Items related to Truth
Synopsis
We need a history of truth - though until now no-one has tried to write one. We need it to test the claim that truth is just a name for opinions which suit the demands of society or the convenience of élites. We need to be able to tell whether truth is changeful or eternal, embedded in time or outside it, universal or varying from place to place.
We need to know how we have got to where we are in the history of truth - how our society has come to lose faith in the reality of it and lose interest in the search for it. We need a history of truth to illuminate the unique predicament of our times and - Felipe Fernández-Armesto argues - help us escape from it. He shows how - at different times, in different societies - people have tried to tell the difference between truth and falsehood. And he exposes the concepts of truth which have underpinned those techniques.
All truth-finding can be reduced, he argues, to a few basic types, which have always been available but which have been combined in varying proportions. They are still useful. They can still help us survive contemporary uncertainty and rebuild life after doubt.
This is a book of unusual audacity: short, clear, readable, opinionated - but uncompromising in raising big issues, using rich language and embracing a vast range.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of 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
"'I cannot remember having read anything as intellectually deft on so ambitious a subject...an enthralling and delightful read'" (Independent)
"'It is rare to come across a book which seems so timely...a monumental effort...a feat of virtuosity and vitality'" (Literary Review)
"'A high-spirited vacation in a realm of dangerous ideas'" (The Times)
"'A sharp and interesting work, bound to enrage specialists in the fields he sprints through'" (New Statesman)
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherBlack Swan
- Publication date2010
- ISBN 10 055277636X
- ISBN 13 9780552776363
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages272
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