We need always to put in place controls and checks as the scientific method demands to minimise the problems that arise from this. But that does not stop the world from being there, it does not stop the need for us to try to maximise our understanding of it. It does not mean we should simply slump into a glib epistemic relativism that assumes every theory, no matter how evidence-free, is equally valid.
In Why Truth Matters, Benson and Stangroom answer the clotted, barely readable sentences of the postmodernists with sentences so clear you could swim in them. There should be a law demanding every purchase of a Jacques Derrida "book" be accompanied with a free copy of this shimmering, glimmering answer. For tickets and information, call Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies.
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today. It is also an eloquent and inspiring argument for restoring truth to its rightful place. Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson, editors of the successful butterfliesandwheels website-itself established to "fight fashionable nonsense"-identify and debunk such senselessness, and the spurious claims made for it, in all its forms.
Their account ranges over religious fundamentalism, Holocaust denial, the challenges of postmodernism and deconstruction, the wilful misinterpretation of evolutionary biology, identity politics and wishful thinking.
Why Truth Matters is both a rallying cry for the enlightened vision and an essential read for anyone who's everbeen bored, frustrated, bewildered or plain enraged by the worst excesses of the fashionable intelligentsia. Ophelia Benson is editor of www. She is also a frequent contributor to Free Inquiry.
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Used; Good. Dispatched, from the UK, within 48 hours of ordering. This book is in good condition but will show signs of previous ownership.
Ex-library book with stamps on the first page, it is also likely to have a small shelf number sticker on the spine. Seller Inventory CHL More information about this seller Contact this seller. Truth has always been a central preoccupation of philosophy in all its forms and traditions. Yet in the late twentieth century truth became suddenly rather unfashionable. The precedence given to assorted political and ideological agendas, along with the rise of relativism, postmodernism and pseudoscience in academia, led to a decline both of truth as a serious subject, and Truth has always been a central preoccupation of philosophy in all its forms and traditions.
The precedence given to assorted political and ideological agendas, along with the rise of relativism, postmodernism and pseudoscience in academia, led to a decline both of truth as a serious subject, and an intellectual tradition that began with the Enlightenment. Why Truth Matters is a timely, incisive and entertaining look at how and why modern thought and culture lost sight of the importance of truth.
It is also an eloquent and inspiring argument for restoring truth to its rightful place. Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson, editors of the successful butterfliesandwheels website—itself established to "fight fashionable nonsense"—identify and debunk such senselessness, and the spurious claims made for it, in all its forms. Their account ranges over religious fundamentalism, Holocaust denial, the challenges of postmodernism and deconstruction, the wilful misinterpretation of evolutionary biology, identity politics and wishful thinking.
Why Truth Matters is both a rallying cry for the Enlightenment vision and an essential read for anyone who's ever been bored, frustrated, bewildered or plain enraged by the worst excesses of the fashionable intelligentsia.
Get A Copy. Hardcover , pages. Published April 9th by Bloomsbury Academic first published February 9th More Details Original Title. Other Editions 2. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Why Truth Matters , please sign up. Lists with This Book.
Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. Sort order. Start your review of Why Truth Matters. Oct 04, Paul Bryant rated it liked it Shelves: modern-life. This is a posh version of something like "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" by Francis Wheen, where various modern intellectual fads and fancies get a bad kicking.
But Ophelia and Jeremy are actual philosophers - you can tell because they write sentences like : One important active - 'active' in the sense in which a volcano is active - 'site of contestation' in disputes over realism or relativism, truth or consequences, epistemology or politics, the warranted or the useful, is social construct This is a posh version of something like "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" by Francis Wheen, where various modern intellectual fads and fancies get a bad kicking.
But Ophelia and Jeremy are actual philosophers - you can tell because they write sentences like : One important active - 'active' in the sense in which a volcano is active - 'site of contestation' in disputes over realism or relativism, truth or consequences, epistemology or politics, the warranted or the useful, is social constructivism in science and knowledge. I feel like tapping the desk and barking out "yes yes, so far so obvious, do get on, we haven't all day you know".
Well, I have to admit this one was a bit too hard for me. When you can't tell the difference between the obvious and the profound you should move on and take a look at whatever is in the next cage. View all 7 comments. Jan 24, Frank Jude rated it really liked it Shelves: critical-thinking , philosophy , cultural-history , history. This book offers a bracing tonic to help cleanse away the dangerous foolishness of the extreme -- and incoherent -- relativism unleashed by postmodernists, neo-pragmatists, social constructivists and deconstructionists.
Discovery is conflated with invention, myth is elevated alongside empirical evidence, and no lines are drawn between fact and fiction Most of us will get the main point Stangroom and Benson are making: truth matters because human beings are the only species capable of finding it out. As polemics go, it is short and adequately pugnacious.
Yet the authors do not paint their target with too broad a brush. At heart, they are old-fashioned logical empiricists -- or, perhaps, followers of Samuel Johnson, who, upon hearing of Bishop Berkeley's contention that the objective world does not exist, refuted the argument by kicking a rock.
Still, Benson and Stangroom do recognize that there are numerous varieties of contemporary suspicion regarding the concept of truth They bend over backwards in search of every plausible good intention behind postmodern epistemic skepticism. And then they kick the rock. Inside Higher Ed, June Selected as Prospect's 'Underrated Book of the Year ': In every generation, intelligent people insist on embracing the irrational.
Postmodernism, identity politics and pseudoscience are easy to criticise, but hard to scorn to anything like the extent they merit. Benson and Stangroom do a heroic job of trying, and their defence of the Enlightenment ought to be better known.
Oliver Kamm. A clear, accessible and hugely important account of what it is to be rational. Popular philosophy at its best. The authors discuss philosophical notions of truth amidst broader societal and political concerns, and the most exciting passages cover the rise of social Darwinism and eugenics in a discussion about the interplay between ideology, science and politics.
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