truthfulness
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The Cult of Authenticity and Hypocrisy
A Philosophical Happy Hour reflecting on the pressure to exhibit personal authenticity in an age of hypocrisy. We hear constant calls to “be authentic”, “be yourself”, and “say what you really think”. These imperatives are often treated as uncontroversially liberating—as though the chief moral danger of human life were merely to live under false pretenses.…
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On Lying, Concealment, and Strategic Deception
A Philosophical Happy Hour considering whether every intentional deception is forbidden, or whether some concealment is not only permitted but required. What is a lie? And do we often call things “lies” that aren’t, or conflate lies with other forms of concealment or deception? A difficult and uncomfortable question—but one, perhaps, crucial to ask today. …
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How Truthful is the “Proof of the Truthful”?
In the third Lyceum Institute Colloquium of the year, we present Dr. Catherine Peters, who takes up a controversy between the Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averroes concerning the “proof of the truthful”: ABSTRACT: The “Proof of the Truthful” is Avicenna’s most famous argument for the existence of God. Beginning with the essential possibility of creatures,…