St.

Thomas and Critical Thinking

If you cannot be certain on what the truth is

based on experience, can you know anything?

Group 5:
Bactol, Victor Jr. | Espiritu, Dan Aldrew | Montilla, Sheene Leigh | Munoz, Francis | Sat 11-2pm

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Question:

If you cannot be certain on what the truth

is, based on experience, can you know
anything?

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Irrefutable

Indesputable

Correctness
Fact Certainty

Veracity
Honesty

Candor

Sure

Unquestionable
Indubitable
Definite

Precise

Definition of terms:

Accuracy

contact with
exposure to insight into

participation in

awareness of

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

notice

Be aware

realize
perceive

Sense

involvement in

be informed

If you cannot be certain on what the truth

is, based on experience, can you know
anything?

Definition of terms:

Truth Is the property of sentences, assertions,

beliefs, thoughts, or propositions that are said,
in ordinary discourse, to agree with the facts or
to state what is the case.

(Source: Encyclopedia Britanica)

To say of what is that it is, or of what it is

not that it is not, is true Aristotle
Real facts about something
St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

(34-322 BCE)

Definition of terms:

Certainty - Is the highest form of knowledge or is the

only epistemic property superior to knowledge
(Source: Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Not having any doubt about something

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Definition of terms:

Experience

Knowledge

connected

perceptions

by
(Source:

means
Kant

of

Dictionary)

The knowledge or mastery of an event

or subject gained through involvement
in or exposure to it.

The process of seeing and doing things an

of having things happen to you
St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Definition of terms:

Knowledge
Facts, information, and skills acquired by a person
through experience or education; the theoretical or
practical understanding of a subject
A justified true belief (Plato)

Awareness of something

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Its a

YES!
Sheene

Victor

Francis

Dan

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Sheene says

We cannot experience the truth all the time.

But we can have an experience on
happenings that you can tell whether its
either truthful or not.
Example:
A man is a drug user and he was known in
that doing. Thats what you know. But this
truth may no longer be if the man eventually
change during his rehabilitation and started
to embrace a new life.

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Examples and Discussions:

What you experience is your truth.

Everybodys truth varies, so theres nothing you can
describe as an utmost truth.
example:
You and your friend ordered a cupcake. Same color, same
flavor, same cupcake. Your friend told you its too sweet
but for you, its just perfect.
Sheene

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Francis

Dan

Dan says

One can now anything through

justified true beliefs. A person can
have justified belief without being
certain that his proposition and facts
are true.
Knowledge can be attained as long as
proposition and facts agree with each
other. But certainty is not a
requirement, one only needs to justify
the correspondence.

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Examples and Discussions:

The case of a true born child.

How can someone prove that he or she is a true born child of his/her parents?
The ultimate proofs include any of the following;
- DNA test
- Pictures
- Videos
- Testimony of a witness
However, government agencies or other concerned entities only require a certificate of live birth
(birth certificate) to know who your parents are. Without the need to prove it through test,
pictures, etc., in most cases, the document itself provides credence to the belief that you are
indeed a true born child of your parents.

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Sheene

Victor

Francis

Dan

Victor says

REAL WORLD (truth) -> cannot be

made certain based on
EXPERIENCE, YES, we can KNOW
anything based on REASONING.
Though we cannot be certain
on what the truth is based on
experience, WE CAN STILL
KNOW ANYTHING.

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Examples and Discussions:

Example:
Killing a human being is murder;
Abortion is killing a human being;
Abortion is murder.
Is this correct?
Is abortion murder?
In law, abortion is not considered murder. Can we know the
truth of this based on reasoning?
Sheene

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Francis

Dan

YES!
Sheene

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Francis

Dan

But how?

Sheene

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Francis

Dan

Examples and Discussions:

Terms explicitly involved:

Murder a felony committed by killing a human being with
an attending aggravating circumstances such during
nighttime, when the victim is helpless, with premeditation
and among others to ensure the perpetration of the crime.
Example: killing a 7-year-old boy. (The boy is helpless)
Killing of human being could be homicide, infanticide and
parricide depending on the circumstances. (How about
abortion?)
Abortion the deliberate termination of pregnancy done by
killing the fetus.
Sheene Francis
(Is this a killing of human being?)
What about a fetus?
St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Dan

Examples and Discussions:

Is fetus a human being?

Fetus is an unborn human baby.
Is an unborn human baby a human being? YES
Let us clarify this by applying ABSTRACTION.
ABSTRACTION is a mental process whereby the intellect
strips the image of all its non-essential characteristics
(accidents). What remains is the essential characteristics
(essence).
ESSENCE is anything without which the thing or being will
not exist.
or the WHATNESS of a thing.
Sheene Francis
ACCIDENT is anything without which the thing will still exist.

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Dan

Examples and Discussions:

ABSTRACTION will lead us to know what is the essence of a

human being. If the essence of a human being is also the
essence of an unborn baby (fetus), then it is a human being.
This is true based on abstraction which is a mental process
hence not just based on EXPERIENCE.
Explanation of ABSTRACTION by illustration
Because a fetus is a human being who was killed helpless
(aggravating circumstance) then ABORTION which is an act of
killing a helpless human being (fetus) is MURDER.
Sheene

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Francis

Dan

Examples and Discussions:

Ergo: The CHURCH is correct to declare ABORTION as

MURDER.
In the given example EXPERIENCE will not suffice or even
immaterial to know anything about the nature of ABORTION
which could be considered heinous.
To know anything about the nature of abortion, we do not
need to have an experience of committing murder, or any act
of killing such as homicide, infanticide or even the act of
committing abortion itself.
It is a heinous crime based on our own understanding
and Francis
Sheene
reasoning and it is TRUE.
Thus the reason why the church condemns the said act.
St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Dan

Francis says

If you do not know anything or

dont know if you know
anything, you know that you do
not know anything or you know
that you dont know if you know
anything. Therefore, you know
anything which is the statement
above.

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Examples and Discussions:

In a laboratory for teaching, suppose that all the reagent was

ordered by a certain chemist. Since the laboratory only needs just
ample amounts of these reagents, he transferred just enough
volume of these reagents in different small container and put in
the lab. But on the next day, he realized that there was no label in
all of the new container he had put in the lab.
In this current situation, the chemist can never be certain of the
identity of each reagent but can he still know anything?
Even if the chemist cannot know its identity despite his encounter
with the reagents yesterday, there are things that he can still
Sheene Francis
know.
Eg. Knowing all the possible identity of each reagent
St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Dan

Examples and Discussions:

PHILOSOPHY is a science of beings by their ultimate

principles and causes as known by natural reason alone (St.
Thomas Aquinas).
PHILOSOPHY is a science of the ultimate reasons of beings as
acquired by the aid of human reason alone (C. Bittle).
In philosophy we can know anything based our RATIONALITY.

Sheene

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Victor

Francis

Dan

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016

Thank You!

St. Thomas & Critical Thinking | Assignment No. 1 | 3 rd September 2016