Customer Reviews

Truth: A History and a Guide for the Perplexed

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

We live in an spiritually blighted era when people don't know or care what the meaning of is is. The idea of any transcendant ideal has no value to society. Not only do people not care what truth is, they would not know what to do with it if they found it. This book is a remarkable examination of that modern failure of the soul and a thoughtful examination of how truth has been sought throughout history. The bulk of the book consists of a review of the four different methods of seeking the truth, from "gut feelings" to empirical evidence. The final chapter looks at how modern Western civilization has abandoned the quest for truth, falling prey to such lunacies as deconstructionism. Perhaps the most important point the author makes is that when a people has abandoned the search for the truth, they are easy prey for lies. We see this in Washington, in the media and in academia today. We ignore this trend at our peril. If we want to preserve our freedoms, we must become more attuned to the truth. Dr. Fernandez-Armesto's book is a good place to begin.

This is not a book of philosophy, but rather philosophical history. It is an extremely fast survey of philosophical thought through the millennia of human history all around the world in a broad variety of cultures. Experts in any of the fields covered in this book will surely find their specialty too cursorily treated, but the point of the book is not the details of the points made.

The issue here is how human beings have wrestled with the concept of Truth throughout history. Does it exist (it is not a modern question)? How can you tell what is True? How do you communicate it? I found the author's skillful demonstration that the seemingly modern focus on private meaning and internal construction to be the resurfacing of a very old issue.

Proffesor Fernandez-Armesto points out that while no system ever devised can irrefutably demonstrate Truth to the satisfaction of everyone, no approach declaring the death of meaning has also been a self-contradictory system of faith. I am a believer in the validity of an independent external reality that can be sought and, in part, known. But whether known or not, it courses on its way with or without us. Its reality is not subjective or open to societal interpretation. Our interpretations of it are, but it can be demonstrated that some interpretations are better than others. Some can land rovers on Mars and others cannot.

I think that this short book should be read by nearly everyone, whether you agree with its thesis or not, or the author's summaries or not. The sheer breadth of topics in only 229 pages can provide a wonderful introduction to further study.

Protogoras thought that man "is the measure of all things, of the existence of things that are and of the non-existence of things that are not." Socrates thought Protogoras was wrong, that there is more than the self, but he leaves us to prove it. The last three centuries have knocked The Truth off its pedestal and largely replaced it with Doubt, thanks to philosophical subjectivism (i.e., not being able to recognise the reality of objects beyond the self), scientific uncertainty, "numbing linguistics" and cultural relativism. This has led to a modern crisis. A character in a comic strip asks, "Hey God, what is Truth, eh?" "No idea," God replies, "get lost."

And lost we are. The modern "vandalism" of truth has it that objectivity is an illusion. As Professor Felipe Fernándes-Armesto writes in this 257-page "framework-essay", this crisis is most worrisome for historians. Cicero: "Who does not know that the first law of history is that the historian shall dare to tell nothing but the truth? And that its second is that he shall be bold to tell the truth in its entirety? And that there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his work?"

Fernándes-Armesto set himself the following substantial goals for this book: to write "about the quest for language that can match reality... to put our crisis in context; to reassure readers that the search for truth is still on and leave relativists and fundamentalists where they belong - on the margins of history." "We need a Guide for the perplexed - a way of understanding and identifying the truth in the post-modern era." Why? Because truth is the basis for social order, mutual respect, adherence to contracts, obedience to laws, and devolution of individual strength to the community.

In the first four chapters the author describes the four essential truth-finding techniques that mortals have always used: emotional truth (not based on reason or the senses); truth from authority and tradition ("consensus with the dead"); reason; and empirical/sensory truth. Chapter Five is a whirlwind tour of the modern history of doubt. The sixth and last chapter confronts the doubters and the doubt.

Fernándes-Armesto's book is well-informed, broad in scope, systematic, thoughtful and compelling. It is a mix of history and personal thoughts. The goals are practical and fundamental. I found that the book requires concentration and is best read in as short a time as possible in order to follow the history and the reasoning. The chapter on doubt is an engrossing survey of the "vandalism". In response to the many strong, almost undeniable arguments for doubt, "we can ululate in meaningless frustration ... that is the popular way out with writers of jargon, psychobabble, post-modern verbiage and academic gobbledegook. Or we can face our limitations, outface doubt and try to make a life for ourselves after it."

