Truth: Ideas in Profile

Ideas in Profile

by Simon Blackburn

Ideas in Small Introductions to Big TopicsTruth has always been a thorny topic. How does it work? Who decides what it is? And why is it seen as so important? In this lucid introduction to the topic, leading scholar Simon Blackburn describes the main approaches to the notion of truth and considers how these relate to different perspectives on belief, interpretation, facts, knowledge and action. He then looks at how these ideas can be applied - aesthetics, taste and the judgement of art;- ethics and how people decide how they should (or should not) live;- reason and rational truth and whether these may be found or learnt in conversation, agreement and disagreement;- religious belief and the ultimate cause of the cosmos.Understanding what constitutes truth has practical value in every aspect of life, and whether you are voting in an election or finding an excuse for being late, Professor Blackburn's clear and incisive account will illuminate your choice, and stimulate, inform and entertain you along the way

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

Published August 15, 2017

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Simon Blackburn FBA is an English academic philosopher known for his work in metaethics, where he defends quasi-realism, and in the philosophy of language; more recently, he has gained a large general audience from his efforts to popularise philosophy.

He retired as the professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge in 2011, but remains a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, teaching every fall semester. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and a member of the professoriate of New College of the Humanities. He was previously a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford and has also taught full-time at the University of North Carolina as an Edna J. Koury Professor. He is a former president of the Aristotelian Society, having served the 2009–2010 term. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002 and a Foreign Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008.

Reviews

[Craine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blackburn offers a nice introduction to some commonly held theories of truth in philosophy ( including the correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, deflation and Taraki's semantic theory of truth) as well as giving some practical applications in the second half of the book for where one might want to employ careful reasoning about truth. Given that its the third book by the author in which the title pertains to truth one would have thought that the author would be better at setting up the discussion in the start of the book especially in regards to audiences who are unfamiliar with philosophical lingo. The book would have aided in my opinion with a better outline of why philosophers care about truth and perhaps said a little bit more about the historical development regarding truth. In addition I feel more could have been conveyed in trying to get the reader not familiar with philosophy to engage with the terminological aspects of philosophy which many will find unfamiliar.

The greatest strength of the book is that it gives a very good terse treatment of the various theories of truth regarding both pros and cons in addition to providing the reader with a lot of more detailed resources for reference. The chapter on the truth of ethics is especially good and I like the fact the Moore's objections in relation to meta ethics are discussed. In all a very welcome book on the philosophy of truth although as I mentioned more could have been expanded and facilitated in the introduction portion of the book.

(Note I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating system of thumbs up/down. This later rating system encourages in my opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to engage with a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars)

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say that Truth wasn't an enjoyable read at all. In the first section Blackburn goes through different approaches to truth and then in second section he talks about truth in art, ethics and religion. I think the first section was harder to understand due to the complicated language, which was really frustrating. The second section was a bit easier to understand but it was still easy to get lost in Blackburn's complicated language. It's a shame as I though this would be a great introduction to philosophy of truth but the language was impenetrable, which made learning about it very difficult.

[ms.pilesofpaper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought it as research for my academic paper on truth.

While it gave me plenty of information for it, I struggled to understand it often as Mr. Blackburn writes very ... poetic. It was quite frustrating sometimes imo.

[Cal Davie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really decent overview to the idea of "truth" and how it can be defined. Blackburn gives a brief tour around the main issues.

[Mitch Flitcroft · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the first section of this book, Blackburn conducts an analysis of the correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, deflationary, and semantic approaches to truth. Blackburn's sympathies lie with the deflationary approach, which colours his analysis of the second section of the book about the varieties of enquiry.

Overall a good book about epistemology, but a word of warning: this is not some vague, artistic book that explores the oft-uttered stoner question, "what is truth, man?". This is a dry, boring book about epistemology and will only interest the philosophically-inclined reader.

[Hamid · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book examines the nature of truth and tries to shed light on it from a philosophical perspective. There are times when truth may seem like an illusory fugitive concept as for example when we make an attempt to understand what shapes our morality and if there's any objective aspect to our moral judgments. Another case would be art and aesthetics. Is there any truth in the validity and value of an artistic work? That being said, it does not by any means imply that anything goes when it comes to discerning truth from falsity. Even when our picture is incomplete or partial, there are still some explanations that are much more realistic and logical and therefore take precedence. Empirical cases are easier to judge and evaluate since we have science on our side. But even in seemingly non-empirical cases like moral claims, there is still room for argument. Furthermore, it's a mistake to think that we can do it all our own way and come to our own brand of truth. We all stand on a huge deposit of history and culture, the work of generations of trial and error and refinement.