7THE CONCEPT OF TRUTH AS THE BASIS OF ARISTOTEL'S LOGIC
Gulbahor Sattarovna Abdullakhanova
Tashkent State Economic University, Associate Professor [email protected]
Umida Rakhmatovna Kudratova
Tashkent State Economic University, Senior lecturer [email protected]
ABSTRACT
At present, the understanding of the deep development of the spiritual culture of mankind is becoming clearer. And in it a special place should be attributed to the need to study the historical heritage, because it is the basis for modern scientific knowledge.
This article is dedicated to the great thinker - the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who is one of the first to study the problem of truth, which acquired a philosophical sound from him. Aristotle classified and generalized the ways of cognition in science and created the doctrine of a way of thinking that cognizes the truth, namely logic. The human mind is considered a special mechanism. Only the application of the laws of logic can bring a person closer to the truth. According to Aristotle, in order to apply the science of logic, it is necessary to have an unchanging being. Aristotle believed that truth is the highest form of being. Cognizing the truth, a person approaches perfect being.
Keywords: Aristotle, truth, being, logic, thinking, knowledge.
INTRODUCTION
With the acquisition of state independence of the Republic of Uzbekistan, there is a serious interest in the little-studied aspects of the philosophical heritage of the ancient period, especially those related to the logical aspects of the Hellenistic teachings. It is necessary to note the great importance of not only the philosophical, but also the socio-cultural heritage of antiquity with the aim of further, more effective familiarization with universal spiritual, moral and intellectual values, which have a strong influence on the formation of a growing personality. The President of Uzbekistan Sh. Mirziyoyev especially emphasizes that "we are mobilizing all the forces and capabilities of our state and society so that our youth have independent thinking, high intellectual and
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spiritual potential, do not concede to their peers from other countries in any area, be happy and confident in my future. [5] In this regard, the importance of addressing the history of philosophical thought and culture of antiquity in our state is getting a new, relevant sound today, where among the most significant phenomena is the Stoic school. It is precisely the understanding of the teachings of the philosophy of the Stoics, the acceptance of their logical teachings that is one of the important processes in the formation and development of world consciousness. According to many researchers, the teaching of Stoicism has been one of the most influential and popular areas of socio-philosophical thought for many centuries. After all, it was Stoicism that was able to reflect on a large scale the deep logical, spiritual, ethical, political and ideological needs of society in various historical periods, which, obviously, had a strong influence on the formation of the philosophical views of society.
LITERATURE ANALYSIS
The logical doctrine of Aristotle has always been central to his philosophy, especially in such sections as epistemology, logic, history of philosophy, methodology of science. Scientists agree that perception and observation, scientific experiment and research, logical thinking and inference, meditation (deep mental concentration) and intuition should lead to the knowledge of truth. This problem was carefully studied in the works of Chudinov E.M. "The nature of scientific truth", Ivina A.A. "Fundamentals of the theory of argumentation", Khairullaeva M.M., Nadtochaeva A.S., Shermukhamedova N.A., Fayzikhodzhaeva D.E., Bogomolova A.S., Popova P.S., Stepanova O.I., Tulaganova M. .TO. and other prominent philosophers in this field.
So, for example, Yunusov A.T. in the article "Definitions in the Proofs of the Second Analytics: Greater or Lesser Terms?" [10] examines the question of whether the definitions used as premises in the demonstrative syllogisms of Aristotle's Second Analytics are definitions of major or minor terms of the syllogism.
Maslov D.K. in the article "The primacy of the principles of non-contradiction and the excluded middle in the "Questions" of the XIIIth - first half of the XIVth centuries to "Metaphysics" of Aristotle" [4] gives a brief overview of the opinions of the scholastics on the primacy of the principles of non-contradiction and the excluded middle in the comments on book IV of Aristotle's "Metaphysics", written in the form of "Questions". It is possible to restore the history of discussions about first principles in the comments to the Metaphysics only by referring to handwritten texts. In the article, the author takes into account all the main "Questions" of the period under consideration that have
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come down to us to the book. IV "Metaphysics", many of which have not yet been published.
However, issues related to the concept of truth as the basis of Aristotle's logic are still little studied.
METHODOLOGY
Based on the specifics of this topic, certain research methods were chosen. In particular, a concrete historical approach to the analysis of Aristotle's logic was used.
The research method was used as the main one. Comparative and systematic analysis of philosophical literature, the method of scientific synthesis of factual materials, inductive and deductive methods in their unity when summarizing materials were also used. The methodological basis is made up of systemic, personal-activity and cultural approaches.
DISCUSSION
Aristotle is considered the founder of formal logic, the "father of logic". It was he who made logic the science of the forms and laws of correct thinking.
Summarizing the methods of cognition of science and philosophy of the VI-IV centuries. BC, classifying and describing them, Aristotle created the doctrine of the forms of thinking that comprehends the truth, that is, logic. The logic of Aristotle is not at all a formal logic, closed in the framework of the formal correctness of the study of thought, no matter how true it may be.
Aristotle repeatedly emphasizes that for the application and development of the science of logic, it is necessary to rely on imperishable being. Only then is it possible to apply the laws of logic. It makes no sense to judge truth on the basis that things around us obviously change and never remain in the same state. For in the search for truth it is necessary to start from that which is always in the same state and is not subject to any change, if there is movement and something moving, but moving from something and to something, then the moving must be in from which it moves and then not being in it, moving towards another and being in it, and what contradicts this cannot be (at the same time) true, contrary to their opinion.
For knowledge to be true, according to Aristotle, it must not only be a concept of an object. In addition, the very object of knowledge can be not a transitory, not a changeable, not a current being, but only an imperishable, abiding being. Such cognition is possible, although separate objects, in which only an
enduring essence exists, are always only transitory, fluid objects.
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And such knowledge can only be the knowledge of "form". This form of each object is eternal: it does not arise and does not die.
Aristotle sees truth as the highest form of being. Man, comprehending the truth, approaches perfect being. But there are many difficulties along the way. "To investigate the truth is difficult in one respect, easy in another. This is evident from the fact that no one is able to achieve it properly, but not everyone fails completely, but everyone says something one by one, it is true, adds nothing or little to the truth, but when it all adds up, a noticeable amount is obtained. ... It is also true that philosophy is called the knowledge of truth. In fact, the goal of speculative knowledge is truth, and the goal of knowledge relating to activity is deed: after all, active people, even when they consider things as they are, investigate not things, but a thing in its relation to something and at the present time . But we do not know the truth without knowing the reason. And of all things, one or another property has one, thanks to which the same property is inherent in others; what is most true is that for what follows there is a cause for its truth. Therefore, the principles of everything that exists must be the most true: they are not true at times, and the reason for their existence is not in something else, but on the contrary, they are the reason for the existence of everything else; so that to the extent that each thing participates in being, so is the truth. [1]
"True and false mean the following: truth is a confirmation, as it were, by touch and a statement (after all, affirmative speech and a statement are not the same), and when it is impossible to be convinced in this way, there is ignorance (in fact, it is impossible to err about the essence of a thing, except perhaps in an adventitious manner and the same is the case with non-composite entities, for it is impossible to make a mistake about them either; and they all exist in reality, not in possibility, for otherwise they would arise and be destroyed; and the existent does not come into existence and is not destroyed by itself, for it would have to arise from something; therefore, as to what being in itself and in reality is, one cannot be mistaken, but one can either think it or not. With regard to it, the question is raised only about the essence, and not about whether it has such a property or not.
As for being as truth and non-being as false, then in some cases, if they bind (connected in fact), there is true, if there is no such binding, then it is false, and in other cases, when there is one, if it really exists , it is only in such and such a way; if it does not exist in such a way, and the truth here is to think this being, and there is no falsehood here, just as there is no error here, but only ignorance.
