'#FactsMustFall'? – education in a post-truth, post-truthful world. Issue 3 (2nd September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Horsthemke, Kai
• Is Part Of: Ethics and education. Volume 12:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 273
• Page End: 288
• Publication Date: 2017-09-02
• Subjects: Post-truth -- truth -- truthfulness; Education -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Periodicals; Education -- Aims and objectives -- Periodicals; Education -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Moral education -- Periodicals; 370.1
• DOI: 10.1080/17449642.2017.1343620
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1744-9642

Abstract

Abstract: Taking its inspiration from the name of the recent '#FeesMustFall' movement on South African university campuses, this paper takes stock of the apparent disrepute into which truth, facts and also rationality have fallen in recent times. In the post-truth world, the blurring of borders between truth and deception, truthfulness and dishonesty, and non-fiction and fiction has become a habit – and also an educational challenge. I argue that truth matters, in education as elsewhere, and in ways not often acknowledged by constructivist, postmodernist and postcolonialist positions.