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Why Truth Matters
Truth has always been a central preoccupation of philosophy in all its forms and traditions. However, 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 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. Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom, editors of the successful ButterfliesandWheels.Com website - itself established to 'fight fashionable nonsense' - identify and debunk such nonsense, 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 has ever been bored, frustrated, bewildered or plain enraged by the worst excesses of the fashionable intelligentsia.
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. Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom, editors of the successful ButterfliesandWheels.Com website - itself established to 'fight fashionable nonsense' - identify and debunk such nonsense, 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 has ever been bored, frustrated, bewildered or plain enraged by the worst excesses of the fashionable intelligentsia.
216 pages, Paperback
First published February 9, 2006
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About the author
Jeremy Stangroom
76 books19 followersJeremy Stangroom is a British writer, editor, and website designer. He is an editor and co-founder, with Julian Baggini, of The Philosophers’ Magazine, and has written and edited several philosophy books. He is also co-founder, with Ophelia Benson of the website 'Butterflies and Wheels'.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 16, 2011
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.
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.
February 3, 2017
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. Among others. It offers a strong defense of Enlightenment values that are necessary to combat those who proffer "fake news" and "alternative facts."
Postmodernism started out with good intentions AND even has some important things to say about language, social construction and grand meta-narratives (for instance), but when you have any "thinker" writing that "truth is whatever one's contemporaries let one get away with" (as Richard Rorty has written) we are going to run into problems. To begin, which contemporaries are we talking about?
That philosophy can never find an absolute foundation ("foundationalism') and that we can never have absolute certainty (and by the way, anyone who thinks science suggests we can have such certainty has no understanding of science!) is no reason to throw all reason to the dustbin of history!
The incoherence of radical skepticism and relativism is that the so-called philosophers asserting that there is no such thing as "truth" or "reality" are using the very tools of argumentation founded upon rational discourse!
Now, again, the initial impetus for such post-modern critique and theory was emancipatory: with the interest in the social construction of culture, questioning institutions, customs, conventional wisdom, gender roles, and language became a tool to deconstruct the previously unquestioned hegemonic discourse of the status-quo. The marginalized and oppressed began to claim their place at the table of discourse and many barriers and injustices were indeed undermined and diminished. I'd find it difficult to argue that many were actually done away with.
But the epistemic relativism of post-modernism and skepticism about truth that emerged with and out of this questioning is anything but emancipatory. As Benson and Stangroom clearly argue (in text much clearer than the jargon-filled obfuscation of most post-modern texts): "The Left is not well-advised to discredit or undermine reason and respect for truth, because those are ultimately the only tools the Left has against the irrationalist appeals of the Right."
They point out the tragic and profound irony of postmodernist epistemic relativism. It is thought to be emancipatory, setting us free from "coercive, repressive, restrictive, hegemonic totalizing old ideas," from "white male Western reason and science." Rorty again: "Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it includes effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true..."
"But take away reasoned argument and the requirement of reference to evidence by discrediting them via deconstruction and rhetoric... and what can be left other than force of one kind or another? Either rhetorical force, via equivocation, fuzzy emotive vocabulary, straw men, exaggeration, appeals to the community or the nation or the people or the deity; or physical force via laws and the police" they write (and this book was published in 2005, before the rise of Trump, but look at how this paragraph ends:
"This, if postmodernism has busily eroded public belief in reason, evidence, logic and argument for the past 40 years or so... then all too often it is the case that rhetoric is all that's in play. And behold, it wins, even though the other side has the better case. All rhetoric has to do to win is convince people, it doesn't have to do it legitimately or reasonably or honestly."
The point is that epistemic relativism makes possible a world where bad arguments and no evidence are helped to win public discussions over justified arguments and good evidence. This is not at all emancipatory! Such a relativistic view of truth helps falsehoods -- now promulgated by the current administration as "alternative facts" -- to prevail over truth. "Being trapped in a world where lies can't be countered seems a strange idea of emancipation," the authors conclude.
I strongly recommend this book to all those who have found themselves questioning, perhaps confused about the relationship between truth and knowledge. If it's to be a real enquiry, then that truth matters must be presupposed. We have to think there is something to learn, to find, to discover for it to be genuine enquiry and not merely a game. The authors point out that no one actually lives the thinking of post-modern and epistemic relativism. I can feel pretty sure that if you disagree with me and are a fan of such movements, you feel you have the truth in your bones about this and you'd likely be moved to argue passionately.
And thus I end with the paradox (incoherence) of the relativist view, what David Stove calls the "Ishmael effect" when philosophical arguments make exceptions for themselves. In this case, the relativist makes claims about perception, language, culture, etc in such a way that she seems to feel warranted, but would indeed only be so if she thought there really is a way to distinguish true statements from false ones! But, as Simon Blackburn has pointed out: "the idea that there is something self-undermining about the relativist or skeptical tradition dies hard."
