This led to the emergence of historical problems caused by their clash with new theoretical approaches to the organization of the conceivable, which, using their own laws, methods, and means, also convincingly prove the truth of their own conclusions. It followed from this that, in essence, these problems actually arise as theoretical problems. Thanks to the efforts of outstanding representatives of the Ancient and Medieval eras, as well as the Renaissance, the principles they proposed and implemented laws, methods, and means for solving theoretical problemsfrom Aristotles research to Hegels propositionsthe scientific community gradually realized that throughout the historical process of the development of the science of knowledge, it had been refined. Thus, beginning with Aristotles proposal to regard as a key feature of comprehending the unknown - devoid of concrete details and, in fact, abstract and ideal - the very self-justification of ones own “cognitive self,” and then with the further development of this proposal by Kant, who linked the comprehension of the unknown to consciousness (“I”), believing that this property lies in the testimony - unattainable by the means of logic - of the minds unrealized aspirations to understand the unknown, and saw in them a means of critiquing some speculations by others; and Fichtes concretization of the understanding of this property, who saw in the comprehension of the unknown the ability to develop through self-improvement and not only to cognize the existing, but also to create it, following the laws of its own nature. The final understanding of this feature was introduced by Hegel, who expressed in thought the dynamic, internally contradictory natural activity of consciousness and self-consciousness, which significantly narrowed the scope of the problem and reached its completion in the form of a methodological problem of implementing post-neoclassically oriented cognition. In order to find a way to solve this problem, the method of introspection was used, which allows the subject to conduct an in-depth examination of aspects of their own mental activity, not from the perspective imposed by any philosophical or psychological concept, and free from the pressure of common methods of studying thought regarding the validity of conclusions, but solely based on an unshakable conviction in the fundamental impossibility of translating subjective experience. In fact, this method takes the form of the study and subjective description of a persons inner experience acquired through their exploration of the sense of their own “I” with the aim of understanding consciousness as its source, as well as its structure and simplest elements. When using this method, it becomes clear that the solution to this problem is achieved by appealing to the natural dialogical nature of thought and to its correspondence to the principles of dialectics when thought is given a paradoxical form, thanks to which thought has gained a rare opportunity to use the paradox in its new functional role - to prevent the prospect of conceptualizing the object of reflection in the form of extreme manifestations of mutually contradictory concepts of one-sided theoretical approaches and to consider opposites as extremes of the objects manifestation that are subject to mutual complementarity. This complementarity is achieved by actualizing the operational component of thought while retaining, within its categorical matrix, only the task of identifying the sources of references that are subject to reorganization. The interconnection between the extreme manifestations of mutually contradictory concepts is successfully reflected through the logic of two logics, the so-called “dialogic.” This allowed the theoretical understanding of the object under study to rise above the functional level of its place within a single concept or paradigmatic model and opened up before it the prospect of objectification at the meta-paradigmatic level in exhaustive methodological completeness and perfection. The significance of Hegels contribution to the science of cognition lies in the fact that for him, the triad of thesis-antithesis-synthesis did not signify a logical scheme of the development of thought at all, but rather three stages of the self-development of his individual consciousness. The logic of understanding his approach did not appear as a single and universal one, detached from the inner world of the human being, that is, from their “being,” a form of organizing cognition, but as a mode of thinking that reveals the inner world of the human being through the dialectical, step-by-step, independent acquisition of a mode of self-development of consciousness, which ultimately led to the manifestation of the phenomenon of self-consciousness. Thus: in the first stage of his inquiry - Hegels independent discovery of the mode of consciousnesss development - this was achieved through the recognition of the identity of the structure of thought and the structure of logic; in the second stage - through the recognition of the identity of the structure of thought and the structure of being; and in the third and final stage, judging by what directly follows from Hegels own non-theoretical reflections - through the recognition of the identity of the nature of ideal being and the nature of the self as a personality that breaks through this nature. The developed model of the process of self-development of consciousness, according to which it is realized in the form of its self-improvement through the organization of a dialogue between two mutually incompatible, mutually argued logics, or dialogics. The use of dialogics as a method for investigating the process of the self-development of consciousness allows one to grasp its ultimate goal - the comprehension, understanding, and describing the phenomenon of self-consciousness through a three-step transcendence of the conceivable, first from the realm of epistemology into the field of ontology, and then into the sphere of phenomenology. Each subsequent act of transcendence represents a more perfect stage of the self-development of consciousness, which determines an increased substance of its self-development and exists as an unchanging substance, as a component of the essence of the dialectical approach to its study. Each stage gives rise to a temporarily fixed interpretation of truth, determined by a specific historical period of scientific development and, accordingly, by the position of the scientific elite of that stagean interpretation that is bound to change in the next stage. The truth, however, obtained through the use of a dialectical approach to the organization of scientific research, meets the requirements of coherence, that is, it appears as the unity of all its interpretations.