Truthful Liars: How They and Other Oddities are Possible

Abstract:Some philosophers claim that truth is the norm of assertion, or that asserting that p commits one to the truth of p. In some seminal works Peirce put it in terms of responsibility: asserting that p makes one responsible for the truth of the proposition that p. I take this thesis to be stimulating but inaccurate, since making an assertion generally commits one to sincerity, not to truth. This explains how it is possible to be truthful liars and why we are disappointed by these. Justification of belief is also important, as shown by the cases of the justified falsity-teller and the unjustified truth-teller. So, for the assessment of assertion, what matters is (a) what we believe, (b) whether we assert what we believe and (c) whether we have a justification for what we believe. This does not throw truth out of the picture, however: insofar as asserting that p is asserting that one believes that p, and believing that p is believing that it is true that p, asserting that p is asserting that one believes that it is true that p. The paper also distinguishes some senses in which truth is normative for belief and assertion, and endorses a teleological understanding of this.