Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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47 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The false, the phoney, and the therapy, 29 Jan 2007
The shocks of The Great War of 1914-1918 spawned a social movement known as "nihilism". Values once held meaningful were rejected by those who felt the conflict demonstrated such beliefs to be invalid. The Second World War may be considered the foundation for a similar movement arising in post-War France - "postmodernism". A close cousin of nihilism, the "French philosophy" strives to place all cultures on an equal footing. That equalitiy, moreover, is absolute - any declared stance must be granted equivalent respect with any other. Accompanied by many synonyms such as "cultural relativism" and "post-structuralism", the pestilence quickly spread in Western Europe where its symptoms are clearly seen in media presentations. More significantly, it became firmly established in the US, particularly in universities where it generated such programmes as "Women's [in a variety of spellings] Studies", "African Studies", all with a strong anti-Enlightenment and anti-science orientation. Benson and Stangroom here apply some vigorous therapy to counter the assault on rational thought. Although brief, this book is direct and incisive, clearly exhibiting the malaise infesting our universities and political institutions.
The purpose of this book is to re-establish that "truth" is indeed a valid concept. Postmodernism's contention that there are as many "truths" as there are tellers of it cannot be sustained. Benson and Stangroom, who founded the Website "butterfliesandwheels", explain that truth is empirically based and not a highly variant cultural phenomenon. Because our species appears to be the only one that can define truth, the authors address such fields as anthropology, evolutionary psychology, "women's ways of knowing" and various philosophies in describing how truth has been both supported and distorted.
Certain figures loom large in their presentation, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty and Sandra Harding, among others. The authors show how "cultural relativism" has attempted to discredit research in human behaviour with the objective of achieving "political correctness". In anthropology, for example, the episode of Napoleon Chagnon's work among the Yamomano of South America being falsely challenged raised a storm of controversy in the discipline. Although Chagnon was finally vindicated, the controversy brought suspicion on the science and besmirched Chagnon permanently. A related circumstance lies in the pronouncements of Sandra Harding that empirical evidence can have a gender bias and that a "feminist empiricism" should replace long-standing work. Harding, who still teaches at UCLA, has produced a population of graduate students who have fanned out to their own teaching posts and public affairs roles. Among other criticisms, the authors point out that even Harding admits her "philosophy" leads to a wide range of "ways of knowing". Women have indeed been excluded from science, but revising the methodologies isn't going to grant women more places at the lab bench. For all Harding's rhetoric, "E" still equals "mc2".
These examples indicate how knowledge, long and often painfully gained, can be cast aside in the name of some minority's demand for "respect". The authors make it clear that tearing down established knowledge and the methods of attaining it does not enhance or restore elements of society who feel they are victims of injustice. Part of the work of empirical research is to examine those injustices and right them. Their cause, however, isn't due to truth being false, but being misused. The fascisti mis-applied Charles Darwin's idea of "survival of the fittest", but that, the authors insist, doesn't reflect a flaw in the basic premise. The danger in not knowing how to make the distinction only results in repeating that kind of history under a new guise. Such distortions are being perpetrated in North American universities on a daily basis and carried into the public realm.
Postmodernism, the authors contend, is more than just a "philosophy". It is an assault on knowledge itself. By contriving the results of research into "tools of oppression", the postmodernists conveniently overlook not only how science works, but who is actually doing the "oppressing". Bench scientists aren't imposing social conditions resulting from their work. Science, no matter how haltingly and hesitantly, is the one means to establish what is valid. Its answers are authoritative because they can be proven correct or not. To undermine those answers through treating them as options instead of data, is simply to falsify the results. The Enlightenment began as a means of overcoming false mythologies. It's depressing to see how a new wave of such mythologies has required a re-starting of Enlightenment principles to overcome it. That long-held standard will prove the needed therapy. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A good point of view but a frustrating read, 4 Aug 2007
Apologies in advance to academics wanting a review as thorough as Stephen A Haines' below.
This book came up on my Amazon recommended list after I read books on the subject of the modern relevance (or irrelevance) of religion, by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Lewis Wolpert, so I gambled on it and was mostly disappointed.
I'd have to disagree with some of the other reviews and say that the readability and accessibility of this book varies from chapter to chapter. In places it is very strong, particularly when it considers 'hot topics', for example the teaching in Mormon-run American schools or the money ploughed into pro-smoking 'scientific' research.
However I found that for my un-academic tastes, too much of this book was ungrounded philosophy for academia's sake- considering a bunch of other recent books on postmodern philosophy and criticising them. It feels like part of the ongoing treadmill, in which future publications will quote and criticise "Why Truth Matters" and collectively they all keep themselves in a job without coming to any conclusions that have any real impact to the casual reader.
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28 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Thoughtful, Well-Written Book, 17 May 2006
Why Truth Matters is a book that deserves to reach a wide audience. It is a thoughtful book that is also accessibly written without patronising the reader.
The main thesis of the book is that the notion of Truth as an important human goal has been subject to unwarranted denigration in recent times. As the authors note, it is rare - although not unheard of - for the epistemic and/or human value of Truth and Turth-seeking to be openly confronted. More common are side comments and general attitudes that appear to draw from varying - and not necessarily consistent - prevailing strands in social and political thought. Yet these comments and attitudes are not typically underpinned intellectually to any substantial extent.
One of the main virtues of Why Truth Matters is that it does not try to over-reach itself. It does not claim to offer the full and final word on profound epistemological issues. But it does argue - very cogently - that whatever positions are taken on many of these matters, Truth remains an abiding, central human value. Living as we do in what Susan Haack once appropriately described as an 'era of preposterism', that is a valuable message
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