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 โ 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 โ 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 โ 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 โ it doesn't actually mean "saying something true."
One "tells the truth" when one says what one believes โ even if what one believes turns out to be false.
One LIES when one says what one does not believe โ 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 โ they have nothing to do, strictly, with the truth or falsehood of propositions.
โข โข โข
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The rationalism of the Enlightenment was an overcorrection of the overcorrection of the Reformation, which opposed faith to reason. Reason can understand even things which are irrational โ but the Enlightenment demanded (impossibly) that those things themselves BE rationalized.
The Left is always asking the question "What plan should be imposed to achieve social justice?"
That's the wrong question in TWO ways: you shouldn't be trying to *plan* society and such things shouldn't be *imposed*.
Humanity cannot be rationalized.
We are indeed the animal with the logos, but although essentially constituted by reason, we are not reasonable creatures for that.
The dogma of "representation" undermines all merit-based institutions.
It is merely code for "let in those who are not qualified."
It isn't even clear what "representation" means here. It doesn't mean it in the way a lawyer represents a client, or an elected representation represents his constituents.
It appears to be ICONIC: "He is black. Therefore, in his LOOK of being black, he 'represents' all blacks."
This of course depends on the idea that "every member of a race is an icon of that race."
Earlier today I was told "Superman is inherently progressive."
Is that even a coherent claim? Is anyone or anything "inherently" progressive? Not as far as I can see.
Our most avowedly progressive president, Woodrow Wilson was also the most virulent racist to hold the office.
It seems very obvious that history doesn't have any kind of INHERENT moral arc.
I simply can't fathom the people who think it DOES.
All of human history teaches us that MORAL DEGENERATION in peoples and cultures is not only possible, but likely unavoidable.
"We today are morally superior to all those who have ever lived before us" seems to be equally absurd and too obviously false to be seriously believed by anyone.
Of course, it's a steep uphill battle to morally defend the killing of children.
There are really only two ways to do it:
1 Try to claim that the human beings you want to justify killing aren't REALLY human beings โ which puts you in some really shady company, along with e.g. Nazis and other racists, or
1 Rousseauโs radical anti-conventualism and anti-naturalism
2 Kantโs idea that our โtrueโ self is a noumenal autonomy over and above our body
3 Nietzscheโs idea of poetically, authentically creating oneโs own self/values/meaning
What we have is a bare, abstract, embodied-but-over-and-above-the-body autonomous self (Kant), but no longer defined by reason, but by will and desire, and creative spontaneity (Nietzsche) for which both Nature and society are oppressive chains to be broken (Rousseau).