Thread by @EveKeneinan

Let P be any proposition.

You can be in one of three states regarding P:

1 you can believe P is true
2 you can neither believe nor disbelieve
3 you can believe that P is false.

To LIE is to assert P in such a way that is CONTRARY to your belief state.

Most lies have the form of asserting something as true which you believe to be false. But one can lie by asserting as false something believed true, or by asserting something as true or false than one just doesn't know.

A crucial thing to understand is this:

A person is NOT LYING when they assert something they believe to be true AS true — even if it should be, in fact, false.

A malicious rhetorical trick is to accuse an opponent who asserts something you believe to be false of LYING when he asserts it is true, even though he believes it to be true — and if he does, he isn't LYING.

By definition.

He is telling the truth AS HE SEES IT.

So, ironically, it is very often A LIE to say that someone is LYING.

A person TELLS A LIE when he asserts that someone who asserts something he believes, but which the accuser does not believe, IS LYING.

For example, when Hitler asserted that the Jews told a Big Lie about the reasons for Germany's defeat in WWI, he was LYING.

Accusing his hated enemies of telling "the Big Lie" was, in fact, a LIE.

Remember that a LIE is "asserting what is contrary to your own mind."

It is not necessary that the thing asserted contrary to your own mind be FALSE, although it USALLY is.

Brown has been murdered, and Smith, who hates Jones and wishes to destroy him, notices that Jones' has a motive to murder Brown and a seemingly weak alibi. Smith decides to frame Jones for the murder of Brown, telling the police that Jones is the murderer.

In telling the authorities that Jones is the murderer Smith is asserting something he doesn't know or believe.

He is therefore LYING.

But as it turns out, unbeknownst to Smith, Jones *really is* the murderer of Brown.

So Smith both LIES and says something TRUE.

Smith can be both LYING and "telling the truth" insofar as Smith says something true — however he is not telling the truth insofar as he is not saying that which he believes to be true (which is what "telling the truth" means — it doesn't actually mean "saying something true."

One "tells the truth" when one says what one believes — even if what one believes turns out to be false.

One LIES when one says what one does not believe — even if what one doesn't believe turns out to be true.

LYING and TELLING THE TRUTH are functions of OUR ACT OF ASSERTING IN RELATION TO OUR ACT OF BELIEVING — they have nothing to do, strictly, with the truth or falsehood of propositions.