by Claire Mills, Philosophy, ’18-19
At the beginning of each semester, no matter what class I’m teaching, I start by asking my students “What is truth?” It seems like one of those obscure philosophical questions that has no right answer or practical value and should be rightfully restricted to theoretical discussions in the classrooms of a philosophy building. However, to think of this concept as obsolete is to completely misunderstand the role truth plays in the everyday lives of students.

Students receive information from the moment they wake up until they go to sleep, with many of these statements being presented as true claims. The ability to assess and judge information that is either unconvincing or potentially false is essential to a student’s well-being, both academically and socially. When a student learns to identify bad arguments or unconvincing claims, they learn how to avoid faulty logic when writing their own arguments. Constructing a thoughtful argument is a part of any subject at UGA, and a part of any career our students could pursue after graduation. It is important for students to understand what makes an argument convincing and trustworthy and what does not, and this skill should be something all teachers endeavor to pass on.
Constructing a thoughtful argument is a part of any subject at UGA, and a part of any career our students could pursue after graduation.
Knowing if an argument, or even a single aspect of the argument, is true or false is harder than it might seem on the surface. Think about the strategies we have for verification for any given conclusion; the vast majority of conclusions we draw are not determinate. Instead, they are a product of premises, either assumptions, facts, or observations, that work together to increase our overall confidence in the conclusion. Because someone has a Ph.D. in a field doesn’t mean you treat everything they say on the subject as 100% correct. Experts can disagree with each other and even when experts come to a consensus at a certain time, future research can prove them unfounded. It is important for teachers to impart the uncertainty of truth to their students. Confidence in something’s veracity comes from having not just one reason to trust it, but from having multiple reasons that point toward the same conclusion.
Teaching students which sources are reputable along with how to collect and analyze multiple types of sources will give them a better foundation of knowledge on which to make their decisions. It helps students to write more confidently when they perform a series of steps to ascertain the grounding of truth in their source prior to using it. When people make decisions, they need to take all the information that is relevant to the issue and use that information to make a guess as to what the best way is to move forward. If someone thinks that black cats are causing their health problems, they might try to kill all nearby black cats, rather than address their underlying health issues with a medical professional. To resolve a problem, we need an accurate account of what the problem is and what factors are relevant to causing it; thinking we know the answer to either of these when we do not can cause us to make poor decisions in resolving the problem.

By having more accurate knowledge—even if it means there is less information overall known to be 100% true—students can make better decisions in their fields of study and in their lives, because they understand the process of how to gather accurate knowledge is essential to obtain the best possible solutions. I can’t protect my students from those trying to spread misinformation by forcing the whole world to tell the truth, but as long as people have the tools to know what they should be convinced by and what they ought to reject we are able to fight for the truth and problem solve from there.