On Truth

If you are interested in the question of what and how we know, you will find in Simon Blackburn's treatise a good and thoughtful discussion. It is written to be learned from, to paraphrase Goethe, not to simply demonstrate what the author knows. It reviews different approaches to the question, the strengths and weaknesses of each, and speaks to those of us in the real world, who both in their professional and personal lives, deal with a series of unknowns, some of which involve discoverable truths of varying degrees of complexity, some of which are not worth the effort, and some of which cannot or perhaps never, be resolved. The book presents concepts that are readily assimilated, and their validation, corroboration, and verification are left to the reader. Open ended, informative, and practical it a good companion to his previous work (and that of Harry Frankfurt) and well worth the read.

Blackburn effectively lays out the Basic Arguments for Truth: Correspondence, Coherence, Pragmatism and Deflationism but then, interestingly he discusses how these arguments apply or don’t apply to important areas like Art, Ethics, Reason and Religion, areas where he instructs us that in the words of C.S. Peirce we stand on a slippery bog, but it’s all we’ve got. Darn!

This is a very good primer on the concept of truth in analytic philosophy. I had to read it in college for an upper-level logic course, and I still remember this edition well. Well-selected and well-arranged, these readings form a rich conversation about key theories of truth in contemporary philosophy. Each of the selections benefits from being put in this context.

The section on Religious and Arts truths was outstanding, supplementing L.Schonberger in Dec First Things: 'faith finds no sure foothold in contingent historical facts'.

I always like Blackburn's writing. Informative and understandable.

Note: This is a review of Simon Blackburn's book, "On Truth" published in July, 2018. Blackburn has written two other books with the word "truth" in the title, and reviews of these books seem to be intermixed here on Amazon with reviews of "On Truth".In his short, provocative book "On Truth" philosopher Simon Blackburn explores the nature of truth and how we search for it. Blackburn is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and served as Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. There are two large concerns prompting this book. The first concern is the popularity of deconstructionist, post-modern philosophy which denies the possibility of truth and which sees all claimed truths as relative to the speaker or group. The second concern is political, with the rise of a "post truth", "alternative facts" political culture and apparent disregard for the truth in both the United States and the United Kingdom. These considerations, as well as the broad importance and interest of the topic, make it valuable to revisit the nature of truth.This book is elegantly and cogently written and meant to be accessible to lay readers as well as to academic philosophers. With Blackburn's mastery of the subject, the book lucidly addresses difficult questions in short chapters. Still, the book addresses issues and philosophers that general readers are likely to find daunting, with consideration, for example, of the "deflationary" concept of truth and of the semantic theory of truth of Alfred Tarski. Issues are raised and resolved with much brevity. Blackburn states that his book aims to provide suggestions for approaches and materials for reflection to his readers. With that goal, he succeeds admirably.Blackburn has been greatly influenced by American pragmatism, in particular the pragmatism of Charles Peirce. His book begins with a short, difficult saying from Peirce: "We must not begin by talking of pure ideas -- vagabond thoughts that trump the public highways without any human habitation -- but must begin with men and their conversation." Blackburn combines Peirce with an epigram from a much different thinker -- the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham who wrote: "Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet." Blackburn's study is a meditation and expansion of these thoughts of Peirce and Bentham.The book is in two parts. In the first part, Blackburn examines tradition philosophical theories of truth. He devotes short chapters to the correspondence theory followed by chapters dealing with the coherence theory of truth, pragmatism, and deflationism and Tarski. The correspondence theory is roughly treated and rejected as uninformative and unhelpful. Blackburn finds a great deal of value in the remaining theories and tends, properly enough, to see them as a piece. He is particularly inclined towards Pierce's pragmatism with its emphasis on success in action for a given inquiry and the goal of convergence of opinion by informed observers. He contrasts Peirce with the more subjective understanding of pragmatism by Peirce's friend, William James, in his philosophy of religion and strongly favors Peirce over James. Yet in a summary of the contents of the first part of the book, Blackburn stresses the unity between Peirce and James at his clearest. To find the truth is not to search for a thing or a metaphysical abstraction but instead is a process that responds to a particular human question and involves a search for the "particular go" of it. Truth is not a fact or a thing but rather a method of [e]nquiry used to develop how we strive to understand and assess the facts and the ideal endpoint of investigation. The shift from fact to method in understanding truth constitutes what Blackburn terms the "sea change" in philosophy wrought by American pragmatism.In the second part of his book, Blackburn applies his view that truth is a method of enquiry which makes a "particular go" of it in human situations to a variety of contentious, emotive areas of human experience. He considers what the search for truth involves in art and in criticism and whether any more may be said than that only matters of taste are involved. He considers truth in ethics and morals, passing from broad, wooly relativistic theories to understanding our responses to some particular, not difficult, examples. For example, the perception that it would be wrong to put a baby on the ground and stomp on it would work as a counter-example to an unqualified relativism. It would be worth exploring why and how ethics and truth begin in particulars and in methods. The mid-point of part two is a short chapter on reason. Blackburn rejects foundational accounts and the philosophical quest for certainty but argues that we begin where we are with what we know and work forward to deal with particulars and with questions that need to be resolved to lead a better human life and then adjust our background knowledge and assumptions as may be appropriate. He writes:"The enquiry is essentially practical: we can say that its goal is truth, but it can as well be described as knowing when and how to act, whom to admire, how to educate people, what to believe, or, all in all, how to live."The final two chapters of Blackburn's book explore truth as a method for enquiry in probably the broadest and most contentious areas of life: the search for truth in religion and the nature of truth in broad interpretive endeavors, including the law, the study and understanding of history, and politics.I learned a great deal from this book, which brought me back to the pragmatism and idealism I have been studying in Peirce and in the American philosopher Josiah Royce, who isn't discussed in the book. The book reminded me of why I love philosophy and think it valuable. The book is quick on some parts but should inspire readers to think for themselves. The book includes a short bibliography for readers wishing to explore further.Robin Friedman

