What a wonderful and provocatively stated question. It seems to my that
one can approach the notion of "lying" quite nicely from a constructivist
approach. I think that one of the problems that we get ourselves into when
we think about lying is the everday conception that lying means "not
telling the truth". A little thought, however, reveals the lie in this
conception of lying. I can tell an "untruth" without awareness of the
"error" that I'm making. As such, it indicates that what is central to the
concept of lying is not so much the "untruth" but rather the "intentional
deception" of others. That is, I am lying when I am intentionally attempt
to deceive you -- to intentionally encourage you to construct one
representation of an event when I believe that another representation is
really more appropriate. I realize, of course, that some might see me as
begging the question of "truth" with my use of the term "appropriate", but
at least this frames the issue of lying as intentional deception without
refering to some external truth as the criterion of the lie.
Michael F. Mascolo
Merrimack College
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