Postmodernism started out with good intentions AND even has some important things to say about language, social construction and grand meta-narratives (for instance), but when you have any "thinker" writing that "truth is whatever one's contemporaries let one get away with" (as Richard Rorty has written) we are going to run into problems. To begin, which contemporaries are we talking about?
That philosophy can never find an absolute foundation ("foundationalism') and that we can never have absolute certainty (and by the way, anyone who thinks science suggests we can have such certainty has no understanding of science!) is no reason to throw all reason to the dustbin of history!
The incoherence of radical skepticism and relativism is that the so-called philosophers asserting that there is no such thing as "truth" or "reality" are using the very tools of argumentation founded upon rational discourse!
Now, again, the initial impetus for such post-modern critique and theory was emancipatory: with the interest in the social construction of culture, questioning institutions, customs, conventional wisdom, gender roles, and language became a tool to deconstruct the previously unquestioned hegemonic discourse of the status-quo. The marginalized and oppressed began to claim their place at the table of discourse and many barriers and injustices were indeed undermined and diminished. I'd find it difficult to argue that many were actually done away with.
But the epistemic relativism of post-modernism and skepticism about truth that emerged with and out of this questioning is anything but emancipatory. As Benson and Stangroom clearly argue (in text much clearer than the jargon-filled obfuscation of most post-modern texts): "The Left is not well-advised to discredit or undermine reason and respect for truth, because those are ultimately the only tools the Left has against the irrationalist appeals of the Right."
They point out the tragic and profound irony of postmodernist epistemic relativism. It is thought to be emancipatory, setting us free from "coercive, repressive, restrictive, hegemonic totalizing old ideas," from "white male Western reason and science." Rorty again: "Truth is a thing of this world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it includes effects of power. Each society has its regime of truth, its 'general politics' of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true..."
"But take away reasoned argument and the requirement of reference to evidence by discrediting them via deconstruction and rhetoric... and what can be left other than force of one kind or another? Either rhetorical force, via equivocation, fuzzy emotive vocabulary, straw men, exaggeration, appeals to the community or the nation or the people or the deity; or physical force via laws and the police" they write (and this book was published in 2005, before the rise of Trump, but look at how this paragraph ends:
"This, if postmodernism has busily eroded public belief in reason, evidence, logic and argument for the past 40 years or so... then all too often it is the case that rhetoric is all that's in play. And behold, it wins, even though the other side has the better case. All rhetoric has to do to win is convince people, it doesn't have to do it legitimately or reasonably or honestly."
The point is that epistemic relativism makes possible a world where bad arguments and no evidence are helped to win public discussions over justified arguments and good evidence. This is not at all emancipatory! Such a relativistic view of truth helps falsehoods -- now promulgated by the current administration as "alternative facts" -- to prevail over truth. "Being trapped in a world where lies can't be countered seems a strange idea of emancipation," the authors conclude.
I strongly recommend this book to all those who have found themselves questioning, perhaps confused about the relationship between truth and knowledge. If it's to be a real enquiry, then that truth matters must be presupposed. We have to think there is something to learn, to find, to discover for it to be genuine enquiry and not merely a game. The authors point out that no one actually lives the thinking of post-modern and epistemic relativism. I can feel pretty sure that if you disagree with me and are a fan of such movements, you feel you have the truth in your bones about this and you'd likely be moved to argue passionately.
And thus I end with the paradox (incoherence) of the relativist view, what David Stove calls the "Ishmael effect" when philosophical arguments make exceptions for themselves. In this case, the relativist makes claims about perception, language, culture, etc in such a way that she seems to feel warranted, but would indeed only be so if she thought there really is a way to distinguish true statements from false ones! But, as Simon Blackburn has pointed out: "the idea that there is something self-undermining about the relativist or skeptical tradition dies hard."
December 8, 2016
This is a very interesting, if somewhat oddly structured, exploration of the various ways in which individuals and groups distort or hide from the truth, either for personal gain, political expedience, or through poorly developed critical thinking skills. The authors cover a range of interesting examples, from the Sokal affair to the ludicrous nonsense spouted by Afrocentrics to the activities of the Tobacco industry's PR machine. A great strength of the book is that it manages to repeatedly single out the exact place at which the narrative provided by an individual or group diverges from the much more sensible core thought which gives its claims a veneer of legitimacy, either by exaggeration, the employment of non sequiturs, or the (sometimes deliberate) exploitation of the inherent ambiguities of the English language.
