Philosophies of Difference Group

August 2025 POD Seminars

Tuesday 12/8 6-7:30pm at RMIT City Campus

Cathy Legg (Deakin University)

Getting to Post-Post-Truth
Pragmatist philosophy teaches that there is no ‘criterion of truth’, and Rorty claims that it follows that we lack any useful notion of truth. I argue that this inference is too hasty, and that an important question for our current moment is how we can ride out necessary ‘epistemic trust-busting’ (Fuller 2017) without ending up in a ‘post-truth’ epistemic hellscape. I propose some suggestions about epistemology as praxis, adapting Charles Peirce’s idea of knowledge as “a cable whose fibres may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected”, for the digital age. I argue that as educators our best response to the recent ‘post-truth’ phenomenon is to pay less attention to our theories, in which we show up to truth-sceptics as experts, and more attention to our own epistemic practices, in which we show up to truth-sceptics as fellow persons. Genuine listening and learning can offer practical proof that truth is not dead, notwithstanding the dire theoretical generalisations of sceptics, nihilists and relativists.

BIO:

Dr. Catherine Legg teaches philosophy at Deakin University in Melbourne. Her main research interests lie in the philosophies of mind, language, and logic, where she works to bring the distinctive ideas of pragmatist Charles Peirce into mainstream debates; she also has research profiles in AI and education. She is current editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s “Pragmatism” entry. In 2008, she inaugurated the field of 'cat metaphysics' with the assistance of the late Bruce, who had a ‘personal chair’. This remains something of a niche area.

This is an in person seminar at the RMIT City Campus, Building 80 Level 10 Room 17

445 Swanston Street Melbourne

All welcome!