Philosophical Topics Essay

Introduction

Philosophy is the study of essential and general problems which are related to matters such as knowledge, values, mind, reason, existence, and language. Some of the commonly used philosophical methods include rational argument, systematic presentation, critical discussion, and questioning. The general systems of values by which people live tend to be determined by philosophy. This report aims at discussing the following topics from a philosophical dimension of thinking that is puffery, truth conditions: Temporal, Actual, believable, verifiable, existence vs. being and constructivism.

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Puffery

Puffery is considered as a legal act which allows companies to tell their clients that their products are the best. Sales presentation and advertising rely on the use of opinions, exaggerations, and superlatives despite having little or no credible evidence that they can use to support their claims which at times tend to be vague. The claims made by companies while they are advertising the products cannot be considered as being a lie since nobody can disapprove or prove them. Companies and advertisers tend to use hyperbole and exaggeration to capture the attention of their audience and clients as well as make the message they are communicating to be memorable.

The claims made in puffery tend to be exaggerated, as one of the ways to capture people's attention and hence making it an accepted technique for advertising. From philosophical thinking, puffery is a claim which is mostly based on opinion and are subjective. For example, a claim by a person working at a salon trying to convince a client that her salon is the best at offering services should be considered as an opinion since it is something that cannot be measured. According to Glenn Campbell, it is illegal to lie in a commercial transaction, but it is not illegal to misinterpret facts, distort perceptions, fails to communicate the disadvantages of a given product or overstate the benefits of using a given product. Puffery results in people having the belief that a particular product can do more for them than it can actually do (Puffery! The Legal Way to Lie! (Kilroy Cafe #55), n.d.).

Existence vs. Being

Ontology is a theory of objects and their ties. Ontology further provides a criteria that helps distinguish various types of objects such as whether they are nonexistent or existent. Ontology is a metaphysics branch which mainly deals with the study of being by focusing on the difference between becoming and being. Existence tends to raise deep as well as important problems in philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and metaphysics. Existence is the objectivity that persists the independent of one's presence. Not everything that exists can be considered as being. The Islamic philosophy had a great influence on the distinction between existence and being as they recognized the created world contingency as compared with God the creator. According to Aristotle the term being is in any category other than substance is a property or even a modification of substance. The word exists in the metaphysics language can be considered to be a synonym for being there whereby they are both used to refer to the reality of anything in the world starts with God. Being is considered to be the initial stage that which people arrive at the knowledge of the world. According to the philosophy of Heidegger man is the only being that exists (Jaspers & Grabau, 2010).

Truth Conditions

Truth conditions help determine the extent in which a given sentence can be considered as being true. In philosophy the truth condition of a given sentence is the condition of the world under which it can be considered as being true. For a sentence to be considered as false or true it depends on its parts in most circumstances. Knowing the truth conditions requires an individual to know the meaning and vice-versa. The truth condition of a sentence in semantics can also be considered as being distinct from its meaning (Iten, 2005).

The word temporal logic is mostly used to cover various approaches to reasoning and representation. It involves a formalism which helps clarify different issues regarding time, semantics used in a sentence. A statement can change the value of its truth with time. The actual state of affairs tends to determine the truth value. Temporal modifiers play a great part in determining how true of false a sentence should be considered to be. Tense can be used in a sentence to show the time in which a particular event takes place. The present time is used to determine the truth value of a proposition. Use of past tense in a sentence is used to show or talk about an activity that took place in the past.The actual truth of a proposition have the implication that it could be known in some possible situation that the proposition has in the actual situation.

At times the believability of the truth tends to be determined by other factors apart from the content of the message. Six factors make the truth to be considered as being more believable. The easiest way to be believed is through the building of trust. A person is regarded as being trustworthy by building a culture of telling the truth. Another factor that makes the truth to be more believable is specificity. Specificity refers to the act of being exact. A statement is considered to be more believable if there is evidence of what is being communicated. Evidence can be in different forms which include facts, statistics, testimonials, demonstrations or examples. When communicating a given statement people should be concise to increase their believability. When an individual is sure of what they are communicating they tend to use fewer words to explain their statements and hence there are high chances that such statements will be considered as being the truth (Iten, 2005).

From a philosophical perspective for a sentence to have a factual, descriptive, cognitive or a literal meaning it is required to express a statement that in principle can be considered as being true or false through use of empirical observations. The meaning of a sentence is also determined by the verification method used. The principle of verifiability acts as criteria through which the meaningless and meaningful propositions tend to be distinguished (Schlick & in Gadol, 2011).

Constructivism

Constructivism is a learning theory which has the aspects of philosophy and psychology. Constructivism tends to view peoples knowledge as being constructed as well as being consistent with human perceptions, social experience, and convention. The constructivist point of view can be relativistic or pragmatic in nature .The Constructivism maintains that scientists construct the scientific knowledge and not discovered from the world through the use of strict scientific methods. According to the Constructivism philosophy, people create the meaning and understanding of the world that they live in by reflecting on their experiences. The perception of constructivism is that there is no acceptable methodology that can be considered as being appropriate for social science. All forms of Constructivism focus on constructed reality and not on ontological reality. Reality is considered as being subjective since constructivism tends to accept it as a construct of the mind of human beings. From a philosophical perspective, learning is the process that is used to adjust various mental models to be in a position of accommodating new experiences.

The following are the four basic principles of teaching, knowing and learning as described by Constructivism. Constructivist teaching is based on idea and belief that learning takes place since learners are involved in the process of knowledge and meaning construction actively as opposed to passively receiving the information. The Constructivism acknowledges that learners are the makers of knowledge and meaning. The first principle is that knowledge is not accumulated passively, but instead, knowledge is as a result of active cognizing by a person. The second principle of Constructivism is that cognition tends to organize and make sense of the experience of a person and should not be considered as a process that gives an accurate representation of reality. The third principle is that cognition is a process that is adaptive and assists in making the behavior of an individual to be more acceptable in a given environment. The fourth principle of constructivism is that knowing tend to have roots in both biological construction and cultural, social and language-based interactions (Nadel, 2005).

There are different forms of Constructivism which include epistemological, psychological, social, mathematical and genetic epistemology. The epistemological Constructivism explains that knowledge is constructed. The psychological Constructivism tends to investigate and theorize on the manner in which human beings create various systems to be in a position to understand their experiences and worlds. The social Constructivism, on the other hand, the social Constructivism is a practice or concept which may appear as being natural or obvious to the people who accept it whereas, in reality, it is an invention for a given society or culture.

Conclusion

Puffery helps companies to be able to market their products and services to the public easily through the use of opinions, exaggerations, and superlatives to capture their attention. From a philosophical perspective, the term being and exist should be considered as being different. Everything can be term as being in existence, but the man should be the only one considered as the being that exists. Truth conditions assists an individual to determine the extent in which a given sentence should be considered as being true or false. Some of the aspects that assist in determining if a sentence is true or false include temporal, actual, believable and verifiable. The Constructivism is a learning philosophy which is founded on the basis that through our experience people are in a position of understanding the world that they live in.

References

Edgington, D., Aristotelian Society (Great Britain), & Mind Association. (2004). The Symposia read at the joint session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association at University of Kent, July 2004. London: Aristotelian Society.

Iten, C. (2005). Linguistic meaning, truth conditions and relevance: The case of concessive. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jaspers, K., & Grabau, R. F. (2010). Philosophy of Existence.

Nadel, L. (2005). Encyclopedia of cognitive science. Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley.

Puffery! The Legal Way to Lie! (Kilroy Cafe #55) Web log post. Retrieved from http://www.kilroycafe.com/ideas/puffery/

Schlick, M., & In Gadol, E. T. (2011). Rationality and science: A memorial volume for Moritz Schlick in celebration of the Centennial of his Birth. Wien: Springer.