Truth: A Guide

by Simon Blackburn

Overview

The author of the highly popular book Think, which Time magazine hailed as "the one book every smart person should read to understand, and even enjoy, the key questions of philosophy," Simon Blackburn is that rara avis—an eminent thinker who is able to explain philosophy to the general reader. Now Blackburn offers a tour de force exploration of what he calls "the most exciting and engaging issue in the whole of philosophy"—the age-old war over truth.

The front lines of this war are well defined. On one side are those who believe in plain, unvarnished facts, rock-solid truths that can be found through reason and objectivity—that science leads to truth, for instance. Their opponents mock this idea. They see the dark forces of language, culture, power, gender, class, ideology and desire—all subverting our perceptions of the world, and clouding our judgement with false notions of absolute truth. Beginning with an early skirmish in the war—when Socrates confronted the sophists in ancient Athens—Blackburn offers a penetrating look at the longstanding battle these two groups have waged, examining the philosophical battles fought by Plato, Protagoras, William James, David Hume, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, and many others, with a particularly fascinating look at Nietzsche. Among the questions Blackburn considers are: is science mere opinion, can historians understand another historical period, and indeed can one culture ever truly understand another.

Blackburn concludes that both sides have merit, and that neither has exclusive ownership of truth. What is important is that, whichever side we embrace, we should know where we stand and what is to be said for our opponents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195168242
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2005
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 5.86(h) x 1.02(d)

About the Author

Simon Blackburn is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He was Edna J. Doury Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina, and from 1969 to 1990 was a Fellow and Tutor at Pembroke College, Oxford. He is the author of The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy and the best-selling Think and Being Good, among other books.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Introduction	xiii
Chapter 1	Faith, Belief and Reason
1	Clifford's Duties	3
2	Will and Passion in James	7
3	Fiction and Myth	13
4	Kinds of Animation	19
Chapter 2	Man the Measure
1	Turning the Tables: the Recoil Argument	25
2	Modern Judo	29
3	The Variation of Subjectivities	32
4	The Moving Bull's-eye	36
5	Doing it Ourselves	39
Chapter 3	Ishmael's Problem and the Delights of Keeping Quiet
1	Who Tells the Tale?	47
2	A Gestalt Switch	55
3	You Tell Me, or Down with Pilate	58
4	Moral Relativism	63
5	Man the Measurer	67
6	Summary	70
Chapter 4	Nietzsche: the Arch Debunker
1	Facts or Interpretations?	75
2	Twilight of the Idols	79
3	Perspectivism	85
4	Adequate Words	92
5	Heraclitus and the Flux	98
6	The Darwinian Element	104
Chapter 5	The Possibility of Philosophy
1	Getting Puzzled	109
2	Four Responses	112
3	Eliminativism	114
4	Realism	117
5	Deconstructing the Issue	121
6	The Constructivist Corner	124
7	The Example of Wittgenstein	129
Chapter 6	Observation and Truth: from Locke to Rorty
1	Paradise Lost	139
2	First Impressions	140
3	Holism	144
4	Davidson's Mantle	148
5	Rorty's Talking World	151
6	Keeping our Feet on the Ground	156
7	Interlude: Law, Tennis and the Coffee-house	162
8	A Political Message	166
Chapter 7	Realism as Science; Realism about Science
1	No Miracles	175
2	Science Red in Tooth and Claw	178
3	Explaining from Within	180
4	Animation and Belief Again	185
5	Underdetermination	190
Chapter 8	Historians and Others
1	Conceptual Schemes	199
2	Mind Reading	205
3	Mirroring	210
4	Infirmities	213
5	Collectives and their Histories	219
6	Peace Breaks Out	220
	Notes	223
	Index	235

Editorial Reviews

"Blackburn's lively new book 'Truth: A Guide' will challenge and surprise you.... The great achievement of 'Truth' is to encapsulate the major lines of argument on this intractable question within the covers of a book you can read in a day or two. His chapter on Nietzsche, the fountainhead of modern philosophy and the patron saint of relativism, is worth the price of admission by itself."—Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

"Admirably sketching the battle lines currently staked out over the idea of objective truth, [Blackburn] makes his subject lively and accessible even as he parts some of its deepest waters.... Blackburn considers truth 'the most exciting and engaging issue in the whole of philosophy,' and, with wit and erudition, he succeeds in proving that point."—Publishers Weekly

"Fluid, highly literate, and deeply informed.... Highly recommended for academic philosophy and literature collections. —Library Journal

"Gently leads the reader on a guided tour of one simple question—whether there is a universally applicable set of data that can be called capital-T 'Truth'—and its infinite complications."—Seattle Times

"If you're annoyed, even incensed, at the relativism and ironic nihilism of the youth (or their free-thinking professors), and you're looking for a vicarious voice to denounce the abject postmodern menace and stand up for Western rationalism, this could be the book for you."—Barry Allen, The Globe and Mail

"The pleasure of reading this beautifully written and crafted book is almost sensual, so complete does each sentence seem in its witty unfolding. Blackburn takes up the knottiest philosophical issues—truth, justice, belief, evidence, interpretation—and without dissolving the knots he carefully undoes them, and then, in some cases, reties them. A wonderful embracing tour through the minefield of philosophical controversy that will inform the novice and delight the afficionado."—Stanley Fish

"Between the Scylla of relativism and the Charybdis of absolutism, Simon Blackburn does not merely navigate, but pleasure-sails, visiting and appreciating each. Whether you are appalled by postmodernism, incensed by smug scientism, or simply 'perplexed,' you'll find Blackburn's 'guide' edifying. Learn here what truth is, why it is so elusive, and what hope there is for human knowledge."—Louise Antony, Professor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University

From the Publisher

Blackburn (philosophy, Univ. of Cambridge; Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy) wants to help readers attain a philosophical understanding of the concept of "truth." What does it mean, he asks, to make a statement that asserts this concept? The average person, perhaps, has no trouble doing so, but analysis of it goes to the heart of philosophical puzzlement. Blackburn reviews what philosophers, writers, novelists, scientists, and disparate thinkers have had to say about it, including Plato, Francis Bacon, Voltaire, Locke, Hume, Wittgenstein, William James, Rorty, and Nietzsche-especially Rorty and Nietzsche owing to their central and contrasting views. In this detailed consideration, Blackburn himself seems to favor objective standards for truth rather than the subjectivist, relativist position. His writing is fluid, highly literate, and deeply informed, but by its very nature it will be tough going for anyone who is not philosophically inclined and oriented. Highly recommended, then, for academic philosophy and literature collections.-Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal