The Francis Bacon Lecture 2013
This annual lecture will be delivered by Professor Huw Price, Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy and a Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge
Truth and the War on Error
The Culture Wars have given way to the Truth Wars, but this is just a new name for an ancient conflict. From Plato to Nagel, Protagoras to Rorty, philosophy's two great families have been feuding over the same patch of muddied ground for a hundred generations. Absolutists versus relativists, realists versus idealists, platonists versus pragmatists: the slogans swing to and fro, but both sides are well-entrenched, and the frontlines rarely move.
In this talk Huw Price introduces this conflict through the eyes of his Cambridge predecessor, Simon Blackburn, whose book Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed offers an engaging mix of embedded journalism and irenic road-mapping. However, Price argues that Blackburn's peace plan has a fatal flaw. He offers an alternative peace proposal, which has the advantage of being sufficiently even-handed to be rejected by both sides.
About the lecture
This is a free of charge public lecture but please contact the Events Team if you are planning to attend.
The Francis Bacon lectures are supported with annual funding from the Royal Institute of Philosophy and additionally by the School of Humanities.
Location
de Havilland Campus, University of Hertfordshire, St Albans Road West, AL10 9EU
Event details
- Date:
- 30 October 2013
- End date:
- 30 October 2013
- Time:
- 18:30–20:00
- Admission:
- Free of charge
- Venue:
- de Havilland Campus
- Contact:
- Events Team
+44 (0) 1707 284121