After Truth Gives Way

At first glance, Mark Richard's recent book When Truth Gives Out appears, in the most commendable sense of the word, ‘old‐fashioned’. Its central thesis is that truth is sometimes the wrong standard to use when assessing the judgements we make about the world. Not all correct judgements are true, and not all incorrect ones are false. They can all be measured, but they cannot all be measured in the same way. Many of the heroes of old, ensconced in philosophical Valhalla, are no doubt blowing their trumpets in approval. The heroes did not see truth as easy to come by. Far from it. Truth, like wealth, was to be earned, the product of hard epistemological work and stern semantic discipline. Much of what we say and think did not live up to their exacting standards for truth. Morality, literature, poetry, politics, philosophy, psychology and much else besides were often judged lacking. Consequently either we were to believe that all opinions in these matters were equally mistaken, or we were to look for explanations of why we say and think what we do about such things other than the desire to know the truth. We were expressing our sentiments, or prescribing, or commending, or manipulating. But in making such judgements, we were not judging what was true or false. Such were our choices. Grim, surely, but heroic choices often are

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Linguistics · Morality · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Law · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies