Sheldon
Senior Member
- Apr 2, 2010
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Maybe I wasn't clear. The thread title is a false dichotomy imo. Intellectual dishonesty IS a lie, just that the lie is internal.
Okay I see your point.
My thesis in a nutshell, however,--I think--is that if you do not intend to be untruthful, it is not a lie.
When people really believed the Earth was flat, it was a lie, but they weren't liars when they told the lie.
A mistake is not intended to be a mistake.
Error is not intended to be an error.
And intellectual dishonesty is not intended to be a lie.
I'm not sure how to parse that post. Look--
When people really believed the Earth was flat, it was a lie, but they weren't liars when they told the lie.
That sentence is at odds with each half of itself, and the rest of the post. The Earther statement wasn't a lie if the people really believed it. And if someone tells a lie, they are by definition a liar. You conflated incorrect statement with lie; lying is a matter of intention, as you stated in the rest of the post.
This thread is spinning in a bunch of semantic mud I think.