Truth and knowledge seem increasingly problematic. Their criteria - what can count as truth and knowledge – has become confused and contested. This course lays out a framework to start thinking about this situation by engaging with key figures from the history of philosophy. A particular focus is given to our most authoritative form of knowledge, science, and the way its truths disseminate into society. We examine the diagnoses of scientific modernity by two giants of 20th century philosophy – Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault – and reflect on how these accounts bear on our current situation.

DELIVERY MODE

• Face-to-Face

SUGGESTED READING

• Kuhn, T. 1996, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, ISBN: 0226458083
• Ayer, A. J. 2001, Language, Truth and Logic, Penguin Books Oreskes, N. 2019
• Why Trust Science? Princeton University Press, ISBN: 9780691212265
• Dupre, J. 2001, Human Nature and the Limits of Science, Oxford University Press
• McIntyre J. 2017, The Limits of Scientific Reason: Habermas, Foucault and Science as a Social Institution, Rowman and Littlefield ISBN: 9781538157794

COURSE OUTLINE

• The epistemic crisis of our times – the unravelling of truth and knowledge
• The quest for certainty – Descartes’ foundationalism, Comte’s positivism, A.J. Ayer’s verificationism, Karl Popper’s falsificationism, W.V.O. Quine’s holism.
• H-G. Gadamer’s hermeneutics and the claim that all understanding is interpretive
• The Pragmatists William James, Charles Sanders Pierce and John Dewey – truth as always provisional and revisable
• The revolutionary thought of Thomas Kuhn and the sociologists of science
• The philosophical position of naturalism – limiting legitimate knowledge to the accounts of natural science
• The question of whether we control technology or technology controls us
• The work of two giants of 20th century continental philosophy – Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault – and their diagnoses of our times

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Understand some key aspects of philosophical arguments around truth, knowledge and the sciences.
2. Think critically about the views of figures from the history of philosophy on truth, knowledge and understanding and the relevance and ongoing effect of these views today
3. Engage with discussions on truth and knowledge and their relations to power, politics, science and technology
4. Consider the role of power and interests in mediating the dissemination of both scientific knowledge and technology into society
5. Understand the key arguments of Jürgen Habermas and Michel Foucault in their analyses of modernity and how these analyses relate to our contemporary situation