[1]
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Aristotle considered the logical method to be the main way to true knowledge. He expounded the doctrine of the laws of thought and cognition (what is now called logic) with such thoroughness, with such depth of thought that all subsequent thinkers could not add anything essential to what he explained. His treatises, devoted to the study of the laws of knowledge, are combined into one group called the "Organon". The most important of them: a treatise on the "Categories" (the highest generic concepts); two treatises on inference ("Analytics"); a small treatise On Interpretation (perhaps erroneously attributed to Aristotle) and Topeka. [2]
The common goal of all the treatises, united under the title "Organon" - an explanation of the essence and forms of reasoning, laws and forms of correct argumentation. "Reasonable knowledge", according to Aristotle, is only that which is acquired through argumentation; he, with the same sharpness as Plato, says that in the "opinions of the masses", in crude sensual representations, there is no true knowledge at all. But the argument would not lead to anything lasting, it would turn into an endless dialectic if it did not have reliable data that do not require any proof as its basis. According to Aristotle, there are such truths; they are the object of direct knowledge. The mind reaches them not through argumentation, but through induction, the derivation of general provisions from facts. The more complete our information about the facts, the more reliable the conclusion given by induction. But one cannot know all the facts; therefore induction always leads only to probability; the results of it are only "hypotheses".
He believed that the world should be known from the particular to the general, and not vice versa - from the general to the particular, as Plato argued.
To acquire reliable knowledge of the essence of things, it is necessary to combine argumentation with induction, analysis with synthesis. But what is the source of true knowledge? According to Aristotle, knowledge is based on the innate ability of the soul to form general concepts; in his opinion, the soul at the beginning of life is like a waxed tablet, on which nothing has yet been written, but which is capable of becoming written on. (According to the later Latin expression: "tabula rasa" - "blank slate".)
So, according to Aristotle, the soul is endowed with the ability to reliable knowledge, it is able to acquire knowledge of the truth. It acquires it by ascending by induction from sensory impressions to general concepts; concepts are derived from phenomena, therefore they must be inherent in the phenomena themselves, and therefore in Aristotle (unlike Plato) the world of things, phenomena has reality, truth in itself. It is varied, and the knowledge extracted from it is varied. The task of philosophy is to
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unite the knowledge acquired by induction, to unite the experimental sciences, and thereby to impart clarity and systematicity to the knowledge of truth.
Aristotle defines philosophy as the knowledge of truth, because truth is the goal of any speculative knowledge. And true knowledge is the knowledge of the first causes of everything that exists. The comprehension of the root causes of things and reveals, according to Aristotle, the realm of truth as a field of study of philosophy.
For Aristotle, truth is the correspondence of the thinkable with the real, in contrast to that formally logical understanding of truth, according to which truth belongs entirely to the sphere of thinking itself and has nothing to do with true reality. According to Aristotle, logical laws are originally the laws of being and logical forms coincide with the forms of being itself: the forms of true thinking are a reflection of real relationships. He discovered three laws of logic: the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction, the law of the excluded middle, which are a guarantee of formal logical truth. But the formal-logical criterion is not the only one in Aristotle. The main criterion of truth in Aristotle is the material criterion: the agreement of thought with the things themselves.
According to the teachings of Aristotle, that judgment is true in which concepts are interconnected in the same way as the corresponding things in nature are interconnected. False is the judgment which unites what is divided in nature, or separates what is united in it. Aristotelian logic is based on this concept of truth, which accepts two criteria of truth: material (consent of thoughts with things) and formal (consent of thoughts among themselves), and the dominant criterion in it is material. However, in the process of development of the logical teaching of Aristotle - in his syllogistic - the formal criterion acquires a certain independence and obscures the material criterion.
Aristotle accepts truth in a broad and narrow sense. Truth in the narrow sense is the truth of judgment. According to Aristotle, truth and falsehood, strictly speaking, refer only to the connection and separation of representations and concepts. Our judgments are true or false, depending on whether the union or separation of representations and concepts that takes place in them corresponds to reality itself. As for separate isolated objects of thought, they are not yet true or false in themselves. But in a broader sense, the concept of truth in Aristotle is transferred to the objects of thought.
Such an extended concept of truth is based on the assumption that the object of thought (representation or "concept") is compared with the real object, of which it is a reflection, and that representation or concept is recognized as true, which adequately orders what exists
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in reality. The conceivable is false if it either does not correspond to anything in reality at all, or if the corresponding real object in it is displayed incorrectly. This is a material falsity, and it consists in the discrepancy between what is conceivable and real objects. Another kind of falsity is the falsity of judgment. It lies in the fact that the non-existent is stated as existing, that is, the predicate is attributed to the subject to which it does not belong. False judgment formula: "Not-A is A". Paying tribute to the metaphysics of his teacher Plato, Aristotle distinguishes between two types of judgments: eternal necessary judgments related to the field of eternal unchanging objects, and judgments related to the range of changing things. Since objects that are subject to change, emergence and destruction do not always remain identical to themselves, then judgments about them are not stable. Being true as long as their objects remain equal to themselves, these same judgments become false when the objects change in time. In the Aristotelian doctrine of truth, this division ofjudgments is essential. Only the first judgments form a field of rigorous knowledge, while the second ones are mere opinions and do not have a strict scientific character.
The concept of truth in Aristotle is divided into two types: eternal absolute truth and truth, which in the stream of time turns into its opposite and becomes false.
Thus, the generally accepted concept of truth goes back to Aristotle, according to which the correspondence of our knowledge to reality is called truth. Aristotle did not say anything intelligible about lies, but, following classical logic (of which he is the recognized "father", apparently), the inconsistency of our knowledge with reality should be called a lie.
CONCLUSION
Thus, it should be noted that the starting point for the study of truth in Aristotle is the provision on the need to rely on imperishable being. The human mind is considered as a tool for comprehending the truth, in search of which it is only necessary to rely on the formal laws of logic.
The truth of thoughts is a necessary condition for cognitive thinking. The correct connection of thoughts, their correct construction is necessary. The correct connection of thoughts in the process of reasoning is determined by the laws of thinking. Three of the four laws were derived by Aristotle. Through their action, the derivation of new knowledge from true and verified judgments leads to truth.
The questions raised in this article can serve to further develop the theoretical problems of logic, will contribute to its better understanding. The logical system of Aristotle not only corresponds to the spirit of modern logic, but can also provide the modern "organon" with a
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new arsenal of powerful, rational and spiritual means of scientific knowledge. This requires not a traditional Eurocentric approach to the study of the history and theory of logic, but a new one, aimed at the search for universal scientific values.
REFERENCES
1. Aristotle. Metaphysics. Book two. Chapter I. Book Nine. Chapter X. http://lib.ru/POEEAST/ARISTOTEL/metaphiz.txt with-big-pictures.html
2. Aristotle. (1978). Collected works in 4 volumes. Volume 1.
3. Akhmanov, A.S. (2015). The logical doctrine of Aristotle. M. Ed. Stereotype. 312 p.
4. Maslov, D.K. "The primacy of the principles of non-contradiction and the excluded middle in the Questions of the 13th - the first half of the 14th centuries. to Aristotle's Metaphysics. Questions of philosophy. 2017. No. 7, 207-222.
5. Mirziyoev Sh.M. (2016). Together we will build a free, democratic and prosperous state of Uzbekistan. // Speech at the solemn ceremony of inauguration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan at a joint meeting of the chambers of the Oliy Majlis. Tashkent, UZBEKISTON. 40 p.
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8. Trendelenburg, A. (2017). Elements of Aristotle's logic. M. Publishing house "Kanon +" ROOI "Rehabilitation". 336 p.
9. Yunusov, A.T. (2017). "Definitions in the Second Analytics Evidence: Greater or Lesser Terms?" Questions of philosophy. No. 8, 166-179.
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