HS010

Description

Section information text: This half-credit course is intended to deepen students' understanding and experience of dialogue through a small set of readings, short papers, and participation in in-class dialogues. Our conversations will draw from the experiences and issues raised by the public events in the Higgins School dialogue symposium. Students should plan on attending up to seven Dialogue Symposium events over the course of the semester. In Fall 2018, the dialogue seminar will examine the topic of evidence. How do we know what we know? Why do we believe what we believe? While it is proverbial to say that facts don't lie, the interpretation of evidence can be messy and even contradictory. What role does instinct play in our decision making, and what obligations do we have to look beyond personal and societal perspective, especially when what is accepted (or rejected) as evidence can have far-reaching implications for many other individual lives beyond our own? How do we navigate unfamiliar and even uncomfortable topics-on the one hand truly listening to the expertise of specialists while on the other hand honestly hearing critiques of systems of knowledge that privilege existing power structures? The expansion of knowledge and the formulation of belief is never simple, nor is it always easy to arrive at new conclusions or embrace new concepts. Explore what it means to discover and interpret, to listen and rebut, to learn and reconsider, and, throughout, to better understand evidence in all its forms. May be repeatable for credit.