1,051,316 research outputs found
Lying and Certainty
In the philosophical literature on the definition of lying, the analysis is generally restricted to cases of flat-out belief. This chapter considers the complex phenomenon of lies involving partial beliefs – beliefs ranging from mere uncertainty to absolute certainty. The first section analyses lies uttered while holding a graded belief in the falsity of the assertion, and presents a revised insincerity condition, requiring that the liar believes the assertion to be more likely to be false than true. The second section analyses assertions that express graded beliefs, exploring how mitigation and reinforcement can alter the insincerity conditions for lying. The last section considers the case of lies that attack certainty (knowledge-lies), understood as attempt to alter the hearer's graded belief
Lying and Fiction
Lying and fiction both involve the deliberate production of statements that fail to obey Grice’s first Maxim of Quality (“do not say what you believe to be false”). The question thus arises if we can provide a uniform analysis for fiction and lies. In this chapter I discuss the similarities, but also some fundamental differences between lying and fiction. I argue that there’s little hope for a satisfying account within a traditional truth conditional semantic framework. Rather than immediately moving to a fully pragmatic analysis involving distinct speech acts of fiction-making and lying, I will first explore how far we get with the assumption that both are simply assertions, analyzed in a Stalnakerian framework, i.e. as proposals to update the common ground
Lying, accuracy and credence
Traditional definitions of lying require that a speaker believe that what she asserts is false. Sam Fox Krauss seeks to jettison the traditional belief requirement in favour of a necessary condition given in a credence-accuracy framework, on which the liar expects to impose the risk of increased inaccuracy on the hearer. He argues that this necessary condition importantly captures nearby cases as lies which the traditional view neglects. I argue, however, that Krauss's own account suffers from an identical drawback of being unable to explain nearby cases; and even worse, that account fails to distinguish cases of telling lies from cases of telling the truth
Assertion, Lying, and Untruthfully Implicating
This chapter explores the prospects for justifying the somewhat widespread, somewhat firmly held sense that there is some moral advantage to untruthfully implicating over lying. I call this the "Difference Intuition." I define lying in terms of asserting, but remain open about what precise definition best captures our ordinary notion. I define implicating as one way of meaning something without asserting it. I narrow down the kind of untruthful implicating that should be compared with lying for purposes of evaluating whether there is a moral difference between them. Just as lying requires a robust form of assertion, so the kind of untruthful implicating to be compared with lying requires a robust form of implicating. Next, I set out various ways of sharpening the Difference Intuition and survey a range of approaches to justifying one class of sharpenings. I finish by sketching an approach to justifying an alternative sharpening of the Difference Intuition, which is inspired by John Stuart Mill's discussion of lying
Low-Lying Excited States of Quantum Antiferromagnets on a Triangular Lattice
We study low-lying states of the XY and Heisenberg antiferromagnets on a
triangular lattice to clarify whether spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs at
in the thermodynamic limit. Approximate forms of low-lying states are
proposed, in which degrees of freedom of the sublattice magnetization and of
the chirality are separated. It is shown that low-lying states can be
accurately described with the present approximation. It was argued that
low-lying states play an important role in symmetry breaking. With help of this
approximation, we discuss the contribution of low-lying states to symmetry
breaking of two types, namely creation of the spontaneous sublattice
magnetization and the spontaneous chirality. Furthermore, to show an evidence
for the occurrence of the symmetry breaking, we numerically study the low-lying
states of finite systems of the XY and Heisenberg antiferromagnets. It is found
that the necessary conditions for the symmetry breaking to occur are satisfied
in these models.Comment: LaTex 22 pages, figures included in uuencoded form, to be published
in J.Stat.Phy
Low-lying isovector monopole resonances
The mass difference between the even-even isobaric nuclei having the valence
nucleons on the same degenerate level is attributed to a Josephson-type
interaction between pairs of protons and pairs of neutrons. This interaction
can be understood as an isospin symmetry-breaking mean field for a
four-particle interaction separable in the two particles-two holes channel. The
strength of this mean field is estimated within an o(5) algebraic model, by
using the experimental value of the inertial parameter for the collective
isorotation induced by the breaking of the isospin symmetry. In superfluid
nuclei, the presumed interaction between the proton and neutron condensates
leads to coupled oscillations of the BCS gauge angles, which should appear in
the excitation spectrum as low-lying isovector monopole resonances.Comment: 16 pages/LaTex + 1 PostScript figure; related to cond-mat/9904242,
math-ph/000500
Lying in Business: Insights from Hannah Arendt’s ‘Lying in Politics’
The famous political philosopher Hannah Arendt develops several arguments why truthfulness cannot be counted among the political virtues. This article shows that similar arguments apply to lying in business. Based on Hannah Arendt’s theory, we distinguish five reasons why lying is a structural temptation in business: business is about action to change the world and therefore businessmen need the capacity to deny current reality; commerce requires successful image-making and liars have the advantage to come up with plausible stories; business communication is more often about opinions than about facts, giving leeway to ignore uncomfortable signals; business increasingly makes use of plans and models, but these techniques foster inflexibility in acknowledging the real facts; businessmen fall easily prey to self-deception, because one needs to act as if the vision already materializes. The theory is illustrated by a case study of Landis that grew from a relative insignificant into a large organization within a short period of time, but ended with outright lies and bankruptcy.Lying;deceit in business;Hannah Arendt;image-making;self-deception;accounting fraud;politics and business;Landis
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