Chapters 4/5

The first question that this reading raised for me is, how would Lynch define the relationship between truth, understanding, certainty, and knowledge? Is it possible to have one of these without the others? Are any of these four things possible, or, like truth, does their merit come in the search?

Also, when discussing pragmatism, Lynch brings up the idea that truth is important only when it gets us what we want. Although I think that Lynch disagrees with this and instead argues that truth is important in and of itself, I find myself having a hard time agreeing with him. The ideas that he introduces about pragmatism, I feel, are more persuasive than those against them. Though we may always want to search for the truth, I have a hard time believe that it has any large impact on our life. For instance, although the truth is that there weren't weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, what impact did that have on our lives? We were still in Iraq. That truth became unimportant to certain political powers because it didn't get them what they wanted. Although I wouldn't argue that the truth itself was unimportant, the impact on our daily lives made it seem unimportant. I feel that the more persuasive arguments in this book are still that truth is intertwined with power and getting what we want.