Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Intention to deceive, bald-faced lies, and deceptive implicature: Insights into Lying at the semantics-pragmatics interface

  • Marta Dynel is Associate Professor in the Department of Pragmatics at the University of Łódź. Her research interests are primarily in pragmatic and cognitive mechanisms of humor, neo-Gricean pragmatics, the pragmatics of interaction, (im)politeness theory, the philosophy of overt and covert untruthfulness (irony and deception), as well as the methodology of research on film discourse. She has published internationally in linguistic journals and volumes, contributing over 60 articles in the space of the past 10 years.

    EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: September 3, 2015
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Abstract

This paper gives a critical overview of Jörg Meibauer’s (2014) monograph entitled Lying at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface and addresses a selection of theoretical issues pertinent to lying and deception. Thus, following a brief summary of the volume’s contents, more attention is paid to the speaker’s intention to deceive as a potentially necessary condition for lying, which invites a question concerning the status of bald-faced lies. Further, this article focuses on deception performed by dint of implicature. Meibauer’s (2014) postulates in reference to these issues are critically revisited, and the focal phenomena are examined from a broader perspective.

About the author

Marta Dynel

Marta Dynel is Associate Professor in the Department of Pragmatics at the University of Łódź. Her research interests are primarily in pragmatic and cognitive mechanisms of humor, neo-Gricean pragmatics, the pragmatics of interaction, (im)politeness theory, the philosophy of overt and covert untruthfulness (irony and deception), as well as the methodology of research on film discourse. She has published internationally in linguistic journals and volumes, contributing over 60 articles in the space of the past 10 years.

References

Adler, Jonathan. 1997. Lying, deceiving, or falsely implicating. Journal of Philosophy 94. 435–452.10.2307/2564617Search in Google Scholar

Alston, William. 2000. Illocutionary acts and sentence meaning. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Barnes, John. 1994. A pack of lies: Towards a sociology of lying. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511520983Search in Google Scholar

Blome-Tillmann, Michael. 2008. Conversational implicature and the cancellability test. Analysis 68. 156–160.10.1111/j.1467-8284.2007.00731.xSearch in Google Scholar

Bok, Sissela. 1978. Lying: Moral choice in public and private life. New York: Random House.10.2307/1288137Search in Google Scholar

Brandom, Robert. 1983. Asserting. Noûs 17. 637–650.10.2307/2215086Search in Google Scholar

Carson, Thomas. 2006. The definition of lying. Noûs 40. 284–306.10.1111/j.0029-4624.2006.00610.xSearch in Google Scholar

Carson, Thomas. 2010. Lying and deception: Theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577415.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Chisholm, Roderick and Thomas Feehan. 1977. The intent to deceive. The Journal of Philosophy 74. 143–159.10.2307/2025605Search in Google Scholar

Davidson, Donald. 1985. Deception and division. In J. Elster (ed.), The multiple self, 79–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Dynel, Marta. 2011a. A web of deceit: A neo-Gricean view on types of verbal deception. International Review of Pragmatics 3. 137–165.10.1163/187731011X597497Search in Google Scholar

Dynel, M. 2011b. Revisiting Goffman’s postulates on participant statuses in verbal interaction. Language and Linguistics Compass. Sociolinguistics 5/7. 454–465.10.1111/j.1749-818X.2011.00286.xSearch in Google Scholar

Dynel, M. 2011c. ‘You talking to me?’ The viewer as a ratified listener to film discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 43. 1628–1644.10.1016/j.pragma.2010.11.016Search in Google Scholar

Dynel, Marta. 2013. Irony from a neo-Gricean perspective: On untruthfulness and evaluative implicature. Intercultural Pragmatics 10. 403–431.10.1515/ip-2013-0018Search in Google Scholar

Ekman, Paul. 1985. Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics, and marriage. New York: Norton and Company.Search in Google Scholar

Falkenberg, G. 1982. Lügen. Grundzüge einer theorie sprachlicher täuschung. Tübingen: Niemeyer.10.1515/9783111712994Search in Google Scholar

Fallis, Don. 2009. What is lying? The Journal of Philosophy 106. 29–56.10.5840/jphil200910612Search in Google Scholar

Fallis, Don. 2010. Lying and Deception. Philosophers’ Imprint 10. 1–22.Search in Google Scholar

Fallis, Don. 2012. Lying as a violation of Grice’s first maxim of Quality. Dialectica 66. 563–581.10.1111/1746-8361.12007Search in Google Scholar

Fallis, Don. 2015. Are bald-faced lies deceptive after all? Ratio 28. 81–96.10.1111/rati.12055Search in Google Scholar

Faulkner, Paul. 2007. What is wrong with lying? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75. 524–547.10.1111/j.1933-1592.2007.00092.xSearch in Google Scholar

Faulkner, Paul. 2013. Lying and deceit. In The International encyclopedia of ethics. DOI: 10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee482.10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee482Search in Google Scholar

Frankfurt, Harry. 1988. On bullshit. In The importance of what we care about: Philosophical essays, 117–133. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511818172.011Search in Google Scholar

Frankfurt, Harry. 2002. Reply to G. A. Cohen. In S., Buss & L. Overton (eds.), Contours of agency: Essays on themes from Harry Frankfurt, 340–344. Cambridge, MA: MIT Pres.Search in Google Scholar

Fraser, Bruce. 1994. No conversation without misrepresentation. In H. Parret (ed.), Pretending to communicate, 143–153. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar

Green, Stuart P. 2001. Lying, misleading, and falsely denying: How moral concepts inform the law of perjury, fraud, and false statements. Hastings Law Journal 53. 157–212.Search in Google Scholar

Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989a. Logic and conversation. In Studies in the Way of Words, 22–40. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. [Grice, Herbert Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & H. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press; Grice, Herbert Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In D. Davison & G. Harman (eds.), The logic of grammar, 64–75. Dickenson: Encino.]Search in Google Scholar

Grice, Herbert Paul. 1989b. Further notes on logic and conversation. In Studies in the Way of Words, 41–57. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [Grice, Herbert Paul. 1978. Further notes on logic and conversation. In P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and semantics, Vol. 9: Pragmatics, 113–127. New York: Academic Press.]Search in Google Scholar

Jary, Mark. 2014. Post-Gricean lying: Perspective from Relevance Theory. Paper presented during the International Workshop on Lying and Deception. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.Search in Google Scholar

Jaszczolt, Katarzyna. 2005. Default semantics: Foundations of a compositional theory of acts of communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199261987.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Jaszczolt, Katarzyna. 2009. Cancelability and the primary/secondary meaning distinction. Intercultural Pragmatics 6. 259–289.10.1515/IPRG.2009.015Search in Google Scholar

Kupfer, Joseph. 1982. The moral presumption against lying. Review of Metaphysics 36. 103–126.Search in Google Scholar

Levinson, Stephen. 2000. Presumptive meanings. The theory of generalized conversational implicature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/5526.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Mahon, James Edwin. 2008a. The definition of lying and deception. In E. N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/lying-definition/.Search in Google Scholar

Mahon, James Edwin. 2008b. Two definitions of lying. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 22. 211–230.10.5840/ijap200822216Search in Google Scholar

Mannison, Don. 1969. Lying and lies. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 47. 132–144.10.1080/00048406912341141Search in Google Scholar

Meibauer, Jörg. 2005. Lying and falsely implicating. Journal of Pragmatics 37. 1373–1399.10.1016/j.pragma.2004.12.007Search in Google Scholar

Meibauer, Jörg. 2011. On lying: Intentionality, implicature, and imprecision. Intercultural Pragmatics 8. 277–292.10.1515/iprg.2011.013Search in Google Scholar

Meibauer, Jörg. 2014. Lying and the semantics-pragmatics interface. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9781614510840Search in Google Scholar

Newey, Glen. 1997. Political lying: A defense. Public Affairs Quarterly 11. 93–116.Search in Google Scholar

Peirce, Charles. 1934. Belief and judgment. In C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss (ed.), Collected papers, vol. 5, 376–387. Cambridge: Harvard.Search in Google Scholar

Saul, Jennifer. 2012. Lying, misleading, and the role of what is said. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603688.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Siegler, Frederick. 1966. Lying. American Philosophical Quarterly 3. 128–136.Search in Google Scholar

Simpson, David. 1992. Lying, liars and language. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52. 623–639.10.2307/2108211Search in Google Scholar

Sorensen, Roy. 2007. Bald-faced lies! Lying without the intent to deceive. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88/2. 251–264.10.1111/j.1468-0114.2007.00290.xSearch in Google Scholar

Sorensen, Roy. 2010. Knowledge-lies. Analysis 70. 608–615.10.1093/analys/anq072Search in Google Scholar

Stalnaker, Robert. 2002. Common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy 25. 701–721.10.1023/A:1020867916902Search in Google Scholar

Stalnaker’s, Robert. 1984. Inquiry. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar

Stokke, Andreas. 2013a. Lying and asserting. Journal of Philosophy 110. 33–60.10.5840/jphil2013110144Search in Google Scholar

Stokke, Andreas. 2013b. Lying, deceiving, and misleading. Philosophy Compass 8. 348–359.10.1111/phc3.12022Search in Google Scholar

Stokke, Andreas. 2014. Insincerity. Noûs 48. 496–520.10.1111/nous.12001Search in Google Scholar

Van Horne, Winston. 1981. Prolegomena to a theory of deception. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 42. 171–182.10.2307/2107289Search in Google Scholar

Vincent Marrelli, Jocelyne. 2003. Truthfulness. In J. Verschueren, J.-O. Östman, J. Blommaert & C Bulcaen (eds.), Handbook of pragmatics, 1–48. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/hop.8.tru2Search in Google Scholar

Vincent Marrelli, Jocelyne. 2004. Words in the way of truth. Truthfulness, deception, lying across cultures and disciplines. Napoli: Edizione Scientifiche Italiane.Search in Google Scholar

Vincent, Jocelyne & Cristiano Castelfranchi. 1981. How to lie while saying the truth. In H. Parret, M. Sbisà & J. Verschueren (eds.), Possibilities and limitations of pragmatics: Proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 8–14, 1979, 749–777. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.7.39vinSearch in Google Scholar

Weiner, Matthew. 2006. Are all conversational implicatures cancellable? Analysis 66. 127–130.10.1093/analys/66.2.127Search in Google Scholar

Williams, Bernard. 2002. Truth and truthfulness: An essay in genealogy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2015-9-3
Published in Print: 2015-9-1

©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton

Downloaded on 5.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/ip-2015-0016/html
Scroll to top button