Rationality, truth and democracy : Bertrand Russell, George Orwell, Noam Chomsky - Colloquium organized by Pr Jacques Bouveresse on Friday, May 28 2010

Taking up Paul Boghossian's important distinction in Fear of Knowledge, we can distinguish two forms of social constructivism. According to the first, there are no facts that are independent of the kind of theory (or, as a Wittgensteinian would say, " language game ") we choose to describe them. According to the second, less radical and at first sight more plausible, it is only the facts of a certain category, those that have to do with what constitutes a justified or rational belief, that are socially dependent and, therefore, relative : our beliefs may be justified by data that are not necessarily the result of a construction, but what does or does not constitute relevant and probative data for the adoption of a belief necessarily is..

Program

9 h : Jean-Jacques Rosat, Senior Lecturer at the Collège de France
Russell, Orwell, Chomsky : a family of thought and action

10 h : Pascal Engel, Professor, University of Geneva
Can truth survive democracy ?

11 h : Break

11 h 15 : Thierry Discepolo, director of AGONE magazine and publishing house
It's not all theory. Notes on the practice of an editorial line

14 h : Jacques Bouveresse, Professor at the Collège de France
Bertrand Russell, science, democracy and the pursuit of truth

15 h : John Newinsger, Professor, Bath Spa University
George Orwell and Democratic Socialism (lecture in English)

16 h : Noam CHOMSKY, Professor at MIT
"Power-hunger tempered by self-deception (lecture in English)

17 h : General discussion

18 h : End of conference

Admission free, subject to availability.

The entire conference will be broadcast live (video) on the Collège de France website.
Full videos in French and English will be available for download a week later on the Philosophy of Language and Knowledge Chair page.