The fate of concepts which comprise the philosophical knowledge of our epoch, an epoch in which the information explosion, including scientific information, has become a universal conditioning factor, unfolds in various ways. Some of these concepts are inscribed in a basic way in the categorial apparatus of philosophy. Others, having failed the tests of time and philosophical and methodological practice, lose their significance for philosophy and drop out of the conceptual apparatus as easily as they entered. Among the various new (...) concepts in contemporary philosophy, that of "metaphilosophy" occupies a special place. (shrink)

To elucidate the essential nature of transformatory logic let us first describe its basic concepts. These are the subtextual and contextual forms of thought, the rules of transformation, subtextual logic, contextual logic, etc.

In dealing with the whole complex of questions concerning human nature, no small role is played by the problem of language — the role of language in man's life — both personal and social. In successive periods of human history different representatives of social thought saw in different perspectives the role of language in human life and its influence on social development.

The epistemology of dialectical materialism emphasizes two characteristic features of the picture of the world existing in our minds. First, it presents itself as reflection, i.e., as an image of an objective reality that exists independent of our consciousness. Secondly, this picture provides a reflection of the real world and the regularities of its development that is only approximately complete. The following comment by Lenin is of fundamental significance in this connection: "Cognition is man's reflection of nature, but it is (...) not a simple, not a direct, not a complete reflection, but a process involving a series of abstractions, the shaping and formation of concepts, laws, and the like, various concepts, laws, etc. and embraces, conditionally and approximately, the universal regularity of nature which is eternally moving and developing". (shrink)