Unit 2.

Epistemology : Knowledge and truth

UNIT 2. EPISTEMOLOGY:
KNOWLEDGE AND TRUTH.

INDEX

1. THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE.

1.1. What is epistemology?
1.2. Concept and degrees of knowledge.

2. TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE.
2.1. Cognitive faculties or processes.
2.2. Abstraction as a basic operation of knowledge.

3. THEORIES ABOUT THE FOUNDATION AND ORIGIN OF

KNOWLEDGE.
3.1. Empiricism and Rationalism.
3.2. Kant's Constructivism.
3.3. Constructivism in current neuroscience.
3.4. Karl Popper's Evolutionary Epistemology.

4. THE TRUTH. TYPES OF TRUTH.

4.1. Truth of facts.
4.2. Truth of propositions.
A) Truth of empirical propositions.
-a) Truth as correspondence.
-b) Truth as coherence.
-c) Truth as utility.
B) Truth of formal propositions.

5. THEORIES ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY AND LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE.

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1. THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE.

1.1.What is epistemology?

Modern epistemology tells us that we live in a kind of Matrix.

Undoubtedly, many times you have wondered if something that you have been told or seen on
television is really true or not, or how you know this or that thing that you have read in a book or on the
Internet. Or you may have even wondered if we can get to know the answer to all our questions, or if, on
the contrary, there are questions that we won’t ever reveal.
There is a branch of philosophy that is responsible for examining all these questions:
epistemology or theory of knowledge. In it, everything related to this concept is studied: what is
understood by knowledge, what are the tools at our disposal to acquire it, and how we can classify the
different types of knowledge and whether or not there are limits to it. Epistemology has a very close
relationship with psychology (the science that studies the mind and behavior).

1.2.Concept and degrees of knowledge.

Knowledge is an explanation of reality that allows us to better understand it: when we know
something, we understand its causes and are able to predict some of its consequences. In this sense,
knowledge (properly speaking) is a way of knowing that can be distinguished from other ways of knowing
or degrees of knowledge. According to Plato, these degrees are:

-Opinion: It is a subjective assessment of which we

cannot say we are sure and that we can’t prove to others. It is
based on our interests, beliefs, desires... but it is not usually
supported by compelling reasons or usually by any type of
reason ("I think that philosophy is a fake. Because yes, because
that’s my opinion, period").

-Belief. We can distinguish two fundamental uses or

types:
• Doubtful use. It expresses that we are not really sure
of the truth of what we claim, although we have important
reasons to claim it (“I believe in God even though I am not entirely sure, because it seems to me an
injustice that a person dies young from an atrocious death and that it's all over for her”).
• Assertive use. In this second case, we speak of belief when we are sure of something, even
though we do not have enough evidence to prove it (“I am completely sure that God exists, because
most people of many different cultures believe in God and it cannot be a chance").
Belief differs from opinion in that it tries to provide more reasons or justifications. Both belief
and opinion are subjective, but belief is somehow more objective than opinion. We can say that belief is
halfway between opinion and knowledge, since it is a matter of degrees.

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-Rational knowledge (logos) or knowledge proper. It is a statement that we are sure of, but that
we can also prove. Being able to rationally justify something (to give reasons) is the characteristic of
knowledge. Thus, a statement ceases to be merely subjective and becomes objectively true knowledge
(acceptable to everyone, not just me). The example that Plato gives is mathematics.

OPINION BELIEF RATIONAL

KNOWLEDGE
Sure - -+ +
Justifiable - - + +
Objective - - +

2. TOOLS OF KNOWLEDGE.

2.1. Cognitive faculties or processes.

Tools of knowledge.

