William Gardner on Handling Truth
Audio here!
Why is truth such a hard thing to handle? Why do different people assert different things to be true, with equal certainty? Dr. William Gardner discusses four kinds of truths, which he calls Rhetorica, Mystica, Logica, and Empirica… and why they don’t always get along.
Also, why is it important to distinguish one kind from another, and – most importantly – how can someone living in today’s sea of information navigate the riptides of truths? And does it matter to the way we see the universe and the human condition if we never get to the truth?
We will discuss these questions with Dr. William M. Gardner, author of Handling Truth: Navigating the Riptides of Rhetoric, Religion, Reason, and Research. Gardner received a Ph.D. in General Experimental Psychology from the University of Alabama; he spent a year studying language at the University of Wisconsin, and occasionally during his teaching career took courses in philosophy. His research topics included animal behavior, comparative learning, personality, childcare institutions, and academic honesty.