The Double Truth Controversy: An Analytical Essay  . By Bartosz Brożek.Kraków : Copernicus Center Press , 2010 . 206 pages. Hardcover. $15.50 .

In the introduction to a syllabus of 291 theses that were condemned as heretical, bishop Stephan Tempier of Paris wrote that some philosophers “state things to be true according to philosophy, but not according to the Catholic faith, as if there are two contrary truths and as if there is truth in the sayings of pagans in hell that is opposed to the truth of Sacred Scripture.” The condemnation of 1277 has been incorporated in books on the history of philosophy as a tense moment in the relations between Aristotelian philosophy and Christian thought. In the study under review, the Polish philosopher and deputy director of the Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Kraków, Poland, delves deeper into the issue of double truth. Were there philosophers who held the position ascribed to them by Tempier? How might one understand the position of those criticized?

The first part of the book by Brożek is historical. In the medieval context of the condemnation by Tempier, the key figures were Siger of Brabant (c. 1240–1284), Boethius of Dacia, and some time later, John Buridan (c. 1300–1360) and Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525). However, none of these held a naive view of two contradictory truths. Furthermore, for all of them, revelation is superior to natural reason. The particular issue Brożek focuses on is the understanding from the soul and its perishability and separability from the body—either along the lines of Averroes (Ibn Rushd) or along the lines of Alexander of Aphrodisia (as two interpretations of Aristotle).

The later chapters of the book apply modern logic to reconstruct the positions one might ascribe to the philosophers suspected of holding a ``double truth'' view. Thus, Brożek discusses and applies among others paraconsistent logics, adaptive logics, belief revision theory, and defeasible logic. This book provides a very readable reconstruction of a major philosophical controversy regarding tensions that may arise between religious authorities and secular knowledge. Poland has a great tradition in logic and the philosophy of religion (e.g., Jan Łukasiewicz and Józef Maria Bocheński, both from the Kraków Circle).