Now we shall determine the instruments we have for knowing the reality that surrounds us:
these tools of knowledge are called cognitive faculties or processes. Among them we can mainly highlight
five: sensation, perception, memory, imagination and thought. Let's see what each of these processes
consists of, as studied by experimental psychology:
-1) Sensation: it is the result of the activation of the organism's sensory organs (sight, hearing,
smell, taste, touch). The sensory organs collect stimuli from the outside (photons, electrons, molecules)
and convert them into electrical discharges, which constitute the nerve impulses that are sent through
the nerves to the brain. Sensation puts us in contact with reality.
-2) Perception: this process takes place in the brain, and allows us to build up mental
representations or images of reality out of the data provided by senses. Perception organizes and
interprets sensory data, thus configuring a unitary and coherent image of the external object. This is so
because we do not perceive isolated sensations, but rather we build a total image - called "percept" -
that groups and combines what would be simple data, such as smells, colors, shapes, etc.
-3) Memory: if perception allows us to create more or less faithful mental images of reality,
memory enables us to retain and remember them in the future. This ability to retain experiences from
the past enables both learning and our continuity and identity as persons. However, over time, the

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imprint left by our experiences can be diluted, so that memory becomes impossible. Then there is
forgetfulness, the inability to retrieve information stored in memory.
-4) Imagination: it is the ability to reproduce images (in this sense, it is closely related to
perception and memory), but above all to modify and create new ones with greater freedom and
spontaneity. Therefore, we can state that there are two types of imagination or that it has two functions:
reproductive, when it tries to represent reality (images that recreate landscapes, objects, or known
people, for example); and creative or fantastic, when it creates, invents or anticipates new images, in
such a way that it recreates a different world from the real one (images of fictional beings, idealization of
people, etc.).
-5) Thought: it covers a set of complex mental operations such as:
• reason: the ability to draw up logical and coherent arguments to explain reality,
• analysis: the ability to break down a problem or situation into its various elements,
• synthesis: the ability to gather and relate elements of various situations,
• induction or generalization: the ability to draw up general statements from particular cases and
• abstraction or concept formation: it is the ability to build up concepts, that is to say, abstract
ideas such as "apple", "tree", "humanity", "justice", etc ... It is the most basic operation of
thought.

2.2. Abstraction as a basic operation of knowledge.

In general, it is considered that knowledge of reality begins with the experience or sensory data
we receive from this one. Now, sensory experience necessarily takes place at a specific time and place,
and what we perceive is something concrete: this tree, this table, this person... That is, sensation and
perception always refer to something particular.
However, from the knowledge of a particular case or cases we can aspire to a more general
knowledge with the pretense of objectivity (so we will be able to affirm not only: "this horse is a
mammal", but also: "all horses are mammals"). How is this possible? Thanks to the mental operation that
we know as abstraction. By abstracting, we "purge" a knowledge of its particular or circumstantial
aspects.
For example, we are abstracting if, when observing many concrete trees, we do the mental
operation of not taking into account (that is, abstracting, eliminating) the different shades of colors that
we have detected in them, the different sizes that we have looked at, the various forms of leaves that we
have found, the types of fruits that we have seen in them, etc. This abstraction is essential to know what
a tree is, that is to say, to know what is common to all the trees in the world and what distinguishes
every tree from the rest of the world.

Particular trees Abstract tree (concept)

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3. THEORIES ABOUT THE FOUNDATION AND ORIGINS OF KNOWLEDGE.

3.1. Empiricism and Rationalism.

Aristotle Locke Plato Descartes Kant Popper

Philosophers discuss whether to locate the basis of knowledge in the data provided by the
senses, or if, on the contrary, the foundation of human knowledge must lie with reason. This has led to
two opposing theories:

-1) Empiricism: empiricists (Aristotle, Locke) argue that knowledge must always start from the
experience of the senses and rely on it, if you do not want to get lost in speculations and fantasies. For
an empiricist, the most obvious truth would be some sensation that I was experiencing at the time (eg, "I
am cold"). Therefore, the foundation and origin of knowledge is experience.
According to the empiricists, at birth our mind is a tabula rasa, that is, a blank page. Since we are
born and as we have experiences we begin to copy content in our mind, and by associating with each
other we acquire knowledge. Therefore, empiricists reject that there are innate ideas: for them, there
are only acquired or learned ideas.

