Relative Truth

Epistemological category that refers to the relativity of truth. The relativity of truth is one of the basic attributes of truth, and means that men’s correct knowledge of objective processes and their laws of development under certain conditions always has a limited nature and is incomplete. The material world is infinite in space and time, and any truthful knowledge is only the knowledge of a part or aspect, a certain level of the material world, and its objects have a finite nature. The truth accessed by human knowledge under certain historical conditions, therefore, cannot exhaust the essence and laws of all things in the material world. To acknowledge that there are things in the world that are not yet known, and that knowledge has yet to be expanded is to acknowledge the relativity of truth. The reflection of an object by any truthful knowledge also has a finite nature, its depth is always finite and has an approximate nature. To acknowledge that our knowledge is yet to be deepened is also to acknowledge the relativity of truth. Lenin said: “Knowledge is the eternal, endless approximation of thought to the object.”

Absoluteness and relativity of truth are dialectically unified. Each concrete truth is both a knowledge of limited breadth and depth under certain conditions, and a definite knowledge that conforms to an objective object, a knowledge of the infinite material world, thus embodies the unity of the relativity and absoluteness. The course of development of truth also reflects the unity of the relativity and absoluteness of truth. It is a course that constantly moves toward absolute truth through the accumulation of relative truths. Mao Zedong said: “In the endless flow of absolute truth, man’s knowledge of a particular process at any given stage of development is only relative truth. The sum total of innumerable relative truths constitutes absolute truth.”