851-0101-79L  Has Truth Any Value, And If So, How Could I Adopt a (More) Objective Attitude in My Belief Formation

SemesterAutumn Semester 2019
LecturersL. Wingert
Periodicitynon-recurring course
Language of instructionGerman


AbstractIt is useful to know which fellowships are available or to know the causes of frequent occurence of extreme weather. These truths are of instrumental value. Is it also intrinsically good to know the truth, e.g. to know that there are gravitational waves? Which is the role of truth in our lives? And how should one conceive the relation between being objective and being true?
Objective1. Participant will learn different, influential philosophical answers and arguments for these answers to the overall question: Does truth has any value? (E.g. answers by William James, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hans Blumenberg, Ernst Tugendhat, Torsten Wilholt, William Kvanvig und Duncan Pritchard.)

2."Apply or die!" is often an expression of the demand to produce useful, e.g. technical knowledge. The course will enable participants to have an argument- based opinion on the relationsship between scientific research and applied science.

3. As regards personal life the course aims at an clarification of the existential role of truth in our personal lifes. Therefore, the conceptual link between objecitivity as an attitude and truth as an aim of inquiry will be clarified.

4. Objectivity is an anttitude not easy to adopt. The course should help to identify feasible conditions for taking such an attitude, and to clarify how (far) this attitude is apt to avoid prejudices, misinformation, and fakes.