Abstract

QUINTERO RESTREPO, José Andrés. MARK TWAIN AND THE HARMFUL TRUTH. Escritos - Fac. Filos. Let. Univ. Pontif. Bolivar. [online]. 2012, vol.20, n.45, pp.417-434. ISSN 0120-1263.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, is the author of Extracts from Adam's Diary, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, among others. This American writer took on literary practice as a matter that surpasses entertaining: he wrote in order to question the reader. This characteristic is found clearly in a book that is not commonly referenced: On the Decay of the Art of Lying. This text studies an axiological illness of Modern world which is the dangers that could be found in following without questioning the universal postulates of a Duty and of an Abstract Truth. The aim of this paper is to analyze such a problem.

Keywords : Mark Twain; On the Decay of the Art of Lying; Categorical Imperative; Lie; Truth.

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