Are We Truthful or Just ‘Truthfully Misleading’?

Philosophers as far back as Greek and Roman antiquity debated the meaning of truth. While what constitutes truth has always been controversial, these days it seems like the line between what’s true and what’s not has become increasingly hard to tease out. So let's look at what it means to lie versus mislead and how it plays out linguistically.

Lying versus misleading

Though it might seem subtle, there is a crucial difference in the act of lying versus the act of misleading: 

Lying involves stating something that you know to be false, and a lie is still a lie regardless of whether your target buys it.  

Misleading someone, on the other hand, can often be accomplished without explicitly saying something false and is more about nudging someone in the direction of what you want them to think. 

Unlike lying, if your target doesn't buy your misleading statement, then you haven't misled anyone. In other words, both lying and misleading are forms of deceptive behavior, but how they are accomplished linguistically — and what’s at stake — are quite different.

For instance, think about a situation where Squiggly and Aardvark are talking about how much they each want a chocolate bar, and they generally keep chocolate bars in the pantry.  If Squiggly tells Aardvark there are no more chocolate bars in the pantry despite knowing full well there's one  left, Squiggly asserts something that is patently false — in other words, Squiggly is lying so he can grab the chocolate bar for himself later.

In contrast, Squiggly is only misleading Aardvark if he says something that is not itself false — for example, instead he might emphasize that there are cookies left to lead Aardvark to the conclusion, indirectly, that there are no chocolate bars left, only cookies. 

Why is this difference important?  Because lies come with greater costs to your reputation, while everyone from sneaky children to crafty politicians can maintain plausible deniability when "truthfully" misleading others.  In short, being just misleading gives someone a weasely out that lying doesn’t. 

How can something be deceptively truthful?

The trick is in the linguistics of how something is phrased.  Because lies require speakers to explicitly say something they know is false, it is hard to deny if caught in that lie.  So, if Squiggly says he did not eat the chocolate bar, but Aardvark saw him eating the chocolate bar, then he is pretty much busted. The consequence being that his standing as a trustworthy and reliable speaker will be knocked down a peg or two, not to mention that Aardvark will start hiding his Kit Kats when Squiggly is around.

However...

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