Londoniyyah - Part 1: Epistemology and Theories of Truth | Mohammed Hijab (2021-09-19) ​

0:00:02 [Music]
0:00:07 and welcome to this new series we are
0:00:09 going to be exploring 25 different
0:00:12 uh talking points which we're going to
0:00:13 include in sha allah
0:00:15 things like the theories of justice
0:00:16 which is what we're going to be talking
0:00:17 about today in epistemology things like
0:00:20 moral philosophy things like political
0:00:21 philosophy things like the philosophy of
0:00:23 religion all of which are intended
0:00:26 to arm muslim people
0:00:28 in the east and in the west
0:00:31 in being able to deal with questions
0:00:33 contentions and controversies relating
0:00:35 to islam and other world religions and
0:00:38 ideologies
0:00:40 this
0:00:41 series if you like is based on a poem
0:00:44 which has been crafted
0:00:46 by a shaykh
0:00:51 who we've had discussions with
0:00:54 and who has with great generosity been
0:00:57 able to create for us a poem
0:00:59 uh based on some of the most important
0:01:01 talking points as i've mentioned
0:01:04 uh on the issues that we've just talked
0:01:06 about so what we're going to be doing
0:01:07 insha'allah is we are going to be
0:01:09 reading the poem in the arabic language
0:01:11 as per kind of the tradition of the
0:01:13 traditionalist
0:01:15 schools of islamic thought
0:01:17 and then translating this and then going
0:01:20 into the objectives of the lesson
0:01:23 and talking about
0:01:25 it will be epistemology
0:01:27 so inshallah without further ado i'm
0:01:30 going to give it to you insha allah
0:01:31 so you can read
0:01:33 the
0:01:34 poem
0:01:37 in
0:01:51 foreign
0:02:21 right
0:02:22 so for those arabic speakers that want
0:02:24 to know what we're talking about and
0:02:25 want a kind of exposition of these
0:02:28 things we will be doing this series also
0:02:29 in the arabic language which will be on
0:02:31 the sapiens arabic youtube page
0:02:34 to get straight to the objectives the
0:02:35 objectives of today's session
0:02:37 insha'allah as follows to know what
0:02:39 constitutes knowledge
0:02:41 and how it's differentiated from other
0:02:43 types of so-called cognitive successes
0:02:45 and we'll get to these
0:02:47 key words what is a cognitive success
0:02:49 why do epistemologists use this term how
0:02:51 is it differentiated from
0:02:53 knowledge what is knowledge um
0:02:55 and so on these are very important
0:02:57 questions that any student of philosophy
0:02:59 or epistemology
0:03:01 should know the answers to
0:03:04 so we're going to be looking both at the
0:03:06 islamic intellectual history or having
0:03:09 discussions based on some of the words
0:03:11 of some of the great scholars from that
0:03:12 history and the western academic history
0:03:15 on this topic
0:03:16 the second thing is to be able to
0:03:18 familiarize ourselves with the debates
0:03:20 in epistemology regarding theories of
0:03:22 truth
0:03:24 now there's lots of debates in
0:03:25 epistemology but this is perhaps one of
0:03:27 the most foundational ones
0:03:29 uh what is truth because we have
0:03:31 conversations all the time of this is
0:03:33 the truth and this is not the truth we
0:03:35 have these conversations mundanely
0:03:37 in the uh parlance that we have in
0:03:39 everyday vernacular with you know maybe
0:03:41 your spouse your your friend and so on
0:03:43 this is the truth and this is not true
0:03:44 all the way up to the most
0:03:45 metaphysically complicated topics
0:03:48 we talk about
0:03:49 this is the ultimate truth and this is
0:03:51 the absolute truth
0:03:52 but it would suggest i mean it would beg
0:03:55 the question actually more
0:03:56 foundationally what is truth in the
0:03:57 first place and is there any consensus
0:03:59 on what truth is today we have to know
0:04:02 what the competing schools of thought in
0:04:04 epistemology consider as truth
0:04:06 and we have to know the arguments they
0:04:08 use for and against other schools of
0:04:10 thought we'll be focusing on three
0:04:12 particular schools of thought which have
0:04:13 probably the most prominence in the
0:04:15 western academy
0:04:16 which are
0:04:17 the coher the coherence theory of truth
0:04:19 the pragmatist theory of truth of course
0:04:21 the correspondence theory of truth as
0:04:23 well
0:04:24 so that's the second objective the third
0:04:25 objective to be able to make a judgment
0:04:27 about this debate so we have to be
0:04:28 engaging critically with these topics
0:04:31 not just uh mundanely or passively we
0:04:34 have to be able to kind of put ourselves
0:04:37 in the shoes proverbial shoes of the
0:04:40 pragmatists of the coherentist
0:04:43 and or the correspondence theorist
0:04:46 and so we'll start right now with this
0:04:47 fundamental question
0:04:49 what is knowledge
0:04:52 so epistemologists they differentiate
0:04:54 between belief and knowledge this is
0:04:56 extremely important
0:04:57 because belief
0:04:59 is something which can be true or it can
0:05:01 be something which is false okay you
0:05:03 know you have
0:05:05 true belief and false belief
0:05:07 so what is knowledge then knowledge is
0:05:09 justified true belief
0:05:13 can you say that one more time yes i
0:05:14 have no problem in repeating this
0:05:17 knowledge is according to the majority
0:05:19 definition in epistemology is justified
0:05:22 true belief in other words three
0:05:24 criterion need to be met in order for
0:05:27 something to be considered as knowledge
0:05:29 that has to be justified
0:05:31 it has to be true
0:05:32 and it has to be a belief
0:05:34 now these three things
0:05:36 have to be in place in order for the
0:05:38 thing to be knowledge can you say
0:05:40 there's such a thing as true knowledge
0:05:41 and false knowledge on this strict
0:05:43 epistemological definition no you can't
0:05:45 it's either
0:05:46 knowledge or there isn't knowledge
0:05:49 if you say something which is false this
0:05:50 is not knowledge
0:05:52 and just on a side note it's really
0:05:53 interesting i was
0:05:55 thinking about this verse in the quran
0:05:57 since we're muslims and
0:05:59 coming from that
0:06:00 perspective
0:06:08 they have no knowledge of this when
0:06:10 christians are saying that you know
0:06:12 jesus is the son of god you know
0:06:15 that they have no knowledge of this
0:06:17 so it's as if their false beliefs
0:06:21 amount to nothing basically it's not
0:06:22 even knowledge it's not false knowledge
0:06:25 it's not knowledge at all
0:06:27 they have no knowledge of it
0:06:28 such knowledge does not even exist in
0:06:30 the first place because this is a false
0:06:31 belief
0:06:33 interesting anyway but gone back to this
0:06:34 point
0:06:35 that this is
0:06:37 what knowledge is
0:06:38 however someone came out called gettier
0:06:42 a very interesting uh character who came
0:06:43 out
0:06:44 and he proposed what referred to are
0:06:47 gettier examples actually
0:06:49 and
0:06:50 these are you know
0:06:52 examples of theories and so on
0:06:54 of uh
0:06:56 where all these three conditions can be
0:06:58 met but actually knowledge is not uh is
0:07:01 not achieved
0:07:02 and
0:07:03 i'll give you one example of such a
0:07:05 thing he wrote this in two pages i mean
0:07:07 you can see sometimes you can write
0:07:08 something in an academic way and it's
0:07:11 very short and brief but has such an
0:07:13 impact i think one and a half page or
0:07:14 two pages and these were referred to as
0:07:15 gettier examples in fact
0:07:18 but i'll give you an example because his
0:07:19 exam's a bit long-winded i'll give you
0:07:21 an example of what would constitute as a
0:07:22 get here example for example
0:07:24 if you look at a clock okay and it says
0:07:27 uh 12 o'clock on it it says 12 clock but
0:07:29 there's no battery in that clock there's
0:07:30 no battery in that clock do you
0:07:32 do you have a justified belief yes you
0:07:35 have a justified reason for thinking
0:07:37 it's two o'clock or twelve o'clock
0:07:38 whatever it is
0:07:39 what if it happens to be twelve o'clock
0:07:42 yes you have a justified true belief
0:07:45 but it's based on something which is
0:07:47 telling you the wrong time it's just
0:07:49 coincidental that at this point in time
0:07:52 you're looking at the clock
0:07:54 and so sometimes
0:07:55 you can have instances where all three
0:07:58 criterion
0:08:00 justified true belief are not met but
0:08:02 then you can still have
0:08:03 uh you can you can still have knowledge
0:08:06 or you can have false knowledge
0:08:07 and so these were dubbed gettier
0:08:10 examples but for the most part apart
0:08:12 from gettier
0:08:14 most people would would still insist
0:08:16 actually on this usage of
0:08:18 the term knowledge which is that is
0:08:20 justified true
0:08:23 belief
0:08:26 now
0:08:27 in epistemology there are different
0:08:28 schools of thought uh you'd be
0:08:31 you know if you read a book something
0:08:32 like
0:08:33 evidence and inquiry written by susan
0:08:35 hack where she discusses different
0:08:38 schools of thought and so on different
0:08:41 you know schools of thought now i want
0:08:43 to be very clear we're going to talk
0:08:44 about theories of truth today okay in
0:08:47 theories of truth there are three main
0:08:48 schools of thought but in epistemology
0:08:50 generally there are more than three
0:08:52 that are discussed
0:08:53 and sometimes when for example we talk
0:08:55 about coherentism
0:08:57 or we're talking about whatever it is
0:08:59 we're going to be talking about one can
0:09:00 get confused
0:09:02 between the two categories when we're
0:09:04 talking about theories of truth
0:09:05 sometimes the same school of thought
0:09:08 is described in a slightly different way
0:09:10 so for example one of the major schools
0:09:12 of law in epistemology is something
0:09:14 called foundationalism
0:09:16 and foundationalism is the idea that
0:09:18 actually
0:09:20 there cannot be an infinite regress and
0:09:22 this is the main argument for
0:09:23 foundationalism actually there cannot be
0:09:25 an infinite regress of explained things
0:09:27 there have to be these basic ideas
0:09:31 that
0:09:32 um
0:09:33 the superstructure of other ideas are
0:09:36 supported upon if you like they can be
0:09:38 called axioms
0:09:39 they can be called axioms so these
0:09:40 things that they don't have the
0:09:42 explanation of their own they break the
0:09:43 infinite regress and they explain other
0:09:46 beliefs okay they don't have an
0:09:47 explanation of their own and they
0:09:48 explain other beliefs so foundationalism
0:09:51 is this idea that epistemologically
0:09:53 there must be a foundation for our
0:09:55 beliefs and then the superstructure of
0:09:57 other beliefs are rested on this
0:09:58 foundation
0:10:00 on the other hand you have a school of
0:10:02 thought like coherentism which describes
0:10:05 beliefs less like a building and more
0:10:07 like a web in fact they say there's
