Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed

Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed

by Simon Blackburn

Penguin, $120

Plato's teacher, Cratylus, pondering Heraclitus' insight that one can never step in the same river twice, suddenly realised one can never step in the same river once, and decided never to speak again. Philosophy had that effect on people. Simon Blackburn, a professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, is one of the very smart people on both sides of the Atlantic - A.C. Grayling, Michael Lynch, Nicholas Fearn, Harry Frankfurt, Richard Rorty et al - who are popularising modern philosophical discussion. In Truth, he offers illumination on the perplexities of truth: what it is, how to recognise it and why it's important. The cynical would hold that truth is whatever the powerful persuade us to believe, or experts agree on, or is subjective. It's an important issue, what with 'truth' increasingly expressed within inverted commas, along with 'objectivity' and 'reason'. Blackburn has assembled his eight Gifford lectures to the University of Glasgow in 2004, and other of his lectures and essays.

His light touch makes comprehensible the likes of Nietzsche, Kant and Wittgenstein. 'Elegant yet challenging,' says The Observer.