This is a major, wide-ranging, and comprehensive book. A philosophical investigation that is also a literary and historical … - Alexander Nehamas

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We need an approach to ethics which makes no recourse to religion and can be equally acceptable to those with faith and those without.

Alexander Nehamas

This is a major, wide-ranging, and comprehensive book. A philosophical investigation that is also a literary and historical study, Truth and Truthfulness asks how and why we have come to think of accuracy, sincerity, and authenticity as virtues. Bernard Williams' account of their emergence is as detailed and imaginative as his defense of their importance is spirited and provocative. Williams asks hard questions, and gives them straightforward and controversial answers. His book does not simply describe and advocate these virtues of truthfulness; it manifests them.

Book, Philosophical, Sincerity, Study, Thinking, Williams

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So long as we find anything beautiful, we feel that we have not yet exhausted what [life] has to offer […] That forward-looking element is … inseparable from the judgment of beauty.

Beautiful, Beauty, Elements, Life, Long

It is clear that friendship is by and large crucial to human life. And I believe, in contrast with most of the philosophical tradition deriving from Aristotle, that it is not limited to a very few perfect individuals.

Believe, Limited, Perfect, Philosophical

To find something beautiful is to hope that your life will be better if that is a part of it. Unfortunately, the promise of a better life that beauty makes and the hope that it will be fulfilled are not always realized: beauty, like friendship, is also double-edged.

Beautiful, Beauty, Better Life, Fulfilled, Life, Promise

My view is that friendship permeates human life and is involved in almost everything we think, feel, and do. For that very reason, there is no behavior that is characteristic of friendship. Two people can engage in the very same behavior - visiting someone in hospital, for example - and yet only one of them might be doing so out of friendship; moreover, friends can be doing absolutely anything together, even quarrel or fight. That means that it is difficult, if not impossible, to recognize a friendship simply on the basis of what people do.

Engage, Fighting, Human, Mean, Thinking, Visiting

My own view is that friendship is essential to our becoming who we are. It provides a context within which we can, more or less safely, try different ways of being, different approaches to life, and our friends, to whom we open ourselves and by whom we are willing to be influenced and directed, play a central role in what becomes of us.

Being Different, Different, Friends, Play, Trying, Ways