COMPREHENSIVE

PHT103
❖ Course Description: In general, the course deals with the problem of knowledge
which deals with the philosophical understanding of the nature of knowledge, its
dynamic structure as well as the limits of human knowledge.

❖ Epistemology is defined as the branch of Philosophy which deals with the theory
of knowledge.
❖ Epistemology is the study of the nature and extent/ limits of human
knowledge.
❖ Epistemology - Greek word “episteme” meaning “knowledge.”
❖ The study of our method of acquiring knowledge
KNOWLEDGE
1. Ability Knowledge - Knowing how to cook, to ride a bike etc.,
2. Involves being in cognitive contact with reality.
a. Acquaintance knowledge - points to being in direct contact with something
in experience.
b. Propositional Knowledge - knowledge of certain facts as expressed in the
theories, ideas, concepts, and principles.
ON KNOWING

❖ Knowing is a distinct human activity. Only the human person could perform this as he is
a rational being imbued with the faculty of reasoning.
❖ Knowing could have its etymology from the Latin infinitive cognoscere or the noun
cognitio.
➢ Cognoscere could be understood as:
■ an act, means apprehending something with or without the help of the senses;
■ as relation of persons/things, which points to the relation between the
knower/subject and the known/object, for without any of these there would be
no knowledge;
■ as knowing, to have or make present an idea of thought.
PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE
❖ The problem of knowledge asks if our knowledge of reality corresponds to
that reality.
➢ Solutions from a Historical Perspective
■ Homer - Knowledge acquired through direct perception.
■ Plato - knowledge is not acquired since it is innate.
■ Aristotle pointed out that all men by nature desire to know, and
man’s highest pleasure is the contemplation of known truths.
❖ From the Pre-Descartes period, the issue of correspondence between reality
and idea was the main concern.
➢ Empiricism, which emphasizes sensation and experience as the source of
knowledge and;
➢ Intellectualism, which posits that it is the spirit organizes the diversity of
sensible experience projecting the ideas to it; and with respect to the value of
knowledge.
➢ Dogmatism, which believes that truth is attainable as there is conformity
between intellectual images and reality.
➢ Skepticism, which holds that the truth is unattainable, since there is no
conformity between intellectual images and reality.
❖ HOW IS KNOWLEDGE GAINED

➢ When we inquire on how knowledge is gained, what is probed here is on what

means do we have of being in cognitive contact with reality.
■ Sense perception as the source. -
● The Realists - The realists hold that what we perceive are physical
objects, and that these objects exist independently of our minds and our
perception.
● Idealists - hold that physical objects are not independent of our minds.
■ Innatism (of knowledge).
■ The capability of man to reason.
❖ SKEPTICISM
➢ In recent times, Philosophers began to ‘dethrone’and attack the very concept of
truth.
➢ holds that man is unable to know/achieve any kind of certainty about reality and
truth.
■ Roots of Skepticism
■ Main Skeptical Arguments
● Problem of Criterion
● Regress Problem
● “How can you ever get outside your head?”
● The Evil Genius
❖ THE QUESTION OF TRUTH
➢ Knowledge is gained through a threefold process:
■ (i) by attending to data;
■ (ii) by envisaging possibilities; and
■ (iii) by judging on sufficient ground that some are probably or certainly so.
❖ CONSCIOUSNESS

➢ Existence of Consciousness
■ Consciousness is what makes us different from things. It entails that we have an awareness of things but the
things are not aware of us.
➢ Problem of Consciousness
■ The problem of consciousness would point out that the word “consciousness” is an ambiguous term (i.e. refer
to many different mental phenomena).
● In 1995, David Chalmers tried to sort the problem into easy and hard problems.
❖ INTENTIONALITY
comes from the Latin word “in-tendere”. It points to the property of anything that tends
towards something other than itself.
➢ In the history of Philosophy, it has been used in various ways.
➢ In Scholasticism, it was used in three senses:
i. in reference to the act of knowing;
ii. in reference to the form of the act of knowledge; and
iii. in reference to the will.
➢ For Franz Brentano, intentionality is held as what he calls the “psychic
phenomenon”,

➢ For Edmund Husserl, intentionality is the particularity that consciousness has of

being conscious of something; consciousness is always intentional because it

always directs itself to the object.
❖ THE STRUCTURE OF KNOWLEDGE
➢ Knowledge is structured into different levels
➢ The elements of human cognitive activities could be categorized into two main levels
of activity:
i. Experiential Activity - Involves sense perception, imagination, and lived
awareness.
● Related to psychology, phenomenology, and behaviorism.
● Experiential Acts also have some general characteristics such as
intentionality, lived awareness, presentative and tendential acts, and relativity
of experiential acts to the organism.
● Presentative acts sees the act presenting the theme/object to the subject (such
as seeing, tasting, touching, etc.).
❖ THE STRUCTURE OF KNOWLEDGE
● while Tendential acts sees the subject adopting an attitude (i.e. reacting) to
the theme presented (such as to desire, to be annoyed, etc.).
● Psychic and biological activity of the human being are related with one
another. Experiential acts are not events independent to us.
iii. Intellective-Volitive Activity.
● The history of philosophy (specifically in the Modern Period) tells us
that a central question of philosophy asks, “Is there a higher level than
the experiential one?”
● Empiricism negates the originality of intellectual activity as being
supreme over experiential activity while Rationalism, on the other hand,
recognizes the level but separates it from experiential act or absorbs it to
intellectual level.
❖ THE STRUCTURE OF KNOWLEDGE
➢ Intelligence
i. is an act which makes up intellective activity. It points to the first stage of
intellective activity, and keeps the intellect to cover the faculty corresponding
to the activity. In understanding something, we are first looking at individual
bits of data, and these do not make sense. Afterwards, insight arises when we
suddenly understand.

ii. Stage of Reasonableness

● This stage answers the question, “Is it really so?”; it leads to judgment. Judgment
is on the concept, and the concept is the intentional object in the act of
affirmation. In order to deepen our judgment, further data is required, giving
concepts. This concepts will be where we will judge, by checking on the data and
verifying it.
❖ THE STRUCTURE OF KNOWLEDGE
➢ Intelligence
i. is an act which makes up intellective activity. It points to the first stage of
intellective activity, and keeps the intellect to cover the faculty corresponding
to the activity. In understanding something, we are first looking at individual
bits of data, and these do not make sense. Afterwards, insight arises when we
suddenly understand.

ii. Stage of Reasonableness

● This stage answers the question, “Is it really so?”; it leads to judgment. Judgment
is on the concept, and the concept is the intentional object in the act of
affirmation. In order to deepen our judgment, further data is required, giving
concepts. This concepts will be where we will judge, by checking on the data and
verifying it.
❖ THE DYNAMICS OF KNOWLEDGE
➢ there are three steps to achieve the truth (as offered by Lonergan):
i. by attending to data;
ii. by envisaging possibilities; and
iii. by judging on sufficient ground that some are probably or certainly so.