Lying

mensonge

Worked through in 4 videos · 12 passages.

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani defines lying as knowing what is true while concealing it and turning it into the false out of self-interest1. He places it among the kinds of the false, alongside what is merely different from the true, the inverse of the true, and illusion2. For him, truth has two antonyms, the false and the lie, and the false is not a fault3. Between the deliberate lie and the truth lies an intermediate zone, and he puts forward the hypothesis of a necessary lie that carries no guilt4. He distinguishes the child's lie from lying to oneself. The latter consists in not wanting to know. It is a deprivation of self-knowledge, an offence against the Pythian imperative5. One thus lies to oneself so as not to be overwhelmed by the anxiety of leaving the dominant way of thinking6. This unconscious side of lying is the feature that ideology and repression share. Reading the Gospel, he makes the lie the essence of the prince of this world, which is also the kingdom of the unspoken7.

Summary produced automatically from 12 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.

Season 13 · 2 Dec 2024Evil, or the "unknowing" of the self

41:57The prince of this world is already defeated because his essence is lying: this is not the lie of a child.
45:39Truth has two opposites, the false and the lie; the false is not a fault.
58:15Lying to oneself, not the most conscious form, but the one that prevents one from telling one's own truth.

Season 11 · 26 Apr 2023Worldliness in Clouscard, or "The dominant ideology"

36:27The prince of this world has lying as his essence: the world is also the kingdom of the unspoken.
46:04It is not the child's lie but the lie to oneself, the fact of not wanting to know.
1:54:18We lie to ourselves so as not to be overwhelmed by the anguish of stepping out of dominant thought.

Season 8 · 30 May 2020#9 • Return to the logics of the subject

3:24Species of the false: simply different from the true, the inverse of the true, illusion, lying to others, lying to oneself.
9:49Between deliberate lying and truth stretches a whole intermediate zone.
19:25Hypothesis of a necessary lie that has nothing culpable about it and is not of the order of evil.

Season 7 · 17 May 2020#8 • Harnessed to confinitude

10:50I know what is true but I conceal it and turn it into false according to a self-interest.
33:35Between a child's lie and the absolute evil of the Gospel, the difference is not one of content but of form; the trait common to ideology and repression is the unconscious side of lying.
46:22Lying to oneself is a privation of self-knowledge, a violation of the Pythian imperative.