Keynote talk at the annual conference of the University of Hertfordshire Education Doctorate students' conference 12 May 2017

1. Educational Research in a Post-Truth Society
An expert view
Brendan Larvor

2. Educational Research in a Post-Truth Society
An Expert View
• Preliminaries and definitions
• Things I won’t talk about, because I’m not an
expert on them
• Things I won’t talk about because they’re dull and
unhelpful
• Are the post-modernists to blame for the post-
truth condition?
• What Nietzsche has to say about truth
• British prehistoric archaeology: a study in
practical post-modernism

3. Was it not always thus?
A lie can go round the world while the truth puts its boots on

4. Preliminaries and Definitions
What does ‘post-truth’ mean?
• Word of the year 2016!
• Something new…
• There has always been propaganda…
• But now, fact-checking seems to have
stopped working
• I don’t know why this is, because…

5. Things I’m not an expert on
But nevertheless have opinions
• Politics
• Social Media
• Media Studies
• Social Science
• Psychology
• Presidential psychiatry

6. Things I won’t talk about because they’re dull and
unhelpful
Philosophy of Language and Linguistic Philosophy
"WHAT is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Pilate was in
advance of his time. For "truth" itself is an abstract noun, a camel, that is, of a logical
construction, which cannot get past the eye even of a grammarian. We approach it cap
and categories in hand: we ask ourselves whether Truth is a substance (the Truth, the
Body of Knowledge), or a quality (something like the colour red, inhering in truths), or a
relation ("correspondence "). But philosophers should take something more nearly their
own size to strain at. What needs discussing rather is the use, or certain uses, of the
word "true“.
What is it that we say is true or is false? Or, how does the phrase "is true" occur in
English sentences?
JL Austin ‘Truth’
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
Supplementary Volume XXIV (1950).

7. Are the Post-Modernists responsible for post-truth?
Daniel Dennett thinks so
I think what the postmodernists did
was truly evil. They are responsible
for the intellectual fad that made it
respectable to be cynical about
truth and facts. You’d have people
going around saying: “Well, you’re
part of that crowd who still believe
in facts.”
Daniel Dennett
The Guardian
12 February 2017

8. Are the Post-Modernists responsible for post-truth?
How can we tell?
• ‘French theory’ only
exists in English
• Was only ever popular in
some university
departments
• Do students believe what
their professors tell
them?
• Are humanities
graduates sufficiently
influential to create a
post-truth culture in
journalism and politics?

9. Relevant Philosophy: Bullshit and Truthfulness
Harry Frankfurt and Bernard Williams

10. Bullshit and Truthfulness
Harry Frankfurt and Bernard Williams
Their theme here illustrated
with a quotation seized from
the internet.
Williams is also interested
in the message of the
‘deniers’.

11. Nietzsche
Doesn’t he say it’s all interpretation?

12. Nietzsche
Doesn’t he say it’s all interpretation?
He says three things about truth:
1.There are facts! And this is really important
2.Commitment to truth-telling is a transcendental value
3.It takes many perspectives to get better understanding
OK, Bernard Williams’s Nietzsche says these things

13. Nietzsche
Doesn’t he say it’s all interpretation?
1.There are facts! And this is really important
“The sense for facts, the
last-developed and most
valuable of all the senses”
The Anti-Christ (59)

14. Nietzsche
Doesn’t he say it’s all interpretation?
2. Commitment to truth-telling is a transcendental value
“There is no pre-established harmony between
the furthering of truth and the well-being of
humanity”
Human, All Too Human (517)

15. Nietzsche
Doesn’t he say it’s all interpretation?
3. It takes many perspectives to get better understanding
“There are many kinds of eyes”
Will to Power (540)

16. British Archaeology
A study in practical post-modernism
Lesson 1: Interpretation
Why was it obvious to
Victorian scholars of
prehistoric Britain that new
technologies (bronze,
iron) were brought by
conquering bearers of a
higher state of civilisation?

17. British Archaeology
A study in practical post-modernism
Lesson 1: Interpretation
Neolithic – grave shrines –
small dark people
Bronze – henges –
Beaker people
Iron – barrows – Celts

18. British Archaeology
A study in practical post-modernism
Lesson 1: Interpretation
Now, the invasion narrative is
out of fashion, even though
invasions were commonplace
in the historic ancient world.
Religious ideas are also not
figuring as explanations

19. British Archaeology
A study in practical post-modernism
Lesson 2: power
Three encounters between
mainstream archaeology and
outsiders:
•Designs on stone
•Earth mysteries
•Archaeoastronomy

20. British Archaeology
A study in practical post-modernism
Designs on stone

21. British Archaeology
A study in practical post-modernism

22. British Archaeology
A study in practical post-modernism: archaeoastronomy

23. Educational Research in a Post-Truth Society
An Expert View
Knowledge about human affairs, including education,
is, unavoidably:
•Partial
•Interpretative
•Structured by
– Ideology
– Institutional power
– Material circumstance
Recognising these facts is what respect for the truth
demands of us.