0:10:09 there's not an epistle epistemological
0:10:11 advantage
0:10:12 in so-called basic beliefs over other
0:10:14 beliefs and they would say that actually
0:10:17 these two kinds of beliefs are the same
0:10:18 in epistemic weight
0:10:20 and we'll talk about how this relates to
0:10:22 today's discussion
0:10:24 but these schools of thought
0:10:27 are really important because they have
0:10:28 their kind of
0:10:31 inception
0:10:32 the rational school for for example has
0:10:34 this inception in uh
0:10:36 the renaissance you have descartes
0:10:38 as many of you would have known this
0:10:39 name descartes rene descartes who wrote
0:10:41 the meditations you know he employed
0:10:43 systemic doubt to come to a particular
0:10:45 conclusion of i think therefore i am
0:10:48 kojito ergosam which is the
0:10:50 base it was actually for the base for
0:10:52 for a long time of western philosophy
0:10:55 um for the rational school in particular
0:10:57 so i think therefore i am is the most
0:10:59 foundational thing you can come to he
0:11:01 wrote in his meditations using systemic
0:11:03 doubt
0:11:04 um that you know i doubt my this i doubt
0:11:07 my senses it could be a demon that's
0:11:08 possessing me it could be this
0:11:10 at the end he said the one thing i can't
0:11:12 doubt he said one thing i can't doubt is
0:11:15 i think therefore i am
0:11:17 by the way nietzsche came back you know
0:11:19 he wrote i think he was in the gay
0:11:20 science or beyond good and evil one of
0:11:22 the books and he said actually there's
0:11:24 some presuppositions in this thing which
0:11:25 you thought was unshakable which they
0:11:27 could go some or you know i think
0:11:29 therefore i am says well you're saying i
0:11:31 which presupposes that you exist
0:11:33 when you say i think therefore i am it
0:11:34 says why why not avicenna quite
0:11:37 interestingly even cena
0:11:38 he had a much more watertight version of
0:11:40 the kijito many hundreds of years before
0:11:43 uh rene descartes attempted
0:11:45 the the operation which is he said
0:11:48 and now
0:11:51 there's there's no doubt that there is
0:11:52 existence so he didn't personalize it
0:11:54 and he didn't have a personal product
0:11:56 and this was written in a book called
0:11:57 najit
0:11:58 uh that's been seen a lot but anyway
0:12:00 putting that to the side the rational
0:12:01 the rationalist school of thought
0:12:03 they had this idea that you can
0:12:05 rationalize almost any belief system in
0:12:07 your mind you can come to the truth with
0:12:09 your mind
0:12:11 and
0:12:11 those who went against them were the
0:12:13 british empiricists for example john
0:12:15 locke was one of them
0:12:17 you had the empiricists who believed
0:12:19 that the sentence will experience or
0:12:21 sense datum was the best way of
0:12:23 achieving information like you your five
0:12:25 senses this is how actually you you get
0:12:28 information so the the there was a
0:12:31 tension if you like between the
0:12:32 empiricist school of thor and the
0:12:33 rationalist school of law
0:12:36 and of course then the post-modern
0:12:38 school of thought which we're going to
0:12:40 touch upon maybe somewhere along the
0:12:42 line of this series but these are some
0:12:44 of the epistemological schools of
0:12:46 thought you have skepticism which is
0:12:48 the idea that we can't even we can't
0:12:50 even know anyway we can't even know
0:12:52 anyway these are things that we you know
0:12:54 they doubt the idea that we can know
0:12:55 these things
0:12:56 but then the question would would be i
0:12:58 mean is that knowledge claim in and of
0:12:59 itself i mean that we can't know anyway
0:13:02 but these are all different approaches
0:13:03 to epistemology you can be a skeptic you
0:13:05 can be a rationalist you can be an
0:13:06 empiricist you can be a foundation list
0:13:09 yeah you know even susan hack in the
0:13:12 book she talks about found heroinism she
0:13:14 puts things together you know
0:13:15 foundationalism and coherentism she puts
0:13:17 them together
0:13:18 you can you can play around with the
0:13:20 categories in this way and depending on
0:13:22 how you start
0:13:24 you know
0:13:24 how you start you know
0:13:26 this will determine how you end if you
0:13:28 like you know if you start as a skeptic
0:13:31 you might not end up anywhere you might
0:13:32 just say well i doubt this i doubt that
0:13:34 i doubt this high value it's very
0:13:35 important for us to establish
0:13:38 okay who we are talking to and what
0:13:40 criterion they are putting in place for
0:13:42 what is beneficial knowledge what is
0:13:44 true knowledge what is true and
0:13:45 justified belief because if if the
0:13:47 criterion is is is jumbled then the
0:13:50 conclusions will be jumbled
0:13:52 and so this is really an extremely
0:13:54 important point because the issue of
0:13:56 evidence will keep coming up
0:13:58 but what counts as good evidence well
0:13:59 for the russian this is rational
0:14:00 evidence for the empiricist it's
0:14:02 empirical evidence you know and so on
0:14:04 and so forth
0:14:05 and for the coherences it's coherent
0:14:07 evidence it's a coherent set of
0:14:09 propositions that come together in a
0:14:11 manner that doesn't contradict itself as
0:14:13 we're going to come and see
0:14:15 later on so
0:14:17 in the islamic tradition obviously we
0:14:19 have the fitra which is another thing
0:14:20 and this was in the poem because the
0:14:22 three
