Gloucestershire Philosopical Society

Mattering, Sincerity and Trustworthiness. A talk by Prof. Philip Goodchild.
For a philosopher, much contemporary communication lacks substance: it directs attention to that which does not matter, its concerns are often insincere, and its claims are untrustworthy. So what is substance? Instead of evaluating things by their price, their impact, their likes, or their fulfilment of arbitrary objectives, it is possible instead to take a philosophical orientation from these problems: what really matters, what is truly sincere, and what is ultimately trustworthy?

These are not simply problems we can formulate ourselves. They happen to us in any crisis which provokes thought; they are a reason for thinking. This talk will explore what might be meant by the mattering, sincerity, and trustworthiness of things themselves by describing how such problems arise in contemporary life.

Philip Goodchild is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. He is the author of several books, including Theology of Money (2007), the Credit and Faith trilogy (2020-21), and Rethinking the Existence of God: Renewing Metaphysics after the Critical Turn (forthcoming) – the Appendix forming the basis for this talk.