Truth seeking

Claims that the conclusions truth is guaranteed by the premises truth.

A fact that lead to another fact : fact + fact = conclusion.

Example : all humans är mortal, Socrates is a human, Socrates is mortal.

Deduction derives the conclusions from the theory and with logical aspect.

Logically valid argument

Chain argument, if a deductive argument is logically valid; it is impossible for the premises to be true but the conclusion to be false. The premises consistently support the conclusion, even if it is wrong.

Example : Venus is bigger than Saturn, Saturn is bigger than the Sun, therefore Venus is bigger than the Sun. (Doesn’t have to be true, just logically valid).

Says that the premises truth increases the probability of the conclusion being true.

Example : I’ve looked through the room but have not found a mouse, therefore there is no mouse in the room.

The inductions conclusions are based on facts that came from the observation.

Logically valid argument

Teaching the principles of clear and consistent reasoning

- Making certain claims in a clear and coherent way
- A set of propositions linked together to make one of the premises
- Built up of premises leading to a conclusion

Is true, one is convinced of/believes in, & one has good reasoning to believe.

Own experiences/Direct observation

Memory

Deduction

Slutledningsmetoder (Inference methods)

Induction

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Self-evident truths/axioms

Self-evident premises/statements, which cannot be questioned or need to be proven.

Basic for building up knowledge - necessary in maths, logic and geometry.

Definitions wise always true - unable to prove wrong

It is not possible to gain knowledge - Secure knowledge is not possible.

Doubt is the starting point

Problem with scepticism

Being to sceptical leads to questioning everything.

Get knowledge through sense, thinking, deduction, & axioms.

You are born with knowledge.

Descartes

Wanted to find a secure group to build knowledge up.

Conclusion that our sensory experiences deceives us = Illusions, dreams, memory loss.

Even possible that maths isn’t ”true” - how do I know its not a god or demon deceiving me?

”I Think, Therefore I Am.”

I can doubt, if I can doubt then i must be able to think, I can think, If I can think then I must exist. (COGITO ERGO SUM)

It is by using reasoning to think clearly that we can reach knowledge about the world. Through our innate ideas, our ability to realise what is self-evidently true (axioms) and draw logical conclusions fro these truths (Deduction), that we can reach certain knowledge - NOT THROUGH OUR SENSES!

How does rationalism mean that we get knowledge about the material world?

Scepticism against our sensory experiences.

Medfödda idéer - born with ideas and concepts that do not come from our experiences.

We can reach knowledge about our material world through logical thinking and deductive reasoning. Built up of axioms, like maths and geometry.

Deductive method - one starts from general principles or axioms and draws specific conclusions. For example, according to Descartes, we can know that the material world exists because rational thinking (Cogito ergo sum)

Get knowledge through experiences, sensory experiences, induction.

Knowledge is acquired

Locke

Essay Concerning Human Understanding - 1690

We get knowledge through our senses and experiences.

No medfödd idéer

Went against the Catholic Church’s idea that knowledge is given through God.

Tabula Rasa - the human is born as a blank papper - where the knowledge is derived from the experiences.

We use our five senses to acquire knowledge

Some empiricists may say that not all knowledge is acquired in this sense - rather that some knowledge is lost to us forever - our senses are not enough. ALTHOUGH there is no other way to reach knowledge.

A statement is true only if it corresponds/conforms to reality/facts

Truth is objective and absolute (independent of us)

Realism - the world exists independently of us

EXAMPLE = ”This water bottle is blue” is a true statement if the water bottle referred to is actually blue.

Empirical theory of truth

The truth is still the truth, even if no one believes it, A lie is still a lie, even if everyone believes it.

PROBLEMS

what does correspondence/conformity actually mean?

How can you prove that somethings corresponds to reality?

Using any of the five sources of knowledge/reasons for knowledge?

”I see that the water is blue” but how can you be sure that it is true? It is possible to be mistaken —> Descartes scepticism.

We have different definitions of things, how would we find the true truth then?

A statement is only true if it is consistent/coherent with a system of other statements.

There should be a connection between them.

The different statements in the system provide support for, or can be derived from, or constitute evidence for/proven by, each other.

Maths and logic are constructed in accordance to coherence theory approach.

2 + 2 = 4, is true according to the definition of the symbols included.

The symbols are part of a context. They are connected to each other, they get their truths if they are connected with other truths.

”This water bottle is blue” is a true belief if it is consistent with all of ones other beliefs, e.g. how you define a water bottle and blue.

Should be related to other things, must agree with how you define how other things should be.

A rationalist and idealist theory of truth

DEDUCTION

Tabula Rasa does not agree with koherens theory because we know that there are genetic traits that affect not only our sensory experiences of the world.

PROBLEM

Is truth subjective/relative?

Allows for different truth systems to exist side by side.

What is true for me may not be true for you.

A statement is true only if it works in practice/is the theory that works best

Pragmatism = focuses on the practical consequences of actions and statements, its applicability, function and usability for example, that the earth is round it practically works if we put a satellite in space.

Truth = usability/functionality

Newtons theories are true because you could build steam engines and bridges with their help, Einsteins theories are true as long as they can be used to explode space, Freuds theories

How it works in practice determines whether the statement is true or not.

PROBLEM

is truth changeable?

What is true now may not be true later

Are there facts or knowledge that it is unlikely that anyone will have ”use” from - is this then automatically false? ”This water bottle is blue”

There are also examples of people who have had ”use” from believing statements about reality that later turned out to be false.

Examples of these are = experiments, measurements, observations and interviews.

Natural science

physics, biology, mathematics, astronomy

Humanities

Language, philosophy, history, religious studies

Social science

sociology, law, politics, political science.