The concluding chapter takes up this task and is the most intriguing--the reader wonders to the last how it will end. After trashing a few contemporary would-be truth finding approaches, such as fundamentalism, the author begins to show his cards by indicating the merits of Jürgen Habermas' most recent search for truth as a "collective enterprise, in which we all learn from each other." This is "humane, undogmatic, solidly rooted in tradition, optimistic and, in effect, good for the individual who practices it and the society which benefits from it." Fernádes-Armesto then reviews the four essential truth-finding techniques (truth from emotion, tradition, reason and empiricism/senses). While truth from emotion was particularly helpful for early humans and still has some value, our emotions are easily fooled. Traditions have only a presumption of correctness in their favour, no guarantee. Reason and sense-perception survive the claws of doubt, but not wholly: "They are not perfect, but they are delightfully robust." Doubters of reason use reason to reason against reason. If I suspend reason and distrust senses and prefer a fantasy world, "I should be guided by petulance and perversity. No time and no society have ever made those their tests of truth... To discard them altogether is a terrible act of self-mutilation--a dimunition of humanity, as if amputation and lobotomy were simultaneously self-inflicted in rage at the errors of mind and sense."

The author then gives ground. "Relativists are right in this: truth telling techniques--and, it is probably safe to say, the concepts of truth which underlie them--do change from time to time, place to place and person to person. Subjectivists are also right in this: individuals have no guarantee in the authenticity of assertions--only the liberty to assent. We end up having to acknowledge that when we talk about anything we talk about the sense we have of it or the idea we have of it. Deconstructionists are right about the limitations of language... the gap between terms and the realities they are meant to refer to seems to stretch beyond our power to span it. All these points can be recommissioned on the side of truth. Although this book has shown that truth-telling changes and concepts of truth shift, the changes are fluctuations within limits, oscillations with a single system. They have a rhythm... like the changes of the seasons or the path of a pendulum. ... This is change of a sort but plus c'est la même chose. ... The truth-quest is always the same: the unwavering search for signs to match reality." Historians can approximate objectivity by using multiple perspectives over time. Even language "... is an almost physical thing, which cleaves the air with gestures, booms in the chest and belly, makes ganglions tremble and lips twitch." It is instinctive and connected to the physical world. He concludes: "Whenever we get the intimation of truth--whether we feel it, listen for it, sense it or think it out ourselves--we should expect it to talk to us and we should be able to try, if we like, to express it to others."

The justification for Fernándes-Armesto's "pendulum argument" is implied; the weaknesses of doubt arguments, as mentioned above, have appeared over time and indicate that the pendulum has already started to swing back towards certainty. The reader is left to decide whether this is so. One is compelled to agree with the sentiment that we can muddle along with the limited certainty that we have but that the "truth-quest" will not end.

As in the writing. Fernandez-Armesto is brilliant, insightful, well-researched and opinionated. He is a terific historian and social commentator witness his output: CIVILIZATIONS, MILLENIUM, FEAST OF A THOUSAND TABLES, IDEAS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD, etc.

But this kind of writing is not directly transferable to the kind he attempts in TRUTH. All the small annoyances present in his other books have combined into a barely readable tome. The opacity is everywhere - a sodden blanket over the entire work. His praise (preference?) for primitive cultures is especially pointed here in his attempt to demonstrate a similarity of thought between ancient and modern humans in terms of abstract thought.

This idea is repeated with all the finesse of a slegehammer. Of course Kogo from the Uhuri tribe was not aware of the sciences but yet could discern the truth from the untruthful. But then children do the same thing (which semi-invalidates his berating of modern anthropologists who compare primitive thought to the mindset of children).

This is one of those books that should have been terminated at midpoint, divided and parcelled into other works. Disappointing.

I liked this book though, I have to admit, I had to read it twice before I understood it. Mr Armesto offers some compelling arguments and interesting insights into the nature of truth. A little verbose and over-written but worth the read if you have any inclination to wondering how mankind absorbs, comprehends and arrives at truth.

I bought the book after reading the NYTimes review. I am particularly interested in his four types of Truth scheme and the historical base that he has scanned for this view of the sources of Truth. I became a bit sckeptical as I found his history to conflict with places I knew a bit. I grew annoyed as he gratuitously castigated the authors whose opinions he disliked. To put down the book based on my distaste for the author's tactics is to join him in judging the person rather than the ideas. However, with his flippant approach to history and narrow characterization of various positions, I found I could not trust him as a author on the topic of Truth. A lack of trust in his sense of Truth is as damning of the book as could any that could be voiced.

The book involves the usual hand-wringing about a loss of things like moral truth in an age of skepticism and relativism. But then Armesto, having described the situation disapprovingly, knows better than to step forward and state that there is indeed such a thing as absolute truth, to tell his readers what it is and then to demonstrate it in such a way as to convince us all what it is. This is a telling failure for someone writing a book titled A Guide for the Perplexed. It ought to convince any perplexed reader that fervent belief in the truth is no evidence of the truth and that all the different truths Armesto describes is stunning evidence that moral relativism is the only real truth any honest person can accept. Besides, when Armesto laments the decline of moral truth, who does he think is responsible for more bloodshed, moral relativists or moral absolutists?