Kant Risk a Lie!
Abstract:
Immanuel Kant says, “lying is the chief sin against others, alongside robbery, murder and stuproviolatio”. Kant never risks robbery, murder, or rape. But Kant does risk telling intentionally deceptive falsehoods. Instead of being a man a few words, Kant is a man of three million words. Equally revealing is the scale of Augustine’s corpus: He wrote five million words before he died in 403 at age 75. Augustine was surpassed by Thomas Aquinas: eight million words before reporting a divine revelation to stop writing, a few months before his death in 1274 at age 48. Each of these three proponents of `Never lie’ take several innovative measures to lower the risk of lying. But their precautions are at the same scale as those who have an average aversion to lying. Accordingly, all of those famed for their absolute opposition to lying drastically overstate the degree to which they abhor lying. Instead of being irrational fanatics, the never-liars are moderate men speaking immoderately.
Prior to joining the UT Austin faculty in 2019, Roy Sorensen taught at University of Delaware, New York University, Dartmouth College, and Washington University in St. Louis. From 2020 to 2024, he is a Professorial Fellow at St. Andrews University in Scotland. Professor Sorensen has published over two hundred articles on topics ranging from the aesthetics of mirror imagery to the metaphysics of shadows. He is the author of eight books: Nothing: A Philosophical History (2022), A Cabinet of Philosophical Curiosities (2016), Seeing Dark Things (2008), A Brief History of the Paradox (2003), Vagueness and Contradiction (2001), Pseudo-Problems (1993), Thought Experiments (1992), and Blindspots (1988). Roy Sorensen plans to co-author a book with Ian Proops entitled Kant Lied.
Reception to follow in the IMU Federal Room. If you prefer to see this lecture via Zoom, you can register here.
The College of Arts