This is a very useful collection of 20. century writings about veritatis natura, the nature of truth. But instead of a textbook introduction to the key thinkers and basic theories (such as R.L. Kirkham's Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction) we get ipsissima verba, their very own words.Often it proves too complicated and difficult for the beginner to get an overview of a debate by reading the original articles and therefore he will benefit from reading an introductory textbook first. This is not the case here. Although some of the articles in this volume can be quite technical, Krikham's introduction is no less technical, and in my oppinion, this volume is the superior introduction for the beginner, while Kirkham's otherwise excellent book is recommended for the more advanced student of philosophy.This volume contains classic readings by authors such as William James, Bertrand Russell, Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alfred Tarski, W.V.O. Quine, Peter Strawson, J.L. Austin, Paul Horwich, Michael Dummett, Donald Davidson, Anil Gupta and Richard Rorty to name a few. I think it is fair to say that most, if not all significant theories of truth advanced in the 20. century are covered in this volume. There is also an introduction by Simon Blackburn and Keith Simmons (the editors), which helps to put things into perspective. There is also a select bibliography which serves as a suggestion for further reading. My only complaint is that the book's index could be better.If you are interested in theories of truth or the philosophy of language, you should buy this book.

Don't know why this "trini" dude merits four reviews for this book, but the work most certainly does NOT warrant four one-star reviews from the same guy.

Beautifully written and in a sense easy to read. However the concepts can be quite slippery to grasp if you are not already familiar with this sort of material. It can get rather rarefied at some points, requiring a lot of rereading for the non-expert. In fact the writing is so nice that the experience can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride pitching the reader suddenly from perfectly smooth clarity into rough seas. To be honest the subtitle “a guide for the perplexed” ought to be taken with a pinch of salt because a dummies’ guide/made simple/“101” this is not. I suppose that's what Philosophy is all about though, the encouragement of thought, which this certainly achieves. It did not quite get to the essence of what I was hoping for but skirted and circled tantalizingly around what I perceive as the central problems. So perhaps slightly frustratingly after reading Truth it still seems hidden beyond an obscuring event horizon. However if you are interested in this sort of thing it is definitely worth reading.

The sub-title of this book is of course borrowed from the 12thc. Rabbinical Philosopher, Moses Maimomides, but the irony in Blackburn’s use of it, is that we face a truth that the truth is no longer believed to be simple – as some would have us believe. In the Introduction he says: ‘I try to write with the creed that we need to think and to reflect, if we are to be in control of our words and ideas rather than be controlled by them. In this case that means we should not be slaves to simple relativisms or equally simplistic absolutisms. And whatever way our temperaments pull us, we should at least know where we are, and what there is to be said on the other side.’This conflict between an absolutist perspective and a relativistic perspective is first found in the dialogues of Plato. In one sense these perspectives are spectrums of opinion, and what Blackburn calls the simplistic end, I would call the most assertive, so for example a fundamentalist approach which requires the establishment of an interpretive authority which determines its own prerogative to assert that the truth is the most literal interpretation – which not only excludes any other interpretation and any other self-appointed body that claims its own prerogative is seen as heretical. Equally, the relativistic extreme is a distortion of the recognition that people may have their own opinions, in so far as those opinions are seen as ‘truth’ and that each individual has a prerogative to proclaim them as such. So where can there be any certainty, and while those politicians who have lied to us, have to live with their lie – for which of course you need a really thick skin, the rest of us have to live with the consequences of the lie that were never considered. It is not surprising therefore to find the opening section is on ‘Faith, Belief, and Reason.’This is followed by the relativistic position of Protagoras, and then `Moby Dick’, in which Ishmael’s claim at the end of the book that it is the truth because he is the last survivor, meets with, the end of the suspension of disbelief, or the acceptance as a ‘norm’, as a convention, regarding which most people do not worry about whether it is true or not, because it is a story, while Feminists would argue that History is little more than ‘His story.’ I found this book a delight, clarity, with a fluidity of language that one might call elegant, very open, and very engaging – it is an exposition that insists that it is reflected upon while reading – which of course slows down reading, but then we do not always notice that thought is late.

I found this to be a very good introduction to the problem of truth. The focus was on relativism, perspectivism, realism and the grounding of science. Whilst there was some categorisation Blackburn avoids the dry but more rigorous labelling of all the positions, and tries to capture the spirt of the endeavour rather than being long and comprehensive, so this is a good starting point to kindle some interest before diving into some of the more technical analytic philosophy in this area.

This is the best introductory text to Truth that I have read so far. I have no formal education in philosophy and therefore certain things are assumed that make this a difficult read sometimes; but because of this it is deeper than a dummies guide, and therefore more satisfying. It is written in a clear and lively style.

If you’re looking for a brief and easy to read introduction to the subject that will help guide you into more in-depth and specialized readings, this is perfect; but don’t expect something comprehensive or completely current