MODULE 2:

METHODS OF
PHILOSOPHIZING
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 Most Essential Learning Competencies
CONTENT STANDARDS
 The learner demonstrates various ways of doing philosophy
PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
 The learner evaluate opinions
MOST ESSENTIAL LEARNING COMPETENCIES
2.1 KNOW: Distinguish opinion from truth

2.2 FEEL: Realize that the methods of philosophy lead to wisdom and truth

2.3 DO: Evaluate truth from opinions in different situations using the methods of
philosophizing
DURATION
SLIDESMANIA

 WEEKS 4-5 (SEPTEMBER 27-30, 2021) & (OCTOBER 4-8, 2021)

 Talking Points:
⬤ Epistemology?

⬤ The Nature of Knowledge

⬤ Acquiring Knowledge

⬤ The nature of Truth

⬤ Truth VS Opinion

⬤ Theories of Truth
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 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

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).
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) was a Novelist-Philosopher
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 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).
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 The Empiricists

John Locke George Berkley David Hume

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 The Rationalists

Rene Descartes Baruch Spinoza Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

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 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.

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.
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 ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE
3. Concept

 After we perceive things we began to notice that some of the things we perceive
are similar to other things.

4. Proposition
 A proposition is a statement that expresses either an
assertion or a denial that an existent belongs to a class or
possess certain attribute.
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 ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE
5. Inference
 How do we demonstrate that the statement is true? By providing an argument. 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).

All men are mortals

Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
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 THE NATURE OF TRUTH
 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.

 validating one’s knowledge is to ask oneself the following question: “How did I arrive at this
belief, by what steps?”

 You can only validate the above statements if you observed yourself using your senses.

 to determine if the statement is true is through a consensus. If the majority agrees that a
statement is true then it is true. However there are certain limitations to this approach.

 to determine whether a statement is true is to test it by means of action

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 TRUTH VS
OPINION
Truth is knowledge validated and when we say validated
we mean they are based on the facts of reality.

When stating your preference and not facts. This is an

Opinion.
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 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.
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 THEORIES
OF TRUTH
2. The Coherence Theory of Truth:
a belief is true when we are able to confirm it with reality. In
other words, by simply checking if the statement or belief
agrees with the way things really are, we can know the truth.
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Austin Cline
 THEORIES
OF TRUTH
3. The Pragmatic Theory of Truth:
The Pragramatic Theory of Truth states that a
belief/statement is true if it has a useful (pragmatic)
application in the world. If it does not, then it is not true. In
addition, we can know whether a belief/statement is true by
examining the consequence of holding or accepting the
statement/belief to be true.
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 Opinion or Fact
1. Asia is the largest continent in the world.

2. Jose Rizal is the best hero in the Philippines.

3. According to Miss World Organization records,

Megan Young was the first Filipina to be crowned as
Miss World.

4. 2+2=4

5. Socrates was the most intelligent person ever lived.

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 Activity: Theories of Truth (Critical Thinking)
Direction: Identify the different theories of truth on the following
statements.
1. There is a water fountain in front of the Cultural Center of
the Philippines.
2. Bachelors are unmarried men.
3. The sun will rise tomorrow.
4. A dream board is necessary for dreams to come true.
5. What is more important to me at this time is my family.
6. A wooden table is a solid object.
7. Ghost and vampires exist.
8. 2+2=4
9. Cats are animals.
10. The Sky is blue.
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Fin….
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