Our Post-Truth World

Reviewing the book “A Short History of Truth” By Julian Baggini

Truth is an eternally relevant topic. But it seems more relevant now in our modern age. We can feel that truth is harder and harder to grasp and to make it worse, we seem to have reached a point that often not only are we unsure what the truth is, but sometimes it does not seem to matter.

I enjoyed the book’s layout. It is very simple, organized, and concise. It talks about several types of truth: eternal, authoritative, esoteric, reasoned, evidence-based, creative, relative, powerful, moral, and holistic. I’m surprised he managed this many, but they are all reasonably argued, and it didn’t feel like forced categories.

However, I was a bit disappointed in the actual content, at least compared to what I expected. It claims to deal with the history of truth, and I was hoping for some sort of timeline or historical context about truth and how that relates to our current age. No such thing is done. In fact, there isn’t any historical factor at all, and I’m confused about why such a title was picked.

Nevertheless, it is indeed a book about truth, and it is well written. Each type of truth reads like an essay, and they flow well without ever being complicated. I didn’t like the beginning as such as it seemed to have superstitious thought against sceptical/rational thought (in search of truth) which to me feels like a low-hanging fruit that is barely worth writing about. But that tone ended quickly, and the more I read, the more I liked it.

To give you an idea of what is mentioned, the 2nd truth is about authority. Truth is complicated, and it often requires extensive knowledge to grasp it, knowledge we don’t have. But experts do have that knowledge, from immersing themselves in that specific field for many years. We need to trust the experts, but at the same time, you may think someone is an expert when they are not. Your judgment is who to trust is intuitive, and there isn’t an expert to tell you what experts to trust (and which experts tell you to trust that one?), or when the experts get it right or not.

I also enjoyed the flawed notion of truth as a distilled pure logical endeavour, coming from the rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza, which oversimply reality and ignores crucial context. The very last chapter, “holistic truths”, was my favorite. It emphasized how truth isn’t isolated, but it is connected to other beliefs and forms a coherent worldview.

I enjoyed the book, even though I felt a bit betrayed by the title. It reads very quickly, and it is all very accessible. If the topic of truth interests you, particularly the many facets of truth, it’s worth reading.

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