Lying and Insincerity

Andreas Stokke presents a comprehensive study of lying and insincere language use. He investigates how lying relates to other forms of insincerity and explores the kinds of attitudes that go with insincere uses of language. Part I develops an account of insincerity as a linguistic phenomenon. Stokke provides a detailed theory of the distinction between lying and speaking insincerely, and accounts for the relationship between lying and deceiving. A novel framework of assertion underpins the analysis of various kinds of insincere speech, including false implicature and forms of misleading with presuppositions, prosodic focus, and semantic incompleteness. Part II sets out the relationship between what is communicated and the speaker's attitudes. Stokke develops the view of insincerity as a shallow phenomenon that is dependent on conscious attitudes rather than deeper motivations. The various of ways of speaking while being indifferent toward what one communicates are covered, and the phenomenon of 'bullshitting' is distinguished from lying and other forms of insincerity. Finally, an account of insincere uses of interrogative, imperative, and exclamative utterances is also given. Cover 1 Lying and Insincerity 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Detailed Contents 8 Preface 12 Introduction 14 0.1. Sincere and Insincere Speech 14 0.2. Insincerity and Deception 17 0.3. Assertion andWhat is Said 18 0.4. Lying and Misleading 20 0.5. Indifferent Speech 22 0.6. Opacity and Shallowness 23 0.7. Communicating Attitudes 24 PART I: Language 28 1: Lying, Deception, and Deceit 30 1.1. The Augustinian Definition of Lying 30 1.2. Are Bald-Faced Lies Lies? 32 1.3. EightWays of Deceiving Someone Else 34 1.4. Intending to Deceive 37 1.5. Deception and Concealment 39 1.6. Withholding Information 42 1.7. My Definition of Lying 43 1.8. True Lies and Disbelief 45 2: Lying and Gricean Quality 50 2.1. The Gricean Category of Quality 50 2.2. Lying and the First Maxim of Quality 51 2.3. Irony and the First Maxim of Quality 54 2.4. Falsely Implicating and the Supermaxim of Quality 57 3: Common Ground 60 3.1. Two Roles for Common Ground Information 61 3.2. Belief and Acceptance 63 3.3. Bald-Faced Lies 65 3.4. Bald-Faced False Implicature 68 3.5. Asserting and Pretending 69 3.6. Official and Unofficial Common Ground 71 3.7. Lying and Official Common Ground 74 3.8. Proposing and Intending 75 3.9. Support Potential and Propriety 77 3.10. Metaphor 82 3.11. Malapropism 85 4: What is Said 88 4.1. Lying and Misleading 88 4.2. Direct and Indirect Deception 90 4.3. Inquiry and Discourse Structure 93 4.4. Committing to Misleading Answers 94 4.5. Exploiting Incompleteness 99 4.6. The Need for a Discourse-Sensitive Account 100 4.7. Saying and Asserting 102 4.8. Questions under Discussion 103 4.9. Misleading and the Big Question 107 4.10. Minimal Content 109 4.11. What is Said 112 5: The Difference between Lying and Misleading 116 5.1. The Classic Contrast 116 5.2. Defaulting to the Big Question 117 5.3. Committing to Misleading Answers 118 5.4. Lying via Incompleteness 119 5.5. Misleading via Indeterminate Minimal Content 122 5.6. Incomplete Predicates 124 5.7. Incomplete Questions 126 5.8. Lincoln’s Letter to Ashley 127 5.9. Misleading with Presuppositions 130 5.10. Athanasius, Nathan, and the Henchman 131 5.11. Presuppositions of Interrogativesand Imperatives 136 5.12. Implicit Questions and Prosodic Focus 137 5.13. Multiple Questions 141 PART II: Attitudes 148 6: Bullshitting and Indifference Toward Truth 150 6.1. Frankfurt on Indifference Toward Truth 150 6.2. TwoWays of Caring about Truth 153 6.3. Bullshitting and Gricean Quality 155 6.4. Bullshitting and Questions under Discussion 159 6.5. Indifference, Minimal Content, and What is Said 163 6.6. Indifference and Caring about Truth 165 6.7. Evasion and Changing the Topic 170 6.8. Boosting Inquiry by Lying and Bullshitting 172 7: Bullshitting and Lying 175 7.1. Real Lying and Lying to Discredit Others 176 7.2. Frankfurt on Lying vs. Bullshitting 177 7.3. Most Lying is Not Bullshitting 179 7.4. Agnostic Bullshitting 182 8: Insincerity and the Opacity of the Self 184 8.1. Opacity and Deep vs. Shallow Insincerity 184 8.2. Searle on Expression and Insincerity 186 8.3. Assertion and Self-Deception 188 8.4. Higher-Order Beliefs and Mental Assent 190 8.5. Huckleberry Finn 192 9: Shallow Insincerity 194 9.1. Conscious Intentions 194 9.2. Thinking while Speaking 197 9.3. Speaking withoutThinking 200 9.4. Insincerity and Questions under Discussion 203 9.5. Speaking against One’s Intentions 209 10: Communicating Attitudes: Beyond the Declarative Realm 212 10.1. Interrogatives, Exclamatives, Imperatives, and Beyond 213 10.2. Questions, Orders, and Opacity 216 10.3. Communicating Attitudes 219 10.4. Ironic Non-Declaratives 223 10.5. Insinuating Disclosure and Surreptitious Probing 225 10.6. Bullshitting with Non-Declaratives 226 10.7. Shallow Non-Declarative Insincerity 227 10.8. Indirect Speech Acts 229 10.9. Phonetic, Phatic, and Rhetic Acts 233 10.10. Communicative Acts 234 10.11. Utterances as Communicative Acts 236 10.12. Why You Can’t Lie withNon-Declaratives 238 10.13. Questions under Discussion, To-Do Lists, andWidening 239 Bibliography 244 Index 256 Andreas Stokke presents a comprehensive study of the linguistic phenomenon of insincere language use, revealing how lying relates to 'bullshitting' and other forms of insincerity, and exploring the kinds of attitudes that go with insincere uses of language. Part I develops an account of insincerity as a linguistic phenomenon. Stokke provides a detailed theory of the distinction between lying and speaking insincerely, and accounts for the relationship between lying and deceiving. A novel framework of assertion underpins the analysis of various kinds of insincere speech, including false implicature and forms of misleading with presuppositions, prosodic focus, and semantic incompleteness. Part II sets out the relationship between what is communicated and the speaker's attitudes. Stokke develops the view of insincerity as a shallow phenomenon that is dependent on conscious attitudes rather than deeper motivations. The various of ways of speaking while being indifferent toward what one communicates are covered, and the phenomenon of 'bullshitting' is distinguished from lying and other forms of insincerity. Finally, an account of insincere uses of interrogative, imperative, and exclamative utterances is also given. -- Publisher's description