From "Truth: A Guide" by Simon Blackwell

On Blind (and Deaf and Dumb) Faith

"'‘If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call into question or discuss it, and regards it as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it – the life of that man is one long sin against mankind.'

Thus apologists for religious identity politics sometimes describe themselves as having been born one thing or another: born a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Jew. According to Clifford this is false consciousness. People are born human beings, nothing else. They may have been taught to regard themselves as one thing or another, and they may have been taught as well the doctrines and attitudes of particular traditions. But if they go on refusing to question what they have been told, and if, as is so commonly the case, what they have been told is incredible or pernicious, they their continued adherence is, in Clifford'’s eyes, a sin against mankind."” (page 6)

Translation: Believing something because you always believed it without question is lame.

On The Value of Philosophical Debate about the Meaning of Truth

"“Why does this make a difference to the debate? The idea is that the battle between the absolutist and the relativist is sustained by a conviction that there are two issues, when in fact there is only one. For this battle to be joined, there must first be an ordinary issue, say, whether the price of petrol is rising. But second there is a further, philosophical or reflective (second-order) issue: whether there is a truth of the matter, or an absolute or "real"’ truth of the matter, that the price of petrol is rising. The absolutist says yes, but apparently at the cost of buying into a mysterious world of norms and Forms, or a mysterious unmeasurable relationship between our sayings and the truth. The relativist will not pay the cost, and so says no. But now we meet someone who is deaf to their problem. There is only the issue of whether the price of petrol is rising, full stop. If we hammer this out, and decide one way or the other, then we do not increase the temperature by adding "what'’s more, that'’s true"’. This just repeats whichever conclusion we came to: that the price of petrol is (or is not) rising, which is the issue which we started.

People who think that the last paragraph expresses just about everything we need to know about truth are called minimalists or quietists. They think we should leave the truth alone. We should not enter the fields of meta-theory or philosophical reflection, to try to say something more, to gain a ‘conception; of truth, as both absolutists and relativists have been presented as doing." (pages 58-59)

Translation: If I say "you're a loser", it's the same as saying "it is true that you are a loser" or even "God's eternal truth dictates without question that you are a loser". All that extra blibbedy blab adds nothing.

On Assertions of Truth

"“But neither was right that second-order reflection, focused on worries about truth, either precedes or helps or hinders decision about whether capital punishment should be allowed. To come to an opinion about that, your gaze must be firmly fixed on capital punishment and the confused factors suggesting either that it is, or is not, a process to advocate. And once you have thought about such matters, you may be inclined to take a stand. You might even say that capital punishment should not be allowed. Or: it is really true, a fact, that capital punishment should not be allowed. Or: capital punishment should not be allowed; you had better believe it. Or even: it corresponds to the eternal normative order that capital punishment should not be allowed. For none of these says any more than what you started with. We might have thought there was an ascending ladder here, with ever more bold theoretical claims made at each stage. But the ladder-- which I like to call Ramsey'’s ladder, in honor of one of the first philosophers to see these things clearly, Frank Ramsey of Cambridge--is horizontal. It takes you nowhere. There is no more and no less involved at the last stage than at the first."” (page 62)

Translation: I don't need to know whether there is some perfect truth to know that rocks are hard and your face resembles that of a horse. There is no point in discussing truth when you should really be trying to prove to me that your ugly mug isn't the exact replica of this horse I saw yesterday.

I just like this saying

"...as in the old Yorkshire saying, '‘All the world's queer except me and thee. And even thee's a little queer.'"” (page 199)

Translation: This dude is awesome.

In Conclusion

"“We can take the postmodernist inverted commas off things that ought to matter to us: truth, reason, objectivity and confidence. They are no less, if no more, than the virtues that all cherish as we try to understand the bewildering world around us."” (page 221)

Translation: Whatever. I said some confusing stuff, but it shouldn't make it impossible for you to think about important things as you did before and now with the bonus that I and the cumulative world of philosophy approve.