-2) Rationalism: rationalists (Plato, Descartes) argue that, as the senses are not always reliable, it
is reason and not experience the only one that can constitute a solid foundation for knowledge . Because
of that, a rationalist understands that the truths we can know more clearly and evidently are always
those that our reason recognizes (2 + 2 = 4, for example).
Rationalists understand that our mind has got knowledge from birth. Thus, according to them,
not all of our ideas come from learning through experience, but most of them are innate, that is, they are
found in our minds at birth.

The controversy between the two positions was of great importance in the philosophical
discussion of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and still continues today. For example, there are
empiricist biologists and psychologists who consider that the human being is not born with any innate
knowledge and must learn everything throughout life; on the contrary, there are rationalistic biologists
and psychologists for whom the human being is born with many innate mental abilities.
But there is a third position that seeks to overcome and synthesize the previous two:
constructivism, whose two main representatives are the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Karl Popper.
The foundation and origin of knowledge is the sum of experience and reason, and knowledge is made up
of ideas or concepts built from the experience of senses and a few innate ideas.

EMPIRICISM RATIONALISM CONSTRUCTIVISM

(Aristotle, Locke) (Plato, Descartes) (Kant, Popper)

Foundation and origins Experience Reason Experience

of knowledge (of senses) + Reason

Contents Acquired (or learned) Innate ideas Constructed ideas

of knowledge ideas mainly or concepts,
through experience +
innate ideas or concepts.

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3.2. Kant’s constructivism.

Kantian constructivism scheme.

With the intention of overcoming the antagonism between the empiricist and rationalist
positions, in the last third of the 18th century Immanuel KANT tried to formulate an explanation that
would collect the most valid aspects of both. Even today, in the 21st century, Kant's theory --known as
constructivism-- has not been largely overcome, although it still has quite a few critics. According to Kant,
the foundation and origin of knowledge is both the experience of senses as well as a few innate ideas or
concepts (fourteen, in total) that he calls "a priori forms" and that are necessary to organize the data of
senses. The contents of our knowledge are ideas or concepts built by our mind, from the experience of
the senses and the 14 innate ideas or concepts. In the process of knowledge, three human faculties work
simultaneously: sensitivity, understanding and reason.

-Sensitivity (or Sensation): In order to achieve knowledge, we need to receive data or external
stimuli through our senses. Without these ones we cannot discover anything new and, therefore, we
cannot achieve any knowledge, because knowing is reaching new information, something that was
hidden from us.
Now, any sensory data that comes to us from outside our mind is located at a point in space and
at a moment in time. Thus, sensitivity is the faculty that:
• Collects data or external stimuli.
• Places these data in a specific space and time. Space and time are innate concepts that exist
within our mind since we are born: Kant calls them “a priori forms of sensibility”. We cannot say that
space and time exist in the real world, but only that our mind creates them so as to place inside them the
stimuli we capture through our senses.

-Understanding (Perception + Abstraction): The data or stimuli that our sensitivity captures are
completely disjointed and disordered. For example, when we see a tree, our sensitivity receives many
stimuli at the same time: the multiple parts that make up the tree, their shapes and sizes, the
connections between them, the colors, the points of light, etc. Therefore, another faculty is necessary to
create a synthesis, that is, that can group and organize this chaotic diversity of stimuli. The synthesis
process is like putting together a puzzle made up of thousands of pieces, each one being a stimulus. Kant

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calls this synthesis an empirical concept or phenomenon ("empirical" means that it comes from
experience): the tree that we perceive is an empirical concept. In today's psychology and neuroscience,
we speak of "mental representation".
This capacity for understanding is due to the fact that it works through ideas or concepts that it
already has since we are born and that all human beings share: Kant calls them “a priori forms of
understanding” or categories. Categories are innate concepts, that is, we have not learned them (unlike
other concepts such as "tree", "cat", "house", etc.), and they help us to order and structure the
information collected by our senses.
For example, one of the categories of understanding (there are 12 in total) is that of substance
or object: thanks to it we can perceive reality as formed by different objects, each object being a solid,
stable, permanent substance with edges which delimit it. Likewise, we can establish cause and effect
relationships between phenomena thanks to the category of causality, that is, the innate idea that
everything that happens has a cause. If we did not have the innate categories of substance and causality,
we wouldn’t be able to distinguish some objects from others (for example, we would think that a table is
the same object as the ground that supports it), or we would not understand that putting the hand into
the fire is the cause why we’re burnt. In short, without innate categories we could not know anything.

