On truth

by Harry G. Frankfurt

Blurb

On Truth is the 2006 follow-up to Harry Frankfurt's 1986 essay, On Bullshit.
In "On Truth", Frankfurt develops the argument that individuals should care about the truth, regardless of whether they intend to be truthful. Frankfurt explicitly avoids a definition of "truth" beyond the idea of the commonsense concept of truth people commonly hold, i.e., that which corresponds to reality.
Frankfurt's strategy is to show that the truth, whether an individual is to be truthful or not, is integral to nearly every endeavor, the final point of his argument being that it is a requirement for self-knowledge and therefore all distinctions between ourselves and the world. Frankfurt concludes that the importance of truth, and thus the need to care about it, is incorrigible thereby.

First Published

2006

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