0:14:23 things that we're going to come to in
0:14:24 the in the poem
0:14:26 was
0:14:27 which is the idea of of the five senses
0:14:31 you know the the the
0:14:33 organs
0:14:34 uh of perception you want to put them
0:14:36 that way you know law and the perception
0:14:37 the five sentences
0:14:39 and then you have
0:14:41 which is it covers the rationalist
0:14:43 school of thought numbers you know
0:14:44 rationalization things which are not
0:14:46 necessarily put under a microscope but
0:14:47 that you can still perceive
0:14:49 and then you have the fitra which is
0:14:50 intuitive knowledge which many have
0:14:52 spoken about many have been skeptical
0:14:54 about but it's still something there
0:14:56 and what is intuitive knowledge it's an
0:14:58 instinct
0:14:59 in fact that's what the kind of muslim
0:15:01 scholars have said you know full time
0:15:03 that it's it's an instinct it's not
0:15:04 something it's it's super rational if
0:15:06 you like it's not something which can be
0:15:08 reduced to a set of
0:15:10 propositions
0:15:12 that can be put in propositional terms
0:15:14 uh if p
0:15:16 uh
0:15:17 p entails q and you know then q then p
0:15:20 you can't put it in this language you
0:15:21 know
0:15:22 in instinctual knowledge
0:15:24 or intuitive knowledge is is this
0:15:26 knowledge
0:15:27 which just comes naturally in tamiya
0:15:29 himself he says it's just like a baby
0:15:33 instinctively knowing how to suckle the
0:15:36 breast of the mother is is that
0:15:38 instinctive you don't even need to think
0:15:40 about it it just happens it's like
0:15:41 touching a
0:15:42 candle and knowing that it's it's hard
0:15:44 that kind of knowledge is an instinct
0:15:46 it's pure unadulterated instinct
0:15:49 and
0:15:50 it's really interesting because i do
0:15:51 want to mention something here
0:15:53 first of all it's very important the
0:15:54 fethullah this is the understanding of
0:15:55 ibn tamiya and yes
0:15:57 had a very similar understanding and
0:15:58 that's why the muslim world today i mean
0:16:00 they're settled on this idea that the
0:16:02 fetal releases is in a predisposition to
0:16:04 believing in god but this was not the
0:16:05 only um kind of classical idea of what
0:16:07 the fitrah was by the way the matasil is
0:16:10 yes they believed in that but someone
0:16:11 like ibn abdul baar
0:16:14 he believed that the fitra was neutral
0:16:16 he didn't believe that the fitzra was
0:16:19 pushing you towards believing in god or
0:16:21 or not in fact um he you know
0:16:24 he believed that you know you could give
0:16:26 you a propensity it's a good or evil
0:16:27 avisa you've been seeing that he didn't
0:16:29 believe that that either he believed
0:16:31 that it was just something that which
0:16:32 allowed you to see the intelligibles in
0:16:33 the world it's not something which is uh
0:16:36 you know this
0:16:37 and um
0:16:38 and so there was some slight level of
0:16:40 controversy uh what the future entailed
0:16:42 but the fedra from the islamic
0:16:44 perspective is the idea okay that you
0:16:46 are born with this receptive if you want
0:16:49 to put it in in modern language
0:16:50 receptivity to believing in god this
0:16:54 this
0:16:54 this agent
0:16:58 and this is something which cognitive
0:16:59 science has affirmed to a large extent
0:17:02 so
0:17:03 justin barrett uh a cognitive scientist
0:17:06 i'm gonna i'm just gonna read something
0:17:07 that he says quite interesting and i'll
0:17:09 send it to you if you don't have but in
0:17:10 one page 158 of his book he says even 13
0:17:13 month old even a 13 month older person
0:17:16 appears to regard an internal agent one
0:17:18 that does not resemble a human or animal
0:17:20 is capable of bringing about order where
0:17:23 a similar non-agent
0:17:25 whereas a similar non-agent is not
0:17:26 capable babies look
0:17:28 longer as if surprised when rolling a
0:17:31 ball appears to neatly stack up a stack
0:17:33 a heap of blocks compared with
0:17:36 when a ball turns
0:17:38 the neat stack into a jumble when the
0:17:40 ball has eyes and a mouth on its
0:17:44 scoots towards the blocks like an agent
0:17:46 instead of rolling then babies do not
0:17:48 regard the two events differently
0:17:50 meaning even a child can assess
0:17:52 causation and um attach telios to a
0:17:56 purpose and so on we have this not just
0:17:58 receptivity to believing in god as he
0:18:00 says but actually we also have this
0:18:02 receptivity
0:18:04 to
0:18:05 make purpose into the world and these
0:18:07 are things that potentially the fitra
0:18:08 can include you know but definitely we
0:18:10 have an intuitive kind of sense for this
0:18:13 cognitive science pushes in that
0:18:15 direction and so he mentions uh mentions
0:18:18 that so just to kind of summarize on
0:18:20 this point before we move on to
0:18:22 uh
0:18:24 the theories of truth which is what
0:18:25 we're going to be talking about today
0:18:26 it's important for us to know
0:18:28 what we think
0:18:30 what we what are the definitions here
0:18:32 what are the definitions of knowledge
0:18:34 what are the definitions of
0:18:36 belief how is knowledge differentiated
0:18:38 from belief in the epistemological works
0:18:42 what is intuitive knowledge how's it
0:18:44 different from rationalist knowledge
0:18:46 what types of what schools of thought
0:18:48 are there we have to settle on this you
0:18:49 know we have to know
0:18:51 uh this before we move on because if we
