I propose the following question as a final exam for any graduate of the liberal arts, and probably anyone with a college degree:
Name as many disciplines as you can that have an established literature that addresses the question "What is truth?"
- The more disciplines you name, the more points you get
- More points if you can describe the content of the literature
- The more detail you can provide, the more points you get
- If you don't know the literature, you can hypothesize what the literature would be about
- More points if your hypothesized literature matches what experts in the discipline report
- More points if members of the discipline had not thought of your ideas but agree that they are worth pursuing
Maximum score answer: detailed description of the literature addressing this question from every discipline ever invented.
Truth is not just a topic of interest to philosophers, but to every discipline (prove me wrong!), and the truly interdisciplinarity (or trans- or pan- or uni-disciplinarity) of the nature of truth is a vital insight. But where in our curricula would students learn this idea? Perhaps in an upper-level philosophy course, or if they happen to piece it together from all the courses they take. How would graduates from your institution do on this final exam?
If you agree with me that the universality of this question is important for students (people) to understand on a deep level, where should this topic exist in our curricula? For me the only answer is General Education. The hard part is figuring out where to put it -- in an existing course? In a new, stand-alone course? In every course?
Thoughts?
