PD 304-

PHILOSOPHICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF
EDUCATION
Edward Haze Dayag
PhD Student
Activity

•Identify the image that you

can see in the picture.
What can you see in the picture?
What can you see in the picture?
What can you see in the picture?
Theory of Knowledge
and Unique
Contributions of
Philosophers
 EPISTEMOLOGY
• From Greek word episteme “knowledge and logos “reason”.
• The study of nature and scope of knowledge and justified belief.
• The study of our method of acquiring knowledge
• The study of how knowledge is relates to truth, belief and justification.
• It investigate the origin, nature, method and limits of human
knowledge.
Focus of discussion:

A. Skepticism
B. Sources of Knowledge
C. The Definition of Knowledge
D. Truth, Justification and Relativism
E. Scientific Knowledge
A. Skepticism
Philosophical Skepticism- it views that there are grounds
for doubting claims that we typically take for granted.
 Kinds of Skepticism
• Limited Skepticism- focuses on a particular claim, such as the belief that
God exists, or that there is a universal standard of morality, or that there is
intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
• Radical Skepticism- which maintains that all of our beliefs are subject to
doubt. For any belief that we propose, we cannot know with certainty
whether that belief is true or false.
 Kinds of Skepticism
• Pyrrhonian skepticism- inspired by the ancient
Greek philosopher Pyrrho (c.365-c.275 BCE). While
Pyrrho wrote nothing, through his teachings he started
a skeptical tradition whose aim was to suspend belief
on every possible issue. The Pyrrhonian position is
this: for any so called fact about the world, there are
countless ways of interpreting it, none of which we
can prefer above another; we should thus suspend
belief about the nature of that thing.
 Kinds of Skepticism
• Humean skepticism- defended by the Scottish
philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). According
to this view, the human reasoning process is
inherently flawed, and this undermines all claims
to know something. The problem is that when we
list the reasons for our various beliefs about the
world, we'll find that many of the explanations
are contradictory.
 Kinds of Skepticism
• Cartesian skepticism- named after French
philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650). On this
view, our entire understanding of the world may
just be an illusion, and this possibility casts doubt
on any knowledge claim that we might make.
B. Sources of Knowledge
( A Priori and A Posteriori)
 Two Types of Knowledge
A Posteriori (Experiential Knowledge)

• knowledge through experience: seeing something,

hearing about something, feeling something. This goes
by the Latin term a posteriori which literally means
knowledge that is posterior to, or after experience.
 Kinds of Experiential Knowledge
• Sensory Perception- Each of our five senses is like a door to the outside
world; when we throw them open, we are flooded with an endless variety of sights,
sounds, textures, smells and tastes.
• For instance, when I look at a cow in front of me and say "I know that it is white,"
the source of this knowledge rests upon my visual perception of the white cow.
While sensory perception is perhaps the dominant source of
experiential knowledge, it immediately raises a critical question: when I look at a
cow, do I perceive the actual cow itself, or just a mental copy of it that is processed
through my visual system?
 Kinds of Experiential Knowledge
• Introspection- involves directly experiencing our own mental states. Introspection is
like a sixth sense that looks into the most intimate parts of our minds, which allows us to
inspect how we are feeling and how our thoughts are operating.
• For instance, if I go to my doctor complaining of an aching back, she'll ask me to describe my
pain. Through introspection I then might report, "Well, it’s a sharp pain that starts right here
and stops right here." The doctor herself cannot directly experience what I do and must rely
on my introspective description. Like sensory perception, the problem with introspection is
that it is not always reliable. When surveying my mental states, I may easily misdescribe my
feelings, such as mistaking a feeling of disappointment for a feeling of frustration. Other
mental states seem to defy any clear descriptions at all, such as feelings of love or happiness.
 Kinds of Experiential Knowledge

• Memory- Our memory is like a recording device that captures events

that I experience more or less in the order that they occur.
• For example, I might wrongly recollect that there's pizza in the refrigerator,
completely forgetting that I ate it all last night. Also, sometimes
overbearing people like police investigators can make us think that we
remember something that never happened. And then there is the
phenomenon of deja vu, the feeling that we've encountered something
before when we really haven't.
 Kinds of Experiential Knowledge
•Testimony of other people- This is particularly so with word-of-mouth testimonies, where we're
often sloppy in the accounts that we convey to others. Testimonies from written sources are usually
more reliable than oral sources, but much depends on the integrity of the author, publisher, and the
methods of fact-gathering. With oral or written sources, the longer the chain of testimony is, the
greater the chance is of error creeping in.
•Take, for example, my knowledge that George Washington was the first U.S. president. Since
Washington died centuries before I was born, I could not know this through direct sensory perception.
Instead, I rely on the statements in history books. The authors of those books, in turn, rely on accounts
from earlier records, and eventually it traces back to the direct experience of eyewitnesses who
personally knew George Washington. A large portion of our knowledge rests on testimony, facts about
people we've never seen our places we've never been to. While it is convenient for us to trust the
testimony of others, the problem is that there is often a high likelihood of error.
 Kinds of Experiential Knowledge