0:18:52 don't know this we can't move on so uh
0:18:55 brother brother brother
0:18:57 uh tell us
0:18:58 what
0:19:00 are some of the
0:19:01 schools of thought
0:19:02 uh what are some of the schools of
0:19:04 thought in epistemology
0:19:10 obviously uh
0:19:12 the russians which you mentioned there's
0:19:14 a group of philosophers so this is a
0:19:15 debate that happened in the
0:19:16 enlightenment period you mentioned the
0:19:17 irrationalism
0:19:19 the rationalists who believe that you
0:19:20 could understand kind of you can get to
0:19:23 truth in a sense just through rational
0:19:25 methods empiricists came along and said
0:19:27 that the sort of sensory experience is
0:19:29 required you need to you know have
0:19:31 experience with the world that's
0:19:32 happening
0:19:33 and you have the skeptic's
0:19:35 skeptics or skepticism and they're
0:19:37 basically just skeptics you know they
0:19:39 say we don't really know anything
0:19:42 and that's potentially countered by you
0:19:43 know is that actually pain another self
0:19:45 how do you know that so
0:19:47 those would be three excellent is there
0:19:49 anything else you mentioned today does
0:19:50 anyone i remember any other schools of
0:19:52 thought that we mentioned generally in
0:19:53 epistemology by the way this is by no
0:19:55 means an exhaustive list
0:19:56 but these are some of the main ones
0:19:58 any other schools of thought that we
0:19:59 mentioned today epistemology that anyone
0:20:01 remembers
0:20:03 foundation
0:20:05 this is basically the idea that uh we
0:20:07 start off with axioms that can't be
0:20:09 proven that's basically self-evident yes
0:20:11 and then we have to build a world views
0:20:12 based on those acts and those axioms
0:20:15 cannot be proven
0:20:16 in any way we just have to accept it as
0:20:18 it is beautiful foundationalism is a
0:20:20 very important one because it is
0:20:21 probably the most popular one i'm just
0:20:22 guessing here but the idea of a
0:20:24 structure and a superstructure or the
0:20:26 idea of foundations of the house and
0:20:27 then the rest of the house this is how
0:20:29 they put it who who differs with them in
0:20:32 terms of who we talked about and they
0:20:33 don't like this analogy and they have
0:20:35 something else to say about it
0:20:37 coherence yes what do they say
0:20:40 they have the web like framework yes
0:20:43 whereby they dismiss the idea of
0:20:46 basic beliefs having more
0:20:48 epistemological epistemological
0:20:50 advantage over complex people that's
0:20:53 perfectly well put you know they they
0:20:55 believe that it's it's a web coherent
0:20:57 just to say it's a web of beliefs and so
0:20:59 there's no advantage it's exactly right
0:21:01 there's no advantage over one set of
0:21:02 beliefs
0:21:03 over others and so they would they would
0:21:05 completely deny you know this
0:21:08 we're going to move on to theories of
0:21:09 truth now guys since we
0:21:12 have covered this kind of
0:21:14 preamble if you like but before we do so
0:21:15 are there any questions
0:21:25 yes
0:21:27 the basic argument itself one could
0:21:29 argue is a truth thing right
0:21:31 the idea that uh uh
0:21:34 that we can't um
0:21:36 give more episodic weight to one set of
0:21:38 ideas over another that is out of the
0:21:40 truth claim right so wouldn't that
0:21:42 require a presupposed uh
0:21:45 so yeah yeah so the currency school of
0:21:47 thought they their criterion for for
0:21:49 truth as we're going to come to right
0:21:51 now
0:21:52 is consistency
0:21:53 okay so
0:21:55 we're going to see how and it's a good
0:21:57 way to segue actually we're going to see
0:21:59 how
0:22:01 they make this kind of argument and why
0:22:02 they make the argument and what things
0:22:04 have been said i mean even bertrand
0:22:05 russell has some very interesting say
0:22:07 things to say about the coherences what
0:22:09 we're going to be doing after as well is
0:22:10 just getting involved in okay let's
0:22:11 pretend to be
0:22:13 uh coherent for a second let's try and
0:22:14 let's pretend to be you know um
0:22:16 correspondence serious and then let's
0:22:18 let's really flesh this out so in terms
0:22:20 of the theories of truth there are three
0:22:22 major schools of thought okay three
0:22:24 major schools of thought there are
0:22:25 others but these are the three major
0:22:26 ones okay the three major ones are
0:22:28 correspondence theorists okay number one
0:22:31 correspondence theorists
0:22:34 now correspondent theorists
0:22:37 they would say a belief is only true if
0:22:39 and only if it corresponds with
0:22:40 something in existence
0:22:43 a belief is only true if and only if
0:22:47 it corresponds with something in
0:22:48 existence
0:22:52 so for example if i say i'm i am wearing
0:22:54 a ring or i'm holding a ring okay this
0:22:57 is uh
0:22:58 so i am effectively saying that there
0:23:00 exists a ring in the external world in
0:23:03 objective reality
0:23:06 and i am holding it
0:23:09 seems extremely uh
0:23:12 straightforward doesn't it and this is
0:23:14 really the prevailing school of thought
0:23:16 and for good reason because this without
0:23:19 this
0:23:20 what can you say
0:23:22 what can you what kind of truth claims
0:23:23 can even be made
0:23:25 if you if you can't say well truth is
0:23:27 that which
0:23:28 corresponds with reality
0:23:30 then how can we how can we be
0:23:32 intelligible at all talking about the
0:23:33 external world how can how can that be
