Fundamental Philosophical Principles and the Nature of Reality

Rationality and Fundamental Concepts

• Theoretical rationale: Knowing reality through universal concepts that are abstracted.
• Practical rationality: The strategy for living your best life, reaching our goals, and fulfilling our preferences as much as possible.
• Need: The basic component of a human being that affects their behavior because they feel the lack of anything to survive or improve.
• Contingency: The state of those events which, from a logical point of view, are neither true nor false. In this context, need is the opposite of an act or event that is contingent; a contingent event is one that could not have happened or taken place, or an act or event that is not necessary.
• Pragmatism: Current thinking where truth is whatever is effective, useful, and leads to success.
• Dogmatism: An attitude held by those who believe they are in possession of absolute truth.
• Accident: Any event that is caused by a sudden and violent action from an external agent, occurring involuntarily.

The Nature of Reality

Metaphysical Perspectives

• Monism: All that exists is explained by a single substance or element, which may be material for some or spiritual food for others. The various beings that we see are due to qualitative changes from that one reality.
• Dualism: Explains reality in two different and opposing dimensions or substances: the material and the spiritual.
• Pluralism: The view that reality is composed of a plurality of originating principles and substances.

Epistemology and the Study of Knowledge

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy whose object of study is scientific knowledge. As a theory of knowledge, epistemology deals with issues such as the historical, psychological, and sociological factors leading to its acquisition, and the criteria by which it is justified or invalidated.

Ontological vs. Epistemological Approaches

• Ontological: Reality is ordered and has a structure; therefore, the mind needs to discover the structure of reality. It is an objective approach.
• Epistemology: Reality has no inherent command structure of things; instead, the subject imposes classification when he observes reality. It is a subjective creation of the human mind.

Criteria of Truth

• Time and Myth: Any word or action chronologically at the origin in the distant past. Archaic roots and origins are seen in primitive societies as true.
• Authority: The word of someone who is considered wise in a subject or a community leader is accepted as true.
• Psychological or Moral Certainty: This approach is based on internal conviction, subjective feeling, and fidelity to ourselves.
• Evidence: The criterion of truth par excellence. We consider that a thing is clear when it is displayed directly or immediately to an individual.
• Intersubjectivity and Dialogue: Something can never be considered objectively true if it is only affirmed by a single person or a single community.