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“What is truth?” asked Mr. Esteves at the start of his talk. It was a rhetorical
question it seemed, but he followed that up with “Do you think there is absolute truth? Let
me see a show of hands.” Only around 10 hands were raised in the auditorium that was
absolute truth, Mr. Esteves claims, that is why it is of value to analyze existing knowledge.
The discussion was outlined on the topic of knowledge—the source, nature and the
validation of its claims. It was all very technical in the subject of analytic philosophy,
me more time to catch up. But Mr. Esteves’ comparison of the topic alongside real-life
examples such as the widespread of ‘fake news’ in the current administration, made it
perception. Two leading philosophers, Rene Descartes and John Locke, opposed each
other’s beliefs with the former claiming that reason is the only source of knowledge.
Although Locke believed that reason isn’t the only source, but also sense perception
because reason only guarantees formal knowledge. On the other hand, the nature of
knowledge introduces the two types of knowledge claims. The faculty of reason is when
the statement need not be verified to know its true. On the other hand, the faculty of sense
data is when the statement can be verified in itself. There are two ways to verify
knowledge, namely the correspondence criteria of truth and the coherence criteria of
truth. His explanation showed that both theories are conflicting truth conditions. According
to the coherence theory, the truth conditions coheres with the predicate. The
correspondence theory, in contrast, states that the truth conditions of propositions are not
propositions, but rather objective features. In application to the social media frenzy
especially with regards to the current administration, these “fake news” more often not,
are not even questioned in terms of its source, much less its nature and validation. These
days, information, whether it’s the truth or not, travels faster. It is so easy to access news
and information through different media platforms. It has greatly influenced the way social
media operates, the public’s perception of “facts”, and even how governments confront
of its usefulness in real life. Mr. Esteves brought this up in the last part of the discussion.
depends on its cash value, meaning its seen as truthful only if it’s useful. Applying this
again in the political sense and the widespread of fake news, pragmatism is seen when
politicians are not using their logic to verify an idea or a claim. Even if there’s proof of an
idea, a politician will deny it as long as it benefits them. An example would be EJK, there
is proof of this, yet politicians would say otherwise, such as former secretary of foreign
affairs, Alan Cayetano. “Pseudo truth” proves that pragmatism controls both formal and
empirical claim. To make a “pseudo truth” seem valid, “facts” are presented falsely that is
directed straight at bias—the tendency to want to hear what one already believes.
Third Speaker: Mr. Mark Anthony Dacela
Mr. Dacela’s talk was easier for me to understand, as his discussion was example-
based. He started with the discussion of “post truth” or pseudo truth as previously coined
by Mr. Esteves. I liked how he started with the story of Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos’ CEO,
healthcare with its device that could test tiny blood samples that in return could produce
so many tests. But this was all too good to be true. At a value of $9B, Holmes made
investors, basically the whole industry believe that the device would work. Alas, they were
suck into the world of post truth—to which the claims Theranos made showed that it is
not clear as to what is true and what isn’t. Post truth just goes to show that people tend
to seek information that align with their beliefs, or what they want to believe is true. Mr.
world of social media and technology, there are so many “versions” of the truth. It’s
upsetting because at this day and age, do we still care about the truth? Or do we believe
Believing is not the same as knowing, Mr. Dacela claims. He compares this with
what Aristotle’s argument—all men desire to know, but knowledge requires truth. My
understanding of this is that you can’t believe something that is false but since knowledge
requires truth, if what you think you know is false, then you don’t really know it in the first
place. This is where intuitive theories come in, the distinction of believing and knowing.
“What is happening to this world?”, Mr. Dacela asked the audience. We are all
careless when it comes to truth. We believe hearsay, believe unconfirmed facts. The first
intuitive theory, the pragmatic theory of truth, is when an idea is believed to be true if it’s
useful to believe so. Beliefs that are useful—those which best justify our actions, those
that promote success. Its common that people find this theory as a default way of
operating and thinking in their daily lives. Going back to the story of Elizabeth Holmes
and her company Theranos, they believed and made others believe that their product
promote them success and fame. The second intuitive theory is the coherence theory of
truth, which states that something is true if it coheres with those already accepted as true.
Clearly, these two views can cause problems. For pragmatic theory, there are
cases that a belief is useful for you but not for others. Also, because sometimes false
beliefs could be undeniably useful, it can wrongly “justify” our actions. For coherence
theory, something may cohere to your beliefs but not the beliefs of others. With these
problems underlying the theories, it’s harder to determine which beliefs are actually true
which could lead us to reject true beliefs just to be consistent with others. It is in fact,
possible to live a life with a consistent set of false beliefs. Psychology explains the force
behind these views, through motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. The former being
to try to make ideas win with the drive to attack and defend one’s ideas without caring to
check if it’s true. Confirmation bias on the other hand, is the tendency to only accept
What I get can from Mr. Dacela’s talk is to question myself—when do we accept
something to be true? How do we move forward from a world of fake news? His talk has
made me more aware that I continuously have to develop and fine-tune my sensitivity
The second discussion was based on truth and information in regards to the Gettier
problem. His talk was the most technical out of all the talks that’s why it was hard for me
to catch up at first, as I am not a philosophy student. It was the first time I’ve ever
True-Belief (JTB), etc. Mr. Boongaling argued throughout his talk that information is not
gain knowledge, you have to believe in something, believe it’s true and have evidence to
back it up as actually true. Mr. Boongaling then discussed the Gettier problem. Gettier
Gettier’s Case I was explained by Mr. Boongaling. Smith and Jones are both applying for
a particular job. Although, Smith has been told by the president that Jones will get the job.
Smith then observes that Jones has ten coins in his pocket. With these, he then is able
to infer that whoever will get the job has ten coins in their pocket, which he observed as
Jones. Although, the problem is not yet complete. The evidence that is not available to
Smith should be considered. The situation that Smith will get the job and Smith has the
ten coins in his pocket imply that the assumption of whoever will get the job has the ten
coins only is due to the virtue of luck because these evidences are not available to Smith.
There is significant luck in how the belief manages to combine being true with being
justified.
Mr. Boongaling continued the majority of his talk explaining the rules of logic. He
explained how these are only permissive, meaning that the inference is true but it not
guaranteed to actually be knowledge but lesser than knowledge. The game of chess, he
explains, is similar. A player will only know the rules, no guarantee of winning. Bringing
back the case of Smith and Jones, the evidences presented to him may or may not be
president’s claim. To be able to answer Smith’s question of who will get the job, he has
to be able to identify the desideratum—a scenario where the question is answered, and
Smith can pinpoint who exactly gets the job. Smith’s belief seemed sufficient because of
the evidence but actually fallible. This left open the possibility of his belief being an actual
mistake, even if he had his evidence. Smith’s belief could have been wrong, it was only
shown as true by circumstances that weren’t seen by Smith. It is needed to identify the
different answers that are deemed to be acceptable with Smith or Jones as an individual
constant.
Mr. Boongaling using the Smith and Jones example allowed me to understand the
JTB does not necessarily qualify as knowledge, as it does not take into consideration all
scenarios possible. In my INFILO class, we were told that Socrates and other
arriving at absolute knowledge, a state in where there are no more questions asked. As
Mr. Boongaling mentioned, information is not necessarily true, although we still accept it.
Although, if we take into account our intuition, we will arrive at knowledge because as I