0:23:36 intelligibility when speaking about
0:23:40 the external altar
0:23:41 this is uh the poem states this is what
0:23:43 the muslims are upon because if they
0:23:45 were on the other two theories as we say
0:23:47 this would give rise
0:23:49 to the possibilities that you know you
0:23:52 can have truths which are mythological
0:23:53 that we're going to come to this in a
0:23:54 second but this is impossible in the
0:23:56 islamic framework okay this is
0:23:58 impossible because when for example the
0:24:00 quranic message
0:24:02 is disseminated we're talking about
0:24:03 things that exist in the real world when
0:24:06 god speaks about you know the stories of
0:24:08 the prophets and messengers and so on
0:24:10 he's not talking about some video game
0:24:14 or some some some figment of someone's
0:24:15 imagination some mythology we're talking
0:24:17 about history we'll talk about some
0:24:18 things that happen in the real world in
0:24:19 the objective world we are not talking
0:24:22 about some things which are in the
0:24:23 figment of someone's imagination
0:24:25 okay so
0:24:26 this i would argue you cannot really be
0:24:29 a muslim
0:24:30 okay without having this kind of view of
0:24:32 truth when we say god exists we don't
0:24:34 say he exists in my mind we don't we
0:24:36 don't mean this we mean god exists in
0:24:39 the ex in external existence at least we
0:24:42 say world here but external existence
0:24:44 that there is a god and that is a truth
0:24:47 about the
0:24:49 externality of existence that's not
0:24:51 something which we are inventing or
0:24:53 which we are imagining or
0:24:56 which we can invent even it's not
0:24:57 susceptible to
0:25:00 us being able to invent it right so
0:25:02 anyway this is the poem states that this
0:25:05 is the position that we must take in
0:25:06 fact as muslims but the correspondence
0:25:08 theory of truth has been under attack
0:25:10 and this is something which we need to
0:25:12 pay attention to that's the first theory
0:25:15 of three major ones the second one is
0:25:16 the coherentist theory of truth
0:25:18 which we've described
0:25:20 and the coherence's theory of truth says
0:25:22 a belief is true if it coheres with a
0:25:24 body of statements that we take to be
0:25:27 true
0:25:29 really it's true if it's consistent
0:25:31 okay now we
0:25:33 once again as muslims we don't deny the
0:25:35 fact that something has to be consistent
0:25:36 or be to be true but is this a necessary
0:25:39 or sufficient condition so we would say
0:25:41 it's a necessary but not sufficient
0:25:42 condition
0:25:43 a correspondence theorist would argue
0:25:46 that consistency is a necessary but not
0:25:48 sufficient condition to truth yeah you
0:25:50 can't have two contradictory
0:25:52 propositions
0:25:53 but you but something is consistent it
0:25:55 can be consistent in your hallucination
0:25:58 something you know playing games with my
0:26:00 son or something you know and they are
0:26:02 thinking you know these coherent
0:26:04 probably think this is as true as the
0:26:05 real world
0:26:06 because the game is actually very
0:26:07 consistent it has levels it has you know
0:26:10 what stage one stage two stage three and
0:26:12 so on
0:26:13 so a computer game can be
0:26:15 on the coherence's theory of truth it
0:26:17 can be
0:26:18 consistent it can be true
0:26:21 now pragmatists they say
0:26:23 and this is the third theory so we said
0:26:25 number one was
0:26:27 was number one
0:26:29 correspondence number two was
0:26:31 coherences number three is the
0:26:33 pragmatists okay
0:26:34 and they signed off in america of all
0:26:37 places uh the most pragmatic people in
0:26:39 the world
0:26:40 um except when they're invading other
0:26:42 lands
0:26:43 uh but that's another story for another
0:26:44 day
0:26:46 they say truth is whatever actually
0:26:48 maybe they're most pragmatic then
0:26:49 actually
0:26:50 unfortunately not more successful
0:26:52 uh for them
0:26:54 truth is whatever is useful this is what
0:26:57 they say you know the truth is whatever
0:26:58 is here this is what john dewey um
0:27:00 truth is what works charles pierce truth
0:27:03 is tentative
0:27:04 these people jane uh william james and
0:27:07 charles pierce and john dewey were
0:27:09 really the three major founding fathers
0:27:11 of the pragmatic school for in the early
0:27:13 1900s 18 to 1900s late 18 to 1900s
0:27:17 early 1900s and this is what they were
0:27:20 saying that something is if it's true
0:27:21 for works
0:27:23 and of course you can probably imagine
0:27:25 the contradictions and or some of the
0:27:27 objections that you may already have
0:27:29 to this does anyone have any objections
0:27:31 if someone says well what is true is
0:27:32 what works well what can you what would
0:27:34 what would you say to that
0:27:37 but how do you know what works
0:27:38 but it's they'll say well we'll try it
0:27:40 they'll say they haven't answered that
0:27:42 they'll say we'll try it so what else
0:27:43 can someone say you know about that
0:27:48 so if you say well it's true if it works
0:27:51 how would you how would you go about
0:27:52 trying to refute that statement
0:28:01 yeah propaganda works it's true
0:28:03 uh but they'll say
0:28:05 in one in one aspect at least it is true
0:28:07 with them you know they would actually
0:28:10 whatever works
0:28:11 whatever works
0:28:13 is true at least in one perspective
0:28:14 that's their idea if it works it's true
0:28:17 now this proposition if it works is true