• Extrasensory Perception, or ESP for short. For example, you might telepathically
access my mind and know what I am thinking. Or, through clairvoyance, you might be
aware of an event taking place far away without seeing it or hearing about it. If ESP actually
worked, we might indeed classify it among the other sources of experiential knowledge. But
does it? Typical studies into ESP involve subjects guessing symbols on cards that are hidden
from view. If the subject does better than a chance percentage, this is presumed to be
evidence of ESP. However, the most scientifically rigorous experiments of this sort have
failed to produce anything better than a chance percentage. While we regularly hear rumors
of people having ESP, we have little reason to take them seriously. The safe route, then,
would be to leave ESP off the list of sources of experiential knowledge.
 Two Types of Knowledge
A Priori (Non-Experiential Knowledge)
• There is knowledge that does not come from experience, but perhaps instead is
intuitively supplied from reason itself, such as logical and mathematical truths.
This is called a priori knowledge, which, from Latin, literally means knowledge
that is prior to experience.
• Some philosophers depict it as knowledge that flows from human reason itself,
unpolluted by experience.
• We presumably gain access to this knowledge through rational insight.
Categories of Non-Experiential Knowledge
• Mathematics
• Take, for example, 2+2=4. Indeed, I might learn from experience that two
apples plus two more apples will give me four apples. Nevertheless, I can
grasp the concept itself without relying on any apples. I can also expand
on the notion in ways that I could never experience, such as with the
equation 2,000,000 + 2,000,000 = 4,000,000.
 Non-Experiential Knowledge
• Statements known by definition:
-All bachelors are unmarried men.
-A sister is a female sibling.
-Red is a color.
Categories of Non-Experiential Knowledge
• Deductive Arguments:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
When we strip this argument of all its empirical parts – men, mortality and
Socrates – the following structure is revealed:
 Two Concepts of Non-Experiential
Knowledge
Necessity
• non-experiential truths are necessary in that they could never be
false, regardless of how differently the world was constructed.
Analytic Statement
• a statement that becomes self-contradictory if we deny it.
 Other Source of Knowledge
Rationalism
VS Empiricism
 C. THE DEFINITION OF
KNOWLEDGE
The contemporary philosophers defined it as justified true belief,
often abbreviated as "JTB". The crucial point about this
definition is that all three components must be present: if any
one of the three is absent, then it does not count as knowledge.
 Three Key Elements to Knowledge

TRUE
• First is that a statement must be true if we claim to know it.
• Knowledge goes beyond in our personal feelings on the matter and
involves the truth of things as they actually are.
• A critic of the JTB definition of knowledge might question whether truth
is always necessary in our claim to know something.
 Three Key Elements to Knowledge

BELIEVE
• Second, I must believe the statement in order to know it.
• Part of the concept of knowledge involves our personal belief convictions
about some fact.
• A critic of the JTB definition of knowledge might argue that belief is not
always required for our claims to know something.
 Three Key Elements to Knowledge

