Criteriology Lesson 2 Sources of Knowledge

8/4/2019 Criteriology Lesson 2 Sources of Knowledge

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CRITERIOLOGYLesson 2: Sources ofKnowledge


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Reality manifests itself to the mind in different ways.

Not all men have the same keenness of vision or

hearing or intellectual aptitudes.

The fact that we do not know everything, and that allour knowledge is inadequate, does not invalidate theknowledge which we possess anymore than the

horizon which bounds our view prevents us fromperceiving more or less distinctly the various objectswithin its limits.

This is essentially the condition of scientific progress:to find connections between various objects toproceed from the known to the unknown, from theimperfect to the perfect, from the contingent to thenecessary, from the dependent to the self-existentand from the finite to the Infinite.


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Sources of Knowledge:Where do you get what you think you know?

Perception

Introspection

Memory

Reason

Faith

Intuition

Testimony


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1. PERCEPTION

Sense knowledge

Sources of error: illusion (seeing something as something else)

hallucination (seeing something when theres nothing at all)

Error is not caused by the reality, neither by thesenses; it is caused by the judgment that we make.

You saw Fr. Bobby holding the hand of a beautiful lady, and

you say, Ah, girlfriend ni Father yan!

You saw a Dominican brother talking to another brother in adark room, and you conclude, Oh, hes gay!


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2. INTROSPECTION inner feelings

persons internal way of ascertaining what mentalstate one is currently in

statement of how we feel or what we are thinking orwondering about: I feel cold, depressed, alone, left out.

I feel awful. I feel excited.

Im nervous

errors in reporting inner feelings (mis-description ofinner feelings We may say we feel angry when we only feel annoyed. One may say hes in love when it was just an admiration.

I dont like her anymore. What he wanted to say is,Iddie if she leaves me.


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3. REASON Inferential argument, truth of reason, law of

thought

If you are older than I am, then I am youngerthan you.

All priests are ordained; Fr. Bobby is a priest. Ergo,Fr. Bobby is ordained.

I

t collects facts, generalizes, reasons outfrom cause to effect, from effect to cause,from premises to conclusion, frompropositions to proofs. It concludes, decidesand comes to final judgment.


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4. MEMORY

R

ecall

Problems of Memory:

Loss of memory: amnesia

Dj vu

We remember what we think happened,not what happened. We remember onlywhat we want to remember.


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5. FAITH Assent of the intellect to a truth which is beyond

comprehension but which it accepts under the influence of the

will moved by grace.

It is a belief which goes beyond the available evidence

It is something that has no basis (reason) for making thestatement, and you could hardly claim to know it.

I have faith in him. (It might not be based on faith at all as theremight be some good reasons in the past to support your trust inhim.

The certitude faith commands is not based on intrinsic truth

(i.e. the intellect does not attain truth in itself; it does not seeit.) but based on an intrinsic motive, i. e., the intellect is movedby the will which regards the assent to the proposed truth invirtue of the intrinsic evidence of an object


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6. INTUITION direct insight into, or apprehension of, truth; a kind

of knowing that is immediate and direct.

process of knowing not through seeing, hearing oranything of the visual sensory channels but througha sudden conviction that turns to be right.

It is a personal spiritual experience. Spiritual flashesand glimpses of truth, inspiration, revelation andspiritual insight come through intuition.

The mind has to be pure to know that it is intuition

shot in the dark; there is no reasoning process at all.

ESP, palm reading


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7. TESTIMONY Taking the word of another: either oral or written

Problem with acquiring knowledge through testimony: it does notseem to live up to the standards of knowledge. Crudely put, thequestion is: 'How can testimony give us knowledge when we haveno reasons of our own?'

People are often ready to believe the personal reports of what others

say that they have seen and experienced. Thus, it is important toconsider just how reliable peoples memory and their testimony can be.Perhaps the most important thing to note is that, even though there isa popular perception of eyewitness testimony being among the mostreliable forms of evidence available, the criminal justice system treatssuch testimony as being among the most fragile and even unreliableavailable. Consider the following quote from Levin and CramersProblems and Materials on Trial Advocacy:

Eyewitness testimony is, at best, evidence of what the witness believes tohave occurred. It may or may not tell what actually happened. The familiarproblems of perception, of gauging time, speed, height, weight, of accurateidentification of persons accused of crime all contribute to making honesttestimony something less than completely credible.

Willingness to be challenged


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To simply be a competent witness(competent, which is not the same ascredible), a person must

have adequate powers of perception

must be able to remember and report well

and, must be able and willing to tell thetruth.


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MentalGymnastics: Ate Rosiel is here.

perception

If I let go of this piece of chalk, it will fall. reason

The Lady of La Naval has not been stolen yet. memory

You have two hands. perception

You are not a woman.

perception Jose Rizal once lived.

Memory/testimony I am in the Philippines.

perception A man will never give birth to a baby.

reason

The past will never be future. reason

You are younger than your parents. reason

I feel dumb and stupid. introspection

We will end the class before 6pm Mass.

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Criteriology Lesson 2 Sources of Knowledge