INTRODUCTION TO THE

PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN

PERSON
Name of Learner: __________________________________Grade Level: _______________
Section: __________________________________________Date: _____________________

LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET (Week 2)

Methods of Philosophizing

Background Information

Have you ever experienced believing in something you thought is true but in the end
you discovered that it is false? For example you feel that the person standing in front of you is
a true friend who will never betray you but in the end he did betray you. Or during an
examination period you feel strongly that “A” is the right answer for item number 12 but it
turned out to be “B.” Or you feel that your belief(s) can guide you in the correct path only to
discover that that it leads to disaster. These, and countless examples from your experiences,
show that there is a BIG difference to what we feel is true and what is really true. According
to philosophy if you want to know the truth you have to use, not emotions, but thinking. To
think however is an act of choice which is not always done properly. Sometimes we need
guidance to straighten our thoughts. This is what module 2 provides. Welcome to the province
of epistemology.

Learning Competency

Distinguish opinion from truth PPT11/12-Ic-2.1 Week 2

Realize that the methods of philosophy lead to wisdom and truth PPT11/12-Id-2.2 Week 2
Activity 1: Hashtag
Directions: Make a Hashtag (#) (at least five) of what you have learned about the significance
of Epistemology or act of knowing from the previous lesson. Write your answer on a separate
sheet of paper.
#______________________________________________________________________
#______________________________________________________________________
#______________________________________________________________________
#______________________________________________________________________
#______________________________________________________________________

Right now we are living in a very challenging time that some people call the “New Normal.”
In this time things that we usually take for granted like the freedom to travel, entertainment
like concerts and movies and yes, even haircuts, are hard to come by. Not only that the

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 economy is bleeding to death with thousands losing their
jobs and countless businesses closing. And we must not
forget the thousands of people who were infected and lost
their lives.
All of this happened because we have one tiny enemy which
we can’t see but is deadly: the Covid 19 virus.
No wonder scientists in giant pharmaceutical
companies are in a race to develop the vaccine for this virus.
The survival of human civilization may depend on their achievement. And in all of this
mankind is relying on one thing which can defeat the virus: the knowledge inside the head of
every scientist developing the cure. Without knowledge the vaccine needed to end this
pandemic is impossible.
Our reliance however on knowledge is not new. Even before the Covid 19 pandemic
people are already relying on knowledge for their survival. Without knowledge on how to
create a fire, how to cook one’s food, how to build a shelter, how to build dams to control
flooding, how to create laws to preserve order in society and yes even how to think properly,
we would still be in a prehistoric cave. Knowledge literally enabled mankind to survive and
reach the present level of our civilization.
It is on the recognition of the supreme importance of knowledge that gave rise to the
branch of philosophy known as epistemology. Let us therefore explore the meaning,
foundation and importance of epistemology.
WHAT IS EPISTEMOLOGY?
There is no one correct definition of epistemology. The one that I’m going to use came from
the philosopher Ayn Rand:
“Epistemology is a science devoted to the discovery of the proper method of acquiring
and validating knowledge” (Rand 1990).
The purpose of epistemology therefore is two-fold:
1. To show how we can acquire knowledge.
2. To give us a method of demonstrating whether the knowledge we acquired is really
knowledge (i.e., true).
Since knowledge plays a central role in epistemology let us briefly described its nature.
THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE
According to Ayn Rand knowledge is a “mental grasp of reality reached either by perceptual
observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation” (Rand 1990).
When you know something (be it the behavior of your friend, the movement of the planets, or
the origin of civilizations) you understand its nature. You identify what it is. And it stays with
you. Knowledge is a retained form of awareness (Binswanger 2014).
So how do you acquire knowledge? Miss Rand’s definition gives us two ways:
First, we can acquire knowledge using our senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, smelling.
How do you know that the table is brown? Because you see it. How do you know that fire is

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hot? Because you feel it. This method of acquiring knowledge is called empiricism and it has
many adherents in the history of philosophy such as John Locke, George Berkley, David Hume.

The Empiricists (from left to right) John Locke, George Berkley, and David

Second, we can acquire knowledge by thinking with the use of our minds (what philosophers
call the rational faculty). This is what rationalism advocates. (Some well-known rationalists
in history are Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz).

The Rationalists (from left to right) Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz

However thinking is just half of the story of knowing (in fact the second half). The reason is
that thinking involves content. To think is to think of something. You cannot think about
nothing. This is where sense perception enters the picture by feeding our minds with data
coming from the outside world so that we can have something to think about.

ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE
Let us now explore the first part of epistemology: the process of acquiring knowledge.

1. Reality
To know is to know something. This “something” is what philosophers call reality,
existence, being. Let us employ the term existence. Existence is everything there is (another
name for it is the Universe [Peikoff 1990]). It includes everything we perceive (animals, plants,
human beings, inanimate objects) and everything inside our heads (e.g., our thoughts and
emotions) which represents our inner world.
Existence is really all there is to know. If nothing exists knowledge is impossible.

2. Perception

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 Our first and only contact with reality is through our senses. Knowledge begins with
perceptual knowledge. At first the senses give us knowledge of things or entities (what Aristotle
calls primary substance): dog, cat, chair, table, man. Later we became aware not only of things
but certain aspects of things like qualities (blue, hard, smooth), quantities (seven inches or six
pounds), relationships (in front of, son of) even actions (jumping, running, flying). These so
called Aristotelian categories cannot be separated from the entities that have it. Red for example
cannot be separated from red objects; walking cannot be separated from the person that walks,
etc.
3. Concept

After we perceive things we began to notice that some of the things we perceive are
similar to other things. For example we see three individuals let’s call them Juan, Pablo and
Pedro who may have nothing in common at first glance. But when we compare them with
another entity, a dog for example, suddenly their differences become insignificant. Their big
difference to a dog highlights their similarity to one another (Binswanger 2014)
We therefore grouped them into one class or group, named the group (“man” or “human
being”) and define what that group is to give it identity (Peikoff 1990). We now have a concept
which according to one dictionary means “an abstract or generic idea generalized from
particular instances” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
The first concepts we formed are concepts of things like dog, cat, man, house, car.
These elementary concepts are called first level concepts (Rand 1990). From these first level
concepts we can form higher level concepts through a process which Rand calls “abstraction
from abstractions” (Rand1990).
Let us describe the two types of abstraction from abstractions: wider generalizations (or
simply widenings) and subdivisions (or narrowings) (Binswanger 2014):
Wider generalization is the process of forming wider and wider concepts. For example
from Juan, Pedro and Pablo we can form the concept “man”. Then from man, dog, cat, monkey
we can form a higher and wider concept “animal”. And from plant and animal we can form a
still higher and wider concept “living organism”. As we go up to these progressive widenings
our knowledge increases.
Subdivisions consist of identifying finer and finer distinctions. For example “man” is a
first level concept that we can subdivide according to profession (doctor, entertainer, fireman,
teacher), or race (Asian, Caucasian [white], black), or gender (man, woman, lesbian, gay), or
nationality (Filipino, Chinese, American) among other things. As we go down these
progressive narrowings our knowledge of things subsumed under a concept increases.
The result of this progressive widenings and narrowings is a hierarchy (or levels) of
concepts whose based is sense perception. As we move further from the perceptual base
knowledge becomes more abstract and as we move closer to the perceptual level knowledge
becomes more concrete.

4. Proposition

When we use concepts in order to classify or describe an “existent” (a particular that

exist be it an object, a person, an action or event, etc) (Rand 1990) we use what philosophers
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call a proposition (Binswanger 2014). A proposition is a statement that expresses either an
assertion or a denial (Copi, 2002) that an existent belongs to a class or possess certain attribute.
Proposition is usually expressed in a declarative sentence. When I say, for example, that “Men
are mortals” I am making an assertion of men which are affirmative in nature (thus the
statement is an affirmative proposition). When I make an opposite claim however, “Men are
not mortals” I am denying something about men and thus my statement is negative in nature
(thus the proposition is called a negative proposition)
An affirmative proposition therefore has the following structure: “S is P” (where S is the
subject, P is the predicate and “is” is the copula stating the logical relationship of S and P)
while the negative proposition has the structure “S is not P” (“is not” is the copula expressing
denial).
Notice that statements like “Men are mortals”, “Angels are not demons”, and “Saints are not
sinners” can either be true or false. “Truth and falsity are called the two possible truth values
of the statement” (Hurley 2011). (Later were going to explore the nature of truth).

