Summary

This contemplation began with the reading of the articles by Eerik Kergandberg and Uno Lõhmus (E. Kergandberg. Criminal Proceedings as a Gold Mine. – Juridica 2016/2, pp. 87–104; U. Lõhmus. Non-mainstream Thoughts about the Objective and Legitimacy of Criminal Procedure. – Juridica 2013/3, pp. 201–209).
The first (philosophical) part of the article attempts to use the perspective of a natural scientist and philosopher of science to determine whether it is reasonable to separate truth from the knowledge of truth in the societal context. Both of the terms, “truth” and “knowledge”, have multiple meanings. In order to avoid the equivocal use of the term “knowledge”, several terms signifying the different types of knowledge can be used. This does not refer to the apparent dual meaning, the fact that knowing something can be understood as “knowing-that” or, for example, being familiar with knowing how to do something. This concerns the dual meaning of “knowing-what”. In the case of intersubjective knowledge, the author uses R. Dworkin’s idea of a personalised community.
The second (contemplative and relatively schematic) part takes realistic pragmatism as its philosophical basis, whereas justice is mainly addressed from the comprehensive approach to justice in the sense of R. Dworkin. It seems that truth in the societal context is rather an axiological term, the existence and relevance of which should be acknowledged, while it is not certain whether we should be worrying about the truth we are not aware of and may never be aware of. The aim of discussing the societal aspects of truth and knowledge is to determine whether the clearer definition of the terms would help one to better understand upon what types of knowledge societal activities, including the administration of justice, are based.