As a philosophy student I recall studying briefly the work of Pseudo-Dionysius, who, as the name suggests, "acquired almost apostolic authority" by faking the origin of his works on Neoplatonism. He is still studied today, not because we are still fooled, but for the originality of his thought. And in any case, "it must also be recognized that 'forgery' is a modern notion." And that brings us to the main point of this article: fakery and forgery were not invented recently, but have been with us since antiquity. Studying fakes and forgeries shifts our focus "from 'Is it true?' to 'Who created this? Who benefits from this, and why? What are they trying to do? What are they trying to exploit?'" Asking these questions is a skills that will become increasingly necessary as we become increasingly aware of our uncertain grounds. "Playing fast and loose with authorities, cooking and pasting strings of citations, fudging and bashing arguments in bad faith has always happened." And while new technology makes it a lot easier to generate fakes, it also stands to make it a lot easier to detect them.
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