Between Truth and Falsity: Liberal Education and the Arts of Discernment

It seems we are awash in information. From the moment we wake until we turn over our phones at night, we are bombarded with images and messages, news and information from a confounding number of sources. But as the amount of information available to us increases ever more rapidly, its quality and reliability seem less credible. Russian troll bots, 4chan, Breitbart, and Rebel Media, challenge our credulity, but they do so by mimicking aesthetic registers consumers expect of "traditional" media outlets. Moreover, traditional news sources, both privately owned and public broadcasters, already weakened by eroding revenue, cuts to budgets, and shifting demographics, are under sustained attack from those who wish to damage their ability to hold powerful people to account. Instead of a multi-perspectival approach, which seeks to report to the public the many ways to address a particular issue, taking the reporter's role as neutral with regard to outcome, "fake" or "ideologically" driven news sources compete for audience attention and faithfulness, often using emotion to rally people toward a certain political cause or issue.

Academics, meanwhile, have their work attacked and undermined by people or groups seeking to advance political or economic interests. They are told they too are political actors, one more voice in a messy public arena instead of a font of reliable information and knowledge. While academics continue to believe that their work, at least in part, enhances our understanding of the world and informs debate, how do we know that their conclusions are indeed more reliable than their critics in the "post-truth" era? 

'Between Truth and Falsity: Liberal Education and the Arts of Discernment' will aid academics and students seeking to better grasp the value of liberal education within this post-truth era. It seeks to advance pedagogical ideas in order to fight factual erosion and reinforce intellectual capacities that are able to critically assess the chaos of information enveloping all segments of society. This volume will therefore be of particular interest to academics and university educators working in higher education, graduate students theorizing the nature of media and the role of higher education, undergraduates studying liberal education and the nature of the university, and those thinking about liberal education.