Interlude for Own-trumpet-blowing
Okay how can I do this without being repellent and awful. I can’t. Okay I’m going to be repellent and awful. But hey, there’s such a thing as marketing and advertising, you know – don’t think of it as being repellent and awful, think of it as advertising. What am I supposed to do, co-write a book and then not say anything about it? Well then!
Right, so Johann Hari wrote this review of Why Truth Matters. It seems fair to say he thinks it’s good. Boastful and repellent, but fair.
He concludes pleasantly.
In Why Truth Matters, Benson and Stangroom answer the clotted, barely readable sentences of the postmodernists with sentences so clear you could swim in them. There should be a law demanding every purchase of a Jacques Derrida “book” be accompanied with a free copy of this shimmering, glimmering answer.
Sentences so clear you could swim in them. My goal in life, in a way. Really – I do love clarity.
I’m looking forward to reading the book. Not quite sure why being able to swim in something means it’s clear, though..
I suppose it would depend on the density of the solids – try swimming in shit.
–
I *will* buy this- honest. Just as soon as I get a new set of bookshelves…..
Thank you GT.
BTW: ‘specifically defined technical terms’
No hyphen – the adverbial suffix ly is already serving the same function as a hyphen. I know what an easily broken bottle is, but what is an easily bottle? There is only ever need to guard against possible misconstructions, not impossible ones.
_
I don’t know how expert Haari is in Derrida. Surely the philosopher who was most scoriating about the truth was Tarski. After all, in the Semantic definition of Truth, Tarski wrote:
“It seems to me that none of these conceptions have been put so far in an intelligible and unequivocal form. This may change, however; a time may come when we find ourselves confronted with several incompatible, but equally clear and precise, conceptions of truth. It will then become necessary to abandon the ambiguous usage of the word “true,” and to introduce several terms instead, each to denote a different notion. “Personally, I should not feel hurt if a future world congress of the “theoreticians of truth” should decide — by a majority of votes — to reserve the word “true” for one of the non-classical conceptions, and should suggest another word, say, “frue,” for the conception considered here. But I cannot imagine that anybody could present cogent arguments to the effect that the semantic conception is “wrong” and should be entirely abandoned.”
And his idea of what was at stake in the notion of truth was also pretty low:
I do not have the slightest intention to contribute in any way to those endless, often violent discussions on the subject: “What is the right conception of truth?”22 I must confess I do not understand what is at stake in such disputes; for the problem itself is so vague that no definite solution is possible. In fact, it seems to me that the sense in which the phrase “the right conception” is used has never been made clear. In most cases one gets the impression that the phrase is used in an almost mystical sense based upon the belief that every word has only one “real” meaning (a kind of Platonic or Aristotelian idea), and that all the competing conceptions really attempt to catch hold of this one meaning; since, however, they contradict each other, only one attempt can be successful, and hence only one conception is the “right” one.
Just a few notes on Why Fruth Matters.
I’ve swum in the Irish sea, and I can assure you that it’s far from being ‘clear’. Maybe what was meant was that it’s so clear you’d want to swim in it.
Clear of obstructions;
obstructions to swimming;
(what an enjoyable exhilarating experience!); does that clear it up?
_