What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? Bernard Williams explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine. Modern culture exhibits two attitudes toward truth: suspicion of being deceived (no one wants to be fooled) and scepticism that objective truth exists at all (no one wants to be naive). This tension between a demand for truthfulness and the doubt that there is any truth to be found is not an abstract ...
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What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? Bernard Williams explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine. Modern culture exhibits two attitudes toward truth: suspicion of being deceived (no one wants to be fooled) and scepticism that objective truth exists at all (no one wants to be naive). This tension between a demand for truthfulness and the doubt that there is any truth to be found is not an abstract paradox. It has political consequences and signals a danger that our intellectual activities, particularly in the humanities, may tear themselves to pieces. Williams's approach, in the tradition of Nietzsche's genealogy, blends philosophy, history and a fictional account of how the human concern with truth might have arisen. Without denying that we should worry about the contingency of much that we take for granted, he defends truth as an intellectual objective and a cultural value. He identifies two basic virtues of truth, accuracy and sincerity, the first of which aims at finding out the truth and the second at telling it. He describes different psychological and social forms that these virtues have taken and asks what ideas can make best sense of them today. "Truth and Truthfulness" presents a challenge to the fashionable belief that truth has no value, but equally to the traditional faith that its value guarantees itself. Bernard Williams shows us that when we lose a sense of the value of truth, we lose a lot both politically and personally and may well lose everything.
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Seller's Description:
2002 with full number line. Text block, boards and binding are pristine. Dust wrapper in fine, like new condition. Well packaged and promptly shipped from California. US veteran operated.
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Very Good in Very Good jacket. Size: 100x16x148; First Printing with full number line. VG hardcover in VG dust jacket. Binding is tight, sturdy, and square; boards and text also very good; previous owner book plate on front paste-down, previous owner name at top edge of title page. Unclipped dust jacket arrives wrapped in protective mylar. Due to the size/weight of this book extra charges may apply for international shipping. Ships from Dinkytown in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used textbooks may not include companion materials such as access codes, etc. May have some wear or writing/highlighting. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
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Like New. Size: 6x1x9; Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Light edge wear. Clean, unmarked pages. xi, 328 p., 24 cm. Bernard Williams was a leading influence in philosophical ethics in the latter half of the twentieth century. He rejected the codification of ethics into moral theories that views such as Kantianism and (above all) utilitarianism see as essential to philosophical thinking about ethics, arguing that our ethical life is too untidy to be captured by any systematic moral theory. He was also an important contributor to debates on moral psychology, personal identity, equality, morality and the emotions, and the interpretation of philosophers including Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Descartes, Aristotle, and Plato.
