Simon Blackburn appeared on WBUR’s “On Point” program last week along with Stanley Fish, Michael Massing and Michael Lynch.
Truth has always been under attack from liars. But now two philosophers argue that the notion of truth itself is being threatened by more sinister opposition.
It began with a cloistered, academic “relativism,” they say. But now it’s seeped out into the public square. Turbo-charged punditry, pervasive political spin, and a country of divided news consumers and divided values, have put our commitment to truth itself on the line.
LINK to show on WBUR.org.
Also last week, a review of Simon Blackburn’s Truth landed in the pages of the Financial Times. An interesting graph from the review, written by Samuel Brittan:
You do not have to defeat philosophical scepticism to establish that certain assertions are false and others
true. If you are making any observations at all about the course of events you are assuming that individuals
exist, events occur and that there are elections, battles, booms and slumps and all the rest. A great many
perplexities begin to fade if one makes this distinction of levels and I am surprised that philosophers do not
make more of it.
LINK to entire review on Mr. Brittan’s website.
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