In this paper, I claim that, for Kant, the art of the orator is deceitful in the first place insofar as the semblance and the cognition of truth about the art of the orator cannot harmonize with each other. I start with a reconstruction of Kant’s conception of deception. I go on to argue that the art of the orator is deceitful when it comes to comparing what it promises with what it after all provides. In the third part of my paper, I reply to two objections against my account: I show that the art of the orator does promise something, and I also show that what such art promises, in comparison with what it provides, is a case of deception technically understood. I conclude that the art of the orator is deceitful in the first place because its semblance cannot harmonize with the cognition of truth about it.
João Lemos (PhD, University of Porto, 2015) works as a postdoctoral research fellow at the IFILNOVA, Nova University of Lisbon. He has been developing research on beauty at the intersection of philosophical aesthetics, philosophy of art, ethics, and politics. Lemos is particularly interested in the significance of beauty in contemporary aesthetics and arts and its ethical and political meaning and value. He stayed as an academic visitor at University of Cambridge (2019), developed a postdoctoral research on taste at São Paulo State University (2017-18), and stayed as a visiting scholar at NYU (2017) under the support of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States of America and the Fulbright Commission. He has taught in the areas of aesthetics, ethics, and philosophical anthropology at Nova University of Lisbon (2020-21), University of Porto (2016-17), Portuguese Catholic University (2016-17), and Porto Hospital Center (2010-18).