-Reason (Thought): For Kant, reason is a faculty of the human mind that leads us to constantly ask
why. As the chain of successive "whys" tends to become infinite, and our reason cannot think infinity,
this leads us to create what Kant calls "metaphysical ideas"; that is, ideas that do not have their origin in
experience, but to which humans inevitably resort for explaining reality. Such ideas are mainly three: the
idea of Soul (which tries to explain why we are rational beings), the idea of God (which tries to explain
why we exist and what will happen to us after death) and the idea of Freedom (which tries to explain
why we can choose and make decisions). Kant concludes that there can be no knowledge about these
metaphysical entities, since they do not have their origin in experience. Therefore, reason can neither
affirm nor deny its existence. But it is inevitable to think about them.
In conclusion, Kant states that rationalists and empiricists were partially right and wrong: since
there is no knowledge without experience, as the empiricists argued, but without the a priori forms
(innate ideas or concepts of sensitivity and understanding) knowledge it's not posible either. Human
beings build their own knowledge of the world with the help of both sensory experience and a priori
forms. This knowledge of the world, formed by what Kant called "empirical phenomenons" and today we
call "mental representations", is not a simple copy of the world but a construction of our mind.
For empiricists, on the other hand, our knowledge of the world is a mere copy of it and not a
construction, a copy that we acquire thanks to our experience throughout our lives. For rationalists, our
knowledge of the world is also a copy, though it is innate and inherited rather than having been learned.
We can claim that today, in the 21st century, Kant's constructivism is the dominant theory in
epistemology, as well as in psychology and neurosciences. However, it continues to coexist with
empiricist and rationalist positions more or less nuanced.

Developmental psychology has experimentally studied whether

infants possess the innate concepts or "a priori forms" that
Kant spoke of. The psychologist Eleanor Gibson used the so-
called "visual cliff," consisting of a table covered with a floor-
length checkered tablecloth, which is also covered with the
same checkered pattern. A transparent glass surface extends
above the table and the floor. Children between 6 and 14
months do not dare to crawl on top of the glass, on the part
that reveals the ground, even when their mothers call to them
from the other side. The visual cliff results indicate that the
keys to space and depth are well established shortly after birth, and are probably innate as Kant pointed

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out.

Psychologists have found that children come into the world with a basic understanding of what
objects are and how they behave, but, at the same time, that understanding is incomplete and, on those
foundations, it is fulfilled thanks to the maturation of the brain. In one experiment, 3-month-old babies
watched one ball go towards another, but the second ball moved before the first ball hit it. For babies,
as for adults, this action at a distance is surprising because it violates the cause and effect relationship
(the movement of an object must be caused by another object colliding with it). In the experiment, the
babies stared at the balloon that was moving by itself and sucked more times on its pacifier, which was
a sign that they were surprised. This indicates that infants understand the concept of causality very
early, and that it is probably innate.

