Truth as a Human Value

Gila Sher (University of California, San Diego)

The Asian Journal of Philosophy (www.springer.com/journal/44204) launched in October 2021. An event series has been organized in order to mark the journal launch.

On Wednesday, November 17, 10.00 - 11.30am (Korean Standard Time) Prof. Gila Sher from the University of California San Diego will give a talk entitled "Truth as a Human Value". (Tuesday, November 16, 5.00 - 6.30pm Pacific Standard Time.)

• Abstract: What is the truth about truth? What is the truth about what truth is and where its importance for human life and human civilization lies? Are deflationists right when they argue that truth is deflationary and its main importance lies in the fact that the truth predicate is a useful technical device for oblique endorsement and generalization? Or are substantivists right when they say that truth is substantive and its main importance lies in something altogether different? In this paper I suggest that the key to understanding what truth is is understanding its importance for human life and civilization, that to understand the latter we need to find a proper perspective from which to understand it, that the present crisis of truth ‒ the “post-truth” crisis ‒ provides such a perspective, and that this perspective sets a new adequacy condition for the philosophy of truth. This adequacy condition, in turn, suggests a new answer to the question what truth is and where its importance lies: truth is, in the first place, a human value and its importance to our life/civilization lies, not exclusively, but principally, in the centrality of this value to our humanity.

• The event is open to all but please register using the link in the right column of this page. 

The Asian Journal of Philosophy Launch Event Series is generously sponsored by Underwood International College, Yonsei University.