4. Truth:
a. According to Marx, “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. In practice man must prove the truth, that is the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.”
b. The truth of statements and theories is decided ultimately by the way in which they affect the modes of material life.
c. Truth is inseparable from the historical process because the historical process consists of changing modes of material life. Hence truth is inseparable from history which records and makes sense of this process.
d. The “truths” in the consciousness of a ruling class at odds with the historical process are mere deceits. According to Marx, “the more the established form of intercourse in society and thus the conditions of the ruling class, come into conflict wit the developed productive forces, and the greater therefore is the dissension within the ruling class itself and between it and the subject class, the less veridical naturally becomes the consciousness which originates from and expresses this form of intercourse; i.e it ceases to express it. The earlier conceptions of these relations of intercourse in which the real individual interests were asserted as general interests decline into mere idealizing phrases, conscious illusions and deliberate deceits. But the more they are condemned as falsehoods, and the less they satisfy the understanding, the more dogmatically they are asserted and the more deceitful, moralizing and spiritual becomes the language of established society.” The abstract concept of truth promulgated through idealistic science, viz. the separation of truth from practice is a deceit fostered by the bourgeoisie. This explanation of truth does not and should not abrogate the need for conscientious scholarship. According to Marx, “I call any man a ‘scoundrel’ who tries to accommodate scholarship (whatever its failings) to principles not inherent in it bur derived from interests external and alien to it.”
