Mentiras y engaños

The lie is surely as old as humanity. As a social phenomenon, it seems to have a ubiquitous presence. A part of this book is concerned with clarifying the very concept of lying and its links to other close concepts, such as deception, truth and falsehood, sincerity, belief, and different speech acts. The book addresses the questions of whether lying is always worse than other forms of deception and whether it is inherently wrong or only wrong if its motivation and purpose are. The volume closes with an analysis of the phenomenon of the "bullshit", its nature, causes and consequences. In an age like ours, which has been called "post-truth era", the need for a careful examination of the different forms is imposed of misleading uses of speech, its various manifestations and its influence on the reliability of testimony, so relevant to human knowledge and behavior.