Why Truth Matters (2006)

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0826476082, Hardcover)

A witty and eloquent debunking, grounded in solid philosophical scholarship, of the 'fashionable nonsense' that pervades modern culture and academia. 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. Jeremy Stangroom and Ophelia Benson, editors of the successful butterfliesandwheels 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 willful 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.