Title: TOPIC 4 : Truth
Course: Introduction to Critical Thinking > Section: Course Content

Truth

4.1 Introduction

This topic introduces the student to Truth and its connection to critical thinking.

It seeks to encourage the student to deepen their thinking. The concept of truth is one of the most basic concepts in logic.

A lot of controversies exist in philosophy about the nature of truth. However, for the purpose of this topic, we are going to adopt Aristotle’s definition:

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true. (Metaphysics, 1011b25)

Truth is a matter of correspondence to reality. If you say, “Nairobi is in Kenya,” then your statement is true since Nairobi is indeed in Kenya.

Whereas if you say “Nairobi is in Colombia” your statement will be false since this is not the case.

When a statement is true, we say that it has T (truth) as its truth-value. On the other hand, when a statement is false, we say that its truth-value is F (falsehood).

If a statement is neither true nor false, then we say it lacks a truth-value.

The detailed content is Topic 4 Article.

4.2 LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of this topic you should be able to:

4.2.1 define truth and explain its properties and ‘types’
4.2.2 explain how truth can be arrived at
4.2.3 explain the concept of validity in relation to truth

4.3 Below are the resources you will need
  - ·Topic 4 Article. Click here to download
  - Video 4.3.1 Truth and Validity (7 min) . Click here to download the English transcript of this video.

Advice: Copy and paste the learning outcomes above in a document and fill in the answers as you read the article and watch the video above. This will help you better understand the content.

4.4 Activity (e-tivity)

Individual – Start (about 60 min) | 4.4.1 | Read Topic 4 Article and make short notes of your own. Later you will share and explain your notes with your buddy.
4.4.2 | Watch Video 4.3.1 in the previous page. Write in about 50 words what the video is about. Keep your notes for later reference.

Buddy - Pair (about 60 min) | 4.4.3 | Discuss your notes from e-tivity 4.4.1 and 4.4.2 with a Buddy and make a joint summary having the most important points of the topic in not more than 400 words. Submit your work in the Discussion forum for Topic 4.

Group/Class (about 60 min) | 4.4.4 | Read 3 or more summaries of submissions by others in the Discussion forum for Topic 4. Make at least one useful comment in the Discussion forum for Topic 4 under any of the Buddy-Pair submission. Your comment should have at least one positive aspect and another that helps improvement of your classmates’ submission.

4.5 Assessment

All assessments should be uploaded  here by the deadline given by your lecturer

Individual Assessment (about 90 min) | 4.5.1 | Using the process of abstraction, explain a truth you learned recently in your social life or any recent experience (1000 words max). Upload your work in the Assessment 4.5.1 (Upload) forum.
4.5.2 | Considering the feedback you got from Assessment 3.5.1 in Topic 3 (Refer to the forum Assessment 3.5.1 (Upload)), create a concept map for “Truth” using the concepts you have learned from this topic. Upload your work in the Assessment 4.5.2 (Upload).