3.3. Constructivism in current neuroscience.

An important thing that Kant points out is that human beings do not know what the world really
is like, but only how we perceive it. Beginning with the data of our senses, our understanding applies the
categories to them and builds empirical concepts, that is, the mental image of a table, a tree, a house,
etc., and this is the only thing we perceive, not the objects themselves. Current psychology and
neuroscience have proved Kant right: we do not directly perceive the objects of the world, but the mental
representations of those objects constructed by our brains. That is, I do not see directly this table, this
sheet of paper, this room, etc. What I see are mental images or representations that only exist inside my
brain, and that are a more or less faithful copy of the objects of the outside world. We can say that, as in
the film Matrix, we do not perceive the real world but a virtual world or simulation created by our brain .
How can we know, then, that there is a real world outside of our mind? And if that real world exists, how
can we know that our mental representations resemble it?
Current philosophy turns to physics and neuroscience so as to answer these questions. In the
first place, we assume that there is an external world because there must be something that is the cause
of our mental representations: that cause is external stimuli, which are elementary particles (atoms,
photons, electrons) that impact on our sense organs. For example, sunbeams, which are made up of
photons or light energy, bounce off a tree and reach our eyes. The cells of the eye’s retina convert the
energy of sunbeams into nerve signals or impulses, which travel through the optic nerve to the brain.
The brain interprets the nerve signals from the eye, and builds a mental image or representation of the
tree.
In short, our senses convert external stimuli into nerve signals that reach our brain, and with
these signals our brain constructs amazing mental images of the world in color and 3D.

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3.4. Karl Popper's Evolutionary Epistemology.

And how do we know that mental images constructed by our
brain accurately reflect what the world is like? Here Darwin's theory
of evolution helps us to give an answer, and together with Kant's
theory it sets up the so-called Evolutionary Epistemology, developed
by the physicist and philosopher Karl Popper (20th century).
According to this important thinker, humans and animals have to build
mental images (that is, a virtual reality or simulation) of the world that
are adaptive, because otherwise we would have already become
extinct. If our perception of the world were a simple hallucination, we
could not find the food and resources we need, nor could we escape
predators and other dangers. So even if our image of the world is not
exactly the same as the real world, it does have to be reliable enough
to allow us to survive and have offspring.
And it is also necessary that, as Kant said, from our birth we
Orrorin (7 million years ago) have a series of innate concepts, inherited from our ancestors: the a
priori forms of time, space, substance or object, causality, etc. Thanks
to these innate concepts, we can organize and make sense of the immense amount of stimuli that our
senses receive, grouping them as objects located in a space and a time.
Natural selection favored those animals that tested, by one means or another, the possible
behaviors that they could adopt before executing them. For example, if an ape like Orrorin (6 million
years ago) had to climb down from a tree and cross a stretch of savanna on foot before reaching a tree
with food, he could first mentally rehearse the behavior he was going to perform. Rather than just
launching himself into the open, he was looking closely around the tree, looking for any sign of
predators. Then he mentally calculated the distance to the other tree and how long it might take him to
cover it. Then he imagined the possible options he could choose if a predator appeared, such as a lion or
a saber-toothed tiger: he could go back to the same tree, get into the river, or run faster to the next tree.
Only if the ape perceived and knew its environment realistically, without illusions or deceptions, did he
have any chance of surviving and passing his genes on to offspring. In short, today we can know reality
because we have inherited from our ancestors a mind capable of knowing and reflecting on reality,
having been favored by natural selection.

Popper's constructivism, which combines Kant and Darwin, claims that our senses can inform us
about the real world because evolution has endowed us with a priori and innate knowledge, which we
carry in our genes. Ultimately, we can be reasonably sure that we perceive and know the world around

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us in a reliable, but far from exact, way. Otherwise, we would have already become extinct. Ultimately,
our minds create a simulation of virtual reality, but this has to be similar enough to true reality just to
allow us to survive and pass our genes on to our offspring. So, yes, we live in a kind of Matrix built by our
brains, but this Matrix is not a simple hallucination.

Matrix

4. THE TRUTH. TYPES OF TRUTH.

The concept of "truth" is polysemic, that is, it has several meanings. We consider that there are
facts and objects that are true or authentic (true mother, true pearls). But, also, we consider that our
statements or propositions can be true or false. In "It is true that Mary and John went to the movies", "It
is true that 3 + 2 is 5", the truth applies to a sentence and not to a fact. For this reason, we are going to
distinguish two types of truth: truth of facts and truth of propositions.

