INTRO TO PHILO MODULE 2.

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.

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 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:
Source:https://www.shutterstock. c

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 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.

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 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.
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.
Perception

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.

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

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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 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).
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 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
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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”.
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

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 2. Can be confirmed with other sources
3. Independent of one’s interpretation, preferences and biases

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.”

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.

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 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 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.