0:28:20 what's problematic about it
0:28:24 there's a lot of weakness involved
0:28:26 how do you find
0:28:28 what works or what's useful
0:28:30 so they'll say to that what how do we
0:28:32 define what works and what's useful we
0:28:34 would try it out and we would try it out
0:28:36 in whatever subject like for example if
0:28:38 we're talking about physics we'd try out
0:28:40 the theory if we're talking about cars
0:28:42 we'll try out the car if we are talking
0:28:44 about
0:28:45 marriages we try out the woman or the
0:28:46 man or whatever whatever it is it's true
0:28:49 if it works and it's false and if it
0:28:50 doesn't if we talk about politics we'll
0:28:52 see what's uh what's what creates more
0:28:54 stability if you like you know for the
0:28:56 for the economy for the society if it
0:28:58 works then this is true if it's not then
0:29:00 it how would you how would you refute
0:29:01 that
0:29:04 does that work
0:29:07 they'll say uh it works yes
0:29:10 they wouldn't say it's circular they
0:29:11 would say yeah it's fine it's the
0:29:13 statement works for me it works for us
0:29:14 it facilitates us uh you know this idea
0:29:18 to
0:29:18 to start our you know the enterprise of
0:29:20 uh
0:29:21 practical knowledge
0:29:23 you know so yes it's self practically
0:29:25 useful they would say the same and it
0:29:26 can be argued to be practically useful
0:29:28 let's think a little bit deeper
0:29:32 what's the problem with this theory
0:29:33 think about it
0:29:35 think a bit deeper i'll just take
0:29:38 experimentalized would up say it's just
0:29:40 a useless knowledge then
0:29:43 for example uh like even a big bank
0:29:45 theory
0:29:48 they can't
0:29:49 experiment
0:29:51 form it into an experiment
0:29:54 no it's not about making it into an
0:29:55 experiment or not it's just
0:29:58 it it is about whether well if a theory
0:30:01 is unfalsifiable even from like you know
0:30:03 the
0:30:04 purpurian idea car pop or whatever
0:30:07 if it's if it cannot be um
0:30:10 kind of isolated and experimented then
0:30:11 it's not even scientific according to
0:30:13 pop right
0:30:14 so that's something we'll talk about
0:30:16 insha'allah i want to talk about the
0:30:17 kind of philosophy of science but
0:30:18 this point
0:30:20 is a very important point if someone
0:30:21 says to you because it's foundational
0:30:23 it's actually foundational someone you
0:30:24 go to somebody and say what is the truth
0:30:26 for me the truth is whatever works
0:30:29 okay
0:30:30 as machiavellian is as it may sound um
0:30:32 as
0:30:33 consequential as it may sound it is
0:30:35 whatever works i do whatever works and
0:30:37 if it works i do it sounds very
0:30:38 corporate
0:30:39 kind of corporate
0:30:42 so we'll get to that it's good that you
0:30:44 just keep thinking no problem if
0:30:45 anything comes up just put your hands up
0:30:47 and you can just at any time just
0:30:49 bring it up
0:30:52 but we'll start with coherence's theory
0:30:54 okay
0:30:54 and coherentism has been
0:30:57 refuted
0:30:59 in so much as
0:31:03 it can be fictitious as we've kind of
0:31:04 alluded to it before and so bertrand
0:31:06 russell he talks about santa claus
0:31:09 and let me tell you what he said
0:31:11 he said i have always found that the
0:31:13 hypothesis of santa claus works
0:31:15 unsatisfactorily in the wider sense of
0:31:17 the word therefore
0:31:19 santa claus exists is true although
0:31:21 santa claus does not exist
0:31:23 i find the belief that sees across the
0:31:26 rubicon very distasteful
0:31:29 so here
0:31:30 yeah in a sense this is an objection you
0:31:33 could say to pragmatism as well but it
0:31:35 works
0:31:36 in similar vein to uh coherentism
0:31:40 there are lots of things which cohere
0:31:43 which are fictitious
0:31:45 and you might say well that's not a
0:31:46 problem for parentists we don't have a
0:31:48 problem with that we'll say the issue
0:31:50 comes at this point
0:31:52 if you have three different stories
0:31:54 of the same thing they are they are all
0:31:57 equally internally coherent
0:32:01 but all three of them contradict with
0:32:02 one another
0:32:03 then we have a state of affairs
0:32:06 where according to their own criterion
0:32:09 that
0:32:10 there's a contradiction that exists
0:32:12 because of coherentism maybe not within
0:32:14 this so for example you have a story
0:32:17 okay
0:32:18 if someone makes a story of bob going to
0:32:20 the
0:32:22 mall or i don't know what happens and
0:32:24 something happens to him and then
0:32:25 someone makes another story which is
0:32:27 fake story it's a fictitious it's a
0:32:28 mythological story
0:32:30 of bob
0:32:31 same bob
0:32:32 but it's a contradictory story and the
0:32:34 third person makes another story of bob
0:32:36 and it's contradictory to story one and
0:32:38 two then you have contradiction it's no
0:32:39 longer coherent
0:32:41 but you have internal consistency by
0:32:43 external contradiction
0:32:45 the issue therefore is that with
0:32:47 coherentism since all that is
0:32:49 requirement the requirement is only
0:32:51 consistency there can be a state of
0:32:53 affairs
0:32:54 where there are many truths all of which
0:32:57 contradict with one another which would
0:32:59 be against the criterion that is
0:33:01 required for coherentism to work in the
0:33:02 first place
0:33:04 and in regards to pragmatism which is
0:33:07 what we were just talking about the
0:33:07 useful if it works whatever the
