But disputations were not just formal arguments. They were public performances that trained university students in how to seek and argue for the truth. They made demands on students and masters alike. Truth was hard won; it was to be found in multiple, sometimes conflicting traditions; it required one to give and recognize arguments; and, perhaps above all, it demanded an epistemic humility, an acknowledgment that truth was something sought, not something produced.
who produces truth? what are they talking about here? isn't it true of truth that truth is just there, everywhere, underlying everything, like gravity? truth can't be produced. isn't that obvious? i do know people who say ethics are situational, but i've never heard someone say that truth is situational.
epistemic is an adjective, a descriptor, and it means in relation to knowledge or in relation to how valid the knowledge is. so an epistemic humility would be an assumption that knowledge is up for question and scrutiny, and by extention: questioning and scrutinizing knowledge can get you closer to the truth.
put your knowledge out there. don't be proud and hold it up on a pedestal. don't be jealous and hold it back for the proverbial rainy day. put it on out there and see how it holds up. maybe it holds with truth and maybe it doesn't, but in the end, it's just knowledge.
knowledge can be true, but knowledge isn't the truth. truth is something outside knowledge and outside all of existence. you can argue with knowledge, but you can't argue with truth. well, it's like arguing with truth, but what you are doing is testing your knowledge against truth. "is this true? is what i know true?" you're not arguing about what constitutes truth, per se, you are arguing about how well your knowledge matches up to truth.
maybe it doesn't. no biggie. just get yourself some different knowledge. easier said that done, am i right? it's hard to let go of knowledge or to admit that knowledge that you really love doesn't match up well to truth. that's where the humility comes in. don't be proud. if your knowledge doesn't match up well to the truth, let that knowledge go and get some that does.
why, though. who cares if your knowledge aligns with truth. because -- truth is this thing that exists outside our realm, so our desire to match our knowledge up with truth is, a law of physics, and as such is compelling, like gravity. it's hard to fight gravity and it's hard to fight truth.
just as difficult as it is to fight gravity or fight truth, it's equally difficult to see gravity or truth. you can see the effect of either but you cannot SEE either, because they aren't things, per se. they are forces, and they pull on us.
hmm. wait. i started with "truth is something to be sought" and i ended up with truth as something that's seeking us!
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