This is a book that lists page after page of addresses for each state of places to write to which is great for anyone researching in the States but really doesn’t help those of us who have no American ancestors.

I did , however, find the medical pedigree section extremely interesting. Rating: 4 / 5

I cannot stress enough how important this book is in our current social and academic milieu. It reaches into the thoracic cavity of philosophy and liberates its hardened, cold heart by messaging throbbing life into it.

Those persuaded by the respective New Age, Poststructuralism, Relativism bent are highly encouraged to read this book. If your nightstand reading is A Course on Miracles or anything pertaining to Ayn Rand, C. Castenada, S. Maclaine, Lacan, Adorno, Rorty, Derrida, K. Silverman, J. Butler, Krishnamurti, tantric sex, or the healing properties of desert rocks, you MUST read this book. If you believe sand fleas are space aliens and are responsible for the human population of Mother Gaia, order now. Hear Ye, Cultural Relativists and anthropology majors!

I also recommend: Nozick, Invariances; Searle, Social Construction; Krausz, Relativism; Nagel, Last Word; and the Williams corpus.

The fundamental point of discussion here is a tension between the pursuit of truthfulness and a certain skeptical doubt as to whether truth is to be had. This book embraces the nature and scope of philosophical inquiry with subtle, clear, and rigorous arguments.

Chapter One: Defines and spells out the philosophical problem. Chapter Two: A fictional account about how the problem of truth arises–its “genealogy.” Chapter Three: Discusses language, plain truths, and values. Chapter Four (most important): On truth, assertion, and beliefs. Chapter Five: Sincerity, Lying, and Styles of Deceit. ETC.

This book deserves my highest recommendation. Rating: 5 / 5

The book presents a long, detailed look at the genealogy of truth and truthfulness. Williams proposes that the virtues of accuracy and sincerity are attributes of truthfulness. For the most part, he adopts Nietzsche’s account of truth (unflinching, brutal honesty), and argues that Nietzsche should not be numbered among the so-called deniers — postmodern and pragmatist thinkers who subscribe to the idea that truth is completely relative. As such, his reading of Nietzsche differs from the standard view. That is one of the more interesting aspects of the book: that a relatively conservative analytical English philosopher like Williams would validate the work of Nietzsche. Williams strongly maintains that Nietzsche was not a relativist with respect to truth, but that he, like Williams himself, subscribed to the idea that truth must be sought in complete honesty and with unflinching courage, laying aside all the comfortable cultural encrustations that it has come to possess. Like Nietzsche, he uses the genealogy model to analyze truth and truthfulness.

In developing his genealogy of truth and truthfulness, he uses a state of nature story in which a small group of individuals living in a simple primitive environment must interact with one another and depend upon one another being truthful in order to function as a group, and to secure the necessities for life. He comes to view accuracy and sincerity as virtues that relate to truthfulness in such a primitive context. Later in the book he takes a long, thoughtful look at what truthfulness means in terms of historical narrative. How can and does someone who chooses to write an historical account of a particular event prevent bias from entering into the narrative? Williams maintains that historical facts are not inherently biased, and that any historical account must select certain facts and ignore others, but that this need not imply bias, provided that the account successfully “makes sense of” what happened. In addition, there are presumably other versions of the same account that are available to place beside it, and there is an academic community of critics to hold the authors accountable for what they write.

Sometimes it appears that Williams seems to be writing with an eye to his professional philosophical colleagues, and this gives the text a somewhat self-conscious, defensive tone. However, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history or philosophy. I gained many keen insights as a result of reading this book, and will come back to it repeatedly to revisit those insights in the future. The book is hard to put down once you have gotten into it; it just grabs hold of you and you want to keep reading. Part of that is due to the reader-friendly way in which the book was printed: the type is fairly large, there are few typos that I could find anywhere, and the writing is superbly crafted. If you love quality books, then this is a must for your library. Rating: 5 / 5