ABSTRACT
Truth has been having a hard a time of it in recent decades. The popular versions of relativism connect truth with power, what counts as true is the world according to those who have the greatest political or institutional clout. Relativism discredits itself, however, when it is generalized to all putative truths. Ultimately, the assertion that there is no such thing as truly objective truth, if it means anything, is self-refuting; for there is no reason why this meta-truth about truth should be immune from the radical attack on all truths. For Tarski, truth is a relation between a first-order language and a second-order language. Truth must relate to assertions about objects or states of affairs. John Gray, whose misanthropic pessimism is always good for a laugh, gives a classic example of the inconsistency of those who justify their denial of the possibility of truth by endorsing massive empirical claims assumed to be true.
