Similarities and differences between Marxist view of truth and old materialist view of truth

The view of truth of philosophical schools different from Marxist philosophy

Viewpoint 1: Thomas Aquinas' "Double Truth Theory"

Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican monk in Italy in the13rd century and the most important scholastic philosopher in medieval Europe. He put forward and demonstrated the famous "double truth theory". Thomas Aquinas divided truth into secular truth and theological truth, affirming that theological truth is higher than secular truth and belief is higher than reason. He said: "In order to save mankind, we must know some truths beyond reason revealed by God-as for people discussing God's truth with reason, they must also be guided by God's revelation. Anyone who discusses the truth obtained by God with reason can only be obtained by a few people, and it takes a lot of time and inevitably brings many mistakes. However, the understanding of this truth is related to the salvation of all mankind from God, so in order to make the salvation of mankind more appropriate and accurate, it must be guided by the truth revealed by God. Therefore, in addition to the philosophical theory of employing people, there must also be the sacred truth revealed by God. "

Thomas Aquinas believes that man's natural reason can be truth, but he often makes mistakes and can only know lower things. The higher truth about God can only come from the revelation of God and rely on the belief in God. He further believes that the object of theological inquiry is higher than the external world of rational inquiry; The principle of theology comes directly from God by inspiration and does not depend on other sciences. Theological certainty comes from God's illumination and will not make mistakes, while other scientific certainty comes from human reason and may make mistakes.

Viewpoint 2: Pragmatic view of truth

The most striking feature of pragmatism is its view of truth. Pragmatism holds that people's cognition and thinking are a way of experience, a function of people's adaptive behavior and response, not a subjective image of the objective world. Understanding is not to explore any objective truth, but to obtain a satisfactory effect of adapting to the environment and make life happy, peaceful and satisfied.

William James, an American philosopher and psychologist, the main representative of pragmatic philosophy, proposed that there is no "pre-prototype" in human understanding, and truth is not a "replica" of objective things, but a relationship between experiences. James believes that an idea is truth as long as it can link old and new experiences and bring concrete benefits and satisfactory results to people. James said: "the truth of theory is not the relationship between our mind and prototype reality, it is just a problem inside our mind." "If there is a concept that we can use to smoothly transfer from one part of experience to another, connect things perfectly, work steadily, simplify and save labor, then this concept is true." James denied the objectivity of truth. He believes that "pure objective truth can't be found anywhere". He said: "Truth comes from experience and always represents the most favorable reaction of all of us". So the truth also changes with the change of environment and personal interests. James pointed out: "We can only live according to the truth we can get today, and tomorrow we will call it falsehood."

John dewey, another main representative of pragmatic philosophy and an American philosopher, believes that ideas and theories are just some hypotheses to be proved, and they are tools for people's behavior, and people can choose at will according to whether it is convenient or not. Dewey said: "All concepts, theories and systems, no matter how exquisite and solid, must be regarded as hypotheses. They are all tools. Like all other tools, their value lies not in themselves, but in the results they produce. " Dewey believes that this "tool" has no objective practical significance.