Truth Vs. Winning

Hello.

Plato, again. Tomorrow our class is having a Socratic seminar (oddly appropriate), and there was a list of questions from which we were supposed to choose one. Of course, in typical Kit fashion, I would rather write my own, so here it is: Is the truth or being right more important?

This question first came up because we were talking about the Sophists, and their idea that being right was more important that telling the truth. I think that’s an interesting idea because, first, the idea of truth is completely deteriorating in our society, and second, because Socrates held truth in such high regard, while Thrasymachus did not.

Here is my response to the question: I think that truth is the most important. Today, many people are more concerned with being right, though I think few would admit it, that we have lost the idea of truth. Being right is trivial.

And it’s not even about finding the truth, though that is something to work toward, but it’s arguing what’s true by you. If you argue a point that you late find to be untrue, that’s fine, because in the moment, you believed it. But if you know something to be false, or find it to be false in the course of the argument, it is more important that you acknowledge the truth, than fight the argument out to it’s conclusion simply to win.

This is why Socrates and Plato dislike the Sophists. They have no care for the truth. They will argue any point for money, and as long as they win, the truth doesn’t matter. I think that’s not right, an argument should be because there is an issue that you care about, that you believe to be true, and so you are willing to try and prove it.

I hope that I can bring this up in tomorrow’s debate.

Goodbye.