Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Truthfulness and falsehood – Juvenile literature »

This introductory paper aims to demystify the concept of untruthfulness. Drawing on the scholarship on deception, the author reports on a distinction between the (objective) truth and (subjective) truthfulness, as well as their respective opposites: falsehood and untruthfulness. An attempt is made to discriminate between truthfulness and sincerity, to notions which capture similar phenomena but have originated in distinct scholarly traditions. Further, the author depicts untruthfulness as an internally diversified construct and teases out its main subtypes. Some light is shed on overt untruthfulness and covert untruthfulness, as approached in philosophical, cognitive and pragmatic literature. The paper closes with a description of the scope of the present Special Issue entitled “New theoretical insights into untruthfulness”.

The problem of “fake news” has received considerable attention both in public discourse and in scholarship. However, many have argued that the term should be avoided for ideological reasons or because it lacks clarity. At the same time, a growing body of literature investigates “fake news” empirically. We complement this discussion by reflecting on epistemological and methodological problems with the term “fake news” and the implications for possible solutions to the problem of disinformation such as automatic detection and increased media literacy. Based on the principle of symmetry established in the sociology of scientific knowledge, we show that a classification of messages according to the researcher’s assessment of their truthfulness can lead to biased or tautological explanations. We argue that many researchers commit themselves to the truth or falsehood of messages in cases where they should not and avoid such a commitment when it is necessary.

[In this work we will show chance, necessity and, sometimes, opportunity of an abhorred informational alteration and how fake/true are artificial, conventional categories. Information arises with life, and with information arises a gap between reality (or another information that is assumed as original and true) and information that represents, repeats or replaces it. This is a gap and it creates a difference, a duality, a not virtual distance, it opens a space for potential (or unavoidable?) unfaithfulness, incongruities, falsehood. Lie can be meant as alteration, as distortion, as denial, or as creation “ex nihilo” if referred to what (world reality or other information) is assumed as original and authentic. The information (or latter information) is valued comparing it to the primary factor, aiming to find its compliance. Somehow or other, the conformity between these two poles is never full and unconditional. Due to this, life arises with the not eliminable lie “germ” inside. This has advantageous implications. “Untruthful” information has had a decisive importance in evolutionary balance and trending forever. Between life and lie, there is an indissoluble mutuality loop. Our thesis aims to: • Expand the meaning of lie and to draw its continuity (that is different from homology or identity) between biologic sphere and anthropic/cultural one • An appreciation of lie, starting from an investigation that examines its nature, its genetic processes and its function, both in the biological world and in the anthropic one • Show its inseparableness from truth, that is to say the continuity (not homogeneity) between it and the lie, both in the biological world and in the anthropic one • If the lie is meant in the widest sense, it presents some characterizing features. The lie is • Random, that is to say it arises by chance, due to neither predictable nor controllable causes • Necessary, because sometime it occurs in an inescapable way, due to the fact that it is intrinsic of the process of representation and/or of replication Appropriate, because sometimes it is the result of an aimed process and offers benefits if it is implemented. The excursus will be scientifically documented and it will be furnished with various iconography (pictures, video-clips…). It will lead us to adopt a wider, critical and not conventional overlook in considering topics as mimicry (meant in all its types: molecular, cryptic, batesian, müllerian, emsleyan, etc.), genetic mutations and evolution, sensorial (not only visual) illusions and hallucinations, the Theory of Games, the referentiality in semantics and in semiotics, gnoseologic, logic, heuristic, etic, aesthetic aspects of truthfulness. This work has no pretension to be a treatise, but it tries to shed light on what brings together so different aspects, in critical, epistemological and methodological ways. We will indicate historical (of very different periods) and authorial references of presented argumentations, thanks to drawing from several fields of knowledge and to comparing them: philosophy, figurative arts, life sciences, semiotics, literature, cinematography… All these argumentations will allow us to conclude that lie cannot be the enemy to be loathed. It must not be disapproved in a prejudicial way, but it deserves listening, attention and… esteem!... This should dispel or re-define the sense, the meaning and the function of (presumed) truth. It, both revealed and demonstrated, is often assumed as dogmatically absolute and (guiltily) it is interpreted as myth or it is mystified].

This work focuses on the topic of identity and, particularly, on the study of lies as a component of identity through the analysis of the main character in the comedy La verdad sospechosa , and the Court represented in the play. The text has been divided into two sections: the text's reality and the stories invented by the main character. This distinction serves to establish the relation between the elements of both parts, as well as their consequent influence in the construction of the character's identity. Conditions such as space, time and, particularly, social surrounding are taken into account in the fabrication of lies. The work shows how lying serves as a tool to create, sometimes fictitious but nevertheless useful, routes that help achieve an immersion in the society, even if it seems to go completely against the social values that, on the other hand, helps attain. Through the deconstruction of the character's lies, this work shows how, gradually, the made-up stories assimilate with the reality of the text until they become one with it. This gradual assimilation goes hand in hand with the character's immersion into the community, which includes the learning of social values and the fulfillment of the community's expectations.