JUSTIFIED
• Third, I must be justified in believing the statement insofar as there must
be good evidence in support of it.
• We would need some evidence for the claim.
• A critic might question whether evidence is really needed for knowledge.
 Gettier Problem
• He argued that there are some situations in
which we have justified true belief, but which
do not count as knowledge. This was dubbed
"The Gettier Problem" and discussions of it
quickly dominated philosophical accounts of
knowledge. Gettier's actual illustrations of the
problem are complex, but a simpler example
makes the same point.
• Again, the point of this counterexample is to show that some
instances of justified true belief do not count as genuine
knowledge. This suggests that the traditional JTB definition of
knowledge is seriously flawed.
• The Gettier problem is a reminder that knowledge is as much
about attitude as it is about our access to the reality of things.
D. TRUTH, JUSTIFICATION
AND RELATIVISM
 Truth
• The concept of truth has many possible meanings. We talk about
having true friends, owning a true work of art, or someone being
a true genius. In all of these cases the word "true" means genuine or
authentic. In philosophy, though, the notion of truth is restricted to
statements or beliefs about the world, such as the statement that "My car
is white" or "Paris is the capital of France". While we all have gut feelings
about what it means for a statement to be true, philosophers have been
particularly interested in arriving at a precise definition of truth.
 Theories of Truth
• Correspondence theory: a statement is true if it corresponds to fact or reality. This is the
most commonsensical way of looking at the notion of truth and is how standard
dictionaries often define the concept. . A true statement simply reflects the way things
really are.
• Coherence theory, which aims to address the shortcomings of the correspondence
theory. According to the coherence theory, a statement is true if it coheres with a larger
set of beliefs. Rather than attempting to match up our statements with the actual world
of facts, we instead try to see if our statements mesh with a larger web of beliefs that
support them.
• Deflationary theory of truth: to assert that a statement is true is just to assert the
statement itself. 
 Theories of Justification
• Foundationalism. On this view, our justified beliefs are arranged like bricks in a
wall, with the lower ones supporting the upper ones. These lowest bricks are called
• Coherentism: justification is structured like a web where the strength of any given
area depends on the strength of the surrounding areas. Thus, my belief that my car is
white is justified by a web of related beliefs, “basic beliefs”, and the ones they
support are “non-basic” beliefs.
• Reliabilism: justified beliefs are those that are the result of a reliable process, such as
a reliable memory process or a reliable perception process. It is sometimes called an
“external” theory of justification since it depends on factors external to the
believer’s understanding.
 Relativism
• Twice so far the issue of relativism has raised its ugly head, and how we
assess theories of truth and justification hinges greatly on how we feel
about relativism.
• The relativist position in general is that knowledge is always dependent
upon some particular conceptual framework (that is, a web of beliefs), and
that framework is not uniquely privileged over rival frameworks.
 Relativism
• The most famous classical statement of relativism was articulated by the Greek
philosopher Protagoras (c. 490–c. 420 BCE), who said that “Man is the
measure of all things.” His point was that human beings are the standard of all
truths, and it is a futile task to search for fixed standards of knowledge beyond
our various and ever-flexible conceptual frameworks.
• Knowledge in medieval England depended on the conceptual framework of
that place and time. Knowledge for us today depends on our specific
conceptual frameworks throughout the world and throughout our wide variety
of social environments
 Types of Relativism
• Etiquette Relativism, the view that correct standards of protocol and good
manners depend on one’s culture. When I meet people for the first time,
should I bow to them or shake hands? If I make the wrong decision, I
might offend that person, rather than befriend them. Clearly, that depends
on the social environment that you are in, and it makes no sense to seek
for an absolute standard that applies in all situations. Etiquette by its very
nature is relative.
 Types of Relativism
• Aesthetic Relativism, the view that artistic judgments depend on the
conceptual framework of the viewer. We commonly feel that there is no
absolute right and wrong when it comes to art, and it’s largely a matter of
opinion. I might enjoy velvet paintings of dogs playing cards, while that
might offend your aesthetic sensibilities.
 Types of Relativism
• Perceptual Relativism is also no big issue: one’s sensory perceptions
depend on the perceiver. Something might appear red to me but green to
you. There are people known as “supertasters” who experience flavors
with far greater intensity than the average person, so much so that they
need to restrict themselves to food that you or I would find bland. How we
perceive sensations depends on our physiology, which we readily
acknowledge may differ from person to person.
 Types of Relativism
• Truth relativism is the view that truth depends upon one’s conceptual
framework. This amounts to a denial of the correspondence theory of truth
and acknowledges our inability to access an objective and independent
reality. 
• Justification relativism is the view that what counts as evidence for our
beliefs depends upon one’s conceptual framework. This is a denial of
foundationalism and an acknowledgement of coherentism.
E. SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
Thank you for listening! 
 Confirming Theories
SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS: A HYPOTHESIS, A THEORY, AND A LAW
• Scientific hypothesis, which is any proposed explanation of a natural
event. It is a provisional notion whose worth requires evaluation.
Newton’s account of gravity began as a humble hypothesis, and even the
theory of intelligent falling qualifies as a hypothesis. While hypotheses
may be inspired by natural observations, they don’t need to be, and
virtually anything goes at this level
 Confirming Theories
SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS: A HYPOTHESIS, A THEORY, AND A LAW
• Scientific theory, which is a well confirmed hypothesis. It is not mere
guess, like a hypothesis may be, but is a contention supported by
experimental evidence. When Newton proposed his account of gravity, he
accompanied it with a wealth of observational evidence, which quickly
elevated it to the status of a theory. This, though, is where the theories of
gravity and intelligent falling part company: there’s no scientific evidence
in support of intelligent falling, and thus it fails as a theory.
 Confirming Theories
SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS: A HYPOTHESIS, A THEORY, AND A LAW
• Scientific law which is a theory that has a great amount of evidence in its
support. Indeed, laws are confirmed by such a strong history of evidence
that they cannot be overturned by any individual piece of evidence to the
contrary; rather, we assume instead that that single piece of contrary
evidence is flawed. As compelling as Newton’s theory of gravity was, it
took well over 100 years before it was confirmed to the point that it
gained status as a law.
 Confirming Theories
•  A second rule of scientific confirmation is UNIFICATION, that is, the
ability to explain a wide range of phenomena. The rule of thumb here is
that the more information explained by a theory, the better. Science is an
immense interrelated system of facts, laws, and theories, and scientific
contentions gain extra weight when they contribute to the scheme of
unification. It is unification that gave an initial boost to Newton’s theory
of universal gravitation.
 Confirming Theories
• A third rule of scientific confirmation is SUCCESSFUL PREDICTION.
Good scientific theories should not simply organize collections of facts,
but should be able to reach out and predict new phenomena.
 Confirming Theories
• A fourth rule of scientific confirmation is FALSIFIABILITY. it must be
theoretically possible for a scientific claim to be shown false by an
observation or a physical experiment. This doesn’t mean that the scientific
claim is actually false, but only that it is capable of being disproved. The
criterion of falsifiability is important for distinguishing between genuine
scientific claims that rest on tests and experimentation, and pseudo-
scientific claims that are completely disconnected with testing.