Lesson 2.1 Flashcards by Unknown Unknown

The Correspondence Theory of truth asserts that truth must
A. be agreed by upon by two people
B. corresponds with experience and fact
C. be based on myth and reality
D. be agreed by upon by three people only

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

This theory of truth is the agreement of things with one another.
A. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
B. Correspondence Theory of Truth
C. Coherence Theory of Truth
D. Dialectical Theory of Truth

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

The truth of a belief is tested by its satisfactory results when it is put into
operation.
A. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
B. Coherence Theory of Truth
C. Correspondence Theory of Truth
D. Dialectical Theory of Truth

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

This theory of truth deals with the consistency of the truth of statements
claimed within the system that is being used.
a. Correspondence Theory of Truth
b. Coherence Theory of Truth
c. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
d. Dialectical Theory of Trut

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

You know that “Snow is white” if and only if snow is white.
A. Correspondence Theory of Truth
B. Coherence Theory of Truth
c. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
d. Dialectical Theory of Truth

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Truth is a property of an extensive body of interrelated statements; hence,
statements have degrees of truth and falsity.
A. Coherence Theory of Truth
B. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
c. Correspondence Theory Truth
d. Dialectical Theory of Truth

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

This theory of truth is tantamount to the belief in the good or practical
consequence that an idea would bring.
A. Coherence Theory of Truth
B. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
C. Correspondence Theory of Truth
D. Dialectical Theory of Truth

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

It is the idea that something is true if it accurately describes the world.
A. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
B. Correspondence Theory of Truth
C. Coherence Theory of Truth
D. Dialectical Theory of Truth

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

A statement is not known to be true if the fact corresponding to the
statement is not, in principle, verifiable in some manner.
A. Correspondence Theory of Truth
B. Coherence Theory of Truth
C. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
D. Dialectical Theory of Truth

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

You can never know something is true until you can test its validity. If you
cannot test it, you cannot know it.
A. Pragmatic Theory of Truth
B. Coherence Theory of Truth
C. Correspondence Theory of Truth
D. Dialectical Theory of Truth

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Formal discussion entails process.
A. argument
B. lecture
C. discussion
D. debate

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

Informal discourse does not entail tedious preparation.
A. lecture
B. debate
C. argument
D. discussion

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

It is true if it is in exact conformity to what is observed in their actual
status and relations.
A. rational
B. concrete
C. reasonable
D. empirical

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

14.Light Railway Transit is a train.
A. common senses
B. complex confirmation
C. self-evident
D. corresponds to argument

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

15.Reason is the chief source and test of truth.
A. Rational
B. Concrete
C. Reasonable
D. Empirical

How well did you know this?

Not at all

Perfectly

What is epistemology

philosopher Ayn Rand:
“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:

To show how we can acquire knowledge.
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).

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.

The empiricist

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).

econd, 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).

The rationalist

Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE

Reality
Perception
Concept
Proposition
Inference

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.

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. Red for example cannot be separated from red objects; walking cannot be separated from the person that walks, etc

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)

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)

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: An argument expresses a reasoning process which logicians call inference (Hurley 2011). Arguments however is not the only form of inference but logicians usually used “argument” and “inference” interchangeably.

Theories of truth

1. The Correspondence theory of Truth 2. The Coherence Theory of Truth 3. The Pragmatist Theory of Truth

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. In general, statements of beliefs, propositions, and ideas are capable being true or false.

The Coherence Theory of Truth

It has already been established that the Correspondence Theory assumes that 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. However, as Austin Cline argues, this manner of determining the truth is rather odd and simplistic. Cline said that a belief can be an inaccurate description of reality that may also fit in with a larger, complex system of further inaccurate descriptions of reality. Thus, by relying on the Correspondence Theory, that inaccurate belief will still be called “truth” even though it does not actually describe actual state of things. So how do we resolve this problem

The Pragmatist 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. For example, there are some people who think that there are “ghosts” or “vampires” because they find it useful in explaining unusual phenomena and in dealing with fears (Mabaquiao, 2016). So, if we are going to use the word “truth”, we define it as that which is most useful to us.