British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Public Understanding Meeting

Is There a Crisis of Truth in the Humanities?

Wellcome Trust Lecture Hall
The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH

6.00 - 8.00pm, Monday 18 November 2002

This public discussion meeting will tackle one of the most pervasive paradoxes of our times: while the concept of truth is often regarded with suspicion, there is still an intense commitment to the idea of truthfulness-in public life, historical understanding, the social and natural sciences. This tension between the distrust of truth and the demand for truthfulness leads to a deepening crisis in intellectual life.

The panel involves five of the UK's leading academics from history, philosophy, sociology and economics:

Professor Sir Bernard Williams FBA, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford; he also teaches philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Author of the recently published Truth And Truthfulness: An Essay In Genealogy

Professor Simon Blackburn FBA, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Author of The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and a best-selling introduction to philosophy entitled Think.

Professor Richard J Evans FBA, Professor of Modern History Gonville and Caius College Cambridge. Author of Telling Lies about Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial and In Defence of History.

Professor Amartya Sen FBA, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and winner of Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998. Until 1998 he was Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University.

CHAIRMAN: W G Runciman PBA, President of the British Academy and Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Everyone is welcome to attend this free event but is essential to register in advance, stating your name, telephone number and email address.

Contact:
Tel. 020 7255 1281
Email. crisisintruth@prospect-magazine.co.uk