It is well known that Dante s poetic works interpret love as themoving force of the universe: as embodied in his muse Beatrice fromLa Vita Nuova onward, as well as the much holier persons inhabitingParadiso. Likewise, if love is the ultimate form of sincerity, it is easyto interpret the Inferno as a...

It is well known that Dante s poetic works interpret love as themoving force of the universe: as embodied in his muse Beatrice fromLa Vita Nuova onward, as well as the much holier persons inhabitingParadiso. Likewise, if love is the ultimate form of sincerity, it is easyto interpret the Inferno as a brilliant counterpoint of anti-sincerity, governed by fraud and blasphemy along with the innocuous form offraud known as humour (strangely absent from all parts of Dante scosmos other than hell).In turn, the middle ground of Purgatorio is where Harman locatesDante s clearest theory of sincerity. Yet this is only the beginning.For while Dante provides a suitable background for the metaphysicsof commitment found in such later thinkers as Pascal, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Badiou, he also provides even more important resourcesfor overcoming two centuries of philosophy shaped by Immanuel Kant."