Truth: A Guide, by Simon Blackburn

Title: Truth: A Guide
Author: Simon Blackburn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195168240

Pro:
•  Offers a lot of food for thought, making an apparently simple issue more complex and interesting
•  Explains how many of those who debate truth have misunderstood each other

Con:
•  Tries to fit too many variations and ideas into two categories
•  Focuses on Western philosophy, leaving out any insights from Eastern scholars
•  Subjectivist positions subjected to far more scorn and criticism than objectivists

Description:
•  Analysis of various positions on the nature of truth and whether it is attainable
•  Contrasts the view that objective truths exist with the idea that there are only interpretations, not truths
•  Argues for a form of realism, in that facts exists but we should be cautious in asserting them

Simon Blackburn has written a great deal in order to help explain basic philosophical concepts and debates to average readers, and his book Truth: A Guide may be the most fundamental. The average person has little difficulty explaining what they mean when they assert that something is true, but philosophers have had much more difficulty with the idea — and for good reasons. Blackburn must therefore take a concept which strikes most people as familiar and easy, then make it unfamiliar, which is not a simple task.

Blackburn certainly has a lot of material to work with, since almost every philosopher has tacked the nature of truth somewhere along the way. Among those who get the most prominent attention are Plato, Bacon, Voltaire, Locke, Hume, Wittgenstein, William James, Rorty, and Nietzsche. In some ways, this book reads almost like a history of Western philosophy — which is actually a flaw, I think, because it means that Blackburn isn't devoting much time to the ideas and arguments from non-Western scholars.

Blackburn's structure, though, isn't simply a summary of the history of philosopher's ideas about the nature of truth. Instead, he tackles the issue by contrasting two opposing viewpoints: subjective and objective beliefs about truth. Some philosophers argue that there exists objective truths which we can know for certain; others have argued that either no objective truths exist or, if they do, we can't know them — so all we have are subjective perspectives which may or may not have varying degrees of reliability.

There is some value to this sort of structure because there are regular debates between those who take a more objective and those who take a more subjective perspective. Particularly valuable is how Blackburn discusses the ways in which varying sides misunderstand or talk past each other, thus demonstrating that many of the debates are ultimately false debates and that there is far more agreement than one might otherwise think.

Unfortunately, this structure can tend to over-simplify people's ideas because not every position can be reduced to "there are plain, objective facts" or "there are no facts, just interpretations." Evern worse, Blackburn sometimes seems to try to fit this debate within the larger "culture wars" debate, which can inappropriately simplify or misrepresent the issues even further. Blackburn provides a critical examination of the different perspectives thorough history — though his own sympathies for the objectivist position means that the subjectivist positions are criticized more strongly.

People who adopt an objectivist and absolutist position are always reasonable and level-headed, never dogmatic absolutists who promote silliness as if it were inerrant. Relativists, however, are ridiculous and never merely cautious about making claims they cannot support. It is fortunate that these problems don't get in the way too often, but they are there and do detract from the work's overall quality.

And what does Blackburn himself think? His' position is one that probably won't please many philosophers, but it is one which will likely find a great deal of sympathy with average readers — the people who are precisely Blackburn's audience. Blackburn argues that there are objective truths and that we can accept certain claims as objectively true, but that we should do so in a minimalist way. Relativism isn't completely incoherent and, when applied carefully, ensures that we don't make truth claims that go further than evidence and reason warrant.

This isn't always an easy book to read, despite how it's aimed more at a general rather than an academic audience. A person with no background in philosophy will probably get lost quickly and even a person with just some background will have to pay close attention. One reason for this is likely because the material is drawn from a variety of lectures and essays, thus preventing the book from working well as a coherent whole. Blackburn's writing is generally good, but for some reason his prose doesn't always "click" as well in this book as in his others, so it's not quite as gripping as it might be.