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Knowledge and Truth

Epistemology is the study of how we acquire and validate knowledge. There are two main ways we acquire knowledge: through our senses by perceiving reality, and through rational thinking using concepts. We validate knowledge by retracing the steps in our reasoning process, getting consensus from others, testing beliefs in action, and determining if beliefs correspond to reality (correspondence theory of truth) or cohere with other beliefs (coherence theory of truth). The goal of epistemology is to understand how we know what we know and whether that knowledge is truly knowledge, or true.

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116 views19 pages

Knowledge and Truth

Epistemology is the study of how we acquire and validate knowledge. There are two main ways we acquire knowledge: through our senses by perceiving reality, and through rational thinking using concepts. We validate knowledge by retracing the steps in our reasoning process, getting consensus from others, testing beliefs in action, and determining if beliefs correspond to reality (correspondence theory of truth) or cohere with other beliefs (coherence theory of truth). The goal of epistemology is to understand how we know what we know and whether that knowledge is truly knowledge, or true.

Uploaded by

Jay-R De Guzman
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Philosophy

WHAT IS EPISTEMOLOGY?

“Epistemology is a science
devoted to the discovery of the
proper method of acquiring
and validating knowledge”
(Rand 1990).
The purpose of epistemology
therefore is two-fold:
1. To show how we can acquire
knowledge.
2. To give us a method of demonstrating
whether the knowledge we acquired is
really knowledge (i.e., true).
 THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE

According to Ayn 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).
So, how do you acquire knowledge?

 First,
we can acquire knowledge using our
senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, smelling.

 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).
ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE

1. REALITY
To know is to know something. This “something” is what
philosophers call reality, existence, being.

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, smooth),
quantities (seven inches or six pounds), relationships (in
front of, son of) even actions (jumping, running, flying).

These so called Aristotelian categories cannot be


separated from the entities that have it.
3. CONCEPT

The first concepts we formed are concepts of things


like dog, cat, man, house, car. These elementary
concepts are called first level concepts (Rand
1990). From these first level concepts we can form
higher level concepts through a process which Rand
calls “abstraction from abstractions” (Rand1990).
TWO TYPES OF ABSTRACTION FROM
ABSTRACTIONS (Binswanger 2014):
WIDER GENERALIZATION
 theprocess of forming wider and wider
concepts. For example from Juan, Pedro and
Pablo we can form the concept “man”. Then from
man, dog, cat, monkey we can form a higher and
wider concept “animal”. And from plant and
animal we can form a still higher and wider
concept “living organism”. As we go up to these
progressive widenings our knowledge increases.
SUBDIVISIONS
consist of identifying finer and finer
distinctions. For example “man” is a first
level concept that we can subdivide according
to profession (doctor, entertainer, fireman,
teacher), or race (Asian, Caucasian [white],
black), or gender (man, woman, lesbian, gay),
or nationality (Filipino, Chinese, American)
among other things. As we go down these
progressive narrowings our knowledge of
things subsumed under a concept increases.
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.
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
Now that we know how we know, it’s
time to see whether the knowledge we
acquired is “really” knowledge i.e., is
true.

This is the second part of epistemology:


validating one’s knowledge.
 The first step in validating one’s
knowledge is to ask oneself the following
question: “How did I arrive at this
belief, by what steps?” (Binswanger
2014).

 Thus you have to retrace the steps you


took to acquire the knowledge, “reverse
engineer” the process (Binswanger 2014).
A third way to determine if the statement
is true is through a consensus (Abella
2016). If the majority agrees that a
statement is true then it is true.
However there are certain limitations
to this approach. Far too many times in
history false ideas became popular which
ultimately leads to disaster.
A fourth way to determine whether a
statement is true is to test it by means of
action (Abella 2016).

 For example you want to know if a person


is friendly. Well the best way to find out is
to approach the person. Thus the famous
Nike injunction of “Just do it” is applicable
in this situation.
THEORIES OF TRUTH

In knowing the truth or falsity of a


statement, we generally use the Theories
of Truth
1. The Correspondence theory of Truth:

The basic idea of the correspondence theory is that


what we believe or say is true if it corresponds to the
way things actually are based on the facts
It argues that an idea that correspond with reality is
true while an idea, which does not correspond to reality
is false.

For example, if I say, “The sky is blue” then I looked


outside and saw that it is indeed blue, then my
statement is true. On the other hand, if I say, “Pigs have
wings” and then I checked a pig and it does not have
wings, then my statement is false.
2. The Coherence Theory of Truth:

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