Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free One-Day Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
49 used & new from £5.98
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Why Truth Matters
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Why Truth Matters (Hardcover)

by Ophelia Benson (Author), Jeremy Stangroom (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £14.99
Price: £11.89 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £3.10 (21%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Only 2 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want guaranteed delivery by Saturday, July 18? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
28 new from £6.10 21 used from £5.98

Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed by Simon Blackburn

Why Truth Matters + Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed
Price For Both: £18.88

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed

Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed

by Simon Blackburn
3.0 out of 5 stars (2)  £6.99
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

by Christopher Hitchens
3.7 out of 5 stars (134)  £4.49
Bad Science

Bad Science

by Ben Goldacre
4.6 out of 5 stars (145)  £4.85
Irrationality

Irrationality

by Stuart Sutherland
4.2 out of 5 stars (26)  £6.99
What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way

What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way

by Nick Cohen
4.1 out of 5 stars (32)  £6.99
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Hardcover: 202 pages
  • Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. (16 Feb 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0826476082
  • ISBN-13: 978-0826476081
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.6 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 272,585 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description
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.

About the Author
Jermey Stangroom is co-editor (with Julian Baggini) of The Philosophers' Magazine and the successful philosophy books, What Philosophy Is and Great Thinkers A-Z. He and Ophelia Benson are editors of www.butterfliesandwheels.com

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below
(1)
(1)
(1)
See all 10 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Why Truth Matters
77% buy the item featured on this page:
Why Truth Matters 3.8 out of 5 stars (6)
£11.89
Does God Hate Women?
10% buy
Does God Hate Women?
£10.49
Bad Science
5% buy
Bad Science 4.6 out of 5 stars (145)
£4.85
Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed
4% buy
Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed 3.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£6.99
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
43 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars The false, the phoney, and the therapy, 29 Jan 2007
By Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
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]
Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A good point of view but a frustrating read, 4 Aug 2007
By Mr. Stuart Bruce "DonQuibeats" (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Why Truth Matters (Paperback)
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.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
27 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Thoughtful, Well-Written Book, 17 May 2006
By Roger (Wales) - See all my reviews
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
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars More than truth
The premise of the book, that `wishful thinking and denial had replaced a rational acceptance of grim truth', is gateway to 181 pages of in-depth corrective. Read more
Published 10 months ago by SL Boyes

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Readable, informative and absorbing. A terrific defense of reason and clear thinking. Should be assigned to all students!!
Published on 28 May 2006 by Jane

5.0 out of 5 stars Sharp, witty and intelligent.
This is an excellent take down of the kind of vague mumbo jumbo pseudo-intellectual trash that is often hard to argue against, for the pure fact no-one knows what is being said! Read more
Published on 16 May 2006 by solent56

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Feedback

Health & Beauty at Amazon.co.uk

Elemis Resurface and Renew Skin Care Gift Set of 4 Products
From soap to shavers, massagers to mascara, stock up on your daily essentials or truly pamper yourself.

›Discover Health & Beauty

  

More From Ophelia Benson

Does God Hate...

Does God Hate Women? by Ophelia Benson

'Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom are the editors of Butterflies... Read more
£14.99 £10.49

 

Up to 53% off Braun Series Shavers

Braun Series 3 390cc Clean & Renew System Rechargeable Foil Electric Shaver
Get in touch with your smooth side with Braun Series shavers, now with Gillette blade technology.

›Discover Braun Series at Amazon.co.uk

  

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

›Learn more about Gift Certificates

  
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.
Continue Shopping: Top Sellers

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates