Gabriela BLEBEA NICOLAE: O viaţă adevărată sau o propoziţie adevărată

The present conference does not undertake to contradict the conjunction (mediated by «and») between a true sentence and a true life. It only seeks to see to what extent a true life is absolutely dependent on veracity. In other words, this paper’s aim is to find out whether or not truth-telling (i.e., sincerity) is the condition for leading a true life (evidently, a true life actually refers to a good, morally valid life). This question may seem naive or simplistic but it actually stems from the dramatism surrounding the fact that communist experience imposed denunciation as a norm for practical action. If the denunciation means giving true information, could the telling of truth be morally acceptable even when the life of an innocent person is endangered? I am going to carry this question over into an analysis of St. Augustine’s De mendacio. By analyzing through this text the distinction between betrayal and heroism, I hope to make it clear how the telling of truth under the circumstances of the communist kind of regime might either land us in the sinful area of betrayal or under the sign of courage, in the space of virtue.

DT1511_Gabriela BLEBEA NICOLAE