Methods of Philosophizing: What is the nature of reality and how do we know truth?

3. Allegory of the Cave
Some prisoners are chained facing the
back wall of a cave so that they can neither
move nor turn their heads. Behind the
prisoners is a fire, and between the fire and the
prisoners are people carrying puppets or other
objects. This casts a shadow on the other side
of the wall. The prisoners watch these
shadows, believing them to be real. They have
been chained in that position all their lives.
Illustration by Calvin Josh J. Matias
By Plato

4. Allegory of the Cave
One day, a prisoner is freed from his
chains. He finally sees the fire and realizes the
shadows are fake. When he looks around and
sees that there are solid objects in the cave,
not just shadows, he is confused. He escapes
from the cave and discovers that there is a
whole new world outside the cave. He comes
to realize that the things he thought were real
were merely shadows of real things.
Illustration by Calvin Josh J. Matias
By Plato

5. REALITY VS. ILLUSION
Plato distinguishes between people who mistake
sensory knowledge for the truth and people who
really do see the truth.

6. REALITY VS. TRUTH
Reality and truth are two of the most misunderstood
and misused words in the English language (Chaffee,
2016).
In philosophy, questions regarding the nature of
reality fall under the category of metaphysics while
questions regarding the nature of Truth fall under the
category of epistemology.

7. WESTERN PHILOSOPHY
Metaphysics and epistemology in Western culture
begin with the ancient Greeks, in particular Socrates,
Plato, and Aristotle.

11. The Socratic Method
It uses questions and analysis to draw people into an
exchange of ideas regarding a central concept, in an
attempt to get at the essential nature of that concept.

13. Pre-Socratic philosophers
The thinkers before them were preeminently
concerned with identifying the ultimate “substance” of
the universe, and they wrestled with the apparent
contradictions between the eternal and the finite, the
immutable and the changing, appearance and reality.

14. WHAT IS THE
NATURE OF REALITY?

15. REALITY
Reality is the ultimate nature of the world (Solomon
and Higgins, 2014).
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy which deals
with the nature of reality.

16. Reality is the eternal
realm of the forms.

17. Plato
Plato proposed two different “worlds”: the world of
“becoming,” of our physical world; and the world of
“being.”

18. Plato
Reality is the world of “being” which is populated by
ideal “forms,” archetypes or essences of everything
that exists.
In our everyday world of the senses, we experience
only imperfect examples of, or “participants” in, these
“forms.”

19. Reality
is the natural world.

20. Aristotle
Aristotle proposed that there are two categories of
“things”: matter (the physicality of a thing) and form
(the essence of a thing).
Taken together, matter and form combine to create
formed matter or substance.

21. Reality is a dualism of
physical objects and
non-physical minds.

22. Rene Descartes
He used a constructively skeptical approach, vowing
to begin with a “clean slate,” or position of radical
doubt.
This led him to conceive of the possibility of an “evil
genius,” an entity that manipulates us into believing
that our waking dream is “reality.”

23. “Am I real?”

24. "Dubi

25. "Dubidubidapdap,
dubidubidapdap,
dubidubidapdap,
dubidubidipdip.."

26. "Dubidubidapdap,
dubidubidapdap,
dubidubidapdap,
dubidubidipdip.."

27. "Dubito ergo cogito,
cogito ergo sum."

28. "I doubt therefore I think,
I think therefore I am.

29. Reality is the world
which causes our
sensations.

30. Reality is our
perceptions and ideas.

31. “Esse est percipi.”

32. “To be is to be perceived.”

33. George Berkeley
According to Berkeley, all things exist only as minds,
or as ideas within minds.
Ultimately, for Berkeley, all things exist as ideas in
the mind of God.

34. “We are all but dreams in
the mind of God.”

35. Reality is the world
we experience.

36. Reality is the world of
experience that we
actively construct.

37. REALITY, TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE
Metaphysics and epistemology are interdependent,
and answering questions about the nature of reality
frequently involves answering questions about the
nature of truth and knowledge.

38. REALITY, TRUTH AND KNOWLEDGE
Reality is the ultimate nature of the world (Solomon
and Higgins, 2014).
Truth is a statement about the way the world actually
is.
Knowledge is justified true belief.

39. HOW DO WE
KNOW TRUTH?

40. Empiricism vs. Rationalism
Empiricism – the view that the senses (and sense
experience) are primary in acquiring knowledge.
Rationalism – the view that reason has precedence
over the ways of acquiring knowledge or, more
strongly, that it is the unique path to knowledge.

41. Empiricism vs. Rationalism
Rationalists:
Plato
Descartes
Leibniz
Immanuel Kant
Empiricists:
Aristotle
John Locke
David Hume
George Berkeley

42. Knowledge of the
natural world is gained
through empirical
investigation.

43. Knowledge of the
world is gained
through mental ideas
produced by
empirical sensations.

44. Knowledge is limited
to sense experience,
to relations between
ideas.

45. The only knowledge
we have is of our
ideas about objects,
such as the sensations
we perceive.

46. Empiricism vs. Rationalism
Rationalists:
Plato
Descartes
Leibniz
Immanuel Kant
Empiricists:
Aristotle
John Locke
David Hume
George Berkeley

47. Knowledge is gained
through rational
intuition.

48. Knowledge is gained
through radical doubt
and intuition.

49. Knowledge is
constructed by
applying the faculties
of the mind to sense
experience.

51. “Lamang ang may alam.”

57. 1. Mike Bedard. (May 31, 2020). Plato’s Allegory of the
Cave: Summary and Meaning for Screenwriters.
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/platos-allegory-of-the-
cave/ [accessed September 28, 2020]
2. John Chaffee. (2016). The Philosopher’s Way: A Text with
Readings, 5th Edition. Boston: Pearson
3. Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins. (2014). The Big
Questions: A Short Introduction to Philosophy, Ninth
Edition. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning