PHIL2121

Knowledge and
Truth
Patricia Mae T. Gavilan,LPT
 OBJECTIVES
To understand the nature
of knowledge and truth

To differentiate the truth

and opinion.
"Epistemology is a science devoted to the
discovery of the proper method of
acquiring and validating knowledge" (Rand
1990).
 The NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE
According to 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.
 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).
 Let us now explore the first part
of epistemology the process of
acquiring knowledge
 1 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.
2. 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,
smoothi, quantities (seven inches or six pounds),
relationship 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.
 3. 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 dictionary means "an abstract or
generic idea generalized from particular
instances" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
 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).
5. 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.
 Premise 1: All men are mortals
Premise 2: Socrates is a man
Conclusion: Therefore Socrates is mortal
Here we have three related statements for 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 provide evidences, and proof to the
conclusion.
Activity #2
TRUTH OPINION
 Truth is knowledge validated and when we
say validated we mean they are based on the
facts of reality. 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.
 opinion truth
Based on Based on the facts of
emotions reality
Open to Can be confirmed
interpretation with other sources
Independent of
Cannot be
one's interpretation,
confirmed
preferences and
Inherently biased biases