Philosophy Club hosted a meeting to discuss epistemology in room 3717 on Feb. 6. Club member and senior Truman Callaghan created and presented a Powerpoint about the topic.
Callaghan touched on the basics of epistemology, including how people are able to know that they know something, how to define what truth is and the concepts of rationalism and empiricism. He was motivated to present because of the personal value that he places on the truth and its importance to him and his Christian faith.
“I’m a Christian, and I believe that Jesus says in John 8:32 that ‘the truth sets you free,’” Callaghan said. ”I want to teach that to others. Telling the truth to others is a great thing and a noble thing to do. Understanding what truth is, is important to that.”
Callaghan’s presentation included “controversial slides” where he would present his audience with opinions about faith or existence to challenge his peers’ existing beliefs and lead them to question what they think they already know. Callaghan said he wanted to encourage people to look for the objective truths and answers rather than relying on their own perspectives and personal beliefs.
“I want to challenge people, because then you have more growth, more development, and more learning,” Callaghan said.
Senior Mingyi Chen attended the meeting to support Callaghan and came away with more knowledge on the subject than he had before.
“I learned a lot more about how we determine truth and Justified True Belief,” Chen said. “Truman was very engaging and the lecture, in my opinion, was pretty funny.”
Chen believes that lectures such as Callaghan’s can be helpful even to people who are not as familiar with philosophy, and help them realize that they apply the concepts that Callaghan discussed more than they realize in their daily lives.
“We all experience fundamental truths and beliefs that can be explained by philosophy,” Chen said. “Whether or not you think you are, you are a philosopher. Even everyday actions we take are a lot of times rooted in epistemological or knowledge structures.”
Senior and vice president Kai Plank thought that the choice to present on epistemology and skepticism was very timely.
“There are so many different places to get information from right now, and they all have different agendas and things they want to push,” Plank said. “So knowing what truth is, what knowing is, and what truth means to you is pretty important.”
Philosophy Club’s goals for this semester include hosting meetings more regularly, especially in collaboration with other clubs, in order to show people how philosophy can be applied in a practical way. Plank encourages students who are interested in the club to attend even if they’re unfamiliar with philosophy.
“Philosophy can come off as pretty intimidating, at least in the sense that people can be very pretentious when they talk about it,” Plank said. “At the end of the day, people need to remember it’s something in which everyone’s thoughts matter because that’s all it is — thinking.”
To learn more about Philosophy Club, join their Remind at @bhsphilo24.