Upon finishing the book, one wonders what more could have been said. Could there, perhaps, have been a fruitful comparison between the poorly defined and largely instrumentally motivated relativism of many of the groups discussed and the far more interesting challenges to scientific realism proposed and entertained in the light of quantum theory, for example? Might it have been interesting to consider the claims of serious alethic pluralists in the analytic tradition, and contrast them with the woolly scepticism of Derrida et al? Would the book have benefited from a clearer exposition of what the authors take to be the conditions of a statement being true in the first chapter? The concept is bandied about a lot, but never really defined or properly explored. Alas, we shall never know.
Upon finishing the book, one wonders what more could have been said. Could there, perhaps, have been a fruitful comparison between the poorly defined and largely instrumentally motivated relativism of many of the groups discussed and the far more interesting challenges to scientific realism proposed and entertained in the light of quantum theory, for example? Might it have been interesting to consider the claims of serious alethic pluralists in the analytic tradition, and contrast them with the woolly scepticism of Derrida et al? Would the book have benefited from a clearer exposition of what the authors take to be the conditions of a statement being true in the first chapter? The concept is bandied about a lot, but never really defined or properly explored. Alas, we shall never know.
June 7, 2012
I bought this on the basis of their readable "Does God Hate Women?" However, despite having studied some philosophy years ago, I abandoned it half-way through. I found it failed to communicate to me. It was hard going and didn't inspire me enough to want to keep trying.
December 22, 2007
waste of time
sheer caricature -no added-value
sheer caricature -no added-value
April 8, 2008
Truth with a lowercase t
August 13, 2008
Brief and quite concise; largely a critique of the shortcomings of "postmodernist" thinking from an epistmological standpoint.
May 14, 2018
A book about truth written in a pre Trump era must have something better to come up with than today’s endless Trump bashing - and so it does. This is a more or less philosophical attempt to floss out some instances of different kinds of untruth from history and sho why truth in the contrast to the untruths matter.
They take swing at various issues, some well known, some interesting and some unknown and all forgotten. They do make it hard to follow due to sometimes an overly complex language and sometimes digressing off the core matters, but they end up pretty gracefully on their feet. Personally, I found all the issues that I were familiar with both well argued and also easier to follow. This meaning, for a few of the other matters they are probably in the same lane if you are familiar with the content. Most is clear and well written for most audiences.
In a book about truth, they do get overly political and with a slight of hand writes off libertarianism on a wrong basis. Libertarianism do not rely on “dubious notions of human rationality” but on clear principles of what is human rights - meaning, when they say a person knows best what is best for him, it is a general statement that follows from their human right to make mistakes too - to choose for themselves - and that is not “dubious”, as it would be if libertarians believed that people always makes the right choice. It may be naive. The book could be without this and a few other instances of hard opinion, or in the least softening them with words like “som libertarians.” The right choice for a libertarian is the free choice. I suspect they have not read the basis literature on their side not remarks. It show that they are not too truthful in all their effort all the time as they should. This may be only about opinion, but they talk more facts - and that is mixing their cards. They claim authority of truth, but makes me wonder slightly their agenda or bias at times. It may be unfair to take this one paragraph of libertarianism as an example in a book that does much right, but when authority is claimed and complex language is used - I get the hunch that something is tiny bit off. That thorne on the side, that one can rise above but sometimes is felt. However, it is not very often and both the right and the left get their due in the fire. Most the left.
It seems also that who they argue against is often from the fringes. About wishful thinking on the left, they take a shot at Marxism - rightfully so. Also some sides of feminism, rightfully so. I delighted also when they took a shot at Butler and Derrida. This may be why libertarianism is off handed - because it is popularly a fringe belief. In the end, it seem, truth wins easier ground on the fringe issues, but stay longer when untruth becomes mainstream or conventional wisdom. Let it be said in the end; there is a good mix of both represented here - whereas the case for truth wins.
Also, as a side note - if it feels hard to read in the beginning but it gets better and there are some good gems later that you do not want to miss.
They take swing at various issues, some well known, some interesting and some unknown and all forgotten. They do make it hard to follow due to sometimes an overly complex language and sometimes digressing off the core matters, but they end up pretty gracefully on their feet. Personally, I found all the issues that I were familiar with both well argued and also easier to follow. This meaning, for a few of the other matters they are probably in the same lane if you are familiar with the content. Most is clear and well written for most audiences.