5. Inference

How do we demonstrate that the statement is true? By providing an argument. According to

Hurley an argument “is a group of statements, one or more of which (the premises) are claimed
to provide support for, or reason to believe one of the others (the conclusion) (Hurley 2011).
To clarify this definition let’s give an example using the famous Socratic argument:
All men are mortals
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
Here we have three related statements (or propositions). The last statement beginning with the
word “therefore” is what we call a conclusion. A conclusion is a statement that we want to
prove. The first two statements are what we call premises (singular form: premise). A premise
provides justification, evidence, and proof to the conclusion.
An argument expresses a reasoning process which logicians call inference (Hurley 2011).
Arguments however is not the only form of inference but logicians usually used “argument”
and “inference” interchangeably.
There are still many things to be discuss on the topic of knowledge acquisition. We only
provided a brief overview of the topic.
THE NATURE OF TRUTH
Now that we know how we know, it’s time to see whether the knowledge we acquired
is “really” knowledge i.e., is true. This is the second part of epistemology: validating one’s
knowledge.
The first step in validating one’s knowledge is to ask oneself the following question:
“How did I arrive at this belief, by what steps?” (Binswanger 2014). Thus you have to retrace
the steps you took to acquire the knowledge, “reverse engineer” the process (Binswanger
2014). This is what Dr. Peikoff calls reduction (Peikoff 1990). One will therefore realize that

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the steps you took to acquire knowledge (perception-concept-proposition-inference) are the
same steps needed to validate knowledge (but in reverse order). Thus what the ancient pre-
Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said is true when applied to epistemology: “the way up
[knowledge acquisition] is the way down [knowledge validation]” (quoted by Dr. Binswanger
2014).
If we perform the process of reduction we will realized that all true knowledge rest
ultimately on sense perception. “A belief is true if it can be justified or proven through the use
of one’s senses” (Abella 2016). Consider the following statements (Abella 2016):
I am alive.
I have a body. I can breathe.

You can only validate the above statements if you observed yourself using your senses.
Feel your body. Are you breathing? Feel your pulse. Observe your body. Is it moving? These
and countless examples provided by your senses proved that you’re alive (Abella 2016).
Not all statements however can be validated directly by the senses. Some beliefs or
ideas need a “multi-step process of validation called proof’ (Binswanger 2014). Nevertheless
proof rests ultimately on sense perception.
Statements based on sense perception are factual and if we based our beliefs on such
facts our beliefs are true (Abella 2016).
For example the belief that human beings have the right to life rests on the following claim:

1. Human beings are rational animals.

2. Animals (including human beings) are living organisms.

And of course the fact that we are alive can be demonstrated perceptually as shown above.
A third way to determine if the statement is true is through a consensus (Abella 2016).
If the majority agrees that a statement is true then it is true. However there are certain
limitations to this approach. Far too many times in history false ideas became popular which
ultimately leads to disaster. For example the vast majority of Germans during the time of
Adolph Hitler believed that Jews are racially inferior. This is obviously false supported by a
pseudo biological science of the Nazi. The result of this false consensus is the extermination of
millions of Jews in many parts of Europe.
A fourth way to determine whether a statement is true is to test it by means of action
(Abella 2016). For example you want to know if a person is friendly. Well the best way to find
out is to approach the person. Thus the famous Nike injunction of “Just do it” is applicable in
this situation.
TRUTH VS OPINION
Identifying truth however can sometimes be tricky. The reason is that there are times
when we strongly held an idea that we feel “deep down” to be true. For example religious
people strongly believed that there is life after death. Some people who embraced democracy
may passionately embraced the idea that the majority is always right. Or on a more personal
level you may feel strongly that your sister is “selfish”.

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 However we must not confused strongly held beliefs with truth. Truth is knowledge
validated and when we say validated we mean they are based on the facts of reality.
You must understand dear student that the facts of reality are independent of your
thoughts, feelings or preferences (Ayn Rand calls this the primacy of existence [Rand 1982]).
That is the characteristic of truth. For example the statement “Jose Rizal died in 1896” is true.
You may not like that statement or deny it strongly. That does not change the fact that the
statement is true because it is based on what really happened in the past. There are many
sources that can validate the truth of that statement if one cared to look.
However when you say that “Jose Rizal is the greatest man who ever lived” you are
stating your preference and not facts. This is an opinion. Now it is true that there are many
facts about Rizal but that statement is asserting something that is beyond what the facts state.
That statement represents not facts but your interpretation of facts which may reveal your
biases.
To summarize an opinion has the following characteristics:

1. Based on emotions
2. Open to interpretation
3. Cannot be confirmed
4. Inherently biased
While truth is:

1. Based on the facts of reality

2. Can be confirmed with other sources
3. Independent of one’s interpretation, preferences and biases
THEORIES OF TRUTH
In knowing the truth or falsity of a statement, we generally use the following Theories of Truth:

1. The Correspondence theory of Truth:

The basic idea of the correspondence theory is that what we believe or say is
true if it corresponds to the way things actually are based on the facts. It argues that an
idea that correspond with reality is true while an idea, which does not correspond to
reality is false. For example, if I say, “The sky is blue” then I looked outside and saw
that it is indeed blue, then my statement is true. On the other hand, if I say, “Pigs have
wings” and then I checked a pig and it does not have wings, then my statement is false.
In general, statements of beliefs, propositions, and ideas are capable being true or false.
However, according the Eubulides, a student of the Megara school of
philosophy, “the correspondence theory of truth leaves us in the lurch when we are
confronted with statements such as “I am lying” or “What I am saying here is false.”
These are statements and therefore, are capable of being true or false. But if they are
true because they correspond with reality, then any preceding statement or proposition
must be false. Conversely, if these statements are false because they do not agree with
reality, then any preceding statement or proposition must be true. Thus, no matter what
we say about the truth or falsehood of these statements, we immediately contradict
ourselves.”

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 This does not mean that the Correspondence Theory of Truth is wrong or
useless and, to be perfectly honest, it is difficult to give up such an intuitively obvious
idea that truth must match reality. Nevertheless, the above criticisms should indicate
that it probably is not a comprehensive explanation of the nature of truth.
Arguably, it is a fair description of what truth should be, but it may not be an
adequate description of how truth actually “works” in human minds and social
situations (Cline, 2007).
Austin Cline argues, it is important to note here that “truth” is not a property of
“facts.” This may seem odd at first, but a distinction must be made between facts and
beliefs. A fact is some set of circumstances in the world while a belief is an opinion
about what those facts are. A fact cannot be either true or false because it simply the
way the world is. A belief, however, is capable of being true or false because it may or
may not accurately describe the world.

2. The Coherence Theory of Truth:

It has already been established that the Correspondence Theory assumes that a
belief is true when we are able to confirm it with reality. In other words, by simply
checking if the statement or belief agrees with the way things really are, we can know
the truth. However, as Austin Cline argues, this manner of determining the truth is
rather odd and simplistic.
Cline said that a belief can be an inaccurate description of reality that may also
fit in with a larger, complex system of further inaccurate descriptions of reality. Thus,
by relying on the Correspondence Theory, that inaccurate belief will still be called
“truth” even though it does not actually describe actual state of things. So how do we
resolve this problem?
In order to know the truth of a statement, it must be tested as part of a larger set
of ideas. Statements cannot be sufficiently evaluated in isolation. For example, if you
pick up a ball and drop it accidentally, the action cannot be simply explained by our
belief in the law of gravity which can be verified but also by a host of other factors that
may have something to do with the incident, such as the accuracy of our visual
perception.
For Cline, only when statements are tested as part of a larger system of complex
ideas, then one might conclude that the statement is “true”. By testing this set of
complex ideas against reality, then one can ascertain whether the statement is “true” or
“false”. Consequently, by using this method, we establish that the statement “coheres”
with the larger system. In a sense, the Coherence Theory is similar to the
Correspondence Theory since both evaluates statements based on their agreement with
reality. The difference lies in the method where the former involves a larger system
while the latter relies on a single evidence of fact.
As a result, Coherence Theories have often been rejected for lacking
justification in their application to other areas of truth, especially in statements or
claims about the natural world, empirical data in general, and assertions about practical

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 matters of psychology and society, especially when they are used without support from
the other major theories of truth.

Coherence theories represent the ideas of rationalist philosophers such as

Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the
British philosopher F.H Bradley. Moreover, this method had its resurgence in the ideas
of several proponents of logical positivism, notably Otto Neurath and Carl Hempel.

3. The Pragmatist Theory of Truth:

The Pragramatic Theory of Truth states that a belief/statement is true if it has a

useful (pragmatic) application in the world. If it does not, then it is not true. In addition,
we can know whether a belief/statement is true by examining the consequence of
holding or accepting the statement/belief to be true. For example, there are some people
who think that there are “ghosts” or “vampires” because they find it useful in explaining
unusual phenomena and in dealing with fears (Mabaquiao, 2016). So, if we are going
to use the word “truth”, we define it as that which is most useful to us.

However, there are objections against this theory of truth. For Austin Cline,
truth that is based on what works is very ambiguous. What happens when a belief
works in one sense but fails in another? Suppose a belief that one will succeed may
give a person the psychological strength needed to accomplish a great deal but in the
end he fails in his ultimate goal. Was his belief “true”?

