Methods of

Philosophizing
Lesson 1:
Knowledge,
Wisdom,
and Opinion
Plato’s Metaphysical System (The Quest
for the Idea of the Good)
• According to Alfred North Whitehead, a philosopher and
logician, “The safest characterization of western
philosophy is that of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
Plato’s philosophical views lead towards the
establishment of the first ever institution for higher
education called “The Academy.”
• Plato believed that this world is not the basis for
attainment of true and real knowledge. He assumed the
existence of another world in another dimension. He
claimed that the objects of real knowledge must be
ageless and eternal.
• According to Plato, everything that we see in this world
(like chairs, tables, etc.) is nothing but a secondary copy
of the idea in what he called the World of Forms and
Ideas.
Hierarchical Structure of Ideas
Idea of
the Good
Abstract
Ideas
Mathematical
Ideas

Material Objects Ideas

• “The soul of every man possesses the power of learning the
truth and the organ to see it with and just as one would have
turn the whole body around in order that the eye should see
light instead of darkness, so the entire soul must be turned
away from changing world until its eye can bear to
contemplate reality and that supreme splendor called the
GOOD.” –Plato

• “Knowledge is remembrance.” –Plato

• “Knowledge is wisdom and Virtue is knowledge” –Plato
The Allegory of
the Cave
The Divided Line- Knowledge
and Opinion
• Plato made a distinction between the
sensible world or the world of experience,
and the intelligible world –this is popularly
known as Plato’s divided lines.
• Sensible world is known through the use
of our senses paving the basis for opinion.
• Intelligible world is known through the use
of the intellect paving the basis for
knowledge.
Two types of opinion:
• Illusion or imagination (eikasia) –include second-hand
info that we accept without investigation or evidence.
• Belief or conviction (pistis) –includes one’s
commonsensical notion of morality.

Two levels of knowledge:

• Reason or noesis –uses intellect
• Understanding or dianoia –uses scientific, mathematical
and abstract hypothesis.
The socratic method –an exercise in dialectics
• It is a dialectical method, involving a discussion in which the defense
of one point of view is questioned; one participant may lead another
to contradict themselves in some way.

Facts: Did you know that Socrates never wrote anything in his lifetime?

Method of systematic doubt –an exercise in skeptism

• A systematic process of being skeptical about (or doubting) the
truth of one's beliefs.

• Three indubitable premises of knowledge: the self, God, and the

material objects.

• Cogito, ergo, sum- I think, therefore, I am

Vocabulary
• Wisdom- the quality of having experience, knowledge,
and good judgement.
• Allegory- a story, poem, or picture which can be
interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning.
• Knowledge- facts, information, and skills acquired
through experience or education.
• Opinion- a view or judgement formed about something,
not necessarily based on facts or knowledge.
• Illusion- an instance of a wrong or misinterpreted
perception of a sensory experience.
• Imagination- the faculty of forming new ideas, images or
concept of external objects not present to the senses.
• Equidistant- at equal distance
 Lesson 2: Nature of Knowledge

Stages in the Apprehension of

Concepts for Knowledge to Be
Possible
 The three major stages:

PERCEPTION, ABSTRACTION and

JUDGMENT
Perception
Two types of perception:

• External Perception – happens when we perceive

things using our five senses. The result of the process
of external perception is called percept.

• Internal Perception – happens when you use your

imagination and memory to recreate the percept into
an image, which is the product of this process.
Abstraction
• Is the process of generalization by reducing the information
content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, typically in
order to retain only information which is relevant for a particular
purpose.

• The result of this process of abstraction are called concepts,

which are the building blocks of knowledge.

• When words express concepts, they are technically called

terms.
Judgment
• This is where we are going to make a knowledge
claim because we are going to take at least two
concepts and put them together in order to make a
statement that could be either true or false about the
world.

• It completes the act of the mind for knowledge to

become possible.
Sentences and Statements
Sentences. The concepts that we put together are expressed using
sentences. Sentences have no truth value. They are merely uttered as the
verbal means of communicating or expressing commands, questions,
emotions like surprise or pleasure and wishes.

Statements. Is a meaningful declarative sentence that is true or false.

According to David Hume in his article entitled "Skeptical Doubts
Concerning the Operations of the Understanding", there are two
meaningful types of statement that was originally known as Hume's Fork.
These statements are now known as analytic and empirical statements.
Analytic Statements
The truth or the falsity of knowledge claim being made by an analytic
statement could be found within the statement itself. In other words, you do
not have to go to outside the statement to search whether the claim is true
or false.

Also known as truths of language or truths of reason.

Examples:

• "A bachelor is an unmarried male of marriageable age"

• "A kitten is a young cat"

Tautologous - the saying of the same thing twice in different words.

Empirical Statements
The truth or falsity depend on the state of affairs being
claimed. The knowledge claim being made is not dependent on
definitions or tautologous.

Empirical statements are also known or identified in

philosophical literature as truths of fact.

Example:

• "The cat is playing with the dog"

• "The sky is blue"

 Types of
Knowledge
Formal Knowledge
• Can be done precisely without having to rely on
actual empirical data. For example, you can
perform the mathematical operation of adding 2
and 3 apples as equivalent to 5 without necessarily
having the actual empirical objects at hand.

• Can be rejected right away once

contradictions are seen.
Empirical Knowledge
• Experience and induction are the tools to accumulate
data and information in order to establish more reliability or
probability of hypothesis.

• Knowledge deal more with probabilities using the

framework of induction. These probabilities are results of
data from experience. Thus, empirical sciences is working
within the assumption that it is always probable that
experience could prove you wrong later on.

"That all our knowledge begins with experience there can

Lesson 3: Knowledge
and Truth
Theories of Truth

“When does one claim that his or her

knowledge claim has the element of
truth or falsity?”
Coherence Theory of Truth
• It deals with the consistency of the truth
of the statement being claimed within the
system that is being used or employed.
• Bases the truth of a belief on the degree to
which it coheres ("hangs together") with
all the other beliefs in a system of beliefs
(typically one person's beliefs, but it could
be any body of knowledge).
Example:

The elements of Euclidian geometry

and the Pythagorean theorem.

“That which is blue is not colored”.

Correspondence Theory of Truth
• Has to do with the correspondence of
knowledge claims being made with the state of
affairs in the world.
• It states that the truth or falsity of a statement is
determined only by how it relates to the world
and whether it accurately describes that world.

Example:
“Harry is a bachelor”.
Pragmatic Theory of Truth
• Is tantamount to the good or practical
consequences that the belief in the idea would
bring.
Example: Believing in Santa Claus

“There is no distinction of meaning so fine as to

consist in anything but a possible difference of
practice”.
Sources of Knowledge

Reason, Experience And

Intuition
 Faculty of reason is construed here as
an analytic faculty that is able to determine
the truth of analytic statements. Thus, the
truth of knowledge claims made in the
formal sciences uses the faculty of reason
following the framework of coherence
within the given system.
 Faculty of experience or sense of
perception has to do with the uses of five
senses, including sensory extending devices
for purposes of verifying our empirical
claims and thus, leading to empirical
knowledge.
 Faculty of Intuition deals with
the immediate or direct recognition
of self-evident truths.