In a book about truth, they do get overly political and with a slight of hand writes off libertarianism on a wrong basis. Libertarianism do not rely on “dubious notions of human rationality” but on clear principles of what is human rights - meaning, when they say a person knows best what is best for him, it is a general statement that follows from their human right to make mistakes too - to choose for themselves - and that is not “dubious”, as it would be if libertarians believed that people always makes the right choice. It may be naive. The book could be without this and a few other instances of hard opinion, or in the least softening them with words like “som libertarians.” The right choice for a libertarian is the free choice. I suspect they have not read the basis literature on their side not remarks. It show that they are not too truthful in all their effort all the time as they should. This may be only about opinion, but they talk more facts - and that is mixing their cards. They claim authority of truth, but makes me wonder slightly their agenda or bias at times. It may be unfair to take this one paragraph of libertarianism as an example in a book that does much right, but when authority is claimed and complex language is used - I get the hunch that something is tiny bit off. That thorne on the side, that one can rise above but sometimes is felt. However, it is not very often and both the right and the left get their due in the fire. Most the left.
It seems also that who they argue against is often from the fringes. About wishful thinking on the left, they take a shot at Marxism - rightfully so. Also some sides of feminism, rightfully so. I delighted also when they took a shot at Butler and Derrida. This may be why libertarianism is off handed - because it is popularly a fringe belief. In the end, it seem, truth wins easier ground on the fringe issues, but stay longer when untruth becomes mainstream or conventional wisdom. Let it be said in the end; there is a good mix of both represented here - whereas the case for truth wins.
Also, as a side note - if it feels hard to read in the beginning but it gets better and there are some good gems later that you do not want to miss.
January 31, 2025
While I agree with the authors that there is such a thing as objective truth and it is worth defending for its own sake, I did not find much else in the book to recommend it.
Firstly it is so heavily jargon laden and so full of names of theories and theorists that it makes for very laborious reading.
Also, I'm not sure that the existence of very matter of fact truths such as 'putting your hand in fire will burn you' necessarily indicates that all truth is of this level of black and white, and I think that there might be room for some more "fuzzy" truths. The scientific method and empiricism is excellent for things to which they can be applied - but I'm not sure that's all areas of life and to take away anything that doesn't live up to that standard and replace it with nothing just seems to me to leave the world a poorer place.
I agree with them that some of the accounts they've quoted that seem to argue that truth is a completely subjective thing can lead to some terrifying situations to contemplate. But I'm not sure they provide enough evidence to support their inferences that there will be nothing preventing us from slipping back into the worst excesses of twentieth century populism because some literature and anthropology professors believe that there are multiple different potential "truths".
Also has to be mentioned, while organisations, govts, institutions and businesses can and often do (whether wittingly or unwittingly) manipulate the "truth" through institutional bias and directing where funding goes - their point claiming that the tobacco industry sought to manipulate research by claiming that a study which showed an increase in cancer in the spouses of smokers but that did not reach statistical significance showed no difference in the two groups is wrong. If a study does not reach statistical significance then you cannot say that there's a difference between the two groups as it could all legitimately be explained by chance and the tobacco industry's description was correct and did not show signs of their meddling with the science. (I don't doubt that evidence of their untoward involvement could be found - just please pick examples that back up your points).
Firstly it is so heavily jargon laden and so full of names of theories and theorists that it makes for very laborious reading.
Also, I'm not sure that the existence of very matter of fact truths such as 'putting your hand in fire will burn you' necessarily indicates that all truth is of this level of black and white, and I think that there might be room for some more "fuzzy" truths. The scientific method and empiricism is excellent for things to which they can be applied - but I'm not sure that's all areas of life and to take away anything that doesn't live up to that standard and replace it with nothing just seems to me to leave the world a poorer place.
I agree with them that some of the accounts they've quoted that seem to argue that truth is a completely subjective thing can lead to some terrifying situations to contemplate. But I'm not sure they provide enough evidence to support their inferences that there will be nothing preventing us from slipping back into the worst excesses of twentieth century populism because some literature and anthropology professors believe that there are multiple different potential "truths".
Also has to be mentioned, while organisations, govts, institutions and businesses can and often do (whether wittingly or unwittingly) manipulate the "truth" through institutional bias and directing where funding goes - their point claiming that the tobacco industry sought to manipulate research by claiming that a study which showed an increase in cancer in the spouses of smokers but that did not reach statistical significance showed no difference in the two groups is wrong. If a study does not reach statistical significance then you cannot say that there's a difference between the two groups as it could all legitimately be explained by chance and the tobacco industry's description was correct and did not show signs of their meddling with the science. (I don't doubt that evidence of their untoward involvement could be found - just please pick examples that back up your points).
December 18, 2009
While I have given up on philosophy as a discipline for my efforts, books like this make me have a soft spot for it. Crisp, clear and rigorous.
February 23, 2015
Makes a strong case against excessive post-modernism and the tendency some academics have towards false binaries and fake controversy.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews