Lesson 3

• Truth lies at the heart of any inquiry
• Knowledge must be truthful to gain validity and acceptance
• The concept of truth is a controversial and much discussed topic among philosophers
• Rooted in ancient Greek philosophy, knowledge is seen as "justified, true belief"
• Correspondence theory states that something is true if it corresponds to reality or the actual state of affairs
• Examples of true statements according to correspondence theory:

  • "A mammal is an animal which is warm-blooded, has hair, and feeds its young with milk"
  • "A dog barks"
• Coherence theory proposes that something is true if it makes sense in a certain situation or context
• Constructivist theory holds that knowledge is shaped by social forces and influenced by culture and history
• Consensus theory views knowledge as based on argument, and something is true if almost everyone agrees that it is true
• Relativism contends that there are no absolute truths
• Pragmatic theory holds that something is true if it can be put into practice or is useful in real life
• Verification theory considers that ideas must be verified using the senses of experience
• • Begging the Question: an argument based on unsound reasoning where a claim is made and accepted to be true, but one must accept the premise to be true for the claim to be true
  • Cause and Effect: falsely assuming that one event causes another
  • Fallacy of Composition: applying attributes of part of an object or class to the entire object or class
  • Fallacy of Division: reasoning that something true for a whole must also be true for all or some of its parts
• Fallacies in arguments:

  • Ad Hominem: attacking the person making the argument instead of the argument itself
  • Appeal to Force: using threat of force or an undesirable event to advance an argument
  • Appeal to Emotion: using emotions such as pity or sympathy as a form of argument
  • Appeal to the Popular: presenting an idea as acceptable because many people accept it
  • Appeal to Tradition: presenting an idea as acceptable because it has been true for a long time
• Biases in reasoning:

  • Confirmation Bias
  • Framing
  • Hindsight Bias
  • Correspondence Bias
  • Conflict of Interest
  • Cultural Bias