4.1. Truth of facts.

For many philosophers, it is necessary to distinguish between authentic reality, the objects and
facts of the world as they really are (for example, what a poppy is really like), and apparent reality, the
way this reality appears or manifests (for example, the poppy is red for us and purple for bees).
The distinction between reality and appearance has been the subject of a long controversy in the
history of philosophy. However, the conception that considers that appearances are concealments of
reality has prevailed. Things are not as they seem (objects do not get smaller when moved away, a cane
does not bend when submerged in water...). Appearances deceive us and hide the true reality, because
they do not let us see how things really are.
According to this conception, truth is identified with authentic reality, in opposition to apparent
reality; that is to say, true facts are the authentic facts as opposed to the apparent or misleading ones.
Therefore, the search for truth is understood as a process of unveiling the authentic reality.

In the physical realm, we can say that appearance is the world as we perceive it. For example, the park with
trees in the photo on the left is just appearance, as it is how it appears to us human beings as a mental image in
our brain (or, in Kant's terms, as an “empirical concept”). But the authentic reality --as the physicist Arthur

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Eddington said-- is hidden behind appearance and is invisible to us, although it probably looks a lot like the photo
on the right: a cloud of billions of elementary particles (atoms, photons, neutrons, electrons…) spinning dizzily in a
vacuum at speeds close to that of light. Authentic reality has no colors, flavors, odors, shapes or texture, and it is
not even solid and stable as it is in a continuous shifting.

In the psychological field, many agree with modern cognitive neuroscience in that our consciousness and
mental states (perception, memory, imagination, thought) are actually neurological processes: that is, vast sets of
neurons that fire simultaneously and produce signals or nerve impulses, which are electrochemical discharges that
transmit information. Our mental states (perceptions, images, memories, thoughts, feelings and so on) would be a
mere appearance, and the authentic reality is that of our neurons.

In the social and cultural sphere, ideas and beliefs are only appearances. For example, why is it forbidden
to kill and eat beef in India? The usual explanation is that the cause is the Hindu belief that cows are sacred
animals. But, as Marvin Harris has pointed out, this explanation explains nothing, because the belief in the
sacredness of cows is mere appearance. The real reality is that cows are used as a traction vehicle to pull carts and
plows, making them essential to India's agricultural economy. Therefore, ideologies and beliefs do not explain
things, as they are only appearances; the real reality is the mode of production, which is material , such as farming
with plows drawn by cattle in India.

4.2. Truth of propositions.

Aristotle Hegel W. James

Truth is not only attributed to reality, but, above all, to the claims we make about it. Thus
understood, truth would be a property that our propositions can have. Now, we can differentiate two
types of propositions, so we can also distinguish two types or classes of truth:

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-Empirical propositions: they affirm or deny something about the world. They have empirical
content, which can be contrasted with experience. For example, "The Ebro passes through Zaragoza" or
"Tobacco produces cancer."
-Formal propositions: they have no empirical content. They say nothing about the world, but
about the relationships between symbols. For example, "3 squared is 9" or "In a plane, a line is the
shortest distance between two points". Number "pi", the straight line or the square do not exist in the
real world, but are only formal symbols; thus, we cannot say: “This weekend I met number 'pi' walking
down the street”, or “the other day, at the entrance of the institute, I came across a square, not a square
object, but the Square of geometry".

-A) Truth of empirical propositions.

Regarding the truth of propositions that affirm something about the facts of the world, there are
several theories:
-1. Correspondence theory. It considers that a proposition is true when there is an adequacy
between what the proposition expresses and the reality it refers to. For example, "Maria and John went
to the movies" is a true statement if Maria and John went to the movies, and it is false if they didn't. The
first person to propose this theory was Aristotle. However, although this theory is very intuitive and
common sense, it cannot say what exactly this correspondence between language and reality consists of.
-2. Theory of coherence. It considers that a proposition is true if it does not contradict the rest of
the accepted or considered as true propositions. For example, the proposition "If you continue walking
to the horizon, you will reach the end of the world" is false because it contradicts many true propositions
(for example, "The Earth is round"). The philosopher who proposed this theory was Hegel.
-3. Utility theory. It considers that a proposition is true if its implementation has positive results;
On the other hand, a false proposition is one whose consequences are negative. Thus, a true theory
about AIDS will be one that allows to cure it. William James was the main author of this theory.