In this sense, Cline argues that when a belief works, it is more appropriate to
call it useful rather than “true”. A belief that is useful is not necessarily true and in
normal conversations, people do not typically use the word “true” to mean “useful”.

To illustrate, the statement “It is useful to believe that my spouse is faithful”

does not at all mean the same as “It is true that my spouse is faithful.” Granted that true
beliefs are also usually the ones that are useful, but it is not usually the case. As
Nietzsche argued, sometimes untruth may be more useful than truth.
In sum, we can know if statements/beliefs are true if we look at each
statement/belief and determine if they correspond to facts, cohere with the rules of the
system and result into useful application.

It must be noted, however, that Philosophers “continue to argue with each other
on which among these three general methods is the correct one or one that works for
all kinds of statement or beliefs” (Mabaquiao, 59). Nevertheless, it is not necessary to
subscribe to only one method and consider it to work for everyone. Perhaps it is better
to use any of the three methods that is appropriate for any given statement or belief that
is being examined.
Activity 2: Inquire and Discover

Directions: Read and analyze each statement, answer the questions. Write it on a separate
sheet of paper.
1. Read the passage from “Plato’s Allegory of the Cave”
(Critical thinking, Communication, Character)

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 “Some prisoners are chained inside a cave, facing the back wall. Behind them
is a fire, with people passing in front of it. The prisoners cannot turn their heads, and
have always been chained this way. All they can see and hear are shadows passing back
and forth and the echoes bouncing off the wall in front of them. One day, a prisoner is
freed, and dragged outside the cave. He is blinded by the light, confused, and resists
being led outside. But, eventually his eyes adjusts so that he able to see clearly the
things around him, and even the sun itself. He came to realize that the things he thought
were real were merely shadows of real things, and that life outside of the cave is far
better than his previous life in chains. He pities those still inside. He ventures back into
the cave to share his discovery with the others—only to be ridiculed because he can
hardly see (his eyes have trouble at first re-adjusting to the darkness). He tried to free
the other prisoners but they violently resisted (the other prisoners refuse to be freed and
led outside, and they even tried to kill him)”.
(https://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/cvance/allegory)
2. What does this story mean?
3. How does this passage from Plato help you turn your attention toward the right thing
(i.e., truth, beauty, justice and goodness)?

Activity 3: Empiricists vs. Rationalists (Critical Thinking,

Communication)

Directions: Copy the Venn diagram below, write the differences and similarities between how
empiricists and rationalists acquired knowledge.

Empiricists Rationalists

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Activity 4: Theories of Truth (Critical Thinking)
Directions: Identify the different theories of truth on the following statements. Write your
answer on the space provided before the number.

1. There is a water fountain in front of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

2. Bachelors are unmarried men.
3. The sun will rise tomorrow.
4. A dream board is necessary for dreams to come true.
5. What is more important to me at this time is my family.
6. A wooden table is a solid object.
7. Ghost and vampires exist.
8. 2+2=4
9. Cats are animals.
10. The Sky is blue.

Rubric for Scoring

Activity 2: Inquire and Discover
Criteria Rating
Content and ideas are organized in a clear, logical manner. 1 2 3 4 5
The essay directly addresses the topic or issue and provides adequate 1 2 3 4 5
discussion supporting the main idea.
The essay employs standard grammar conventions, proper 1 2 3 4 5
punctuation and proper word choice.
The paper is original and does not contain plagiarized content. 1 2 3 4 5
Total (20 pts)

Activity 3: Empiricists vs. Rationalists (Critical Thinking, Communication)

Criteria Rating
Content and ideas are relevant to the topic. 1 2 3 4 5
Explanation is brief and coherent. 1 2 3 4 5
Answer uses words that are correct in spelling and has minimal 1 2 3 4 5
grammatical error.
Answer is convincing. 1 2 3 4 5
Total (20pts)

Reflection

Directions: Write your answer on a separate sheet of paper (1/2).

1. I learned that
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
2. I enjoyed most on
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

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3. I want to learn more
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

Reference

Roberto D. Abella, M.Div., D.Min. Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person.
Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc., 2016.

Answer Key

Activity 1: Answers may vary

Activity 2: Answers may vary
Activity 3: Answers may vary
Activity 4: Theories of Truth (Critical Thinking)
1. Correspondence 6. Correspondence
2. Coherent 7. Pragmatic
3. Correspondence 8. Coherent
4. Pragmatic 9. Coherent
5. Pragmatic 10. Correspondence

Prepared by:

Rheena-Ann D. Padilla

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