CRITERIOLOGY

Lesson 2: Sources of Knowledge

Reality manifests itself to the mind in different ways. Not all men have the same keenness of vision or hearing or intellectual aptitudes. The fact that we do not know everything, and that all our knowledge is inadequate, does not invalidate the knowledge which we possess anymore than the horizon which bounds our view prevents us from perceiving more or less distinctly the various objects within its limits. This is essentially the condition of scientific progress: to find connections between various objects to proceed from the known to the unknown, from the imperfect to the perfect, from the contingent to the necessary, from the dependent to the self-existent and from the finite to the Infinite.

Sources of Knowledge:
Where do you get what you think you know?

Perception Introspection Memory Reason Faith Intuition Testimony

1. PERCEPTION
Sense knowledge Sources of error:
illusion (seeing something as something else) hallucination (seeing something when there s nothing at all)

Error is not caused by the reality, neither by the senses; it is caused by the judgment that we make.
You saw Fr. Bobby holding the hand of a beautiful lady, and you say, Ah, girlfriend ni Father yan! You saw a Dominican brother talking to another brother in a dark room, and you conclude, Oh, he s gay!

2. INTROSPECTION
inner feelings person s internal way of ascertaining what mental state one is currently in statement of how we feel or what we are thinking or wondering about:
I feel cold, depressed, alone, left out. I feel awful. I feel excited. I m nervous

errors in reporting inner feelings (mis-description of inner feelings

We may say we feel angry when we only feel annoyed. One may say he s in love when it was just an admiration. I don t like her anymore. What he wanted to say is, I d die if she leaves me.

3. REASON
Inferential argument, truth of reason, law of thought
If you are older than I am, then I am younger than you. All priests are ordained; Fr. Bobby is a priest. Ergo, Fr. Bobby is ordained.

It collects facts, generalizes, reasons out from cause to effect, from effect to cause, from premises to conclusion, from propositions to proofs. It concludes, decides and comes to final judgment.

4. MEMORY
Recall Problems of Memory:
Loss of memory: amnesia Dj vu We remember what we think happened, not what happened. We remember only what we want to remember.

5. FAITH
Assent of the intellect to a truth which is beyond comprehension but which it accepts under the influence of the will moved by grace. It is a belief which goes beyond the available evidence It is something that has no basis (reason) for making the statement, and you could hardly claim to know it.
I have faith in him. (It might not be based on faith at all as there might be some good reasons in the past to support your trust in him.

The certitude faith commands is not based on intrinsic truth (i.e. the intellect does not attain truth in itself; it does not see it.) but based on an intrinsic motive, i. e., the intellect is moved by the will which regards the assent to the proposed truth in virtue of the intrinsic evidence of an object

6. INTUITION
direct insight into, or apprehension of, truth; a kind of knowing that is immediate and direct. process of knowing not through seeing, hearing or anything of the visual sensory channels but through a sudden conviction that turns to be right. It is a personal spiritual experience. Spiritual flashes and glimpses of truth, inspiration, revelation and spiritual insight come through intuition.
The mind has to be pure to know that it is intuition

shot in the dark; there is no reasoning process at all. ESP, palm reading

7. TESTIMONY
Taking the word of another: either oral or written Problem with acquiring knowledge through testimony: it does not seem to live up to the standards of knowledge. Crudely put, the question is: 'How can testimony give us knowledge when we have no reasons of our own?'
People are often ready to believe the personal reports of what others say that they have seen and experienced. Thus, it is important to consider just how reliable people s memory and their testimony can be. Perhaps the most important thing to note is that, even though there is a popular perception of eyewitness testimony being among the most reliable forms of evidence available, the criminal justice system treats such testimony as being among the most fragile and even unreliable available. Consider the following quote from Levin and Cramer s Problems and Materials on Trial Advocacy:
Eyewitness testimony is, at best, evidence of what the witness believes to have occurred. It may or may not tell what actually happened. The familiar problems of perception, of gauging time, speed, height, weight, of accurate identification of persons accused of crime all contribute to making honest testimony something less than completely credible.

Willingness to be challenged

To simply be a competent witness (competent, which is not the same as credible), a person must
have adequate powers of perception must be able to remember and report well and, must be able and willing to tell the truth.

Mental Gymnastics:
Ate Rosiel is here. perception If I let go of this piece of chalk, it will fall. reason The Lady of La Naval has not been stolen yet. memory You have two hands. perception You are not a woman. perception Jose Rizal once lived. Memory/testimony I am in the Philippines. perception A man will never give birth to a baby. reason The past will never be future. reason You are younger than your parents. reason I feel dumb and stupid. introspection We will end the class before 6pm Mass.