NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE
Ex. Jordan, wash all the dishes in the sink.
3 stages in the Apprehension of concepts for
Knowledge to be Possible:
1) Perception- it involves an activity that does
not make us different from animals.
2 types:
a. External perception- it happens when we
perceived things using our five senses.
Percept- result of the process of
external perception.
b. Internal perception- it happens when you
use your imagination and memory.
Image or phantasm- product of internal
perception.
2) Abstraction it distinguishes us from
animals.
- It involves the use of intellect.
Concepts- result of the process of
abstraction or simple apprehension. It is
the building blocks of knowledge.
3) Judgment- putting 2 stages together in
order to make a statement or a proposition
that could either be true or false about the
world.
Statement or proposition- result of
judgment
SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE
1. The Faculty of reason- is constructed here
as an analytic faculty that is able to
determine the truth of analytic statements.
2. The faculty of experience or sense
perception- it has to do with the use of the
five senses, including sensory extending
devises for purposes of verifying our
empirical claims.
3. The Faculty of Intuition- deals with the
immediate or direct recognition of self-
evident truths.
SENTENCES AND STATEMENTS
*Sentences- use to express concepts
- It has no truth value.
- They are merely uttered as the verbal means of
communication.
5 types:
a) Declarative- meant to express a statement.
Ex. My name is Luisa.
b) Interrogative- meant to ask questions.
Ex. What time is it?
c) Imperative- meant to issue a command.
d) Expletive- meant to issue a wish
Ex. Can you please bring some water here?
e) Exclamatory- meant to express surprise.
Ex. Help!!!!!
Types of Statements
1. Analytic statements
- The truth or falsity of the knowledge
claim being made by an analytic
statement could be found within the
statement itself.
Ex. A kitten is young cat.
2. Empirical statement
- Its truth or falsity depends on the state
of affairs being claimed.
- Are also known or identified as in
philosophical literature as truth of fact.
*An evaluative/ normative statement is a statement
containing evaluative terms. Evaluative terms are
meant to express approval or disapproval, value or
disvalue, like or dislikes, importance or
unimportance and others.
Types of Knowledge
1) Formal Knowledge (Facts)
- Corresponds to knowledge in the formal
sciences whose main concern is the
validation of their knowledge claims
within the formal system in their
respective disciplines.
2) Empirical Knowledge (Experimental)
- General term used to describe the
different disciplines in the empirical
sciences.
NATURE OF TRUTH
1. The Coherence Theory of Truth- deals with
the consistency of the truth of statements
being claimed within the system that is
being used or employed.
2. Correspondence theory of truth- has to do
with the correspondence of knowledge
claims being made with the state of affairs
in the world.
3. The Pragmatic theory of truth- is
tantamount to the good or practical
consequences that the belief in the idea
would bring.
REASONING
1. Inductive reasoning
- Is based from observations in order to
make generalizations.
2. Deductive reasoning
- Draws conclusion from usually one
branch of judgment or definition.
Ex. All philosophers are wise. (Major
premise)
Confucius is a philosopher. (Minor
premise)
Therefore, Confucius is wise. (Conclusion)
FALLACIES
- Is a defect in an argument other than its
having false premises.
Here are some of the usually committed errors in
reasoning:
a. Appeal to pity (Argumentum ad
misericordiam)
- a specific kind of appeal to emotion in
which someone tries to win support for
an argument or idea by exploiting his of
her opponents feelings of pity or guilt.
b. Appeal to ignorance (Argumentum Ad
ignorantiam)
- Whatever has not been proved false
must be true, and vice versa.
c. Equivocation
- This is a logical chain of reasoning of a
term or a word several times; but giving
the particular word a different meaning
each time. Example: Human beings have
hands; the clock has hands. He is
drinking from the pitcher of water; he is
a baseball pitcher.
d. Composition
- This infers that something is true of the
whole from the fact that it is true of
some part of the whole. The reverse of
his fallacy is division.
e. Division
- One reasons logically that something
true of a thing must also be the part of
all some of its parts.
f. Against the Person (Argumentum ad
Hominem)
- This fallacy attempts to link the validity
of a premise to a characteristics or
belief of the person advocating the
premise.
g. Appeal to force ( Argumentum ad baculum)
- An argument where force,coercion, or
the threat of force, is a given
justification for a conclusion.
h. Appeal to the people ( Argumentum ad
populum)
- An argument that appeals or exploits
peoples vanities, desire, esteem. And
anchoring on popularity.
i. False cause ( post hoc)
- This fallacy is also referred to as
coincidental correlation not causation.
j. Hasty generalization
- The fallacy is commonly based on a
broad conclusion upon the statistics of a
survey of a small group that fails to
sufficiently represent the whole
population.
k. Begging the question ( petiio principii)
- This is a type of fallacy in which the
proposition to be proven is assumed
implicitly in the premise.
THE HUMAN PERSON AS AN EMBODIED SPIRIT
A. Hinduism
- At the heart of Hinduism lies the idea of
human beings guest for absolute truth,
so that ones soul and the Brahman or
Atman (absolute soul) might become
one.
- For the Indians, God first created sound
and the universe arose from it. As the
most sacred sound, The Aum (Om) is
the root of the universe and everything
that exists and it continues to hold
everything together.
- According to Hinduism, human beings
have a dual nature: one is the spiritual
and immortal essence (soul); the other
is empirical life and character.
- Hindus generally believe that the soul is
eternal but is bound by the law of
Karma (action) to the world of matter,
which it can escape only after spiritual
progress through an endless series of
births.
- Hinduism holds that humanitys life is a
continuous cycle (samsara).
- Also common to all Hindu thought are
the four primary values namely:
WEALTH, PLEASURE, DUTY and
ENLIGHTENMENT.
B. Buddhism
- Siddhartha Gautama is the founder of
Buddhism.
- Four Noble Truths that Gautama taught:
(1) Life is full of suffering; (2) suffering
is caused by passionate desires,
lusts, cravings; (3) only as these are
obliterated, will suffering cease; (4)
such eradication of desire may be
 accomplished only by following the
Eightfold Path of earnest endeavor.
- The eightfold path steps are:
1. Right belief in and acceptance of the
Fourfold Truth
2. Right aspiration for ones self and
for others.
3. Right speech that harms no one.
4. Right conduct, motivated by
goodwill toward all human beings.
5. Right means of livelihood, or
earning ones living by honorable
means.
6. Right endeavor, or effort to direct
ones energies towards wise ends
7. Right mindfulness in choosing
topics for thought
8. Right meditation or concentration
to the point of complete absorption
in mystic ecstasy.

THE BIBLICAL GOD AND HUMANITY

- Religious people definitely do not treat

Gods existence as a hypothesis. God is a
constant presence, rather than a being
whose existence is accepted the best
explanation of available evidence.
- It is the Jews who accepted the reality of
God.
- For Augustine, philosophy is amor
sapiental, the love of wisdom; its aim is
to produce happiness. For him, wisdom
is not just an abstract logical
construction; but it is substantially
existence as the Divine Logos.
- Christianity is the representation of the
full revelation of the true God and true
philosophy.
Sensation- it is the lowest form of
knowledge.
- For St.Thomas Aquinas, another
medieval philosopher, human beings
have the power to change themselves.
According to him, human beings are
considered as a moral agent. The soul of
human separates them from animals.

Prepared by:

LEA QUEEN M. TAMAYAO