0:33:09 strongest possible objection to this
0:33:12 is that you can imagine a set of affairs
0:33:14 where something
0:33:16 is
0:33:17 is a useful
0:33:18 falsehood
0:33:20 you can imagine a state of affairs
0:33:23 where something is a useful falsehood
0:33:25 and something is a useless truth
0:33:28 for example
0:33:31 and o'hare mentions this actually this
0:33:33 example and he's talking about
0:33:34 evolutionary
0:33:36 reliabilism i think i think that was the
0:33:38 topic he was talking about which is
0:33:39 actually a closely connected topic
0:33:42 if you go and if someone has the false
0:33:43 belief that all berries all berries are
0:33:46 poisonous
0:33:47 someone has a false belief that all
0:33:48 berries are poisonous they go into the
0:33:50 jungle they go into the forest story i
0:33:52 should say and they
0:33:54 they just avoid real berries
0:33:56 they avoid all berries right they're not
0:33:58 having any berries a question is
0:34:00 this is a false belief right because
0:34:02 there are some berries which are harmful
0:34:04 and some various which are not harmful
0:34:06 right
0:34:07 it's a false belief that
0:34:08 would make them avert the poisonous
0:34:10 berries correct
0:34:12 so it's a useful false belief
0:34:16 so it's conceivable that you can have a
0:34:17 useful
0:34:18 falsehood and it's conceivable
0:34:21 that you can have
0:34:23 a useless truth
0:34:26 there are many things that you can know
0:34:30 that will not benefit you in the least
0:34:34 so this is the major objection that you
0:34:36 can put to the to the pragmatists say
0:34:38 well if it's the case that truth is
0:34:40 utility and usefulness then why can we
0:34:43 put forward examples of things which are
0:34:46 useless and which are not true or useful
0:34:50 and
0:34:51 useless useful
0:34:53 and false
0:34:56 useful and false in the case of the
0:34:57 berries
0:35:03 so this is really um
0:35:07 i would say the best refutation i've
0:35:08 heard
0:35:09 i this is the best refutation of the
0:35:11 i've had now what are the problems with
0:35:12 correspondence theory
0:35:15 the problem is it kind of relies on this
0:35:17 kind of foundationalism and it relies on
0:35:18 this axiomatic
0:35:20 rendering because then you could ask the
0:35:22 question we'll go back to our berry
0:35:23 example and this is something maybe
0:35:25 we'll put out there for you guys we'll
0:35:27 talk about it in a second
0:35:28 but going back to the berry example we
0:35:30 can ask the question
0:35:34 well
0:35:35 just because you're saying that you can
0:35:37 have useful
0:35:39 you can have useless truths
0:35:41 useless
0:35:43 truths oh sorry useful falsehoods
0:35:47 useful falsehoods yeah
0:35:49 it doesn't
0:35:51 it's still circular because you you are
0:35:53 you are you are presupposing the
0:35:55 correspondence theory of truth in order
0:35:56 to come to that conclusion which is that
0:35:58 truth is correspondence
0:36:00 how can you how can you respond to that
0:36:02 well someone will say it has to be
0:36:04 axiomatic or axiomatically understand
0:36:07 understood and going back to
0:36:08 foundationalism that there are some
0:36:10 things there's an external world there's
0:36:11 a mind body dualism or whatever it may
0:36:12 be and that we are operating on this
0:36:14 paradigm and there's truths out there
0:36:15 that we can reach
0:36:17 can you prove those presuppositions no
0:36:19 you can't they're axiomatic
0:36:20 so if you try and prove them it will be
0:36:22 circular
0:36:24 so then you go to the problem of
0:36:26 infinite regress and this is the problem
0:36:27 that we have but it's not a problem
0:36:29 which is an undercutter
0:36:30 the the problem with pragmatism and
0:36:33 coherentism is actually under cutter the
0:36:35 the objections are undercutting whereas
0:36:37 the the the the the problem with um with
0:36:41 correspondence there is an evidentiary
0:36:42 problem the issue of how can you prove
0:36:45 the axioms you can't put the axioms are
0:36:47 by nature meant to be unprovable
0:36:49 so these are some of the issues what
0:36:50 we're going to do now is uh we are going
0:36:53 to work in uh groups
0:36:56 how many of us are there
0:36:58 and so now we're going to find out how
0:36:59 many of us we're going to count we're
0:37:00 going to do uh three groups okay
0:37:03 three groups of people one group is
0:37:05 going to be the coherentists then the
0:37:07 other is going to be the you know the
0:37:08 correspondence and the third one's going
0:37:10 to be a pragmatist
0:37:11 and we are going to argue as if we are
0:37:13 that group and then we're going to
0:37:14 switch over and do the same thing and
0:37:16 then switch over and do the same thing i
0:37:18 i you know hopefully that will uh
0:37:20 doesn't need to be filmed or anything
0:37:21 like that we'll switch off the camera
0:37:22 from now and for those at home what i
0:37:25 will say is this is the first lesson and
0:37:27 hopefully you have benefited from it
0:37:29 this is one of the most important
0:37:30 lessons in many ways because
0:37:32 it's the lesson that sets the scene for
0:37:34 everything else in the next lesson we
0:37:36 are going to be going into some of the
0:37:38 main themes some of the uh that you'll
0:37:40 find in dawa in in engagements with
0:37:42 muslims all muslims and so on but this
0:37:44 was the first lesson uh on epistemology
0:37:48 inshaallah we'll see you next week
0:37:49 wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi