It's Often Stated That We Should "Seek the Truth

question 40

Essay

It's often stated that we should "seek the truth." Write a fictional dialogue in which two (or more)people attempt to understand whether and why this is so. The dialogue should address the meaning of "truth," exploring rationalism, empiricism, theories of truth (correspondence, coherence, pragmatic), rationality, and the notion of relativism. It should grapple with the value and importance of the pursuit of truth: what areas of life depend on seeking the truth? What would change if we ceased to believe in this value? Your interlocutors can approach the issue cooperatively, as a joint inquiry, or can try to persuade one another about the best approach to understanding truth. You might also stage the dialogue in class as an oral presentation, or make a video of it.

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Definitions:

Quantitative Data

Numerical data that can be measured or counted, often used in statistical analysis to quantify behaviors, opinions, or other defined variables.

Linearly Related

A term describing two or more variables that change together in a way that can be represented with a straight line in a graph.

Spearman Rank Correlation

A statistic used to measure the strength and direction of association between two ranked variables.

Pearson Correlation

A measure of the linear correlation between two variables X and Y, giving a value between -1 and 1.