Others are interdisciplinary such as psychology and geography

focuses on measurable data that can be expressed using numbers. Strives for statistical, quantifiable and usually generalisable results. Use of surveys to analyse large amounts of statistics and numbers.

Are used by natural scientists but also other subjects such as psychology.

Important to be careful when looking for the causes of something = there is a difference between association and causes —>there is a difference between correlation and causality.

find certain causes, social sciences and humanities also use qualitative methods (interviews, reading and interpreting texts, and observations of interactions.)

Tries to reach a deeper understanding of what is being investigated

Both can collaborate to work together

It is the question that guides the method.

A correlation between variables means that the change in one variable is the cause of the change in the values of the other variable. Causation indicates that one event is the result of the occurrence of the other event; i.e. there is a causal relationship between the two events.

Realism = the world exists independently of us, and it is of the nature as we perceive it.

Critical realism = the world exists independently of us, but it is not of the nature exactly as we perceive it.

Materialism = all that exists is matter.

Idealism = the ”belief in a spiritual principle at the basis of the world, without the reduction of the physical world to a mere illusion”

There is another reality that we do not live in.

No need to deny the existence of this world, but it is not the true reality.

Dualism = there are two separate substances in the world — consciousness/soul and materia.

Monism = there is only one substance in the world — consciousness/soul or materia.

Only one substance, either the soul or materia or the body.

Think that there is nothing other than matter in the world, that is, things that we can measure, weigh, observe, count, etc.

There is no spiritual plane

As a materialist, you mena that there is a world even if we do not experience it, idependently of us.

Matter exists independently of us, reality exists for us to discover

Realism = the world exists independently of us.

Some things can be explained by material casual relationships, but there are also things like souls, consciousness, and free will.

It is not valid according to the laws of nature, the problem for dualists is to explain non-material things. Descartes was a dualist.

Problem for a dualist is to explain how the non-material and the material can interact.

Materialism rejects supernatural explanations — there is no God, no souls, no fate.

The world governed only by matter - the world is dependent on physical processes and law.

In principle, everything we can observe in the world can be explained by cause and effect.

For some materialists, this leads to a deterministic view of the world —> that everything in the world can be predicted.

the idea that individuals can make decisions that are not predetermined by previous events or natural laws.

In every situation where we have acted, we could have done something different than what we did. There are no factors that cause our decisions, but they are free.

This view is in good agreement with our experience of freedom when we chose high school, that we made an independent decision.

There are psychological experiments that our nerves and synapses, that the brain makes a decision before we know consciously.

It is said that the awareness that one has made a decision is the illusion that we have free will.

Humans consist of matter and various material processes - even emotions such as hate and love are a result of matter

The human and its surrounding is governed by materia (matter).

Hard Determinism

free will cannot exist if everything that happens is caused by previous events. If we could not have done anything other than what we did (under those circumstances) then we cannot be considered free.

Soft Determinism

Shares with the hard variant the view that everything that happens happens for a reason, but draws different conclusions about what this means for free will.

We can be considered free if our actions are a result of our own will, not of any external coercion. According to soft determinism, free will and determinism are compatible.

If everything is governed by materia, so are our thoughts and behaviours.

If I am hungry, its because the cells in my body need fuel. Sugar is fas fuel. So I take a piece of chocolate and put it in the shopping cart before i go to the checkout and pay. ———> soo.. what moral responsibility do we have if we have no free will?

there is an objective reality but we are not there yet.

You cannot express yourself about the objective world, only the subjective world.

That does not mean that you cannot recognise reality, it still exists but it is not the real reality.

Goes a bit hand in hand with idealism, objective idealism, reality exists completely independently of us.

near death experience where people experience strong bonds to each other. It is not possible to explain materially, for example the spiritual dimension of love.

Many religions make a distinction between the material world, which is described as full of various errors, and the spiritual world which is eternal and perfect.

christianity - the material world - gods paradise

Hinduism - the material world - Brahman/world soul

There is no objective reality

It is not possible to prove an objective reality (Verklighet), since everyone experiences reality in their own, subjective way. It can look different denepending on who experiences it.

Cannot see subjective reality from someone else’s perspective

what we call reality changes with our experiences of it, so the only thing we can be sure of is the experiences.

Is everything just experiences?

Reality is personal, it is not experienced in the same way by others. ”Just because I experience something, I cannot be sure that you experience the same thing”

The only thing that exists is mind impressions

If ten witnesses witness a car accident ,you can get ten different stories about what happened —> even if you have filmed the accident, the witnesses can interpret what they see in different ways.

For a materialist this isn’t a problem. They can argue that there is an objective, material reality.

A subjective idealist believes that this shows that you simply cannot say that there is a material reality.

Cannot find empirical evidence when it comes to subjective idealism.

Berkleys Subjective idealism

To be is to be perceived —> to be is to be sensed

Everything that exists must exist in a consciousness.

The only thing i can be sure of is that my experience of something exists —> i.e. I can never know/prove that something exists outside of my experience of it.

The whole world always exists in God’s consciousness

There is a reality even if we do not experience it

Does not take personal, subjective consciousness as the basis for what exists, but some kind of objective consciousness, one in general : ”World reason” , ”Universal will” and so on.

Believes that the external world is only apparent and that a ”Higher” (non-physical) reality exists there is an objective reality, it is just not the one we live in right now.

According to objective idealists, this exists independently of the human.

Believes that reality is objective - it does not depend on what anyone thinks or feels.

It thus believes that there is a true, independent reality, just like materialism — BUT believes that the true reality, on the contrary, is non-material.

One can consider that reality is spiritual.

Ex. Brahman, the world soul (central to Hinduism) is the divine reality - some Hindus believe that material reality is fake and prevents us from seeing the true reality.

there is a perfect world, but we are not living in that reality at the moment.