Lesson 2: Methods of Philosophizing Flashcards
process of acquiring knowledge
reality - perception - concept - proposition - inference
To know is to
know something
what philosophers call reality, existence,
being
something
everything there is (another name for it
is the Universe
existence
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.
reality
Our first and only contact with reality is through our senses.
perception
Knowledge begins with
perceptual knowledge
After we perceive things we began to notice that some of the things we perceive are similar to
other things
concept
When we use concepts in order to classify or describe an “existent”
proposition
a particular that exist be
it an object, a person, an action or event, etc
proposition
Proposition is usually expressed in a
declarative statement
An affirmative proposition therefore has the following structure:
S is P
s - subject
p - predicate
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)
argument
How do we demonstrate that the statement is true? By providing an argument.
inference
a statement that we want
to prove.
conclusion
The last statement beginning with
the word “therefore” is what we call a
conclusion
the conclusion begins with
therefore
theories of truth
correspondence; coherence; pragmatic
t what we believe or
say is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are based on the facts.
correspondence theory
It argues that an idea that correspond with reality is true while an idea, which
does not correspond to reality is false.
correspondence theory
assumes that a belief is true when we are able to confirm it with reality.
coherence theory
In
other words, by simply checking if the statement or belief agrees with the way
things really are, we can know the truth.
coherence theory
h states that a belief/statement is true if
it has a useful (pragmatic) application in the world.
pragmatist theory of truth
It is a mental grasp of reality reached either
by perceptual observation or by a process of
reason based on perceptual observation.
knowledge
