Truth to be Told

Truth to be Told: Understanding Truth in the Age of Post-Truth Politics 

‘Truth to be Told’ is a UCD Humanities Institute public lecture series in response to the emergence of what is called a ‘post-factual’ world in which trustworthy models of discursive truth have been derided as old-fashioned, elitist and authoritarian.

Responding to a crisis of truth and democracy, this lecture series aims to debate the socio-political, ethical, discursive and cultural implications of truth as a common good. Public lectures by internationally renowned speakers will examine some of the following topics: truth and the law, truth in stories, truth and memory, truth in history, truth within institutions, truth and the media, truth in art.

LECTURE 6: Thursday, 13 September 2018 at 5.30pm

Humanities Institute Seminar Room H204 (top floor)

(opens in a new window)Professor Philip Kitcher

John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University 

Truth and Science 

Professor Kitcher went to Christ’s College Cambridge to study mathematics. After leaving Cambridge, he went to Princeton University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy/history and philosophy of science. Since then, he has taught at Vassar College, the University of Vermont, the University of Minnesota, the University of California at San Diego, and, most recently at Columbia. His principal interests have been in the philosophy of science. After working on the philosophy of mathematics early in his career, he began to write on issues in the philosophy of biology and in general philosophy of science. He is currently interested in the ethical and political constraints on scientific research, the evolution of altruism and morality, and the apparent conflict between science and religion. His principal current research projects focus on pragmatism, and on issues in philosophy in/and/of literature.  

Book publications include: Science, Truth, and Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2001; paperback 2003; in a Democratic Society, Prometheus Books, 2011; Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction (co-authored with Gillian Barker); Oxford University Press, 2013; Life After Faith: The Case for Secular Humanism, Yale University Press, 2014.


Please register for the event by clicking (opens in a new window)here.

Seminar by Professor Philip Kitcher

UCD School of Philosophy

Friday September 14, 11 am

Agnes Cuming Seminar Room 

D522, School of Philosophy 

Newman Building

Topic: 

"Moral Progress"

To attend this seminar please send an email to

Sinead.Gillen@ucd.ie with the subject heading Philip Kitcher.

Background reading will be sent to all registered attendees

Registration for both events is essential