In a post-truth world truth-seeking is more important

Summary

The age of 'post-truth' has jumped off the philosophical page and come to life. With almost every news story today, there are competing perspectives, with competing truths. Many have simply given up in their quest for knowledge. In such a world, philosopher Jason Baehr argues, knowledge is a survival skill. One that societies must cultivate to sustain trust and democracy in the digital age. While technology has expanded access to information, it has also eroded our ability to think well. The antidote, he suggests, lies not in more data or smarter algorithms, but in cultivating the intellectual virtues that make genuine understanding possible: persistence, rigor, and humility. As humans, we care about forming true beliefs and avoiding false beliefs. We want to know, understand, get things right. We want to avoid cognitive error and ignorance. These are our twin epistemic aims.Our success in achieving these aims depends on many factors. Some are systemic and technological. But others are personal. When gathering information, what questions do we ask? How hard do we work to get to the truth? Do we consider alternative perspectives and explanations? Scrutinize the quality of our sources? Attend to the limits of our evidence? These are things we do as individual thinkers. They express our agency, values, attitudes, and commitments. Whether we do them, and do them well, can significantly contribute to the success or failure of our inquiries. ___What our sophisticated information technologies give with one hand they take away with the other.___One might expect that revolutionary information technologies like the internet or AI would make our lives as epistemic agents much easier. Alas, things are not that simple. While we have unprecedented access to information about innumerable topics, the sheer quantity of information can be overwhelming, which can short-circuit our motivation to inquire. Moreover, the quality of this information is uneven and can be very difficult to e...