Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed [Hardcover]

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 23, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0312242530 | ISBN-13: 978-0312242534 | Edition: 1st

"Fernandez-Armesto shows how - at different times, in different societies - people have tried to distinguish truth from falsehood; he also exposes the basic human assumptions about truth that have informed and determined these truth-telling strategies. 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. These types are still useful. They can help us survive contemporary uncertainty and rebuild life after doubt."--BOOK JACKET.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com 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 subjectivisms, 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.

From Publishers Weekly

An idiosyncratic exploration of "the quest for language that can match reality," Oxford historian Fern ndez-Armesto's essay is a highly personal stroll through human history and various cultures' notions of truth. Fern ndez-Armesto (Millennium, etc.) examines four distinct approaches to truthA"the truth you feel," "the truth you are told," "the truth of reason" and sense perceptionAin separate chapters. His goal, he reveals in a preface, is to rescue discussions about truth from the polarizing dead-ends of absolutism and relativism, "to reassure readers that the search for truth is still on and leave relativists and fundamentalists where they belongAon the margins of history." His book is far too anecdotal and unsystematic to achieve that stated goal, but it nevertheless makes for provocative, often illuminating reading, particularly since he includes Chinese, Indian, Polynesian and other traditions in his excavation of how different cultures in different times apprehended the idea of truth. Writing with an interdisciplinarian's lack of, well, discipline, he stumbles badly on such topics as pragmatism, quantum mechanics, chaos theory and G?del's Incompleteness Theorem, repeating or even adding to common misperceptions, rather than dispelling them. Yet he also writes with the confidence and clarityAneither of which is to be confused with accuracy or depthAof a top-notch lecturer. In the end, what he has to say about how language cannot be conceived as separate from the world it tries to describe is not just an interesting philosophical comment but also a moving perspective on what happens whenever one person speaks to another. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (November 23, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312242530
• ISBN-13: 978-0312242534
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,874,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing breadth of material systematized with wit, February 6, 2000

By 

S. M. Struhl (Princeton, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed (Hardcover)

The author covers references from an amazing array of historical eras and, seemingly, from all parts of the globe with a written tradition. His categorization of the types of "truth" is brilliant. What's better, he knows how to write and avoids anything resembling a dull catalog of contrasting views. He is not afraid to voice opinions, unlike many other authors. Also, he is not afraid to attack some of the nihilistic tendencies of "modern scholarship." If you agree that these are simply empty posturings which are inherently self-negating (i.e., if nothing matters, why then bother discussing it), you will enjoy what he has to say. He does not come to an answer concerning "truth," in my opinon, but takes the reader on an always interesting search for it.

28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intellectually stimulating while wonerfully witty, December 16, 1999

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John Cragg (Delta(greater Vancouver), B.C Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed (Hardcover)

This book is a gem. It goes through a number of different senses in which truth has been understood or pursued over time, streesing the strengths, weaknesses and contradictions of each. While passionately involved in the theme, and clearly horrified by the nihilistic tendencies of Post-modernism, the weakest part of the book comes when the author tries to overcome such arguments and make a defense of "truth" in the more classical forms. The author has a marvellous facility with language, tells tales skillfully and revealingly and can often skewer pomposity with a telling turn of phrase. Thoroughly delightful!

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book is one of the greatest history's of our world., November 1, 1999

By 

Jason R. McDiarmid ([e-mail]) (Queensland, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed (Hardcover)

Being the first book I have read by Fernandez-Armestro I cannot comment on it in relation to previous works, however, suffice to say that I was impressed not only by the literarily worthiness and depth of research but also by the courage to take on a topic of such obscurity. This `guide for the perplexed' is possibly one of the most probing books written this decade, no other book searches with such depth for truth itself. I thoroughly recommend this book to anybody with an interest in history, philosophy or ideology.