THEORIES ABOUT THE TRUTH OF PROPOSITIONS

-1) Correspondence theory: true propositions correspond to facts. "The cat is on the mat" is a true proposition
because there is a cat on the mat:

-2) Theory of coherence: true propositions are coherent with each other. "The cat is on the mat" is a true
proposition because it is consistent or does not contradict other true propositions:

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- 3) Utility theory: true propositions are those that "work". "The cat is on the
mat" is a true proposition because it is useful to me, because it allows me to
know, among other things, that:
- To kill the mouse in the kitchen, I must look for the cat on the mat.
- It's time to feed the cat.
- If I want to use the mat, I have to remove the cat.
- I can't burn the mat because the cat is on it.
- If the mat is so heavy, it is because the cat is on it.
Etc.

Which of these theories of truth is correct? Most philosophers think that all three theories are
correct, depending on the case. Many empirical propositions are accepted because they correspond to
reality (for example, "the Earth revolves around the Sun"). But many other empirical propositions of
science and philosophy are accepted because they are coherent and useful, and not because we know
that they correspond with reality. For example, quantum thermodynamics is accepted because it is
consistent with thermodynamics and quantum physics, and because it is useful as it enables us to
understand many physical phenomena. Kant's constructivist epistemology is accepted because it is
consistent with current neuroscience and psychology, and because it is useful for understanding how we
perceive and know the world.
It is important to be clear about the distinction between factual truths and propositional truths.
In general, the "factual truth" can be replaced by the term "authentic"; instead, the "truth of
propositions" can be replaced by the term "true." For example, if we say "the evolution of species is
true", we are stating a factual truth; if we say "Darwin's theory of evolution is true," we are stating a
truth of propositions. This is so because the evolution of species is a fact, while Darwin's theory of
evolution is a theory or a systematic set of propositions.

-B) Truth of formal propositions.

Since formal propositions do not say anything about reality, their truth cannot consist in the
correspondence with it or in the usefulness of its application. Thus, in formal propositions, the only
meaning that truth can have is as coherence. A proposition like "3 squared is 9" can only be true if it does
not contradict the rest of the accepted propositions in mathematics. For example, "3 + 4 = 7" is a true
proposition because it does not contradict the propositions "4 + 3 = 7", "7 - 4 = 3", "7 - 3 = 4", "(3x1) +
(4x1) = (7x1)”, etc.

5. THEORIES ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY AND LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE.

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Descartes Pyrrho of Elis Kant Protagoras Nietzsche

There are several theories or positions that have been made on the possibility and limits of
knowledge:
-1) Dogmatism: It is the philosophical position according to which we can acquire absolute and
definitive knowledge, with absolute certainty. In addition, it defends the possibility of getting to know
everything. This is the most optimistic attitude within philosophy. One of the philosophers who has been
considered dogmatic, in this sense, is the rationalist philosopher Descartes.
-2) Skepticism. It is the opposite position to dogmatism. It denies that any kind of knowledge is
possible. There is nothing that we can know with a minimum of certainty or certainty . Pyrrho of Elis (3rd
century BC) is considered the first skeptic.
-3) Criticism. It is an intermediate position between dogmatism and skepticism. For critical
thinkers, like Kant, knowledge is possible (unlike what skeptics claim). However, this is not
unquestionable and definitive (as argued by dogmatists), but rather it is provisional and must be
continually reviewed and criticized to detect possible errors.
-4) Relativism. It is the position that denies the existence of a valid truth at any time and place.
For this reason, it rejects the claim of objective and universal knowledge, and considers that there are
only particular and valid opinions in a given social, cultural and historical context. The sophist Protagoras
(5th-4th centuries BC) is considered one of the creators of relativism.
-5) Perspectivism. Although it has several aspects in common with relativism, it differs in a
fundamental one: it does not deny the existence of an objective and universal truth. According to
perspectivism, each subject or each group of subjects knows from a particular point of view or
perspective; therefore, she has a partial vision of reality. This vision is not false and, furthermore, it is
irreplaceable, because every perspective captures an important aspect of reality. Thus, all perspectives
are partially true, and the union of all of them would be the universal truth . Nietzsche was the main
defender of this theory.
Which of these five theories is correct? Many philosophers and scientists today consider that the
most valid positions are criticism and perspectivism. Dogmatism does not correspond to reality: sciences
can also make mistakes and often revise their theories. Skepticism and relativism are contradictory: if we
cannot know anything, then neither can we know that we do not know anything; if all knowledge is
relative, then saying that "all knowledge is relative" is also relative. Only criticism and perspectivism are
coherent and also seem to correspond with reality.

