Truth and Historicity [Hardcover]

In this scholarly but non-technical book, Campbell elucidates the concept of truth by tracing its history, from the ancient Greek idea that truth is timeless, unchanging, and free from all relativism, through the seventeenth-century crisis which led to the collapse of that idea, and then on through the emergence of historical consciousness to the existentialist, sociological, and linguistic approaches of our own time. He gives a scholarly but vivid and economical exposition of the views of a remarkably wide range of thinkers, always showing how their ideas engage with our contemporary concerns. He argues that current problems with truth arise from the way differing past conceptions continue to resound in our contemporary use of the word, and suggests that we must formulate a new conception of truth that is compatible with awareness that human existence is finite and contingent--with awareness of our own historicity.

This is an impressive, deep, and complex book....The author displays an impressive range of scholarly knowledge. I recommend this book highly. I recommend it to those, like myself, whose outlook has been shaped (if not limited) by the standard canon of anglophone analytic philosophy. Such readers will learn much from Campbell's historical discussions, and they cannot fail to be stimulated (if occasionally puzzled) by his philosophical arguments. --Journal of Philosophy