Volume 20, Number 3 · March 8, 1973
Sincerely Yours
By Philippa Foot
Sincerity and Authenticity
by Lionel Trilling
Harvard, 188 pp., $7.95
Sincerity as a moral category is something fairly new. We find nothing exactly corresponding to the concept in the philosophy of the ancients, or in their judgment of men. But once established in the moral vocabulary during the Renaissance, it must have seemed secure in its place. Sincerity as a species of truthfulness was itself to be counted as one of the virtues; and sincerity in another form was the mark of the virtuous man. For the sincere man was not simply the one who told the truth about himself, and whose professions of friendship were so far to be trusted. He was one whose firmness of character guaranteed a truth to be told. In the early pages of his new book Sincerity and Authenticity Trilling, who is tracing the history of the concept, takes Shakespeare's Horatio as typifying this ideal.
Review, 2430 words
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