When I began reading this book, I was enthusiastic to discover that the author was concerned enough about truth in modern society (and, obviously, in general) to...write a book about it. In the Introduction, the author accurately pointed out that everyday  American citizens were quick to accept a rapidly changing succession of reasons and justifications for the Iraq invasion ranging from WMDs to democracy to regional stabilization (ha!). As with the Iraq example, American foreign and domestic policy abounds with such instances and often puts civil servants in positions where they engage in acting more than statecraft. We condemn Palestinian rocket attacks while we nicely ask Israel to show restraint, and we trade oil with the Venezuelans and Saudis while refusing to do the same with Iran and Sudan ( purportedly because we object to human rights violations in those nations). I think that in modern politics, there are so many contradictions in policy that most people have simply given up on "truth" and have chosen instead to modify their account of truth on the basis of their beliefs instead of the other way around. Accordingly, I think that Lynch's truism concerning the goodness of truth is particularly important. "More precisely, it is good to believe what is true" (12). 

It seems to me that this book is going to be one of those gentle reminders about the simplicity of truth in much the same way that Michael Pollan's most recent book informed millions of readers that eating vegetables was in fact healthy. In this regard, Lynch's book is both useful and important. I am bothered, however, by some of Lynch's analogies. I think that the basic ideas because the Introduction and Chapter 1 were solid, but I wonder if I'm misinterpreting them. For instance, Lynch states that we don't have to know everything about something in order to talk about it (11). He gives the example of his hard drive, with which he is vaguely familiar in the sense that it is made out of metal and plastic. "Our basic belief in truth's objectivity is like my basic idea of my computer hard drive," Lynch states. "We know the job of true beliefs, even if we don't know exactly how they get that job done. True beliefs are those that portray the world as it is and not as we may hope, fear or wish it to be" (12).

If we don't know much about the hard drive, what evidence is there that we know anything about the hard drive at all? Isn't the formation of a belief in the absence of information the problem in the first place? Is this book about our propensity to jump to conclusions with regard to the truth or about our habit of turning a blind eye to the truth? Or both?