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There is a traditional tale from India that illustrates very well what perspectivism is: the tale of the six blind
men and the elephant. Let's see it.

Once upon a time there were six wise men who lived in a small village. All six were blind. One day someone
brought an elephant to the village. Faced with such a situation, the six men looked for a way to know what an
elephant was like, since they could not see it.
"I know", one of them said. "Let's feel it!"
"Good idea," the others said. "So we will know what an elephant is like".
Said and done. The first touched one of the elephant's large ears. He was slowly touching her back and
forth.
"The elephant is like a great fan", the first sage said.
The second, feeling the elephant's legs, exclaimed: "It's like a tree trunk!"
"You are both wrong," said the third sage, and after examining the elephant's tail, he exclaimed: "The
elephant is like a rope!"
Just then, the fourth sage who was feeling the fangs bellowed:
"The elephant is like a spear!"
"Nerd!" The fifth sage shouted. "It is like a rock" (the fifth sage had been feeling the elephant's side).
The sixth sage waited until the end and, holding the elephant's trunk in his hand, he said: "You are all
wrong, the elephant is like a snake".
"Nerd. Like a rope".
"Snake".
"A rock".
"You are wrong!"
"I'm right!"
"No!"
The six men praised each other in endless discussion for hours, not agreeing on what the elephant was like.

Who was right and who was wrong? Well, they were all right in part, and all were wrong in thinking that
each part was the whole. Each of the blind men perceived the elephant from their perspective, and if the six had
shared their perspectives they would have discovered the truth: “The elephant is at the same time like a great fan,
a tree trunk, a rope, a spear, a rock and a snake; because the elephant consists of six different parts, each one of
being like one of these objects”.

Neurobiological perspective: brain. Psychological perspective: mind.

For example, in the study of mind and brain there are two apparently contradictory perspectives:
the neurobiological one, according to which our mental processes (remembering, thinking, imagining,
etc.) are nothing more than brain processes; and the psychological one, for which mental processes have
a subjective quality that makes them different from brain processes.
Which of the two perspectives is correct? According to perspectivism, the two positions are
partially true, only that they approach the question from two different perspectives. Neurobiology takes
the perspective of the Third Person (it looks at the brain from outside, through surgery or scans), while
psychology takes the perspective of the First Person (it looks at the brain from inside and not from

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 Unit 2. Epistemology : Knowledge and truth

outside, that is, the brain itself observes itself). Universal and objective truth would be the union of both
perspectives: the mind is just the brain as seen in the first person, and the brain is just the mind as seen
in the third person.
According to criticism, this universal and objective truth is not an absolute and definitive
truth, but only provisional and approximate. "Universal truth" is not the same as "absolute truth": a
universal truth is one that is valid for all human beings, while an absolute truth is not only valid for all
human beings but also definitive and perfect, unquestionable and with a probability of certainty of one
hundred percent, so it does not need the slightest correction or revision. Criticism denies that there are
absolute truths, but it does not deny the existence of universal truths, which are not perfect but simply
the best explanations available to us up to date. With each new discovery these truths must be corrected,
revised and modified. For example, the theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin had many successes,
but also mistakes and shortcomings (such as the lack of a theory of heredity), which were later corrected
by the so-called synthetic theory of evolution or neo-Darwinism.

Darwin and evolution.

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