DOMAINS OF TRUTH

WHAT IS TRUTH?

•NATURAL WORLD-the totality of the

physical realm-the biological world,
matter, energy, the human body, human
actions and the like. When we say that
something is true, we usually mean
what the scientist mean- that it is
verefied by the natural world.
•OBJECTIVE TRUTHS- They
point the descriptions of
“states of affairs” which
remain true regardless of
who is viewing them.
•SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS- part of just one
among the many ways of understanding
the truth.
•unfortunately not everyone is clearly
aware of this. Let us take the case of
people who condemn others for
having a religion and for believing in
God. The people argue that believers
base their lives on unverified truths.
• believers are judged to be irrational because they
cannot demonstrate the truth of their faith.
• Believers are irrational because they believe in things
that cannot be verified.
• What this statement implies:
• Only those who believe in things that can be verified
are rational.
• In other words,based on what have said above so far,
• Only those who believe in scientific truths are rational.
DOMAINS OF TRUTH
 •OBJECTIVE DOMAIN- this
pertains to natural world that
maintains a relative
independence from the
perspective and attitude of
human beings that percieve
them.
 •SOCIAL DOMAIN- “truth” is
analogous with (not the exact
equivalent) of a general agreement
or concensus on what is right as
opposed to what is wrong.
• PERSONAL DOMAIN-truth is analogous with
sincerity.
• A person who proves to be consistent with
what he declares about himself is regarded as
authentic and can therefore be trusted or
trustworthy.
So when we ask “What is the truth?, it is
important to know from what domain we are
asking this question, so we can also knowin
what way we can test whether or not a claim is
true.
 TRUTH AND JUSTIFICATION

•Richard Rothy offers a simple

way of defining truth: truth can
be understood as what has
passed “procedures and
justification”
 JUSTIFICATION OF TRUTH
•SCIENTIFIC-/ OBJECTIVE-truths are tested
against empirical evidence.
•SOCIAL-truths are tested against their
acceptability to a particular group in a
particular time in history.
•PERSONAL- truths are tested against the
consistency and authenticity of the person
who claims it.
 METHODS OF PHOLOSOPHIZING
•In reality, no one has complete access to
bigger truth. Being human essentially means
that our views will always be PARTIAL. As
such, no one has a say on what “method” is
right in ascertaining what is true. In the end,
our approaches to understanding truths will
always be related to our unique position in
this vast richness of reality.
•the history of philosophy is like a long
conversation of arguments and opinions
from the time of pre-Socratics down to
the contemporary philosophers.
Philosophers have contributed to the
history of thought through his own
methods of testing opinions and
examining claims to truth.
•a few words, however, must
be sad about the term
“method” when it comes to
philosophy.
•Gabriel Marcel clarifies that philosophy
is not like the sciences that have a clear
method in arriving at truths. (Marcel
1960)
•this means therefore that the method of
the sciences is fixed process that can be
repeated by anyone and still bring the
same results.
•THE JOURNEY OF
PHILOSOPHIZING IS
A VERY PERSONAL
JOURNEY.
 2 APPROACHES TO THE SEARCH
AND UNDERSTANDING OF TRUTH
1. RENE DESCARTES AND WESTERN
MODERN THINKING
RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650), a french
philosopher says that only the MIND, not the body
can arrive at clear and distinct ideas which cannot
doubted (Descartes, Moriarty;2008). He arrived at
this truth first, asking objects that I come to know
through my senses can fully trusted.
•Descartes continues to ask. In the
process, he comes to the conclusion
that there is one thing that cannot
be doubted, and that is, doubt
itself. Even if he doubts that he is
doubting, the doubting still clearly
demonstrates that he is doubting.
 •from this insight, Descartes proceeds
with asking what else he can find that
cannot be doubted by the mind. he
realizes that doubting si thinking.
Therefore thinking cannot likewise be
doubted. The more he doubts, that he is
thinking, the clearer it appears that he is
actually thinking.
 • Finally, Descartes realizes the most
important truth shown in this process. If
there is doubting and thinking, then there
must also be thinker and doubter. And that,
of course, if Descartes himself “I AM! I
EXIST!.” When one thinks, one intuitively
or immediately realizes that he exist. This is
the first clear and distinct idea that one
arrives at, namely, that thinking implies the
thinkers existence.
 2. THE WAY OF THE TAO
To understand the truth, therefore, is to
understand the TAO. “In the common
sense it (tao) refers to the way of doing
anything, or the pathway to some
destination, In its higher meaning, TAO
refers to the way of the universe, the way
things are.
 •As a spiritual system, TAO means
the way to achieving true
understanding of the nature of the
mind and reality, to the way of living
in harmony with the changes of
nature. Thus, the TAO is the goal,
the path and the journey all in one”
 METHODS OF
PHILOSOPHIZING
 A. PHENOMENOLOGY: ON
CONCIOUSNESS
EDMUND HUSSERL-FOUNDER
-focusess on careful inspection and
description of phenomena or
appearances, defined as any object
of concious experience, that is, that
which we are concious.
• the word phenomenon comes from the
greek (phainomenon) meaning appearance.
• According to Husserl, is where the trouble
starts, when one supposes that what one
experiences is not or might not be the truth.
• Phenomenology is the scientific study of
the essential structures of consciousness.
• conciousness is intentional
• the phenomenological standpoint is achieved through a
series of phenomenological “reductions” that eliminte
certain aspects of our experience from consideration.
Husserl formulates several of these and their emphasis shifts
throughout his career.
• 1. Epoche or “suspension” in which the phenomenologist
“brackets” all questions of truth or reality and simply
describes the contents of conciousness.
• 2. the second reduction eliminates the merely empirical
contents of conciousness and focuses instead on the
essential features, the meaning of conciuousness.
 •what interest the
phenomenologists are the
contents of conciousness, not
on things of the natural world as
such.
B. EXISTENTIALISM: ON FREEDOM
One's search for truth might be based on one's attitude or
outlook.
These themes includes:
1. the human condition or the relation of the individual to world.
2. the human response to that condition.
3. being, especially