Borromeo, Mikaela Gabrielle T.

February 26, 2019

INTFILO EF Big Lecture: The Philosophy of Truth

First Speaker: Mr. Martin Joseph Esteves

“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

filled by hundreds of students. I learned in class that great philosophers, such as

Socrates, believe that there is absolute truth/knowledge. It is important to know the

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,

although probably be understood by a philosophy major, as an engineering major, it took

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

easier for me to understand.

Source of knowledge, Mr. Esteves explained, consist of reason and sense

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

its rapid increase.

Pragmatism, a practical view of philosophy, is the truthfulness of an idea in terms

of its usefulness in real life. Mr. Esteves brought this up in the last part of the discussion.

Philosopher/psychologist William James defines pragmatism as the truth of an idea

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,

initially known as a breakthrough technology company that promised to revolutionize

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.

Dacela claimed, it is up to us to determine which to believe, and which to ignore. In a

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

just what’s convenient?

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

works way before its launch—without actually ensuring it does---because it would

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.

Basically, it is seen as true if it fits my belief system.

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

information that supports your personal beliefs.

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

when it comes to taking in information and to be mindful of what I stand for.

 Second Speaker: Mr. John Ian Boongaling

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

encountered this—the traditional analysis of knowledge, Gettier’s problem, Justified-

True-Belief (JTB), etc. Mr. Boongaling argued throughout his talk that information is not

necessarily true and that it is a product of an interrogative process, or an epistemic inquiry.

The traditional analysis of knowledge, through JTB analysis, meaning in order to

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

problems are meant to challenge out understanding of propositional knowledge (p).

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

true—only depending on the reliability of these evidences, such as the company

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

general concept of justified-true-beliefs using the Gettier counterexample. I learned that

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

philosophers’ goal is to arrive at absolute knowledge. Gettier’s problem also is aimed at

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

have learned, intuition is never wrong.