The Quest for Uncertainty: Recovering An Appreciation for Truth Through Autobiography

In this modern age, we place much faith in our scientists and their supposed

objectivity. On the other hand, we are often seduced by the subjectivity found in cultural

and moral relativism. Caught between these two seemingly antithetical conceptions, it is

difficult to sort out what this thing called ‘Truth’ is, how closely we can know it, and

whether it even exists. In such an intellectual climate, it is easy to develop a view

towards knowledge and education that is simplistic. Here we present one such simplistic

view—the idea that the world is wholly knowable and that education is what Dewey

called a “quest for certainty”—and attempt to recover from it a more robust and subtle

sense of Truth. However, we do so without acquiescing to relativistic or democratic

theories of “Truth” and without accepting Dewey’s complete instrumentalization of Truth.