Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed - Softcover

Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312274947 ISBN 13: 9780312274948

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2001

Synopsis

This fascinating volume, written by a renowned Oxford historian, presents a global history of Truth. Clear, readable and authoritative, Fernandez-Armesto's TRUTH manages to touch every period of human experience; it leaps from truth-telling technologie

About this title

Review:

The pursuit of truth, says Felipe Fernández-Armesto, is "the quest for language that can match reality". He believes that the nature of that quest has never quite been fully understood; Truth aims to fill the void. He identifies four key methods of determining the truth--what we feel, what we are told, what we figure out, and what we observe--which are given poetic names such as "the hairy ball--teeth optional" and "the cage of wild birds". These four methods always exist together in every culture, although each one may be differently valued in different places at different times.

But Western philosophy after Descartes, in Fernández-Armesto's assessment, has been largely hostile to these ways of knowledge, and has steadily come to question the very existence of truth. His summation of post-Cartesian philosophy is a largely negative one, which veers dangerously close to ad hominem assaults. Nietzsche, for example, who "was praised too much in his youth for his superior powers of mind and never achieved prowess or position to match", is dismissed as "a sexually inexperienced invalid" whose philosophy was "warped and mangled out of his own lonely, sickly self-hatred". Pragmatism and existentialism, two of the 20th century's most important philosophical movements, are found inadequate: the former is "the philosophy of lovers of technology"; while the latter "represents the retreat of Luddites and pessimists into the security of self-contemplation". But even though "philosophical subjectivism, scientific uncertainties, and dumbing, numbing linguistics" have served to undermine the notion of truth, Fernández-Armesto believes, they cannot destroy it thoroughly. It seems that even in the face of relativism, truth will win out. --Christine Buttery

Review:

"[Fernandez-Armesto's] interesting and challenging book takes us on a whirlwind guided tour of human thought." --The New York Times Book Review

"In this energetic study...the author reaches beyond academe with crisp prose complemented by numerous whisical touches . . . Truth is a beacon of lucidity." --Boston Globe

"Although serious in his intentions, Fernandez-Armesto writes with a light touch, ranging widely over the fields of anthropology, history and philosophy...very timely and eminently readable." --Los Angeles Times

"Sharp and interesting . . . [The author is] bound to engage speicalists in the fields he sprints through." --New Statesman

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312274947
• ISBN 13: 9780312274948
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276