Methods of Philosophizing

Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person

11 STEM

EPISTEMOLOGY
Process of Acquiring Knowledge

Epistemology
- episteme (knowledge) + logos (study of) =
study of knowledge
- a science devoted to the discovery of the
proper method of acquiring and validating
knowledge (Ayn Rand 1990)
Purpose (two-fold)
- to show how we can acquire knowledge.
- to give us a method of demonstrating
whether the knowledge we acquired is
really knowledge.
Knowledge
- A fact or condition of knowing something
with familiarity gained through
experience.
- a “mental grasp of reality reached either
by perceptual observation or by a process
of reason based on perceptual
observation” (Ayn Rand)
★ Thinking is just half of the story of
knowing.
Nature of Knowledge
● Empiricism
○ acquiring knowledge using our
senses
Empiricists:
- John Locke
- George Berkley
- David Hume
1. Reality
a. To know is to know something –
reality, existence
2. Perception
a. Our first and only contact with
reality is through our senses
b. Senses → knowledge → qualities,
quantities, relationships, actions
3. Concept
a. “an abstract or generic idea
generalized from particular
instances” (Merriam-Webster
Dictionary)
4. Proposition
a. a statement that expresses either
an assertion or a denial (Copi,
2002) that an existent belongs to a
class or possesses a certain
attribute
5. Inference
a. An argument expresses a
reasoning process (Hurley 2011).
Validating One’s Knowledge
“the way up [knowledge acquisition] is the
way down [knowledge validation]”
- Heraclitus
Validating one’s knowledge by:
● Senses
● Proof
● Consensus
● Action

● Rationalism
Truth vs. Opinion
○ acquiring knowledge by thinking
with the use of our minds (what
philosophers call the rational Truth
faculty) - knowledge validated and when we say
validated we mean they are based on the
Rationalists: facts of reality.
- Rene Descartes
- Baruch Spinoza ★ Facts of reality are independent of your
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz thoughts, feelings, or preferences
Methods of Philosophizing
Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person
11 STEM

★ Facts
○ statement which are observable to
be real or truthful

Opinion Truth

1. Can’t be confirmed 1. Can be confirmed

2. Open to with other sources
interpretation 2. Independent of
3. Based on emotion one’s interpretation,
4. Inherently biased preferences, and
biases
3. Based on facts of
reality

Theories of Truth

● Correspondence Theory of Truth

○ what we believe or say is true if it
corresponds to the way things
actually are based on the facts or
reality.
● Coherence Theory of Truth
○ statements are tested as part of a
larger system of complex ideas
(Austine Cline)
○ the statement is true or false
based on whether the statement
coheres with the larger system or
not
● Pragmatism Theory of Truth
○ the statement is true if it has a
useful application in the world. If it
does not, then it is not true.